#lov meta

[linkspooky]

THE TRAGIC DEATH OF BAKUGO

Hamartia, also called the tragic flaw, (Harmartia from the Greek hamartien, “to err”) is an inherent defect or shortcoming in the hero of a tragedy, who is in other respects a superior being favored by fortune. Aristotle inroduced the term casually in poetics, in describing the tragic hero as a man of noble rank and nature whose misfortune is not brought about by villainy but by some “error of judgement”. Most importantyly, the hero’s suffering and it’s far-reaching reverberations are far out of proprotion with his flaw. An element of cosmic collusion among the hero’s flaw, chance, necessaity, and other external forces is essential to bring about the tragic catastrophe [x]. 

I start out with the lecture because, this week’s chapter, and the dramatic turn of events where it looked like the heroes had the advantage for most of this fight so far, only to have those advantages undone in a catastrophic turn of events, follows this idea of Hamartia. Just to be clear, I don’t think Horikoshi is specfically referencing Aristotle or anything like that. I just think the way the story is structure d right now is heavily reminiscent of it, the mistakes of the heroes are what brought about this current tragic turn of events. The events of this chapter are essentially the mistakes the heroes made so far going into the valley, catching up with them and benefitting the villains side of the fight. I’ll explain under the cut. 

This is a list of all the mistakes and oversights, the heroes made so far, and just to be clear this isn’t really about whether I think personally the heroes are good or bad people. Hamartia is an intentionally written flaw in a hero character, that the plot is supposed to challenge, the hero rises or falls based on this flaw. 

Peter Parker AKA Spiderman AKA the greatest superhero of all time (this isn’t an opinion it’s just objective fact fight me)  is a character written around the central flaw of responsibility, in his origin story, because of him acting irresponsibly and wanting to selfishly use his new superhuman abilities for his own gain, he lets a robber go right by him, and as a tragic consequence his uncle is shot by that same robber and as he lies dying in his arm he tells Peter “with great power comes great responsibility.” This isn’t a moral judgement on the characters, but rather the flaw their arc resolves around and how there are consequences like Uncle Ben being shot when they don’t work on said flaws. 

Tragic Mistake # 1: Escalating rather than Talking

Before the fight even begins, we’re introduced to a conflict that’s unique to the kids, that they’re starting to think of the villains as more than just people to be stopped and put down. Uraraka remembers that Toga cried when she felt rejected like a person would, Shoto wonders what kind of food Toya likes and considers sitting him down for family dinner, Deku says he can’t ignore the little boy inside of Shigaraki. They are considering the idea that their might be another way of dealing with the villains, but they are all also still using the language of “stop” rather than “save.” 

If the central question of MHA is what makes a true hero, a hero who “wins” or a hero who “saves”, the adult heroes especially Hawks, Endeavor and Jeanist are all firmly on the side of “win” and so fixed that it doesn’t even seem to be a question, whereas the kids are sitting on the fence but they’re still using langauge like “stop” Touya, rather than “saving.” 

Whether or not you think the villains deserve to be saved, further escalating the conflict instead of trying to seek out alternative means to deal with the villains is a conflict for pure strategic reasons. The reason it’s a strategic mistake is because the heroes already tried this in the war arc, they amassed every single force they had for a pre-emptive strike, to put the villains on the defensive. The language of the War Arc was even that if they didn’t stop the villains here, they probably will not have enough forces afterwards afterwards to keep fighting them. That’s the exact language AFO uses in this chapter when analyzing the situation, both the mass retirement of heroes, and also the losses in the War Arc, have made it so a full frontal assault against the villains and essentially going to war with them is no longer viable. 

Like, let’s set the matter of forcing the 1-A kids to essentially fight on the front lines because they simply don’t have the numbers with the retirement of professional heroes to the side for now. This is just the situation of the heroes going into the fight, they didn’t have the numbers they had in the War Arc, and so going into this fight they tried once again with a pre-emptive strike, and a divide and conquer strategy to make use of their lack of numbers. However, they are essentially trying to do the war arc again with less numbers, and less preparation. 

And the War Arc strategy did not even work in the first place. Despite Hawks having months of perparation, the complete element of surprise, Shigaraki, Toga, Dabi, Spinner all got away. Despite the execution of Twice, Toga still has Twice’s blood and Sad Man’s Parade is an option once more. Despite Hawks’ spying, Gigantoamachia got out. Hawks didn’t see the Touya reveal coming. 

Basically what AFO is saying in this chapter is the Heroes had a situation where they had the villains scattered and fighting on the defensive, and they failed to finish them off this time. Now, they are trying to exact same strategy over again with less numbers, and that advantage of surprise and preperation gone. The heroes can’t afford to keep escalating the conflict and trying to put down the villains by overpowering, simply because it’s not strategically viable. 

I’m going to quote Class 1-A kids to essentially seal the point I’m trying to make about the turn of the tides of battle in this chapter. 

[Class 1-A Kids] like after this development, with Bakugo down, Shigarki still putting up a fight when the heroes essentially have him in a cage designed to neutralize all of his powers, Dabi back up, AFO at least partially healed even when Hawks’ strategy of breaking his mask completely successful and Endeavor hitting him with his strongest prominence burn, and also Toga still has Sad Man’s Parade in reserve as a surprise and hasn’t used it yet, then what exactly can the heroes do to turn the table at this point? 

Either Deku showing up to the Shigaraki battle will somehow fix everything by being so overpowered, or you know, the heroes will have to try a different strategy. As Class 1akids says. The idea of saving the villains has been floated for 100+ chapters, the villains have now gone from Shigaraki a leader they were extremely loyal to, to AFO a leader who is mostly using them as pawns in his conflict, and Shigaraki himself is in need of saving, as Spinner has said over and over again he’s continuing the fight for Shigaraki’s sake to save him, not for AFO. There are several characters who could be turned against AFO if given reason to by the heroes, and also it gives the Villains a chance to work to undo at least some of the damage they did. 

Mistake #2 PISSING TOGA OFF 

So essentially the War Arc right now is focused on what are five individual fights, Toga vs Uraraka, everyone else Important vs Shigaraki, Shoto, Iida and Endeavor’s sidekicks vs. Touya, Hawks and Endeavor vs. AFO, and then the riots led by spinner and the heteromorphs. The last has gotten the least focus so I’m going to break the other four fights down in order. Toga is interesting because we have probably gotten the least focus on her fight, we didn’t even cut to her this chapter, and yet Toga is essentially the jenga brick that got pulled out of the tower in the heroes strategy. 

The heroes decision to bet everything on Deku being able to take down Shigaraki with the support of everyone backing him up, was pulled out of the jenga tower when Toga grabbed him and dragged him out of the portal when Danger Sense didn’t trigger. 

Interestingly enough, Toga not triggering Danger Sense did not have to be the disadvantage it turned out to be. As I said, there are clear mistakes and missed opportunities that he heroes mistake in each major battle. Fourth even says, that the reason Toga didn’t trigger the danger sense is because she doesn’t hurt people out of hatred. 

Ignoring the Yandere aspects of Toga going “Deku, please be my boyfriend”, there is a lot of emotional complexity to Toga’s basic statement that she wants to become more like the people she loves. The entire time Toga a high schooler herself has been fascinated by the UA kids, especially Deku and Uraraka and wondering what the difference between them and herself is. Toga’s entire character revolves around the idea that she was labeled as a deviant the moment her quirk manifested and shunned, and yet she desires acceptance for who she is, especially after repressing herself to such an extreme extent to try to be “normal” and “good” lead to what was essentially a psyhotic break and a violent incident. 

Shigaraki and Touya are perhaps the most self destructive of all the LOV characters, while Toga is someone who has questioned whether the heroes will ever come save her, or if what she really wants is acceptance rather than just destroying things. 

Toga is the one questioning if things have to be a life or death battle between them, and Izuku and Ochaco both have the opportunity to show Toga there are other ways, and then they don’t. 

Toga’s trajectory as a character is pretty clear, when people reject her, she rejects them back even harder. If you try violence on her, she will get violent back, and so Ochaco and Deku both pick the option of choosing to just defeat her in a physical battle is just a bad choice in general, because Toga is essentially sitting on a bomb. She has the nuke codes here. The biggest advantage of the fight is going to be when Toga uses sad man’s parade, so either Ochaco just defets her in a physical battle before Toga has the chance to use it (but if this happens then why does Horikoshi devote several chapters in a long running plot thread to bring up the possibility that Toga will create another Sad Man’s Parade, and also give Toga the ability to copy the abilities of people whose blood she drinks in the first place if not to make this happen), or Toga is talked down or even persuaded to turn against AFO. 

But as for Uraraka herself, what is her tragic and central flaw in this scenario that she cannot overcome. It is essentially Uraraka who is the most empathic of the hero characters, and the one who is so sensitive that she can notice the struggles on other people’s faces and gave a big speech on how the heroes are essentially humans and they need help too. She even flashes back to Toga’s crying face in that speech, it’s a deliberate showing that Toga is being left out of this speech. If the heroes are still human, and need to be helped like any other human beings, then villains as the other side of the coin are just as human as the heroes. Yet Uraraka still fails to reconcile Toga with that idea, Toga is given the impression that Uraraka still doesn’t see her as a real person and that pushes Toga into more extreme forms of violence. 

So anyway, what Ochaco and Deku essentially needed to do here was not poke the bear, and not only did they poke it, they shot it, threatened its cubs, and also the bear has rabies. 

MISTAKE # 3 ENJI TODOROKI NOT FACING DABI

So yes, everyone and their mother has pointed out that Shoto has a better chance of actually reaching Dabi and empathizing him because they faced such similiar abused and lived experiences. And yes, apaprently it was Shoto’s idea himself to face Dabi alone while Enji handled AFO. I think since then, the plot has pointed out several times that Enji choosing to run away from Toya and not face him again, is him not improving on his central flaw as a character, and was the wrong choice in this situation. 

If Shoto facing Dabi alone was the right choice, then Shoto using his best move against Dabi, his speech about everything he’s learned from his friends, and also his begging his brother to stop, would have stopped the fight there, but even after Shoto leverages all of that....

Dabi just gets back up and demands to see Endeavor again. 

So, I think Dabi needs to face Endeavor. But like, to prove my point with actual in text citations. Number one, if Shoto’s objective is to get Toya to come home (something he has implied but not vocalized) and Enji’s intention is to take responsbility for Toya and the damage they did to this family, they both went into this fight with the wrong head. The conflict with Dabi is also another iteration of the central conflict of the story, what makes heroes “winning” or “saving.” We see another repeat of the language of Shoto’s objective of “stop” Toya, rather than saving him. This might not be Shoto’s intentions, deep down he might want to just bring his brother home, but we don’t see him vocalize that. 

Enji himself, is the emblem of the hero who always prioritizes victory over saving others. Dabi is the shadow to Enji’s flaws as as hero meant to call out that flaws. To simplify the complex Todoroki drama in one central flaw, it’s established to us in the Touya flashback chapters. Like, for Toya himself, what is the origin as a conflict. He has a hero as a father, and he has a father who only cares about the world of heroes, and the potential his children have to be heroes to surpass all might. Enji even before he started to physically abuse Shoto, withdrew entirely from Toya, Natsuo and Fuyumi’s lives when they were no longer potential candidates for his dream to surpass All Might. 

Enji’s central flaw as a character is that he chooses being a hero, over being a father and his responsibilities to his family ever single time. The only reason he had a family in the first place was to create a child who could carry on his dream as a hero, but Enji is given several opportunities to just give that up when he sees the way it’s hurting his family, and he just never does he always doubles down every single time choosing his ambitions and heroics over his children. 

Enji is a hero at the expense of everything else, even atonement Enji who is supposedly facing the things he did to his family, does so as a hero first before anything else, and it’s shown in the choices he makes during the battle. 

I don’t know if you’ve noticed but Toya shouting “Look at me” his entire childhood, and Dabi repeating “Look at me” makes it pretty clear with what he wants. If that’s not obvious enough, AFO helpfully points it out for the audience. 

Hawks’ justification for the choice to just, not have Enji face Dabi is that he wouldn’t be able to objectively face Toya and fight him like any other villain. Once again we have the language, Enji couldn’t “FIGHT AND BEAT” Toya. 

Hawks’ thinking is pure strategy, using Endeavor as their biggest fighter with Hawks’ support, they pound everything they have against AFO to take him out of the fight as quickly as possible since he has effectively taken leadership of the villain’s forces, and while he still is their muscles he’s also essentially a glass cannon due to requiring life support with all the injuries All Might left on his body. 

It is a sound strategy, that is if it had worked. Even with AFO taunting Enji and shaking him up, we basically see everything in the fight go completely the way Hawks envisioned, they smash his mask, and not only that but Enji uses his strongest fire on AFO. However, as I said Enji in doing this has ignored his central flaw, putting his duty as a hero over his duty to his family. Yeah, he says that, after this he will watch Toya, but hasn’t anyone ever told Enji, the most basic rule of storytelling is show don’t tell. So anyway, everything works out exactly the way Hawks wanted... and then AFO just gets back up. 

We see a similiar result in the fight against Toya. I think Enji’s mistakes are much clearer than Shoto’s in this situation, because like it’s not really Shoto’s fault that Enji destroyed his family he’s a victim in this too. However, to briefly touch upon why Shoto alone isn’t enough to Toya, and why he didn’t reach Toya. 

Well, to put it simply he didn’t really reach out much in the first place. Dabi is created by his family not seeing him.  Shoto chooses not the path of relating to his brother, but by beating him down with his strongest move, putting a stop to him above all else. 

If anything I think shoto is a little bit mixed about what he wants going into this fight, and it is in Shoto’s character to being in two minds about things (he is quite literally split down the middle, fire and ice, mother and father, family and heroics, etc. etc.) Is his big brother a villain to be stopped, or someone suffering in need of saving, and I think (I use I think because honestly I’m not sure what to make of Shoto’s character here entirely and where he plays in on this it’s less clean cut than what Enji needs to do. Shoto hears Dabii out for the reason why he ddin’t come back home so he did try talking, but he also like, doesn’t make the leap that Dabi didn’t become a villain in a vaccum.)

So Shoto hasn’t made up his mind, whether Dabi should be dealt with as a villain, or as his brother and fellow abuse victim, and his choice is to simply try overpowering him. I’d say this analysis is supported by the way Shoto fails to take down Toya, by not seeing Toya and underestimating him. By underestimating Toya, he forgot that Toya is someone who spent years honing his quirk on his own, so Toya essentially copies Shoto’s move and Shoto doesn’t see it coming. Failure to see his brother therefore, leads to Shoto making a strategic oversight and Dabi gets back up stronger. The tragic flaw then for both Shoto and Enji is acting as heroes first, and treating the conflict as another hero villain conflict when it’s not, Dabi isn’t just a villain, he’s Toya Todoroki, he’s there brother and son and the person their family failed and let die the first time who is at risk of just dying all over again. 

MISTAKE #4 SHIGARAKI IS A VIDEO GAME BOSS FIGHT

So, to quickly recap. The heroes have tried several times already, to take Shigaraki out. They got him in the tube and stopped his heart when he was only halfway through the surgery, and Shigaraki got back up. 

The heroes amassed every single one of their best members against him, with the decay quirk mostly deactivated, and his body incomplete and therefore breaking down on him. Deku completely lost his mind and went full violence, activating his quirk in his desperation. Shigaraki was burned by Endeavor, had his quirk neutralized by Eraserhead, was pummeled by Deku into oblivion, was tied up by Jeanist, and then... he got back up. Not only that but when Deku and Shigaraki are together in the vestiges, it’s pointed out that the more the heroes fight against Shigaraki, the more his hatred increases, and more he fuses with AFO. The more Shigaraki hates, the more it eats away at Shigarki, the more the lines between him and AFO blur. 

It’s also been said by Shigaraki several times, the more the heroes reject him, the more that Shigaraki will reject him back, his desire to destroy comes from the fact that he knows society has absolutely no place for him. The american hero shoots a missile at Shigaraki, and... he gets back up. 

Definition of insanity, trying the same thing over and over again, and all that. Basically, two long running threads have been established by Shigarki, that the more he is hated, the more he will be hated in return, grow more violent, lash out wildly, and the more control AFO has over him. However, no matter how much AFO tries to possess him, a small part of Tenko remains, there is a crying child inside of Shigaraki. 

If Shigaraki is beyond saving and needs to be put down, why not only the continued showing of Tenko inside of Shigaraki as a child trapped in horrifying imagery of hundreds and hundreds of hands he can’t escape from, but also people like AFO and Deku both insisting that some small part of the childhood victim remains inside of Shigaraki.

 Why is AFO so concerned about the fact that Shigaraki is resisting him in some small ways, if the heroes are not capable of reaching Shigaraki? Why is he suddenly worried about the loss of his total and complete hold of Shigaraki right now. Why suggest that there is a fission within Shigarki, if it’s not possible for Shigarakito break free of AFO’s control? 

Onto the fight itself, even without Deku there we are shown not only the trap that the heroes laid against Shigaraki by building an entire arena to neutralize Shigarki’s decay ability, and also copying the erasure quirk to keep it focused on Shigaraki the entire time working, but even without Deku there, the heroes being able to work together and pull off several combo teamwork attacks. Rumi and Bakugo getting close and landing several hits in spite of the mutant hands,the big three of UA landing their three way combo attack that consists of a giant chimera hybrid that shoots lasers. Even without Deku, everything is pretty much working, so why does Shigarki not go down? Two answers, once again the strategy going in was wrong. It’s even mentioned several time, just building a giant arena to contain Shigaraki and trying to unite everyone to destroy him like he’s a video game boss, is the wrong-headed strategy. 

Most of all because they literally already tried that. They had the entirety of the strongest heroes unite their forces against Shigaraki in the war arc... and he got back up again. 

However, my second reason, to show the central flaw, the Hamartia of Bakugo in this scenario I want to ask the question, why didn’t Deku show up to this battle in the first place? 

I mean physically we know why he’s not there, he got dragged into the wrong portal, and now he’s flying making his way there. However, thematically why is Bakugo essentially fighting alone against AFO, and what does that represent in story. 

By viewing Shigaraki as just a video game boss to be defeated, all of the heroes here, but especially Bakugo are choosing winning rather than saving. Yes, I do think that winning is still important to being a hero, because without winning Deku will just break his own body over and over again trying to save others.

But Deku is the emblematic hero who wants to save everyone. His entire character revolves around the concept of having an overwhelming desire to save that doesn’t follow any logic. Deku saves people without thinking like it’s an urge inside of him. So of course, Deku is absent from a fight where the main strategy is to win against Shigaraki no matter what. Deku is not ther,e and Bakugo leads the fight. 

Bakugo is not only the one who has always prioritized winning, he has also always worshipped All Might as the perfect symbol of victory. 

Shigaraki even calls attention to this fact, when delivering his one-sided beatdown. 

Bakugo worships All-Might’s triumphs, but without Midoriya there to balance him out, Bakugo only thinks about winning and overpowering the enemy. Bakugo’s only focus is victory, and he himself leverages absolutely everything he has against Shigaraki, his biggest move, and it doesn’t work...

Whether you believe Bakugo’s death is going to be permanent or not, there’s also something truly tragic, about the fact that Bakugo even after his full power not being eough to fight Shigaraki, getting back up and trying again, and practically unlocking a new ability in his quirk. He pushes himself to extremes taking down Shigaraki, then pushed himself even further, and even started to threaten Shigaraki all on his own. And then, his heart literally just gives out on him. 

Bakugo gives absolutely everything he has fighting on his own, to achieve the perfect victory against the villains with zero casualties on their side, and he becomes the first casualty himself. 

B/c Bakugo’s philosophy of winning, is only half of the philosophy. Bakugo needs Deku not because he needs a strong quirk or because Deku is stronger than him, but because both of their philosophies when brought together balance each other out enough. It’s not winning, or saving, it’s winning and saving. There is no saving without winning, and there is no winning without saving. If there’s anything to be learned from Deku’s solo arc, is that Deku focused too much on the saving aspect of being a hero, at the expense of himself and taking care of himself, and it’s Bakugo who shows up and not only convinces Deku to come home and accept people’s help and stop sacrificing himself, Bakugo even apologizes to Deku for bullying him all these years in an effort to get him to value himself more. 

Midoriya needs to learn Bakugo’s self-assured image of victory, to be able to save people without feeling the need to sacrifice himself over and over again. However, Bakugo himself hasn’t learned to balance Midoriya’s philosophy with his own. Bakugo even goes halfway to acknowledging that he needs to do things more Midoriya’s way. 

Saving people is how we win. Save by winning, and win by saving. While trying to tell Deku he needs to take care of himself and accept their help, he also accepts Deku’s ideals for the first time, Deku’s method of being a hero is just as valid as him but what they need is to work together. 

So the problem with Bakugo fighting alone in this, isn’t that he’ll never be as strong as Deku, or that he’s like Deku’s supporting character or something, but they haven’t reached a true compromise on their ideals. Saving people is how they win, but Bakugo doesn’t even consider saving Shigaraki the way Deku has, and he instead rushes in guns blazing, and leverages everything he has into winning against a villain.

Not only is Bakugo’s sudden death, emblematic of his flaw that he hasn’t learned to compromise his ideals between him and Deku, to become a hero who surpasses All Might bey winning and saving. Bakugo’s flaw has always been the focus on winning above all else, his own fears of inferiority to Deku and his fear that his beliefs don’t make him a good enough hero which causes him to push himself too far (like maybe I don’t know, charging straight at the villain when he’s already injured in order to prove himself) and only seeing half of what made All Might the greatest hero. I mean even on a tactical front, Shigaraki even asks, why was Bakugo, a long range hero who shoots explosions at people... running in and turning things into a close ranged fight? When trying to blow Shigaraki doesn’t work, it leaves Bakugo open to be physically brutalized, and all the injuries that cause his heart to give out in the first place, are a direct result of Bakugo just... charging straight in and trying to win by overpowering Shigaraki. 

However, Bakugo’s death is also emblematic of the tragic flaws of the heroes as well. By prioritizing winning over everything else, they’ve inadvertantly caused Bakugo’s death. Shigaraki said at the beginning of the fight he no longer thinks Eraserhead is cool. 

What caused Shigaraki to admire Eraserhead in the first place, was his actions of prioritizing the student’s safety above everything else, and fighting on the front lines himself. However, Eraserhead is no longer doing that, and Shigaraki voices the reason for his disappointment this chapter. 

The decision to win at the expense of everything else, for the heroes, and for Bakugo, causes Bakugo himself to put way too much responsibility on his shoulders when he’s just one person, and instead of stepping out of the fight and hanging back when he was too injured to continue, he pushed himself too far and his body gave out on him. The Heroes strategy overall of prioritizing winning against the villains over all else, and refusing to try any other strategy other than overpowering him, causes them to put kids on the front line.

Bakugo’s death, almost works perfectly as an example of a tragic flaw causing a hero to fall. Literally in this case, because Bakugo is a hero, who has quite tragically, fallen in the middle of combat. Whether or not Bakugo can come back, or even he heroes can come back from this as a whole, it will require to heroes to battle against and overcome all the flaws I’ve pointed out in the previous sections of this post. Because that is essentailly what makes the heroes journey, a hero struggling against their flaws until they overcome them. 

#shigaraki tomura #bakugo katsuki #toya todoroki #shoto todoroki #enji todoroki #himiko toga #uraraka ochako #afo #hawks #takami keigo #Dabi #mha #lov meta #mha spoilers #mha 363 #my hero academia 363 #mha 363 spoilers

[ace-touya]

I really like how important friendships are in MHA, especially as an asexual person. And like - you can romantically ship whoever you want, I have my own headcanons about romantic ships that aren’t canonically romantic. But when looking at the canon, it’s nice to see how important platonic friendships are.

The league of villains are a found family.

Katsuki and Izuku are childhood friends (to enemies to friends) who mean the absolute world to each other.

Rooftop trio and the Pussycats are so close with their friendship groups that they made/planned to make their hero agencies together.

All of Class 1-A have a tight-knit bond.

The Bakusquad and the Dekusquad exist.

Ochaco, Izuku and Tenya became really good friends really quickly.

Having friends saved Shoto.

Aizawa and All Might go from being work colleagues to bring friends, and this makes a huge impact on All Might’s life.

Like Idk, I know the fandom tends to focus a lot on the shipping aspects, but I would love to appreciate the friendship more, because it’s so important to the characters, and, as an aroace person, it’s really important to me too.

#league of villains #bakusquad #dekusquad #rooftop trio #my hero academia #boku no hero acedamia #bnha #mha #lov #all might #class 1a #mha meta #wild wild pussycats #bnha meta

[gradelstuff]

#bnha #bnha meta #bnha smash #lov #tomura meta #spinner meta #spinner & tomura #spinaraki #this is canon in my heart bc i only remember seeing tomura play on the game console lmao

[onehundredandeleventropicalfish]

so here's the thing, about dream's relationships. they rarely last longer than a couple months, though we only have a small sample size as to why

and merv says this, at one point, and while merv's opinions on dream are always to be taken with a grain of salt, he is at least someone who's seen most of them fall apart

but from dream's perspective, we know he's never stopped loving anyone, once you have his heart you have it forever, even if he's not always the best at showing it, and is easily offended when he thinks you're rejecting him

so i think, what's likely happening here is, dream will put a lot of effort into courting someone, that we've seen, but once they get cemented in his brain as a thing he's not going to easily lose, he a) loses track of time, and b) finds it harder to keep prioritising that courtship over all of the other million things that need his attention at any given moment, which reads to anyone else as dream's stopped loving me

and i think about how dream is the most neurodivergent endless after delirium, and how many adhd symptoms are very dreamlike, with the skipping from one thing to another with no need to explain the middle, or the major difficulty regulating emotions

...how's that object permanence working out for you there, buddy? the "what no it's only been like, three days since we last talked, not seven months" trait is strong here, huh? "i still love you and last i checked you loved me so how could things have possibly changed in my absence?"

(kinda see that one with him being surprised the dreaming was so fucked up after a century's absence, too)

relationship degradation mechanic broke, local endless does not have a concept of time away from someone making you care less about them and is very confused and angsty over the whole affair

though hey if nothing else the dreamling shippers are in luck here bc if there's anyone in the world who's not gonna be offended by or stop caring about dream after long absences, that would be the one!

#look i am simple neurodivergent i see endless i go same hat #but genuinely dream is so fucking adhd #im lov him #the sandman #dream of the endless #mine #meta

[helga-grinduil]

Saw the most insane take on this chapter today, and I feel like I need to say something.

Toga decided to die… NOT because she accepted Ochako’s feelings and her ‘healthy love’. If you were to actually read the chapter with your eyes instead of your ass, this is what you would see:

The structure of Toga’s monologue (and the monologue itself) here mirrors Jin's monologue. The narrative is basically throwing it in your face that Toga is copying Jin, even if unknowingly. Her entire 'sacrifice' is a parallel to Jin, who also decided to sacrifice himself for the people who accepted him (The League in Jin's case, Ochako in Himiko's case) because he didn't really care about himself anymore and didn't think rehabilitation was possible for him. She's not doing this because she accepted the 'healthy' concept of love, she's literally copying Jin's version of love - self-sacrifice.

Toga literally gives us an actual reason for why she's doing it: she doesn't believe (yet) that the world can change for the better and that the society would try to work with her instead of completely supressing her. She doesn't believe that she would have a future if she'd allow herself to be captured by heroes. This entire thought process is coming from the core ideology of the League of Villains. Not believing that the world can change and help them so the only thing left is to either destroy it or die is Tomura's ideology.

(Destruction is the main point. Destroying as much as they can and feel like before they're killed off or before they're left with nothing but ashes is the real purpose behind this entire war.)

And even when Toga speaks about the League creating an easier world for her to live in, the flashback shows them before MVA - alive and well. Twice is dead. Touya (as she thinks) is dead. Compress was captured. Currently, as far as Toga is aware - only Shigaraki (who isn't even Tomura anymore, the last time she saw him), Kurogiri and Spinner are left standing (and Spinner is actually currently laying on the hospital floor, dying). Ultimately, the League creating that world for her is an impossible, unachievable dream by now - and she knows it. It's not something that is going to happen. She gave up on that idea. She doesn't believe that she has a future if heroes capture her, and she doesn't believe that she has a future if the League 'wins' (and she knows they won't).

She believes that dying is the conclusion all of them are heading towards, the League came there prepared to die - that's why she chooses to save Ochako (the person who accepted her and made her happy) and kill herself instead of getting locked up or dying in some other way. Dying on her own terms, dying by saving the only person who actually accepted her (like Twice did) is the only way she can see herself going out happily now. There is no other option left in her mind.

And hey! There is actually another huge factor at play here, which I feel like some people forget for some reason? Toga thinks that Touya is dead. Moreso, Toga thinks that Touya killed himself. Dying on her own terms, killing herself while smiling?

She is following in his footsteps.

That's why she 'asked' Touya if he'd managed to smile/laugh before dying, because *that's* what Touya's entire speech about laughter was about. Dying while having a fucking blast, dying while doing whatever they want and laughing at the world, accepting the fact that they will die, but at least they'll cause as much harm and pain to the world that hurt them as possible before that. Himiko has decided to kill herself while doing what she wants (sacrificing herself to save a person who made her happy) with a smile on her face.

It's not love & justice that lead to self-destruction, it's self-depreciation and inability to believe that things can get better that do.

P.S. She’s not dead btw.

#I know that vaguing is not the best thing to do when you disagree with someone... #But since that person constantly vagues me and my friends I think this is completely justified in this case. #If they're reading this and think that it's targeted at them - yes‚ it is. #bnha #bnha spoilers #bnha meta #bnha 395 #toga himiko #uraraka ochako #bubaigawara jin #twice #todoroki touya #dabi #lov #league of villain

[villainsandvictimsalliance]

Rereading the manga, I notice something really interesting. If you go back to chapter 59, you'll find All Might explaining how AFO and OFA as quirks were born. That's the first time Toshinori explains the history of AFO too.

The interesting part is the way he tells the story of Yoichi, the first user of OFA. It reminds me a lot of Tenko's story. It can be just me, but please read it for yourself:

" The man had a quirkless little brother / the man had a quirkless younger brother.

The little brother was small, and frail, but he harbored a strong sense of justice...! / This brother was small and fragile, but he had a strong sense of justice!

His brother's actions panged his heart... and he opposed him / and the deeds of his big brother pained him... So he opposed the tyrant. "

( A quirkless little brother asking why the world is so unfair finding out he actually has a quirk when he decides to oppose his abuser? Of course, here the difference is that Yoichi was older than Tenko when it all happened. He was not a confused 5 years old trying to understand why and how.... )

" Yes... He who was thought quirkless, did in fact possess one prior. / Yes... It turned out he hadn't actually been quirkless from the start.

Though neither he himself nor anyone around him had ever noticed / thought neither he nor anyone else has known it. "

That means there is a previous instance in which a young man thought quirkless had indeed a quirk: Yoichi himself!

It also makes me think about how Tomura/Tenko's control over decay depends on his emotional and psychological state.

The night his quirk awakened, we saw that Tenko had no control over it; everything that touched the ground he had contact with decayed. After he was "rescued" and after he was given the hands of his deceased family, AFO noticed that Tomura had unconsciously restrained decay so he would only affect the things he directly touched. Later on the story, Tomura was able to expand his quirk, evolving to decay without using all his five fingers during My Villain Academia. He was able to decay things at will during the War arc!!!

Could it be possible that Tenko had unconsciously repressed his own quirk for years before the night he killed his family?

Maybe when he tried to repress his own feelings about what was happening at home, Tenko also repressed decay without knowing. If he kept all his negative feelings in check as to not upset his family, it'd be an option.

If we wanted to reaaaally go crazy theorizing, we could even make a case about how Tenko having a previous quirk before AFO implanted decay on him is a possibility (within the frames of the bnha narrative). I'm not going there, but I think that fic authors would appreciate the prompt.

#bnha #mha #my hero academia #boku no hero academia #league of villains #lov #shigaraki tomura #yoichi shigaraki #ofa #one for all #all for one #afo #tenko shimura #bnha meta #mha meta #shan's bnha meta #Shan's mha meta

[greenhappyseed]

It hurts to see how damn close Toshinori was to becoming a Tomura or a Toya or a Himiko. Like Tomura, he lost his family when he was young, and presumably nobody came to help him since he took to the streets with a metal pipe and a fierce determination to stop villains from hurting others. At first, even Nana ignores Toshinori — she won’t turn around to look at him when he says his family is dead.

It’s also similar to how Enji won’t look at Toya or listen to his ideas. And, like Toya, Toshinori seems to have internalized that, because he lacked quirk power, he existed for no reason. Yet Toshinori’s mark on the world will be the symbol of peace, not revenge.

Toshinori never succumbed to the slowly building cycle of violence and hatred the way Tenko did. Toshinori wanted to break the cycle and have a world where revenge and hatred didn’t have a place.

I love the contrast of the overpowered man-child standing in front of a beautiful, pristine skyline, saying he took his power to destroy it all compared to the oversized quirkless boy standing in front of a wasted, destroyed cityscape, saying he has no role but is willing to step up if he had power. Power isn’t something Toshinori is owed; it is a gift he is given.

Like Himiko, young Toshinori knew damn well that buildings come and go, but they can never fix people’s hearts. But he didn’t turn that inwards — he always looked outwards and found joy helping others.

And boy, does that line about “new buildings” bring it all back around to Tenko, and the one thing he says will save him: The destruction of everything stemming from his father’s house.

#bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #bnha 398 #mha 398 #all might #toshinori yagi #toshinori yagi rising/origin #nana shimura #tomura shigaraki #toya todoroki #himiko toga #lov #league of villains #tenko shimura #Dabi #bnha meta #mha meta

[darkonekrisrewrite]

The Lov are the protagonists of this series

So spoilers.......Deku got (will get) his arms back in less than 10 minutes (not an exaggeration) after losing them.

And it occurs to me, that between the heroes and the villains (specifically the Lov) of bnha, only one side has gone through the full spectrum of what shonen protagonists usually go through in their journeys.

The tragic backstory:

The character development:

Forming positive emotional bonds with a tight group of found friends/family:

Physical harm that is not fixed and has lasting consequences:

And the loss of close friends along the way:

All things that the the whole core Lov has gone through and is still going through now, and all the things that most of the heroes don't have.

The focused group of the hero kids, being deku, ochako, bakugo and shoto have gone through character development and some arguably have a "tragic backstory" (mostly just shoto's could be considered tragic), but everything else listed above?

Not so much.

They haven't really ever lost anything, definitely no friends killed, and haven't had any kind of lasting consequences throughout everything.

And the rest of class 1A is in the exact same place as they were at the halfway point of bnha, nothing has changed for them.

That applies to the rest of the hero side too.

Mirio lost his quirk?

Rewound, back in business.

Aizawa lost his childhood friend shirakumo?

Back as a nomu and the open-ended possiblity of healing/some form of recovery. (Though aizawa did lose his leg, with Eri's quirk power being left ambiguous, who knows?)

The only heroes who have lost anything with any sense of pertinence are endeavor and hawks.

Having darker back stories and tangible consequences.

But they're also the only heroes that narratively had it coming, and even then it still doesn't reach the level that the Lov is at.

Hawks doesn't have any bonds with anyone, despite whatever's going on with him and tokoyami.

They worked a hero internship together and hawks said some vaguely inspiring advice to tokoyami, that's pretty much it.

And endeavor seems to have gotten everything that he ever wanted, just the opposite of how he wanted it.

To be the number 1 hero, to make his son(s) powerful masterpieces, to protect the next generation.

There's not an instance of the heroes in bnha taking a true loss, at least not a loss that wasn't then gotten back later.

Bakugo was lost/kidnapped but they got him back.

All-might lost his power and couldn't be a hero anymore but then he was given an Ironman suit with power that could rival All for one.

Everything is walked back.

But with the Lov, whenever they get hit, it always leaves a mark that stays with them, and they change because of it.

Their injuries don't just go away, leaving very visible effects.

Their back stories left scars on them that they still struggle with in the present.

And their present situation isn't great so they find comfort in each other and the bonds they made together to get by.

Lastly when they lost their friend/comrade, it was treated with the same weight as if it were a hero losing their close friend, including the rage.

The "hero's journey" that shonen heroes usually move through seems to be walked by the villains in this story.

The Lov.

#bnha #league of villains #bnha meta #lov #bnha spoilers #mha

[class1akids]

Now that AFO is (hopefully) done, I really hope that Deku vs Shigaraki will manage to integrate Toya vs Shoto and Toga vs Ochako fights into the main plot in a meaningful way, so they don't feel like personal side-quests, but essential contributions to the final win, connecting all the Saviour Squad narratives, the way Bakugou connected all the vs AFO efforts.

Right now, from a utilitarian point of view, killing Toga and Toya on sight instead of saving them would have made more sense for the overall fight. Toga with the clones disrupted many battlefields and Toya escaping to Gunga took Endeavor out of the AFO fight.

So we saw the negative consequences, and I hope in order to change the mind of the civilians, the decision to save them will deliver a positive pay-off in the end.

If we look at Tomura's criticisms against hero society, these fights are direct examples of hero society changing:

Criticism 1: Heroes hurting their family

Answer: We have Shoto who saves BOTH his family and strangers:

In fact, choosing to save his family gives him the upgrade he needs to save strangers.

Criticism 2: Pretending not to see those heroes couldn't protect

Answer: Ochako refusing to ignore Toga's pain

Criticism 3: Passive civilians, dependent on being coddled

Answer: we see journalists, business students telling the story, we had Rei, Fuyumi, Natsuo actively run into the fire, we had "wishing energy", the doctors protecting patients, etc.

Criticism 4: This whole system has always rejected me

Answer: of course, Deku himself is actively trying to save Tomura

Now to pull it all together into a coherent whole - Shigaraki is the biggest threat created by the old hero society. So the changing hero society should all contribute to him being saved.

Option 1:

One way these fights can play into Tomura's narrative is simply learning about the fate of his allies (whether from Deku or better, seeing the Gunga aftermath play on the screens somewhere) and realize that hero society is changing. (For me, this is the weaker option)

Option 2

It would be maybe more tangible for Toga and Touya to physically come and help along with Deku's allies. I'm thinking of a scenario where Tomura is able to unleash a wave of Decay (maybe after Deku says on camera that he wants to save him). Cue in civilians faith wavering in Deku. Decay was something the heroes had no answer for in the PLF war.

However, Ochako's "remote Float" and Shoto's Phosphor (or maybe a new, fire-sided version of it that can melt rocks) could be effective counters. It would be cool and symbolic if Ochako and Toga using Ochako's quirk together and Shoto and Toya (and maybe Endeavor) together would stop the wave of destruction, offering a convincing, livestreamed pay-off for saving villains, without interfering in Deku's fight too directly or threatening to outshine him.

It would also show society that there is more than just OFA between them and total destruction. (I think it would be a good use of Warp Gate, and getting pay-offs for power-ups like Mina's or Aoyama's too).

Toga showing up in person would be also a good way also for Tomura to remember his promise, give him another reason to stop:

Not sure how Spinner and Mr Compress could play into this scenario, but I think they could also fit in some way.

I hope I'm not going to jinx it, I'd just like to see it come together all in an organic, satisfying way.

(Obviously, other things should also play a part - Deku's personal efforts to save Tomura is going to be the main driver, and Nana may get a part to play to the answer to "destruction of everything stemming from that house).

#bnha meta #bnha manga spoilers #tomura shiragaki #midoriya izuku #deku vs shigaraki #bnha speculation #todoroki shouto #dabi #todoroki touya #himiko toga #uraraka ochako #dabi vs shouto #toga vs ochako #saviour squad #lov trio #endgame bingo

[strike-n-brawl]

@*#&vrbb×*&#sj ok👍

#kirby series #paint-a-picture #meta knight #king dedede #um um um uhhhh #metadede #<- bnot rly but tagging for the clout😏😏.. yk #ok kidding but WOW I'v been thinking abt them a lot lately.. lov them lots

[lgbtlunaverse]

A group of misfits outside of society

So I saw this post the other day talking about how toga is never truly treated as "the girl one" in the league despite, after Magne died, being the only female member. And it got me thinking about how no matter how endearing the protective found family dynamics in fics are, she's never actually treated like the baby of the group either. After mustard is arrested in basically their first mission, she is the youngest member by several years and the only one who's still a teenager.

But if you look purely at the league's interactions, you wouldn't really be able to tell? No one tells her to stay home for dangerous missions, no one babies her, she's never dismissed based on still being a child either.

This becomes especially obvious in her friendship with twice. Twice is only like a year apart from aizawa in age, and toga is in the age range of a highschool sutdent, but if you compare the relationship the UA kids have with aizawa to the one toga has with twice, they could not possibly be more different.

Jin and Himiko are not a mentor-student dynamic. These are two people finding understanding in each other when they've never gotten it anywhere else. Jin looks out for her not because she's under his care, but because they're friends. And Himiko does exactly the same.

Objectively it's... obviously kind of a bad idea to let a 17 year old go out into life threatening battles without even the minimum protection the hero students are offered, but the league is a supervillain group. They're committing murder and doing domestic terrorism. None of these people should be here, this isnt't safe for any of them. What this highlight is just what the league is for all the people in it: a place away from society. Not just from stigma around their quirks or from hero-worship, but ALL societal norms. Including ideas about gender and mental illness and about what teenager should or shouldn't be doing. That's why it attracted people like Magne, Twice, and Himiko.

#bnha #league of villains #bnha meta #toga himiko #twice #bubaigawara jin #the league isn't a typical kind of found family #i've reblogged a lot of good meta about why being in the league isn't actually HELPING most of them in the long run #that's why the whole current arc is about saving the villains #the lov doesn't really have an idea of what the world they want to build after razing the current one down would look like #this is not a group with a coherent vision for the future #but it is an escape. a place away from the rules and oppressive structures in hero society

[linkspooky]

Shimura Tenko

So a lot of fans have taken Shigaraki’s outburst in the most recent chapter as Tenko Shimura, being a third, and seperate personality from both Shigaraki Tomura and All for One. As if Tenko is the third of three seperate individuals fighting for the body. However, that is one: AFO’s deduction as to what is happening, and AFO is not the most reliable source. In fact you might even call him an unrelaible source. His entire goal is to make Shigaraki Tomura’s body into nothing more than a vessel, so of course, he doesn’t see SHigaraki as a person outside of being anything other than his creation / his vessel. The second is that Shigaraki’s entire arc has been about first his own personal autonomy, and second the complex nature of his identity after being groomed his whole life so there is no simple answer on who Shigaraki considers himself to be. 

However, as I said I think people are taking this too literally to be about whether there’s some vestige of Tenko seemingly still remaining in Shigaraki Tomura’s mind, seperate from the TOmura identity. I think the scene itself is rather symbolic, Tenko supposedly residing in Shigaraki’s mind is at both a representation of Shigaraki’s inner child, and also of the fact that Shimura Tenko at five years old was not saved, and since then society has done nothing to rectify the fact that he was not saved. 

1. The Inner Child 

Psychologist Carl Gustav Jung originated the concept of the Inner Child in his divine child archetype. While the “inner child” is a term often used in popular psychology, we’re here talking about the “Jungian Archetype” of the inner child. Archetypes are universal, primal symbols and images that appear in stories all over the world such as: the mother, the child, the trickster, among others. 

The inner child is a visual symbol the story uses a lot already. For an example of its use in another character that foils Shigaraki, just recently during Shoto and Touya’s fight, images of their childhood selves appears at the finish of their fight. A symbol is an image that’s supposed to mean something in a story, why invoke childhood imagery here? It is symbolism and therefore up to interpretation, but among things it could mean that a lot of Touya’s current struggles come from the unresolved abuse of his childhood which has gone on so long for this very day, the way Shoto internally relates to Touya’s abuse which makes the action of fighting him both difficult to do and tragic (both brothers are crying, Toya while using his flames, and Shoto while fighting back against him). 

In general, invoking this childhood imagery especially for the three UA students with villain counterparts (Shigaraki, Dabi, and Himiko) is a reminder that all of these villains were originally innocent childrens who were victims of some aspect of hero society, children who were not saved, and as they’ve grown up have gone unsaved. This also reflects one of the main wrongs of hero society, rather than view the complexities of villains as victims in some regard, most villains are only regarded as threats to be put down or contained (often in inhumane conditions). 

Which is a conflict, because both the stated and idealistic goals of heroes, is to save citizens from the kind of circumstances that Shigaraki, Toga, and Touya all lived through. THe reason heroes are allowed to wield their quirks in public, fight  as vigilantes somewhat outside of the law with specially obtained hero licesnses, is because it’s believed the overwhelming presence of heroes in society makes things safer for the individual citizen. It is a social contract, that heroes save people, and this social contract has failed several individuals. 

I’m elaborating on this because the reoccuring imagery of both children who do not get saved growing up into corrupted villains after being pushed out onto the edges of society, is both a major theme that creates the conflict of the story which is why these villains are questioning heroes in the first place, and also what AFO himself the main villain of the story has taken advantage of. AFO knows society abandons these children, and has kept an eye on them and appeared just in the right time to radicalize them, he appeared for Touya, he appeared for Shigaraki. Toga might seem to break the pattern, but she was just a runaway middle schooler at one point after being thorwn out for one violent incident or psychological break, and only got further radicalized as heroes offered her no sympathy or place of return, and her only refuge became the league of villains. (IE: Toga is someone who in my personal opinion, a lot of the violence her character exhibits besides the one violent incident that came only after years of emotional abuse is not sociopathy, but rather the natural result of being a middle school aged girl, living on the streets of japan as a homeless runaway, and living on the streets as a runaway at just about any age is not a safe place to be). 

All to say, the reason that we are not only given peaks in the childhoods of the main villains, and also we are often shown images of their childhood selves is not for “tragic backstory reasons” but to illustrate that these children should have been saved. There is also no fair reason that they weren’t. 

"In a society full of heroes, I thought maybe the reason no one helped me was because I was being punished for killing my family.” 

Tenko through no fault of his own, loses control of his quirk, and in one day loses his house, his family, and also his family dog and is thrown out onto the streets for an indetermiante period of time. It’s shown that Tenko was in one of the most populated cities, oversaturated with heroes, and yet a single one did not stop to look and help one lost child. 

This incident isn’t just Tenko’s origin, it’s also at the center of what Tomura considers his ideals. He states as such, the last big confrontation where we see Shigaraki is completely in control of his body. 

Shigaraki even flashes back to the old woman looking the other way. Another interesting tidbit is he says this directly to Endeavor, after Endeavor calls his ideals into question. Endeavor someone who in story, won’t face the son he not only didn’t save when he left him to burn alone in a fire, he also when given the opportunity to face Touya again several years later after he came back from the dead deliberately ignores him to continue his job as a hero in his confrontation against AFO. 

It’s not just that these children weren’t saved, it’s that society rather than trying to address the injustices done wrong to them, instead blames them for their own fall. Society refuses to even look at the suffering of it’s most dowrntrodden members, it rejects them in order to maintain a facade that everything is alright.

This all comes back to the recurring symbol of the child. 

Jung placed the "child" (including the child hero) in a list of archetypes that represent milestones in individuation. Jungians exploring the hero myth have noted that "it represents our efforts to deal with the problem of growing up, aided by the illusion of an eternal fiction". Thus for Jung, "the child is potential future", and the child archetype is a symbol of the developing personality.

You have children who are the main characters of the story, attempting to save other children who have grown up under more violent circumstances into dangerous individuals. The entire story revolves around the theme of all these societal problems who are handed to these children, and how they grow and adapt to it. Above all else, the society in MHA is painted as one that is dangerous and unfair to children. Not only in the way that children who become victims aren’t really treated fairly by society as a whole and are pushed to the margins, but also in cases of domestic family situations where chidlren are abused, abandoned, or otherwise neglected which always, always, always in story creates future problems down the line. IE: THe abuse of the Todoroki Family as a whole, and Endeavor using his children for his ambitions creating Touya. Nana Shimura’s decision to abandon her son, has a direct consequences in creating Shigaraki. 

A lot of these enemies in society actually start small with household problems, that when unaddressed continue to fester until the rot spreads. This is also a storytelling device that Horikoshi uses a lot Domestic problems or HOusehold problems like the abuse in the Todoroki or Shimura household doesn’t just end in the house. Dabi after surviving his abuse into adulthood kills several people in an attempt to both discredit his father and ruin his status as a hero, get attention to his cause, and during his work with the league. IE: Endeavor cannot be a hero if he has a villain son with a body count, and one he created at that. 

Now characters can say this is Dabi’s fault, he chose to get other people involved in issues inside his own household, but that’s against the oint of this story, that shows that these domestic issues always end up affecting the people around them as well. The problems in the micrcosm of these people’s individual households, also serves as a metaphor for the macrocosm of societal abuse. Tenko uses the metaphor of how the Shimura household was built to reject him gently, as a  way to illsutrate how he feels that society also was built to reject not only him but people like him. 

All of this comes to a  head symbolically, in both Deku’s glimspe of Shimura Tenko still alive in the vestige world, but also in his chat with the vestiges after the war arc. THis scene is more than just Deku sympathizing with Shigaraki after seeing a psychic vision of Tenko, or even just beliving that Tenko Shimura is still inside Shigarki somewhere. 

It’s also the metaphor come full circle. As in, what do you do with a child who has not only been victimzied in some form society, but is no longer an innocent little child to be saved and has even grown up into someone who is a villain. Deku’s answer for this question is that while some people are dangerous, and maybe there is no other choice but to put them down, the power he was given ALL FOR ONE, is not a power for killing people, but rather for saving them. 

Which is also the central theme of the story. What do heroes use their powers for? Heroes are here to save people. All for One didn’t use his power to become the strongest hero, or even to defeat the most number of villains, his goal was to save as many people as possible, and to reassure them if they were ever in trouble someone was coming to save them, which is why All Might’s vestige cries when he sees Deku still trying to live up to that ideal. 

2. Shigaraki’s inner child. 

And here is the post where we briefly touch upon the messy nature of Shigaraki’s own identity. Once again, I’m going to say that the appearance of a “TENKO” vestige somewhere within Shigaraki’s mind isn’t a sign that the pure and uncorrupted Tenko is just going to take over at some point and both Shigaraki and AFO will disappear like they never existed. 

Instead it’s Inner-Child symbolism, an image of the innocent child Shimura Tenko was, before his own traumatic upbringing and the grooming of AFO. I don’t think the point is to return Tenko to this uncorrupted phase of his life, because that’s completely impossible. 

Rather, I think it’s there to essentially call out what has been a long thread of dehumanizing done to Shigaraki by the heroes, who conitnually despite making no real attempts to reach out for him dismiss him as an entirely lost cause only to be put out like a mad dog for the good of society. 

The heroes would very convneintly like to assume, that there is nothing left of the victim Shimura Tenko inside of him. That Shigaraki is a heartless smybol of destruction, which is exactly what AFO both tried to make him into, and also how AFO wanted him to be perceived by others. 

Basically, if there is no human being behind Shigaraki’s actions and destruction, then putting him down isn’t immoral, it’s also the best course of action. As I’ve said before the heroes have made several attempts of just, plain trying to kill him. 

This is a society where crimminals like AFO, were arrested and held in confinement, and they were also not legally allowed to kill Gigantomachia despite the difficulties in containing him because of his huge size. Heroes are not supposed to kill according to their own rules, but to capture. If you imagine Shigaraki is’nt a human being, with friends, and more important feelings, then killing him suddenly becomes less of a moral dilemna. 

AFO also, by suppressing Shimura Tenko / Shigaraki’s independent self, it makes it easier for him to take control over his identity. The more he becomes angry, volatile, destructive and acts as both AFO grooms him and wants him to act, the less agency and control over his actions Shigaraki has. And this is basically a long running metaphor for Shigaraki’s entire character, him trying to find identity, agency, and where his sense of self lies despite being groomed for one thing by AFO his entire life and kept relatively outside of society, and also from forming connections to other people. 

Which means the possession plotline by AFO is in fact, a culimation of a very longrunning plotline, where Shigaraki is in conflict with himself, how much of himself is created by trauma, how much of himself is TENKO the natural person he was born as? It’s a question of nature vs nurture that once again has no clear answer. 

So heroes have this tendency to regard Shigaraki as an empty evil, who has no emotions, no friends, only a desire to destroy. 

A bit hypocritical aren’t we, Endeavor? 

Heroes tend to over and over again, insist that there is no human being that can be reached in Shigaraki, that there is no one there to save, therefore justifying the fact that they all rather quickly go for the kill.

THis is also, a theme which has escalated in the story. All Might just beat him down, but as Shigaraki’s violence gets worse, so too does the heroes own attempts to go for the kill, until we reach the point where they are quite literally shooting missiles at him from a plane. 

However, I would argue that despite the heroes trying it over and over again, killing Shigaraki hasn’t only not worked so far, it’s literally never going to workj. It’s the entirely wrong approach, because it escalates the violence rather than de-escalates. The more violent people are towards Shigaraki, the more violent he is in return, and therefore the cycle continues. 

This is taken to its literal extreme in the fight with the New Order quirk. A villain tries to kill “Shigaraki Tomura”, but it doesn’t work, and also, literally leads into an explanation of SHigaraki’s current identity crisis. New Order doesn’t work on Shigaraki, because the boundary between Shigaraki and AFO currently is too blurry.

But beyond that, in story reasons, the reason it doesn’t work, is because attempting to end the cycle of violence with even more violence, with SO MUCH VIOLENCE THAT ALL VIOLENCE THEREFORE WILL BE WIPED FROM THE FACE OF THE EARTH just doesn’t work with the themes of the story. Hating and dehumanizing Shigaraki at this point, just doesn’t work, and makes the problem worse because it aggravates him and pushes him to new extremes. 

And we’ve had this established in the vestige world too, Shigarki’s hatred, and his desire for revenge is something that weakens his identity and makes hime asier for AFO to control. Even the heroes most recent strategy of fighting Shigaraki is to have everyone cooperate together... to build him a coffin in the sky. The heroes just keep coming up with more elaboarted and overkill ways of killing him. 

Which eventually leads to this moment, Mirio’s rather dehumanizing statement that Shigaraki has never had any friends in his life. Which not only provokes Tenko, but also once again shows us the audience this flash of once again imagery that clearly indicates Shigaraki / Shimura Tenko is a victim even while all the heroes are teaming up to fight against him. If he’s just a bad guy to be destroyed, why this incredibly gruesome imagery of five year old child being groped, abandoned, mishandled and trapped within all of these hands. 

To say once again, that the heroes image of Shigaraki is wrong. He does have friends, he has emotions, and even the ability to empathize with other people. Not only did Shigarki say at one point in the story, that there were things he wouldn’t destroy. Not only does Shigaraki pick a fight with the MLA and the Yakuza both for the sake of his friends, to save Giran, and avenge Magne respectively. 

In this chapter alone we’re also shown that Shigaraki considers his allies differently than AFO does. After all, AFO referred to his friends as only cheap lighters to be used and disposed of. 

Not only did  Shigaraki defy his control and have an uncontrolled outburst at the accusation that he had no friends, AFO also lost total control much earlier, when Shigaraki emerged for a moment to try to warn Dabi that his skin was peeling off from him overusing his powe r because his skin was peeling off. He also called Dabi, Dabi, rather than Touya-kun like how AFO refers to him. 

Which means what AFO refers to as Shimura lurking and lingering within Shigaraki’s consciousness, may in fact just be Shigaraki’s personhood and who he is existing outside of what AFO has tried to mould him into being. This person is also created, by the interaction of his friends and the league of villains, who created a much healthier environment outside of AFO’s iron fisted control of him. AFO even only got control and possession when the league itself was splintered both by the death of twice, and being forced to go on the run once again after the war arc. 

In other words Shigaraki is a shonen protagonist, and he is at his best when surrounded by friends, and at his worst when isolated. All of this is to show that not only has Shigaraki been a person all along, but with the help of those friends it is possible for him to reclaim his personhood from AFO, rather than be destroyed or put out of his misery. There’s still someone to save in Shigaraki, and also someone worth saving, because deep down he’s someone capable of doing good and loving his friends. 

#shimura tenko #shigaraki tomura #league of villains #lov meta #afo #mha meta #mirio togata #tenko shimura #tomura shigaraki #mha 344 #mha 344 spoilers #mha spoilers

[nguyenfinity]

back at it again with @posebean here's their kits [explodes]

#enstars #rinne amagi #niki shiina #rinniki #genshin impact #genshin #sanabean impact #the kits have been sitting since october i've just now moved to actually draw them #bean wrote most of the flavor text #she also made niki's kit and i did red guy's #i worked out the meta details and did the genshin wording for the talents #listen any sanabean product is a s p l i t if one of us did something in an au there's a 99% chance the other did something in it too #we are a package deal #lov u bean if u read this <3 #their cons are in progress #it's nearly 5 and i'm not doing my project work weeeeeeeeeeee

[irontragedyreview]

I'm going to be honest, I wasn't going to write about the leaks in this chapter (I still like to see more leakers posting about this, especially those I trust the most), but if there is something more obnoxious than the shipper discurse, that is the men discurse and the way in which they interpret the characters in shonen, because believe me, shonen is a genre where the worst takes by men on characters are concentrated, especially when you talk about the side emotional. Seriously, many men have not left their edgy child phase who believes that the world is horrible and that the characters have to see reality, etc., outside of the children/teenagers who watch the shonen genre more than anything for the fights, etc. many men who literally have hundreds of followers who analyze the stories as if they were experts on the subject, from the most toxic masculinity perspective.

Also, in all the previous chapters I wanted to do an analysis about Tomura and Izuku but no matter how much I wanted, the words didn't come, these leaks plus certain comments managed to unlock my words.

I'm going to start with Tomura because he's the birthday boy. The takes I have read of this character throughout the manga, especially outside tumblr and by men, are terrible, however nothing compares to the comments after these leaks, from people saying that it was great because his character didn't deserve redemption, that at the end was nothing more than a puppet of AFO and therefore his construction doesn’t matter or not exist because Tomura for them didn’t exist outside as an object for AFO, etc. One of the insights that chapter 418 left is that Tomura/Tenko has never made a single decision in his life and that his path has always been marked and signed by AFO. Those words remained in the minds of the readers and were validated by the fact that the origin of Decay was made by AFO and even Tenko’s birth was planned by AFO, because again AFO is the villain of  thousand plans and is in every step. Seriously, Tenko was only born to be another pawn in AFO's game, because according to the leaks AFO created him and therefore even Tomura's decisions are only a permitted ramification of what AFO wanted him to feel and think.

However, it’s a damn lie, it doesn't matter that AFO was a starting point for Tomura, his ideas, his relationships with the LOV, are HIS. It’s that he chose, not for nothing his last words before of being swallowed by AFO were "even if all my hatred fades and only an empty shell remains, I must still be a hero for them (the villains/his LOV)” it’s the first time since the final battle began that Tomura looked closer to peace and his words were reflected in being a hero for his people, the helpless who are abandoned by society. Likewise, another of the things that was repeated during his confrontation with Izuku, it was wanting to make it clear that he wasn’t human, that nothing more but destruction would be his salvation. In the same way he repeats that he killed his family because it was his will, because someone like him was born "rotten", his quirk marked him to be only destruction. This was even repeated by AFO, the constant search for Tomura to internalize that what happened was something he was looking for and we’re aware that it’s a lie. The decay's "awakening" was a traumatic event that was exacerbated for Kotaro, who beat his son and instilled fear in him, not for nothing Tenko was having a breakdown when his quirk "awakened", he didn’t want to kill Mon-chan, his sister, his mother or family, he was a scared child who just wanted to reach a safe place. The only death where Tenko could say that he has a minimum will is with Kotaro but ignoring the context is a mistake.

It’s not innocent that during the fight in the fortress Tenko would have felt more violent and resurfaced when he saw how all the heroes around him gave their lives to revive bk, we have him screaming "why no one helped me when there was still time, when I wasn't that broken yet" (not exact words but a paraphrase), Tenko was still there fighting against AFO, Tenko never disappeared no matter how hard AFO tried to quell him, the pain of a society that ignored him formed his vision of a heroes society like something rotten, the vision of All Might as the hero who shapes a society that hides everything among shiny things but forgets those that the heroes ignore or not fit in.

Because something that we can’t ignore that the society that gave rise to villains like Tomura and even AFO, is an apathetic and cruel society to people that doesn’t fit. We can argue that beyond all the things that AFO has done, perhaps he wouldn’t be what he is now if he had not grown up in a society that had just discovered the quirks and saw some of them as monsters and others as something to worship (he kills the shine baby because he was praised), society is so apathetic that it ignores or encourages a cruelty that creates its villains and then is surprised by it. Tomura is also the result of those people who saw a child walking in the streets in shock and stained with blood and passed by and when a single person approached him, just looked at him and said well the heroes will take care of it, leaving him alone. Maybe nothing would have changed because AFO already had a plan for Tomura but the apathy of that society that prefers to ignore responsibility (I'm not talking about citizens having to enter burning buildings replacing professionals, but doing small things, helping people in a small way example helping a lost child, etc). A society that was happy with someone like All Might protected them but when he began to fail and couldn’t take his place turned their backs on him, the same citizens who are seeing children fighting a war and the only thing they think about is losing faith when the results are adverse or when they had to give a safe place to civilians like them or heroes like Deku.

It’s this society that Tomura wants to destroy and it’s understandable because, we can discuss whether the way Tomura wants to do it is correct or not, but let's not deny that Tomura gave a place to people that society pushed away because they didn’t fit in and that he wants protect. What I'm trying to get at is that everything that shaped Tomura and his decisions to create the LOV are his decisions, he isn’t a puppet and his vision isn’t to be a pawn just because AFO gave him his quirk, his vision of society isn’t wrong, Tomura chose his path, he chose his people. Izuko's analysis will come shortly because this analysis was too long for me.

#Tomura Shigaraki #Tenko Shimura #bnha 419 #bnha leaks #my boy deserve a lot better that he gets #he isn't a pawn #bnha meta #league of villains #lov bnha #izuku midoriya #deku #midoriya izuku

[eldritchmochi]

i got a comment on a long fic to the effect of "i wanted to comment on every chapter but i didnt want to spam" and im just like honey no, thats not spam, that pure gold in text form. you dont understand, the handful of times i could track someone reading one of my long fics thru comments over a day or a week or whatever have been the absolute best moments of my LIFE please for the love of god if you find a long fic that makes you want to comment on every chapter, absolutely do it, you will make that author weep with joy

#mochi rambles #mochi fic #theres a lot of posts about this but like #for realz honesty tho #every author loves this #if you're not a dick we will gobble up any and all comments #doesnt matter if its just emojis or deep critical analysis #(tho god i do lov me some meta) #there is nothing better than waking up to a million comment emails because someone binged ur fic

[digi-lov]

Hey! Just wanted to ask about your thoughts on the rapidmon and megagargomon coming out in the advanced deck next month

For everyone, these are the cards in question (translation under the cut)

MegaGargomon Ace is kind of insane. With the golden Rapidmon being a Lv.4, and MegaGargomon Ace evolving from the name Rapidmon, regardless of Level, you can just skip the Lv. 5 entirely. If you play Calumon from EX2 as well, you can get from baby to Lv.6 for a total cost of 6 memory.

Also with MegaGargomon's end of attack effect letting it unsuspend, it can just easily attack twice, and thanks to reboot it will still unsuspend in the enemy's turn and be able to block!

Here's some more insight from my brother, who knows more about card games:

MegaGargomon Ace is currently the best Ace Digimon for both Green or Black decks and can be used without the Terriermon line entirely.

It's not as bustet as Apocalymon or the new BT17-077 Return to Origin Option card, but it's too generic for such a good effect, still being usable outside of its intended archetype.

For example, the upcoming TyrantKabuterimon is also very good, but useless outside of Insectoid decks.

Usually the way around Ace Digimon is to only attack when the opponent doesn't have a Digimon on the field that can Blast Evolve. But with MegeGargomon evoling from "Rapidmon" in the name, it can evolve from Levels 4, 5 and 6! (Rapidmon Armor, Rapidmon, Rapidmon X [BT16] respectively)

So your only chance to attack is basically only if the field is empty.

I would like to point out, though, that there are still many other decks being played right now, and it hasn't completely taken over the meta, at least in Asia. Not sure if this will hold true in the West too, but here's hoping.

Rapidmon (X Antibody) BT16-101

Mega | Vaccine | Holy Warrior/X Antibody [Digivolve] [Rapidmon]: Cost 4 ＜Armor Purge＞ (When this Digimon would be deleted, you may trash the top card of this Digimon to prevent that deletion). [When Digivolving] Suspend all of your opponent's Digimon. Then, this Digimon may attack. [All Turns] While [Rapidmon]/[X Antibody] is in this Digimon's digivolution cards, all of your opponent's suspended Digimon get -4000 DP. [All Turns] [Once Per Turn] When an opponent's Digimon is deleted in battle or by having 0 DP, gain 2 memory.

#digimon #digimon tcg #digimon card game #digisafe #digica #デジカ #lov asks #card game meta