#I'm dying okay

[lucianinsanity]

I decided to buy the bnha manga from the beginning, I have the first one now, and look

Why are you like this, Izuku?

[allmoshnobrain]

[tapakah0]

[yamisnuffles]

Sick and twisted, really, that season 2 opens with Aziraphale telling Crowley that the creation he loves won't last and then ending with him telling him nothing lasts when he bares his heart again.

[softgothbabe]

My bestie had her bachelorette party at a club 💅🏻💜

[sunnymainecoonx]

I don't think I ever published these so ig.....

There's a last one but err warning for gore and blood(mostly just ripping an arm off)

[dynamightmite]

you seem optimistic so you think we’re still getting shigaraki back? :( i’m really sad the way hori has handled the izuku tenko plotline as of right now like i just can’t wrap my head around this

I mean, I definitely think it's a possibility. We still don't know exactly what happened to overhaul/decay, and how it may be used in the future. We saw Tenko and Deku touch fists; theoretically there could have been some kind of exchange there, or he could be existing as a vestige in some way.

Then again, (and this is going to piss a lot of people off :')) I kind of... get where Horikoshi is going with it?

BEFORE YOU START BOOING!

I think a lot of the discomfort and hurt from fans comes from the perception that Izuku failed to save Tenko. That, by allowing him to die, the narrative is in fact saying he didn't deserve to be save--that Horikoshi himself doesn't believe Tenko truly deserved it. I have also seen a lot of talk about how it doesn't fit in with the ongoing, overarching themes of the narrative, and (while I'm not saying these people are wrong) I would like to push back on that a little, because I think there is precedence in the story as to why Tenko's death holds up, despite it being terrible.

The culmination of Tenko's arc broaches a crossroad of two major concepts in the story: heroes, and saving, and what both of those ideas mean. And, I think, in Tenko's death, we get and answer to both, and more importantly, an answer to his overall purpose.

What does it mean to save? In BNHA, the concept is a little vague. I've often people ascribe the "total victory" mindset as one of protection, as preventing any tragedy or harm. Through that lens, Tenko's death therefore is an automatic failure--a nonstarter. HE's dead, so he wasn't saved. The end. However, while "saving" might seem like a simple, straight forward concept, I would like to dig a little deeper, because I think what Horikoshi's doing is much more interesting.

Saving (Deku's definition of it, anyway) is a lot closer to freeing than it is to protecting. Which sounds weird, but I'll do my best to explain. I think the two best examples of this particular nuance to his definition are actually in two characters people tend to forget he saved: Shoto and Gentle Criminal.

Because he did save both of them. Not in the really obvious, black-and-white way he saved Eri, no, but he did save them. And both times were... painful, to say the least.

When Deku went after Shoto during the sport's festival, it wasn't, like, nice. He dug his little nerd fingers in where it hurt the worst and dragged out Shoto's biggest fears and insecurities, and then he said GET OVER THEM. Stop letting them control you. Stop letting your father control you. You're your own person, and you get to make your own choices.

He didn't punch Endeavor. He didn't even take pity on Shoto, or say he was sorry. But you know what he did do? Deku cut the leash. AND he damn near killed Shoto (and himself) making sure that Shoto understood that he was free. He gave Shoto back something that he'd been missing, something he was afraid to look in the face; something that Deku picked up, brushed off, and said, "please stop throwing this away, it's important. You're important".

And it works, goddamit.

Gentle is both different and similar. In a similar vein, the way Deku saves Gentle is sort of... not obvious. But I think if you look here:

Gentle isn't a bad person. He's ambitious and a little lax about the law, but he never set out to hurt anybody. But we see over the course of his arc how he gets so tangled up in his own pain and his desperation to be seen that he forgets his own ideals, his own morals. In the face of becoming someone, he loses sight of what matters most to him: just like Deku, Gentle wants to be a hero.

Which, in the end, he is. And Deku's the one who pushes him there.

But what about Tenko? What about the crying child inside him? Why wasn't he saved?

When people talk about child Tenko, they often seem to see him as a symbol of the person that Deku's trying to save. But I think that, just maybe, that's wrong. I think maybe, actually, Deku is trying to save Tenko from that child.

Child Tenko is, in many ways, a symbol of nothing but AFO's power. That is a child stripped of his name, of his original quirk, of his family, of his sense of self. That is a puppet controlled by AFO, without any autonomy of its own. That child is a wound that Tenko cannot escape for as long as AFO still holds any power over him.

That's why this chapter All Might said that maybe Deku did save Tenko, if he no longer saw the child version of him in the vestige realm. Deku did save him. Because Tenko isn't a child anymore, and he isn't AFO's puppet; he's a free man, for the first time in his life.

A free man who chooses to be a hero.

Heroes get talked about a lot in BNHA (duh), but what is the defining quality of a true hero? Someone who wins? Sure. Someone who saves? Yeah, of course. But the actual test of what differentiates a hero from everybody else is their willingness to sacrifice. To give up everything for the greater good. Even if it hurts. Sometimes especially if it hurts. I mean, this has come up a lot through the manga. Deku running in to attack the sludge villain, Mirio giving up his quirk, Eraserhead throwing himself in front of his students, Edgeshot shortening his lifespan to save Bakugo, All Might standing quirkless in front of the greatest evil of his time-- literally the constant refrain from the narrative has been that being willing to sacrifice it all is what makes a hero a hero.

Tenko's final wish from last chapter is gut wrenching, but: he wanted to be a hero for the Villains. The rest of the world can rot for all he cares, but his friends, those disenfranchised, hurt people that everyone else gave up on? Those people who have never been saved, those people who have never been protected... he wants to be their hero. In the face of danger, of certain doom, he is a free man, and he has a choice.

So he makes a sacrifice. His final act is to become a hero. For them.

Cue the sobbing tears.

Additionally, I think it's relevant to point out here how strongly the narrative has advocated for victimhood to be divorced from being a perpetual self-identity. It really emphasizes the power of choosing to rise above your situation and pain to help other people, while also suggesting that your pain does not excuse you from hurting people. You can be a victim and you can be a perpetrator; they are not mutually exclusive. And because of this, after Deku saves Tenko, he does not owe him. He saved Tenko, but he could not keep him alive, and... I don't think that it's about Tenko deserving or not deserving to die. It's just that Tenko had reached a point of no return where his only choices were to die a slave or die free and he broke his shackles. But he was always going to die. Doomed by the narrative, both literally and figuratively. We can argue all day as to what degree of responsibility he holds for his actions as a highly abused, traumatized, often shell of a person. But the point is that at every junction of the story, Tenko (and the story around him) escalated until he was trapped. There wasn't a way out, and it's heartbreaking, and maybe that's the point.

I'm not saying it's fair. I'm certainly not saying you have to like it. But... I don't know. I don't feel like this is some completely out of pocket, off-the-rails end that destroyed all its characters. And who knows! Maybe Tenko will be brought back later. Maybe the epilogue will get progressively worse and I'll hate it. Maybe I'll finally get some sleep and regret writing this at all. I have no idea. Really. But we're all in this together, so these are my thoughts right now :)

[heart-of-the-morningstar]

His world started dying and they really just left him there!

[heybiji]

dande's dying btw

[thechaoticdruid]

When people mod Astarion to the point he doesn't even look like Astarion anymore.

Me:

[eepybubble]

sorry i like. became insane for a week. it will happen again.

[siriusist]

OKAY I'M SCREAMING BECAUSE IF YOU KNOW YOUR OBSCURE BAND OF BROTHERS FACTS, MY FAVOURITE DEEP DIVE BAND OF BROTHERS FACT IS THAT LEWIS NIXON AND BUCK COMPTON HATED EACH OTHER BECAUSE LEWIS WEIRDLY HAD A THING AGAINST HIM FOR BEING A "JOCK."

IT'S A THING IN A COUPLE OF THE OFF-SHOOT COMPANY BAND OF BROTHER BOOKS written both by Buck and other men. There's never a real explanation offered for WHY Lewis didn't like Buck, and what I always assumed was that Lewis basically got pestered by jocks at Yale, took it badly, and most likely took that out on poor Buck.

To get you a perspective of how athletic Buck was, Buck went to school at UCLA, which is famously a pretty jock-ish school. They traditionally have pretty great sports teams, Buck was All-American, which basically means one of the best in the country, and was recruited for professional baseball and played varsity football. He also played with Jackie Robinson at UCLA, the first black man to play professional Major League Baseball in the United States. Needless to say, he was pretty fucking athletic.

My theory is that Lewis was weirdly jealous because he was a poor little rich boy who never did anything on his own merit, and slightly intimidated of Buck's athletic prowess and charisma, but I digress.

AND LOW AND BEHOLD, MY YOUTUBE "RECOMMENDED FOR YOU" GIFTED ME THIS CLIP POSTED 12 DAYS AGO:

And I'm dying because so much drama that can be taken from this one clip:

The real Buck Compton seems immensely likeable even in his old age, and someone I think I would have been friends with.

Buck calls Lewis both a drunk and a prick, plus basically infers because he's up at battalion staff not even on the front lines that he basically was fucking about and not doing his job by being on the front line every time he was getting after Buck. And Buck is basically politely saying, "What are you even doing here." 💀

AND THEN LEWIS APPARENTLY CAME UP TO HIM UNPROMPTED and was basically like "AT YALE I HAD GIRLFRIENDS AND USED TO PARTY- AND ALL YOU JOCKS WERE DOING WAS SPORTS." And Buck is literally me if someone came up to me and was like I USED TO GET DRUNK AND PARTY AND YOU LOSERS JUST LIKED TO SWEAT in a weirdly accusatory tone, and is just like "... Okay????!? GOOD FOR YOU?!?? TO EACH THEIR OWN?!???"

Then poor Buck had to run a fucking hour of running Lewis made him in charge of every morning, even though he technically had no direct power over him, in a wool outfit, because he put him in charge of physical education. Because clearly some jock gave Lewis Nixon a swirly in a toilet once or something, and Lewis couldn't handle it because he was a rich boy used to getting what he wanted.

THE LEGENDARY ALMOST 100 YEAR OLD BEEF CONTINUES.

[fireflysprincess]

sometimes you just gotta imagine your f/o holding you close to them, petting your head, hearing their voice speak to you softly as they remind you that everything is gonna be alright, that you're gonna be alright, no matter how much you feel like you aren't, no matter how much your mind tells you that you aren't. your f/o is here to remind you that you can and will get through it and you will be okay, especially with them by your side. and they will stay with you until you feel safe again, no matter how long that takes.

[asilcorner]

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This scene is the funniest thing I’ve seen all month, it’s been a week and I still laugh about it.

[gatoraid]

She Who Became the Sun illustrations by Przemysław "Trust" Truściński

Okay I did some digging around and managed to find an ebook version of the illustrated Polish edition (Ta, która stała się słońcem) of She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan!! I got my copy from swiatksiazki.pl with the help of automatic translation.

Here are the illustrations I thought would be the most interesting to show here.

Chapters 1–4, Zhu at the monastery

Chapter 7, Ouyang

Chapter 10 - Ouyang and Esen

Chapter  16 - Zhu and Ma’s wedding

Chapter 19 - Zhu and Ma figuring out the business of rain and clouds

Had to censor this one OTL

Chapter 22 - Esen and Ouyang

Chapter 23, Zhu at the end of the book

[jessidogg]

We Never Have Enough Of Branch 💕

REBLOG IF BRANCH IS YOUR LIL

C I N N A M O N R O L L