#The Orca Army

[peppermintbits]

Fun life update blog while I work on art!

I need to get better at marketing myself as, a person, as well as a skill set. And sometimes I just have little thoughts or photos I think would be nice to share, but my Instagram is like my live-portfolio and Twitter feels like I may as well be talking into the void or just go to my various personal group chats since I'm so small there. I feel like doing tiny blog posts like this along with my art/writing stuff could be fun! Let's people see I have a personality.

First on the agenda: Yesterday I made peach syrup!

I've never made fruit syrup before and technically I was trying to make a compote (the peach I had had a yucky texture but I didn't want to waste ilit and things snowballed into me at the stove). I ended up accidentally making syrup correctly instead and just needed to read what to do after it had the right thickness. This was just one big peach so I only have half a jello mug but I might take the old apples in the fridge and make a bigger batch with them! Straining the mush after boiling it down was definitely the hardest part but it was soooo worth it. It will be going on my cheesecake later.

Next: At the end of June I attended the WGA East Coast strike picket at Netflix HQ. This was my favorite sign someone else made.

---------

Back to today, I counted all the change I'd saved in these little boxes since I started college and added it to the pile I've been saving in a separate box since I was 15, I can deposit $95.88 in change to my account now :D. 12 years of keeping my coin has finally added up to profit again haha.

People who throw away change confuse me. Yeah it's all the leftovers of bigger amounts but it's still money and it adds up over time. And it's so satisfying to see...When I actually deposit this I'll be a little sad tho, :( , I'll have to start at square one, 0, again. But having the money on hand instead of being a pile of coins will be worth it. I'll start fresh again with my empty change box(es) haha.

And finally: I saw this weevil earlier.

I just think he's neat, just a little guy.

I might draw a weevil today...

That's all for now! I will probably post more about the syrup/my dog later or lump them in with an art blog I'm doing tomorrow. I hope this wasn't too boring to read :3, thanks for stopping by.

[cornpone]

Sink the Rich

[amnesiamilk]

Dear orcas ,

please do not kill me when you become the rulers of earth. I promise i eat rudders off of boats too, much love, thanks

[one-half-guy]

I wonder 🤔... If the Egg Bosses ever got infected by the Metal Virus and so were cured, would the bombs/countermeasures from their cybernetics be deactivated/destroyed too? Or am I just wanting believe they had any chance of being free?

[sleaterkinnie]

oh bitch i designed the most fagcunt y2k dyke slay outfit for tmrw

[where-does-the-heart-lie]

ASL brothers HAIKYUU!! AU!!!!!

Day one of Self Indulgent month for me! I love these three, i love haikyuu, i love killer whales!

(The Naval Academy is this au’s version of marines)

For those who dont know, in Haikyuu (and prob in real life too but in my experience its not as important as they make it in the anime) The "Ace" of the team is the person who primarily scores points via spiking. Theyre the Hard Hitter, basically.

Design talk👇

Originally, i was gonna make their school mascot just "The Pirates" but i couldnt figure out a clever pun with the school name so i scrapped it in favor of an animal mascot. I figured I would have a wider range of puns that way.

I landed on Orcas as the mascot because I think they really embody a pirate way of life. Theyre strong, hang out in groups of a mix of found family and their actual family, hate the rich, and theyre fun loving! And also im a bit biased because theyre my favorite animal, but hey, i said its self indulgent month, didnt I?

Their school name is a play on the word for Killer Whale (Shachi シャチ) and the word for 'knowledge' (Chishiki 知識), i just smashed the two words together. I'm very proud of myself for coming up with that given i dont speak japanese at all.

Anyway, with their designs, I was taking inspiration from orcas to match the design themes of haikyuu. Ace's hair is bleached on the underside to look like the underside of an orca's body, I made ace and sabo's eyes look more whale-like, the clip in sabo's hair is meant to resemble to spots behind orca's eyes, and I tried to make luffy's hair look more like it's round and spiking down more than i usually do.

Ace is wearing a ''way of the ace" shirt in the first picture, Luffy is wearing a shirt that just says "VOLLEY BALL" because i think it would be funny if he wore a bunch of those Zero-context-poorly-translated-random-english-words shirts that theres a bunch of in Asia. Sabo dyes his hair like delinquents do, but it doesnt much look delinquent~y because of how soft it looks. He means to do it to make him look like a delinquent though. Sabo still has his scars in this au, but he uses his hair, arm braces, and leg braces to cover them up. LUFFY AND ACE HAVE FUNKY SOCKS BECAUSE NO ONE CAN TELL THEM (or me) THEY CANT. Sabo wears athletic socks though because he's a debbie downer. He defends himself saying “It’s practical” and Ace and luffy call him “practically a Debbie Downer.”

Luffy is very good at receiving from growing up with Sabo and Ace practicing setting and spiking with eachother and assigning Luffy as Ball Boy. So he got the libero position from that cuz sabo and ace put in a good word for him. Nepotism.

I didn't feel like coming up with designs for them, but Zoro and Bepo are also on their team (theyre in the fifth image sitting on the right of the line of students). Koala and nami are student managers, Robin is the teacher manager, and Franky is the coach. all other straw hats/luffy friends, rev army comrades, and whitebeard brethren are in the stands. Im trying to keep the ages consistent with how they are in canon.

I didnt do a very in depth research, but i couldnt find what Japanese schools have as mascot costumes. and given no one wears any costumes in haikyuu for their team, i can kind of assume they dont use them over there. But unfortunately for them, I'm American. And part of the backbone of our schooling system, is Vaguely Unsettling Mascot Costumes. My sister says my design for it looks like its from Club Penguin, and i find that delightful. [moment of silence for my billions of fallen Puffles, taken from me in The Shutdown] Anyway.

I thought I was clever coming up with the equivalent of the Marines in this au being a Naval Academy. And their mascot being Seals, famously the animal that gets the absolute Worst Of It from orcas. Get shit onnnnn

I believe thats about it, thanks for coming to my ted talk :)

[stillness-in-green]

Counting Cliffhangers: The Heroes Are Not the Underdogs in BNHA's War Arcs

(Being a project to tally up which side, if either, of Team Hero or Team Villain is "on top" at the end of each chapter in the war arcs, in consideration of the impact of the overall totals. This is one of those mega-long list posts; do not click the Expand/Read More unless you're prepared for a lot of reading and/or scrolling.)

One of the things that bothered me throughout both of the war arcs was the persistent sense that, for all that the manga was trying very hard to convince me that the Heroes were up against the wall and really having to give it everything they had, I never really felt that level of danger.  Of course, one always expects a degree of that—it’s not as though any sensible reader would really think this manga could end with the Villains winning!—but the problem went beyond that.  Expecting that the protagonist will win out in the end is the standard, after all, but good stories still find ways to keep readers engaged and believing in the stakes.

So why didn’t I?  I certainly believed in the stakes for the Villains—Twice’s death happens very early in the first war, and it sets the stakes quite clearly!  Was it just the difference between my own engagement with the Villains compared to the Heroes?  That didn’t seem quite right—even if I cared about one side for more than the other, it shouldn’t have been the case that that affection alone was skewing my suspension of disbelief about the dangers faced by the Heroes.  The threat posed to Midnight certainly seemed real enough, as was also the case for the Heroes left trampled in Gigantomachia’s wake, like Gang Orca and Fatgum.  As I’ve had to tell the occasional asker here before, just because I don’t particularly care about a character doesn’t mean I become incapable of evaluating their story beats!

What was the problem, then?  Why did the dangers to the Villains seem so desperately real, while the dangers to the Heroes, for the most part, just had me rolling my eyes and waiting for the next asspull that would save them?

I think there are two primary factors.  The first and biggest factor is simply baked into the worldbuilding and the decisions made in the writing: the sides are poorly matched.  I’m not going to go into all of that here, but as a thought exercise, go through the arcs of the story that contain active conflict and consider which side has the advantage in each of the following categories: individual combatant quality (stuff like raw power, endurance, and training/experience to improve upon their inherent capabilities), equipment quality, information about the opponent, ability to set the terms of engagement, and raw numbers of warm bodies to throw at a fight. 

By my measure, much of the early confrontations in BNHA work because these advantages are divided evenly between the Heroes and Villains.  Likewise, My Villain Academia is so gripping because the Meta Liberation Army has virtually every advantage over the League, making the League really and truly feel like the underdogs in the fight.  Conversely, the Heroes are the ones with virtually every advantage in the war arcs,[1] meaning they cannot convincingly be the underdogs the story so desperately wants us to believe they are.

1:  I swear I’m not going to go into all of it, at least not in this post, but to be very brief, I think the only advantages the Villains could even kind of claim during the war arcs are numbers and combatant quality.  The numbers advantage is mostly illusory; the PLF are leveled in the cursory mass arrest of the first war and, despite repeated insistence otherwise, the only place where the Villains’ numbers are a true threat in the second war is at the hospital attack, where said numbers consist chiefly of untrained and easily swayed civilians in a battle it’s desperately unclear why the Heroes allowed to take place at all.  The quality advantage, meanwhile, is heavily concentrated in only a handful of hard-hitting, A-to-S-rank threats on the Villains’ side, while the Heroes maintain clear quality supremacy in rank-and-file or side character battles.

The other factor, and the one this post concerns, is the structure of the chapters themselves, to wit, the way that they end.  In a serialized story being published and read week to week, each installment’s ending is a crucial factor in the story’s overall tone.  What happens on the last page is a major factor in the impact each chapter makes, the feeling the reader is left with while they wait for the next part.  If the intent, therefore, is for the Heroes to feel threatened, pushed to the very edge of their endurance, then a very basic thing needs to be observed: don’t end every fucking chapter with the Heroes having the fucking advantage.

I’m so serious here, guys.  It’s not that the Villains never have the advantage, never get twists or reveals or reinforcements that turn the tide of the battle in their favor.  It’s that, by and large, those advantages come in the middle of chapters, while the Heroes’ twists and reveals and reinforcements get the benefit of being at the end of chapters, so the dominant feeling—the side that’s left wildly cheering for their “team” at the end of the week—is usually the Heroes.  While it’s possible that the impression left is different when reading the story in volume form,[2] when reading week to week, that imbalance critically damages the story’s ability to portray the desperation and strain of the Heroes’ struggle.

2: Having not read the arcs in this fashion, I couldn't say. Obviously I don't know how a volume-only reader would experience this aspect of the story, but even reading (or rereading) a bunch of chapters all in one go online suffers from some impaired momentum between chapters by having to specifically navigate to the next chapter webpage and wait for it to load rather than just being able to turn pages freely.

That, in any case, was my thesis when I first started this count, listing which side has the upper hand at the end of each chapter of the two war arcs, as well as the total overall.  With the second war arc finally having ended, I figured I’d go ahead and post my results. 

Hit the jump!

For each arc, I started counting at the chapter where active conflict breaks out, including as a dramatic end cliffhanger.  Thus, for the first war, I didn’t start in Chapter 258, where the groups are still gathering, but rather in Chapter 259, when the forward momentum begins and the first Villain (Ujiko) is confronted.  Likewise, the second war count begins with Chapter 343, when the armies confront each other.  The counts end with the last chapter containing active Hero/Villain conflict rather than narrated montage.  Thus, the first war ends in 295, when AFO and the League flee the field, not in 296 with the looming threat of the long-awaited jailbreak.  The second war ends with Deku’s weather-clearing fist in 423.

My basic categories are Hero Advantage, Villain Advantage, and Neither.  Fake-outs are categorized as they are perceived in the moment of reading them, not as they read in retrospect.  Further, I do not categorize based on the overall tenor of the chapter, but only the impact of the final page.  This is by nature somewhat subjective, but I’ve done my best to call them as I think they’re meant to be read.

What is the feeling the reader takes with them into the next chapter?  Excitement for the heroes?  Dismay and fear?  A simmering tension?  Which side, if either, got the HELL YEAH HELL YEAH fist-pump?  If there's a relative clear answer, I'll call it for one side of the other; chapters that end with no particular new reveals, arrivals, power-ups, or other such shifts in the tides with be called as neither.

Finally, for ease of tracking and reading, my tallies and accompanying brief explanations are separated by volume. I'll provide totals for each category at the end of each volume, and full totals, as well as a total count for which category the volumes end in, at the end of the arcs. Final counts and commentary will close the post.

Let's get started.

FIRST WAR ARC

Volume 27: 259: Hero Advantage.  Endeavor and company confront (apparently) Ujiko, catching him completely flat-footed.

260: Hero.  Mirko crashes into Ujiko’s lab, to his horror, and kills John-chan in doing so.

261: Neither.  Mirko and the High Ends square up for their Round 2.

262: Hero.  The Villa gets cracked open like an egg, catching its inhabitants entirely off-guard.

263: Hero.  If they were on more level footing, I’d call this Neither, but given the positions Hawks and Twice end the chapter in, and the clear difference in emotional preparedness, this one goes to the Heroes.

264: Neither.  The Hawks/Twice fight continues inconclusively; Dabi is revealed to be on his way, but has not yet arrived on-scene to affect any changes.

265: Villain.  Dabi makes a strong and, for Hawks, unexpected entrance, pinning Hawks beneath his boot.

266: Neither.  Twice dies, which is a huge hit to the Villains, but the narrative sympathy is so clearly with Twice and Toga that it’s impossible to describe the chapter as ending on a fist-pumping note for anyone.

267: Hero.  Doubly so, as Endeavor and Tokoyami both show up to intervene in fights that were about to go to the villains, but we'll be fair and only count it as one anyway.

                   Heroes 5 | Villains 1 | Neither 3 | Total 9     

Volume 28: 268: Neither.  Basement action.  The tube gets cracked; Aizawa and Mic are told not to let Shigaraki wake up.  Nothing conclusive.

269: Hero Advantage.  Literally ends with Ujiko wailing that the Lord of Evil’s dream is over.

270: Villain.  It ends with Deku getting a warning about Shigaraki, which makes it a bit borderline, but Shigaraki being awake at all has to count for the Villains.

271: Villain.  Gigantomachia stands up.

272: Neither.  The kids start rallying against the Decay wave.  Deku gets a new move that doesn’t seem like it should have any effect but is played as being effective.  Shigaraki’s Decay wave is being monstrously effective, even apocalyptic, but the tone of the last page is ambiguous.

273: Neither.  Shigaraki faces off with Endeavor.  Both are known factors on this field of battle.

274: Neither.  Deku is on the move in hopes of leading Shigaraki to a more deserted area.

275: Hero.  Aizawa arrives at the Shigaraki fight, locking down his quirk use.

276: Hero.  Deku and Bakugou arrive in time to save Aizawa from what likely would have been the same kind of blow that will later cost him his eye.

                   Heroes 3 | Villains 2 | Neither 4 | Total 9     

Volume 29: 277: Neither.  Mount Lady attempts to stop Gigantomachia.  Results inconclusive; both known factors.

278: Neither.  Leans a bit Hero side because it’s Momo dramatically getting her head on straight, but it’s really just more preparations for a face-off.

279: Hero Advantage.  The League is getting swarmed and Mina is on the brink of delivering what’s framed as a knock-out blow to Machia.

280: Neither.  Shigaraki laboriously gathers himself, preparing to monologue.

281: Villain.  Shigaraki readies a quirk-destroying bullet with Aizawa’s name on it.

282: Villain.  Gigantomachia, who is very much not knocked out,  looms over an unsuspecting city.

283: Hero.  Deku negates the (immediate) danger of Decay by activating Float.

284: Hero.  Deku lands a full-power blow on Shigaraki, who’s been largely unable to fend him off in the air.

285: Villain.  It pains me to grant this because I knew good and well Bakugou would be completely fine.  But he is a major combatant and face for the Hero side and this is clearly intended to look like it will take him out, at least for the fight.

                   Heroes 3 | Villains 3 | Neither 3 | Total 9     

Volume 30: 286: Hero Advantage.  The action moves to the vestige realm.  Very borderline, but Nana’s words are definitive: “Let us handle this.”  The implication is very much that there’s no need to fear because the vestiges have got this.

287: Neither.  Chapter ends with Toga reflecting on heroes and the weight they give to the lives of Villains.  Could represent a major turning point for Toga, but it’s still soft-pedaled by making that turning point dependent on a Hero’s yet-unspoken words.

288: Neither.  Chapter ends mid-dialogue in the Toga/Ochaco fight.

289: Villain.  Machia and his passengers arrive.

290: Villain.  A little borderline because the actual very last panel is the plane containing Best Jeanist, but the audience doesn’t know that yet, and the bulk of the final page is dedicated the devastation of the Touya Reveal, so I have to give this one to them.

291: Hero.  Best Jeanist arrives.

292: Hero.  Mirio arrives with his quirk restored.

293: Hero.  Machia goes down because the sedative finally kicks in.

294: Villain.  Mr. Compress backstory reveal and big escape moment.

295: Neither.  The battle ends save for the wrap-up.  The villains are neither victorious nor defeated.

                   Heroes 4 | Villains 3 | Neither 3 | Total 10

FIRST WAR TOTAL: Heroes 15 | Villains 9 | Neither 13 | Total 37 Volume End Advantage Count: Heroes 2  |  Villains 1  |  Neither 1

                       

SECOND WAR ARC

Volume 35: 343: Hero Advantage.  The Heroes counter AFO’s army by “unexpectedly” whipping out their own via Warp Gate.

344: Hero.  The Heroes take the offensive and split up the villains’ army.

345: Villain.  Toga lassos Deku through a gate, separating him from the field he’s supposed to be on.

346: Villain.  The beginning of Fingervetr.

347: Neither.  Borderline because it’s a big dramatic page of Toga, but it’s more conversational then confrontational to me, and isn’t revealing anything particularly new.

348: Neither.  Deku flees the island, leaving Toga to Ochaco.

349: Neither.  Dabi gears up to provide the answers Shouto has specifically asked for.

350: Neither.  Dabi’s coming on strong, but Shouto remains undaunted.  I’d give it to the Villains if the last page were Dabi liquidating the All Might statue, though.

                   Heroes 2 | Villains 2 | Neither 4 | Total 8                    

Volume 36: 351: Hero Advantage.  Shouto unleashes Phosphor.

352: Hero.  Shouto appears to beat Dabi.

353: Neither.  AFO is talking a lot, but not about anything groundbreaking.

354: Neither.  AFO and Jirou exchange smacktalk.

355: Hero.  Hawks and Jirou combine efforts to break AFO’s mask.

356: Neither.  Endeavor has a big moment, but AFO gets his hands up in time to block and is still shown intact at the end of the chapter.  Borderline, but I’d say not quite definitive enough to qualify it for the hero side.

357: Villain.  AFO regenerates.  A little borderline because it actually ends with Deku, and the approach of what I guessed at the time were the American jets, but I think it’s a similar enough scenario as the end of Chapter 270 to call it for the Villains as well.

358: Neither.  No impact from the Hero attack leaves it a little unclear how much effect it will have, and a new attack is not a big enough game changer for me to really count it even unproven.  It’d be easy to call it for the Heroes, though.

359: Hero.  Return of the Big Three.

360: Hero.  Bakugou’s in rough shape, but there’s a hint that he’s noticed something important, which could foreshadow a change in the tides of the battle.

361: Hero.  Suneater’s Chimera Cannon, which certainly looks incredibly hype and impressive in the moment.

362: Villain.  Bakugou’s “death.”

                   Heroes 6 | Villains 2 | Neither 4 | Total 12                    

Volume 37: 363: Villain Advantage.  AFO finishes regenerating; full face reveal.

364: Hero.  The impossibly moronic Edgeshot-as-Bakugou’s-heart business.  Not conclusive, but it steals one of the Villains’ victories out from under from them.

365: Villain.  A shift in Inner Tenko’s emotional state heralds Shigaraki’s next form.

366: Hero.  Deku arrives at the Sky Coffin.

367: Neither.  Deku attempts conversation to ask about Shigaraki’s status.

368: Hero.  Deku lands a full-power hit on ShigAFO while Yoichi talks to his big brother about letting this being the day that their battle ends.

369: Villain.  A scene change to Spinner that’s timed in such a way that it could really only foreshadow Spinner’s victory.

370: Neither.  It’s very close to a Hero call, but mostly what Shouji’s doing is shaking off mundane attackers and making a dramatic proclamation.  Not quite enough direct impact for an end-of-chapter Hero Advantage.

371: Neither.  Even closer than the last one, but neither blow the kids are gearing up for actually connect on-page.  I wouldn’t fault anyone who called it for the Heroes, though.

372: Neither.  An extremely effective cliffhanger, for once, as Spinner and Mic call out to Kurogiri simultaneously.

373: Villain.  Kurogiri gets up, calling himself the protector of Shigaraki Tomura.

374: Villain.  Toga deploys Sad Man’s Death Parade; Hawks proves he hasn’t learned jack shit from the last time he faced this question.

                   Heroes 3 | Villains 5 | Neither 4 | Total 12                    

Volume 38: 375: Hero Advantage.  Toga’s narrative-destined rival manages to follow her off the island and to the Villa ruins.  Close to a Neither call.

376: Neither.  Setting up a Dabi/Endeavor clash with Endeavor not caught on the back foot.

377: Hero.  Return of La Brava.

378: Hero.  Return of Lady Nagant.

379: Neither.  Sets up a reengaged clash between Shigaraki and Deku.

380: Hero.  Arrival of Shiketsu.

381: Hero.  Tokoyami lands a blow that AFO is explicitly afraid to get hit with.

382: Hero.  Shinsou and Kirishima arrive with a brainwashed Gigantomachia.

383: Neither.  Reiterates that AFO is in trouble, but it’s not new information, and the choppers coming in at the very end are an unpredictable element.

384: Hero.  The choppers are full of Hero-supporting journalists here to tell the world how incredibly hard-working and earnest and admirable Heroes are.  Gag.

385: Neither.  AFO’s belated but impressive show of force gets dampened somewhat by the Heroes refusing to give in, and even getting one of their number back.  It’s back and forth, but Stain really tips it for good over to a neutral chapter ending.  While he’s obviously not aligned with the Villains, he’s far too murderous to chalk him up as a Hero yet, either, especially on-scene watching two kids he tried to kill last time he saw them.

386: Hero.  All Might gets a cool robot suit and the last-page chapter title drop references his iconic catchphrase.

                   Heroes 8 | Villains 0 | Neither 4 | Total 12                    

Volume 39: 387: Hero Advantage.  Rei is, of course, a civilian, not a hero, but she’s clearly aligned on the Team Good Guy, so I have to give it to them.  It’s not a hill I’d die on, however, particularly with the very last panel being the flashback to Touya emphasizing Rei’s culpability.

388: Neither.  What a nice vision of hell as everyone burns to death, including Dabi.  If I gave it to anyone, I’d lean Villain, because it’s certainly more in line with what Dabi wants—what he’s always wanted.  But in terms of impact on the reader, it certainly isn’t going to get anyone whooping and cheering for the Villains.

389: Neither.  It’s a good last few pages of Shouto and Iida, but the reader already knows they’re on their way, so it’s not a pleasant surprise to see them enroute.  The fact that they are still enroute rather than dramatically arriving to save the day keeps this from being a full Hero moment ending.

390: Neither.  Teasing more of the fight between Toga and Uraraka, but no sudden turns, new elements, or grand statements on either side.

391: Neither.  Ongoing fight; while Ochaco gets the stirring line, the actual last page is Toga lashing out.

392: Villain.  While I’m loathe to give it to them on the basis of an injury I was not for one second actually worried about, the chapter does end with Toga putting a knife into Uraraka’s gut and a flashback to Twice asking Toga about a Villain name.  A clear Villain-upper-hand ending.

393: Hero.  Ochaco comes through with flying colors, getting a quirk awakening and making Toga an offer she’s dreamed of her whole life.

394: BOTH.  For literally the first time in this whole count, I can’t count this against either side.  If pressed, I’d call it a Hero win, but it’s a win because it validates both sides.

395: Neither.  Sorry, gang.  I’m utterly incapable of calling this one in an unbiased way.  It’s an all-too-real death scare for Toga and, regardless of how happy she is in the moment, I can’t call her potential death a victory.  But since Ochaco obviously feels the same, it’s not a Hero win, either.

396: Hero.  And get ready, ‘cause there're about to be a whole lot of them.  Good god, but I hate this All Mech sequence.

397: Neither.  Ongoing battle, no major tides turning in the final page.

398: Neither.  As above.

                   Heroes 3 | Villains 1 | Neither 7 | Both 1 | Total 12                    

Volume 40: 399: Hero Advantage.  The big turn-around with Aoyama, with All Might dropping the Aoyama-themed laser of AFO.

400: Hero.  Stain’s return.  Stain’s a Villain himself, but far too aligned with Hero orthodoxy for me to count him returning to help All Might as anything but a Hero-side victory.

401: Neither.  All Might’s still kicking, AFO is within range of Shigaraki, but nothing decisive deployed on the final page.

402: Neither.  To all appearances, All Might continues to shovel more battle damage onto AFO.  There’s a death threat in the explosion, one I don’t think I took very seriously at the time, though plenty of others did.  Left to my own devices, I’d call it for Team Hero, but I’ll err on the side of restraint and call it a hero equivalent of Toga’s death threat.

403: Hero.  Unequivocal Hero victory—Bakugou’s back up.

404: Hero.  Saving All Might with the literal power of prayer.

405: Hero.  If I wanted to be snide, I’d point out that Final Boss is definitionally a Villain role, so Bakugou enthusiastically claiming it for himself implicates Heroes as having been the Villains all along, while the Villains are the clear heroic underdogs struggling against a corrupt, violent system.  But that’s just my bitterness making me perverse; this is a clear Hero victory.

406: Neither.  Exchanging of smack talk, Bakugou gets a good but not definitive hit in.

407: Neither.  AFO’s flashback ends with one of the most crushing emotional defeats of his life, but you can hardly call AFO slice-and-dicing Yoichi a Hero win, either.

408: Neither.  AFO’s going all-out, but Bakugou remains undaunted.

409: Hero.  AFO’s effective defeat at Bakugou’s hands.  Yoichi’s regretful glance is not enough to shift the needle.

410: Villain.  Shigaraki does what the narrative has long been warning that he can and steals a portion of One For All, grabbing Danger Sense for himself and stealing Shinomori from the OFA collective.

                   Heroes 6 | Villains 1 | Neither 5 | Total 12                    

Volume 41: 411: Neither.  Deku’s readying an offensive that gives Shigaraki lots of Danger Sense tinglies, but nothing definitive.

412: Neither.  The temptation is strong to call this for the Hero side, as it’s the moment Kudou formulates the plan that will soon be leading to Shigaraki’s ultimate defeat, but the caveat that the plan requires losing One For All kiboshes that feeling very triumphant.

413: Hero.  There’s some nominal sadness for Deku gearing up to lose OFA, but the tone here is much more about how great and awesome Deku is for being willing to do it, on top of how incredibly fucking rad the art plainly wants us to think that he looks.

414: Hero.  I’d normally call it Neither for lacking new elements or definitive actions, but I have to acknowledge the sheer disparity between, on the one hand, the vestiges telling Deku that it’s working and to keep going as Deku gears up to unleash another punch while, on the other hand, all Shigaraki can manage is huddling in on himself and choking out a few pained grunts.

415: Neither.  Borderline in that Eri is a clear Hero-side ally with an absolutely game-changing power, but the truth is that she’s at U.A. with no immediately clear way to make it to the battle even if anyone were to let her go, so it’s not too different from any other chapter that ended with a major player en route but not yet arriving.

416: Hero.  Deku finally breaks into Shigaraki’s inner mind, over Shigaraki’s protestations.

417: Neither.  Deku and Nana make a major breakthrough, but Shigaraki’s backstory yet has terrible bombs to drop.  I can’t call it a Villain advantage, though, because it’s still stuff Shigaraki very much does not want Deku meddling with.

418: Villain.  AFO returns yet again, spoiling Deku’s hard-won moment of equilibrium and understanding with Shigaraki.

419: Hero.  We can’t even get a week to savor/freak out over Deku losing his arms because the actual last beat of the chapter is Aizawa bringing in a pair of classmates via Kurogiri’s warp gate, suggesting (albeit inaccurately) that Kurogiri has settled as a Hero ally.

420: Hero.  More of the above and Deku gets his arms back after a world-shakingly relevant and momentous chapter and a half.

421: Hero.  All around Hero support, now including from civilians too.

422: Hero.  More of the above and now Deku’s punching Shigaraki at the end of it under a chapter title of Midoriya Izuku Rising.

423: Hero.  Deku’s triumphantly raised fist clears storm clouds, changes the weather, and kills the man he was trying to save.  This is framed as a victory anyway.

                   Heroes 8 | Villains 1 | Neither 4 | Total 13

SECOND WAR TOTAL: Heroes 36 | Villains 12 | Neither 32 | BOTH 1 | Total 81 Volume Count Total: Heroes 2 | Villains 3 | Neither 2

                   

TOTAL CHAPTER COUNT FOR BOTH WAR ARCS: 118 CHAPTERS Final Page Hero Advantage: 51 Final Page Villain Advantage: 21 Final Page Neither: 45 Final Page Both: 1

Total Volume Count: 11 Volumes Last Page Hero Advantage: 4 Last Page Villain Advantage: 4 Last Page Neither: 3

---------------------

Now, you could (and I might) write a whole different post about the unbalanced strategic advantages that I discussed at the beginning of the post, but I think this breakdown also serves to illustrate the scope of the problem with raw numbers (percentages rounded off a bit such that they total to neat 100s).

In the first war, 40.5% of the chapters end with the Heroes on the upswing, 35% have no clear advantage, and only 24.5% end with the Villains waxing triumphant. Despite Hawks reflecting at the end of My Villain Academia about how the Paranormal Liberation Front was a power on par with, or possibly even greater than, that of Hero Society, the numbers don't really back that up. Instead, Heroes have the advantage over half again as often as Villains do, and even the uncertain chapters are still more numerous.

The second war is worse—much worse. Hero Advantage chapters account for nearly half of the arc at 44.5%, while chapters where Neither side clears account for the bulk of the remaining chapters at 39.5%. Only 15% of the chapters, well under a quarter, are Villain Advantage. For an endgame that wants to be about "saving Villains," only one single chapter (1%) ends with something you could credibly call both sides winning.

Now, of course, the second war is the climax of the whole series, so of you might say that of course the Heroes are going to ultimately do better. They have to win in the end, after all, so of course the arc will eventually feature mostly Hero victories.

I would counter that, while that is true, the story repeatedly tries to convince us that the Heroes are really struggling, that they've lost so many people, that they're at this huge disadvantage that neccessitates the extreme measures they use. And the numbers simply don't back that up, even less than they did in the first war!

If you look at the totals for each volume, Heroes have a wild advantage in two of the first four volumes (the arc is seven volumes in total), numbers the Villains never come close to meeting. There's one volume (the third, Volume 37) where they have the majority of the chapter-ending advantages, and even there, it's a narrow margin. Volume 38 is then a blow-out with not a single Villain Advantage chapter cliffhanger in the whole book, and in the final three volumes of the arc, the Villains get exactly one Advantage chapter per volume.

Not very convincing numbers, if the aim is to convince the reader of how much Plus Extra effort the Heroes are going to have to exert, if you ask me!

Between them, Hero Advantage and Neither chapters make up a shocking 81% of the two war arcs, with merely 18%, less than fifth, of the chapters ending on Villain Advantage beats that could serve to freshly drum up, "Our heroes are really in trouble now!" anxiety.

Looking back to what I said about the Heroes having the bulk of the strategic advantages for both arcs, that surely can't be all that surprising. You can't expect a set-up that slanted to leave much room at all for Villains to get time to shine; they simply don't have the room in the story for that when, for everything they try, the Heroes already have some countermeasure.

As a final comparison, remember I praised MVA back at the start for being gripping in large part because the "Heroes" of that arc, the League of Villains, were at such a disadvantage?

I briefly ran the numbers there, and I'd say, of nineteen chapters that contain active confrontation of some sort between the League and an antagonistic force (Gigantomachia, Ujiko, and the MLA), the League have the chapter-ending advantage beat in four of those chapters: Toga's victory in 226, Twice overcoming his mental block and starting to replicate himself in 229, and the two chapters covering Shigaraki's ultimate victory over Re-Destro, 238 and 239. That's a grand total of 20% "Hero" Advantage chapters for them, and half of those are the arc climax chapters.

The "Villains" for the arc likewise have the ending advantage in 20% of the arc, four chapters: Machia having comprehensively whipped the League at the end of 419, RD making the League an offer they can't refuse in 223, Skeptic pushing all of Twice's buttons in 228, and RD plucking off Shigaraki's fingers in 233.

The remaining eleven chapters—60%—go to the Neither category. Compare that back to the percentages for the war arcs, and you can see that, while the Villain Advantage percentage is similar (~5% higher in the first war and likewise lower in the second), the Hero Advantage is twice the percentage (40+%) in both arcs, while the Neither chapters are accordingly lower (the war arcs are 35% and ~40% Neither respectively).

In other words, the Heroes in the war arcs just straight-up have more chapter-ending awesome moments and reveals, and spend less time facing chapter-ending uncertainty, compared to not just the Villains they're fighting in those arcs, but also compared to what those same Villains got when they were being Heroes for an arc.

And to think, Horikoshi wants me to think his Heroes are being challenged. Pull the other one, Sensei; it's got bells on.

(I welcome anyone else to run similar numbers with e.g. the trainng camp attack or the Hassaikai base raid. For myself, I'm too sleepy to figure out a better ending for this post, so I'm just turning out the lights and hitting the sack. Sorry if there's any formatting wigginess or the closing analysis is lacking; I will clean it up later if need be.)

[bogleech]

One of the odder things I did as a child was that for a while I felt my own fictional worlds were only allowed a “realistic” number of animal species that would actually attack and eat you, and I thought for some reason I should base this on our current, modern Earth, so I obsessively sought out information on man-eating animals and added them to a list. I latched on to some fairly exaggerated tales of people dying via army ants, leeches or large squid because of this, and I chose to deny the insistence that “killer whales” aren’t really killers. No. I WANTED to believe orcas eat people. That made them more appealing. And it meant one more species of scary monster beast I was “allowed” to put in the very boring sci-fi setting I maintained at the time. I can’t remember when it finally dawned on me that there used to be possibly hundreds of kinds of killer beasts sharing our planet with us and we simply wiped them out or they vanished with the ice age, rendering my lovingly curated list and self-imposed limitations all nonsense.

[autumnmobile12]

“A hero?  Well, not an well-known one.”

How do you know he’s a hero then?  How does anyone recognize the lesser known heroes as heroes?  Nobody wears a ‘hero badge’ and even if they did, villlains can counterfeit those and fake a hero status to blend in.

Is this part of the hero licensing exam?  Memorizing all registered Pros and what they look like?  Does everybody have to retake that portion of the exam every graduation season?  Then you’ve got people like Gang Orca who have the misfortune of ‘looking like a villain’ on sight.  How many mistaken identity incidents did he go through before people were familiar enough with him?

That whole fight with the heroes against the PLF, how was nobody attacking somebody on their side by accident?  The PLF didn’t have any identifying marks.  Nobody was wearing any Liberation Army armband.

Not everybody graduated from a well-known school, so how is Average Man from Nowhere Academy recognized as a hero on sight?

In the third movie, Deku reports back to Endeavor, Shouto, and Bakugou about how this lady attacked him in Otheon and that she ‘looked like a villain.’

Or maybe she was one of the local Pros called in to deal with the explosion you just caused...?

Also, she looks like a villain? How? She looks pretty standard compared to some of the other cast members. Show someone who hasn't seen My Hero a side by side picture of Beros and Gang Orca and ask who the villain is.

I know it was the World Heroes mission and Deku probably did some reading up on international Pros, but come on, even he can’t get to every last licensed Pro in the world.  You caused a problem, kid, and then somebody showed up and attacked you.  In that snafu, you might the villain.  I know she was with the cult people, but I would have loved it if she turned up later and was all, “I’m not a villain, I’m one of the local Pros for that city.  From my perspective, it looked like you set off a bomb in the middle of a public plaza.  What the hell did you think was gonna happen?”

You could make the argument she was ‘shooting to kill,’ but then you have Snipe and Lady Nagant who were/are both Pros who use firearm-based Quirks. For all we knew, she could have been trying to incapacitate him for questioning.

Way to profile.

[riririnnnn]

GIRLFRIEND FC‼️‼️

WE HAVE A NEW MEMBER IN OUR FAMILY:

MEET BACHIRA FISH-GURU🐟‼️

BELOVED PET OF @refrigeratedboombursts!

DON'T LET THE INNOCENT LOOK FOOL YOU‼️‼️❌

FISH-GURU KNOWS ALL THE FORMS OF MARITAL ART‼️ HE IS THE FIRST FISH IN THE WORLD TO EARN A BLACK BELT‼️‼️AND RUMOURS SAY THAT HE LEADS POSEIDON'S ARMY TO BATTLE‼️‼️ HE SINGLEHANDEDLY BODYSLAMMS ORCA WHALES THE FIRST THING IN THE MORNING ‼️‼️HE ONCE FOUGHT A MEGALODON WITH HIS BARE FINS TOO 💥🤯‼️‼️

Also, he bites.

Me when I tried to pet him👆🏻

🗣️NO ❌ CAP🧢

But he is a very good boy🐟🫶🏻✅

[rdbrainz]

Info and oc related stuff Characters in the following order: Ikkon, Turzo, Zanni (in his Resurrección form, you can find his regular outfit somewhere on here wink-wink), Kenpachi Ryuya, Betsuyaku Taisuke Their stories take place in an au btw

Ikkon "Capitano" Agreda Refused his number Zanpakuto: Tiamtum. Doesn't look like a katana at all, it's a silver brass knuckle knife Resurrección: Orca. However, no special form is obtained when activated Other: h-207cm, w-about 130kg

Ikkon's animal prototype is orca, the most fearsome sea predator. I wanted to give themes to the members of my Arrancar troupe (aside from literally being inspired by theatre, circus, etc.) and settled on self-destructive attitudes and relationships☝🤓 So his theme is anger, resentment and revengefulness. Many in the troupe call him by his nickname, "Capitano", but Ikkon is not a Spaniard who came from far away like his theatrical counterpart, he has no army and in this respect, he resembles Captain Ahab who blindly hunts for his own death with his decisions. Incredibly and sometimes unreasonably vicious and cruel, firmly believing that if the world and its creatures have treated him with nothing but cruelty since his birth, he shouldn't treat the world any differently. He has no sporting interest in violence. Ikkon can have fun in the process - even dance as a mockery - but he is not interested in fair fights purely for the sake of finding a worthy opponent, so he hates when opponents try to initiate small talk during encounters. He would be much more happy if his prey would just shut up and die. Ikkon is dismissive towards everyone around him and keeps them at arm's length even when he seems to like someone, and he is more than happy with his position as a "hired force" since he refused to play a role in the troupe and kinda sticks around to find himself new things to kill time with or, well, kill. He has murdered a great number of Arrancar either for fun or because of some quarrels and dug himself an even deeper grave. Despite actually having some semblance of self-awareness, he always finds someone to blame. Technically, he's just a big, angry kid who's lucky enough to have a huge power advantage over literally all of his kin and who's is so stuck in his own anger, so limited by it that he's unable to change at this point. His views have gotten him nowhere but to an aimless, stupid and painful death, which he'd always predicted for himself, but even then he's managed to do his own thing and took the shinigami who fought him out in the process. "If I go down, you go down with me." He mainly relies on his immense physical strength, size, and good fighting ability, but he also uses Sonído, Cero, Bala, and other delights of the Arrancar form. His personal ability is blowing bubbles filled with compressed spiritual energy hundreds of times stronger than when it's just surrounding him. When they burst at his command, they release it in the form of powerful waves that, depending on the opponent's spiritual energy, can either blow their head off from the pressure or just topple them over. His Resurrección doesn't give him a cool orca-man form but works kinda like a Domain Expansion. The lack of any new physical abilities or a new form when released is paid off by the fact that Ikkon's Reiatsu at a large radius from him is so intense that it creates a pressure similar to that of being submerged deep underwater. It's called Hadal Zone (Ultra Abyssal) because of it. He can easily tinker with this pressure and change it back and forth with various rapidity, so he can give his enemy either a decompression sickness or an instant death from rupture… of pretty much everything… It's up to him, but he's more fond of killing shinigami, humans, and his kin with his own hands rather than standing aside while it's happening.

Ikkon's far more cool and talented in all sorts of things than people give him credit for. He has a very strong singing voice and sometimes sings to himself when he's alone. But nothing more than that. He's not ashamed of his talent, in fact, he takes pride in it but being the object of attention of the troupe is worse than death itself to him, so it's kinda his fault people tend to overlook things abt him. He actually finds most of the members annoying. Especially their voices thanks to his extra sensitive hearing. It gets so bad that if he were to fight shinigami in the world of the living he'd probably bawl his eyes out due to the noise pollution and not be focused enough to do anything. He also lives on the outskirts of the cathedral-like building, where the other Arrancar reside, in a cave of some sort. Not because he's not a part of the whole mess but because he feels safer and calmer in the place he's been living alone in for a couple of hundred years now, even in his hollow form. Named after two musicians - Federico Augusto Ágreda Álvarez (Zardonic) and Niko "Ikon" Lehdontie (Oranssi Pazuzu). Theme songs: Twelve Foot Ninja - Coming For You, Staind - Change, Combichrist - Throat Full of Glass, Seether - Pride, P.O.D. - Listening For The Silence, Найк Борзов - Слышу Тьму. Heavily lyrics-oriented I guess?? Whatever… Tbh he's grown on me over time and the more I think abt him the less I wanna kill him off (and Ryuya too) but for the sake of keeping the story intact, there's an alternative route where he almost dies but doesn't. Maybe I'll write it down later but first I need to tell you about Volto so ehh… We'll see I guess.

[iexisttospitegod69]

Ok I know this is the most overused trope, but I’m sucker for it so this is what you all get.

Fading Light

Summary: during the events of the Hobbit and the battle for the Mountain, you get injured

Legolas x Reader

There was so much happening. The dwarves defending the mountain, elves and men defending the city of Dale. You had followed the elves and men to the city to try and protect the innocent lives suddenly in the line of fire.

You slashed your way through countless pecs of different sizes. You worked seamlessly with the elven archers to take down the large orcs. Everything was looking up, until you let your guard down and an orc slid its sword across your abdomen.

You killed the orca and slunk down into a small corner to check the damage. Because of your armor. The blade had only pierced a small section. A deep gash rom your left rib to your belly button glistened with fresh blood.

In a moment of adrenaline, you torn off your coat into smaller pieces. You balled up part of it and stuck it into the wound, grinding your teeth in agony. Then using longer pieces, you wrapped it around yourself to keep the leaking blood in.

You looked up towards the Orc command center. Knowing that Legolas was up there, you quickly looked for a way to get up. The bats brought by the orc army slashed through the air with scary speed. You spotted one heading towards you and timed it perfectly to jump and grab its feet.

The creature pulled upward, trying to shake you off, but you pulled on its legs to steer it toward the icy river. Your vision became spotty around the edges from the sudden movement and strain on the open wound. You kept your eyes fixated on the ice below and blinked away the growing darkness.

When the creature got close enough, you let go and fell with a thump to the cold ice. The lack of a jacket let the cold air of the mountain deep into your skin and wound, making you shiver, but you pushed on. You ran toward the horde of goblin mercenaries pouring in where Bilbo lay unconscious and Dwalin fought off as many as he could.

You joined the battle and slashed down orc after orc. You could hear the blades clashing and bricks crumbling from the other areas where battles raged on, but your only focus was on the never ending stream of filthy goblins.

Every time one orc went down, two more appeared over the ridge. The gash on your stomach throbbed in anger every time you lifted your arms to bring your blade down on an orcs head. But the thought of letting these creatures get to not only Bilbo and Dwalin, but the people of Lake-Town, the remainder of the dwarf army, the elven archers and swordsmen, and Legolas.

You fought like there was no tomorrow alongside Dwalin until you wait for another orc to crawl over the ridge of the mountain, and nothing appeared. Dwalin checked beyond the ridge and found no more of the dirty creatures.

With no more Orcs coming towards you, you turn towards the edge of the river and see Legolas. The watchtower that was wedged between the two sides of the waterfall was crumbling under the fierce battle between the pale elf and the pale orc.

As Thorin threw the dead body of an orc of the edge, you watched it hit the center of the tower. The remaining bricks gave way underneath Legolas’s feet. You watched in awe as the elf defied gravity and hoped along the falling stones. Once he made it safely to the other side, he cut down the orc at last.

You were overwhelmed with relief that he was ok. You hoped down onto the frozen river to make it to the other side where stairs led to him, but you cut off by another orc.

The wave of adrenaline that had carried you up until now had started to wear off. Your arms shook with the weight of your blade. Your legs shook and threatened to buckle. Your eyes darted around, unable to focus on one thing at once.

The orc charged at you. It swung its large arm around and knocked you back into the rocks. You landed on your back, gasping for air and groaning in pain. You couldn’t stop now.

You grabbed your sword as the orc ran towards your form again and snapped it up at the last second. The stupid orc ran right into the blade. With what little strength you had left, you pushed the things body off of yourself and stood up. Swaying back and forth, you stumbled across the ice. After finally making it across, you looked back. Thorin was fighting Azog and was loosing.

You had nothing left to give. All your strength was fading by the minute. Looking back between Thorin and the looming fortress. You ran towards the cold towers. It was Thorins fight to win, you reasoned with yourself.

You made it into the halls of the fortress. You supported yourself on the cold stone as you searched the halls. The floor was littered with orc bodies. You climbed over them until you reached the outer part that overlooked Dale and the mountain. You found Legolas staring down at the destruction.

“Legolas!” You called out, grateful to see your elf again.

He turned around surprised. He ran towards you and wrapped you into a tight embrace. You let your weight fall into his arms as the stabbing pain in your stomach became too much.

“Oh thank the stars. I was worried about you. I couldn’t find you at all.” Legolas spoke about his anxieties.

You only took in about half of what he said until your legs could no longer support you. Legolas eased your fall to the ground and kneeled down next you to.

He took in your bloodied and bruised face, and the unnatural paleness of it. His hands roamed over your body attempting to find the source of your pain. You clutched your stomach and groaned in pain.

Legolas lifted your shirt slightly to see your makeshift bandages dripping blood. Your breathing was fast and shallow. You gripped his arm tightly as the piercing cold bit at the open wound.

Legolas cradled your face. “Hang in there y/n” he looked around desperately for someone who could help, but found no one, “help will come, you just need to keep your eyes open and focus on me.”

Worry was all you could see on his face. His normally kind and soft features contorted into that of sadness and panic. The edge of your vision was growing darker and darker. Legolas was talking but it sounded far away. All you could hear was your heart beating in your ears.

As the darkness over took your mind, you saw the shadow of the hawks flying above you. They dragged some orca over the edge of the waterfall in a graceful dance of death. You looked up at Legolas one more time before fully blacking out.

You groggily opened your eyes to be met with the harsh light of day. As your hearing returned, you heard the sea of crying, screaming, talking, and begging around you.

You begrudgingly lifted your head to look around you. You were in Dale, in a large building full of other injured people. You were placed on the ground with only a blanket underneath you. You looked to your left and saw Legolas sitting next you with his hand propping up his head and his eyes closed. His hand cradled your cold hand.

You let your head fall down and gently ran your thumb over the soft skin of Legolas’s hand. The small movement seemed to wake him. He opened his eyes and immediately lit up when he saw you awake. You smiled at him.

“Pretty uncomfortable bed if you ask me. It’s a little bit too hard for my taste.” you joke. His laughs a little and pulls you into a hug, despite your wound screaming in pain. You hugged him back, grateful he was ok.

[supercap2319]

Being the only son of King Triton wasn't as glamorous as it seemed. Sure, he was of royal blood. Sure, he was next in line to be King of the sea. And sure, he had cool magical powers that other merfolk didn't, but all that paled in comparison to being the King's only son. Y/N wasn't the youngest of his siblings, but he felt like he was the baby of the family. He was older than Ariel, but younger than Perla.

It wasn't fair. All his sisters got to go out and rule and protect different types of oceans all over the world, only returning home to the Coral Moon. He was his father's shadow. All things that were diplomatic and ruling is what he was meant to be learning. How to rule an army of merfolk and orcas, or how to use his powers to protect his people.

If he wasn't by his father's side, Y/N would often swim to the surface and hide behind a big rock in the tides as he watched a land boy play with a weird creature that had—what do you call them—legs? Feet? The young man was the most beautiful land person that Y/N's ever seen. He had dark hair and those most gorgeous blue eyes ever. He was always laughing and smiling and singing. Y/N didn't understand why his heart flutters every time he saw him on the beach.

[deusvervewrites]

Not for the first time it occurs to me that there's a reason no real villain in MHA fields an army of identically uniformed identically capacitied mooks, and it is Quirks. Gang Orca's goons are cops or whatever with no Hero Licenses and therefore are not allowed to use their Quirks even in the supervised exam. Nomus take too much effort and biological material to waste on low power identical mooks except maybe in Vigilantes and honestly I'm not sure how canon compliant that can be. If you're a villain who has recruited a large number of troops, they're not going to be effective unless they're free to use their Quirks (and if they're working for a villain they may as well risk villain classification themselves), and that's going to affect their clothing choices enough that designing a unifying look may not be worth the effort even if you could afford Hugo Boss the Nineteenth's services. The only way to do it is to assemble an army of disaffected Quirkless minions, and while that probably worked for AfO in the past - promising Quirk rewards to those who distinguish themselves in the field - in modern Japan there may simply not be enough to draw on and there are enough Heroes that a Quirkless army wouldn't be effective enough without serious, time-consuming, and expensive training.

You're not wrong. Even if they aren't using their Quirks, a uniform would be nearly impossible to manage.

[sunnymoon-sunshine]

Another thought I’ve been having relates back to The Scorching, the history behind it, and how much of a good twist it was to throw out. I don’t know if it was planned or a convenient retcon, but it works on so many levels thanks to the themes already present. It also leads to some interesting theories.

Burn could never have been queen. The first action we see her do in the books is destroy an egg due to hatch within the next few nights. It’s cruel, and most of all, it sealed her fate. The kingdoms were founded on the blood and tears of furious mothers, broken hearted from losing their eggs and determined to keep their broods safe. Burn couldn’t have been queen, because that is not what a queen should be. Thorn takes the throne because she took over a city, created an army, and fought tooth and claw to find and save her lost dragonet, despite the odds.

Glory takes the throne because she is the dragonet who should have been cared for. She should have been seen, noticed, and saved. She wants to be queen not to have the nicest things, but because someone should care when a dragonet disappears. The first dragon she rescues is a dragonet. She is worthy because Grandeur gave up on her dragonets and her tribe, but Glory refused to give up.

Coral isn’t a good dragon; her abuses and her absolute classist nature are abhorrent. However, she is marked by her craze as she watched as so many of her daughters were crushed in their eggs. The horror of losing a child is what marks a queen, in some shape or form. Orca was not worthy of the throne, because before she even challenged her mother, she devised a way to kill every dragonet that could challenge her before they so much as crawled out of their egg.

What one truly has to wonder is when the rules changed. When did it become a rule that to become queen, there had to be a fight to the death? When did mothers find themselves pitted against daughters, sisters, nieces, all for the power of the throne she has? Who came up with the deadly challenge?

One can only wonder.

[bunjywunjy]

Hi Bunjy!

me and my friends are being goofs and i'm giving a presentation of different sea animals I'd want apart of my army in a war against capitalism; I wanna know which critters you'd choose.

hmmm orcas, rats, crows, and seagulls