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The Objectification of Shigaraki.

Throughout the manga, Shigaraki’s identity is one of the things that people argue shows how little humanity he has left, and that he is ‘too far gone’ to be saved - and to actually have a proper ending.

When we first see Shigaraki depicted to us through the ‘Heroes side’ eyes, he is defined as a man-child. His entire persona gets downplayed, and compared to a child (who still has to grow, for sure), but it still puts a dent into the perspective of the adult that Shigaraki is. The thing is, this definition would even be fine, if the conception of ‘child’ in this fandom would not equate immature, weak (and even further than that, it just proves that Shigaraki has no redemption path, as it affirms that he always has been this way - especially if at his age, he behaves like a kid, meaning that he never grew up from those feelings, validating the opinion that those feelings are inherent to his persona).

Then, he fails to shake this identity off  - but rather it evolves from a man child throwing tantrums, to that of someone who All Might might care about (as Nana’s grandson), and yet that thought gets killed almost at its birth, by the intervention of the HPSC and Gran Torino, who defines him as a villain, and nothing else. An entity of void, filled with hate (but not despair), out to kill, destroy and nullify whatever comes across his fingers. Rather than a person (again), Shigaraki is seen as a label, a ‘villain’, and there goes also the respectability or the little feelings of humanity he should deserve as a person first, and a villain second. 

It’s really no wonder that in the end, Shigaraki, after crying for help and expressing himself multiple times, calling out the rot in society, once again gets disregarded because he is now not even human - but rather a thing. A walking disaster. A threat - a monster. He has transformed into a not-fully-in-potential thing, which could cause a nightmare of a national scale, and it is scary, because he is powerful and he is not afraid to go for his objective. At the same time, he is left with little of the humanity that his feelings should give him. This double narrative is expressed in Shigaraki being filled with a lot of powerful feelings, and yet being interpreted as nothing but an object filling space and plotting for destruction. And therefore, if this image is projected as what Shigaraki is, it is hard to conciliate this and the possibility that he might be ‘eligible’ for a potential saving (this is also exactly what the discourse about Shigaraki in the Vestiges - chapter 305 - looks like, a moral dilemma between the Shigaraki as a Natural Disaster, an entity and a kid in dire need of help).

The invalidation of his entire persona, however, is not even all due to him being a villain. The thing is, the other side (the ones siding with the pro-heroes) is not the only one to objectify him. He is not only kidnapped but  then also manipulated into believing that he cannot be anything else than a bad person. He is a pin, and he is since the beginning in AfO’s hands. He is turned into a tool, a future king - but one that has his destiny already written out: he has to serve a purpose (even, multiple ones) but he is not allowed to stray from the path already designed for him, because he should not want, but he should obey. 

He got so far thanks to AfO, so as a valid exchange, he should fulfil his own duty as the line connecting AfO’s dreams with reality. Shigaraki should willingly cease his own will to become nothing but a vessel and surrender his body to AfO. Nothing in this scenario presupposes that Shigaraki might have a will of his own, or even want something (apart from destroying and serving AfO), which makes these panels even more powerful.

Shigaraki rebelling and stating that he is not confined by the only things he thought shaped him as an individual is not only a refusal of identity: it’s the acknowledgement that there is more that he could do, and that he is not a static object, nor he will stop being an evolving person - just to fulfil the duty someone else has forced on him. And this is the beauty of Shigaraki’s character: a person, who is denied his status as a person - while being at the same time able to feel more and more, more than an average individual that is, and expressing it so harshly and every time in such destructive ways that people around start feeling afraid of him. The things is, people should not be afraid of his persona, as they continue to downplay it, but of all the feelings, which are so damn hard felt, that in the end, are the only thing keeping Shigaraki actually alive.

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I can draw him with that hair everyday

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Low-key feel like I've been lying to Tumblr bc I don't think I've ever posted my favorite character here??? Anyway here's a Tomura drawing I did, also new pfp

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redraw of The Panel bc we're on a break this week

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Shiggy chilling, playing games. He got pissed with LOL, switched it up.

Dont repost

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What if she hadn’t been saved? What if he had?

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EVERYONE IS ALIVE AND WELL IZUKU WILL HAVE HIS ARMS BACK ITS GONNA BE FINE

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Are you even intrinsically linked if you're not going through the Horrors together?

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can you even call it a warm up if I'm going to bed without drawing anything big

and a sketch I made while sitting in the park today

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I think they should game together

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Izuku and Tomura parallel: getting their limbs back after losing them

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Is there a is-shigaraki-alive-yet countdown somewhere? We need one

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How do you think AFO would be taken out?

Hard to say! All the heroes uniting against him as ~the ultimate evil~ might seem satisfying on some level, but it also plays directly into AFO's toxic comic book narrative and it doesn’t really "engage" with his character in a totally satisfying way, if that makes sense. I'm firmly on team "afo shouldn't get what he wants, Ever" so I'm not a fan of any ending that merrily sends him off into his next life as a "demon lord" instead of actively trying to rip that mask from him. Hori hasn't really let me down on this front, yet-- and as I suspected, it does seem as though chapter 419's AFO is more or less picking up where body!AFO's character arc left off. AFO's core desires as a human and the immensely fragile "heart" he's hidden away are both things that are being directly challenged in the most recent chapter, too:

Izuku, the hero, constantly inspires others to come to his aid because he doesn't hide his humanity, his identity, or his struggles from others-- people see him fighting for his life and realize that he is "just like them," and that motivates them to rush to his side and offer help. Meanwhile, AFO finds himself completely alone because he wont let go of the demon lord role and accept his own humanity. Something something We Still Need To Know His Name smthing sm.

With all of that in mind, I still think the most appropriate way of defeating him involves forcing him to confront his own humanity + weakness in all its ugliness (which Hori has already been doing at a pretty steady rate this arc!) and ultimately forcing him to take responsibility for Yoichi's death. This might seem like a massive leap from the person AFO is right now, but depending on how things go, I do think Hori could pull it off.

Anyway, as for what I would like to see:

Personally, I would like an end where he willingly lets Yoichi go (and by proxy, finally lets Tenko go). Not because I think this would redeem him (it wont) or because I want him redeemed (i don't), but because I do feel like something along these lines would be the natural conclusion to his character arc and the best way to symbolize him accepting death/his mistakes. He came into the world desperately gripping onto Yoichi, and was unable to ever truly live or truly die due to his obsession-- so it makes sense to me that AFO will only be able to leave this world when he finally lets Yoichi go. Like.... even now, we see him stubbornly persisting with the idea of conquering the world even though he feels it's totally pointless-- with the implication that he's doing this because the demon lord role and the captain hero comics are literally the only thing he has atp that still connect him to Yoichi in some capacity.

If I end up being right and the OFA embers now exist within Tenko's body, then ideally, I still want some sort of conversation + resolution between the brothers before Yoichi finally passes on with the rest of the OFA embers. I'll admit that I've never been 100% fond of the idea of reading Izuku & Tenko's story as Yoichi/AFO's "good ending", simply because so much of Tenko's story is about reclaiming his own identity (+ detangling himself from his abusers) and so much of Izuku's story is about finding his own identity-- which is why I feel the final resolution to the OFAFO plot needs to be between AFO and Yoichi, not Izuku and Tenko.

I actually don't want Tenko to kill him! I think I've said this before, but I feel this outcome would be only satisfying to folks who want Tenko to have very surface-level revenge on his abuser w/o thinking about the effect this act would have on Tenko himself. I personally feel it wouldn't do Tenko any favors, mentally, since the crux of AFO's abuse involved convincing Tenko that he only exists to destroy. And people really hate to admit it, but-- Tenko sincerely loved AFO and I don't want him to have to repeat the tragedy of being forced to kill someone he loved all over again (even if they don't deserve that love by any stretch of the word). Like, a lot of people want Tenko to take AFO out the same way he took Kotaro out, but I feel this would only emphasize how Tenko and AFO are trapped in an endlessly repeating cycle.

side note: Kotaro coming directly from AFO's stomach/womb during the 270's vestige realm sequence feels extremely intentional now, what with the constant cannibalism and pregnancy imagery surrounding AFO and Tenko. MHA continues to be a masterful example of visual storytelling and Horikoshi continues to be a straight up freak for no real reason /positive!

A big part of Tenko's healing was always going to involve him confronting his feelings for Kotaro, specifically-- all of his love and disappointment and wishes and anger. And with that in mind, it feels like Hori is setting AFO up to act as a sort of Kotaro proxy for this next stretch of Tenko's character arc (even TomurAFO's current hairstyle and facial structure reminds me of a mix of Kotaro x AFO x Toshi.... Hori really said "Tomura's final character design is gonna be a mish-mash of every potential father-figure who has ever let him down byeeeeee :)" and he was sooooo sick for doing that wtf). Anyway, I know people like to joke about AFOtaro, but honestly, the narrative itself really does justify the read of Tenko being AFO and Kotaro's traumababy lmfao...., 😭

Also worth mentioning is that this iteration of AFO/TomurAFO has pupils, despite there being no Tenko component to his personality at this time. AFO's lack of pupils are textually/canonically meant to convey his inability to "see" others as people, so I'm very interested to see where Hori intends to take things from here.

#mha spoilers #all for one #shimura tenko #midoriya izuku

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What people saw happen in 419, apparently.

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mini comic featuring our beloved League of Villains from a live event done ages ago! (I'll update as I make pages.)

og post

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can someone please explain to me how afo reveal 'absolves' nana and kotarou? i mean, nothing about nana's actions and etc changed with this reveal. literally zero. she still chose to keep ofa with herself instead of passing it on. she still sacrificed her own happiness for the sake of others and hurt her son by doing what was right. it only confirmed that what she did was for nothing.

afo didn't manipulate kotarou to hate heroes and didn't suggest being strict with tenko, he only encouraged him ALREADY being strict with tenko. and lord, okay, you can argue that kotarou's trauma was the result of afo hunting down and killing ofa holders (nana included) and their families, but we knew that since, like, forever. why did this become a deal breaker only now???

why are we taking afo's words about tomura having no agency literally? what is this, 2019???