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[doctopoda]

Display Name: Otto Octavius
Profile Photo: is a selfie taken by your tentacle still technically a selfie



[This is just a very short message, sent out a day or two after the end of the Confluence. Otto had wanted to believe it was otherwise - had spent time looking for the boy. But he's seen this before. It's clear what happened.]

Just so everyone knows: the older Spider-Man vanished in the Confluence.

Comments

[levelshift]

[Not unexpected, but he's unhappy nonetheless.]

Yes, I am. Why?

[doctopoda]

Stock up on what you can with that credit card. I've only heard of them coming down on people who buy luxury sports cars or something like that with them - get all your essentials, cash, things you can sell if need be. They won't keep an eye on that.

You'll need somewhere to stay other than the hotel, of course, and you'll want to line that up early. Stay too close to the deadline and you risk them coming to ask which group you're joining.

[levelshift]

[Essentials........

He'll have to stock up on cans of coffee, then. Hopefully it'll be fine if it isn't kept cold, there's only so many of them he can fit into the minifridge.]

Alright. Stocking up doesn't sound difficult.

How hard is it to get an apartment here?

[For someone who is both a kid and has no ID. And... in general, honestly. This isn't something he's ever had to do before, since the city always took care of his accommodations while he was in school. After he dropped out, Yomikawa stepped in.

What a pain in the ass. He doesn't need the guilds after him about that, especially when they've already hassled him about attending school.]

[doctopoda]

That depends - how old are you?

[levelshift]

[Ugh, if he has to ask that then the answer probably isn't good.]

15.

[doctopoda]

[Well. That's not great!]

You're probably going to have a hard time passing for a legal adult. Or getting a decent job.

Are you going to need somewhere to stay? There's a number of us who'd be willing to take you in.

[levelshift]

[There is absolutely no way he'd be able to pass for 18 or 21 or whatever the age for 'adult' is here. No way in hell.]

Fucking hell.

Yeah, shacking up with a total stranger sounds like a great time. I'm trembling with excitement at the thought of it.

[God, what kind of misfortune is this?]

There's really no other options? Dormitories? Anything?

[doctopoda]

I know it's not ideal, but nothing about this is.

[Geez, don't bite his head off.]

I think that meta high school might have boarding, but that comes back to the registration issue.

There's a bunch of kids out in Little Love. Maybe they've got space.

[Otto doesn't know a ton about their situation - he doesn't keep tabs on every kid that arrives here, there's just too many - but he knows there's a decent group of them. Anyway, roommates around his own age would probably be easier.]

[levelshift]

School isn't an option for me.

[He honestly has no idea if the place is anything like Academy City's schools, but he won't take that risk. Thanks, trauma!

Anyways, none of this is looking good. Living with other kids might actually be the worse option. At least with an adult there's the expectation that they can take care of themselves. But kids... he'd be putting them in the line of fire if the kinds of attacks on him that happened back home happened here.

Crap, who knew housing could be so complicated? It almost makes him miss his school dorm. Almost.]

I'll look into it.

Thanks, I guess.

[doctopoda]

Sure. And you can let me know if you need anything, okay?

[He's helped bankroll a lot of unaligned teens in his time here, what's one more?]

Or ask around on here. None of us want to see one of our own struggling.

[levelshift]

[What is with this guy!!]

That's a lot of generosity towards a total stranger. Aren't any of you worried about this charity backfiring on you?

[He's a terrible person, after all, and from a terrible person's perspective it looks really damn easy to take advantage of either this guy or someone else offering up help.]

[doctopoda]

Oh, yes, I live in fear of housed and fed teenagers.

[like, what?]

I'm not sure what risk there would be, but it's worth it.

[levelshift]

[Ugh, this is Yomikawa all over again. What is with adults being kind towards wayward youths??]

In other words, you're terrible at keeping your guard up.

Burglary, property damage, vandalism. Maybe you let someone into your home who is a complete sadist. There are a lot of possibilities.

[doctopoda]

All acceptable.

[It's possible that he tends to treat his own welfare with some casual disregard, but never mind that!]

It'd be worse to risk leaving an innocent person to suffer. God knows I've gotten a lot more help than I really deserved.

[levelshift]

[Accelerator is definitely picking up on that. Either this guy is really dumb or he doesn't care about his own wellbeing, and he's got the sneaking suspicion it isn't the former. It'd be really easy to just call him soft, though something else sticks out to him.]

What do you mean? Why wouldn't you deserve that much charity?

[doctopoda]

Burglary, property damage, and vandalism?

[Which is quite plainly not a proper answer! But hey! He has a point!]

[levelshift]

[Yeah what, that's a villainous answer! What is going on here. Why are his words being thrown back at him!!]

The fuck? Are you saying you get your kicks committing crimes?

[doctopoda]

Of course not.
All I'm saying is that I don't feel like I have any right to decide which new arrivals are worthy of compassion or not.

[levelshift]

Then who do you think does? Those fucking guilds? Law enforcement? The government of whatever city you first land in?

[doctopoda]

Definitely not.
Which is why I like to help out unregistered metas.

[fuck the guilds?]

[levelshift]

So it comes full circle, then.

[Fuck the guilds!]

Well, I'm sure there are plenty of people here who appreciate your charity.

[He is having none of it, because he's like that.]

[doctopoda]

[Otto would really like to say: don't let your pride bite you in the ass. He's been there before - in rather different circumstances, but all the same. Sometimes you just have to accept that you can't do it all.

But that's not going to help anything, is it?]

Maybe so.
But I get your point.
Take care of yourself, then.

[levelshift]

[Relying on other people is hard when you've spent most of your life aggressively isolated from them.]

Yeah, yeah.