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with the latest episodes of mha, can I just say I do not care for toga at all. yes, her backstory is tragic and her parents were awful but at some point she had to realize she was also part of the problem. people aren't scared of her because she likes blood, people fear her because she lacks boundaries and enjoys killing people.

imagine being izuku and having someone you met a total of three times(training camp, the provisional exam, and the shie hassaikai raid), and all three times included her attacking you, declare her love for you in the midst of a war. this complete stranger who has only tried to hurt you just drags you from your spot, ending in preventable deaths/injuries, to ask you to be her boyfriend. of course he thinks she's crazy. that is crazy.

i saw someone saying that toga was an example of queer romance, since her love isn't accepted by society. that's so stupid. i'm sorry. toga's idea of love is stabbing people, painting them in their own blood, obsessing over people who don't know her and when they rightfully freak out at her advances, she takes it as a personal attack against her.

maybe try not stabbing people and visit a blood bank

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Chat GPT Community Guidelines

Anyone else feeling like the community guidelines forchat gpt being all over the place is not a result of the applicatoin bein relatively new, but a result of data manipulation, incompetence or both? Given how the mini version often labels tame or even mundane topics as potentially violating their guidelines, yet tons of anectodes of people who claimed to have updated to pro claim they've been getting way (almost) nonstop with nsf content? Another personal anectode, from yours truly: "I didn't even personally signed for pro and only made a free account, yet the difference of how much actual nsf content it handled was from night to day."

Maybe their definition of community guidelines is who pays more money or even just more attention gets more access to content in general.

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On Karen's purpose

Some people think the reason Karen Mccormick was created and always kept as a damsel in distress with no real agency was to give Kenny more focus, because he's harder to write due to being unintelligible most of the time but I doubt that it was the sole idea. Like, if they just wanted to make it easier to write Kenny, why not just make him intelligible more often, use his alter ego Mysterion more often (who is already intelligible), use his alter ego Princess Kenny more often, have him protect any existing character or one-shot characters that he meets once in his life or even just have him overcome his own struggles more like poverty or his deaths? Not only that, but ever since Karen was created she always had sporadic appearances. Contrary to popular belief, her first appearance was not "In The Poor Kid", it was years before that in "Super Best Friends" where he was background character and not even present for long, but just in a blink it or miss it moment. Why wait years to give her a role in a story? Why sporadic appearances if she's a shortcut for Kenny's character. Also, having Karen be proactive wouldn't have taken away any of Kenny's screentime nor been that difficult. Something as simple as her encouraging him for once wouldn't have been enough to justify her existence, but it still would've been better than her just waiting to be rescued and it still would've resembled a real relationship than what we got. Not only that, but after "The Fractured But Whole", so after Karen had three plot relevant roles and each of them being made once in a few years, they just pushed her into the background. I saw similarities between the bond Kenny and Karen share and the bond between Kyle and Ike. I commented on it in a previous post https://www.tumblr.com/medusasea/760641446053363712/south-park-younger-siblings?source=share (I mentioned there briefly that Karen's writing reminded me of sexism, but I highly doubted it was actual sexism in play. Now I am entirely convinced it wasn't about sexism at all). My guess is that the writers didn't just want a shortcut to give Kenny more screentime, but that they wanted badly to recapture the popularity of Kyle and Ike's bond on Kenny, because Kenny is massively popular himself, largely due to his heroism, so they thought that turning him into a big brother would make him even more appealing. However, since South Park already has a huge and diverse cast, they couldn't come up with a personality to make Karen stand out, so they reduced her to a passive damsel, sometimes trying to make her more appealing with some surface level traits, like pigtails with bows, a nasally voice, more dirt and changing her two pajama set with an onesie to make her more adorable and pitable, but when that failed to make her popluar, they tried a "rebellious" phase, when she suddenly joined the vamp kids despite Myterion's protests, then join the goth kids and they gave her a dark but cute makeover and even made her smoke and swear, but they kept her face dirty and she was still a passive damsel who needed to be rescued from the vamp kids, so an all style but no substance rebellion.

I don't have any proof this was the case and I am not sure this was the thought process behind Karen, but to me, this is the most likely explanation on why her writing is so melodramatic and superficial.

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Pigtails Can't replace character development

I always found it funny how the show redesigned Karen by giving her pigtails with purple bows, added more dirt smudges on her and even changed her two set pajamas to an onesie, especially since South Park cahracters rarely change clothes and you don't often see them in sleepwear anyway, yet they never bothered to ever make her actually proactive. Did they think that we'd see her as a literal baby if she wears an onesie? Did the writers not see how popular onesies are nowadays with adults? When I google the word onesie the first results are onesies for adults. Do they still live in the 90s?

Not only is it shady to use character design to replace character development, but did they think the audience would go: "Aww, poor baby. She's completely helpless and she must be constantly protected." when she looks just as crude and goofy as any other South Park character? The show mocked itself numerous times for how crude it looks, did they really think we'd see Karen as cute as a big eyed anime girl or a Sanrio Mascot? Sanrio might use a simple artstyle and not everyone is fond of it, but it's artstyle is polished and the body proportions are believable if exaggerated. I don't think I have to explain myself why this was doomed to fail. Not to mention that the vast majority of poor people living in poverty don't walk around with dirt smudges on them, especially not on their skin. Dirt and dust are super easy to remove from skin with plain water or even dry cleaning. Honestly, it's kind of insulting that they made a poor kid dirtier to make her more pitiable. If I ever struggled with poverty I'd feel offended, regardless if they meant any harm or not.

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The OFA Users Referring to Each Other by Numbers

I used to think that the OFA users see each other more like soldiers than friends, since they refer to each other be the order they received OFA rather than their names, expect for Nana, All Might and Deku, but even then, they only refer to each other's name within their own subgroup and they still refer to the other users by their numbers. I then realized that even within the military people usually refer to each other by their ranking followed by their names names or in the few exceptions they don't, they use the pronoun "you" or the ranking, which is still a way more appropriate way to refer to a fellow human being than a number. Sometimes people form bonds in the military and I am sure that when they do and are in private they refer to each other with all sorts of terms friends do. An OFA users mostly only sees the order the rest got OFA, yet they are protrayed as these super close, ideal heroes. Even AFO refers to his subordinates by their names and he sees them as mere pawns. Sure, th name he gave Tenko means destruction and he never really cared about him, but he referred to him by a name nonetheless. AFO isn't more caring or anything, but the way he normally refers to his subordinates is way less objectifying, even if his care is completely fake.

It would've been so funny if AFO told the users: "You call yourselves righteous, yet you don't even bother to learn your comrades names? I at the very least did that."

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Entering an Anti Space

Okay, this is actually more of a general complain about shippers, but I've seen a lot of Ichihime shippers that don't mind their own business. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and they have the right to express it or keep it to themselves, but it's hard to change someone's opinion and humans are generally more likely to change when given positive reinforcement than criticism. It's not one size fits all and you have the right to express your disagreement, but complaining about a post you disagree with isn't likely to change someone's mind. It doesn't mean your arguments are wrong, but you are not likely to change someone else's opinion.

It frustrates me when Ichihime supporters keep on defending their ship tooth and nail by commenting at posts ad nauseam, sometimes to the point of harassment. Now, it's not just them, I don't think there is a ship that doesn't have insane fans, but I've noticed many IchiHime shippers in particular doing this. I don't really mind when they just make their own posts or if they keep their comments short and respectful, but many of them don't. I can't tell what percentage of them are disrespectful. I am not implying all Ichihime shippers are obsessed or harass others, but those who do it are very vocal.

I am not expecting to change anyone's opinion with this, just letting it out of my chest.

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Why IzuOcha is better than IchiHime

No hate on anyone who disagrees, thus this should go without saying

There's been recently a lot of controversies surrounding the last MHA chapter, specifically on the confirmation that Deku has feelings for Ochako and while I do agree with many a lot of the criticism, I still find IzuOcha way more believable.

Deku is actually close to Ochako Sure, the relationship was mostly developed from the girls side, similarly to Ichihime, but unlike Ichihime, where Ichigo would often ignore or not understand Orihime, unless she was in danger and even then he was more protective towards other characters (like Rukia and his own sisters) and there were other characters more protective towards Orihime than Ichigo (like Uryu and Tatsuki) for that matter. Meanwhile, Ochao was for Izuku his first real friend and she is clearly the most important girl in his life besides his mother. They hang around often and he often gives her praise and emotional support. Granted, Ichigo was nice at times to Orihime, but I don't recall him ever specifically praising her healing or fighting skills. Furthermore, Izuku is pretty good at cheering Ochako up. He also quickly saw through the facade then Toga impersonated her, because he know Ochako so well. Ichigo has a way harder time understanding Orihime and thus he mostly doesn't know how to offer emotional support on top of also often ignoring her. We've also seen Izuku attempting to come up with a strategy for Ochako at the sports festival. Izuku similarly to Ichigo also gets easily flustered by naked girls and Deku is even more nervous around girls, being often shy only when meeting them. Ichigo pretty much only blushed at Orihime once he realized she dressed up sexy for him, which he clearly disapproved. In Deku's case there is honestly not much I can point to when it comes to his shyness around Ochako, outside the fact that he actually became less shy towards girls mostly by interacting with her.

Ochako never objectified herself to win Izuku. I have nothing aginst people dressing up sexy, but since Orihime in particular was dressing up in a way she never did before just to impress Ichigo, she was tricked by Urahara to do it and that she felt disgusted with herself when the trick didn't work on Ichigo, so she really didn't do herself any favors. In fact, there is a similar scene between Izuku and Ochako in the first mha movie, which is canon. Ochako wears a dress she borrowed from Momo and asks Deku what he thinks. He happily approves of it and she gets flustered. Now, there isn't really that much evidence he has a crush on her with this, but it was still way better than the Ichihime scene, since 1) Ochako didn't degrade herself. She didn't pick that dress just to impress Izuku or at least there's no hint she did so and 2) Deku actually liked it. Even if you don't ship IzuOcha, you have to at least admit this was a much healthier interaction.

Ochako's feelings for Deku are much, much deeper Orihime isn't a bad person and I feel she is often overhated, but she overidealizes Ichigo too much. She sees him as her knight in shining armor, when he actually isn't that close to her and she doesn't understand a lot of his opinions or struggles. She relies too much on Ichigo saving her. By the way, I know the original Japanese had her say "Save" without any pronouns in Hueco Mundo after Ichigo died. I don't think she was that selfish to the point of asking him to save her specifically, but relying on a dead man to save them all is still over reliance. She pretty much relies on him too much. Ochako meanwhile, while she also idolizes Izuku and sees him as a great hero, she actively tries to be a competent hero herself and she even refused to confess her feelings for Izuku, because she wanted to stay focus on her hero training. She also learned by spending time with Izuku how to genuinely focus on saving lives rather than her initial goal to get money for her parents. Her initial goal was never really bad, I think it still largely remained and deep down she knew all along the main goal of a hero is to save lives, but Izuku inspired her to better herself. Now, just like many other people I hate the direction the manga went. I don't want to go into detail on why I hate her interactions with Toga, but this is more of a problem with the story overall and the the characters Ochako and Toga rather than the relationship between Izuku and Ochako in particular. Izuku was also done dirty, but again, not really a problem with the ship itself. There's this whole Ochako and the ther heroes not keeping in touch with Izuku with years which pisses me off and I can't defend, but at least Izuku and Ochako were very close until that point. Not to mention that it was really out of character not just for Izuku and Ochako to not keep in touch, but fr the whole class to basically abandon him. It doesn't make this fact better, but it does show that these characters only drifted apart because they were not acting like themselves, because even the writer didn't have them act naturally.

There is actual content besides just the last chapter. Horikoshi made some heartwarming spreads with Izuku and Ochako. The third movie, which is canon, had him hold her in bridal style and get really angry after she got hurt. Even if you don't interpret it as romantic or you think it's too little for you to start shipping IzuOcha, it's still way more content than Ichihime ever got an MHA is way more recent than Bleach.

MHA ended with Deku realizing he has feelings for Ochako and wanting to get closer to her. This implies they will soon become a couple. Sure, their relationship could've been better developed, especially from Deku's side, but all we got at the end is the start of a romance at most. People shouldn't rush in after they start dating or figure out they are in love. They should take time to bond even more and this is what it's implied happened. Meanwhile, IchiHime didn't even get half of the development or hints that IzuOcha certainly no well-written hint that Ichigo has feelings for Orihime and the manga has them suddenly married with a child at the original final chapter. It feels like Kubo shoehorned Ichihime at the end to piss of most fans and Shonen while Horikoshi did genuinely want IzuOcha to happen, even if it was underdeveloped.

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Yoichi Introducing himself

I always found it weird how the first time Yoichi spoke to Deku, the former presented his story on how he got imprisoned as besically an epic movie, yet he didn't bother to introduce himself first. How do you want to befriend someone and trust them with your traumatizing backstory, yet you don't think they should know your name?

This combined with Yoichi giving a very vague explanation on the bad things his brother did, like mentioning AFO toyed with people he made deals with, but not giving even one vague example on what happened to those people after accepting the deals, or not mentioning that his brother has been always evil made me suspicious of Yoichi. Sure, his brother is a villain and shouldn't be trusted, but just because Yoichi is against him, that doesn't mean he's presenting his brother accurately. Not helping was that when Yoichi claimed that the villain always loses he pulled what seemed like an evil smile. Now, this wasn't proof to me he was evil or anything. That kind of smile can be pulled is also commonly caused by nervousness or feelings of revenge, which are not necessarily evil. However, that smile did not seem heroic to me at all either.

I was hoping it would be revealed that Yoichi isn't all that well in the head and that he is so obsessed with stopping his brother that he is losing his sense of self, to the point of forgetting how to properly introduce himself and build new relationships, instead seeing Deku more as a soldier meant to stop AFO rather than an actual friend and that the other OFA users would've sort of followed his steps without realizing how unhealthy this is. It would've also been ironic if it turned out that AFO actually bothers more than Yoichi to build relationships, even if for purely selfish purposes. It would've been even more ironic if it turned out AFO did feel genuine empathy for his followers, if his plan to make Tomura his successor and all the times he showed concern over others he was genuine. It would've been so ironic if it turned out that he number 1 villain has better social skills and cares more about those on his side that the praised hero, albeit not known by many, who passed on the power that can stop said villain. I didn't wish necessarily for Yoichi to have been revealed as evil all along, but he didn't act natural in his introduction at all and this didn't have any payoff whatsoever.

I could've accepted Yoichi being an ideal hero and AFO being inherently evil if 1) their backstoriy wasn't as ridiculous as them raising themselves since they were babies, 2) Yoichi's introduction wasn't so suspicious and vague and 3) if AFO acted like a (relatively) realistic psychopath, instead of his pathetic, cartoonishly evil self who doesn't even make sense as inherently evil, since he has at least an ounce of genuine care for his brother. I still would've preferred a nuanced approach to these characters, but their black and white portrayals would've been passable if they were somewhat realistic and not all over the place at least.

I feel like Horikoshi did intend originally to make these characters more gray originally, but Shonen didn't let him, at least not entirely. This is just speculation of course, and there are plenty of issues I noticed from the story's beginning that are not Shonen's fault, like All Might giving his quikr to Midoryia the first day he met the kid just because the latter tried to save Bakugou, in a stupid way nonetheless. However, those problems, while nonsensical, were not really vague nor was there any creepy imagery unless there was something bad happening. With most of MHA problems, those at the beginning at least, it feels like they were made with passion at least. AFO and Yoichi's arcs later in the story feel shoehorned in and bitter. Again, just speculation. Just because it seems to me like this personally, it doesn't mean it is true.

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Hate Sink Wiki Rant

This wiki should not exist. To be fair, at least as a concept it is not as bad the quality Wikis, who acted like media pieces are factually good or bad, when it is actually subjective and while it is totally fine to express your opinion, labeling art as good or bad should be left to decide for each person and not expressed by communities as common knowledge. For example, it's fine if reviewers individually or as a team label something good, bad or in between. It's fine if a circle of people have the same opinions about a piece of media as long as they are not pressuring anyone to agree and as long as said piece of media isn't (seriously) harmful. What is not wrong is to create an entire wiki space that labels subjective concepts as good or bad as if those were objective, universal standards. The reason why the idea of a hate sink wiki isn't as bad, is because it adds characters who were meant by the authors to be hated, in other words it is based on author intentions, rather than quality. If for instance an author confirms they wrote one of their characters as a hatesink, than the label hatesink objectively applies to said character, regardless of the quality of writing. The problem with this is that authors don't often confirm their intentions with their characters, making it hard to tell if a loathsome character was meant to be this way at times.

Now despite my criticism I must admit that I agree with some of their pages. I agree for instance about characters like Sho Tucker and Umbridge being hatesinks even without the author's confirmation. However, many of their pages stretch the definition of hatesink and they disallow pages of characters who are way more vile, annoying or pathetic that some of their existing pages.

They add for instance Suzy Johnson. While she is extremely selfish and manipulative, she is not a murderer, she is only doing evil if you get in her way or if she considers so, her evil deeds are always played for laughs and don't ruin lives and she shows some genuine kindness and relatability when she doesn't think she could lose Jeremy's affection. Now, I don't claim she is a very sympathetic or noble demon, for the most part she isn't, but she is on the lower scale of villainy and her evil schemes are smart and funny, making her way more redeemable, funny and complex than an actual hatesink. Meanwhile, they disallow Junko Enoshima, a mass-murderer and hopecrusher, because she is funny. In this case I do agree with their decision, but the fact that they decided Suzy is a hatesink, despite also being a funny a villain and way less evil than Junko, show's how murky their standards are. They also do not list Angelica Pickles, despite her being generally more annoying than Suzy as she screams more and she has a bigger ego. Also, while bot characters are goofy, Suzy's plans are way more unrealistic and ridiculous than Angelica's, making Angelica feel more like a realistic mean little girl thus more detestable. Not to mention that Angelica is almost always in Rugrats while Suzy appears in only 3 episodes, giving the latter less time to set an impression. I can also list more a lot more characters more annoying than Suzy who didn't make it to the wiki: Sarah from Ed, Edd n Eddy, Millie from Kid vs. Kat, Jake Spidermonkey from My Gym Partner's a Monkey. I don't think those characters should be listed as hatesinks either, though I think it is debatable wether Angelica and Millie are suppose to be hated, since they are just jerks at worst, albeit exaggeratedly bad, and they did show redeeming qualities, I still wouldn't say we can surely label them as hatesinks. I feel like the internet started recently to overhate on Suzy and I don't get why. Now, I understand hating her, I don't even hate her and even I feel like she could've been better written, but I feel like some people give her more shit compared to other characters that are way more vile or annoying than her.

What I find ridiculous is that they sometimes even add very minor characters who are standard jerks or bullies. They added Bufford's past bully who appeared in only one episode for only a few minutes and the worst he did was standard bullying and trying to eat Bufford's goldfish, the latter being a stupid act played for laughs. Sure, he only had only one funny moment that was at the same time an attempt to kill a pet, and sure, it's very bad that he was beating up and picking up on smaller kids. I totally understand if you hate him, I sort of do myself, everyone should hate bullying, but it's not much worse than what kids typically do. I don't claim everyone was a bully in their childhood, but what kid didn't get into fights or acted bratty at times? Sure, he is worse than a typical kid, but again, it's nothing outright evil and we only got a few minutes of this guy. He didn't get enough screen time to leave a lasting impression. We also don't know about his motivation. For all we know, he could be a troubled bully. There was nothing to imply that, but there was nothing to debunk that either. Hating him is understandable, but what makes the wiki contributors so sure that this minor character who is nothing more than a standard and stupid bully who barely got screen time was intended by the creators to be so leave lasting hatred within the audiences to the point that it is worth writing an entire page describing why this character was meant to be hated.

This Wiki should not exist. It might not label quality levels to media, but writing an entire wiki on how to interpret an author's intentions isn't much better, unless maybe they limit themselves exclusively to what authors themselves have to say. This is telling people how to interpret media and I wouldn't have a problem with it if they didn't treat it like it's a fact. TV tropes pretty much has the same problem. I think they should've kept only the definition on hatesink and not listed any examples, again, unless the author confirmed a character to be a hatesink.

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No Internet, Suzy Johnson is not a Hatesink

I saw that the Hate Sink WIki and TV tropes listed Suzie Johnseon from Phineas and Ferb as a hatesink and I really don't get why.

For those of you who don't know, a hatesink is a special type of character that the audience is meant to hate. These characters do occasionally have redeeming or cool qualities, but they get overshadowed by their bad personality to the point you loathe heir mere existence or at least this is the author's intentions.

While pure evil villains can be hatesinks, they don't qualify if they have enough cool qualities for the audience to be entertained by them. Take for instance Scar from the original Lion King. He has no redeeming qualities, but he is also has tons of charisma and col qualities. Now this doesn't mean that the intentions was to not feel hatred towards his evil deeds. The reason he does not qualify as a hatesink is because he is overall entertaining to watch and he is also meant to be this way.

Jerks can aslo qualify as hatesinks, but not if they show a decent amount of redeeming qualities, are no worse than an average jerk or have entertaining qualities like for example being funny.

Now that I'm done with the definition of hatesink, let's move on to Suzie Johnson and see if the definition applies.

She is Jeremy's younger sister. She sees herself as the most important girl in Jeremy's life and she won't allow any other girl to take her place. Because of this, she antagonizes Candace. The Hatesink Wiki and TV Tropes list her antagonism towards Candace as a reason why she is a hatesink. Now sure, Suzie loses sympathy points for this, but as I mentioned, being unsympathetic isn't the same as being a hatesink. Not only that, but Suzie's actions while evil, are not meant to be taken seriously. The way she hurts Candace is through cartoony slapstick, from which Candace recovers fast, or through over the top, ridiculous plans, that are not possible in real life nor would it be possible for a real child her age to implement.

Can you seriously look at this image and think we are supposed to take Suzie's evil plans seriously?

Furthermore, her ability to come up with such complex plans is pretty impressive. Charisma often prevents a villain from being a hatesink or at least makes them a little impressive.

Another reason why I don't consider her a hatesink is because her evil deeds, on top of being played for laughs, are seriously NOT THAT bad. Now, don't get me wrong, she is extremely selfish and manipulative, but as long as she doesn't think you get in her way, she won't antagonize you. In "Suddently Suize" she revealed she doesn't want to antagonize Candace as long as Jeremy isn't around and she kept her promise. She even wanted to make paper dolls with Candace and taught her how to manipulate her own brothers, even though Suzie had nothing to gain from it. Sure, it's no much of a redeeming quality, but it gives Suzie some nuance, even if not that much. As for her manipulating people to get what she wants by being cute, tormenting Candace aside (she probably tormented others for similar reasons too, but again, only if you get in her way and her evil plans are played for laughs) what she gets isn't really hurting anyone. All we saw her get was Jeremy spending time with her and Phineas giving her juice. I don't condone her actions, but it doesn't seem like she outright hurts Jeremy or Phineas.

There is also the whole thing of Bufford being scared of her. Look, Bufford is or at least used to be a bully. Sure, he got tons of character development and he became way nicer, but he has engaged in bullying before, so it is possible that he provoked Suzie in some way. It is never revealed why she terrorized him or what exactly she did either. Bufford's fear of her is also played for laughs.

Moving on to what I consider the biggest counterargument to Suzy being a hatesink, her appearance in "Nerds of a Feather". In that episode Suzy wasn't manipulating or hurting anyone. She acted like a realistic kid her age. All she wanted to do was see children's stuff with her brother at a convention. She truly loves Ducky Momo.

Ducky Momo loves her too. Actually, it's Candace in a costume. Suzy would've antagonized her again had she known it, but Candace certainly recognized Suzy and truly meant those wirds judging by her happy facial expression which was shown in a scene and she didn't have to make it, since her face is completely covered.

If you hate Suzie and think I failed at changing your opinion, that was never my intention. I am not arguing against your personal feelings towards the character. I am not claiming you should find her funny, entertaining or like her. I don't claim your feelings towards this character are wrong. However, just because some people hate her, this doesn't mean it was the creators' intention. The definition of hatesink refers to the intention of the creator, not the end result. I was arguing against the idea that it was the creators' intention to make Suzie hateable. Given all the points I listed, they clearly intended to make her a funny, charismatic antagonist and they even gave her redeeming qualities.

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South Park Has too Many Characters

Don't get me wrong, most of the characters are good or at least decent, but there are tons of characters who don't get as much screen time as they deserve or they are downright underdeveloped.

I feel for instance like the show didn't give Wendy enough screen time, but she is one of the lucky characters, since she often has an important compared to most other recurring characters.

Heidi however is pretty much a background character now. However, she is also one of the lucky ones since she got quite a long arc and character development.

Damien on the other hand has only one episode. He is never seen interacting with his father Satan, even though the latter frequently appeared.

There's also Kevin Mccormick, who has always just been there since the show's beginning. They then gave Kenny a little sister in the season 9 episode "Best Friends Forever", where she was just a background character and I didn't even notice her during the first viewing. She only became relevant six seasons later and her only role since then is to be taken care of by Kenny. Adding her didn't even make it easier to give Kenny the spotlight more often, since she was rarely used. Not to mention that if they wanted Kenny to take care of someone, there were already plenty of other characters he could've helped. Sure, his friends aren't nearly as vulnerable as Karen and it wouldn't make any sense for him to pretend being their guardian angel (I'd argue it doesn't even make sense for him to pretend being Karen's guardian angel, but that's a story for another day), but they are not indestructible either. The show frequently puts these kids in danger, it has supernatural elements. Writing Kenny as the one needing help/rescue more often would've also been better than adding Karen just to waste her, since with Kenny they bother giving him legitimate character development and agency. Karen was only relevant in 2 episodes and 1 game segment. If instead of adding her, the writers had Kenny take care of any other character or had him be the one needing help, it wouldn't be nearly as jarring, even if those plots were mediocre or even bad.

Speaking of Kenny, many people complain he doesn't get enough relevance either. I pretty much agree with this, but I don't think it's too big of a problem for the same reason I don't mind it that much Wendy didn't get more screen time.

I am not expecting them to develop every single character or to give all of them the same amount of relevance. Most minor characters should stay like that. As I mentioned, I can cut them some slack for underusing a character that already had plenty development and multiple appearances. Though it highly depends both on the character and the story overall if I consider them underused. For instance, I dislike not getting at least a few interactions between Damien and his father, but I don't mind Gary being used only once, since he was pretty much there for the Mormon theme of the episode and not very memorable in comparison to other South Park characters. He's a good enough character and I wouldn't have minded if he appeared more often, but I don't really miss him either. There are some fans who wanted him back badly and it's totally fine if you also want that.

This is pretty much all I have to write for this post. I don't think it's possible for the creators to perfectly write every single character and I can accept underused characters to a certain extent, but in South Park's case the problem feels to big for me.

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Micheal Jackson as the Final Boss

Recently I asked myself, why is Michael Jackson the final boss of "The Fractured but Whole"? His character was never really evil on the show, all the bad things he caused being by accident or out of denial rather than real malice. Furthermore, at the end of "Dead Celebrities" he finally accepted that he died and was willing to go to the afterlife. Why the fuck would he want to possess Karen? Especially since she was scared. This is never explained. It was probably meant to be a a joke, but if so, I don't get what is humorous about him having control over Karen's body and making her dance like him. I also don't find it funny that when the vampire kids summoned Corey Ham we got Michael Jackson instead. If you find it funny, this is totally fine, but I think it would've been better if they used an actually villanous character for this. I think it would've actually been funnier if they used Corey Ham instead. They could've used any of their other celebrities too.

Then it hit me. Michael Jackson returning as a ghost and possessing a little kid is the exact same plot as "Dead Celebrities" only with way less effort and way less funnier. They literally put Karen into a recycled plot from Ike (of course "Dead Celebrities" had a lot more going on, I was referring to the Michael Jackson part in particular). The creators care so little about Karen that even when they give her character development they literally write her as a lesser version of Ike. They probably didn't actively plan this, but regardless of intentions, she still comes across as a lesser version of Ike.

Note: I don't think all the celebrities South Park has made fun of are evil or mean irl. The creators themselves claimed they don't think all celebrities they parodied are bad people. My point was about the fictional versions of the cleebrities.

[medusasea]

Blaming the Anime

I find it funny when Ichihime shippers blame the anime for influencing people to ship Ichiruki by adding additional Ichiruki moments and pushng Ichihime to the side, when the manga never showed chemistry between Ichigo and Orihime either, most if not all pro ichiruki posts refer to the manga, not the anime and I've never ever seen anyone claim that an anime-only scene of ichiruki happened in the manga as well. As if you don't get all kinds of shippers in all fandoms, including those of fictional works that are exclusively in one medium. You have for instance tv shows that were not adapted from other works and still have shippers.

[medusasea]

AFO's Evilness is Ridiculous

Usually I don't mind villains who are pure and/or inherently evil , I like Aku from Samurai Jack. However, with AFO in particular, him being born evil seems out of place, and not just because he and his brother were able to survive on their own since they were babies. Morals are jubjective, and while there are plenty of moral rule I agree with and I totally agree Afo had to be defeated, given the life he had: living in a time where people with quirks were discriminated against, having to fend for himself, having almost 0 support from others, it all seems like everyone who walked in his shoes would turn to villainy, or at least turn out very badly. Despite of this, I am not entirely against AFO being inherently evil, since the plot could've still made sense. However, not only does AFO being inherently evil contradict his characterization pre body snatching subplot, where he seemed to genuinely care about Tomura as his successor, as evidenced by AFO's inner monologue in the prison, but the manga falt out shows that AFO wasn't 100% evil when he lamented about losing his brother again.

I must admit that fictional sociopaths tend to not be realistic, but when it comes to emotional empathy, they tend to be quite realistic or at least consistent for their fictional world. They tend to feel little to no empathy and desire for human connection. In AFO's case, he missed his brother so much, he searched for him for centuries and he feels like nothing without his brother. Now, fiction does not have to represent realistic mental disorders or give villains mental disorders. Perhaps AFO isn't really a sociopath, but even for fictional standards i don't see how he would be able to feel such a deep connection towards his brother, albeit an unhealthy one, yet also not just inherently evil, but over the top evil. He didn't just corrupt Tomura after finding him, he manipulated all the events in his life and tricked him that he will become his successor. AFO also largely shaped Chisaki and copied his quirk in the past I personally don't think this was Horikoshi's plan all along. While I considerthe plot twist of AFO manipulating Tomura's life, at least we knew from the start that AFO was a bad influence on him, at least there is a hint of this twist, with the at the time unknown man who got Tenko back to his house turning out to have been AFO all along. It wasn't well written, but at least there were some attempts to make it believable, albeit dumb ones. With Chisaki not only was there no hint he ever had anything to do with AFO or Garaki, but considering his hatred for quirks it begs the question why the supervillain who is all about getting more quirks would influence Chisaki to hate them? It's even more counterproductive than his plan with Tomura.

There is also AFO making tons of stupid decisions and outright murdering or attempting to murder followers for petty reasons, when he was build up as a calculated mastermind who knows how to get people to like him. You could argue that the vast majority of abusers often treat their victims well, yet also treat the cruelly in other instances, but AFO comes across as a manchild who shoots himself in the foot all the time. AFO being a manipulative abuser who doesn't really care about his followers only for his behavior to bit him in the ass could've worked if he was more pragmatic, subtle and not childish (or at least not as childish as in canon). The reason why some other over the top evil villains work, is because they are way more of a genuine threat and/or have other qualities that make them entertaining, like for instance being funny, both of which on't really apply to AFO, not since he escaped Tartarus at least. Even minor villains form saturday morning cartoons are more intimidating and/or more entertaining.

[medusasea]

The Potential of IzuOcha

Whe it comes to the IzuOcha ship, I am somewhere in the middle. While I hate the mha ending, I think them not becoming a couple makes the most sense. While it was confirmed that Uraraka has a crush on Midoriya, there were very few hints if at all that he feels the same and even if there truly were hints about that, they were so subtle, that interpreting Deku as seeing Uraraka as just a friend is also possible and I see where people who don't ship these two characters. However, had these two ended up as a couple at the end, I would've considered it totally believable, if underdeveloped on Deku's side.

These two are so similar: similar values, similar way of talking, perseverance, wish for independence. They are also very close to each other. They are often seen together and the way they talk to each other is s adorable. They know each other well, they bring the best in each other (admittedly some of those moments are good according to the manga only, but this is more of a problem with the overall writing rather than with the relationship between Midoriya and Uraraka), they usually manage t lift each other up.

These two have such great chemistry. When I say chemistry, I don't refer to romantic relationships only, it can also be about platonic ones, or those left to your interpretations, whether the feelings are platonic or not.

As I mentioned, Midoriya's feelings weren't nearly as developed as Uraraka's, but I don't see any proof he never felt or never had the potential to develop romantic feelings for her as well. The manga managed to portray their friendship as close and a close friendship is the start of good romance (there are stories with love at first sight, but that's a different topic altogether). I don't even see IzuOcha as a romance for the ages, but more like a cute highschool crush between two close friends.

I do call myself a IzuOcha shipper, even though I wouldn't have been entirely satisfied if they did end up together, considering it would've been largely underdeveloped, but I see so much chemistry between these two, I can't help but get invested in the potential of developing them as a couple, even though the manga is done.

Now, it is possible Horikoshi will turn them into a couple in a sequel or so, but the manga had so many other huge issues that no sequel could fix it, though I still wouldn't mind IzuOcha becoming canon, unless they get written horrendously. Even if they never get set officially as a couple, headcanons and fanfiction are fine for me.

[medusasea]

Rescue Deku Arc

I want to say I was hoping at one point there would be a rescue Deku arc. You can argue that the ending of his vigilante arc sort of was, since his friends saved him from himself, but I wanted one in which he gets kidnapped, specifically by AFO with AFO locking him up in a vault. Ironically, I also imagined AFO being a foil to Overhaul who tortured Eri and only saw her as a tool, I was imagining AFO going to start sympathizing with Deku and treating him unexpectedly humane for a prisoner.

Just the possibilities. AFO locks Deku in a vault because Yoichi is inside of him and AFO is possessive towards his brother like usual. Yoichi relieves his trauma but he gets character development. Midoriya can only rely in the other OFA users and they get more development. Class A-1 class and the teachers search desperately for their kidnapped friend. Inko is heartbroken, but she still has hope. Tomura doesn't have to worry about Deku, so he gets to terrorize more people.

Since AFO is also sympathetic in this version, Midoriya gets to hear more from his side of the story and realizes they are two sides of the same coin. Both AFO and Midoriya faced discrimination, Midoriya for being quirkless and later for looking creepy, AFO for having a quirk. Both of them inspire people. Both of them worked hard to become powerful. Both of them have multiple quirks and are good at analyzing them. Both of them are very observant. Both of them love their families and care about their comrades, it's just that AFO expresses it in an unhealthy way. Midoryia inspires to be the number 1 hero, while AFO used to want the same, until society broke him, so he decided to become number 1 villain as revenge. At first Deku is extremely skeptical, but Yoichi confirms that AFO did indeed wish to be number 1 hero in his youth, or at least he doesn't deny it.

Given how vague Yoichi's introduction to Deku was, I was hoping Deku would become a little suspicious on why Yoichi didn't tell when him when exactly AFO started his villainy, especially his murders, how AFO acted and how their life was before Yoichi's imprisonment and Yoichi didn't even tell his own name. I was hoping the manga would go on the route that AFO used to be good until he turned to villainy and that Yoichi and the rest of the OFA users didn't tell Deku those details out of fear, but doing so made everything worse, since Deku feels like they might be hiding even more and he feels disappointed.

Considering how people with quirks were treated during AFO's time, catastrophes were happening anyway, I thought it would've been clever if a plot twist was that AFO wasn't as bad towards the people he made deals with as Yoichi claimed. A vague vague statement "dispose of them" that Yoichi used can mean many things. I wasn't expecting AFO to be blameless, I was in fact expecting him to have indeed abandoned certain people in times of need, but that doesn't mean he went out of his way to harm them. For him to abandom them, they would have to be in a bad situation. Again, society discriminated against those with quirks and their allies, I expected society to have killed or injured many of them, with the worst that AFO did being choosing to not save all of them. Perhaps not even out of selfish reasons, maybe he had a plan to change the system and considered that saving those people would hinder his plan, so he chose to not save them for the greater good. I would also add AFO being traumatized after the first time he gave someone many quirks and destroyed their brain in the process. he tried to save the person, but failed.

He only imprisoned Yoichi after the latter not only stood up to him, but also called his intentions evil. We know that AFO's group ended up killing another that refused to join them, but they were actually evil, or at least AFO's group thought so. AFO didn't ask nor manipulate his own people into doing this, in fact, they are the ones who convinced him that it was the right choice. Had the second and third user not fought against him, AFO wouldn't have fought them either, but they not only stand up to him, they also assume the worst and steal his brother away. AFO finally snaps completely and decides that if everyone will treat him like a demon lord, he might as well act like one.

I am not condoning AFO locking Yoichi up, it's just that in this version AFO is a well-intentioned extremist who rationalizes his acts. He is also as mentioned far less of a monster and has more standards, had the (first few) OFA users not intervened, it still wouldn't be pretty, but he wouldn't have been as bad as him becoming the symbol of evil. Also, because of the OFA users AFO didn't keep his position of power, which is actually for the better, but had they not called him Demon Lord and had they tried to understand him, he would've actually gone way easier on them, though he still would've oppressed them and he likely wouldn't have given up without a fight. In this version he also never really got to rule over entire Japan, but had he, he would've been a dictator, albeit not nearly the worst.

Deku fears AFO might be in the right, or at least he fears he could've ended up like him if his life was different. AFO sees this and sees potential into turning the boy to the dark side, but he refuses. At the same, AFO sympathizes with Deku' pain, especially since he went through similar experiences, and feels respect for Deku for putting actual effort into understanding him and not just assuming the worst like every other hero. So AFO is hesitant to further hurt Deku.

Also, because why not? Have All Might retain his powers again. I know some people might dislike this, since they want for AFO and All Might to stay retired for the sake of the theme of passing the torch, but in this version AFO kept his promise of passing the torch to Tomura. AFO escaped prison, but he does smaller work at the moment. As for All Might, he gets entirely focused on saving Midoriya, so he doesn't really return as the number 1 hero, not for anyone else besides Deku anyway. Also, I don't plan for this to be the final arc in my reimagining (I don't know if I will ever write down an entire story though, I might simply limit myself to ideas, rather than a complete plot). So while All Might is back, the torch still (mostly) belongs to Deku. All Might also hears about AFO's past and is even more shocked than Midoriya.

This post turned out even longer than expected and I could go on even longer. You can disagree with this reimagining, but I personally love stories where the protagonist gets kidnapped, especially if they are competent fighters.

[medusasea]

Hello, I am the one who sent you that question Stillness. In case you are wondering how I interpret AFO, I want to firstly tell you that after reading your post I became sure that AFO has indeed always been evil, even in the womb. However, before reading your reply I didn't so much interpret him as not being inherently evil, as I was confused.

First of all, the Shigaraki brothers' backstory doesn't make much sense and it's in bad taste, as you and many others already stated. While the circumstances of their birth don't disprove AFO being inherently evil, they are distracting and it made me unsure if the narration about AFO was reliable.

Second of all, the conditions under which AFO and Yoichi lived were horrible, which seems weird for a character supposed to be inherently evil. This isn't entirely unrealistic though. I am not a mental health professional, but there are discussions about certain individuals being born with the antisocial personality disorder while also living in harsh environments. However, if an individual has (severe) lack of empathy and had a harsh upbringing, it is far more likely that said environment shaped them like that rather than them being born with lack of empathy. Even the narrative confirmed that most villains are not inherently evil and were shaped by their environment. Muscular is one of the exceptions, but even then, we know nothing about his backstory, so we have no proof he is inherently evil too. While I totally agree with your points on how AFO was inherently evil, I did have some suspicions before reading your post. The story also seems to imply that AFO's quirk is the reason he is inherently evil, which I don't get. There are plenty of characters who are not inherently evil, yet have inherently more destructive quirks. Sure, AFO is one of the most powerful quirks ever, but by itself it doesn't kill people, it mostly just steals their quirks. Sure, AFO has tons of destructive quirks, but in theory the destructive power depends on what other quirks he gets, the AFO quirk by itself being useless. Meanwhile, the narrative has a lot of very empathetic characters whose quirks are inherently more destructive, like Eri, whose quirk can erase people out of existence. Now, characters often show an instinct to use the quirk and if the quirk is dangerous so is their urge, but those characters are still capable of empathy. I can buy the quirk itself giving him the urge to steal quirks, as he also called himself a cleptomaniac, but this in on itself should be a mere urge to steal at worst, not one to cause murder or even pain. Furthermore, AFO has also the power to give quirks. If AFO has an instinct to use the quirk, shouldn't he have at least sometimes the urge to give too? He probably does, but why would his desire to gain quirks reduce his empathy, but his desire to give wouldn't increase his empathy? It makes no sense for the narrative for the AFO quirk by itself to affect its holder's empathy, not to the point of sociopathy anyway.

Third of all, there is a current theme in MHA about morality being subjective and even AFO makes some good points about it, like how morals vary across cultures, how heroes shouldn't act like they can save everyone, how their society relies too much on heroes and perhaps even more examples I don't remember. Of course, he only said those things for personal gain, but they were still pretty good points. My point really is how the conflict between AFO and Yoichi is way too reductive for such a story. Even if I could accept AFO being inherently evil, I still could not accept the narrative portraying the OFA users as the ideal heroes going against AFO. Even if AFO would not bring any improvement under his reign, or at least none that wasn't self-serving, and while I totally agree that he had to be defeated, I still hate how the OFA users and the narrative in general glosses over societal problems that cause so much harm. Not helping is that Yoichi firmly believed that the villain always loses at the end, which isn't true, certainly not in real life.

My final point is perhaps the most subjective, as I would've preferred AFO to not have been inherently evil. There are certain pure evil villains I like, like Aku or emperor Palpatine (in the original trilogy), but considering MHA's theme of villains being made not born, I think it would've been much scarier if society (largely) created it's own worst villain. It would've certainly made more sense for AFO to have trained Tomura into becoming his successor if he genuinely meant it and cared about him. I aso think it would've been way scarier if it turned out that Deku and AFO were two sides of the same coin. In the vigilante arc Deku got to see how it feels like to be feared and hated by society while also seeing evils within the very system he fights to protect. I was hoping for AFO's backstory to be similar to Deku's vigilante arc, like having AFO also inspire to be the greatest hero in his youth, only to be met with fear and hate from most people, but he still had friends and/or family close to him that saw the good in him and much like Deku, he also desired to fight by himself to protect his loved ones, only for them to try stopping him from going by himself. However, while Deku realized that he shouldn't shoulder all the pressure of being a hero on his own, AFO still walked away by himself, only to end up failing to protect the people close to him, most of them sans Yoichi ending up dead. Then, having almost no one by his side and constantly dealing with society calling him a monster for his bare existence, he ends up snapping and comes to the conclusion that if society treats him like a villain, he could just as well become one, but deep down, he still has hope that society could improve, even if only under tyranny. He tries to break Deku in a similar way, in order to make Deku join him or at least give up being a hero, but then he sees how the class manages to reach to Deku and how much potential they have in numbers compared to just Deku by himself and AFO starts questioning his decision to leave his friends many years ago. He later tells Deku about his past and Deku ends up fearing that if he didn't accept his friends help, he could've walked down the same path of villainy as AFO did, resulting in both characters showing some genuine sympathy towards each other. They are still enemies, but they get somewhat reluctant about fighting each other. It might not be the best idea, but it's way better than what we got.

Hello, I like your posts and I want to ask you something. I don't think there is any way AFO knew from the start that other people besides him couldn't handle as many quirks as he could, so when he decided to offer someone many quirks, he ended up harming them instead. Do you think the original plan was for this to have been included in AFO's backstory as one of the factors for his villainy, rather than having him evil in the womb (though even him being inherently evil is debatable).

Hiya, and thanks for the kind words! 

To answer your question, the tl;dr is that I don't know what Horikoshi was originally thinking for AFO's backstory (but we could compare him over to a certain movie villain if we want to hypothesize about it!) but I don't think you or I or anyone else is obligated to care. Your proposal seems to me like it fits fairly neatly even into canon as we have it, give or take it being "a factor in his villainy," so you should feel free to include it in your headcanons as-is.

Also included below: several paragraphs about why I personally fall on the side of AFO being inherently evil as he's depicted in the canon even though I heartily believe it's a stupid-ass depiction and people should freely elect to ignore it.

Hit the jump.

People sometimes being harmed by multiple quirks came up in the same conversation as the idea that One For All could not be stolen but could be forced on someone, back just after Stain.  I don’t know how much we can gather about Horikoshi’s original plans from that, but it must be said that these days I’m pretty cynical about any information in the series being able to withstand close analysis.

For example, I always assumed that All Might knew OFA could be forcibly passed because at some point it had been, because how else could he possibly know? But while that hasn't been strictly disproven, it's certainly the case that none of the vestiges ever act in a way that suggests they never wanted this to begin with and had it forced on them against their will. So could we not as easily say that both the “forcing OFA on the unwilling” and the “too many quirks can harm people” factoids were literally just there as set-up for Shigaraki and Spinner’s respective endings?

On the other hand, that conversation happened all the way back in 2015, with Spinner’s existence only just having been hinted at in a single panel, and we know Horikoshi had a different ending in mind at one point.  Maybe back then, he was still thinking in terms of that different ending when he wrote that conversation?  We know the original ending eventually got recycled into the second movie, Heroes Rising, which came out four years after the conversation in question.  We don’t know exactly how it would have looked if integrated into the story proper, but if you’re wondering about All For One potentially being slated for a more sympathetic origin, it’s worth comparing him to that movie’s ending—or, more specifically, to that movie’s villain, Nine.

For the longest time, I took Nine for a sort of proto-Shigaraki, but that’s because I was working under the assumption that Shigaraki would be the Final Boss, and thus that Nine was “Shigaraki as Final Boss from a time when the Villains were just meant to be scary and alien.”  I had not prior to this very post given any serious thought to the idea of Nine as a proto-version of Final Boss All For One.

It does make a certain amount of sense, though!  He’s got the multiple quirks, he’s hunting for a specific quirk, he was given surgery by Ujiko, he has an unstable body, he has white hair, he has megalomania…and, most pertinently to your ask, he was even born in the most grinding poverty imaginable with no indication of any parents being in the picture for him.  So then, how did Nine react to the circumstances of his birth, and could we extrapolate any of those reactions back onto Canon AFO to see him in a more sympathetic light?

Unfortunately, Nine’s takeaway from his backstory seems to revolve around the idea that he has a great, powerful quirk, so he really ought to be on top of the world, but because of the circumstances of his birth, he isn't—instead he and the rest of his friends are living on the streets or in shitty trashed apartments or being chased by mobs or what-have-you.[1]  That sense of specific grievance is much more akin to All For One’s evil than it is the more sympathetic tack taken in the portrayal of the League.  The League never wanted to be powerful/famous/rich; they didn’t think that they deserved to be on top of the world but that the circumstances of their lives/the unfairness of the world deprived them of that golden life.  Their grudge is a result of their own suffering and how that suffering was ignored by the world around them, not (give or take some elements of Dabi’s story) the sense that they were denied something that was “rightfully” theirs.  All For One, though, does have that sense of grievance and denied ego.

1: It is, of course, very easy to also track elements of other Villains to Nine’s crew.  Chimera was a victim of heteromorphobia and (Spinner), while Slice was either living the hikkikomori life (Spinner, La Brava) or had trouble controlling her quirk (Toga).  Mummy is the vaguest of the three, but given the flashiness of his clothes in the single flashback panel we get of him, I might guess he got drawn towards organized crime, like various of the disenfranchised Shie Hassaikai characters and, one might argue, Twice.  So even here, those elements of societal failure are present; they’re just rationalized differently by Nine's crew on their journey from victim to Villain.

Of course, that doesn’t necessarily reflect on what Horikoshi would have done with those scenarios in the long term—the movies are historically extremely disinterested in having Villains with a lick of moral nuance that might make Deku & co. hesitant to do anything other than punch them out of commission ASAP.  So Nine boiling down to, “I want to take over the world because my godlike quirk means I deserve to, and I only wasn’t already ruling it because the world figured out how to cage allegorical lions,” doesn’t necessarily mean All For One’s story would have been—or was always intended to be—the same!

In the end, though, as I said, I’m pretty cynical about Horikoshi and his “original intentions,” so I think if you want to dream up a more sympathetic backstory for All For One, you should just go for it!  I don’t even think it’s entirely out of bounds, canonically speaking.  After all, we know that AFO is capable of feelings resembling affection for people he thinks of as “his”—who’s to say he didn’t discover that giving people too many quirks would hurt them when he gave some favored subject one quirk too many and it broke them?  Sure, I think that in canon his reaction would be that of a spoiled child who accidentally broke a toy, with any actual sense of guilt willfully buried beneath anger and pique that he can’t have another one just like it.  But it’s still plausible!

Heck, you could even add in that his and Ujiko’s Noumu project wasn’t about strengthening the body solely for AFO’s sake, to outrun the quirk singularity, but also so that the people he liked and wanted to keep around could get multiple and/or powerful quirks without going catatonic.  It makes sense, even—if the quirk All For One is all that’s necessary for AFO to get all the quirks he wants with no downsides, why would he care about the quirk singularity?  It could only have been because he wants to preserve humanity for his rule (because he’s desperately lonely but also desperately controlling).

Really, I’m all for takes on All For One that try to give him any nuance and humanity at all—which brings me to your aside about the debatableness of AFO being intrinsically evil.

(I don't know where you stand on this, anon, so don't take this as aimed at you personally so much as the people I've seen on Twitter who say things like, "Anyone who thinks AFO was born evil missed the whole point Horikoshi was making about Villains being created by society.")

I have all the respect in the world for people who try to argue that Horikoshi didn’t intend AFO to be read as evil in utero, I truly do, and I very much see where they’re coming from. However, in this specific matter, I think they are giving Horikoshi more benefit of the doubt than he deserves. We know good and well that Horikoshi can set up a good juxtaposition between the reality of a character’s situation and the “narrative” the world is enforcing on them, and that juxtaposition is just not there in the depiction of Baby!AFO.

Look at the contrast between the “Who Was Shigaraki Tomura?” program and Spinner’s breakdown about Shigaraki being his friend and hero, or the art of young Himiko just existing and being Himiko as her parents call her a demon, a monster, and a deviant.  Conversely, think of the ironic juxtaposition of Edgy!Deku, covered in grime and muck, a terrifying presence but still being extolled by the narrative as a Hero trying to help and save people.

None of that duality is there with Baby!AFO, who is drawn with bulging, creepy, blank eyes and twisted expressions from the exact moment of his birth and constantly throughout his childhood, compared to his younger brother, who’s just drawn like Horikoshi normally draws babies, who gets to be a normal adorable child compared to his obviously-drawn-to-be-unsettling older brother.  This accompanies a narrator telling the reader about how AFO was “imbued with hubris and a disrespect for others” from the moment he was born; it constantly describes AFO in ways that ascribe him agency that he as an infant could not possibly have: he “stole” his mother’s quirk just like he “stole” nutrients from his brother.

From the moment of conception, he’s talked about like some kind of alien monster, a horror movie parasite fresh off a meteorite. The text says of the twins’ mother that she couldn’t feel “what had taken up residence in her uterus,” which is just about the most garishly dehumanizing way I can think of to describe a pregnancy!  AFO is a “what” instead of a “who,” and he “took up residence” instead of “was conceived.” Seriously, it’s like I’m reading the worst dregs of posts from the old childfree livejournal communities that had their own nasty slang to use for mothers and babies that anyone outside of their community would look at and ask, “Hey, what’s with the fucking gross language you’re using to describes other human beings here?”

There are so many ways that Horikoshi could have—and, I expect, would have!—done differently if what he wanted was to demonstrate that even AFO is a victim of the world he was born into.  He could have kept the narration as-is but visually depicted Baby!AFO as just a normal infant who became twisted due to the events of his youth.  He could have kept the alienating visuals but had the narration be more sympathetic, telling the reader how AFO was born a little different but still might have grown up okay if he hadn’t had the deck stacked so badly against him from the beginning.  He could have just let readers draw their own conclusions and dropped the narrator entirely because there is no one in all of the setting’s history (least of all the usual narrator, Future!Deku) who could actually be a reliable narrator about AFO’s infant years.

Instead of any of that, what we have is Horikoshi indulging the part of him that likes horror with an omniscient narrator lecturing us about how AFO was a greedy parasite of unknown providence in the womb, and art to match. It's only made more clear by how sterling and saintlike Yoichi is despite his only consistent model for human behavior being All Of That.

Listen, I am all about trying to wring the story for any and every excuse I can find to write apologetics for the Villains!  I will take an inch from Horikoshi and run a ten-mile marathon with it!  I totally support being critical of the story of AFO as we were told it! But I just can’t get behind the read that Horikoshi was challenging us to look beyond the surface with Baby!AFO, and that only readers who misunderstood what he was saying with his Villain plot could possibly think that AFO was written as an Evil Baby.  I’m sorry, people who want a non-evil baby!  I’m sorry, people who want a Horikoshi who wouldn’t write an evil baby!  But canonically speaking, AFO was an Evil Baby. Every element of his story was chosen to hammer that in—the scenario, the writing, the art, the narration, and the fact that only real juxtaposition present in any of it is in Good Baby Yoichi.

Aaaaand that’s all the more reason why Villain-appreciators in this fandom should feel absolutely free to disregard any and all pieces of canon they think are stupid lazy bullshit that Horikoshi ran with because grappling with e.g. “relatable motivations” or “the difficulties of treating antisocial personality disorder when the only medicine you were taught is punching�� would make the story too complicated.

Honestly, “AFO didn’t realize his toys could break before he broke one,” is easy to fit into the canon compared to some of the back-breaking twists I’m prepared to undertake with a straight face.  Go nuts!

Thanks for the ask!