#the attempt and the aftermath

[tomb-bloom-noctem]

Thank you for your beautiful work! 🥹 I'm honored someone would even commission something based on my work and your work on it can't be understated! It's stunning! The use of color and lighting is such a fantastic display of your skills. The expression is spot on. Even the purple hospital clothes had me for a split second feel like I was wearing them once again. Thank you again for bringing this vision to life! And thank you @ezmiho for commissioning this scene!

there are some things a cruise can't solve

this was a commission for @ezmiho of a scene from a fic by @tomb-bloom-noctem 💙 thank you very much!

[tsarjozinzbazin]

guys I just realized I didnt post these here only in the server

(og fitzconte wedding picture by the beautiful @evilfaggotyuri <3)

[qoldenskies]

#someone should e-turtle sunshine of the spotless mind him <3

PLEASE WRITE THAT?

listen ... im just thinking about the scenes in CL they DIDN'T get to see. how do you think raph would feel seeing donnie call for him on the laundry room floor

[teamzacian]

Man being Japan must fucking suck because imagine third-wheeling the worlds most pathetic gay for 80 years straight and watching him flirt around his crush only for him to go ‘Ah no, he’s just a very good friend’ and then ‘I truly value our friendship’ after the 3rd Homoerotic Incident of the week.

I genuinely would have gone insane I don’t know how he does it.

[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.

[evebestthinker]

[...] And so, the woman dies. The woman dies so the man can be sad about it. The woman dies so the man can suffer. She dies to give him a destiny. Dies so he can fall to the dark side. Dies so he can lament her death. As he stands there, brimming with grief, brimming with life, the woman lies there in silence. The woman dies for him. We watch it happen. We read about it happening. We come to know it well. - Aoko Matsuda

[hitching-hyacinth]

sharing a cold dot png

[rotating-hyperfixations]

I just saw an Shauna Shipman edit on TikTok that basically showed the slow deification of her baby through season 2 and 3, and that shit started way earlier than I remembered. In the immediate aftermath of her birth and the baby dying Melissa and Gen have a scene talking about the wilderness taking the baby to save Shauna.

I know that Shauna maybe took things a little too far by the end of the season, but given how staunchly she protests the wilderness religion from the jump and combined with how quick the others are to co-opt her grief as their own and turn her baby into a wilderness god, I am actually impressed with how restrained she was at the beginning of the season. Not to mention they seemingly make her move her son’s grave to the communal one, and then she feels like she has to hide the location of his new one. I know the way the group interferes with Shauna’s grief constantly has been discussed, but I didn’t realize how clear the show makes it if you watch 2 and 3 back to back.

Her inability to have her grief recognized as her own (and not a group loss) and the shame and interfering with her grieving process by the others is really what sets her on the path to where she ends up at the end of the season, especially when combined the burden of doing some of the more inhumane tasks early on. I don’t fault any of the girls out there, they were teenagers living in the worst possible scenario, but man it would be interesting to see if she had been allowed to grieve properly would she be slightly more adjusted.

[kwamiwayzz]

Traces in the Night

A/N: It’s been awhile since I’ve written fic consistently, and I’m also procrastinating real hard on one of my WIPs. I’m hoping that writing drabbles here and there will kinda help me get back in the momentum of things. Other than that, hope you Jeckole-likers enjoy this rushed fic I wrote in bed when I should be sleeping.

—

Before college, before meeting Nicole, the night was Jecka’s favorite time of the day. Not because it meant going to the craziest parties. Not because she was a huge night owl by any means.

But it was because of the quiet.

Night meant her parents would be sleeping. Night meant that she wouldn’t hear any glass shattering or roaring insults between her parents. All she had was herself, her thoughts, and some peace for once.

The night was Jecka’s favorite time of the day…until she stepped foot in Nicole’s room that fateful evening back in high school. Luckily, and by some God-given miracle or Allah, or whichever kind of god was up there, Jecka opened the door just in time before her best friend’s life was extinguished by a single rope and the ceiling fan in her room.

As per usual, Nicole pretended like it never happened. She hated the stares of fake pity from their classmates, along with the unnecessary advances from all the guys. Oh? So, now these assholes all of a sudden care about her? Jecka constantly warded them off—told them to off themselves, which was something she yelled out way more often to everyone else than Nicole did. Not that Nicole minded.

Night was the perfect time to escape all that, Nicole thought. She loved the nighttime for the same reasons Jecka did. The night meant quiet. The night meant peace.

But ever since that day, it was just a constant reminder.

She couldn’t sleep again. As she laid in her bed, Jecka stared up at the ceiling above her, ceiling fan staring right back at her—almost as if it was mocking her. She sighed and turned her to side. But what’s the use? No amount of tossing, turning, readjusting, or whatever would fix her brain from replaying that memory all over again. What if it happens again? How can she stop it? What if she sleeps and wakes up to find Nicole gone forever? All because she wasn’t there.

Those were the constant questions that would keep Jecka up at night. No matter how much her body craved sleep, her mind would tell her to stay up. Stay up in case Nicole needs her. She saved her life once, so she needs to be there again. Jecka couldn’t take any chances.

A shift on her bed interrupted her thoughts for a moment. And when she turned around, she realized Nicole was right there, slumbering peacefully. The sight of her face, no tension or anger bubbling underneath as usual, put Jecka at ease. She couldn’t help but smile at Nicole’s face illuminating in the moonlight.

Then Jecka sighed. It didn’t matter if Nicole was right next to her, alive and well—warm and breathing. The memory was always going to replay over and over.

Her eyes gravitated towards her neck. They always did, and Nicole hated it every time she noticed. Jecka would always help her hide it every morning before school. Nothing a bit of mascara and some makeup can’t handle. If only it worked like that for Jecka’s brain, though. Maybe just for one night, she could have some sort of mascara to forget about it. Not forever, obviously. But just for a day, or even a week. Anything would be better than dealing with the nightmares of finding Nicole’s cold and lifeless body in the other girl’s room.

Without thinking, Jecka’s hand slowly came up to Nicole’s sleeping frame. Her fingers gently rested upon her face.

“Okay, for a cold bitch, at least you’re still warm,” Jecka whispered.

Good thing Nicole was a heavy sleeper because if not, she’d tell her how gay this is right now. It’s not gay to touch your best friend’s face. It’s just called concern. Jecka’s fingers continued to trace down her face until she reached her neck. The scars were still there. Purple and black wrapped around Nicole’s neck. The doctor said the scars should fade after a couple months or so. But…

No matter how many times Jecka convinced herself, the scars were a constant reminder that it was her fault. Her fault for not being there for Nicole when she needed her most. Her fault that her best friend almost lost her life.

What a dumbass she was for that ultimatum.

Jecka kept staring at Nicole’s neck and began to trace her thumb along the rope scar—gently, and with feather-like touches.

“I’m sorry.” The apology came out strained, almost as if she wanted to cry.

Nicole might feel weirded out by this in the morning, but Jecka didn’t care. She shifted a little closer, tucking herself under Nicole’s chin and wrapped an arm around her back. The scar now stared back at her, inches from her face. Her lips settled on Nicole’s scarred neck in some childish way to “kiss it all better” or who knows. Maybe she was gay or maybe she really cared about suicidal friend. It didn’t exactly matter.

All that mattered to Jecka was for this to never happen to Nicole again.

She won’t let it.

[bobbie-robron]

Nothing’s left for chance now, is it? Because you’re getting sent down!

05-Sep-2019, episode 2

[sunshiline-writes]

A Rose Amidst Thorns #21: A Reason to Escape

Previous | Masterlist | Next

word count: 2.4k

special shoutout to @whump-card who helped me beta this!

CW: Aftermath of noncon, blood, Jesse's really weird tunnel vision thoughts and general.. being gross.

He’s going to be okay, he’s going to be okay, he’s going to be okay. There’s something wrong with him. There is blood that drips down his legs, covering the inside of his thighs. There’s blood that drips down his chest and shoulder from teeth marks. His eyes are swollen shut, skin black and red all over. His breathing is shallow and his hips are bruised. If he didn’t know any better, Jesse would think he was dead. He was breathing, at the very least. 

Jesse knelt down next to where Miguel was on the floor. Curled in a ball, face screwed in in a pained expression. Breathing ragged and wheezy. Every breath made a rattling, whistling sound that he figured was his broken nose or some broken ribs. He wasn’t sure which. Either way it didn’t look good. He wondered who had done this to him. Jesse was sure that it wasn’t himself. It wouldn’t ever be Solomon. He was also sure that none of the ranch hands would dare come up to the hayloft to do so. If they had him alone somewhere, without Jesse or Xavier there maybe. 

Oh. Xavier. Jesse shivered, examining Miguel more closely. Blood was dark and sticky on his thighs, but when he looked closer, gently pressing a hand on Miguel’s hip. He realized there was another substance there too. White and slick. It was all over his stomach too. His own probably. 

Xavier finally fucked him then. Fucked him hard and beat him half to death. There was anger in his chest, blossoming into his fingers. Miguel was filthy and bloody and it wasn’t because of him. It was because of Xavier. Xavier laid a mark. Had taken something that was his. Miguel was supposed to be his. Now that Xavier had a taste, he’d want more. That was always the way it was with Xavier. 

His feeling stopped as he heard Miguel whimper when he moved away from Jesse’s hand on his hip. Jesse had thought about fucking him one more time before he picked him up. Finding him bleeding on the hayloft floor like that. It made him feel a warmth in his core. He shoved the thought away when Miguel quietly sobbed. Eyes so swollen tears wouldn't come through. Instead, he picked him up as gently as he could. Covered him with the small blanket Xavier kept up here for him, and slowly left the barn.

Miguel was so light in his arms. Had they really been feeding him so little? Or was he hiding the food somewhere because he wasn’t hungry? Jesse wasn’t sure. He wasn’t sure if he actually cared or if Miguel looking so small was just deeply unattractive to him. Jesse needed to stop thinking like that, he would end up dropping him if he did. 

Instead of taking him inside the house, where his uncle would undoubtedly be, he took him into the small stables meant for the ranchhands. Jesse found an empty one and gently laid Miguel in the soft hay there. “I’ll be back okay?” 

There was no response. Jesse hummed as he walked away, forgetting about the fact that Miguel could not hear him. 

Solomon, Solomon, he needed to get to Solomon. Solomon would help him. He also wouldn’t tell Xavier. That was the main point now, who could help without alerting Xavier? 

He snuck into the house, stepping along the walls so the boards wouldn’t creak. Making his way up to Solomon's room, he opened the door. “Solomon,” the man did not stir, “Solomon.” 

“Mmm?” Solomon groaned and sat up in bed, braids messy, in his sleepwear. “Jesse? What are you-” “Shhh,” Jesse said quickly. “Miguel needs you. He’s in the ranch hand’s stable.. It wasn’t-” 

“Was it you?” Solomon growled, feet slipping into some shoes. 

“I was about to say no. It was not me. It was..” he glanced backward for a moment to make sure Xavier wasn’t around. “It was Xavier. It’s bad. I think you better be quick.” 

Solomon was already near him, stepping close. His face was passive but there was a steaming anger in his eyes. Jesse stepped out of his way and Solomon walked down the stairs. He followed behind, more out of curiosity for the reaction than anything else. Maybe he also wanted to know if Miguel would survive it. There was a lot of blood. Something curled heavy in his chest, a lead rope in the bottom of his sternum. 

The man collapsed next to Miguel, horrified noise leaving him when they arrived. Immediately he reached to feel Miguel’s pulse. Solomon’s body was tense, face going back to its normal neutral as soon as he found the pulse. 

“You didn’t do this?” 

“Nah. It was Xavier.” “Xavier?” 

Something in Jesse twisted at the heartbroken tone of Solomon. The man knew this was bound to happen, why would he be so sad. Was he sad because it was Xavier? Or because Miguel was so hurt? Jesse didn’t know what to think, but it created a sinking pit in his stomach. Sadness? Anger? He shoved it down, pushing himself off the wall he was leaning on. 

“Is he, you know, alright?” 

“I need Henrietta down here.” 

A frown lined his features, making Solomon look even older than he was. Last Jesse checked, Solomon was teetering on the edge of 62 or so. Sometimes he looked it, sometimes he didn’t. When he smiled he lost about 10 years from his face, when he frowned he gained 10 more. Often, Jesse wondered if he was always like that, or if Xavier just did that much of a number on him. 

“Yeah, I’ll get her. I think Xavier is out… should be anyway.” 

“Go get her then Jesse,” Solomon said tersely. 

Jesse hummed, standing up straight and walking off to go find Henrietta. He stepped inside the creaky house, frowning. Xavier sat on the couch, passed out, flask open. He smelled like a brothel. Head tipped back on the couch, mouth open enough to catch flies. Jesse snuck past him. Walking up the stairs and gently opening the door to Xavier's room. 

“Hen?” 

The woman was at the vanity, staring at herself like she was trying to find something she lost. Maybe she had lost something. Being around Xavier usually meant there was a trade off. Something to lose. Even if it was just a part of yourself you didn’t know was there. 

“Jesse?? What the hell are you doin-” 

“Shut up. Solomon’s down in the shed with Migs..” 

“Why? Are they celebrating his birthday down there?” 

Jesse laughed. Celebrate? Birthday? Was it his birthday? God. Xavier did that on his birthday? His stomach churned at the thought. Even he wasn’t that fucked up. 

“I forgot about his birthday,” he mumbled before shaking his head, “nah something bad happened. Again. Solomon asked for you.” 

Henrietta stood up from the vanity, grabbing the lantern and shoving past Jesse. Everyone suspected Jesse when it came to Miguel. Perhaps that was fair. Miguel was his favorite little punching bag after all. Favorite fuck toy. Best dog he’d ever had. But this? This was too far even for him. He’d never do something like that on a birthday, birthdays are sacred. Meant to be good things. 

Jesse always got a silver dollar on his birthday. Lately though, he had stopped using it on himself. There were two redheaded children who lived in the brothel womens houses he’d been buying gifts for. One of them was already eight years old, the other five. They both had his hair. But they didn’t have the signature Reede eyes. They both had their mothers eyes. He dropped gifts off for them and left before they could see or stop him. 

He was self aware. He knew that there was something wrong with him. Jesse's way of thinking was different from other peoples. Feeling things came to him differently. There was no inbetween for him. Sad, angry and happy. There was no inbetween, there was just that emotion and nothing else. He didn’t understand how people could feel happy and sad at the same time. Or angry and sad. Jesse only knew how to feel things one at a time. 

They made their way down the stairs and Henrietta stopped at the sight of Xavier. Jesse watched her carefully, squinting at the scene in front of him. He couldn’t tell what her expression was. She didn’t even whisper when she spoke. 

“I could kill him. I could do it. Right now. It would be easy.” 

“It would be easy,” Henrietta turned toward him. Her face as always was blurry, but he squinted. It cleared slightly and her expression was something between terrified and angry. She always leaned more toward terrified. He sighed. “But you won’t.” 

“Why not? Do you think I wouldn’t?” 

Jesse grabbed her arm and yanked her toward the door. “Solomon wants you Hen.” 

She pulled out of his grip, growling at him. Eyes alight with rage. There was still more fear in them than anything else. Jesse stared down at her, calming himself with a deep breath. 

“I could kill him right now and everything would be better.” 

“But you won’t” Jesse snapped, no longer caring for the loudness of his words. Xavier was passed out anyway. Too drunk to function. He longed for that crisp blackness that came with getting too drunk. 

“How do you know Jesse? Fuck you! I could do it! I could!” 

Jesse growled, grabbing her by the throat and slamming her against the wall. Leaning in real close until her face became clear. Fear shining in her eyes. He didn’t squeeze or hold too tight. He just held her there. 

“You can’t do it because you’re still too afraid. You’re not angry enough Henrietta.” Her eyes went wide and the hands on his wrist loosened their grip. “You’re fucking afraid of him and you can’t really kill someone you’re still afraid of.” 

“Is that why you haven’t yet?” 

His chest tightened. “No.” 

“Right.”  

Jesse let her go, stepping back away. “Are you gonna come with me to Solomon or not Hen. You’re gonna wake up him with all your fucking whining.”  

Henrietta looked away, rubbing at her throat as she walked in front of him and out of the house. He followed her. The next steps felt numb. Hollowing him out as they walked to the shed and Henrietta let out a horrified cry as she dropped herself next to Solomon and Miguel. 

Miguel looked better without all of the blood on him. But his eyes were still swollen shut, and bruises littered his body. Ugly black and blue things that were dark enough to blend with the night sky. He curled up in Solomon's lap, still only covered by the thin blanket. He shivered and cried quietly, fucked up hands curled in his lap, head resting on Solomons shoulder. 

“Get out,” Henrietta said, looking back at Jesse.  

“What the hell did I do? I’m helping!” 

“You probably did this to him you fucking little shit.”  

Jesse scoffed and shook his head, “I was waiting until tomorrow to fuck him.” 

Henrietta and Solomon shared a look, frowning at each other. Was it something he said? Jesse felt awkward standing there in silence. He slid down the wall, sitting on the floor. Knees halfway to his chest. 

“I-” he paused, frowning and trying to think of the words, “I think that Xavier, has been losing it lately you know. Gettin’ meaner. Worse. Beatin’ on everyone more than usual. I want to kill him. I ain’t angry enough either, Hen, to kill him. I just wanna leave. I know a way to the river, the Salt River. I went there once on a deal with the Earl’s family. He’s just across it. I’ll do whatever ya want you know? We can go opposite ways once we get there. We just gotta get there.”  

Solomon and Hen stayed staring at him in open mouth shock. What the fuck was that about? Hadn’t they known he’d been itching to leave since he was seventeen? He asked to leave. Wanted to join the army. Thinking about it made the X brand on his back itch. He’d been whipped within an inch of his life, and branded for his threat to the Reede legacy. Jesse never wanted to be a rancher. He wanted to build things. Always liked building his mother things when she was alive. Built her a birdhouse once. Hung it up on the tree outside and watched the red cardinal live there. Raise its children there. 

If he ever got out, he’d probably try a hand at carpentry. 

“We have a plan,” Solomon said suddenly, “We were planning to escape before.” 

“Solom-” 

“Stop Hen. We just needed a place to go. Everything else is ready Jesse. If you’re serious about this. We need to wait for Miguel to heal again. Then we can go.” 

“I think we have to go whether he’s healed all the way or not,” Jesse said. 

“We know that! But he needs to at least be able to walk when we leave idio-” 

“Henrietta,” Solomon's gentle voice cut her off. “He knows. He knows.” 

Jesse hummed slightly, glancing down at Miguel, who had since stopped shivering and now was sufficiently asleep. Snoring softly, mouth slightly open, face half pressed into Solomon's shoulder. Fuck. Xavier could have killed him. 

He could have killed him and Jesse would have been alone. Jesse knew that Henrietta and Xavier hated him. But Miguel and Solomon. They were still kind even if Miguel bit and scratched at him. Even if Solomon stared at him like he was some sort of rabid animal. Miguel was the one who still looked at him like a person. He made him feel like a person. He liked Miguel, he really did. When Miguel wasn’t terrified of him, he was sarcastic and shy. Miguel was pretty in pain, but he’d seen him laugh with Solomon once and that was even prettier.  

How could he possibly ever be good enough for that laugh? 

The answer was simple, it was plain. He never would.  

Jesse wished he could go back and stop himself from fucking Miguel in that stall. The first time. But you can’t go back. No matter how hard you try, you can’t go back. Jesse could only deal with what he had. 

He was going to escape with a roomful of people who hated him. 

“So.. tell me about this plan you have.” 

____

TAGLIST:

@demondamage @burntcoffeewhump @angst-after-dark @just-a-silly-little-whumper @tictac-murder-spaghetti @crash-bump-bring-the-whump @whumpifi

@flowersarefreetherapy @badgerwhump @whumpbees @whumplr-reader @cyberwhumper @kixngiggles

ask if you'd like to be added or removed!!

[plotdesigner]

golden cages: the road to lindon

Continues from here - now that Glorfindel has discovered that the gold cage crew has escaped from Sauron, it's time to help them get to Lindon proper. Which is all fine and good except hauling four highly traumatized elves, two small children, a seven foot tall viking and an orc to the high king's palace is an undertaking.

(or uh. @malkaleh @themalhambird SEND HELP THE PLOTBUNNIES ARE COMING )

You decide to let the elves fuss over Tyelperinquar and leave. They have catching up to do, and now that it's been confirmed Gil-Galad is not as furious as Galadriel or Elrond as you had feared, you gauge it safe enough to leave his soldier with your charges.

(Besides, if he tries anything, you think Galadriel will strangle the elf with his own hair.)

Instead you head out of the guard house to see Sven and the children. Sven is lying on the picnic blanket with Bjorn sleeping on his chest, holding very still so as not to wake his small son. Freyja is back on the tree, playing, and when she sees you there's a glint of mischief in her eyes -

You are already running. You catch her when she jumps. It is a bad habit, since children learn by doing and falls are inevitable, but Men are made with glass bones and berry flesh and you do not need to take care of a broken bone on top of all the other things going on with you.

"Grand-Adar, you're back!" she squeals, wrapping her arms around your face as she clambers onto you piggy-back. "Do we have to get ready to fight?"

Sven's eyes flit over to you, though he doesn't say anything. Doesn't want to startle the children, you think.

"No, no," you say. "It turns out that elf visiting us is a friend. It was just very hard to tell because he was being just as careful as we are about hiding away. It's important to be careful."

"Good. He will be spared the frogs," Freyja announces imperiously.

You sit on the blanket next to Sven; Freyja hops off your back and splats down on the ground next to her father. You follow suit; the throb in your thigh won't like standing back up, but the smell of grass is nice and the picnic blanket is soft.

"He came from the elf king, who has missed his friends very much," you say neutrally. You have all been careful to speak neutrally about GIl-Galad despite your fears of his wrath so as not to stoke fear until it was absolutely neccessary. "He wants to take us to see the elf doctors."

Sven looks over to you; you roll onto your side and sign to him, "They're not giving us a choice."

He nods, brows knitting with concern,and says with forced casualness:"We'll get to see the elf kingdom up close, won't we?"

"We will. It will be very different than what I knew," you agree. "We're all going to learn a great deal about elves."

"Do dyou think that guy will show me his sword?" Freyja asks.

"If youa sk politely," you say. "Elves love to show off."

~

In truth, you didn't just come out here to ensure there weren't too many wargs in the pit.

You are not capable of hate. If you were, the sheer magnitude of loathing you have for the world, for elves, for men, for Mairon, would burn so brightly that you'd be nothing but ashes in a heartbeat. You have lived too long to not have grudges.

And though you had seen Glorfindel in passing a few times while you were in disguise in Gondolin, you know his legacy very well. You had helped gather the broken bodies of the balrogs in the aftermath to carry back to Angband - some parceled out to the survivors to mourn,and some to be studied, and a few chips you had stolen for yourself.

(The balrogs had been the closest thing you had to friends among Morgoth's Maiar. They had allowed you and the other Moriandor to hide with them when your masters grew wrathful and wanted a target, any target. They had tried not to have your children spend their lives in vain when lead into battle. Gothmog had patiently let you sit with him and lay out lines of descent, new upcoming births, had celebrated with you as a fellow servant of Morgoth rather than as Maia and mortal. )

( Not that you can say this here. Gothmog alone had killed plenty of your elves' loved ones, and his kin had cause even more mayhem. The elves still jockey with discomfort when discussing the ways they hurt each other; would any of them stand talk about how you were an enemy and adored your fellow enemies?)

So you cannot be angry at Glorfindel for killing your friends and your children. And it would do you no favors to have him hold a grudge against you for your role in the last days of Gondolin, so you are not telling him. You are not telling anyone a lot of things. Those days are kept safe in the locket of your heart.

~

When Glorfindel and Elrond come out to find the four of you, Bjorn is awake enough to be nibbling on a rind of cheese and you and Sven have been recruited for jumprope. Freyja is busy chanting one of the jumping rhymes that you translated into something legible for her - well, legible enough. It still wants something in the text, but the meter is right:

"Boiling sun brings desolation Blinding glass disintigration Interloper destination: Guillotine decapitation Head goes to defenning - defundy - aw,nuts!"

Freyja gets tangled in the ropes as she mangles the line.

"Head goes to defenestration," you remind her.

"What's that mean again?"

"It means you throw it out the window," you say.

"Is this what the children of Men sing in their villages?" Glorfindel asks, looking owlishly between the four of you.

"No. It's what the children in Angband sang," you say, daring him to comment. "I hope it's not too coarse for your delicate ears."

"Not at all," Glorfindel says, eying you.

"We've worked out a general plan for how we're traveling," Elrond interupts, "and it's almost sunset. So we were going to have dinner prepared."

"Are we going to see a castle???"

"I want to see a garden," Bjorn says softly.

"There will be many gardens, fear not," Elrond says, and he kneels down smiling. Bjorn raises his arms and Elrond obliges by picking him up. "We're going to have to travel a little more, but there will be a great deal to see."

Freyja untangles herself from the makeshift jumprope and tugs on Glorfindel's sleeve. "Can I see your sword?"

You sign, "It seems peaceful so far," to Sven.

He nods back and signs, "I'm still keeping an ear out."

"Sensible."

@kenobiwaned @nocompromise-noregrets @eowyn7023 @self-destructinganimal @seagull-energy

[sunsetsmakemesad]

They keep giving them concussions

[st-osmanthus]

Chapters: 1/1 Rating: General Audiences Relationships: Monkey D. Luffy & Roronoa Zoro Additional Tags: Gen or Pre-Slash, Fluff, Angst, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Devotion, Loyalty, Palate Cleanser, Guilt, POV Second Person

“I’m sorry, Kuina,” you try to apologize, but you would do it again, and knowing that, any apology is merely an empty condolence. You would do it ten thousand times and another ten thousand more if it means saving his life.

She doesn’t stop crying. She’s so small. She will forever remain this small — a little fae of a girl for whom time has stopped. You will never see her stand tall, sword in her hands, a loving family by her side. She will never write you letters or send mementos from her travels. She lives solely in your pride, and you have chosen to discard it.

[rpfisfine]

the nerve of sending “please unblock me 🥺” asks on anon LOL i block dozens of ppl practically every day do you rly think you’re memorable or special enough for me to remember who you are and care that your dash is now empty like how is this my problem exactly you shouldn’t have acted like a moron

[oozeandgoo-art]