Studiously Avoiding Responsibility

August 2015

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August 2020

yo guessed who finally watched Into the Spiderverse

–>> this beotch <<–

[All Might runs into a strange hero in their younger years. Or maybe, this hero runs into him.]

Heroes, as a people and a movement, never ceased to amaze Yagi.

He couldn’t help but celebrate the community that had grown up around the concept of helping, and found himself constantly in awe of how many ways there were to uplift, soothe and support fellow humans in times of need – and ways that elevated heart above fists, more and more. He knew these brave souls looked and spoke in thousands of ways, and rejoiced in that, but sometimes even he came across a hero who stopped him in his tracks and his assumptions.

In this case, with a slap to the face.

Kevlar texture. High velocity. He had seen the hero’s weapon – was it a weapon or a Quirk or both? – arcing through the air, slashing forward and back and snatching villains into custody and companions out of the way. Possibly he was in the wrong and had ventured too close, but he wasn’t thinking when he dove after the worst of the bunch, the leader of the villain gang who was keen to get away with the detonator in hand.

Yagi didn’t see the white band coming from the left but damn, it cracked across his cheek like a thunderbolt, rattling his jaw and stinging instantly.

His head whipped around and he fisted the thing out of the air in the same breath, famous grin torqued into a snarl. He tasted the tang of blood as he saw the figure on the other side of the white cloth, dressed in a shapeless black suit with – a pro sidekick emblem on his shoulder? The next second, the man yanked the cloth out of his hand, sliver of a smirk barely visible underneath scruff and the excess weapon piled around his shoulders.

The hero-in-training darted off across the rooftops, impressively quick on his feet with the help of the slapping weapon thing, and wasn’t half as graceful standing in front of Yagi two hours later when everything was wrapped up and the villains on their way to prison.

As All Might watched, the sidekick shifted from foot to foot in front of him, wordless after hailing him down in the street. His slatted yellow goggles were perched on his forehead and he stared at the concrete below. Two other heroes milled anxiously a block away, looking over far too frequently to be simple bystanders.

Then the sidekick in front of him sighed. Loudly. All Might was even more confused than before.

“All Might-sama.”

Ah! He speaks!

His first instinct was to be jovial, but All Might bit his lip and chose a more neutral approach.

“Friend,” he greeted uncertainly, evergreen smile faltering due to more than the throbbing at his cheek. It was a nasty abrasion, the medics said, and though it was safely sealed under a bandage, it still smarted. It wasn’t nearly as distracting as the sidekick’s terribly grim expression.

Usually people were a little more … excited to meet him, to be honest.

“I’m aware you were hit by my capture weapon in the skirmish,” the hero said quietly, voice slightly muffled by the very same weapon wound around his neck and shoulders in a protective casing.

Aware! All Might almost scoffed, remembering the tiny smirk that he was now certain he hadn’t imagined. Aware enough to be smug about it!

As a leading hero and one whose specialty was melee, Yagi was entirely inured to teammates – especially ones as young as this one – falling all over themselves to apologize after catching him in the fray of something or other. He was used to laughing and assuring them that all was well, even comparing scars and congratulating them on their performance until they were both exhausted from niceties.

Here, it seemed like this young man was performing a chore. A chore assigned by the two heroes – the voice one and the one who debuted a little beforehand, with the sleeping Quirk – watching from the corner, who instantly skittered back out of sight when he looked up, hissing and shoving each other on the way.

“So, I apologize,” the strange hero said, in perfect form, with due courtesy, and as blandly as humanly possible. He even inclined his head, pausing to brush his ratty bangs from his eyes and said no more.

“You don’t seem sorry,” Yagi said before he could properly stop himself, bemused that someone could be staring him down so balefully and yet speak those polite words.

“And you don’t seem upset,” he replied with terrible quickness, then looked aside with a certain chagrin as if he’d caught himself out. “So why are we having this conversation?”

“Conversation is a bit of an overstatement,” All Might chuckled.

Expression never changing, the sidekick turned and began to walk away.

“Wait,” Yagi called, laughing even harder now. What a peculiar man!

“What do you want,” the sidekick said icily, glaring over his shoulder.

Freed from the structure and script of a formal apology, slouching and hiding in his own ball of twine weapon like a cornered cat, it only took one look for Yagi to realize what kind of a personality he had found. Oh, this one was not a people person!

“My goodness, and what do you think I could want from you?” All Might teased, then, so as not to earn himself another scratch to the face, he took a moment to pretend to stroke his chin and think.

In reality, he was trying to massage away the urge to laugh and school his expression into something serious and genuine. He really did have something to say. This hero seemed like a man who responded to professional entreaties and he couldn’t do that grinning like a fool.

“I was going to offer you my compliments on your technique. Aside from the, ah, first hand experience…”

Damnit, he giggled again. He couldn’t help but take some glee in the way the heroes eyes narrowed, and cleared his throat.

“I noticed your techniques are all defensive, focused on disarming and de-escalation of a given situation. Yours and Miss … Twilight’s, I think it is. I wanted to applaud both your skill sets and execution – neither are something built overnight. Most pros think it far easier to smash first and ask questions later, which sometimes creates more problems than solutions!” He exclaimed, patting his own side as if saying ‘guilty as charged’.

“Seeing and reacting to assaults and quirks in real time with the intent of diffusing violence instead of continuing it…  I hope to see more and more of it. That’s the sustainable future of heroics that I see rising, and I thank you for not taking the easy way out, and being brave enough to make your own way.”

The young hero paused, seeming to consider his words.

“We’ll put you out of business in a years time, if that’s the case,” he murmured over his shoulder, expression unreadable.

“Please do,” Yagi said with all the warmth he could muster. “Believe me, I would like nothing more.”

He could see that answer shook the dour sidekick somewhat, and was happy to continue smiling at him before he waved and turned, retreating to find a safe place to jump off to begin his way back to the tower.

“I won’t keep you from your evening any longer my friend! Good work out there today!” he called, grinning to himself, more than a little pleased to have surprised the zygote in whatever way he could.

“– can smash first and question him later!”

Yagi pivoted on his boot heel, confused, and saw, down the road, two heroes piling on and muffling the loud yellow haired man of the trio, who was struggling to be heard. The ragged sidekick even shot a panicked look over his shoulder, hair floating, and dashed them all out of sight.

All Might left chuckling, with a little swing in his step.

It took all types to make the world safe. It was good to know he wasn’t too old to be surprised anymore, even if nothing could have prepared him for the shock of waking up 7 years later with that buried memory on his lips, the same sidekick snoring on his stapled-up chest and every cheek to his name aching in some way or another. Then he laughed, rolling over and nosing into Aizawa’s tangled swath of hair.

Character 1: [striding away, leaving character 2 behind after an unfortunate introduction that makes clear their differences in beliefs/allegiance/temperament]

Character 2, reaching out, tentative: ah, I don’t think I caught your name …?

C1, coldly: I didn’t give it to you

C1: [dramatically drops/swings/disappears off a building/cliff/ship with effortless and malevolent grace after shooting C2 a look that says “don’t follow if you know what’s good for you”]

C2: @.@

If you’re ranged DPS, and the melee fighters rushed in to combat before you could do anything.

LIGHT

THEM

UP

It will result in 1 of 2 things:

The melee fighters will flex on how they’re so hardcore they can take it

The melee fighters will learn to hold their action

Sincerely,

What’s left of the Alpha:

(click for better quality)

I’m so ready for this. 

this is ok.

it has happened before. it will happen again. it has been lost before. it will be lost again. and again. and again. and again. art and architecture are transient, and temporary, and 850 years may seem like a lot to the individual, who will live maybe 100 if they are very lucky and very healthy, but even the pyramids at saqqara have only existed for about 6000 years and that’s still not all that much, if you consider the grand scheme of things.

yes, this is terrible. as someone who is deeply religious and literally a professional historian with a focus on art and architecture, this is terrible. im mourning. im gutted. im horrified and upset and miserable. but.

it’s not over.

victor hugo wrote hunchback because notre dame du paris was in the process of collapsing and falling apart, and revitalized the entire world’s focus and love for this church, and that was not even 200 years ago. it led to it being renovated.

the roof has fallen in. the scars of fires are on its buttresses. the rose window has fallen out. the beams and piers have collapsed. the spire has toppled. the stones have suffered, and will suffer again, but it is not gone.

renovation work is essential. sometimes things collapse and burn and break and have to come back. it’s not a terrorist attack, it’s renovation, an accident, but we have so much evidence, history, carefully documented everything on one of the most studied places in the world.

Obviously everyone is shocked but here’s a few important key facts:

The roof is completely gone. Part of it dated back from the 13th century but the rest was from the 19th. The stone arch roof under the top roof is fine.

One of the three main stained glass rose windows has fallen out. Most of the other stained glass windows are okay.

The spire has fallen down and that’s the saddest part. BUT! It was in the process of being restored and the 16 statues that were there were removed just four days ago! So they’re fine.

The main structure is still here and nothing has “burned down” unlike what some people have been saying.

The “treasure” (sacred objects) is safe.