#afo: new face new me

[mishy-mashy]

WE GOT EN'S FULL NAME AND VIGILANTE/HERO NAME!!!! YEAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!

[scattered-winter]

the best kind of enrichment a creature like me can get is a piece of media with such complex worldbuilding and themes that I could spend literal weeks exploring it all. I’m sitting here in my enclosure with theories and headcanons and thoughts about The Narrative and the curse that comes with being a hero with a sworn unkillable enemy

[bicheetopuff]

(Ch. 336)

You know, this panel has always made me a little curious. Every other time we saw Izuku sparring with Katsuki (before the war started at least), he’d use blackwhip to defend himself, hence ‘catch-a-kacchan’ so I found it weird how Izuku didn’t even try to grab Katsuki. For like 100 chapters prior to this, he used blackwhip for everything and would eventually just leave it out incase he needed it quickly kinda like how Hawks utilized his feathers (when he had them) so I kinda just made a mental note about how weird it was that Izuku chose to evade instead of defend when he easily could’ve.

I also found it weird how quickly Izuku wanted to change the topic along with the distress on his face. I thought it was just a cheap and ooc way of explaining Todoroki’s new power quickly but, since it’s now confirmed that Izuku has PTSD about Katsuki’s sacrifice, what if Katsuki’s cluster move triggers that trauma response too?

The next time we see cluster used with Izuku present, Izuku actually does respond with blackwhip.

(Ch. 404)

He doesn’t use it in defense though, he uses it in almost possessive way by securing their hands together with it. But also, he doesn’t speak for this entire chapter. It could be explained away by the side effect of using gearshift and him not being able to breath but before now, he’s been more focused while in distress and was also speaking just fine before. Though, in these panels, and through the entire chapter, he seems almost delirious and in shock. He’s not even reacting to the lack of oxygen anymore.

He even starts ignoring Shigaraki in these moments. He’s stunned and mesmerized but now I’m starting to question whether he’s amazed or scared out of his mind for what might happen. With that uncertainty, all that I can say confidently is that he’s distracted.

(Season 7 ep. 4)

Arguably after chapter 404, he stops thinking straight and, honestly, gets a little sloppy. A few chapters after this, is when gets danger sense stolen and starts getting truly injured. He makes the decision to give away OFA and loses his arms. He reverts right back into his “I don’t care what happens to me” mentality that his class has been trying to get him to grow out of for a while.

He wasn’t mentally prepared for something to go wrong in this fight. He wasn’t mentally prepared to be pulled away, leaving Katsuki with Shigaraki. I thought it was just iffy writing that he’d mentally regress after Katsuki woke up instead of before but, it honestly makes a lot more sense now. He cared about what happened to himself because he needed to stay alive to ensure Katsuki’s revival. Once Katsuki woke up and he watched him fight AFO, he started being reckless again. He went back to viewing himself as nothing but a vessel for OFA because he believes OFA is the only thing that can beat AFO, hence why he trusted the vestiges when they said “we can fight him from the inside” (which I think was a silly decision. It’s noble in theory but it amounted to nothing because Izuku can’t win in this regressive state of self sacrifice anymore. Or at least, he shouldn’t since it’s such a big part of his arc.).

And now, with the most recent chapter with most of his classmates present it seems like he’s regretting that decision because he’s being reminded that people care about him. They showed up to support him regardless of already being hurt because he can’t win on his own. Eri mutilated herself to help him and if that doesn’t tell him that fighting without the intent of not dying is stupid, idk what will.

(Ch. 421)

He was about to just throw himself back into the fight with the same mindset as before if Aizawa didn’t stop him. He looks frustrated because he realizes the weight of what he’s been doing and how looking up to AM and the previous vestiges shouldn’t be his role models right now considering all of their fates. He’d just be continuing OFAs curse like Katsuki’s been worried about for a hundred something chapters.

In conclusion, this post was very unfocused but I can’t wait to see Izuku kick ass and for Katsuki to show back up because with the impact he’s had on Izuku, I DESPERATELY need them to talk. Most of this post may have very well been a stretch but, let me be delusional please.

[i-cant-sing]

‘Missing yandere President Kai x first lady asks, so send some’

Hear me out, yandere President kai goes missing.. We all know first lady’s exact location would be found in 10 minutes but no one really cares about kai that much so he’s in someone’s basement for a bit but what happens to the first lady? Does she become president, sent to an underground bunker to be kept safe because if the president can go missing she could too, Does AFO slide into her dm’s ‘hey ur husband went missing, need any comfort?’ or does someone snatch the country?

Of course!!! The moment news of Kai's kidnapping reaches the secret service, they are immediately dragging you and the teletubbies down to an underground safehouse, locking down the entire Presidential House and delay telling you about the kidnapping for as long as possible.

Oh and by the way, you're still very pregnant, and when you finally snap at them to tell you what the hell is going on, they sit you down on the big table with all the generals and higher officials and tell you-

"Madam, the President has been kidnapped." The head of Kai's security tells you.

"What? What do you mean kidnapped? Where is he?!" You ask all of them.

Kai's chief of Staff, Hari Kurono cleared his throat as he showed you the footage of his car. "The president had left in his car last night alone, without his security detail. He turned around this corner and that's where he found his car. The security footage around this corner has been erased and there are currently no leads on who has taken him or where."

"How could you have let him go alone? He's the president for fuck's sake, he has enemies!"

"He insisted, madam. We advised him strong ly against it, but he said that he ordered us not to follow him."

"Why did he leave? Did he say where he was going?"

Hari shook his head. "He didn't say much, just that he had some business to handle and that he needed to do it alone. He- he looked distressed and he left in a hurry."

You closed your eyes and covered your face with your hands before looking back at them. "Alright, okay. Okay, let's deal with this. What are our options right now? Has the kidnapper contacted us?"

"No, madam. We have been looking at all suspected individuals, our Intel is currently searching for potential enemies in neighbouring countries, but we have no leads. We are trying to keep this news from tye public for as long as possible but we don't have much time left until media breaks this news. So now we have to- we have to think of our next step in case..."

The room fell silent as they all hesitated to meet your eyes.

"What? What is it?"

Hari cleared his throat. "Madam, if President Kai is not found in the next 48 hours, we will have to appoint another president- temporarily until the situation is handled."

You narrowed your eyes. You couldn't believe what you were hearing. Are they going to give up on Kai that easily? After all he's done for his party? They're gonna betray him?

"And I suppose you already have a candidate in mind?" He nodded. "Well, go on. Who is it?"

"You, ma'am."

Wait what?

"What?" You whispered.

The attorney general decided to speak this time. "We think you're the best candidate for the job, ma'am. We are trying our best to locate Mr President, but we need to consider all our options if things do go south."

"The country cant run without a president, maam. You would be perfect for the job- the party agrees, the public already loves you, and whatever concerns you have about your job, well help you! All of us!" Miruko, your publicist offered.

"I see." You pursed your lips. "Is that all?"

You took their silence as an answer.

"So... you're telling me that the best plan you've come up so far is to replace my husband with me?" Your voice barely conceal your rage, and you slammed your hand on the mahogany table.

"HAVE YOU ALL LOST YOUR MINDS?!" You yelled.

"Ma'am-"

"No, shut up!" You barked. "It was your job to protect him! And now that you can't find him, you want me to just sit in his fucking chair and act like everything is normal because you guys fucked up?!"

You stood up, groaning as you suppoted your belly from under. "Here's what's gonna happen. There will be no talk of a new president until you find my husband, dead or alive, but you will find him. I don't care what you have to do, what rules you have to break, you will find him. Look under the sewers, check every suspicious building, search every corner of this country, but FIND. MY. HUSBAND!" You shrieked, hunching over as you felt your baby kick.

Miruko and Hari came close to you but you held up a hand. "Ma'am, let us help-"

"If you really want to help me, find Kai. Do I make myself clear?" You questioned.

-

You were sitting on the couch, rubbing your belly as you tried to calm down your baby... and yourself.

You were still livid at the proposal of the team. How could they just- how could they give up on Kai like that? And then expect you to take his place?

If it were you who was kidnapped, would they have offered Kai to get a new wife because their is now a vacancy for First Lady?

You closed your eyes and sighed. Kai would've never allowed them to give up on you like that. In fact, that one time that you were kidnapped by a deranged fan, Kai worked day and night, turned the whole country upside down until you were found. He didn't care about his image, he didn't care that he would look "weak" for caring about you, he didn't care when he advised against making threats to all his enemies to find you, and he did not listen to anyone when he went down to meet your kidnapper himself and beat the shit out of him to find you.

Kai found you within 18 hours.

"Mom?" You opened your eyes and saw your triplets standing by the door looking worried.

"Hey, my babies. Come here." You beckoned them. They ran upto you, hugging your lap. "What's wrong?"

"Are you okay?" Dabi asked. You nodded. "Mmhmm, your sibling is just excited to meet you guys. They're jumping up and down inside me."

"Where's dad?" Himiko asked. "He's... out, baby. But he's gonna be back soon." You patted their heads. "Its time for bed. Do you guys wanna sleep with mama tonight?" They all cheered.

-

"What's the update, Hari?" And you already knew the answer from the grim look on his face.

"We haven't been able to locate Mr President. I'm sorry, ma'am."

You pinched the nose of your bride. It's been 3 days. 3 fucking days since Kai has been kidnapped.

"Did the kidnappers contact us?" He shook his head.

"What if I talked to the kidnappers?" You offered.

Hari gave you a quizzical look. "Um- what do you mean?"

"What if we broadcast me talking to the kidnappers directly? I ask them what their demands are, tell them to return my husband?"

He shook his head. "Ma'am, I would highly advise you against that. You can't be talking to the kidnappers, we can't negotiate with them. It's not sensible to do that-"

"They could kill him, Hari. Nothing about this situation is sensible."

Hari sighed. "Okay, how about this? We can do a broadcast from the Presidential office on your behalf, instead of you-"

"No" You cut him off. "It has to be from me. Don't you get it? They won't respond unless it's from me directly. And who knows, maybe someone else has seen these kidnappers, maybe they can give us some leads to their whereabouts. Someone must've seen them, Hari. It's just not- it's not possible for a man to to vanish into thin air!"

"Ma'am I-"

"Ma'am?" Rumi walked in. "There's a phone call for you."

-

You picked up your cell. "Hello?"

"Hello, darling." You immeadiately recognised the voice.

AFO. Or Shigaraki.

"What do you want?"

"Aww, is someone having a bad day? Well, you could always come to my place for a good ti-" He stopped when he heard you sob. "Y/n? What's wrong? Come on, tell me."

You sobbed again. "Kai... he's been kidnapped." You whispered into the phone. "He's been missing for 3 days. They can't find him anywhere, they don't even know who took him. It's like- he dropped off the face of the Earth."

"Oh darling, it's- everything will be okay. I'm sure Kai is alright. He'll turn up-"

"He's the president, AFO! He can't just go missing and turn up like this! He's in trouble and I can't- they want me to replace him as the president but im still pregnant and the kids keep on asking me about him and I keep lying to them but- I can't do it- I can't! Not without him!"You broke down and it broke his heart to see you cry like this, especially over that piece of shit you call your husband.

"Okay, Y/n. Calm down, come on. Its not good for your baby. Take deep breaths- just like that." He guided you with your breathing so that you dont have a panic attack, which is totally not safe in your condition.

"Shigaraki?" You sniffled.

"Yes, darling?"

"I know its a big favour to ask..." "Go on." "... can you... can you find Kai? Please, I just- I need to see him. I need him here!"

"Y/n-" "Please, Shigaraki. I'll do anything you ask, just find Kai!"

There was silence on the other end for a few seconds.

"Okay. I'll find him."

-

AFO already knew where Kai was. In fact, he was indirectly helping the kidnapper, who was actually another deranged fan of yours, by covering up his tracks. AFO made sure that someone wiped the camera tapes clean. The fan kidnapped Kai because apparently he had some information on how Kai was a threat to you. And anyone who wants to hurt you... well, AFO would like to take care of it before anything ever happens.

He didnt plan on interferring with the hostage situation this early on, actually he didnt even plan on saving Kai at all, but you asked him to... and AFO would always give you whatever you ask.

Besides saving Kai himself would actually be killing two birds with one stone- he would be on your good side and Kai will owe him one too.

So within 3 hours, AFO had sent his men to take out your kidnapper and return Kai to you in one piece, minus the few minor injuries. And concussion.

But the universe must've felt extra benevolent that day because his men brought him a document that made AFO feel like he just hit the jackpot.

Its the document containing the legal paperwork with the "added" clause about how every penny gives you, spends on you and your kids, you will have to return him back with a huge amount of interest in order for you to divorce him at the end of his term. And since you're not even aware of this clause, you would be in his debt and thus, unable to divorce him.

The kidnapper was someone who worked for you, and he must've found these documents, and felt betrayed on your behalf. He must've been concerned for your safety, so he used them to blackmail Kai and get rid of him for good.

AFO chuckled as he made a copy of the document. Should he show them to you when you come to visit, or should he first use them to toy with Kai a little?

Nevertheless, AFO has a feeling he will have you back in his arms sooner than he expected.

[gentrychild]

O great Owl and thou noble fic-finding rats I come because I have failed to find that which I need.

There is a work, apart of your Anyone universe, where Izuku is writing a Quirk Analysis Paper and he wakes AfO up so he can see a mutation quirk which enlarges AfO's arm. I have combed through all of Anyone and then through your side works that take place in this universe. But I found nothing.

The only thing I can think is that it was a tumblr post or a fanfic one of your blog mates wrote for you. But alas, I am still here.

In exchange I swear that if my firstborn ever starts stealing quirks I will buy all the therapists, and if that fails I will leave him to your fic-finders with no rivers in sight. And they may nibble on him for all of forever.

With reverence and sincerity, -me

I have some bad news and good news for you. The bad news is that his is something I wrote and posted on Tumblr, and you will never find it again even if you scroll through the entire Anyone tag. The good news is that you must be especially lucky as I found it by pure luck in a file I had forgotten.

----------

Izuku, sitting on his bed, books and notebooks opened on all of its surface, clicked his pen. Once, twice, thrice, the sound echoing in the silent apartment without doing anything to bring the answer the teenager desperately needed.

Usually, deadlines weren’t a problem for him. For some obscure reasons, the teachers in his high school were trusting him no matter what he did and forging his mom’s signatures to excuse his many absences had become the routine. However, he needed to finish this paper for tomorrow morning, so Hebisuga could read it and save her grade in Meta Analysis. That way, she would stop worrying so much about this subject, focus back on her Japanese, and write once again her ridiculously good flash cards that she always accepted to share with Yuuto and him.

But right now… Izuku’s brain just wasn’t cooperating.

He got up, his back protesting as he stopped hunching over for the first time in a couple of hours, and he left his bedroom. His notebook in hand, he walked past the bathroom and knocked at the door of the master bedroom, currently invaded by the bane of his existence while his blissfully ignorant mother was away.

The door opened in the second, All for One appearing in front of him, his hair messy and his face showing the trace of the pillow but no sign of sleepiness. The villain was one of those persons who immediately passed from sleep to alertness while Izuku needed three cups of coffee to be semi-conscious.

“What is it?” the villain asked. “Did you-“

“Show me your mutation quirks, please. Preferably the one that can offer some kind of protection.”

“What makes you think that-“                                                                       

Izuku clicked his pen once again and just stared at the quirk-stealing-fiend.

All for One finally obliged, making his arm grow in size, muscles growing until it had gruesomely swollen up, and he even added some spear-like bones. Bewildered, he answered every questions Izuku had about the drawbacks, the weight, how much he could still move his arm, and so on.

Because if analyzing quirks was his passion and could become a job, words in a book didn’t mean anything to Izuku. He needed to ask questions, to make theories, to see them in action.

Once he was done and had all the elements he needed, he thanked All for One and walked back to his room without offering any explanation. But of course, his roommate didn’t need one.

“Did you just use me to finish your homework? At three AM?”

[codenamesazanka]

assorted 408 thoughts

When I first saw this sequence of panes, I thought, wildly and hopefully, that’s Shigaraki Tomura. That could be Shigaraki Tomura, someone who holds the quirk All For One and who, despite everything, is kind.

＊

It reminds to be seen if Shigaraki Tomura can be stopped. As Deku says himself in Chapter 406, he still haven't come up an answer yet.

Since his first appearances, Shigaraki Tomura is infamous for being childish, talking about fights and battles as if he was playing video games. He's matured since then and his game metaphors have lessen in quantity, but his enjoyment of video games is still significant to his character.

But Shigaraki Tomura is also the one who created the League of Villains, a haven for outcasts and misfits. Twice considers the League the only place he belongs. Toga found life easier to live while with Shigaraki and others. The League is home to it's members, because Shigaraki made it that way.

Part of that is because Shigaraki Tomura is considerate of his teammates feelings and desire. This is core to Shigaraki - even as a child, he went out of his way to befriend those left behind, to include the children no one else wanted to play with. Underneath the layers of bitterness and rage caused by society's rejection, Shigaraki is still someone who cares a lot:

＊

One thing I really like about the new chapter is that All For One kept Yoichi's severed hand.

Why? Who knows. All For One isn't allowed any real human emotions by the story. But still - All For One kept a severed hand, a memento of a lost one and whatever significance is embedded in that; it's evidence of what he's done - killed his brother - and a symbol of his new purpose - to hunt down the other remnant of Yoichi.

Years later, he would do the same for Shimura Tenko, when he gives the boy the hands of the slaughtered Shimura family. And he intends for them to have the same meanings and purposes - for Shimura Tenko to remember the massacre, and for that memory to spur him onward.

That AFO repeats this gruesome gesture with Tenko, essentially reproducing the same horror he experienced onto the boy who he intends to be his heir. This recontextualizes The Hands a bit - instead of just what seemed to be a sort of unique psychological torment imposed out of revenge against Shimura Nana's descendant, it's also AFO just raising Tomura after himself. It's still a incredibly fucked up cruelty, don't get me wrong, but now it feels less because specifically Shimura, and more because AFO wanted an successor that mirrors himself, down to the same traumatic trappings.

＊

But of course, Shigaraki Tomura still greatly resembles Yoichi.

Overall, this panel of Yoichi does closely resembles the panel of Shigaraki from Chapter 221. Just— everything from the angle of the face and the direction of their gaze, to the position of the hand.

But based on Yoichi’s expression - the eyes, the slight smile, the whole demeanor - my first thought went to Shigaraki in Chapter 148, when he was telling Toga and Twice that he believes in them.

This is Shigaraki, revealing his face to Toga and Twice, when in the previous panels, it had seemed like he was insensitively ordering them around, without consideration for their feelings, telling them to work with Overhaul who had just murdered their friend Magne. But once the hand comes off - voluntarily, for the first time, facing them straightforwardly - we see a look that convey a lot of things - Shigaraki's resolve in taking down Overhaul, his trust in Twice and Toga, his sincerity in what he's saying. It's Shigaraki with probably his kindest expression in the entire manga.

It parallels the context somewhat too - in Yoichi panels, it had look at first like he was despondent, sad and weak, lamenting that he dependent and was unable to do anything against the evil that was his brother. But instead, with the face reveal, we're seeing Yoichi's own indomitable will and kindness, so much that he still sees the hopeful possibilities of All For One's power.

Both are victims of All For One, but both have always kept their strong sense of self and core sense and desire for kindness and justice.

＊

If you ask me what AFO and OFA combined would look like, I have to say: Shigaraki Tomura.

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 407: Wait Why Are You Running Away

Previously on BnHA: Kacchan figured out how to control his quirk upgrade and was totally chill and normal about it. Definitely not terrifying at all. He actually spent the entire chapter smiling and laughing like the wholesome little boy he is. I don’t know why Kid For One is so freaked out about it. He even politely introduced himself using his childhood nickname. Clearly he just wants to be friends with you, KFO!

Today on BnHA: Horikoshi is all “sorry to keep you waiting, here’s the AFO and Yoichi flashback you ordered at long last” and proceeds to serve a nightmarish stew of HUMAN MISERY and RATS and STABBING and CARNAGE and SO MUCH MURDER and THE SINGLE MOST FUCKED-UP CASE OF CODEPENDENCY ANYONE HAS EVER WRITTEN. I was not even remotely prepared for any of this, and if anyone else claims that they were, I will call you a liar to your face. If this chapter had a mouth it would scream. Or just sob, ceaselessly and uncontrollably. I’m really glad Horikoshi is on break next week because that man needs to take a fucking nap. My god.

okay WOW

anyone else read the first two words and just immediately say to themselves, “oh okay, so it’s gonna be one of those chapters”? I mean, I guess we were due for a darker chapter after last week’s Kacchan Comedy Tour. but idk, I just wasn’t expecting “homeless sick prostitute with a drinking problem” levels of dark

AND SHE’S PREGNANT?!

what exactly is this manga rated again? doesn’t this backstory seem just a little bit raw for the impressionable kiddos??

has anyone actually checked in on Horikoshi recently? you know, just to make sure he is okay??

what a fun and wholesome manga this is

the lil baby arm covered in blood with the AFO hole on the palm. lying next to the dead mom hand. what an image to sear into our minds. I guess it’s been a while since he killed any dogs. gotta keep us on our toes somehow

also wasn’t expecting AFO and Yoichi to be twins! that puts an interesting spin on their relationship, because it’s usually a closer bond than even regular siblings. especially with all of that delightful shared trauma from a young age!!

yes, exactly

ohhhh this chapter is gonna hurt me, isn’t it. okay. ooooooookay. let’s do this

OH I’M SORRY, THERE’S MORE?!

Horikoshi my dude. you do realize that their mom dying in childbirth and the two of them just barely surviving and growing up as street orphans would have already been MORE than tragic enough, backstory-wise. you did not have to turn this into a freaking horror show with RATS TRYING TO EAT THEIR NEWBORN SELVES jesus christ

and THAT’S where you chose to put a one year timeskip?!

what the fuck am I reading here, you guys. no please tell me, I am actually desperate to understand

so the narrator is saying that some of the quirks manifested later in life, in “pubescent and pre-pubescent stages”, which is interesting because it’s the first time I can recall hearing about someone actually manifesting a quirk that late. maybe Deku’s old OFA cover story was more plausible than I realized

anyway so eventually it occurred to everyone that they should maybe freaking study this shit, idk. and eventually the researchers concluded that the superpowers came from a new gene that apparently isn’t human. and upon hearing that, society apparently lost its freaking mind. which is fascinating to me because it implies that the turning point wasn’t actually the superpowers themselves, but the realization of what it meant

like, so they were apparently fine with it when they thought it was a “mysterious disease”, but somehow it hit different when they learned it wasn’t actually a sickness at all, but instead the Next Step in Evolution. and it became an “us vs them” thing, as opposed to a “we have to cure these poor people” thing. damn

anyway so now Japan is a dystopia and we’re cutting to a big crowd of merc-looking dudes who are getting ready to attack some “meta freaks”, how lovely

but who is this figure in the shadows

I ask politely, as if it wasn’t already beyond obvious that this is AFO about to wreck some people’s shit

ohhhhh my god lmao

hopefully Katsuki and Deku can take the present day AFO out before he winds up looking like this. because this little fella is clearly demonic and idk if anyone can stop him

you all don’t understand. you need to run the fuck away right now

oh shit it’s already too late for them

it’s too late for any of us. it’s over. it’s all fucking over

((((；゜Д゜)))

AFO I am putting the manga down. I am backing away slowly with my hands in the air. I mean you no harm. please for the love of god have mercy

holy

“you see, we told you he wasn’t human” okay Scientific Research Group, you know what?? you win this round I guess

“HE WAS LITERALLY EVIL FROM BIRTH” HORIKOSHI SERIOUSLY ARE YOU OKAY??

HE WAS BORN AN ARROGANT BABY is literally the most terrifying sentence I have ever read

what the entire fuck

it’s a gorgeous sunny mid-November afternoon outside my window. but no matter how hard it tries, the light cannot reach this place

what kind of moron would throw a can of soda at him. officially the stupidest person we have ever seen in this manga

OH MY GOD OF COURSE IT’S HIM LMAO

(ETA: how come baby Yoichi has clothes that fit him perfectly but baby AFO is just stomping around wearing a tablecloth.)

BABY YOICHI. OH MY GOD. HOW THE HELL DID YOU GROW UP TO BE SANE AND KIND AND GOOD. THAT’S MY QUESTION THAT I NEED ANSWERED RIGHT NOW. YOU ARE LITERALLY A MIRACLE. YOU ARE AN IMPOSSIBILITY, DO YOU KNOW THAT

small and weak, but also so, so cute. all of the cuteness genes went straight to him. no wonder AFO was jealous

(ETA: just want to press pause for a second to speculate about what type of twins AFO and Yoichi are, since it has some relevance to the story, and especially to the OFA/AFO quirk lore. so! at first glance the two of them would appear to be fraternal twins, just based on the fact that they have very different appearances, and also the fact that Yoichi doesn’t have the AFO quirk – no holes in his hands, etc. identical twins are born from the same fertilized egg, so in theory they would both have the same sequence of DNA, which means Yoichi would have had the same quirk as AFO. but that doesn’t appear to be the case. so all of that points to them being fraternal, not identical.

on the other hand, there is one piece of evidence in this chapter that does support them being identical twins, and that’s the fact that per the narration, AFO absorbed most of the nutrients from their mother. a few minutes of google fu informed me that this condition is relatively rare, and only happens in cases where two twins share a placenta, which typically is only the case for identical twins. HOWEVER, for what it’s worth, there have also been rare instances where two fraternal twin placentas fuse together and become a single placenta. AND this apparently also increases the chances of one of the twins gaining more of the nutrients and causing the other twin to have a lower birth weight.

so based on the evidence here, my conclusion is that the two of them are most likely fraternal twins with a case of placental fusion. besides, you can’t tell me that stealing his baby brother’s placenta while the two of them are literally still in the womb doesn’t sound like exactly the type of BS that fetus!AFO would pull, lol.)

HEY!?!

okay?!?!?! well to be fair he did throw that soda at him

oh my god this is so fucked up. in like the best and worst way possible

I genuinely couldn’t ask for a better AFO backstory. it’s so incredibly twisted, and you actually do feel sorry for him. or at least I do. but it’s also beyond clear that this kid was FUCKED UP BEYOND ALL REASON right from the get go. zero goodness in him. literally doesn’t see other people as people. sees them as possessions only. things to rule over. not other thinking, feeling human beings. and that includes his own little brother

but. even if it’s not actually what I would call love, there’s still... attachment, there. it’s the closest he can get to actually caring about someone. guh. just, somehow they have both managed to humanize him, and at the same time made him less human than ever. this manga, man. this fucking manga, though

lmao and here we go. Captain Hero

you know, all those times that I made fun of AFO for not knowing how to read, I never suspected that the twist in his backstory would be that he LITERALLY DIDN’T KNOW HOW TO READ dfksjdlfkjslkdf

but seriously though. because Yoichi appears to be self-taught, and I can’t see AFO having the patience for that, and CLEARLY no one else was around to teach him, sooooo...

oh my goodness it’s actually getting wholesome up in here

what a good fucking boy. poor AFO. fuck me, I can’t help it. it’s not your fault you’re the world’s greatest monster you poor bastard

now we’re cutting to THREE YEARS LATER. okay

is he going to declare war on the glowing baby

typical teenager concerned about nothing but likes and view counts. AFO you would be so much happier if you stopped worrying about all of that and just focused on your own growth

oh, lol. well that was quick

(ETA: r.i.p. Damien.)

“this guy had more instagram followers than me. so I killed him” honey. sweetie pie. you need therapy

omfg

all this time I was wondering who AFO’s middle school lit teacher was who had failed so spectacularly at teaching him reading comprehension. and it was YOICHI ALL ALONG. omg

“and, presumably, that’s how it always was and always will be.” dude. can you imagine listening to AFO’s oral book report on A Tale of Two Cities. “ahem. it was the Best of Times. the end” buddy noooooooo

it was at that moment when Yoichi knew, etc. etc.

oh my GOD I scrolled down to the next panel right after this one and I just IMMEDIATELY DIED LAUGHING

“WAS IT SOMETHING I SAID” ffffffffffffffff I fucking can’t omfg

NOW THIS HUSSY IS STEALING HIS BROTHER AWAY FROM HIM NOOOOOOO

HE’S HIS!!! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!!! THAT’S NOT ALLOWED!!!

oh my god the hands. so wait, is this just the standard symbolic BnHA handholding, or are there More Levels To This. when exactly did Yoichi pass OFA on to Kudou. like is that why the sudden close-up and all that? omg

WHAT!!!!

OH THAT’S THE END, HUH? THAT’S THE END RIGHT THERE, AND THAT’S JUST HOW IT IS. I SEE. OKAY THEN. EXCUSE ME WHILE I PUT MY LAPTOP DOWN AND GO INTO THE NEXT ROOM AND SCREAM INTO A PILLOW

oh my god. and break next week too. this is what you guys have been dealing with this entire time huh. I understand your feelings now. godfuckingdammit lmao

[ilovereadingandstuff]

Izuku, I love you...but you're so complicated.

That’s what I got to say.

With the recent manga chapters…I’m emotional.

Back at chapter 401, I went through my gloomiest, saddest, most depressed state I’ve ever been since following this manga. At that time, I was already submerged in this whole atmosphere of ‘war’, and after Stain’s apparent death, I got a realization…It hit me like a brick: AFO was frightening.

I never measured the true impact and weight of AFO’s actions. I never understood Izuku’s perspective of AFO’s first appearance at the series back at chapter 88.

When I understood that, I really… I genuinely believed of the possibility of AFO’s winning…and I was waiting for AFO’ victory: I could hear his goddamn laugh. I could see the blood, the tears…I was drowning in hopelessness.

After all that I went through those few weeks, chapter 403 came…and I could breath. I smiled with the biggest grin I could physically do…I was excited with the panels of “the new beginning” and that bakudeku glance we had. Then, as if the sun never left our side, shining its light through all crystals of tears…Katsuki rose from death and saved All Might, along with Izuku’s help. He and All Might hit the roof of a building and, it that moment, we were blessed with one of the most beautiful smiles he have ever gotten inside this universe: Katsuki’s genuinely smile as the nerd he is by All Might’s compliment.

I can not express in words the gladness, the satisfaction that grin left me with.

Katsuki has always been a truly complicated character for me since the beginning. But I really like him. I think that he, as a character, has been through quite a lot of experiences that always left with a bittersweet taste of him never truly achieving what he dreamt of: being a hero. But he came to a new light, even after death…his smile, the first genuinely smile we got from him…It made me happy. It made me nostalgic, satisfied with the fact that he, who has suffered so much, finally was given the opportunity to shine, to be.

But then, immerse in that bliss…I could not help but think of Izuku. Compared what I felt for Katsuki in that moment with what I felt for Izuku…

and I felt so empty.

...

Izuku is so…miserable... right now.

I’ve loved his character since the first time I saw him back at that day when I was presented of the existence of Boku No Hero Academia. I remember beginning to read the manga and his character just made its space into my heart. I saw him overcoming obstacles, defying the prejudices everyone put him into, challenging and coming on top among his classmates, other heroes, becoming the true successor of the symbol of peace…but then, I saw the fog surrounding me.

At that point, back at chapter 256, I realized the situation we were: the beginning of the predestined and inevitable war.

Izuku was stronger than many, happier with his life...but there were traces of painful sadness in his words.

I could see that: there were so many things unspoken and unresolved topics about his character. What does he feel about himself? Did he feel strong at that point? How did he feel about the upcoming battle he had to face against AFO? What is the plan he has to reach out for Tomura? What about his self-sacrificial tendencies? Those are really gone or not? What about his health and body? What about gearshift and the deadly consequences it has to his body? What about his relationship with All Might? with Toshinori? Will he ever stop calling Katsuki by Kacchan? Does he still cling to that past he had with Katsuki when they were friends (before Katsuki manifestated his quirk)? There are still those insecurities he had before? Why does he insist so much that he must not cry? What about his father? Does he have any repercussions about the fact that he did not have a father figure for most of his life? Does he keep thinking of OFA as something special? What were those feelings about Katsuki that he felt that were ‘so gross’ and unworthy of addressing? What about his qurikless past self? How does he feel about his quirkless condition (reference to what he said to Kota back at chapter 72)? Has he ever thought about the bullying Katsuki put him through? What does he feel about that? Did he really forgive Katsuki?

Then, the war started. And I mean the totality of it: things were not being addressed: Everything become ‘battle’, ‘fight’, ‘live-or-die situations'...as it has to be, obviously. In the middle of a war, who in the world will rest for a few seconds to question their reality?

Everything was accelerating, moving.

Many died, many suffered. Including Izuku, whose pov was taken away from us. He went through his Dark Hero Era, his feelings were hidden at the most recondite space possible. He saw his friends and pro heroes bleed, his childhood friend thrown away there in the middle of the battlefield, presumably dead…His idol/father figure almost die at the hands of the greatest villain of all times while fighting with the most dangerous one out there who could touch the ground and destroy the whole world…then he saw how Katsuki got up and saved All Might, leaving him with more time and space to continue the battle…

At the newest chapter, we only got the scene where we see Izuku’s figure, demarcated and exhausted face, thinking how he can defeat ShigAFO.

I think that his character has gone through the correct path, but has cornered himself (or was cornered against his will) into this situation of exhaustion, with so many questions left unanswered, with his character left there with a hurricane of emotions that are not even explained and the readers have only actions to interpret from this.

While Katsuki has overcome his troubled-life and can smile, laugh af AFO's face proclaiming victory…Izuku can not.

Izuku was left behind, even though he was so far ahead of everyone. He can not smile, he can’t rest, can’t let his guard down, can’t even think for a moment what he has been feeling this whole time.

This is a situation, where sooner or later, Izuku will have to face all this things he never addressed even in the slightest…and I want to know how that situation will be.

I want to see him smile, see him become the hero, the symbol of hope he has always dream of to be…I want him to stand tall and strong, smile bright... next to Katsuki.. as it should have been all this time.

[donutwatches]

MHA 2.25 - Encounter - part 2/3

First watch, no spoilers, thanks!

It's tea time with our friendly neighborhood villain. Who wouldn't want to get a cup of calming chamomile tea with this face?

Great conversation starter. Why bother with conventional small talk when you can cut straight to, 'So anyway, I hate the world and everything in it.'

Love how Stain gave Shigaraki a villain identity crisis. 'Stain was just knocking over block towers in the play yard, just like me right?' Shigaraki's hate feels like aimless venting in comparison to Stain's clear goal.

Shigaraki was just wandering around the mall, ran into Midoriya purely by coincidence, and thinks, 'maybe this kid who I tried to murder can solve my identity crisis for me.' Deku is braver than me for answering honestly with 'at least Stain has some standards.' lol.

Why did a Linkin Park song start automatically playing in my head when I saw this? ~ IN THE END IT DOESN'T EVEN MAAATTER! ~

UGH, he is twinning with the creepy smile Titan. Honey, you are in a mall, there are so many moisturizers and replenishing face masks you could buy in there.

The only shred of motivation we have for Chap Lips is his hatred of All Might. He dislikes that hero society has become complacent, because of their reliance on All Might.

He is right on this point. I have even made the same complaint, but why does that bother Shigaraki so much that he would turn to villainy? There has to be more to it.

A FLASHBACK! The hand? The blood? Shigaraki when he was young? But it only showed 3 seconds. I need more! I am begging!

Oooh, this is what I mean, there has to be something more personal behind his hatred, right? Did All Might fail to save Shigaraki's family from a villain or something? How did he get mixed up with AFO? I have so many questions.

The Mean Girl saga continues. Shigaraki is about to become the new popular villain by stepping on Staingina's neck. It is sick (and great) how Shigaraki is using Stain's reputation to pull allies to him. It is the smartest move he has made so far.

Click here for part 3

Click here for the masterlist

TAGLIST

@granny-griffin, @jessiedead, @blackaquokat, @champion-prism, @hyperfixations-and-cringe

[shih-coulda-had-it]

the AU where Prime Torino time-travels to the Advent of Quirks era (a time period he did not study for) and picks up two street babies after recognizing one as a miniature AfO

context: Sorahiko's been in the past for less than year. He's been preventing AfO from picking up new Quirks for maybe two weeks, and has dropped off food for the twins a couple of times.

wc: ~1.1k

//

The children stared at Sorahiko with wary eyes, eerily alike for all that they differed in stature and eye color. He didn’t let himself move, save for a tip of his head. The bigger child, the one Sorahiko thought was a young All for One, mimicked him; the smaller boy said in a faltering voice, “Who are you?”

“Call me Torino,” he said. “How about you?”

The smaller boy bit his lip and gave his brother a nervous side-eye. Chibi-AFO ignored him; he only had an unblinking stare for Sorahiko, and truth be told, it was getting irritating. Don’t raise your voice, he heard Shimura chide. 

He sighed, then changed tack. “Did you like the food?” At the clear brightening of the smaller boy’s expression, Sorahiko lifted the plastic bag. The boys were younger than Kotarou, but he had vague memories of Shimura feeding her son soft foods before he turned a year old. Surely steamed vegetables and (slightly) overcooked rice was fine.

Chibi-AFO lurched forward without a sound, one hand outstretched, the other still holding tight to his brother’s wrist.

A curse slipped through Sorahiko’s filter; he dropped the bag and Jetted himself backwards, out of reach but not out of sight. The last thing he wanted was to be chased blindly by some murderous toddler.

The showing of his Quirk, however, sparked something in Chibi-AFO’s eyes. A different kind of hunger--one that apparently required both hands now, as he unceremoniously dropped his brother and doubled down on trying to grab Sorahiko. The smaller boy yelped as spikes burst from Chibi-AFO’s skin, and then showed an incredible lack of self-preservation by trying to intervene.

“No!” he cried. “No, don’t! He’s nice!”

Sorahiko dodged another lunge for his neck. Can I hit him now? he begged the Shimura on his shoulder. I’m justified in knocking him out for his own good, right? That’s how this works?

You can’t hit a baby! Shimura scolded. He doesn’t know any better!

Chibi-AFO, as if to refute Shimura’s sympathies, finally opened his mouth to screech, “GIVE!” He kept springing for Sorahiko with his tiny palms thrust outwards; the spikes on his body rushed unerringly for Sorahiko’s limbs. “GIVE IT!”

“Stop it! Stop!”

How much stamina could a toddler have? More importantly, how long did Sorahiko have until the civilians he’d ushered off the street rang the local police station? Sorahiko, out of sheer curiosity, started leading Chibi-AFO in a circle. It felt criminally easy to maintain a generous distance between himself and the toddler, even as Chibi-AFO grew more desperate and enraged at not having easy prey.

“IT’S MINE!” the toddler snarled, out of breath. “MINE! MINE!” 

Because Sorahiko wasn’t above taunting a baby, he upped the speed on his Jet. Chibi-AFO’s reliance on his spikes to propel him was the toddler’s downfall; as the chase continued, the production output and quality of the spikes diminished, until it was pure spite that powered Chibi-AFO’s bare feet.

The smaller boy had collapsed long ago by the food, gasping, but he seemed like he registered that Sorahiko wasn’t about to die, because he was now spectating with awe-struck eyes.

“Are you done?” said Sorahiko mildly, continuing to deny the toddler any hope of closing the gap. The boy’s face was getting redder, and scrunched-up, and then the funniest thing happened: Chibi-AFO tripped on his makeshift robe, face-planting into the asphalt.

Don’t laugh, Shimura said, in a long ago memory about Kotarou colliding into a glass door.

Chibi-AFO was trembling, every limb shaking. The smaller boy had shot up, renewed concern pushing him to his brother’s side and babbling something unintelligible. Sorahiko stifled the bark of laughter as Chibi-AFO gingerly lifted his head and goggled at the ground, like he couldn’t believe he’d fallen.

“Be nice,” the smaller boy pleaded, frantically patting Chibi-AFO’s shoulders. “Don’t, don’t, be nice.”

A tiny, minuscule drop of pity collected at the pit of his stomach. Sorahiko made the executive decision to sacrifice his cape, unpinning it from his suit and dropping the heavy fabric onto the boys before going to fetch the food. They startled at the sudden weight, but the smaller boy could only squeak and Chibi-AFO, thoroughly exhausted, could only twitch.

“Let’s try this again,” said Sorahiko dryly. He popped the plastic lids of the styrofoam containers and stuck spoons into two of them, situated both in front of the children, and took his own seat a full meter away. “I’m Torino. How’s the food?”

Huddled under his cape, the smaller boy looked bewilderedly from him to the food, and back again. “Um…!”

“Not hungry,” said Chibi-AFO.

“... Alright. You two have names?”

“No,” said Chibi-AFO, sullen. “Go ‘way.”

As tempting as it was, Sorahiko took a measured breath and let out a controlled exhale. “No. You’re hurting people being out here, and I can help you. Food, and a place to sleep. Do you understand me?”

The smaller boy fiddled with a handful of Sorahiko’s cape. Tentatively, he asked, “Safe?”

Chibi-AFO repeated, in the same tone as before, “No.”

At some point, Sorahiko thought, you really couldn’t justify letting a toddler steer the conversation. He considered his options, and responded to the smaller boy first. “Yes, it’s safe. I won’t hurt you, or him. I just can’t let him hurt anyone else.”

A small hum, and then: “Okay. We go.”

“No!” Chibi-AFO protested, and finally pushed himself up, wincing. Tears pooled at the corners of his eyes, but Sorahiko would place a bet that they were purely reflexive. “No, I’m safe! He’s bad! He hurt me!”

“You hurt you,” the smaller boy sniffed.

The murderous intent flashed on Chibi-AFO’s face again, and Sorahiko hastily stepped in before more blood was shed. He snapped his fingers in front of the toddler. A malformed spike, sloppy in execution and sluggish in timing, tried to pierce Sorahiko’s hand and dissipated before he could even recoil. Exhaustion! Finally! 

“Go ‘way,” the toddler demanded.

Sorahiko simply leaned his cheek against his fist, propping his elbow on his knee. Either Chibi-AFO would recover and try for a second time to steal Jet, or he would pass out. There wasn’t any point trying to reason with the brat.

The smaller boy patted Chibi-AFO’s shoulders, but he too went quiet. Eventually, Chibi-AFO slumped flat to the ground again, and his slurred orders dwindled to a faint burbling snore. That was Sorahiko’s cue to creak upright, crouch down, and ask the smaller boy in a serious tone, “Can I pick you up?”

The kid looked at the food.

“I have more at home.”

“... Okay,” he said softly, and in swift order, Sorahiko resituated his cape so it swaddled Chibi-AFO, took him up on one arm, and hoisted the smaller boy in his other arm. There was that squeak again, and a nervous clutching at his flight suit, but Sorahiko’s attention was on thinking about the route back to his apartment.

It would be easier on the kid’s nerves if he walked, but the Meta X gangs were too troublesome to bother with tonight.

“Hold tight,” Sorahiko muttered, and Jetted for the rooftops.

[sarahjtv]

My Hero Academia Chapter 425 Spoiler Talk

I'm enjoying writing about this stuff again, though I've got a headache going on, so I'll do the best I can for now. I might add in stuff later:

I'm very happy to see our Big 3 graduate finally! I was kinda worried Mirio wouldn't even graduate for a second, but I'm happy to see that he did and he gave a valedictorian-esque speech to everyone talking about rebuilding society so everyone can have a bright future like Sir Nighteye wanted. Ending his speech with a joke is such a Mirio Togata thing 😂. I'm going to miss that guy so much 🥹

Why are Deku and some other students just lying on the ground with their feet up like that btw? Did they run out of chairs or something? It's a weird, quirky little thing that's just there, I guess.

The narration mentions that it's June in the MHA universe now (Happy Pride, btw 🏳️‍🌈). So, if the War took place around April or May, then it's been at least 1 month since we last saw the kids at the hospital.

Our class 1-A is now officially Class 2-A! They're finally second years as they should have been. Everyone including Aizawa is alive, though saying they're well is debatable. Everyone is clearly still injured in some way, shape, or form. Most have several bandages and even Jiro looks like she has a prosthetic for her missing left earphone jack.

Quick note: I notice that Bakugo is actually wearing a tie with his uniform now. It's still not buttoned up, but you can tell that he's definitely softened a bit since the war. EDIT: Looking at it again, it might not be buttoned up because he has a cast holding his right arm, but it’s hard to tell from the scans.

Aoyama not wanting to return to UA is sad, but it makes sense. I'd argue that he earned his place there regardless of AFO's influence, but I can understand that he doesn't feel that way and wants to redeem himself and become a hero in his own way without being forced to betray his friends and teachers.

Replacing Aoyama will be Hitoshi Shinso! I think most of us predicted that Shinso would be joining Class 2-A, but I'm very happy to see that confirmed. It's going to be a bit of a weird start for him, but I think he'll get used to his new classmates quickly.

Another quick note: The second-year cloud girl, Fuwa Mitawa, is seen quite a bit in this chapter and her return is something Horikoshi promised many volumes ago, so I'm glad to see him keep that promise.

Those two first panels of Shouto make me so sad, y'all 😭... His hair is so messy and you can see bags under his eyes. It's hard to tell because of the leaks, but I don't know if there's even light left in his eyes. He looks so exhausted. What happened to Dabi, Endeavor, and the rest of his family? I have no doubt that he's been agonizing over them for god knows how long. I hate seeing him like this, honestly. He's my favorite character and deserves all the good in the world, especially after the harsh life he's been put through. I want to give Shouto all the hugs in the world 🩵.

I don't think Deku smiled at all this whole chapter btw. He tries to talk to Ochako at one point, but she interrupts him with a comment about his new haircut. He just looks sad this whole chapter. I bet he's still grieving and processing what happened. I need Izuku to open up to someone because he can't just bottle this up.

Then we have this mysterious man walking around a desolate town. We have absolutely no idea who this is, but apparently it isn't someone we know of. I want to say it's a grown-up Tenko Shimura somehow, but even that might be too farfetched.

Finally, there's Shouto and the Todorokis. Shouto reassures Deku that he's ok, but I bet my gatcha game currency that he's putting on a brave face because that final beautiful panel of him does not scream "I'm ok!" to me. If anything, I'm amazed Shouto doesn't look like he got any other permanent scars on his face at least.

It looks like Shouto is going to see his family at the hospital. Specifically Endeavor and what might be Dabi who's being kept alive in a big machine. It's hard to tell because the scans are so unclear, but I'm 90% sure that's Dabi in there. It's a miracle that man is alive given he was just a skeleton last we saw him. I'm 99% sure we're going to get a Hellish Todoroki Family Part 3 or something next chapter.

But, we won't see that until 3 weeks from now because we're officially on a 2-week break. There isn't a given reason why like Jujustu Kaisen got (Gege Akutami is sick, so he's taking 2-week break too), so I really hope Horikoshi is ok. It's either he's sick too or he needs time to think of the final chapters of MHA. Or both, that too. Regardless, any breaks given to Kohei Horikoshi to give him time to rest is ok with me. Just sucks for us as fans. Leaving us on THAT kind of a cliffhanger is just mean 😭

[mishy-mashy]

Bruce is actually really attractive, and I have enough reasoning to make a list

He's:

Tall (. Tall enough to hit his head on the vault doorframe)

Long-legged

Has a straight nose bridge

Has high cheekbones (more noticeable in 2nd pic below)

Has a strong jawline

Sharp eyes, but they aren't small (plus eyebags if you're into that)

Overall, he has strong, attractive facial features

Has broad, refined shoulders. You can tell he works out (or he did, when he was alive)

Even has a thick, muscly neck

He has MUSCLE. Is SCULPTED. NOICE. VERY NOICE. (nice arms. Nice shoulders. Nice neck. Nice legs. Nice butt-)

(There are actually panels where you can see some of his muscles. Other than those already shown here, he's got bricky thighs-

-and in the panels where we first get his name dropped, he's got those shoulder blades too-)

The one time we see him smile, and he actually has a scary one

Has small, kinda sharp pupils, and his eyes remind me of a cat. We only ever saw him tense or defensive, so his resting/listening face is really cute

Other than the physical appearance stuff, he also:

Takes shit without batting an eye (patience, knowing it's just how Kudo is, etc)

Kudo being all "Cut the crap Bruce and give it to me straight", after Bruce tests his blood and is rightfully Concerned because they just faced AFO

Put up with Kudo's experimenting and testing over Yoichi's transferable Factor

Did ya'll see the look on Kudo's face when he realized he had Yoichi's Factor/will? Kudo was going to start in nonsense and Bruce just dealt with that.

Also something I noticed when looking back at the images here; Bruce has bandages on his arms in the void. But not when he faced AFO in the sewers.

Were he and Kudo cutting their arms open in their experimenting over Yoichi's theory? Is this why Kudo has two gauntlets instead of his one? Why we never see his bare arms in the void? That he always keeps his arms down so there's no slip?

Is smart enough to run blood tests, plus has enough common sense to pick Shinomori as his successor

He picked a guy who avoids society, has an Ability to detect danger so he can always stay away from AFO, is also a coward so he's never going to go throw himself into danger, even without knowing instinctively he stands no chance, etc.

Meanwhile, Kudo chose Bruce, who he played Hot Potato Yoichi with; but he did also trust Bruce, and put the only pure combative Ability in OFA through Bruce.

These two made their choices based on what they valued and saw the Factor needed.

Is logical, analytical, and calm.

He tried advising Midoriya on their Abilities in One For All, especially his own.

Midoriya then tried ignoring him about using Fa Jin for the first time, but found he was right, thinking: "Dammit!! I had [Lady Nagant] right where I wanted her, but... ugh! The Third was right. My parallel Quirk processes are all screwed up!" (ch. 314).

Plus, when Midoriya fixed his processing mistakes, Bruce was analyzing the way he reached his new conclusion. Pure facts, no bias, very calm, just saying it as it was.

We never see him panic. When he's caught by surprise in the sewers by AFO, Kudo, and Yoichi's little bubble event, he immediately reacts. He doesn't falter, he just knows he has to do something right now.

Was more willing to listen than Kudo to Yoichi's beckon, and probably was just following Kudo's rejection of Midoriya

While we don't see Kudo's face, we see Bruce's eyes when Yoichi calls on his heroes. Bruce was more open and receptive, or at least more impacted.

Bruce was also the one to start talking, while Kudo just kept quiet.

He actually communicates a lot

When Yoichi called them to support Midoriya, Bruce started talking to paint a picture of why they thought the way they did, so Yoichi understood where they were coming from.

(Though he seems to beat about the bush sometimes, since Kudo spoke up to be direct on how they couldn't just put their trust in some starry-eyed teenager. Plus, when Kudo tells him to just tell him what's wrong [double Factors])

When Midoriya first used Fa Jin against Nagant, Bruce came out just to tell him he knew what he was trying, but that Midoriya wasn't ready; and Midoriya found he was right. Midoriya just didn't want to listen to him then.

He asks Kudo for clarification after finding Kudo had two Factors in him after the sewer incident ("Just to be sure, All For One didn't touch you, right?") Kudo knew him well enough to go "stop beating around the bush and tell me", so Bruce was probably gonna start with questions, theories, and trying to understand everything in general, before saying "yeah you have two Factors. Don't know why".

Is strong-willed and loyal.

He followed Kudo, even to death, carrying on the cause he started until it ended with him.

Plus, when talking about how AFO needs a strong will to override OFA's own, we first see Bruce, Kudo, and Yoichi.

AFO couldn't steal OFA because the will was too strong for him, and that was back during Banjo's time. Since Shinomori never actually tried opposing AFO and just hid, we can assume the first Three (Yoichi, Kudo, Bruce) already had an accumulation of strong willpower that made OFA un-stealable. Those three are a strong enough foundation, and the main wills, that the other users just become bonuses.

Kudo, also saying that Midoriya needs allies with the same will and drive as him... hey Kudo, you're talking about yourself and your old allies, aren't you? That's why you look at Yoichi and Bruce when you say this.

Not only is Bruce attractive, but he's got good character. THE END.

[stillness-in-green]

Chapter Thoughts — Chapter 423: One For All vs. All For One

At the request of a few asks, have some chapter thoughts. I will warn everyone in advance that some portions of this post are extremely bitter. This is less salty than it is bile-flavored. It's also not quite as thorough as other posts have been, as my disillusionment with the material limits my willingness to comb the chapter for details to muse about beyond the ones that jump out at me.

None of which is to say that this post is short.

CONTENT WARNING: Confrontational rhetoric about irl prisons and the hypothetical of committing suicide to avoid them. I have strong personal feelings about some of the language I've been seeing from defenders of this chapter and I'm in no mood to prevaricate around them.

o Danger Sense continues to be some real bullshit.  My initial response to the leaks was that it was yet another dumb contrivance to make things arbitrarily harder for the villains than equivalent things would be for the Heroes, but reading the official release, I actually just think it's dumb that AFO thinks Danger Sense would have alerted him to his/Shigaraki's failing body at all.  Why would it?  Danger Sense nominally (nominally) activates based on hostility, and where's the hostility in super-regeneration failing?  If it were the remnants of Shigaraki/OFA attacking him from within his own body, that'd be one thing, but that doesn't seem to be what the first few pages are getting at. 

Rather, it's just that the power of OFA is being too much for his body, in the same way it was for Deku at the beginning.  As if, you know, Shigaraki hasn't already been surgically modified to handle both AFO and, presumably, OFA the whole time.  Ujiko only mentioned the former specifically, but given that the plan was always for AFO's new vessel to be able to steal OFA, why wouldn't that also be accounted for?  The best I can think is that AFO and Ujiko didn't know that OFA would put such strain on the body, but it's not like AFO couldn't have observed that the quirk's been growing stronger over the generations.  If he and Ujiko just failed to calibrate the body correctly, it's a failure of Ujiko's warped genius as a mad biologist and quirk scientist—which again takes us back to dumb contrivances that make things harder for the villains than they would be for the heroes.

    

o The Kurogiri scene would be very touching if it, you know, actually amounted to something.  If it didn't apparently end with Bakugou coming in to murder him.  Except we don't even quite get that level of commitment because Kurogiri was falling apart already, so you get the impression that he would have collapsed with or without Bakugou's intervention.

    

o This in turn makes Bakugou's intervention really silly and pointless.  My god, I don't care.  I do not care!  I do not care about Bakugou pushing Deku two steps forward past a barrier that was already failing.  I do not care about Bakugou getting one last stupid victory lap when he's already dramatically endured a severe beating and emotional assault, stood back up from the stupidest heart surgery in the history of fiction, and faced down everything AFO could unleash on him, far outstripping that same villain's climactic efforts fighting All Might in Kamino in what remains AFO's only semi-emotionally resonant battle in the whole manga.  As it is, this is just one more ludicrous handwaved magical cross-country teleport like every other one the Heroes have been enjoying through this whole fight.

    

o Yoichi paying attention to AFO now?  Man, imagine if we could have just skipped a bunch of bullshit and gotten this way back in Chapter 368, when Yoichi first told AFO that it was over.  Imagine if Vestige Yoichi had something like this when his actual for-real flesh-and-blood brother died, rather than having zero reaction to it whatsoever, not even looking over Deku's psychic shoulder and making a sad face about it.

o It actually kind of offends me that Horikoshi thinks he can get away with taking a stab in the direction of making AFO "sympathetic" now.  Now, after he's spent the entire endgame portraying AFO as a two-dimensional Demon Lord who was literally Evil In Utero.  And, you know, I'd buy AFO as being Evil In Utero but also capable of loneliness, sure. And I'm even more than on board with interpreting AFO as a man who's spent the last century working 24:7 to convince himself that he's heartlessly evil to deal with the loss of the only family he ever had. But the fact that this statement has been put in the mouth of Deku, who has never indicated the faintest trace of sympathy or understanding, much less compassion for AFO?  Fuck off.

    

o All that Yoichi hyping up Deku's incredible finesse in attacking Shigaraki with the stored-up OFA quirks makes me think is, "Welcome to My Hero Academia, where the stakes are made up and the past doesn't matter!"  I am so abominably weary of the endgame's—and the series in general's—willing to just baldly lie to the audience's face about what is actually happening at any given point in the story.

That was the moment when we should have had a response from Yoichi, what with Shigaraki having apparently torn AFO's vestige limb from psychic limb and Bakugou overseeing as the real man rewound out of existence.  That Yoichi didn't respond back then just made him seem like he'd written off his brother generations ago; it makes his sorrowful-yet-grateful act in this chapter incredibly unearned.  Of course, the actual reason we didn't get a beat like this back then wasn't for any reason consistent with Yoichi's feelings about his brother, nor because Yoichi was too far away to know that the brother he has a psychic bond with was dying.  No, it was because Horikoshi was already writing towards this beat instead, so he didn't need to bother.  The last time Yoichi looks the real AFO’s way was the chapter-ending Bakugou blast of 409, when it takes the first eight pages of 410 for AFO’s Rewinding death to finalize itself.  The Hawks vestige talked more to All For One in his last moments than AFO’s own brother did.

    

Internal monologue is placed where internal monologue cannot possibly exist.  Characters' plans are backdated to points in the story which are completely irreconcilable with how those characters were behaving at the time.  Surprise and dismay are pantomimed from characters who are revealed to have anticipated and planned for the very eventuality they're acting so shocked about.

The main character, a kid who was once characterized by his tendency to mutter his thoughts out loud, who had a running gag of tightly packed, densely worded speech/thought balloons, has been reduced to an empty marionette, devoid of internal monologue, scoured of thoughts more complex than the multiplication tables of his quirk combinations.  The story can retroactively say that Deku did—intentionally and willfully!—anything it wants and not have to worry about belying its phony stakes and made-for-Twitter cliffhangers because it has deprived Deku of his own capacity to reflect.  He can't spoil twist reveals of his own true intentions if the narrative completely locks us out of his head!  Nevermind how much of his final battle has occurred inside a shared goddamn psychic space.

All of this has made it totally impossible for me to read the story as a story.  Not only do I see the strings, the strings have become all I can see.

Of course the vestiges are back one last time for a dramatic punch, despite multiple chapters swearing up and down to us that we were seeing a big emotional sacrifice play.  Last chapter we witnessed the word vomit that was Horikoshi trying to justify Star's pilots surviving their planes blowing up, because that's how determined Horikoshi is that no one on Team Hero actually die.  Of course the vestiges came back.

Who cares?  Truly, who the fuck cares?  I don't care about them; I don't care about whether they'll be back again in the epilogue; I don't care about why Vestige Might and Shinomori are missing from the punch; I don't care about the story finally trying to pretend that anyone in its pages has ever given a single starving river rat's ass about All For One's humanity.

—NOW ENTERING FULL-FLEDGED RANT ZONE—

I care about the only characters who have ever been facing actual stakes in this war: Shigaraki and his followers.

    

o Even though I care, I don't have it in me to weigh in much about Shigaraki's seeming death here, and especially not his last words.  I'm far too jaded about Horikoshi's cliffhangers to think that anything I say now about Shigaraki dying and what it means for both Hero Society and the people Shigaraki leaves behind can be assumed to still be accurate two weeks from now.

I hope it's a fakeout.  I hope a chunk of Shigaraki's body fell through Kurogiri's last portal and the hyper-regen can kick back in once he's no longer being assaulted on all sides by the allies of the kid who was trying to “save” him.  I hope Horikoshi has one last stupid asspull up his sleeve.  I hope for a complete Karma Houdini ending for Shigaraki and the rest of the League.

If we don't get that, it's gonna suck, and it's gonna turn Deku into a fraud and a liar.  I don't care if the story wants me to think Shigaraki was saved; I don't care if Deku is satisfied with having saved "that crying boy."

I have not forgotten that "that crying boy" gently refused to accept Deku's "save" when the bell rang to go home. He wanted to go back to his friends, instead; he reiterated his desire to be a Hero for the Villains.  The crying child returned to the form of Shigaraki Tomura and then AFO devoured him.  Deku didn't save the child then, and he hasn't saved him now.

Remember how Eri didn't count as truly saved from Overhaul until the first time she could smile fully and freely?  Guess what stops you from doing that?  Right—being fucking dead.

And those touching last words of Shigaraki's won't do Spinner much good on account of him still being brain-damaged from a bunch of extra quirks no one can remove, because the only people who could are, again, fucking dead.

Unless, of course, the theorists are right and Deku is going to be not only not quirkless in the epilogue (meaning all that drama and emotion about sacrificing OFA is going to be another fucking lie), he's going to have the "unified" OFA+AFO quirk via Shigaraki's fistbump.  Meaning Deku can remove the extra quirks, presumably just before telling Spinner that Deku saved-via-killing the love of Spinner's life.

Solidarity among outcasts is false and toxic.  Everyone should just rely on Heroes more, no matter how much Heroes have failed them in the past.

o One last thing I want to address, less about the canon and more about the reactions I've been seeing elsewhere to the prospect of Shigaraki (and any combination of Dabi, Toga and Spinner) being dead: the idea that being dead is the best possible outcome for them because if they don't die they'll only have to spend the rest of their lives "rotting in jail."

Great job, team; nice message to take home.  Everyone pack it in.

    

Firstly, and to get this out of the way, that is a false binary that totally ignores the long history of Shounen Jump villains getting absurd Karma Houdini endings where they walk off into the sunset free as birds because they've changed their minds and resolved to be better, or at least have decided mass murder is no longer worth their time and effort.  (Vegeta wasn't the first mass murderer a Shounen Jump story rewarded with freedom and friendship, nor was he the last.)

But more importantly, that false binary is one that could only be presented by someone who truly does see prison as a fate worse than death.  No rehabilitation is possible.  No supervised release or house arrests in the care of assigned guardians who want better for them.  No lenience can be granted in recognition of the League's mental states; they can be admitted to no mental hospitals focused on therapy.

The "better death than prison" line is the product of a perspective that has never had to seriously consider the prospect of living behind bars.  It's a childish imagination of prison as a nebulous Bad Place where Bad People go to be Punished For Being Bad, or a self-righteous fantasy of a cold hell where sinners are sentenced to suffering eternal.

People can tell that the League have suffered too much to sentence them to Forever Bad Times, so they comfort themselves with the idea that at least they died happy, instead of living forever in a pop-culture-informed crayon doodle of concrete and solitude.

I’m not here to tell these readers that there aren't people in the world who would rather die than live under watch for the rest of their lives.  I won’t deny that Japanese prisons are bleak and there’s every chance that the prisons in Horikoshi’s fictionalized Japan are even worse.  But I am asking people espousing the view that death would be better than incarceration to seriously consider all the angles on what that sentiment means.

If it were you facing the life sentence, are you so sure you would prefer to take your own life?  If it were someone you loved who would rather die than face imprisonment, would you help them—hand your older brother the gun, or your younger sister the knife?

Or would you want to hope that they could get some help instead, have an opportunity to connect to something meaningful—find religion, take up reading classic literature, connect with someone inside or via letters?  Would you want them to accept the lawful punishment for what they'd done rather than evade it by ending their lives?  Would you want them to hold on in case their case could be reassessed someday, that they might eventually finish serving their sentence or be moved to someplace that would focus on helping them rather than punishing them?

Would you want a glorified cop in a cape making that decision for them—or you—based on that cop's ability to "forgive"?

If you think prison is a fate worse than death, why is it okay that people like Gentle Criminal or the Shie Hassaikai Trash Trio have to endure it, while mass murderers, serial killers and insurrectionists like the League get to escape through death?  Think of every purse snatcher who gets paraded in front of cameras with their arms bound and their face muzzled; think of Twice at sixteen; think of Mr. Compress now.  Do these people deserve to suffer in the kind of torment you're imagining prison must entail?  Would it be better for them to die rather than endure it?

If prisons in BNHA's Japan are so terrible as all that, isn't that something the kids should try to fix?  Shouldn't that be a part of the mass societal improvement project people are swearing up and down the kids will have nicely sewn up in the epilogue?  If the kids aren't going to fix these prisons—these places that take suicide risks like Ending and spit them out worse than ever; these places like Tartarus where the wardens call the people in their charge monsters and animals—then why should I believe the kids are going to fix literally anything else?

Or is it simply the case that it's perfectly fine that prisons should be this way; shitty prison conditions are only bad when it's the villains whose sympathetic backstories we know who're facing them?

"It's a shame, but the League has to pay for their crimes."  But why does that “have to be”?  Isn’t it because no one involved—not the characters, not the author, not the people who accept this ending—can envision a world where the “has to be” could be otherwise?

That's the problem with, "Killing someone can be a way of saving them," and, "They would have just spent the rest of their lives in prison anyway."  It's a stunted mentality that leaves no room for the radical reforms and systemic improvements that are necessary to stop this whole cycle from repeating.  Worse, as I very much suspect we're going to see in the epilogue, it's a mentality that says the system is actually fine as it is—the only real problems were caused by a tiny handful of bad actors, and now that they've been removed, everything else will self-correct, and things will go back to normal.

    

That precious, perfect status quo that Deku swore to return: this is the way he brings it back, it and everything that comes with it.

    

o In summary: if this ending sticks, then what we have in My Hero Academia is thus:

A world that played at being grounded, but which turned out to run on arbitrary rules, magic thinking and Evil Babies.

Characters that were presented as radically kind, but whose endgame resolutions represented a cruel underlining of the status quo, in which only those who suffer in silence deserve not to have to.

A story that wanted to be staunchly idealistic but which ultimately entrenched to hollow, meaningless platitudes.

o P.S. So like, Nana’s vestige saved Shigaraki off-screen, right?  So even after all her fear that Shigaraki would have to die, even after all the efforts she and Deku made to help Deku break him down, at the very last moment, she wanted to save him.  And she did so in the only reason she could, as one psychic scrap to another: she held his soul together when he was shattering apart.  But when Deku comes to the very last moment, when Shigaraki’s body is shattering apart, does he do anything to try to hold Shigaraki together?  Try to tell Shigaraki how to use Black Whip to hold his body together, call for Sero and his tape, Aizawa’s Erasure, anything like that?

If it doesn't stick?  That I'm less sure of.  But I'm pretty sure Deku's fucked as the Symbol of Hope no matter what.  There’s no way, at this point, to fix his portrayal as the kid who has a drive to save that eclipses all common understanding.  Every part of the story, before and after that declaration of Yoichi’s in Chapter 287, has served to undermine that claim.  This is just the last nail in the sky coffin.

    

Nah.  Instead, he just administers one last punch to finish the job.  The boy with the drive to save that eclipses all common understanding, everyone.

[deusvervewrites]

Inko is a Saiyan (and the number two hero, poor Enji), making Izuku half Saiyan.

Good news about the Era of Chaos! There was no one to notice the Saiyan pod that touched down on earth. After all, this was around the time Yagi acquired One For All (give or take a few years). With how absolutely fucked everything still was, no one from the small community of survivors batted an eye at the woman with a tail showing up with her infant daughter sharing the same 'mutation'

All Might's work to restore peace meant that the small community was able to survive, and not too long after Inko and her mother, Coli, were taken in, society was reestablished, which was great for their food intake. Coli realized pretty quick that if people reacted to Quirks the way they did, aliens were in even more danger so she took the pod and hid it.

Inko's drive to seek out fights plus her family's efforts at reigning in her worse impulses led her to becoming a Hero. Inko is canonically about 5 years younger than Endeavor, and while I could fiddle with that and make them classmates, it's way funnier to me if she becomes a rising star at UA like immediately after he graduates. Sorry, Todoroki Family, this will have repercussions. As a sidenote, Inko's Hero Costume is based on Shallot's Sadala Saiyan armor, because it represents pre-Freeza Saiyans and looks dope as hell.

Inko skyrocketed up the rankings due to her incredible power and proactive attitude (read: she really wanted to find a good fight), while also being more personable with civilians. Endeavor never hit Number 2 Hero, stalling him at Number 3. The HPSC considers her basically a second All Might, for better or for worse (for them). Because of her higher rank, and her ability to associate more with top Heroes, she does eventually confide the truth of her origins to a select few. Namely, All Might and Star and Stripe: the only two Heroes who can match her when she gets in one of her fighting moods.

Hey so the fun thing about aliens is that they don't have Quirks. All Might thus tells Inko about All For One, since she's also uniquely suited to kicking his ass, and indeed, she is a huge help in mopping up AFO's operations that All Might hadn't yet by this point. Naturally, she's a part of the proper showdown when Izuku is 9, and the two of them together are way more than AFO can handle. The look on his face when he couldn't steal Inko's Quirk was priceless. It was also one of the last expressions he ever had.

+1. As the son of the Number 2 Hero and a Number 1 Hero (Yes it's CathInko. You people know what I'm about), Izuku actually lives the high life. The Midoriya/Bate Family has pretty substantial funding, and Izuku gets the benefits of that. This also means he and Bakugou don't know each other. Inko and Coli train Izuku in using his Ki and his Ozaru Form safely. Additionally, as a half-Saiyan, Izuku can't have a Quirk.

+2. Inko's signature technique is called Emerald Lance

+3. Ashido has a tail and a sweet tooth.

[rayshippouuchiha]

Thank you! So here I am to infodump, full of gratitude, and you can post this if you want no problem it's just a bunch of scattered ideas so yeah. Feel free to chuck suggestions at me too! I really don't know what to do with these... building blocks just yet.

Akatani Mikumo is Midoriya Hisashi.

Toshinori gets sandwiches by the Midoriya couple and it turns into an OT3 but that's much later down the line.

Hisashi is a journalist, keeps getting into everybody's business and Knows™ more than he frankly should.

Hisashi is a Cryptid™. But of a different energy from his son who is all lightning-in-a-bottle jittery On The Verge Of Throwing Hands feral sort of cryptid, Hisashi is mostly of this... supernaturally unflappable blank-faced chill entity.

Who keeps spooking people bc No Footstep sounds.

And might possibly be partially mute or just ridiculously soft-spoken bc when he tries to speak at normal volumehis fire-breathing quirk goes ballistic.

Might or might not have bloodline relations to AFO. Origins ambiguous, Inko just literally plucked the (then) teen off a back alley like he was a stray cat.

Also might or might not have more than one quirk, see the probable AFO connection.

Izuku got his mumbling thing from Hisashi.

A cryptid man who seems normal enough except a little off-kilter, like two inches to the left of what's a “normal” man? Weirdo but nobody can pinpoint how or why. That's the sort of vibe I want with this Hisashi.

And some Wack™ backstory lore I came up w for Hisashi, I dunno what I'll do w it but:

Cw: mention of infant murder, bc I'm Me™ and I was thinking about Yotsumegami (it's my favorite game) and how my version of Hisashi would tie in with it.

Yanno how in Yotsumegami “unwanted children” (children with disabilities, the younger of a twin pair or every sibling except the eldest in triplets or higher, etc) would be killed (it's a real historical practice in Japan, mabiki, they called it) or something like that? Would be kinda fun if an offshoot of that variety existed in the BnHA world, even if it's not outright child murder kids would be abandoned, especially in the chaos of the Dawn of Quirks. People who were scared of quirked people would abandon their quirked child, quirkist folk abandoned their quirkless children, it's chaos.

It would be more prominent during the initial chaos, though I guess laws and stuff would've been passed later on to prevent it or at least cut down the numbers— and the practice fizzled out but there's still a few remote rural villages who accept “unwanted” children.

One such secret community could be like, giving the surname “Akatani” (red valley, for the red of spider lilies used in mabiki in times past) to the children that were discarded at their metaphorical door. Do they still practice mabiki? Debatable. But it's like a giant secret orphanage with questionable, cult-like mentalities.

Akatani Hisashi was one of those until he miraculously escaped and tried to survive in the outside world.

Or maybe he didn't have the Akatani surname at first bc nobody in the remote village had any surname but once he got out he might've created the surname as a way to hm, not quite honor but carry his origins into his new life.

(maybe Yoichi was almost mabiki'd too, like I said I'm still not entirely sure where I'm going with this)

So Izuku gets to grow up w two parents who care a great deal for him. Maybe they move away, resulting in Izuku not having to deal w Bakugou in his childhood. Maybe Izuku makes friends with some other future 1-A classmate.

The Commission keeps trying to track down this one rogue “vigilante reporter” whose name is unknown. And they keep failing because Hisashi (along with his son and excessive gaggle of... comrades? followers? does the Midoriya family accidentally create an organization of rabid info gatherers?) is a certified cryptid.

Izuku has his hands in so many pots. He's a lot more nosey than in canon probably?

Endeavor had better be prepared bc his entire way of life is about to go up in smoke

I don't know why but I just have this very strong feeling that Stain doesn't like Hisashi for one reason or another.

I... wouldn't be entirely opposed to the AU just chucking Bakugou out the window so that he's not in 1-A (or in UA at all, fuck that pomeranian) and instead is replaced by another loud blond...

Fucking Monoma, LMAO.

A lot of the AU is just ?????? for now and most of it is Hisashi backstory but hnnnnng I want to do something with these jigsaw pieces I just don't know what

Also I'll be sending in Hisashi's design in a non-anon ask but could you append it to this ask's answer instead? Thanks!

I adore everything about this!?!?!

Also I didn't get another ask, anon or not, so Tumblr might have eaten it

[fertilize-my-eggs]

King of decay

New game ch.1

Ch.2 ch.3 A03

A/N: since everyone pick king shigaraki in the poll, I couldn't resist making this story asap. I was into this idea for the longest. If you guys enjoy this story please let me know. So this is a dark romantic fantasy theme au where it doesn't follow the mha plot but I'll add characters into this story, I'll post this every Friday if this get popular. ( Not this Friday but the next one. ) anyway I hope y'all enjoy this one. MINOR N ANTIS DNI, IT'S 18+ AND YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

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New game

—>press start (click)

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Choose a player?

—> Player one (click)

Player two

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Will you have a love story or not?

—> yes (click)

No

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Select a difficulty

Easy

Normal

Hard

—> legendary (click)

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Are you sure you want to continue?

—>yes (click)

No

Shigaraki's pov

It's the beginning of my life, I lost my family by accidentally killing them with my bare hands. I met a strange man before the incident, I didn't know much until I was cursed with it, I couldn't touch anything and anyone with these hands.

Blood covered my hands as I sob uncontrollably, I ran away from my village to live in the forest alone.

The days went on as my clothes got dirty and I felt cold, I lay on an old tree as a resting spot.

No one in my village helped me, I was truly alone, I curled into a ball and couldn't stop crying.

Until I hear him, the strange man that brought me home as I look up with tears.

“ Are you lost? ” he had a sincere smile as he put a hand on my head and pull me close.

“ don't worry, I'll take care of you young one.”

“ What's your name? ” he looked into my eyes as I stare in silence.

…

“ tenko shimura..” he has a comfort aura as he smiles softly.

“ tenko… you will be reborn, you don't need your old life from that village. ” I tilt my head in confusion as he pet my hair softly.

“ you will be known as tomura shigaraki as the new~.. come on little one.” and I don't remember much about my childhood but I had everything a kid asked for, a massive bedroom, a feast, so many maids to help me out.

As I grew older into my early adulthood, my old man king Shigaraki made me become a king.

He wished for two things for me, a new heir and to rule the world with a fist.

A new heir?uh I'm not sure about it since I'm cursed with decay. I can't do anything like that but fear of not finding a wife and starting a family is running out of time.

I sit on my throne lazily as my mentor Kurogiri, he was around when Afo brought me into his kingdom when I was a child.

He cleared his throat as he had a princess in line and in hand in marriage as I sighed softly.

None of them catch my attention, they're a bit too rude and entitled little brats that pisses me off.

“ Switch one would you like your highness? ” I roll my eyes as I tilt my head at him then at the women.

“ ehh.. they're not interesting to me. ” Kurogiri bowed his head as he apologized.” I deeply apologize your highness, we'll find more princesses!! ” he politely escorted the women away as they looked neither offended nor annoyed about wasting their time. At least I didn't send them to the dungeon to go rot.

This is wasting my time, I need some fresh air, I told my guards not to worry about me as I'll be taking a long walk.

I head quietly to my master bedroom as I dressed myself in civilian clothes. Baggy black outfit and deep red cloak.

I pull my hood over my long messy white hair as I begin to scroll to the village nearby.

This village is doing a bit better these days, afo was an evil man and so evil that he forced everyone to bow to his knees and give him money. I didn't understand back then how he brainwashed them into thinking he's a good king and made them starve.

I destroyed that man after he was laying in bed after I became king. He didn't say anything, he seemed like he's ready to pass away so I ended his suffering by decaying his face. Putting his ashes into a jar on the shelf never went into his old room afterwards.

I passionately hate him and how he's treating everyone in this kingdom.

I begin to walk into a flea market, looking around as I observe the surroundings.

This village has gotten a lot better, there were people enjoying their own life and gossip as I eavesdropped.

“ Man, that new king seems more intimidating than the last one.”

“ yeah but at least he's a bit helpful by making us have better jobs and- ” I was too distracted by their conversation but I didn't realize a young woman bumped into me, costing me to catch her while she was falling.

My eyes wide in shock, too stunned by what was happening.

You were covered in dirt, covered in rags as you immediately apologized." Oh God!! I'm sorry Mister, I didn't see you coming.” as you're rambling, I wasn't shocked by bumping into you. No no no.. you didn't decay immediately, my hands were on your arms for a second and you didn't get affected by this.

Strange as I thought to myself, could this be my new lover? A person that is immune to this cursed and be alive.

“ it's o-okay.. don't worry about it sweetheart.” I give you a playful wink as I walk away. Who is this woman and I need to make her mine.

Mine and mine only, seeing you blushed even though you had a rough life with dirty old clothes on and hair that hasn't been washed for days.

I couldn't help but find you adorable and remind me a lot like myself when I was young and in the forest once.

I turn my head back as you slowly walk away from people who have jobs selling fruit on the streets.

You definitely peak my interest, I need to follow you.