shardofcognition

[shardofcognition]

I am a huge fan of retiring to my quarters

[shardofcognition]

this post was the catalyst for this comic, and i was also thinking of a desi song lyric (tere dil ke sheher mein ghar mera ho gaya / in the city of your heart, my home is made) and just... hmmm.... leaving your mark.... making a house into a home..... when the marks a child inevitably leaves behind (messes, scribbles, and in this case stickers) eventually fade away as they grow older and you're left with the memories stored in what hasn't been erased....

im not verbalizing it very well but catch my drift?

[shardofcognition]

League of Parallels - LoV vs. Class 1-A - Twice

Once I noticed it, I couldn't put it back.

Every member of the League of Villains in My Hero Academia has pretty much a direct counterpart in Class 1-A, and a fated confrontation at the climax of the series.

Except, one and all, their counterpart is NOT their fated opponent. Instead, the mirror image is almost always someone they barely interacted with.

Unlike most of the League of Villains, Twice doesn't meet his fate for good or ill at the hands of a member of Class 1-A, but instead at the wings of Hawks. The closest 1-A member to the confusion is Tokoyami, who, like Twice, has struggled with losing control of the sentient manifestation of his Quirk, his shadow self / selves. But Twice's parallel is Ochako Uraraka.

The Broken & The Mender

~ Poverty - Loyalty - Friendship - Self-Worth - Loneliness ~

~ Toga ~

What is the boundary, between a hero and a villain? If a villain sacrifices everything to save his friends, is he not heroic also? If a hero shoulders everyone's burdens, who is to save them, when the time comes? If a hero seeks to save everyone, doesn't that include the villains, too?

Ochaku / Twice: THE SUPPORTER

At first glance, Twice seems like he couldn't parallel anyone, except perhaps himself. He's stricken, split in two and shoddily rejoined, constantly both for and against everything, even himself. At least, until we got to know him better, when his wounds were bound up by Toga. At the end of the day, his theme is that a man divided against himself is defined, not by his words, but by his actions. His quirk is, ultimately, a measure of admiration for his friends and the world he lives in. Uraraka, on the other hand, begins her heroic work not to save the world, but to save her parents. Her logic is that heroism is a lucrative career - and she's out to make some money, because the problem that she saw, most of all, was poverty. But Ochako's theme, like her quirk, is that she wants to lift the burdens of other people, largely by taking them on herself. From the moment she volunteers to give Deku her exam points, to the point where she pleads for him to be given the space to rest, to have the suspicion against him lifted... Ochako is looking to the burdens of others, and seeking to lighten them. In the end, that includes Toga, too, where the burden is judgement and scorn. But when it comes to their parallels? Twice and Uravity both struggle with imposter syndrome, both struggle to define heroism, both focus on their friends and families. Both are driven to sacrifice themselves, and both come from, not the bottom of society, but from at least a deep awareness of material and personal want.

And, at the end of the day, like it or not... both are defined in part by their relationship to Toga - a woman inclined to admiration and even idolization of others but who, ultimately, refused to bend an inch to society's rules. A confident opposite, who was truly unlike them, but who had grasped something that each desperately needed.

And both of them, ultimately, asked the same questions of the world and the audience... "What makes a Hero? What makes a Villain? Can you call someone who gives their everything to save their friends truly villainous? Can you say the same of a hero that lets the outsiders to society languish? And in the end, how do you deal with the ones you couldn't save?"

<< Bakugo / Dabi

[shardofcognition]

League of Parallels - LoV vs. Class 1-A - Dabi

Once I noticed it, I couldn't put it back.

Every member of the League of Villains in My Hero Academia has pretty much a direct counterpart in Class 1-A, and a fated confrontation at the climax of the series.

Except, one and all, their counterpart is NOT their fated opponent. Instead, the mirror image is almost always someone they barely interacted with.

Dabi's fated encounter is, obviously, Shoto Todoroki - bound together by ties of blood and suffering. But Shoto doesn't parallel Dabi, except insofar as they both suffered under the same paternal incompetence.

Dabi's counterpart in My Hero Academia is Bakugo.

The Volatile Prodigy

~ Destiny - Greatness - Frustration - Solitude ~

Touya Todoroki and Katsuki Bakugo share ALMOST everything in common. Both were born with absolutely incredible, thoroughly dangerous quirks, and were immediately affirmed of their destined greatness - encouraged from their very first moments to set their sights on not simply heroic success, but the pinnacle - the rank of Number One Hero itself.

Both are loners by nature, eschewing close relationships with anyone who seems weaker than them and anyone who might seem to impede their dream. Bakugo at first refused to even learn the names of his classmates, and Touya despised every member of his family as a child, except his father, who he idolized. As far as friends of Touya's from school go, none are ever mentioned, except insofar as their heroic ambitions goad him. Bakugo's early friends are, as far as we can tell, mainly hangers-on.

Despite their strength, the foundation of their self-image cracked when someone close to them saw their weakness and seemingly rejected their strength. That led to an obsession with dominating or otherwise FORCING their detractor to see them as being as strong and capable as they believe themselves to be.

Both hurt themselves with their quirks all the time. Bakugo has learned to endure his own quirk, but it takes a great toll on his body even before its evolution. Touya's damage was unavoidable enough that his father immediately ended his training.

So, what's the difference?

Family, first of all. Bakugo's parents have a strong marriage, with Masaru's peacemaking style balancing his wife and child's explosive, confrontational personalities - but he's no pushover, clearly articulating his own thoughts. Masaki recognizes that Bakugo's ability has led to him having a distorted self-image, and sees it as important to correct but WITHOUT rejecting him or his aspirations.

Touya, on the other hand, went from being the golden child to discarded, even moreso because he never understood why he couldn't just bear the pain and injury to pursue his original, lauded potential. His parents marriage, brittle in the first place, fractured both because Touya could not right his psyche, and because Endeavor pushed Rei into bearing a fourth child, who then took Touya's coveted position of protege. Rei could never confront Endeavor or stick up adequately for herself, withdrawing except to deliver bitter barbs as the relationship deteriorated. Enji, Endeavor, could not understand other people's emotions or deal productively with his own.

Aspiration is another one. All-Might is a truer hero than Endeavor, and aiming toward All-Might meant Bakugo had cause to temper his worst personality traits, eventually.

But, most importantly, Bakugo met other people who he could respect, and peers who could rival his own ability. Because Touya was discouraged from openly using his quirk, he never met anyone near his level of ability... and never had cause to develop the humility and empathy needed to not merely excel, but to lead. Touya never met a Kirishima, whose aggressive friendliness and near invulnerability to Bakugo's personal defenses kept him grounded and involved.

We can see, in Bakugo, what Touya might have been. But we can also see, in Bakugo, exactly how difficult and destructive Touya might have been to deal with. And we can see in Dabi what a truly devastated and resentful Bakugo might look like.

[shardofcognition]

hyuse: “a deadline is a weighty thing, with the power to compel, and i suspect that osamu feels this more keenly than others.”

rokuro: “say i set my ducks in a row, to the point that even a worthless idiot could succeed with a little effort… if even that’s not enough for me to climb that first real step, i’ll just be proving that i’m hopelessly incompetent. confirming that truth for myself is my greatest fear of all.”

below here will just be me talking nonsensically abt the new wortri chapters so be warned:

osamu is such a compelling character and i cheer every time ashihara gets to pay off his development and explain the specifics of who he is and personally if i came up with a character with such specific building points i would not be able to resist trying to explain them constantly. this payoff in particular felt chefs kiss since rokuro was set up as a foil and idk i care him very much even though he's just a side character only tangentially related to the main plot. what the f

[shardofcognition]

Wishes.

I'm not going to join the BNHA hate, but I do feel like the ending disappointed me in ways that are entirely my own.

One of the things that I noted, way back in the day, was that though Deku did not inherit his parents quirks, those quirks described his ideal as a hero and core aspects of his personality. His father could breathe fire. And his mother could draw small objects toward herself.

As it manifested in Deku... he could speak fire in bold words, and draw the small, neglected, or forgotten toward him. The meaning of the two, together, would be "to inspire the weak." Which I think, to Horikoshi's credit, he tried to hit on with the idea that the change hero society needed, really needed, was for the small people to rely less on institutions and icons to deal with their problems... to focus on what they could do, whether or not they were licensed heroes. To show that heroism was in the hand outstretched to the strange and the suffering as much as the fist to smash evil.

But with him losing One for All, and retiring to teach... well, I don't like that. And I don't like that, because it returns him to quirklessness and leave major issues unresolved.

I always thought that the greatest hero would be the one to help with the quirk singularity. I'd felt that, if Deku were able to take All for One, he could make it that beautiful quirk that Yoichi foresaw - the kindest power, instead of the most vicious. And once it was clear that One for All's essence would be spent neutralizing All for One... I hoped that Deku, who was uniquely attuned to the world of quirks, might keep that power and use it to help others struggling with their abilities, like Spinner or the Nomu, even if he did not have a quirk of his own.

That he might, maybe, spin together the small fragments of the lost, the quirk factor victims of All for One, and forge them into something new, something that could make things better for others. Not a power to defeat a historic evil... but a power to forge a better future. Deku's great ability, before he inherited One for All, and even as a teacher, has been to understand quirks and the creative ways they could be applied.

The world still needs, not just heroes to deal with disasters and criminals, not just teachers to raise the next generation better... but someone who can, in large part, help to make quirks wholesome instead of destabilizing. A positive, rather than a crisis to be managed.

Deku should be that hero.

[shardofcognition]

My Hero Academia: Nations

I think people, generally, don't give enough attention to the national representation in My Hero Academia. At least, I haven't seen it discussed, much. All Might is *CLEARLY* a representation of America. To the degree that he represents this overwhelming power, this heroic ideal... but also to the degree that he is tarnished, crippled by conflicts, still able to project tremendous power but only for limited periods of time. He's also the Number One Hero, not just in Japan, but regarded as such around the world. And Endeavor, like it or not, is equally Japan.

Endeavor IS the rising sun. His strongest moves reference the sun (Prominence is, after all, named after a solar prominence) and his entire theme is continually striving toward a distant, even impossible goal. And he follows the Japanese stoicism, the distance in family, the loss of self in work... Even, to a fair degree, the drive to be number one, to exceed all others including the US, even knowing that there are unsurpassable limits in that contest.

[shardofcognition]

I mean, yes, and no? The suit at the end is basically the accummulation of the good will that Deku has cultivated throughout the series.

The Core Theme of My Hero Academia is Legacy - the core question is whether Deku will be able to live up to the Legacy / ideal of the Symbol of Peace - and the first episode introduces the theme of the unseen tarnish on that symbol. More broadly, My Hero Academia's theme is whether we embrace our legacies of heroism, or of hatred… and how we sort them when they entwine.

It isn't really about overcoming weakness and shortcomings except insofar as it is rising / growing to fulfill that legacy. My Hero Academia was never supposed to be a story about overcoming weaknesses and shortcomings to be a hero - because overcoming those is not what makes a hero. Heroism is not produced by power but precedes it. The other issue is that Shigaraki isn't going to be "saved" in the sense that he's rehabilitated, that he gives up his villainy and becomes a better person. At the end of the day, he has killed hundreds if not thousands of people, willfully, outside the law, and without AFO being a part of him. Another theme of MHA is that, regardless of whether you've suffered, you still have to account for your own actions. As to Dabi, he's a metaphor of a lot of things, but he rejected any kind of happy ending when he was a child. He decided - much like his father - that he would force the world to conform to his ideals of it. Or he would burn it down. Overbred, stuck in the past, misogynistic, cursing his legacy while utterly obsessed with it, harming himself with every effort to obtain power... Blaming everyone else for his malevolent and vicious actions... he is the perfect embodiment of ethnonationalism, if you want to really align characters to metaphors. The cursed child of the Rising Sun - the solar hero, the flames of conflict.

My Hero Academia/Boku no Hero Academia is funny cause like,

the show makes a Big Deal about being a hero despite your weaknesses and shortcomings, perceived or otherwise, and rising above it all. It stars a character with no special abilities and very real feelings and views and ideas and the way they take that first step... is by getting a Special Ability. The Specialest Ability of All even. And it ends with this character losing said Ability while not being able to save their Foil, a victim of the world Just Like Them, and only becoming a hero again, not from their Own Hand but by someone else buying them a suit. Once again, only becoming a hero thanks to another's actions

[shardofcognition]

remember this?

chapte 220

remember how we we were robbed of spinner narrating the mva arc? bc i do and i'm still mad about it

for those who don't remember or haven't watch the anime: in the anime, izuku also narrate the mva even though it's spinner in the manga

i want to give the benefit of the doubt to those who worked on the anime. at first i didn't understand why spinner was the narrator either as he didn't seem like an important character

but now that mha is over, it's seems obvious that this narration was hinting at spinner's book, if not a part of the book itself

this entire arc is basically "yeah we're villains but we're also people and we care about each other, here's our story". so it doesn't make sense that izuku narrates it, but it does for spinner. his league was his reason to be, he let himself get mutilated/tortured/whatever you wanna call what afo did to him in the final arc for the league, and especially for shigaraki

so yeah, i wish we could have gotten narrator spinner

[shardofcognition]

this post was the catalyst for this comic, and i was also thinking of a desi song lyric (tere dil ke sheher mein ghar mera ho gaya / in the city of your heart, my home is made) and just... hmmm.... leaving your mark.... making a house into a home..... when the marks a child inevitably leaves behind (messes, scribbles, and in this case stickers) eventually fade away as they grow older and you're left with the memories stored in what hasn't been erased....

im not verbalizing it very well but catch my drift?

[shardofcognition]

Anyone willing to steal the wealth of a billionaire will have a much easier time stealing the wealth of everyone else. And no moral qualms about it, either.

[shardofcognition]

Spinner Needs Deku's Help

I'm just gonna throw this out there...

So, major spoilers, Deku is now working with the Embers of One for All. That doesn't mean he's powerless - in fact, his power is probably still enough to put him among the top ranked heroes, even if he will never be as potent as All Might.

And it bears considering - All Might is supposed to have exhausted the last embers of One for All... but he can still use his fairly unique ability - that is, his ability to enter his Muscle Form. It seems like he only lost the ability to sustain it, really, because of his deep injuries. Deku never actually had a muscle form, though. Instead, what Deku developed was access to Quirk Resonance, that is, the inner world of both his own quirk and All-For-One's. And Deku's not really fought anyone other than AfO and Shigaraki since he really started to hone his ability to manipulate quirks - out of all the users of One for All, it's clear that Deku is singularly gifted with that power.

There's no reason to believe that the power has gone away.

Now, I'm not saying that Deku's got a new quirk, or that Deku will have some ability to manipulate quirks like All-For-One had. But it's entirely likely that he will have something like that Quirk Resonance forever, for as long as All Might has his Muscle Form. Deku has been changed and in a way that goes beyond any of the quirks of One for All.

Which brings us to Spinner.

Spinner, unfortunately, consented to be given multiple quirks, and it looks like they were incompatible, or like his own personality was not assertive enough to integrate them. This is probably the issue with the Nomu, and why they've got exposed brains - the quirks war with the personality of the original body and unless they either agree (merge) or dominate, their mind will fracture. Spinner is probably on the way to that fate.

But Deku has been given the task of delivering Shigaraki's last words to Spinner, and making good on his last promise to Shigaraki. Without a doubt, Deku is going to make good on that promise - which means he will see Spinner, regardless of what state Spinner finds himself in.

If his quirks are at war - if he has not managed an accord - it is possible that Deku might be able to resonate with him, too, and help those restless souls to quiet and work together.

The next evolution of Deku may just be sparked by the last task of Shigaraki, and build off the real affection the League of Villains had for one another, even as they cursed the world.

[shardofcognition]

There's really no question that Enji and Rei failed as parents to Touya. And that Endeavor didn't give Touya anything after he realized his son couldn't follow in his footsteps without hurting himself. Part of that's because he had no idea who he, himself, was, outside of his job and his ambition. That doesn't mean that Touya didn't show signs of psychopathy.

That doesn't mean that Enji and Rei didn't need to protect their other kids from Touya, especially Shoto.

That doesn't mean that Touya, as Dabi, isn't responsible for his own actions, and how he turned out.

The Todoroki family drama isn't a one sided story of abuse. It's a complicated story about disability, mental illness, generational trauma, and people being unprepared for the situations they found themselves in. Nobody handled it well, but Dabi owns his own behavior. --- Also Shigaraki was a true victim... and a true villain. He owned what he had become up until his final moment and people trying to absolve him of that miss the point.

“Dabi did it to himself, he wasn’t even abused, Enji warned him to stop and he didn’t so it was his fault, he was a brat” with the new season coming out and the fandom growing, there are also more dimwits on the internet who will be barking and yapping hate about Dabi, people who lack the most basic comprehension skills when watching a show.

Tell me you don’t understand Dabi’s story without telling me you don’t understand Dabi’s story. The victim blaming is INSANE, the amount of people I see on tiktok that say Dabi wasn’t even abused when neglect is ALSO a form of abuse. As if it was Touya’s fault that he was born for his dad’s selfish purposes, born with the idea drilled in his mind since early childhood that he has to surpass All Might, he was GROWN UP WITH IT, it was the REASON Touya lived, he looked up to his dad like nobody ever did. Do you understand how it feels when the only reason you live is taken away from you in such brutal way like Endeavor did with Touya? Do you understand how it feels when you’re abandoned by the only person you loved the most and looked up to the most?

As if it was Touya’s fault for reacting the way he did when his dad cast him aside and basically gave up on him, making him feel like a failure and replacing him with Shoto, his masterpiece. Touya was grown in an abusive household as well, and that can also affect a child’s mental health in the worst ways possible. He was a CHILD, what the fuck do yall expect a child to do? To just sit pretty and listen to his dad after everything he has witnessed, after his dad made him feel like a failure? Be fuckin forreal. Yall completely missed the point of Touya’s story, completely missed the point of EVERYTHING. Will you keep on victim blaming Shigaraki as well after this?

[shardofcognition]

It is time boys!

[shardofcognition]

Dragons are morphologically flexible in League, and have been - which is partly why they're so hung up on raising their kids strictly.

Shyvanna imprinted on a human who longed for a daughter, so she took on a human form - Smolder, on a kid who wanted a magical companion, so he took a more human-ish form.

If he'd been raised by "Mom" he'd be less hybridized. So his human face is at least appropriate to the lore, even if it was a bit too much to start.

There's also precedent for making him more draconic later, as he comes into his own draconic heritage more fully.

Thoughts on Smolder? I was so excited for a baby dragon ADC then they fucking did this

I LOVE HIM AND I KILL EVERY HATER OF HIS!

I am the mom who flies above him

[shardofcognition]

I've Started to Appreciate Trafalgar Law

But it is, in part, because I've obtained a fundamental insight into his character:

Law is a Seinen Protagonist Trapped in a Shonen Anime, and SALTY about it

Law has all protagonist tropes - he's got a tragic backstory. He loses his parents but is saved from what seems to be an inevitable villainy by a self-sacrificing mentor who dies... leaving Law stretched between revenge and living up to his savior's ideals.

He's got a hidden connection to the lineage that is destined to rock the world government - the Will of D

He's got a amazing but difficult power that is almost a win button, but curses him with the attention of super powerful enemies, hoping that they can compel him to give up his life for their eternal survival.

He's got a plucky crew with a memorable mascot. He tries to occupy a morally grey area and make difficult decisions, even though he's got a real heroic nature that he can't escape from. He uses his brain and his will to make the hard compromises to survive in a world that wants him dead.

It's just that he's not in a gritty anime, really - it's gritty enough, but with Luffy and the Straw Hats, no plan survives past dinner. And no failure is complete. Law is made to be a protagonist... just not for this particular show. And every time he's reminded of it, he sulks.

It's great.

[shardofcognition]

Dream Creatures - LoL

What I really don't understand is why I never see anyone playing with the idea of Lillia and Nocturne being, basically, counterbalances to one another. Lillia shepherds the dreams of mortals, while Nocturne consumes them - Lillia seeks to bolster the spark of courage that exists even in the face of mortal's greatest fears, while Nocturne seeks to stoke those fears for his own sustenance. They're both Ionian - and they're both potentially born at the same time. I wouldn't be at all surprised if Nocturne's coalescence actually is what caused Lillia's bloom to fall from the Dreaming Tree. Further, they've got contrary playstyles - Lillia's got increasing speed to run away herself, while Nocturne has the ability to cross the map and to accelerate himself toward creatures he's already marked. Beyond that, Lillia has unique lines when confronting Nocturne, and they even nearly share a line. What I'm saying is, the parallels are obvious and even intentional, but I don't ever really see this mentioned. They seem like fated opponents, almost certainly drawn to the same places, time, and people.