#it needs to get done desperately

[rottin6]

layla beloved your frat initiation bartylily chasing-in-the-woods concept is something that i think about…. so frequently. haunts me. i don’t even need you write it atp i just need more THOUGHTS 😭

stopppp it i'm giggling at the thought of them 'cause they're so nasty @sommerregenjuniluft is wholly partly to blame

like picture it, frat boy barty daddy issues barty n trust fund barty all in one, like my guy has issues on top of issues. he's made to go to uni by his dad and (idk how frats work i am british) he's in his third and final year of his degree, and he's the president of the frat obviously cause so was his dad and so was his dad and so on

lily, however, loathes him. she thinks the absolute worst of him but she's never even spoken to him. she just hates what he comes from and all that stuff. she's doing a journalism degree and writes for the college paper, like she's on her grind trying to get through uni

one day lily gets some inside scoop that barty's frat is hosting an initiation ritual that apparently happens every night but no one actually knows what goes down so she makes it her mission to get in so she can publish it in the paper and ruin his image and all that jazz

AND THEN she gets there the night of the ritual and barty sees her and he knows who she is cause she hates him that much and and the ritual basically

the existing frat boys are recruiting the new year boys and as part of the initiation they get chased in the woods and the older years wear masks n shit and it’s fucked up in every sense, like they get their chase and it’s perverted and just so…barty if that makes sense

but it’s just an initiation for the boys, no one else at all so lily has to sneak in and she thinks she’s all slick hiding behind trees n stuff but then

barty creeps up behind her, an ache in the pit of his stomach. even in the night, he hates how he can recognise her by her stupid red hair. there’s an animalistic urge to pull on it, to yank her back into him, but instead he snakes his arm around her throat, his bicep pressing on her pulse. his other hand covers her mouth and he can feel the way her body shakes, how it squirms against him, and he tuts, shaking his head.

now obviously lily fights back, she hits her head back into his face and his lip’s bleeding and all but my barty’s huge, like this guy is built so he’s stronger than her and he’s had enough—he tightens his hold on her, pinning her against the tree and he’s pissed as fuck. he’s pressing his body against hers so she can’t move, also holding her by her throat cause he likes the feel of her panicking and how she gulps. he’s grinning like a madman, wiping the blood off his lip with his thumb and he’s all like “you can’t come and not play the game, doll.” and she’s crying, shaking her head and she’s begging him to stop but but

he lifts a leg up, pushing his knee on her stomach and he begins to undo his belt with one hand, the other stroking the side of her face. it’d be romantic in any other situation if not for the fact that lily thinks she’s well and truly going to die. he spits on the ground to the side of them, his thick cock pulsing at the sight of her tears. he relishes in the view, at her lips quivering and the way she still begs him to stop. it’s cute, he thinks.

and then at some other point

“are you—are you getting off on this?” barty snickers, his fingers trailing across the dampness on her panties. he watches the way she closes her eyes tight, her lips parting slightly. “you’re a sick bitch, y’know that, doll? a pretty fuckin whore, coming out here, thinkin’—thinkin’ you can just do what you want, hm?”

but she still struggles against him, trying to fight cause that’s just lily evans but he’s licking his lips, shaking his head and the next thing she knows is he’s taking out a gun from the waistband of his jeans, he’s got it to the bottom of her chin, murmuring, “i really wish you wouldn’t do that,” but she doesn’t care, she tries to wriggle out of his hold and he tightens his grip on her, moving the gun to her forehead, “don’t fuckin move. you move and i’ll fuckin shoot you, okay? you got it?”

“barty, please...” lily pleads with him, as he yanks her by her hair.

“barty, please,” he mocks. “jesus, you're fucking pathetic. you’re lucky that i haven't put a bullet in that pretty fucking skull of yours yet.”

and at some point she’s running again, after kicking him in the groin obviously and he’s chasing after her, he’s in love with the chase, getting so high off it and then he’s tackling her to the ground, mud over the both of them. he’s on top of her, gripping her by both her dimples and pushing her face down into the ground

“i know the shit you say about me, what you write about me in that—in that little paper of yours.” he’s breathing heavily, pulling the zipper down on his jeans as he mounts over her. “i should kill you right now,” he whispers heavily against her ear. “but that's not what you want, is it? you want me to fuck you, right here on the dirty fucking ground, don’t you?” he smiles, demented. and he moves the gun down to her mouth. "just a dirty little whore that wants to get filled with dick, right?"

and then they have hot steamy sex in the middle of the woods 🏌🏽‍♀️

[hinamie]

spins him around trying to understand the pink mop he calls hair

[firebound-press]

WITHOUT FURTHER ADO I PROUDLY PRESENT!!!!!! A FULL COLLECTION OF FISH N CHIP WORKS BY @earlgay-milktea !!!!!!!

My first ever leatherbound book!!!! Over 650 pages!!!!! My first time doing double core endbands!!!!! It’s all in here!!!!!!!!

It’s got custom graphics by @fishcop !!!! It’s got a couple graphics from me!!!!!! We’ve got it all!!!!!!

Ive been working on this book for over a year now and I’m so so proud to finally have it done. There’s a lot of stuff I could say about this bind but it mostly boils down to “holy shit I actually did it that’s so cool”

A lot of love and work went into this bind so if you have any questions please don’t be afraid to ask! Please!! I want to talk about it!!!!

Works featured:

Heart of the Sea

Breaking Free

Honesty Is The Best Fallacy

Captive Hero

Lovefool

Bitter Water

advancing on real ground

Wreck the Halls

Before Daybreak

You can also read Earls other work here:

https://archiveofourown.org/users/earlgay_milktea

[somegurl8]

“People are writing this” “People are writing that” Actually let’s talk about what people AREN’T writing because we’re like 6 episodes into Judgement and I haven’t found a single fic for it on AO3. It’s been around since mid October and not a single fic. Why is there no love for Judgement

[le-chevalier-au-lion]

everywhen you look: rosquez [g], part 1

1997-2025

“You really aren’t going to tell me anything.” Valentino flicks his leg irritably, kicks up a wave.

The man brushes the chlorine from his face and snorts. His name is Marc, he’d said, among other incredibly useless trivia facts such as, this is Madrid, it’s March of 2025—which sounds like a fake, sci fi year—and i Nerazzurri are leading Serie A by one point.

“Eh, it’s for the best.”

Valentino mutters under his breath, eh, it’s for the best, in a mockery of that Spanish accent. Marc only looks up at him bemusedly from the water, through his wet lashes. He’s being very evasive.

It would have been considerably more annoying if he weren't quite so handsome.

If he hadn’t been stuck at home, with snow coming down in buckets—too much to ride, too much to sneak out for a little while. The baby had been crying—crying, crying, crying. Luca is usually a very good kid, not fussy, but he’d been angry. Neither he nor Stefania could calm him down. Stefania said he might be colicky.

Valentino had felt a little like Graziano, sitting on the couch, watching her try to make Luca stop howling for five minutes, please baby, we’ve got you.

So here is better. No snow. The pool is nice, very rich people, perfectly warm. A little further away, the house seems odd, a sharp, gray block, but he supposes nothing there costs less than a hundred lire.

And Marc is interesting.

“But you know me,” Valentino tries again, a different approach.

Marc’s expression of vague delight doesn’t flicker. He keeps staring at him with unblinking intensity. Someone should tell him it’s kind of creepy when he does that, but also—Valentino’s hands spasm at the edge of the pool, and he has to look away first. Heat prickles under his skin. He wants to keep bullshitting to see how far he can take it, how much Marc can figure out.

“Well, obviously. I thought we had gone over that already.”

It’d been the first thing he’d said when he emerged from the deep end. Valentino? A quiet, overwrought noise, a bit like he’d been slapped, suddenly looking very young. No matter how much he tries, Marc refuses to slip like that again.

He’d guessed the year it should’ve been for him on the first try, too.

“From racing,” Valentino suggests.

“It’s 97 for you, no?” Marc raises a pointed eyebrow. Valentino runs a hand over his hair just as pointedly—dry, creaking and bleached. “You know you’re a good rider.”

“Good as in a couple of lower-class titles or good like Mick?”

Marc swallows, wastes a moment too many just staring at some point over his shoulder before sighing. Valentino might’ve found a way to twist the knife resting between them—the one Marc is studiously squirreling from naming—by accident. There’s no triumph to it, the way he imagined there’d, just that uncomfortable feeling of being wrist deep in a cadaver.

It’d have been incredibly helpful to know what is wrong, exactly, to only make it hurt if he wants to make it hurt.

“Don’t worry, you’re going to enjoy your career,” Marc says, his voice low and cryptic.

Valentino’s eyes narrow. “You’re fucking with me.”

Marc just leans back, his grin stretching wider, an edge more infuriating. What are you going to do about it? in no words at all.

He doesn’t mean to, but frustration spills out in groan. Valentino thrusts his foot out, jabbing it toward Marc. “I’m already asking vague questions,” he mutters, scrambling against himself to not sound sullen. “You could at least give me something.”

Marc opens his broad mouth and cackles. Valentino can see inside it, his large, pink tongue and the white straightness of his teeth. It’s an ugly, honking noise that comes out, quite shameless. In Tavullia, or in the lower classes, Valentino would’ve made fun of him for it. Too loud, too weird, too much, but Marc—handsome, and difficult, and probably thirty—doesn’t look like he’d care.

Might go cute, Vale, the way Norick does, sometimes.

Which—

This nameless disquiet tugs in his stomach, red-hot, unwanted. He presses his lips together, drums his fingers on the floor. Restlessness makes him fidget, a little mean with nowhere to put it.

Marc grabs Valentino’s ankle as he tries to poke him again. His hands are leather-thick, rough like sandpaper. Strong, he notes, swallowing an embarrassing, reedy hiss when he tries to haul his leg in and Marc squeezes his ankle, keeps him pinned in place. He makes it hard to stay bothered.

“You’re going to—ah, I don’t know, get in trouble. Might fuck your timeline up.”

A splutter churns in his mouth, half offended, half playing it up, right until Marc lets go of his leg and gets up, hauls himself half out of the pool to stand braced against the edge, the skin of his arm brushing against Valentino’s jeans, getting it wet.

He’s got nicer tits than a good half of the girls he’s fucked. Fat enough that he thinks he could push them together and put his dick between them, like he’s seen guys do in porn.

“Who? Me?” Valentino goes wide-eyed, puts a hand over his heart. Pretends to not have been staring.

Marc shakes his head. “See what I mean?” But the corners of his lips twitch up, stubborn. Fond, mostly despite himself—Valentino is familiar with the look.

Like this, he’s close enough to count the few moles scattered on his collar. Catch the seesawing jerkiness of his shoulder and the raised, pink lines on his arm. Either he let them scar badly, jaded, ugly edges, or they were bad injuries.

Valentino sweeps his eyes over him again—Marc, waxed smooth, meticulously posed, built like an anatomy study given life. Bad injury it is.

“Well?” Marc’s hand slides over to Valentino’s knee, fingers digging in lightly.

Valentino’s leg jerks, a reflex, but Marc’s too close now, his breath searing against his skin. The sudden proximity catches him off guard, heat rising in his chest. Annoyance slices through him, a dull, serrated cut at the chuckle Marc lets out. This squirming thing gnaws at his ribs, pries open his mouth before Valentino can plan his next move.

“You’re a racer too,” he says, clumsily, too quickly.

“Am I?” Marc tilts his head to the side, widens his eyes until he looks ridiculously coy.

A begrudging amusement tugs inside his guts like a fishhook. He’s being talked in circles, the way Uccio tells him the press likes, politely, inoffensively. If he hadn’t been paying so much attention, he would’ve been swept along, would’ve been happy with it. And Marc finds this whole dance hilarious. Easy.

Or he’s an excellent liar, which Valentino knows he is.

 “Yeah, duh,” he huffs, looks down at Marc, at the tanned, broad shape of his back glinting under the sun, flexing. “But are you a good one?”

Marc preens under his gaze, smirks—very well pleased. If he’s going to show off, Valentino is going to stare. “You could say so,” he hums, chin tilted lazily.

Valentino scowls. “What does that even mean? Are you one of those guys who thinks, hey, I got to the 500cc, it’s basically like being a world champion?”

“Are you going to be very disappointed if I am?”

His stomach churns. Yes, sort of. He hadn’t expected Marc to be boring. Had hoped, maybe—that he wouldn’t be a movie star in that gray block of a house who shows up to the track from time to time and expects to be pampered. Or one of those fancy Spanish kids that come around, sons of racers’ sons, just enjoying the ride and fucking around.

“For all I know, you’re a bad rider.” The words slip out before Valentino can stop them, soap-like, oily.

It might make him angry. Might wrangle another laugh out of him. Either way, it’s going to give him an in. He wants to crack Marc open against the ground, see if anything interesting spills out. People don’t usually give him this much trouble. As a rule, any audience is simple—fold or break, charmed or about to be.

Marc’s lashes flutter slowly, casting a shadow over his eyes. It’s a minute flicker—a tiny, tiny shift in his expression. Valentino feels sized up, dissected. Like Marc knows an important secret he doesn’t. There’s a deliberateness in that stare, an inside joke Marc’s forgotten to share.

“You would say that,” Marc mumbles.

He’s smiling, still. Valentino doesn’t trust it one bit.

[feroluce]

Clank clank clank clank cl-

[dollopole]

I never do this, because it feels like asking money to strangers, (lmao, that’s just me, I’m not judging others who do this) but, DO YOU HAVE MERTHUR FIC RECS?! GOOD FIC RECS?! Every fic is good, I’m not judging, I’m just very picky when it comes to grammar and good dialogues (okay, maybe this is why I don’t do it, I seem a prick😭) BUT, if you have some, with some slow burn, sexual tension, ✨freaky time✨or certain themes, even heavy ones, but that are dealt with in a good way, and some good old hurt/comfort👀… I mean… Who am I to say no?

Is this too specific? Lmao😭.

I just want to know if you have fics recs I stil haven’t read where there is an happy ending, and that tick all my boxes, or a few💀Like, it doesn’t necessarily needs to be rated E or M, but I always go for E and M (don’t be shy and drop your recs even if the fics are rated Gen or other :)!!!) and for hurt/comfort followed by smut🤔Or the opposite.

And if they’re long? Ugh, even better (I read short fics too ;))

Maybe this is too specific.

*giving myself a pat of encouragement and breathing in*

Okay, the things I usually avoid in fics or don’t go for are rape/non con (I’ve read a few, but they weren’t descriptive, and it was dealt with in a very good and serious way, so if that’s the case, drop the recs😤) mpreg, (don’t ask💀) good Uther (I hate fics where Uther is good, even if I read TONS of them and liked them too😭But if the fic is very very very good, maybe I could close one eye or both😔) Merlin written as a fucking idiot or written as invincible and incapable of hurting, and same goes for Arthur (again, I read both of these. I’m not judging, I’m just listing my grocery shopping🤨BDJFIKSXKDJ so drop the recs… Again… This is sounding more desperate the more I go on), awful grammar😭 (I’M SO SORRY, I WRITE GRAMMAR LIKE SHIT TOO SOMETIMES, but I dislike it when I have to read it from others😔I kindly ask for forgiveness😔we’re not all good regarding grammar (me included, so it’s chill🫶) or English native speakers and I’m not judging your for that, AT ALL, TRUST ME! I’ve read fics with a lot of grammar errors and I didn’t even notice at first because I couldn’t care less and because the fics were fire, so again, drop the recs👀) and fics written by others’ pov’s or that aren’t Merthur centred :). But I love lesbian Mergwen as the side couple😌 (I just listed the entirety of the fics in the Merlin fandom LMAOOOO. I won’t read shit, I already know💀) I TRUST YOU, DEAR AND BRAVE FOLLOWERS! AND NOT FOLLOWERS! WHATEVER! KIND PEOPLE! I LOVE YOU!

Oh, fics that you’ve written are valid too😌I don’t consider it spam (it shouldn’t be considered spam, actually💀) so you can recommend those to me too😌. BUT, a warning: if I don’t like them, I won’t, ehm, read them (am I a piece of shit?) Anyway, this does not mean someone else will not like them or that you’re a shitty writer, it means that I’M shitty (this is getting longer than what I expected.)

Every person is different, I believe, I like to support each and everyone’s work, but I have my taste, and I hope you’ll understand that.

Since the parchment is over now, I can end this post by saying:

I’m begging you, if you have fics recs, bring them my way, I.need.them. *feral noises*

P.S.

I’m picky (like that wasn’t clear already💀) so if they’re on another site that it’s not Ao3, I will not read the fics (they can be good, but my eyes don’t get easily used to other types of sites, and I hate dislike Wattpad.)

P.P.S.

This is probably the pickiest ask for fic recs someone ever made😭 (I hope not SNCJSKLXKK)

[rabidamalgam]

Wanted to do a drawing of my favorite creature who unfortunately gets barely any screen time and all the hate, mostly reasonably. 😞

[trombonechurchill]

At a Glance

Josh Russo/Carson Hayes, 1.7k words, Rated T Fic for @911whatisyourpride's Week 1: Firsts Read on Ao3 HERE or below:

It's annoying that Carson looked so good even mussed up, sweaty, and sooty. Josh is sure he in turn looks like a drowned rat. Maybe a singed rat. A rat having a bad day who needs a good long hour in the bath tub and several products before attempting any sort of flirting going on here.

But he doesn't have any of that right now. What he does have is Carson's hand gripped tightly in his and the life affirming rush of narrowly escaping catastrophe together that's pushing Josh to do something stupid about it. Like ask Carson to run away with him.

The paramedic currently eying their joined hands as the gurney reaches the back of the ambulance thankfully nips that thought in the bud before it can get past Josh's lips, which he's grateful for even if it does look like she's now trying to decide how to gently disentangle the pair of them. Josh isn't sure he's ready to let go just yet.

"Is he stable enough for a quick second?" He asked her, eyes as wide and pathetic as he can get them (he learned from the best after all, one doesn't hang with Maddie Buckley every day and not pick up a few tricks).

"He'll hold for a minute or two," she said cautiously, stepping up into the ambulance, enough to give them the facsimile of privacy with a quick nod while stilling keeping an eye on Carson's vitals. Josh resisted the urge to press his own fingers to the pulse at Carson's wrist. He's not sure what base that would be, but he doesn't think they're quite at listening to each other's heart beats levels. Heck, they're not even past the awkward flirting stage, if you could call their conversations earlier today that. Josh wouldn't mind changing that though.

"Oh uh, if you don't mind," Josh said belatedly, glancing back down to where Carson's essentially being held captive. Another fantasy Josh wishes he could indulge in under much less dire circumstances. He'll put a pin in it. Get a grip, Russo.

"Please, I kinda thought I was a goner down there. I don't know how those guys found me-"

"Oh, I told them." Josh doesn't balk, but it's a close thing, tries to cover the admission at the wondrous look it stirred in Carson's eyes. This was not the smooth flirting Josh had in mind when he walked over here. "Uh, mind like a steel trap, I know where everyone is in my house." Josh awkwardly taps on the side of his head and Carson smiles, slow and tired and beatific in a way Josh has only seen in the movies.

"You remembered me?"

"How could I forget?" Josh said it without thinking, only catches himself because of the way Carson's eyes soften, wonders briefly if Carson hit his head and he can blame the stupid things currently coming out of Josh's mouth on a head injury. "I mean, you're quite memorable," Josh added. Apparently he's given up on any hope of coming across cool and suave. Let's be honest, Josh probably lost that hope the second he clapped eyes on Carson in the server room. Sincere and dorky thy name is Josh Russo.

"Well, thanks. I'd never really fancied the idea of dying in a basement," Carson said. Josh is struck by the fact that they're still holding hands. Tries not to think too hard about how gross and sweaty it must feel for Carson. Josh probably lost feeling in his hands the second everyone realized Dispatch was on fire and all the blood rushed to the pit of his stomach in a flood of anxiety induced adrenaline. He twitched his fingers just to be sure. It makes Carson smile.

Josh is such a goner.

Thankfully, Carson chimes in again before Josh manages to spout off any alarming statistics about the number of 9-1-1 calls he's fielded from people in basements. "Hey, you're not hurt right? Did someone check you over?" He punctuates the question with a gentle brush of his thumb over Josh's cheekbone. In his mind's eye, Josh sees Carson's hand raise and move towards him in slow motion, helpless to the press of skin on skin and the way his eyelids flutter.

Even nearly incapacitated, Carson is winning more boyfriend points than any of his past trysts combined. Which is probably telling in more ways than one. Especially since Josh called them trysts. What is he, a 70 year old grandma? Honestly, he wishes. This is what he gets for watching nothing but Golden Girls through his whole childhood.

And he thought of Carson as boyfriend material. Can't help but think Carson might be having similar thoughts. Is that love in your eyes or is it just the possible head trauma? Josh might need to have his head checked too as he returns the motion, brushing a thumb over Carson's cheekbone, feels the catch and drag of stubble on the pad of his thumb. His heart is in his throat and Josh has never felt more alive, skin buzzing. If this is a concussion well, bring on the brain damage.

His palm was still on Carson's cheek, gentle, gentle, like he's some fragile thing, and Josh swallows. Swallows down the fear and the doubt as he leaned forward. Pressed his lips feather-light to Carson's temple, feels the brush of that gorgeous mane of hair tickle his cheek as he pulled back. Tries not to focus too much on the taste of sweat lingering on his lips. Or whether he now had soot smeared all over his face.

Carson looked like someone just knocked his lights out. Or maybe like he got electrocuted and had his leg broken; a level of shocked devastation on his face that has Josh ready to bolt. Is there a subtle way to untangle their hands so Josh can make a quick escape? God why are they still holding hands? Why did he kiss him?

"Wait, wait," Carson fumbled to grab for Josh, hand landing on top of their still joined fingers where Josh has in fact failed to pull away, stilling them instantly. "Sorry, I wasn't ready. I think the drugs are kicking in," Carson's smile was still gorgeous, lop-sided as he stared hopefully up at him. At Josh of all people. Josh doesn't get it. "Can I get a do-over?"

"You want a do-over? Of me kissing the side of your face?" Josh tries to to keep his incredulity to appropriate limits but it's a close thing. Carson nodded. Josh's own answering smile fought its way onto his face, helpless in Carson's presence to be anything other than completely and utterly smitten it seems.

"I thought maybe your aim was off," Carson offered slowly, giving their joint hands a little tug.

"Oh, sure, yeah. Let's go with that."

As far as first kisses go, it's not what Josh would have envisioned when trying to dream up his ideal. Carson still smelled like burnt hair and something lingering and metallic Josh tried not to think about too much. Josh himself was fending off the adrenaline crash induced trembling that's threatening to take over his whole body by the skin of his teeth. But it's still perfect. A dry brush of lips that pressed into something more insistent as Josh brought his hands up to cup Carson's face. A promise of something more, later. Room for improvement that Josh is suddenly certain he'll have a chance to explore.

He pulled away, lips and skin buzzing. He wondered briefly if you can get a contact high from morphine. Maybe he should try kissing Carson again just to see. Maybe it's just him. Magic lips or something. Josh needed someone to hose him off, he needs to calm down over here. This is what people mean when they use the word 'giddy'. Josh isn't sure he's experienced before as he took a shuddering breath. Carson is hurt and injured and beautiful and Josh wanted nothing more than to take him and fret and fawn over him forever.

Maybe he should at least start with asking him to get dinner. Lunch maybe, he amends after a quick look at where Carson's face is drawn at the edges. Breakfast. He could bring him breakfast at the hospital tomorrow. He should ask, before he looses his nerves. If this all blew up in his face he can always pretend Carson hallucinated it on the morphine anyway. Most of the firefighters here owe him a favor, he could get them to corroborate.

Carson was still looking at him like that. Like Josh is worth looking at. Josh's mouth opened before he can think better of it-

"This really isn't the best time to be asking you this, considering-"

"That I'm not wearing pants."

"-That you're high on morphine- Wait I'm sorry what happened to your pants?" Josh spluttered, brain short circuiting as his eyes involuntarily jumped to Carson's lap and back like he'd been caught peeping, heat rising on his cheeks.

"The two firefighter guys you sent. They cut open my pants."

"Oh. Well I didn't tell them to do that. For the record," Josh said, training his gaze intently on Carson's face. His stupid handsome face. If there was anyone up there looking out for Josh at all, hopefully Carson would not remember this part of the conversation tomorrow. Or ever.

"What did you want to ask?" Carson asked softly, looking like a vision even on a gurney with bedhead, hair fanned out on the starched sheet under him, eyes soft as he gazed- straight up gazed, Josh doesn't think he's had anyone gaze at him in his life. Not like this. Beautiful brown eyes that Josh could literally get lost in isn't that a hoot-

"Wh-what? Oh, it doesn't matter," Josh said quickly, voice softening as Carson once again linked their fingers together.

"Maybe you could tell me tomorrow," Carson offered, smiling the knowing smile of someone drugged to the gills and being loaded into an ambulance.

"Yeah. Yeah. Tomorrow sounds good," Josh said, giving Carson's hand an extra squeeze. And maybe the day after that too. And after that-

[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.

[snakes-of-the-undercity]

Vi is gifted kid burnout but in the english major way

[spyglassrealms]

Ko-fi Time

Soooooo I finally set up a Ko-fi page as a replacement for my defunct Patreon. I'm running real low on funds lately and the job search has been unfruitful, so if you can spare a couple bucks -even just a one-time one-dollar donation- that would be a big help! (Much, much affection and appreciation to my friends who have already donated!)

[qoldenskies]

NEUROTIC FLOOR TURTLE??

That's beautiful anon.

But I love how you made him feel more comfortable sleeping on the hard floor, cuz it does make you feel grounded when you're that damn traumatized. I, too understand the need for neurotic floor time, Donnie...

it's actually something he does because of the laundry room :( it grounds him and it doesnt,,, because its definitely a response to him feeling unsafe. he spent an ambiguous amount of time just laying on the cold hard floor dissociating. in the closet, too. it's a mix of that and the fear that he doesn't "deserve" soft, pleasant things, and him not even wanting to develop attachment because his room was ransacked... it's unfamiliar and sometimes just too much.

he'll go to the laundry room if its really bad, even in the new lair, but otherwise he'll just sleep on the floor of his own... and there's really no way to stop him, but it's one of the biggest reasons they regularly went to stay with him in cw, outside of the night terrors. it wasn't good on his body when he was recovering. he doesn't do it as much but there's a billion little things to overcome in his recovery that just wax and wane depending on his mindset. all they can really do is try to make it comfortable for him.

[xolboragainandagain]

I made a crossover AU between Ninjago and Transformers: Prime as a joke, and now I have a whole plot of Zane being sent to TFP's universe instead of the Neverrealm and meeting Starscream and both of them developing an unhealthy platonic (Though it'd be a really funny romantic ship) relationship together that parallels a lot of their own past relationships in different ways which I'm going to try to make into a longfic. Have this art for them I will never finish

[nyx-xp]

ok look no matter what, i think ill always be obsessed with dl-6. i know, its kinda overused at this point, but the whole thing is so amazing

like,, miles obviously didn’t know he was innocent, but gregory didnt either. when they channeled him he said it was the bailiff (forgot his name srry) even though there was no proof, because he wanted to protect his son. and the result of a child convinced he is guilty for the death of his dad, who even after death tried to find a way to reassure him he was innocent??? just- the concept of this relationship is fascinating, and honestly has so much potential.

and then you add von karma, and the fact he was not only the murderer of the father but the adopter of the son??? just makes everything gets better (worse)

dl-6 will forever live in my head and in my heart bcs the overwhelming guilt at least two of the three must have felt!! (depends on your headcannons about manfred ofc, maybe he was slightly guilty or smth) the psychological impact and the aftermath of it? amazing. maybe its not perfectly written, nothing is, but its fascinating and makes me want to dissect all three’s brains to see the effects this would have caused.

[the-sol-eater]

CH2-13 Thoughts + CH2-14 Predictions

Hello DRDT Fandom! CH2-13 came out about four or so days ago as I'm posting this, and I finally mustered up the energy and mental strength to write down my overall thoughts, and also general predictions for what I think is to come in the next episode. A lot happened in this episode and we have a lot to cover, so let's get started! Before we do though, I think I should give us a reminder of where we currently are in terms of the swear chart and the bingo card, as of CH2-12 Swear Statistics

Bingo Card

Just like the last post, I'll be separating my talking points into character categories, so let's jump straight in with the big man himself...

Levi

Quick Disclaimer: I myself am still trying to unlearn the mindset that having low or no empathy is in any way a moral failing. If I say anything wrong or rude, please politely correct me. Remember kids: Your feelings, thoughts, and emotions, what you feel and how you feel them if you do at all, do not have any moral weight, they are simply aspects of your brain and you cannot control your brain. The only thing that has moral weight is your actions.

So as we learned in the previous episode, Levi has the murderer secret! And as we learn in this episode, he apparently killed four people, one of which being his father. DRDT continues to take Danganronpa's standard tropes and incorporating them in unique ways, in this case Levi represents the trope of the Chapter 2 Serial Killer reveal (Genocide Jack, Peko, Maki). I love that DRDT keeps doing this and I hope it keeps it up You know what else is staying consistent, though?

(x) Levi: That incident happened when I was in my junior year of high school. Levi: My junior year was also the year that Hope's Peak scouted me as the Ultimate Personal Stylist. Levi: To my understanding, it would've reflected poorly on Hope's Peak to recruit a murderer, so they pressured the court into not pressing charges.

US-HPA being morally corrupt as all fuck, that's what! Like no, seriously, it makes more and more sense as for why Xander David and Mai were most likely forming a revolution against this damn place, cause wow. The choice to scout out Levi during his Junior Year, when he was still in high school, is...interesting. Given that this Hope's Peak takes in College-aged students, why not just wait until Levi has graduated high school? In fact, that probably would've been even better because by then Levi definitely would've perfected his skills in styling by then, and thus would further justify him being enrolled in the academy. We don't know whether or not Levi was scouted before or after his incident, but given how Levi explains the events, I'm willing to bet this was after. Which...makes thing especially strange. But I'm sure it's no big deal. I mean, it's not like we have any evidence of US-HPA preying on vulnerable childre--

(x) Min: The Ultimate Contest for Eminent Students was made for a very specific target audience. Min: Those children who had no talents, who would consider spending their entire lives preparing for one single test for even a chance to become an Ultimate...

Oh. Well isn't that funny, huh?

Part of Hope's Peak's branding in general is the promise of a better future, which is something that Levi clearly wants. So I can most definitely see why the idea of being enrolled in the academy appealed to him. Levi being a delinquent in his teenage years definitely tracks, given how we know that his family was full of bad influences (including himself more than likely). And I am absolutely not surprised that Levi ended up killing his father. I think a lot of us theorized for a while that the person he killed was linked to his family.

I'd absolutely adore to learn more about Levi's family situation and what exactly their relationship with each other was, because "We were bad influences on each other" can mean a lot of things. Given the fact that not even the police cared about the death of Levi's father, I'd be pretty willing to believe that Mr. Fontana is a wanted man who has done a lot of criminal harm to others. That might even be where Levi formed the mindset that people are defined by their actions. Maybe, that's my best guess and it doesn't even include his mother and brothers, lmao. Anyway, that's enough of Murder, Corruption, and Daddy Issues. Let's talk about the other thing that was revealed about Levi this episode, or more-so put into words. His low, if zero empathy. Firstly, those who are headcannoning Levi is ASPD, I see you and I love you. So much. But I would be lying if I didn't admit that my first thought upon watching this scene was "Levi is so Autismcoded" lmao But in all seriousness, I absolutely adore this side of his character. In general something I've always loved about Levi is the fact that he, to put it bluntly, does not know how to act. He's constantly seeing what others do and copying them, and asking them for guidance when he doesn't know what to do. His first appearance shows him using Xander and Teruko's appearances to wager what kind of person they are, which is more than likely how he got into styling in the first place. He's basically masking and trying to appear as what he views as normal because he's aware that his lack of empathy is not something most humans possess. And his actions reflect that of what he thinks a good person would do in these scenarios, whether that be your friends not inviting you to an event, or someone profusely bleeding from their neck. To put it in simple terms: He's masking. I love that. It really reminds me of the experiences had by my neurodivergent friends, and even though Levi is not canonically neurodivergent, the fact that so many people headcannon him with ASPD or Autism really goes to show how DT-Dev nailed that kind of experience, and how well they wrote Levi's low empathy in general. Well-done, DT-Dev :D ...Also I think it's safe to say that Accomplice!Levi is not happening. Damn it, I really liked that theory lmao.

Ace

[not even three minutes later]

...See, this is why I always believed Ace was telling the truth about David and Arei's conversation, because wow this man is competing with the former in the Shitty Liar Olympics.

If Ace's sense of security around Levi wasn't already shattered, it sure as hell is now. Which is very upsetting to see, but also very entertaining to me as an aficionado of toxic yaoi. I was never really an Acevi girl, it was just never something I was attracted to (probably because for a majority of CH2 Part 1's airing I really didn't like Ace lmao), but this combined with the Other Thing I'll talk about later has definitely sold me on it. I hope they get worse.

I can't remember what post it was, but I remember seeing someone talk about Ace very much projecting a friendship onto Levi that was never really there between them, and looking back, I absolutely agree. I mean, where the two of them really friends? I do think that Levi does, or did, genuinely like Ace. I don't think he would've been hanging around him in Chapter 1 if he didn't. But it was simply just that, he liked Ace. Ace loved Levi, and saw him as his lifeboat in the midst of this scary unfamiliar situation. Even if everyone else either was annoyed by or straight-up disliked Ace, even if he could die at any moment, he could still rely on Levi as a presence of safety and security, but that all came crumbling down.

ace can you please change your sprite

The fact that Ace, the man famous for jumping to conclusions, not thinking anything through or in depth, and switching his opinions on others on a dime, is even asking for Levi's defense at all, is proof enough to me that even after everything Ace still wanted to cling onto the fantasy of their friendship he had built up in his mind. But upon hearing that Levi never cared about what happened to him, he can no longer do so. ...And why do I think Ace got attached to Levi so quickly?

(x) Ace: I was totally right all along to burn our friendship--No, I can't even call it it "Friendship." Ace: There's only one person in my whole life who I've ever been able to call my friend. That I ever thought, even for just a short time, that you and I were "friends" is an insult to his memory.

Yeah it's time to talk about this.

So for those who are not in the know, DT-Dev confirmed in a now-deleted ask that this friend of Ace's is named Taylor Riley.

(thank you to @/nicohakobyan / weightedblankett on twitter for providing this screenshot)

We know very little about this man other than his name, his gender, the fact that he was Ace's friend, and that he's dead. We don't actually know that fourth one, but I think "insult to his memory" speaks for itself lmao. As such, we do not know the details of his relationship with Ace... But I've made more out of less before, so let's get to talking. Here's what I think:

I think that Taylor was a presence in Ace's life much similar to how Levi was to him in Chapter 1: A strong protective figure that helped to make the scared-of-everything Ace feel a sense of safety. And then some form of incident happened that resulted in Taylor's death, leaving Ace alone, heartbroken, bitter, and terrified. That sense of security he once had was ripped away from him, and without Taylor, he doesn't know what to do with himself anymore.

And then in the killing game, he meets Levi, who provides him with a similar feeling of safety. Immediately he begins to project the memory of Taylor onto Levi and as such becomes attached, quickly considering Levi a friend because of it. And I'm not entirely pulling this idea that Ace was projecting Taylor onto Levi out of my ass, either.

Ace: dark blue/purple (reasoning: refuses to provide reasoning)

When we first got this answer, most people assumed this was referring to Levi, but I honestly think it is more likely that this is referring to Taylor. But those colors are still part of Levi's design, which automatically sets up a parallel between both Levi and Taylor Ace projected his relationship and the memory of Taylor onto a man he barely knew, and when that man lost his patience with him, his fantasy was swiftly kicked with the steel-toed shoe of reality. Hell, Ace's reaction after Levi snapped at him may had been due to his illusion of safety crumbling beneath him, but going down the road of this theory, Levi snapping at him might've been the first time Ace truly saw Levi and not Taylor. He had been giving this man a script and a role to play, and Levi responded by tearing up the paper and telling him to fuck off. In a sense, you could say that in that moment, Ace lost Taylor a second time.

Since I don't think Ace is going to be the killer as he was knocked out and thus did not have any knowledge of the murder mechanism (at least not including the theory that he tried to kill himself, which... Is a possibility, but I don't think that's the case). And if he does live past his chapter, I honestly think Chapter 3 will mark his breaking point. Any fantasy of Levi that he was clinging onto with his pinky has now shattered into pieces ten times over, the person who tried to kill him is still alive and for all he knows, could do it again whenever the hell they want to and people will take their side over his own. Next to no one in the cast likes him and they make that explicitly clear, and worse of all, he will still be trapped in this godforsaken...whatever facility this place is meant to be. So to cap off this section that got way too long, Ace Trauma Dump is on my Chapter 3 bingo card, and if we get to see Taylor and his design includes dark blue and purple I will actually become spaghettified. Please survive Ace, you are finally starting to become not C-Tier

Hu and Veronika

Lumping these two together because I have about the same amount to say about both of them and their secrets were revealed together. Hu's secret is the Hopeless Child one, and Veronika's is the Self Harm one. I think after CH2 Part 1 most of us predicted as such, but it's still very satisfying to be right. What I'm more interested is this supposed pact that they made off-screen. I have to assume that Veronika went to Hu pretty quickly to reveal her secret to her given her general disinterest in topics of suicide and self harm. So I'd wager this pact was probably made at around CH2-5. Not that that really tells us much about the actual conversation, but it's nice to have a time-frame for reference.

I don't expect the actual conversation to be shown because from what we currently have it doesn't really add much of anything, but it would definitely be cool.

(x) Hu: I've been quite selfish this whole time, keeping my secret because I didn't want you all to think less of me...

I've said this before in this post, but I absolutely believe that David eventually coaxed and pressured Hu into revealing her secret to him, as well as why she kept it for so long. And I also think David implanted, or I guess more accurately watered the seed in Hu's head that she was inherently selfish for not sharing her secret. That, I think we would benefit from a flashback, but maybe I'm just biased because I desperately want Hu lore. Please DT-Dev, I'm on my knees Hmm... what else?

(x) Veronika: After all, my own so-called secret isn't even the worst thing I've done. Isn't that so utterly disappointing for this motive?

Oh yeah there's that. What the fuck, Veronika? Like, I feel like this is something I should've expected this, but for some reason I didn't. I'll be honest here, I really have nothing right now. But whatever Veronika is referring to here, I feel like it has something to do with her 'dearest friend' mentioned in the CH2 Q&A (who's name is Alyssa Belyaeva.) What Veronika actually did? I do not have the slightest clue, you can never know with this girl. But no matter what she did, I will probably love her even more for it. Glad that DT-Dev seems to agree with the precedence of supporting women's wrongs.

Teruko

...So I'm glad to see we're all in agreement that that is not her fucking secret. I mean, I'm sure it applies to her. She is an orphan, her parents are out of the picture, and though we don't know the whereabouts of her brother and neither does she, she most likely assumes he's dead as well. But honestly, given the fact that again this is not her fucking secret, I'm starting to wonder if that's really the case... Can Teacher Tawaki theory still live on? I'll save that for another post.

Anyway what was I talking about? Oh yeah, that is not her fucking secret.

And this little bitch knows that for a fact.

I won't go too deep into this because there have already been people discussing it better than I could, but this silent agreement the two of them have to not share Teruko's true secret is so palpable and interesting to me. David knows that Teruko's secret isn't that, but for whatever reason, he is keeping his mouth shut. And he just gives Teruko that shit-eating smirk. Have I ever mentioned how much I love Teruvid? I fucking love Teruvid. But yeah, I still think 100% that Teruko's secret is that the killing game is all her fault. It just does not make sense for Xander and Min's secrets to belong to anyone other than each other as they are dead. And in general it just makes sense for Teruko's character and her role in the story. And I can't help but feel like Teruko's actual secret will be revealed at the end of the Chapter.

Eden

... I mean. Do I really need to say more? I swear I made this exact joke in the previous thoughts post, but I can't help it. It applies perfectly to this CG. When this CG, this fucking JUMPSCARE of a CG, popped up on my screen, I'm pretty sure I ran around in a circle screaming in my room for a total of ten minutes. The first of two times I would do that during this masterfully crafted scene. I want to think of some kind of insightful analysis, but the truth is basically in your face. Eden was the one who gouged out Xander's eye. Why did she do it? Where does this fit into the overall lore? I DON'T FUCKING KNOW What the fuck am I supposed to say? This CG is basically all we have, and we'll definitely have to wait for more information. Especially since Eden is totally the culprit, but we'll get to that in the predictions section. (yeah if you can't tell my writing juice is starting to run out, but if I get this out any later than today I will kill myself)

David

(...for a scumbag, he's kinda cute.) So first of all, David is slowly becoming the funniest character in the cast in my opinion, which is a huge achievement in a cast full of very funny characters. And in general I think as a character he perfectly captures DRDT's general tone of half-and-half both silliness and angst, like yin and yang. Secondly though, the big thing that David did in this chapter (besides keeping Teruko's secret and being funny) is lying to Eden about the rest of the conversation he had with Arei. Ultimately, I think David himself saw that action as a good deed.

Think of it from his perspective: This is a man who has had hope and change presented to him on a silver platter multiple times, and then had it violently ripped away from him. And the most recent example of that, Arei, presented him with a better future and the possibility of change only to be killed upon trying to act on said change. If he told Eden that Arei still had hope, that she still wanted to change, it would aspire Eden with that same hope that in his eyes is destined to crash down on her. So instead of inflicting that same pain onto her, he instead chose to say nothing at all Maybe I'm giving David too much credit, what he did was still at the end of the day, incredibly dickish. But that interpretation is what makes the most sense to me personally. That's all I really have to say in regards to David... So, let's move onto what was, in my opinion, the star of this week's episode.

Arei

Arei Nageishi.... Ohhhh save me Arei Nageishi.... Arei was already one of my favorite characters in the cast due to her personality, design, voice acting, and most of all the character development she had throughout the course of Chapter 2. But this episode, this scene... It cemented her a well-earned spot in my top four, sitting only behind Whit, Teruko, and David.

The flashback scene of Arei and David in this episode is honestly up there with some of the best scenes in the whole show to me, almost solely because of how it caps off Arei as a character postmortem, and the story that she, along with Chapter 2 as a whole, is meant to tell. This whole chapter has been themed around the idea of what classifies a good person, and this flashback scene provides such a great payoff to that theme and it is everything I could've ever wished for. The message I got from Arei's story is that, ultimately, the idea of a "Good Person" and a "Bad Person" are nothing more than just that. Ideas. And in being ideas, they are above anything else, arbitrary, subjective, and at the end of the day, incredibly meaningless when it comes to discussing actual human beings. Insistence on categorizing yourself and the people around you into boxes of "pure saint that can do no wrong" and "irredeemable demon who will burn in the pits of hell" is a fast track to viewing a complicated, colorful world into a few shades of black and white. That's how David views the world, and has viewed the world probably for years. And I'm going to be honest and say that I think before being confronted with the truth of David's actions, Arei was heading right down the same path that he had headed.

(x) Arei: Of course I wanted to change myself. Who wants to be a grab-bag of negative personality traits? There's not even anything positive you could say about me. Arei: Still, for the longest time, I thought it was stupid to even try. I'm rotten to the core, and I might as well be a different species from saints like Eden and you. Arei: A pig never hopes to grow up into a human, because it knows that such a metamorphosis is impossible.

And this is the line that really, really makes me think that. She calls David and Eden saints because (up until this moment) she viewed both of them as the ideal of what makes a good person, similar to how David views Xander. And on the contrast, claims herself to be rotten to the core, ontologically evil with no redemption in sight. She's even performing David's habit of self-dehumanization, likening herself to a pig in the same way David likens himself to a cat in the LGI video, which goes to show how this mindset of black-and-white is, above all else, a dehumanizing view on the human race that relegates people into cardboard boxes with the flaps taped shut. If she didn't find out the truth of David's actions, I am confident that she would've done down the same path that he did, becoming convinced that she will be a terrible person until the day she dies because she cannot reach this worthless standard of a good person that she has set up in her head. But we know that's not how it goes. Arei does realize that the man she once thought of as a saint might be, in his words, a lying manipulative scumbaggy piece of shit. And upon realizing that, the second half of the message unlocks itself. There is no such thing as irredeemability.

Change is a part of being human. Humans are not built to run in a hamster wheel for the rest of their days, reliving their mistakes over and over again wallowing in their self-hatred and guilt. Eventually, they have to get off the wheel and start taking the steps necessary to grow, change, develop and flourish to properly better themselves. (This applies to yourself just as much as it applies to the worst, most depraved individual you know by the way) The alternative is living in a four-by-four black box of self-loathing and relentless stagnancy, which is not productive for the person or the people they've hurt. It is only when you reject these black-and-white categories of "Good Person" and "Bad Person" and accept that no matter what you've done, you're capable of becoming better, that you can achieve true growth and change. The way this message was executed, especially through a character that dies before the halfway point of the story, is something that I marvel at as an aspiring storyteller. DRDT's beating heart will always be its character writing, and this scene is one of the primary examples of that. Thank you, DT-Dev, for making Arei Nageishi and the rest of your amazing cast of characters. :D

Extra Thoughts !!! - FURUYA FANDOM (me) THE TRACK PLAYED LETS FUCKING GOOOOOO!!! - I am very excited to find out more about Nico's attempted murder given all of the questions surrounding it. If the method of murder really was replicated, and Nico wasn't the culprit themself, you guys should take a wild guess who that implicates. (this is probably obvious by this point, but I really don't believe in the theories that suggest that someone other than Nico was responsible for Ace's attempted demise, be it Hu or Ace himself. I feel like it doesn't line up with the current narrative direction that Nico seems to be going in, the physical evidence of them stealing the turpentine, and...I'm gonna be honest, I just don't like it lmao. I'm sure DT-Dev would do it well, but just as a premise I do not favor it. Nico's attempted murder + subsequent regret from it felt like such a big moment in the chapter's narrative in relation to the themes of All That Glitters and the cast revealing sides to themself that weren't as prevalent before, as well as the themes of change and moving on from the past littered all throughout the chapter. I think if Nico's attempted murder was responsible by anyone but Nico, it would just dampen the impact of their overall story for me. That's just me though.) - WE FINALLY GOT ANOTHER NONSTOP DEBATE LETS GO BOYS!!! Nonstop debates I MISSED you - "Hey why does Whit know so much about hangi--" Look. This man is so unbelievably suspicious in every single way that for the sake of my sanity, I'm just gonna assume DT-Dev chose a random character to give the hanging explanation. It is the only way I will survive this chapter - But hey, at least we got this

- As always, I adore the new sprites we got this episode, especially Ace's new ones. It's probably the first sprite of his that actually appears emotionally vulnerable when he's not bleeding profusely from the neck. And of course, I loved David's shit-eating grin towards Teruko, I hope he never changes. - Speaking of Teruko, us getting Tutor Teruko was lovely. She is perfect, she is a little bit of everything all of the time.

(x) Whit: If you're so inclined to complain, Sir Light Pollution, why don't you try and think of some good evidence? Charles: Light pollution? Whit: You know… Cuz he had stars, and now he doesn't, and light pollution makes stars disappear… or… or… something….. Charles: I am truly impressed…by how bad that was.

- I love these dorks so much. I can tell DT-Dev has a lot of fun writing them.

- Teronika Consent animation! I guess after Acevi's Soap Opera, DT-Dev decided to feed the yuri crowd as well. Love it when we get to see those little sprite animations, too.

Predictions for CH2-14 - The episode is 40 minutes long, the longest episode we have had so far. (40 minutes of DRDT content... I'm excited just thinking about it!) Because of that, I think I will just start with my biggest prediction: I think we're getting the culprit reveal this chapter. I don't think that just because of the length either. When you really look at it, we have basically used every piece of evidence at least once with the exception of three: - The conditions of the gym (which I assume will be discussed next) - The scuffs on the ground - The ball of starchy clothes All three of those pieces of evidence I think can definitely be cleared up in the span of 40 minutes, especially since full focus is now on the murder case. I don't necessarily think the trial will end in this episode, but I think we have at least one more trial episode to go before the post-trial + execution + ending of the chapter. - And as the culprit reveal is approaching, I have formulated a tier list of who I think is least - most likely to be Arei's culprit. I will provide my reasoning for each.

No. 17/16 - Xander Matthews + Min Jeung I mean, what it says on the tin. They're dead, and thus couldn't had committed the murder. No. 15/14 - MonoTV + Arei Nageishi There are explicit rules against them being the culprit. Rule 8 and Rule 11 in particular. No. 13 - Teruko Tawaki She is the protagonist. Didn't stop Kaede, but I highly doubt that's where DT-Dev is going. No. 12 - David Chiem Other than the previous five who I've all disqualified from being the culprit, David is probably the character I suspect the least. He has an alibi for the time of the murder, getting breakfast with J and Veronika, and thematically...well, he's basically being set up as the antagonist. I don't think we'll be rid of him this early lmao. No. 11 - Charles Cuevas Charles has a fear of blood and dead bodies, and though I wouldn't say that completely disqualifies him from becoming a culprit in the future, in a case like this with such a complicated mechanism like this where he'd have to be in very close proximity with the body at all times? I highly doubt it. He also has an alibi for the fish (He was with Whit). No. 10 - J Rosales J both has an alibi for the fish (Arturo following her around), and an alibi for the morning (getting breakfast with David and Veronika), and both of those alibis can be confirmed. I don't think she did this. No. 9 - Veronika Grebenshchikova I'll be honest, I really don't see Veronika committing a murder at all. She clearly wants to see this through to the end, and killing someone would come with the risk of her being executed, which I don't think she would see as a satisfying conclusion to her story. That, combined with the fact that she has an alibi for the fish (bothering Teruko) and an alibi for the murder (getting breakfast with David and J) makes me think she didn't do this. No. 8 - Nico Hakobyan You might think it's weird to place Nico this low on the overall tier-list despite them not having an alibi for the fishes, and their morning alibi being...somewhat flimsy but I'll get to that with Hu, but here's my logic. Nico was driven to attempt murder from very specific circumstances. That being, Ace's relentless bullying and abuse towards them. Nico has said before that they'd understand murder if the perpetrator didn't like the victim, and while I don't think they exactly liked Arei, I do not think they harbor the same animosity towards her as they did towards Ace. I truly believe that Nico would only ever resort to murder if they truly despised the person in question and saw no other solution. So that is why I feel comfortable placing Nico at eighth. No. 7 - Hu Jing Hu is also another character that I think some will be surprised to see so low, but I don't think this was her doing. She has an alibi for the fish (cleaning up with Eden), and though again her alibi in the morning is very flimsy (having tea with Nico in the morning,) I do believe she is telling the truth because if she was lying about her alibi, I think the brutally blunt Nico would call her out for it. I'm sorry, I just simply cannot imagine Nico letting that shit slide regardless of how many theories I read. Not to mention I can't really think of a motive for why she would kill Arei specifically when, if she really did want to kill someone, Ace is right there. No. 6 - Whit Young Whit is supremely fucking suspicious and a lot of his behavior in the trial is literal shenanigans, even more so given the fact that he doesn't have an alibi for the actual murder. But he does have an alibi for the fish (again, he was with Charles) which is the main sticking point of Whit!Culprit. His other sticking point is his lack of motive, both in terms of the secrets and Arei specifically. I don't know like- just look at this man, do you think he did this? /joke

No. 5 - Levi Fontana The number one suspect in the fandom for a while, and he's only at number five. He ultimately lacks an alibi for the morning, and his alibi for the fish was that he was doing his laundry... With no one else around. Shady as fuck. But I think given his principles discussed in this episode ("it is a good thing to make sure someone else doesn't die"), and the genuine desire to be helpful he has expressed throughout this trial, I think him being the culprit is unlikely. That's why I was adamant on him being an accomplice for a while because I still thought he had some role in the case, but oh well. No. 4 - Rose Lacroix I'll be honest, Rose is only this high because her alibi situation is worse than Whit's and Levi's combined. Both of her alibis are that she was sleeping in her room, which cannot be proven and can be very easily lied about. But other than that, I don't think she is the culprit. I think this case requires too many physical maneuvers for someone as lethargic as Rose to pull off successfully, and if she were the culprit I don't think she'd bring attention to the missing grippy tape at all. No. 3 - Arturo Giles Arturo does have an alibi for the fish (following J), but does not have an alibi for the morning. Unlike basically every other character here, something else that puts Arturo above them is that he was capable of overhearing Eden and Arei's conversation and forging the note. But there is also a discrepancy present that is also present with every character here, and that is the fact that Arturo did not witness Nico's attempted murder or the condition of Ace's body and the gym, so there was no way he could've replicated the murder method used for Ace on Arei. So though logistically he is a more likely possibility, I don't think it was him. No. 2 - Ace Markey Ace, to me anyway, is the second most likely candidate to being Arei's killer. He does not have an alibi for the fish and could've very easily grabbed them after David and Arei left the Relaxation Room, and he doesn't have an alibi for the morning either. He has a very clear motivation for taking a chance at killing someone, of "someone literally sliced my neck open not two days ago and I know I am not safe here I need to get the fuck out." If you choose to factor in strength, Ace is one of the strongest members of the cast and would be more than capable of the physical maneuvers made to kill Arei. Though I personally don't believe in this theory, if you think Ace attempted suicide instead of Nico trying to kill him, he has the murder method down lock too because he tried to commit it onto himself. He has been shown to be nosy, so it is not improbable that he listened in on Arei and Eden's conversation. And lastly, he is one of the only two suspects who was capable of stealing the grippy tape that was used in the murder. All of the evidence is practically stacked against him... But there are a couple of problems. One, if you believe that Nico did try to kill Ace, than the point about Ace knowing the exact method of death goes out the window. He was knocked out by the turpentine, and woke up in extreme pain in a blinding fury of rage and bloodlust, I don't think his surroundings would be the first thing on his mind. But a much bigger issue we have is the question of... Why would Ace take the tape? Following this theory, his murder plan wouldn't had started until the day after Nico's attempt on his life, it would make no sense for him to take the tape then. These two sticking points are why, though a likely candidate, I do not think Ace is the culprit. That award of main suspect goes to...

No. 1 - Eden Tobisa Yeah, if you've spent any time on this account you probably know I'm an Eden!Culprit truther. There are many well-written posts about this theory that I'm sure you've seen so I'll try to keep this short, but though the theory does have a few flaws to it, the big one being Eden's alibi for the fish that she was cleaning up with Hu, I think Eden being the culprit makes the most sense from an evidence, thematic, and motive standpoint. I know some people have dropped the theory upon the fork reveal, but DRDT is not unbeknownst to killing off characters with certain mysteries left unanswered. That is basically all for my predictions related to the culprit, but I still have some predictions for the overall episode. - Nico's gonna get placed in the hot-seat, obviously, which will definitely cause a reaction out of both Hu and Ace. And I honestly feel like the two of them are going to keep interrupting Nico until they eventually snap. And I hope that happens honestly because unless you count the "I'll kill you" line, we have yet to see or hear Nico when they're actually angry angry. Nico obviously doesn't like conflict, but they might have to get over that if they actually want to defend themself knowing the other two. - I'm still holding out hope we'll get a Random Guess segment lmao - And lastly: I need Whit to break the forth wall at least once I didn't put that on the bingo card for fucking NOTHING

Conclusion I'm gonna be completely honest, I do not have the energy to write anymore and I just want this out lmao. But overall, this was one of my favorite episodes in the whole series. I loved the Levi and Ace stuff, I like that we now have all the secrets, and like I said, the scene with Arei is probably one of my favorite scenes in the show. CH2-14 is going to be a wild ride I can already tell, and if we do find out who the killer is, you will see me screaming. Regardless of if it's Eden lmao.

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