#also more classes and more training...

[ravenclair]

In the Shadow of You | Hogwarts Legacy

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Chapter 13: Truths

(Word count: 2,412)

“It looks like a journal entry,” Sebastian said after he finished reading the note. “There’s a date at the top from over a year ago.”

Your mind began racing.

M.G…why does that feel familiar…?

“You’ve got that look on your face,” he spoke again, drawing your attention.

“What look?”

“You make a face when you’re thinking really hard or struggling to piece things together,” Sebastian replied and did his own imitation. Your eyes narrowed at him.

“And that’s the face you make when you’re annoyed, specifically with me.”

You scoffed at his ridiculousness. “The initials, I’m trying to recall where I recognize them.”

“Well, I’m sure you’ve come across loads of names with those initials,” Sebastian shrugged. “But the note also specifically says wizard, meaning they must be male. That should narrow down our options quite a bit.”

“A male wizard with the initials M.G.,” you pondered aloud, arms crossed as you wracked your brain, “and an interest in the Deathly Hallows, specifically the Elder Wand…”

The Elder Wand…wands…M.G…

You gasped.

“Mykew Gregorovitch!” you exclaimed to Sebastian.

“Uh–what was that?” He replied, one eyebrow raised in confusion.

“He’s a wandmaker,” you clarified, astonished. “With a reputation for creating powerful wands, and his initials are M.G.”

Sebastian’s eyes widened. “Bloody hell…”

“His shop is somewhere in London–Carkitt Market, I believe. Have you heard of it?”

He shook his head. “Can’t say I’ve ever been to London.”

You thought for a moment, then smiled in realization.

“Well, then, it’s a good thing we know someone who has.”

⋆｡°✩

The next day, you walked to Potions with newfound purpose.

You were a major step closer to unmasking who had been haunting you all these weeks. While Gregorovitch seemed like the ideal candidate, you didn’t want to jump to any conclusions. There was still the matter of how he was getting around Hogwarts unnoticed, close enough to you to perform Legilimency. It was possible he wasn’t working alone.

But the discovery of the journal entry gave you a direction to go in. And that gave you confidence.

Once settled at your potions station, you said hello to your friends as you unpacked your things.

“Nicely done this weekend,” you congratulated the two Gryffindors with a smile.

Natty thanked you and replied, “No hard feelings, I hope.”

“I’m just impressed we held up as long as we did,” Samantha said, chin in her hand. “I was honestly expecting a lot worse of a beating.”

While Samantha and Natty conversed together about the match, Garreth turned to you with a grin. “It was loads of fun! Can’t wait to see how we fare against Slytherin in two weeks.”

“Don’t get your hopes up, Weasley,” Imelda taunted in passing, headed toward her own station.

Garreth glared at her as she walked away.

“Garreth,” you began, “I recall you saying you’re from London, correct?”

He returned his attention to you and nodded. “Just outside the city proper. Dad’s been talking about moving to the countryside but—”

“Right,” you politely interrupted before he went off on another one of his long-winded tangents. “I’ve been curious…how long is the journey here, to Scotland? I’ve been eager to take a trip to Diagon Alley since I’ve yet to see it.”

“Unfortunately, it’s a trek!” Garreth sighed. “About seven hours by train. I usually try to sleep the entire ride to Hogsmeade from King’s Cross Station.”

You nodded, feeling yourself deflate. You knew it was far, but that was definitely too far to travel by broom.

“But there are other, quicker means of transportation, if you really fancy a visit to London,” he leaned in a bit closer to whisper. “My aunt has Floo Powder access to Diagon Alley, right from her chambers. Special Deputy Headmistress privileges.

“She’ll be distracted for a while during the quidditch match at the end of the week,” he continued conspiratorially, “I can go with you, if you’d like.”

Your eyes widened. It was risky, and you didn’t want to betray Professor Weasley’s trust…but this was important.

“Take the week to think about it,” Garreth went on. “Let me know by the day before the match, and I might just be able to create an even bigger distraction to buy us some more time.”

You nodded gratefully. “Thank you, Garreth, I will.”

⋆｡°✩

As soon as class was dismissed, you cautiously approached Professor Sharp’s desk. 

“Professor Sharp? I wanted to apologize again, I—”

Sharp, without looking up from his writing, said, “There’s no need. Meet me back here after Charms, I’d like to continue our lessons.”

Your mouth hung open, momentarily speechless, before you simply nodded in response.

As you exited the classroom to head to Charms, you found Sebastian waiting for you just outside the door.

“Where’s Ominis?” You asked.

“I told him to go on ahead,” he replied, falling into step beside you. “I wanted to ask about your plans…with Garreth.”

You dropped your voice low, “He mentioned Professor Weasley having a Floo Powder transport in her chambers, it can take me directly to Diagon Alley. I’ll have to sneak in during the quidditch match, while everyone’s distracted.”

Sebastian's face twisted into one of slight apprehension.

“What is it?” you questioned, reading his expression. He hesitated a moment before replying. 

“I’ll be playing in the match against Hufflepuff this week, so I won’t be able to go with you,” he said. Before you could argue, he went on, “I know you’re more than capable of handling it yourself, but I’m still a bit worried about you going there alone.”

He glanced at you sideways, awaiting your response. Your lips fell into a soft smile.

“We’ll just have to do some spare training in the Undercroft this week, then. And Garreth said he’d go with me, so I won’t be completely alone,” you assured. “I’ll try to avoid divulging too much detail about the real reason for the trip.

“I’m sorry I may have to miss your first match of the season, though,” you continued. “I was looking forward to seeing you play.”

Sebastian huffed a sigh, rather dramatically, you might add. “I suppose I’ll forgive you this once. I’m quite confident in our victory, but I’ll try to drag the match out as long as I can—give you as much time as possible to get back.”

“Garreth mentioned having a solution for that as well, although the thought of it made me slightly unnerved,” you joked. “He said he could ‘create an even bigger distraction’.”

“Knowing Weasley, it’ll most likely be quite…explosive.”

⋆｡°✩

When you entered the Charms classroom, you noticed Poppy staring intensely at a piece of parchment. As you took your seat next to her, you saw a mess of symbols and arrows. Quidditch plays, you realized.

“Oh, good morning!” Poppy greeted you as you sat. “How was Potions?”

“Sharp assigned another essay, this time on Veritaserum,” you huffed. “We’re still waiting on our potions to finish brewing.”

Poppy cringed. “Yikes, well, at least the term is almost halfway through!”

You pondered her words. With everything going on, you had failed to realize October was quickly drawing closer and closer to its end.

“Rumor has it that Professor Black will be announcing a ball tonight at dinner,” Poppy leaned in closer to whisper. “A masquerade!”

“Really?” You said, unable to hide your fascination.

You’d never been to a ball before, much less a masquerade. Your ballroom dancing skills were mediocre at best, but you could practice. And any excuse to wear a beautiful dress appealed greatly to you.

Poppy nodded, grinning. “Overheard Professors Garlick and Howin discussing it when we were leaving the quidditch match the other day. Set two weeks from now, on All Hallows’ Evening.”

“That’s rather festive of him,” you replied sarcastically. “I wonder what’s got the headmaster in the holiday spirit.”

“No idea,” she shrugged. “We’ve never had one before. They used to hold a Yule Ball during the Triwizard Tournaments…before they were banned.”

“Alright, my friends, settle down,” Professor Ronen announced as he descended the stairs from his office. “Today we will be taking our lesson outside of the classroom. Now, if you would please follow me.”

You and Poppy glanced at each other in confusion before standing.

It wasn’t unlike Professor Ronen to surprise the class with a more thrilling and involved lesson, but you were supposed to be learning the cleaning charm Scourgify today. However, if anyone could manage to make that exciting, it would be Professor Ronen.

The class filed out the doors and followed Ronen through the halls of the school. He eventually led you outside, past the Bell Tower courtyard, down to where Professor Howin held her Beasts classes.

There were a few beasts in the pins: Kneazles, Mooncalves, and Puffskiens.

“As I mentioned last week, we will be learning Scourgify,” Professor Ronen said. “Today, we will use this charm to help Professor Howin clean the beasts and their pins.”

A few students stifled their groans. Poppy, however, was delighted.

After learning and practicing the incantation, Professor Ronen divided the class into three groups, one for each of the beasts’ pins. He and Professor Howin would walk between the groups, offering helpful suggestions to those struggling.

You, Poppy, Natty, Nellie, Sebastian, and Ominis stood around the Mooncalf pin, the four wide-eyed creatures staring right back at the six of you.

“Each of us takes a Mooncalf and the remaining two clean the pin?” Poppy suggested.

No one wanted to clean the pin, obviously, even if the charm made it much easier. You grabbed six stalks of tall grass to draw straws with, and you all agreed that the two who pulled the shortest ones would take on the worse task.

You and Sebastian stared at each other in disbelief as everyone held out their grass stalks. You both had drawn the short straws.

Once the rest of the group split off to wrangle their Mooncalves, Sebastian turned to you and sighed. 

“As if we didn’t have enough rubbish to deal with already...”

⋆｡°✩

You sat next to Professor Sharp at one of the potion stations. He had been standing at a cauldron when you entered, pouring some of whatever he had brewed into a vial.

“I’ve been reflecting on your current…predicament,” Professor Sharp said finally. “Has there been any more developments as of late?”

You nodded and informed him about what happened at the quidditch match.

“As I suspected. I believe your ancient magic has allowed your skills of Legilimency to develop much faster than any I’ve ever encountered,” Sharp began. “It’s made you into a Legilimens, a rather powerful one at that.

“Last week, you entered my mind without me even noticing. That’s…never happened to me before,” he confessed. “I, myself, became an Occlumens during my Auror training. No one had been able to access my mind since.”

No wonder he had been so surprised. You shuttered, as if you could shake the magical ability out of you.

Sharp went on. “This is most likely why you’ve struggled with Occlumency. These are already hard enough abilities to master, and it’s even more rare for one to be excelled in both. It can take many years of training, as I have had. Luckily, your locket’s enchantment has aided you in your mental protection.”

He held up the vial of clear liquid. It looked like water, and when he unstopped the cork, there was no odor.

Veritaserum, you thought as he handed it to you. He must’ve been brewing it for some time now.

“We’re going to try an experiment,” Sharp declared. “In some cases, Occlumency can be used to withstand the effects of Veritaserum. I’d like to see if your locket’s enchantments work against the potion as well, if you’re alright with that.”

You held the vial cautiously. Clearly, Sharp was concerned about you accidentally poking around in his head again if he tried Legilimency on you. You supposed this was his compromise.

It would come in handy to know if I could withstand a truth serum…

“Alright,” you agreed.

“Just as we’ve been practicing, steel your mind and trust in your magic to aid you. The goal is not to mention anything about your…particular powers.”

You nodded, and, before you could think better of it, quickly swallowed the potion.

There was no taste. A calming, cloudiness filled your mind, the only sign that the potion was working. You felt your clenched jaw relax.

“Did you come to Hogwarts as a fifth year student?” Professor Sharp questioned.

“Yes,” you answered immediately, and your stomach clenched with nerves at the inability to stop yourself. You felt your locket grow warm underneath your robes.

“To what Hogwarts house were you sorted?”

“Ravenclaw.”

“And why were you late for your Sorting Ceremony?”

That was a loaded question, but you were able to somewhat deflect your answer to avoid speaking of your ancient magic.

“The carriage I was traveling in was attacked by a hostile dragon.”

“What did you discover in Vault 12 at Gringotts?”

This one was a bit trickier. Your locket warmed further, and you felt the fog in your mind clear slightly. The enchantments were helping, even if only a bit.

“A hidden doorway–one only I could open. It led to a Pensieve.”

Sharp nodded, pleased. He continued.

“Where did you have your final battle with Ranrok?”

“Below Hogwarts.”

“Be more specific.”

In a hidden repository, one that houses ancient magic, you almost said. You bit down on your tongue, tried to resist the potion’s effects. You felt your palms begin to sweat as your locket grew even warmer.

“How did you defeat him?” Sharp fired off another question.

“Using…magic…” you struggled for an answer. Your head began to ache terribly as you focused on your words, on shielding your thoughts.

“What kind of magic?”

Your lips parted slightly, but no words escaped. The fog in your mind cleared further with each second, as if your locket and ancient magic were working together to clear a path through it. It was difficult, but you concentrated on it, on the clarity that it provided you.

“Magic I learned…here. At Hogwarts.”

Not exactly the truth, but not a lie, either. You had applied the spells you’d learned from your professors during your battle with Ranrok.

The fog in your mind was mostly gone now, and you began to feel more in control of your thoughts. Whether it was from the potion wearing off or your magic dispelling of it, you weren’t certain.

“Do you possess a rare form of magic?”

“No,” you lied easily. Sharp looked at you with satisfied surprise.

“Impressive,” he replied. “That dose of serum should’ve lasted for another five minutes. Well done.”

You sighed happily, relieved at your success.

“That was only a small dose, not very potent, but it’s good progress,” Sharp stated before you could relish too long in your victory. “We’ll keep practicing.”

[the-balloon-shed]

imma be honest I want to make a fic of this one day but for right now you just get me running wild with this headcanon

you know how there's those videos of surgeons being "inspirational" to their interns and then saying the meanest shit in the world? yeah, I think that's Iceman as an instructor at TOPGUN. 

Just the dry, rough sense of humor? The perfectly attenuated phrase in order to knock the arrogance out of some of these scrappy pilots? That's Iceman. The evidence is there in TG86! it's ICE who is saying the most bratty shit to Maverick. His criticisms are almost always valid or born of a real curiosity that's worth looking into, which I think is key, but he expresses it in the rudest and most inciting way possible. 

"Who was covering Cougar while you were showboating --"; (in response to Slider's calling Goose and Mav "famous") "I think you mean notorious"; "I don't like you 'cause you're dangerous" -- I mean Ice is right but he's also a bitch. (we don't have time to unpack ALL of what went into Ice goading Maverick seconds after meeting him with "need help figuring it out? who's the best pilot?" like my god man). 

So, some contenders for some of the commentary Ice might have for his students -- 

"Keep flying like that, I'm going to assume you're getting kickbacks from the military hospital." 

"I can only hope one day you fly for the enemy." 

"I was thrilled to hear the Navy's policy initiative for accommodating more disabilities went into action this year, however, I do think they should reconsider sending me blind pilots." 

"Are you on your wingman's life insurance or something?" 

"What did I say about making the same mistake twice?" "At least tell you I've learned something?" "No. What I said is don't." 

"Resist the urge to help me."

"I'm not looking for the best you can do. I'm looking for the best, period. So if you can't do any better, I suggest trying to emulate somebody else who can." 

"Well, you're no Artful Dodger, but artless dodging kept you alive well enough this time, I suppose." (I think it would be funny if he incidentally gave this poor pilot the callsign Dodger because of this, or A.D. for Artless Dodger)

"Did the Academy change its curriculum? Emphasize the element of surprise?" "Um... why do you ask, sir?" "Because you fly like you've never been inside a plane before." 

And I think he might say this to a colleague trying to pull rank over him that he neither respects nor cares about:

"I've neither the time, nor the crayons, to explain this to you." 

I think Mav would be so annoyed, too. "why do I have the reputation for being hard to work with when you're going around saying the meanest crap to these kids?" 

All Ice would do is laugh. "Sounds like a personal problem." 

Not to say that Ice is an asshole without restraint. Hell, the Iceman is all about restraint. He doesn't kick people when they're down. He doesn't say cutting stuff like this to people who are genuinely trying and not being a showoff. This is to knock overly arrogant kids down a few pegs, not send people into a shame self-doubting spiral, and Ice is usually pretty damn good at walking that line. 

Like, I imagine one of the students not understanding something to do with the physics portions of their classes and so he goes to Ice super nervous about getting reamed, and Ice is very patient with him. When Mav comes in and starts talking to Ice about instructor stuff, the student goes "oh, I can come back later, you know I think I'm getting it!" out of fear of wasting Ice's time and Ice would chuckle and be like "no, you clearly don't get it, and that's fine. Easier to teach you on dry land as opposed to up in the air, so let's keep working through it. Long as Mav's not about to talk to me about anything confidential --" which Mav shakes his head no "--alright, then how about you sit right there and keep working at it until you get it, and you will get it. If you've got the time, I've got the time, so let's get it done," and the kid stays in the office and keeps working at it for hours, occasionally checking his work with Mav and Ice until, voila, he does actually get it and also has a whole new understanding of Ice. 

Or if, god forbid, anyone had an accident, Ice would be all over trying to help with that (and help Mav work through it too) and protecting the students from any fallout from the brass because fuck them, they don't know what it's like to be in the air anymore. 

I also think that before the TOPGUN class starts, Ice would find Mav checking on all the canopies of all the jets and, once Ice realized that was what Mav was doing, would spend the next several hours with him helping out and making sure everything was operating properly, even though engineering had already looked at them. Can never be too sure, and if it provides Mav peace of mind, then Ice will do it, no questions asked. 

And so, despite saying some of the rudest crap most of these students have ever heard, they all love him. They all respect the ever-living-crap out of him, and learn to find him actually just kind of funny. It'd be a lot harder to like him if he were wrong, but he's so rarely wrong that in the end even the ones who do get pissed off at him manage to calm down. Students, as they graduate and leave TOPGUN, would probably talk to other graduating classes when they meet them on deployments like "oh my god, what did he say to your class?" "he once said --" "I didn't find it funny then but now I laugh every time I think about it -- " "he helped me figure out how to do..." so on so forth. 

There are a couple of the brass that aren't amused, but I think that's where Mav would come into play in his own way. Because Ice is good at what he does, and Mav sure as hell wants him around, and so should everyone else. Ice is just also not afraid to be an asshole about being good -- which the last person this is news to is Maverick. 

Maverick's just the only one Ice has encountered who can give as good as he gets, which is why as instructors, they do a pretty damn good job working together to whip their classes into shape. It's just funny that never in a million years did Mav think he'd be the "good cop" in their good cop/bad cop instructor situation, but he's resigned himself to his fate all the same. 

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

hope you feel better soon!

I am riddled with ailments, but I stay silly!

[bacchuschucklefuck]

doing chibi is a good design exercise bc it forces u to think on shapes n essential details, essentially thumbnailing ur designs. its also a terrible design exercise bc it ends up looking cute no matter what

[polysyndetonaddictsupportgroup]

hello hello!! your fic pez dispenser debris brings me immense joy. and i wanna know if the other nejire and tamaki will be showing up. id love to see their reactions to fucking #leku. and i’d love to hear your thoughts on them in general if you have any to spare. the big three have such a fun dynamic to me.

Tamaki will appear. I’m not fully settled on Nejire. In my mind, she moved to Kyoto not long after she graduated but keeps in very close touch (if you read the battle of Yokohama posts, she was there during that fight because she was visiting Her Boys and insisted on a Big Three Sleep Over, which is why the three of them were together when Izuku called to begin with). They have a group chat that she started blowing up when the Leku news hit. All of them are painfully, violently aware of the fact Mirio is absolutely not dating Izuku and also of the fact that Mirio’s probably close to drowning himself at the mere thought.

I do really like the idea of the Big Three having been sort of outcasts before they were the big three, and I think canon supports this reading. They were all sort of the weird kids. They were each other’s only friends. After they started rising in the ranks, they became more popular, but they all consider the others their main people.

I also like the idea that they became the Big Three because of each other.

They were friends before they were the big three. And it’s not a coincidence that the big three were all already friends. They pushed each other to grow in their skills and surpass everyone else.

The reason why they haven’t been more present in pez is actually the same reason why I didn’t have them open a hero agency together: they all need to grow separately from the others for a bit.

Like. Here’s Mirio, with two very skilled and experienced heroes at his side, waiting for Izuku to graduate so he can start his agency. Why not go into business with the friends he’s already been fighting with for years?

I see the Big Three as people who all, for one reason or another, decided that they needed to learn how to be strong on their own at the start of their career.

Take Tamaki. He’s childhood friends with Mirio. He was briefly referenced in one of the tumblr posts as one of Mirio’s staunchest advocates after he lost his Quirk. So why isn’t he heroes with Mirio?

Well, he sort of is. He’s got a mutual support agreement with him.

Time to derail into my favorite topic: the economic models underpinning fictional societies. As you can probably guess I’m great at parties.

Mutual support agreements are contractual devices that I came up with in response to the convoluted economic structure of heroics compensation I discussed a few posts ago. In that post, I discussed independent/underground v. agency models with respect to public compensation and how I think that there’s an impossibly complicated matrix that grants heroes portions of the local budget based on their statistics. Briefly, I discussed how that calculation would cause conflict with big name heroes taking credit for their sidekicks’ work because agencies would necessarily need to be counted as one entity for the purposes of public funding.

What happens when multiple agencies are involved in the same incident?

As a reminder, the reason why they need to assign credit for a bust to one individual is because agencies are funded as a whole. This is a grant system that’s meant to be more than just about paying a salary—the government is providing funds meant to go towards an office space, supplies, everything. You could not give everyone in an agency public funding separate checks under that model. Public funding is made out to the agency as a whole and it’s up to the agency as to how to use it. But if you have six people from the same agency who all register the exact same take down because they all participated—well now you’ve got the one job reported six times over for the same filing entity. That’s going to horrifically skew the funding calculation. The government’s paying for the same bust six times over and you just incentivized hero agencies to send their people all to do the same job because it pays the same to have six guys stop one criminal as it does to have six guys stop six different criminals separately.

But hey—sometimes it’s a six guy job. That would more appropriately be considered an enhancement to a job’s relative difficulty than it would be to giving credit for a takedown. After all, the same job could require “six guys” or “one All Might.” If you focus on the number of heroes an agency uses in a job than you do on how difficult that job actually is, then you’re inadvertently penalizing better heroes because Mid Tier Agency needed six guys to handle what you did on your own, but since they needed six whole guys they get paid more for the same thing that you could do solo.

But the reason for this one man credit structure is because you’re getting one check for the government per agency. But what about when heroes from different agencies team up? Big Hero is not sharing a government funding check with Even Bigger Hero, and there’s absolutely no way that every single team up is just fucking pro bono for everyone but one guy. That’d make it impossible. So the same job would have to get counted multiple times when it involved different heroic entities.

The fact that you were teamed up instead of solo would go into the relative value calculation of each independent job. You get the full pot if you’re solo, but if you’re sharing the load, you’re sharing the credit. But at the same time, how much credit you get would also have to be determined on a case by case basis. Like. A hero that evacuated three civilians contributed to a fight, but they in no way should get equal credit and compensation to All Might, who fought the entire villain team solo.

So say Big Hero Agency and Bigger Hero Agency are doing a team up for the good of Japan. Big Hero Agency initiated the investigation, did most of the legwork, and invited Bigger Hero Agency onto the job. However, when it came to actually fighting, Bigger Hero Agency absolutely carried the day. Big Hero Agency would have been dust if Bigger Hero Agency hadn’t been there.

Who deserves more credit and compensation?

There is probably some kind of governmental dispute/appeal board to settle disputes about compensation, but like. As someone who does government work. The government’s absolute favorite thing to say is “we are not babysitting you, fucking figure it out like big boys.” They’ll have a way to resolve disputes, but they will also heavily incentivize voluntary agreement amongst the parties.

Planned team ups probably have legal working shit out ahead of time. Spontaneous team ups or heroes stealing each other’s fights a la Mount Lady and Kamui Woods in the pilot are probably the biggest headaches.

But what about heroes that are always teaming up? They’re your go to. Your homeboy. The daredevil to your Spider-Man. You don’t file your paperwork together, but you’re still always fighting side by side. Are you renegotiating who gets credit for what in every single little fight?

Fuck no. That’s a huge pain in the ass. Enter the mutual support agreement. It’s a contract that has a bunch of clauses meant to help streamline deciding who gets credit for what and resolve disputes before they happen.

You wouldn’t just want this for compensation purposes. Say Big Hero commits the hero equivalent of police brutality. Now he’s being sued. He’s apparently not that big of a hero as the name implies, because he’s got no fucking money. You want more money for your client, so you need a deeper pocket to pull from. At the time of the incident, he was working with Bigger Hero Agency. They’re not the same agency, but it was Bigger Heroes bust, and they work together all the time. Big Hero is basically one of Bigger Heroes employees hidden behind a different corporate structure. Should Bigger Hero be liable for Big Hero?

That’s a big fucking court case that can be headed off at the pass by the fact that Bigger Hero put indemnification and liability clauses in its mutual support agreement. There’s a lot of issues that would arise from the practice of heroics that you’d want to govern ahead of time with a contract. So you sign a mutual support agreement.

But the silly little fake tumblr post also said they weren’t popular and mostly agencies like Idaten used them. So why is that?

Frankly, because it’s not very worth agencies while to team up with other agencies on the regular. The system doesn’t incentivize it.

If you have all of your own sidekicks on a job, you can steal credit from them. The same is not true for heroes from other agencies. You get more public funding if you staff a job with all people from your agency instead of having part of the credit go to other agencies. And you get to stand in front of the cameras and say “Big Hero Has Saved The City Again” instead of having to say “Thank You To Our Dear Friends From Bigger Hero Agency Who Carried This Team.”

Idaten is the exception because, well. It doesn’t care. Idaten’s priority is cultivating the necessary talent and teamwork needed to get the job done. It doesn’t care if it has to go outside of the agency for that. Fuck, Tensei’s canonically willing to reach out to vigilantes. Its genuine focus is saving people, so it goes against the grain of what the system incentivizes.

Mirio and Tamaki have a mutual support agreement. They’re out working together so much that Fat Gum’s agency approved an overall disliked mechanism to facilitate their team ups. They are heroes together—so why aren’t they in an agency together?

I think Tamaki wanted to spend his first year in heroics forcing himself out of his comfort zone so he’d improve. Fat Gum will force him in front of the cameras. He’s focusing on learning how to communicate effectively with the public and with the media, and Fat Gum has the sort of resources and infrastructure where Tamaki can devote the time to learning that and improving. If he was in an agency with Mirio, he’d use Mirio as a crutch to hide from something he genuinely wants to improve in. Fat Gum forces him to grow.

Mirio himself sort of had to go independent. For one, he and Izuku decided to start their agency not too long after Mirio got his license. It was before Mirio debuted. Izuku had just finished his first year. No one knew who either of them were, and they had no clue just how famous they’d both become before Izuku graduated.

They both figured they’d be a couple of nobody heroes with a dinky little agency right out the gate of Izuku’s graduation and were sort of genuinely excited at the prospect. They’d just be heroes together, which is all they wanted. They’d figured no one would give a shit about them until well after they started their agency and started working and that Izuku would have 0 offers to work elsewhere because he wasn’t even going to apply to agencies. So Mirio decided he’d stay independent until Izuku graduated so he wouldn’t be tied up in an agency contracts and they could just start fresh.

The other reason is that most agencies wouldn’t touch Mirio with a ten foot pole because he was Quirkless, and even with the ones that would, he suspected they’d sideline or coddle him because he was Quirkless. Being independent meant he could do whatever the hell he pleased. So he bought the Mirio Mom Van and, for a brief, glorious moment, convinced All Might to supervise their bullshit so he could start going on jobs with Izuku (students have to be supervised by heroes with a teaching license, which he wouldn’t be eligible for for the first three years of his career, except in exigent circumstances. He couldn’t have Izuku as an intern himself but All Might sure could). For a few beautiful weeks it was just Mirio, Izuku, and fucking All Might in the Mirio Mom Van going on stakeouts, all wearing the world’s stupidest mustaches. The UA internship program revoked permission for this arrangement not long after it started formally out of concerns for the legality of this arrangement since All Might was no longer an active duty hero, informally because All Might, Izuku, and Mirio is the stupidest and most reckless combination fucking imaginable and they are killing Aizawa from the stress they are killing him. So now Mirio works alone while he waits for Izuku to be fully licensed.

Nejire I kind of see as someone who moved away from her hometown right out of the gate of graduation but visited home very frequently, which is why she moved to Kyoto after graduation but was having a fucking sleepover at Mirio’s place when Yokohama happened. She takes the bullet train back at least once a month and spends the weekend bumming on Mirio or Tamaki’s couch. I think she wanted to see who she was away from home and there’d never be a better time to do it. I also think she’ll move back so that way she can work more fully with Her Boys one day, but wanted to push herself out of the familiar first.

All of the trio’s reasons for not working together quite yet are mutable, to be clear. Tamaki just wanted the experience early in his career or he knew he’d never learn the public relation skills he wanted to get. Nejire also just wanted the experience somewhere else before she put down real roots somewhere and is liable to move back to be with her friends and family. And Mirio’s on the verge of opening his own agency, so he doesn’t have to worry about getting sidelined by his boss anymore or getting tied up in a bad contract.

[crow-enthusiast]

once i finish my xmen first class fanfic im writing it’ll be over for you bitches

[network-rail]

I was heading into Euston (on a train) and I saw a heritage train pulling in at the same time. Inside there were a bunch of colored lights along with some children celebrating, which was quite mysterious until I saw the locomotive had a “Polar Express” plate on the front (and British Railways logo on the tender).

I also discovered that the ticket machines at Euston do not offer platform tickets, so I was only able to get a photo from the adjacent platform entrance (and a kind of blurry one from onboard my train).

[museofvoid]

Can I just bring something up about Wyll that I feel is overlooked a lot of the time? Which is that he's a little bit arrogant. He likes to boast and tell stories about his past adventures and monsters he's slain, he encourages bard song about himself. He's disappointed when the tiefling kids have heard of Karlach but not him. He does a superhero pose when he introduces himself for goodness sake!

Now don't get me wrong, he's still very much that selfless and self-sacrificing hero who wants to inspire people and wholeheartedly cares for the Sword Coast. Wyll is a good man! But that doesn't mean he's not enjoying the attention it brings. He's basically living out his childhood fantasy of being a great hero and he loves it! Despite the ugly parts of it.

People also like to see Wyll as someone who's saving himself for marriage, which I definitely can see, but as I said, he revels in the attention, and I honestly don't believe he's above spending the night with some maiden he picked up in a tavern during his travels, from time to time. In game lf you have him in your party together with Shadowheart and Lae'zel he'll openly flirt with both of them. In front of the other.

Now do I believe part of it is an act? That the Blade of Frontiers is a sort of persona he puts on to inspire bravery, or because he feels like he needs to? Yes. Does that mean it's all fake? No.

[floofysmallbob]

eeehhhhhh I’m not feeling this redesign but here it is

I mean, I like it better than canon, but it just doesn’t look too great, and the name I was going to use (Braires) is already the name of the guard at Tartarus, so I had to settle on this, and it’s just kinda meh, but honestly, it’s not going to be perfect, and i unfortunately have to accept that. So here’s Polymeliac Hero: Hekatonkheires

camouflage pattern

no weird eyes

more muted colors

knee pads

steel knuckled gloves

pointy ears

mask is separated from the rest of the costume

extra arms cut off at the wrist instead of having a joint where the hand would be

forgot the shading where the clothes are casting a shadow on his skin but it’s ok

COLD WEATHER VERSION:

poncho

slightly darker colors

thicker gloves(not fingerless)

thicker fabric(not visible)

WARM WEATHER VERSION:

lighter colors

lighter fabric(not visible)

thats it

this was honestly fairly rushed, but idk it turned out ok

As always, tips and advice are appreciated!

[walkman-cat]

@visresponding here they are!!! the sillies <333

[mercless]

odyssey talon train sketches under the cut... i think i wanna try out 1-2 more outfit ideations before i stick to one

[artinandwritin]

Modern au Siri has a scrapbook/pretty notebook she uses for everything and it often gets stolen by her friends

Cute lil doodle!! I teeeeeechnically did have @spacenintendogs dragons off the coast au in mind while drawing this lmao but it could be for any modern au <333

[starlightbelle]

Don’t get me wrong, everyone is somebody’s fave and I’m glad for the people rooting for the underdogs/less popular characters that their fave made it but I find it kinda hard to believe that EVERYONE in Class A “made it” as a Pro.

Like, yes I know UA is the best hero school in Japan (certainly the most famous and revered) but that doesn’t mean the hero-success rate is a hundred percent

Nobody tried hero work for a while and then realized their passion/calling was elsewhere? No one got injured and had to take a step back? No one started a family? No one graduated but couldn’t keep up with the big leagues and eventually just settled for lower-level sidekick work or just quit heroing altogether?

With a dissolvement of the hero charts I might find it more believable but with the system left so intact as it is, the Pro Hero pool is more competitive than ever…

I get Horikoshi probably wanted to tie everything up with a nice little bow (was never gonna happen if the villains couldn’t be saved) but 20 (21 if you count Shinso) out of 20 becoming successful pros?? 🤨

[siobhanromee]

had a bad dysphoria day today

[tothelasthoursofmylife]

Me: I'm going to fix the anachronistic plumbing in Chagrin... yes, it will just be that... a quick fix...

WotQ, which had plumbing issues forever: You sure it will be a quick, one-off fix?

Mystery:

Malady 4:

Destruction:

etc. (surely)

[maiamaiden]

i think the concert made me sick lol