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detectkikeh · 2 years ago

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Sorry to but in, but there's some details that I have to disagree. Hope you don't mind my long reblog

As to Hawks's side of this, it’s a bit puzzling to me, the contrast between the idea that Hawks (+the HPSC) is able to get aaaaaall this information about the MLA—their bases, their command structure, their members, the details of their plans—and yet know so very little about what I would consider to be extremely basic information about how the League changed after Deika.

Interesting... I think there's a discrepancy between what's basic for us, 3rd POV watchers who saw Deika battle, and what's basic for in-world characters like Hawks and others who, thanks to the distorted TV report, don't know anything about MVA contents (obviously) and thought that LoV flattened a city full of innocent citizens instead of city full of strong superpower army that resulted in each LoV members got their awakenings to pull their mission off. The location of MLA bases is basic for Hawks who saw and went there regularly, we saw how Hawks eavesdropped on the details of their plan, PLF command structure is basically widely explained in the big gathering and seeing the panel in Twice-Hawks chapter, each division seems to hold regular meeting and discussion. I think those things are considered basic for Hawks with his gigs as a spy. But regarding incident in Deika, neither MLA nor LoV discussed it and acted like they combined their power for the same goal, and the only written record about it is from incorrect media that says LoV demolished a city full of innocent civilians and not a base of villain army, something that Hawks believed as a truth based on his inner monologue when he delivered Jeanist's fake corpse to Dabi.

Correct me if I am wrong, but I don't think Re-Destro, nor any inner MLA members, ever admit and tell what happen on Deika to anyone? That they battled and were beaten by LoV? We know that media distorted the incident as LoV's destruction on an innocent city and we saw no MLA inner members correct it? I only remember in the big gathering that Re-Destro as leader of MLA acknowledged Shigaraki co's strength and put them as core members of the plan, with Re-Destro still as the leader. And excluding Deika which Hawks has no information other than from incorrect media, neither Toga nor any League members ever fought anyone or did something that makes them show or discuss their new awakening power. I think it's understandable that Hawks didn't know any of that since LoV members have no business talking about their awakening with him and MLA inner members didn't show any desire to talk about what happen in Deika either.

Even more egregiously, he didn’t hear about Shigaraki’s awakening, which I would certainly assume people who were on-scene were able to figure out from having to flee a rapidly expanding, crumbling crater, something that certainly doesn’t reflect Re-Destro’s power set.

In my understanding, Hawks partially exaggerated his confusion about Shigaraki's condition to cough up some details from Twice, like the place where Shigaraki strengthened himself and the time needed for it. Pretty sure that he knew Shigaraki was stronger than he was on USJ attack or any other previous incidents, even though he didn't know the full details. While again Hawks nor anyone outside LoV & inner MLA knew about Shigaraki and LoV's awakening in Deika, everyone on PLF saw and heard how grand Re-Destro vouched for Shigaraki's power as far as to put him on a throne. So it doesn't need full story of Deika for PLF members to recognize that the crumbling crater is Shigaraki's doing and he did what he was hyped on the big gathering, thus they fleed rapidly. And the heroes' side also noticed how big of a threat Shigaraki is, thus Endeavor's division is also tasked with preventing Shigaraki's awakening, based on what Mirko said.

If it were just the rest of the League withholding details about themselves because they were still wary of Hawks, that’d be fine, but the MLA had direct experience with that stuff, too. It can’t really be that the League specifically ordered the MLA not to talk about them, because not only would that be banking on Hawks not being able to wheedle a single new MLA -> PLF convert into talking about it (unlikely, with how highly Hawks’ social skills are touted), but if had been the League saying not to talk to Hawks about them, Twice wouldn’t have cited Skeptic’s spying as the reason he shouldn’t be confiding in Hawks about Shigaraki’s whereabouts. But if the MLA/Skeptic were still being cagey about what they told Hawks, how was he able to find out so much?

The problem I have with the line that I bolded first, is that Hawks's doesn't know that MLA convert to PLF because of LoV, and not vice versa. And the circumstances didn't exactly deny his assumption, because MLA is not really below LoV in the PLF chain of commands. Inner MLA members are still generals, Re-Destro is still the face of the group, lower members still identify themselves as "liberator", the plan that he eavesdropped points on MLA a.k.a Re-Destro's party got the top position after PLF destroyed everything (since LoV only want the destruction of society and have no ambition to take the power position), Dabi described the PLF establishment as "they joined a big army", even Twice was scared by a senior MLA member and Hawks pointed out how they gathered because of Re-Destro's blood. Then the problem I have with the line that I bolded last, is that I can see MLA members were open about their base, their chain of command, and their plan to PLF members even toward the risky one like Hawks, but they were being cagey about what actually happened on Deika including LoV's awakening because it would directly blow their pride to admit that they were being beaten by LoV's awakened power in Deika instead of them having an equal partnership with LoV in the whole destroying society plan.

Just a small thought that popped into my head but I like to think that the advisors had some degree of trust from the League because when PLW started the electric advisor made a comment about how this happened because they were waiting for Shigaraki implying that he and by extension the other advisors knew that Shigaraki would be away for a few months and take that in comparison to Hawks where based on his conversation with Twice he didn’t even know that Shigaraki was away and I doubt the OG MLA leadership would tell anyone about Shigarakis whereabouts without the Leagues approval

Hi again, @plf-advisor-stan! Yes, yeah, absolute, I do think it’s clear that the advisors were more privy (as in, specifically informed as part of the planning stages, rather than furtively included thanks to Twice’s good nature) to the details of Shigaraki’s absence. I don’t know if it’s a huge difference, given the way Taser Face phrases his line? “Waiting for Shigaraki or whatever,” does not suggest Taser Face has a deep understanding of what exactly they were waiting for.

Still, even that’s enough to suggest that the League and the MLA were actively planning their assault as a group, not that e.g. the MLA planned this whole thing while the League hung around in fancy suites running up Re-Destro’s credit cards for months on end.

Taser Face is specifically Mr. Compress’s Number 1, and I can definitely see Sako being a little flippant or vague about Shigaraki’s whereabouts. That’s not because I think Sako doesn’t trust his advisors, per se—if anything, I think the evidence favors Sako being pretty all-in on the PLF! Rather, I doubt Sako himself is 100% clear on what exactly Shigaraki and Ujiko are doing, and I very much doubt that Sako would relish having to admit his ignorance when he could just play cagey instead.

He didn’t know about Toga’s quirk evolution from Twice’s rambling or from cozying up to Skeptic, both of whom seemed to trust him fully and the latter of whom had no love for Toga that might have led to him respecting her agency in who gets to know about her powers. Nor did Hawks find out about it from just the rank and file’s discussion of how things went in Deika—like that Toga was able to use a power she shouldn’t have had access to. Even more egregiously, he didn’t hear about Shigaraki’s awakening, which I would certainly assume people who were on-scene were able to figure out from having to flee a rapidly expanding, crumbling crater, something that certainly doesn’t reflect Re-Destro’s power set.

Anyway, sorry to derail enthusing about the PLF with complaining about writing discrepancies. Thanks for the ask!

#bnha #mha #meta liberation army #league of villains #bnha meta

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detectkikeh · 2 years ago

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Sigh, I wonder, why there’s so many people that very superficially parallel some characters with Hawks? And most times, on those parallel they add things that don’t exist or even actively disputed by canon on Hawks’s characteristic?

They are both also extremely fanatically loyal to that organization and do everything possible to ensure that organizations survival, in part because they feel they have to repay being taken in.

“Extremely fanatically loyal” Hawks to HPSC :

^^ actively spying on them and has no remorse for that.

^^disregard their blatant order and harming his chance on the mission.

“Do everything possible to ensure that organizations survival” Hawks to HPSC :

^^ expressed his relief upon HPSC’s downfall, calling them as chains that shackle them down. The minute they were ineffective, he dipped out for good and never spent a single moment thinking about them. Compared to Chisaki who still think about the Boss even in jail, Hawks laughably has no loyalty bone toward HPSC at all.

- Hawks doesn’t actively abuse children so he has that over overhaul, but he does drag them onto battlefields that are basically an active warzone where the villains are fighting to kill. Which means that much like Overhaul, he tends to treat children the way he was treated: Ie, weaponizing them.

Ha, if only Hawks has slightest bit desire to weaponize children, Tokoyami will not be ghosted as badly as he was. Let alone dragging them to battlefield, Hawks is one of the heroes who really, REALLY didn’t want to accept the kids’ help, kicking and screaming (metaphorically). Hawks expressed blatant doubt and reluctance about the kids’ role in the battle.

That’s because Hawks prefers to take it all by himself, and promised to solve all problems as fast as possibly, albeit that goal is overly ambitious and impossible.

Only when Tokoyami came to his life and he saw how the kids are stronger and more resilient than he thought he changed his mind and start thinking the kids as participant in the whole heroism things.

Then he was utterly sold after Uraraka’s speech, saw how Class 1-A connected with each other and use that connection to connect with civilian and reassure them, something that Hawks can’t do because of his background and his underlying perception of connection as burden (based on his thought about Tomie).

But still, he didn’t want the kids to be deployed on massive danger that his less feathered ass himself dipped into, that is AFO.

Like hell, Tokoyami had to yell at him to let the kid participate at all.

And as he finally accepted the kids’ help, he thought himself as pathetic for that. It’s obvious that he didn’t like it at all and would not be willing if the circumstances didn’t force him.

Still, he always put himself on the first line of danger to protect the young ones, does his all for the sake of the kids.

Willingly becomes meat-shield and pushes his body to defend the kids, as broken and battered as he has.

And this guy still belittled himself for not being able to do more.

Like hell, comparing Chisaki who badly used Eri and his underlings as disposable pawns, with Hawks who practically saw the kids as someone who should just sit on a peaceful serenity throne that he built with all he has and beyond, is just... wrong.

So, what we get here is Chisaki hates quirks, and he likely hates his own quirk possibly because of how he was treated in childhood because of it. He was definitely exploited by the same man who took him in due to that quirk, considering the fact he’s a yakuza enforcer and has probably been committing violent crime since childhood. Once again, a Hawks trait, to be born with a prodigious quirk and yet find that quirk incredibly filthy.

Too many assumption on Chisaki to push similarity with Hawks, while we all know that he is a germaphobe who sees everyone and their quirks as dirty, thus uses gloves for everything except for using his quirk. No hesitation or disgust at all for him to remove his gloves before using his quirk. Nor any indication that he saw himself and quirk as dirty, rather he showed symptom that he saw only himself as the clean one. As for Hawks, he badly saw himself as dirty, apparently resigned by that, but desperately hoped that he and his dirtiness meant something, have any purpose even just a little bit.

That’s very different and outright 180° contradictory with Chisaki’s trait so I am not sure why that was included as similarity between them, as far as making a completely new assumption about Chisaki. Like, if Horikoshi wanna show that he saw his own quirk as dirty, in this panel Chisaki will be shown looking at his own hands, not whatever is the content of the book (probably about other people’s recorded quirk, because as a child Chisaki has no reason to have people make a book about his quirk).

Btw still about that panel, if Chisaki was supposed to be as isolated as Hawks, Shigaraki, and Shoto, there should not be multiple box of toys besides him, or even just a lock in the door. If you wanna portray isolated kids with no access to fun things like other kids, you can portray a kid doing something not kid-like with only imposing adults and no other kids on sight,

Or a kid restrained from doing kid-like activities by adults.

As for Chisaki, we’ve only shown his kid self reading a book in a room with many toys in sight and unlocked door, while Chisaki touch or even see none of that. So Chisaki’s upbringing is never implied to be similar with Hawks and other isolated kids in MHA.

Ah, now I see the problem. You equate how Hawks treated Twice with how Hawks treated everyone. To be fair, almost all Hawks’ interaction with other people (Tokoyami, Endeavor, Best Jeanist, Deku) started with him using them on one way or another. But, heck, Hawks never treats people like Chisaki treated Eri and his underlings. As superficial as his initial purpose, Hawks is shown eventually cared and invented on those he came close and their well-being. Even Twice, on some degree. Problem is, Twice and Hawks’ relationship has massive bridge and wall, that is they’re on opposite side of the conflict, which is the reason that relationship existed at all and also the reason that relationship ended. As sweet as Hawks/Twice friendship portrayed (which is shown for like one and half chapter compared to massive panels of Hawks’ inner monologue about preventing massive destruction that PLF about to unleashed so it’s clear as a day which one Hawks will prioritize), that friendship was doomed from the start because it was based on lie that is Hawks’ role as a spy to betray and manipulate opposite side. Yes, that’s what being a spy is. Like, I am not gonna talk about good vs bad morality with that act because people obviously have different opinion about that (I’ve seen enough), but it’s an unambiguous fact that all spies have betrayal and manipulation on their forte. Granted, there is the passive kind of spy who pretend to be janitor or underling on lowest level so they have no relationship with opposite side, no betrayal and/or manipulation shenanigans, and just report what they see, but that was the role that the widely knowns No.2 Hawks can never get.

In short, the similarity between Hawks and Chisaki is the bird theme, I’ll give you that.

You've written about Overhaul in the past. Any tips on writing him accurately?

Overhaul's actually one of the most complex villains in the story that's not a part of the league of villains, however since he's pretty unlikable and has mostly negative and unsavory character traits he's not discussed as often. However when it comes to writing him, there's a lot of rich material to mine here.

So my starting point whenever trying to write a character and make them as in-character as possible, is to figure out what the author intended for them in story. What role are they supposed to play? What function do they serve? In my opinion, Chisaki was an attempt by Horikoshi to twist a lot of traditional "good guy" traits into a villainous character that the audience would despise.

One of my biggest ways of doing this is to compare them to other characters, especially haracters who aren't given as much screentime because there are lots of cogs in a story and often the purpose of one character is to highlight a personality trait in another character because they share it.

Now I'm going to explain Chisaki's characterization by comparing them to another character, but here's the curveball here: I'm not going to use Shigaraki. Because I can explain it real quick with Shigaraki, the purpose of Chisaki is to show how Shigaraki's leadership differs from Chisaki because Shigaraki sees his allies as more than just pawns to be utilized. However, to come to understand why Chisaki wholeheartedly believes that everyone exists to be used thoroughly to further his own ends, we're going to look at a different character.

Hawks and Chisaki are both bird-themed. They are both orphans who were taken in by an organization at a young age, Chisaki by the Yakuza and Hawks by the hero commission. They are both also extremely fanatically loyal to that organization and do everything possible to ensure that organizations survival, in part because they feel they have to repay being taken in.

They are both characters who were introduced to the league of villains, trusted by Twice, only to turn around and kill a member of the league. For Hawks it was literally Twice himself he killed. They were also initially presented as cooperating with the league, but when they reveal their true colors it shows how they view people in stark contrast to how the league views and treats it's own members. Which like, Hawks does not come out looking pretty in the comparison.

Hawks doesn't actively abuse children so he has that over overhaul, but he does drag them onto battlefields that are basically an active warzone where the villains are fighting to kill. Which means that much like Overhaul, he tends to treat children the way he was treated: Ie, weaponizing them.

If you are familiar with Hawks mindset, "I am a pawn, so therefore everyone else is a pawn that I can maneuver around to obtain my objective" then it's easy to extrapolate the same onto Chisaki. Hawks talks about dirtying his hands, Chisaki is literally a germaphobe who has panic attacks if he gets blood on his hands (I'm exaggerating only slightly).

Chisaki is introduced with a deep psychological need to stay clean and avoid everything he considers filth, dirty, or diseased a rampant paranoia of his which spreads to his hatred of quirks. We never get the reason why Chisaki hates quirks, besides the fact that the advent of heroes threatened his home in the Yakuza, but if we're going to extrapolate here it's probably due to the grotesque nature of his own quirk. He literally targets Eri because their quirks are similiar and he finds hers to be incredibly disgusting, and justifies his abuse of her with that logic.

My pet theory is that he was either abandoned by his parents because of hsi quirk, or that he was taken in by AFO at some point and deliberately targeted by his quirk like Toya was (people have pointed out that the wallpaper here and the children playing int he background resemble the house that Toya was taken to).

So, what we get here is Chisaki hates quirks, and he likely hates his own quirk possibly because of how he was treated in childhood because of it. He was definitely exploited by the same man who took him in due to that quirk, considering the fact he's a yakuza enforcer and has probably been committing violent crime since childhood. Once again, a Hawks trait, to be born with a prodigious quirk and yet find that quirk incredibly filthy.

Hawks and Chisaki are a study in how characters can be painted to have "good guy" and "bad guy" traits, when really they're only being painted that way because of circumstances or surroudnings. Hawks in a lot of ways acts the same as Chisaki, he just happens to be manipulating people for the heroes, not to restore the Yakuza. Chisaki values no one, everyone including his childhood friend, the people he takes in off the streets, are pawns to be utilized by the best of their aiblity. He even tries to teach Shigaraki to play Shogi (Shigaraki not knowing how to play probably signifying how much he views people differently).

So, Chisaki's willing to utilize everyone around him in service of a goal, the worth they have is to how he can use them to benefit his larger goal in mind and he's got no qualms about it.

Villainous trait, villainous trait, you say but Hawks does the same thing basically maneuvering everyone on the battlefield in the first and second wars the way Chisaki does, he just does it for an entirely different goal. He's even willing to personally betray and mutilate someone who trusted him in order to achieve that goal. Chisaki's point of no return is him completely massacring Nemoto in order to fuse with him when the tables started to turn against him in his fight against the hero. Hawks stabs Twice in the back in order to prevent him from using his quirk to stop the raid. In both cases it's a personal betrayal of someone who was good to them and trusted them.

You could say Hawks did it for the greater good, but for CHisaki who only knows his Yakzua way of life he's doing it for the survival of the only life he knows. Which is why I say they're so similiar, Hawks isn't really protecting innocent people, he's protecting his role in the hero commission. He takes what he was raised to do to the extreme.

Which is another central character trait they share, Chisaki's biggest defect is that he never, ever gives up on anything ever. A traditionally heroic trait especially in the shonen manga where the character never gives up ever, but his determination is twisted into something hideous because he has no qualms about making sacrifices to get what he wants.

Since childhood Chisaki has done absolutely everything to protect the family's dignity, to the point where it was disturbing. He never changes his mind, never backs down, even when the man he's trying to repay goes against him, but it comes from the same source as Hawks.

He believes he owes the person who took him in, and does everything he does in service of that debt.

So the last part is Chisaki's germophobia himself. Now Chisaki is a man completely divorced from his own sense of guilt who doesn't really hesitate before making heinous actions, but I wouldn't say he feels nothing,the man's clearly not mentally well. If anything I'd say his own germophobia is a metaphor for the guilt and self-loathing he feels and chooses to ignore.

He usually has breakdowns shortly after using his quirk as well. He'll absolutely brutalize people and then have a breakdown about the blood that they've gotten on him. Which suggests he you know, probably does not enjoy bloodshed in any real way. You could even compare it to Shigaraki's statement that he always feels like there's a constant sickness no matter what he destroys, which is likely his repressed guilt that AFO played off as some kind of urge to destroy, or the way Shigarki carries his hands of his family on him so he'll never forget his own self-disgust at murdering them.

Chisaki is living completely divorced from his own sense of guilt, until he's not. Once you remove him from his position of power, when he's away from the mission and forced to sit in his prison cell in tartarus he's reduced to a shambling mess that just constantly apologizes over and over to his boss and begs for the chance to see him again.

Which means that Chisaki represses all of his emotions to perform a task, and when he si not performing a task or functioning in a role he falls to pieces, because he doesn't have any sort of life except for serving in the yakuza. He's even referred to as a "gangster without a heart" because he literally has nothing else and no identity.

Chisaki's gotta be a gangster and he'll even throw a coup and put his boss in a coma for fear of losing that place in the world, because what else is there for him?

He even hates being called by his real name, much like Hawks, so his central issue is really a lack of identity because he was raised in a fishbowl with no other place to belong in the real world. Except we saw Chisaki when he was taken out of his fishbowl, and all he did was flop around like a magikarp.

As for general guidelines on his voice:

The germaphobia is a constant thing with him. Don't put your shoes in my table. Don't breathe in my direction. Hey stop bleeding on me your blood is filthy.

He talks down to people in general. He's extremely condescending with Shigaraki right off the bat, and states to his face that the only worth that Shigaraki and the League will ever have is pawns to be used as a part of his plan.

He flips between being detached, and extreme anger. Basically he's able to act cold and detached when things are going his way, and when people resist his plans or manipulations he then switches to browbeating, bullying or just otherwise lashing out in anger. If the square peg won't fit in the round hole, then just hit it harder until it does. He's cold and calculating until his calculations fail then he just brute forces it.

He's generally pretty good at negging people, he's got Eri convinced that her quirk is disgusting and she's the source of the misfortune around her. He's also got a bunch of street rats incredibly loyal to him by convincing them they can literally do no better in life than being used as a part of his plan.

He also has a softer and more polite side that only comes out in front of the boss. This is his childish side too. When he's fighting Deku and has basically lost, he flashes back to his boss patting him on the head and thanking him for protecting the family's honor. He literally just craves validation from the closest thing he has to a father figure. He'll go to any lengths to get it.

In general Chisaki should be disturbingly inhuman too, not just in his actions, but in his rationale and how far he can go and how little he considers other people in the equation. Even his own childhood friend and fellow yakuza finds him to be offputting. His boss asks him point blank, "What are humans to you?"

Basically, he's creepy, weird, anti-social, uses everyone around him, and is also completely divorced from his own feelings and sense of guilt which lets him run roughshod over other people's feelings.

So, y'know. Hawks.

Except Hawks puts on a charming and likable personality, whereas Chisaki's personality is having no personality.

#boku no hero academia #mha hawks #takami keigo #mha overhaul #kai chisaki #like Hawks is not even an orphan #Hawks' life will be slightly easier if he was an orphan like Chisaki #so he didn't have to provide for his mom and dragged for his relation with his father #nor thinking about his inner guilt for severing bond with them #just focused himself on HPSC who he is apparently overly loyal to #Chisaki is germaphobe who is disgusted by everyone except himself and the boss #Hawks has constant inner voice that chanted 'you are dirty you are dirty' to himself and no one else #how different two individual can be?#not all birb are the same #mha meta

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