#afo: oh. i thought i could manipulate you that way

[electricbathsalt]

(from kainagant) psst what are your extensive headcanons/thoughts on hero!overhaul au? i'd love to hear what you think he'd be like as a hero.

I AM SO GLAD YOU ASKED!! Idk why I didn’t talk about this sooner—it’s like I have to be prompted on a topic before I remember “oh yeah, I actually have thoughts on this matter, that I can speak out loud!!” 💀 also, I apologize in advance for how long this is. I’m basically summarizing the entirety of this AU in my mind, and it’s like. The longest-standing AU for Chisaki I have.

Anyway, first things first—he got taken away from the Hassaikai when he was young (like, maybe eleven or twelve?) and gets plopped in a Youth Recovery & Rehabilitation Center, which he was extremely pissed about at first, but his eyes kinda opened over the years as he learned more and more about how families and such are actually supposed to function, and how abnormal his entire life actually was up to that point.

Basically; he gets a stable, safe environment and therapy!! Yay!

By the time he reaches fifteen-sixteen, him going into hero school kinda just. Happened. He initially just wanted to shadow Recovery Girl, but they ended up making him take the entrance exam, and well… he passed with flying colors and all of a sudden he was a 1-A student. Luckily, that means instead of simply shadowing Recovery Girl, he gets to work as her official assistant! Cool, right.

And oh boy, does he learn a lot under her tutelage. Namely bedside manner. I imagine Chisaki who got away from the yakuza and had therapy wouldn’t be as blatant an asshole (obviously), but he would still be a bit lost on social norms and also honest/blunt to a fault. He doesn’t understand “putting things gently”, or “softening the blow”, and so Recovery Girl works to teach him when, where, and how he can be “nicer” to people/which situations require delicacy. She grows unexpectedly fond of him and actually finds his unwavering honesty refreshing because she knows he isn’t malicious and is simply stating exactly what he thinks. You just have to get used to his straightforwardness and he becomes rather endearing.

Recovery Girl also discovers that he’s actually capable of extreme kindness. Turns out when you coax him into telling you what’s on his mind, sometimes he’ll really surprise you with how much he cares, even if he himself doesn’t realize it, either (Without Pops and with therapy, Chisaki slowly grew back into caring about others. It took a lot of work, but without anyone weaponizing kindness against him, he felt he could allow himself to slowly feel it again (this is because doesn’t canon slightly imply Chisaki used to be kind like Eri with how he’s sort of like her if she never got saved? What if the way he escaped AFO’s facility was because he finally threw away caring about others and that was the difference between her and him? The fact Eri never got pushed to that point because she was rescued?))

Now, about his hero training. With his quirk-training, there’s not a lot to say/do. I’d say his quirk-training would involve a lot of “make this into this, as quickly as possible”. Basically, training him to be as precise and fast with his quirk usage as they can get him. I’d like to imagine that with training, they push him into being able to manipulate matter in all sorts of different ways, on the fly. He’s trained a lot in using environment to his advantage and whatnot. And maybe also one day, he ends up gaining the ability to use his quirk in areas other than his hands. Dunno.

For physical-training, I think they would heavily concentrate on making him extremely agile. Because hear me out—imagine Toga’s quirk awakening fight scene where she turns into Uraraka and sprints through all those people and takes them out. Imagine if Chisaki was able to move like that. He’d be fucking terrifying. They’d probably also want him to be extremely agile just on the front of being able to hit his hands against surfaces from as many positions as possible.

He absolutely would carry around things like painkillers and anesthesia like you said. Also hear me out, he’d carry around small bags of scraps that he’d then Overhaul to seal people’s wounds, since if the wound is big enough, he’d need some sort of substitute material to close it without sacrificing other parts of the person’s body.

He’d also sometimes work with the support course. He knows a lot about the human body and how quirks function, not to mention his quirk itself would be very useful in creating support items.

He’d get dragged into a lot of search-and-rescue missions because he’s literally perfect for those.

Pops eventually manages to get back into contact with Chisaki—to ask him to take a look at the girl he’s recently in possession of since her quirk is a dangerous mutation, and he’s such a fancy-pants doctor/support hero and quirk expert nowadays. Chisaki goes (he’s panicking internally from the moment he hears Pops’ voice over the phone to the moment he’s standing in front of the girl herself). He asks to take Eri for a couple days to run some tests. He never brings her back. He obtained full-custody of her via spilling every damn thing he’d ever learned and been through under the Shie Hassaikai.

(Seeing her sitting so lifelessly at that table, waiting to be prodded at like some sort of science experiment, reminded him of himself so much that it had been physically painful. The decision to ask to take her for only a while and then go back on his word was a rash one. It’s also one he doesn’t regret even slightly)

Huge advocate for quirkless people, and brings lots of awareness to quirk experimentation, since he’d been a victim of it himself.

And yes, becomes one of UA’s now multiple official on-site medical professionals. (They switch out as necessary)

So basically, he’s an extremely busy guy who never gets a moment’s rest thanks to the many… energetic people in his life (all the UA students give him migraines galore. Don’t even get him started on his coworkers), he’s slightly (very) terrifying, and SURPRISE! It’s good parent!chisaki AU as well, because I’m not leaving Eri to rot in Pops’ care.

I also play around with the idea of him never getting separated from his bio parents and becoming a hero from there, which mostly impacts his personality versus the actual stream of events that happen.

If there’s any further questions or if you wanted to know about anything specific, ask me and I’ll be happy to answer!! (Goes for anyone who may or may not be reading this)

[bluelizze]

To be or not to be, a sinner's invitation

tomura shigaraki x oc (oc-center)

*This arc takes place the same time when the U.A Traitor Arc took place. a week before the Final War Arc. however, this arc specifically took place right before the war arc began (right before ep 5)

*also yes, this is hugely inspired by Focalors’ Execution from 4.2 bc fun fact, this scene was one of the first scenes I developed when creating my oc and that cutscene really inspired me to write it

tw: dialog heavy, religions/cult talk, hints of child abuse, oc death (by suicide, mention of killing oneself), deaths, sexual harassment hinted, grammer errors maybe, manipulation (by the bastard afo)

Tomura woke up and saw Rochelle but she had an entirely different look. Her hair turned completely white like the moon, her outfit is now more simple but it’s white as well.

“Ah… you’re awake… thank goodness…”

She looked relieved and helped Tomura up. “Stay in the circle.” she ordered gently, and he listened. She was the only one who could tell him what to do.

“Rochelle…”

“Ah… she’s not here.” What does she mean?

“I’m not Rochelle. That was never my name.” She stood up and stepped back so that Tomura could get a full view of her.

He noticed that she was barefoot and had bandages around her right ankle. She looked like an angel.

“I am Yukina Mizumoto.” She began. “The goddess of the Mizumoto Estate. At least that’s what everyone says I am.”

“... what’s going on? Where are we?” Tomura has so many more questions but these were the ones that came out.

“Hahaha… I know it’s a bit confusing, which is understandable since you weren’t fully yourself back there. To answer your second question, don’t worry,  we are safe. I transported us to a safe location away from him.” She explained.

There was something in her tone that seemed different. Not only has she become less informal… no… she was speaking as if she was not human. 

“The glyph under you helps to keep his consciousness out of you. At least for the time being. I even did my best to ensure the protection will last for a bit in the aftermath.”

“What do you mean ‘for the time being’?” Tomura asked. Deep down, he knows something will go bad and he probably knows what it is. But he refuses to think what he thinks it is.

She chuckled. “Well… to put it simply… you are invited to my execution.” Right before then, a reaper appeared with a scythe ready to slice. 

Tomura's eyes widened. “Your… execution?” He doesn’t know if hearing it from her was better or worse.

“It’s simple really… It's because of All for One… because he is afraid that he will lose and that he will do anything to get his way. Seeing how he can control you… was the final nail on the coffin for “me”.”

“He knew about my real identity all along. But for his successor’s sake, he kept his mouth shut, thinking that it can build up hatred instead once you realized I was a liar.”

What does she mean by liar? No… She wasn’t a liar.

“However, it backfired him. He saw his successor experiencing something that he considered weak. Genuine love. Something that he realized too late. But as soon as he heard that his successor was going to inherit his power, he realized that he could use it to his advantage.”

“Wait.” Tomura interrupted. “What do you mean by real identity?”

“Oh.” She giggled. “I should’ve started with explaining my origins.”

She sighed and started. “It started the moment I was born. I had the most unnatural look anyone in the estate could lay eyes upon. White hair with shades of ocean blue, heterochromic eyes of blue and gray— everyone thought that I was a gift from the gods. But someone else thought otherwise and said maybe I am a goddess, reborn into a moral human.” Tomura stood agape

“I was given the most specialist treatment, but it was suffocating. They always gave me coins and food. But I was always concerned when someone would give me someone else’s belongings, especially if it’s someone or something dear to them. I came to find out later that it was because it was not a place of religious saints… but a cult.”

A cult…?

“Once I found out about it, I was mortified. I’ve done many attempts to escape that hellhole but every time I failed and would always get severely punished. It’s weird. Punishing their goddess? But I see it as if they were punishing an innocent child.”

She turned and looked down as she stepped away from Tomura.

“I never asked for this. I never asked for this role that I was thrusted into. “Life isn’t fair”, is what people always say. But why aren’t they doing anything to make it fair?”

She turned with a smile of hope. “But I did manage to escape once.”

She puts her hands where her heart is and holds it.

“I didn’t know where to go. I was never allowed to go outside of the room since the people at the estate said that it’s dangerous. But I managed to run into some kids my age. They were playing pretend. I was so intrigued that I just watched. But one kid noticed me.”

She looked up and smiled sweetly. Why was she looking at him like that?

“He asked, "Do you wanna play heroes with us?” I didn’t know what a hero was so I told him that I don’t know what he was talking about and he and his friends explained to me. It sounded fun so I joined. My role was to play the person being saved and the boy being a hero.”

She looked at him fondly, but it felt like she wasn’t looking at him.

“For the first time, I felt happiness. I never experienced something like that before… and I craved for more. I didn’t want to leave. Alas, someone had found me and took me the estate… and I got severely punished. It was probably the worst punishment I’ve ever received.” 

He was horrified, but he wasn’t prepared for what she asked him.

“Do you know about the boy I am talking about?”

He knows. And he wishes he doesn’t. He had always thought about the girl he invited to play. He thought that maybe she had shared the same looks as her or something. Maybe he knew it was her all along. He just didn’t want to face it.

“It… was you…?” His voice trembled.

She giggled. How can she giggle at a time like this?

“Yes. yes it is, Tenko-kun.”

“Ever since that day, I’ve been more and more disparate. To feel that feeling… that feeling and experience of being a normal human… because to me… it is to be part of the greatest performance.”

Her expression barely changed by Tomura can feel a shift in her tone of what she said next.

“It wasn’t after a couple years later I managed to run away permanently. I found an old opera house and was offered to live there. There I learnt how to play many different roles. But no matter how many roles I played, no matter how different which role was, I was favored for my looks. It takes me back to that hoffied time in my childhood and one day I snapped. But yet, it made me feel relieved. So night after I get chased for my looks, I lead them backstage and kill them. A bad habit I know but… how am I supposed to shake off the disgusting feeling of being known for only my outer beauty?”

Now he understands. The reason why she hates being complemented. It wasn’t because she hated them in general. She just hated their weak meanings behind it.

But Tomura never saw her outer beauty. Rather, he saw more of her inner beauty. Maybe it was because she saw his inner beauty that he was able to see her’s.

“It wasn’t long until I killed off the owner of the opera house, who only took me in for my looks. There, I created the persona. The “me” you see is that of a goddess. The “me” you have gotten to know was a human named “Rochelle de Leblanc.” Unlike “me”, she can feel anything a normal human would feel. Joy, rage, sadness. All the above and below. Despite the laws of a human, she was perfect. She was everything I wanted to be. So, I continued to play as “Rochelle” to fulfill my fantasy of being a “normal human being.”

Tomura’s voice waver. He doesn’t know what to say.

“My acting was almost perfect. I was even surprised that you guys didn’t notice. But the Meta Army created the crack in my perfect mask and it was All for One who finally broke it.”

“So… you’re going to kill yourself… because of Master…?

She turned to him and just smiled. It was sweet yet there was a sort of sinister hint in her eyes. Yet, her eyes had room to have the look of softness for Tomura.

The same softness given to him whenever he takes a break from fighting Machia all those months ago.

She walked towards him. Staying out of the glyph, and cooed, “Aw… getting a little teary-eyed? That’s a little unlike you.” 

“There… has to be another way… I'm back now…”

She looked at him with a small smile, “Unfortunately, this is temporary… I can’t keep this up for long even if I continue to live. Well, he couldn’t allow me anyways so it doesn’t even matter. And it’s taking on a toll for me so…” 

“Then rest… please…”

But he knows that if she does,  he might go back to being him again and neither wants that.

“I will soon. Don’t worry.”

Tomura starts to breathe heavily but he tries to keep it quiet. He doesn’t want to cry in front of her right now. 

She reaches out for him, but doesn’t touch him. “Shhh… it’s okay… it’s okay… you can let it out…”

He didn’t even realize tears were starting to pour down. 

“If it weren’t for him, I would’ve loved to destroy this cursed society along with you. Afterall, they should be the ones who should be guilty of their crimes since we are as equally as guilty. It’s just that society has such standards that one might question if they don’t look hard enough.”

“So Tomura-kun… what will you do now?”

Tomura still has so many questions. Not even half were answered. But he knew no matter how hard he tries, she will always dance her way through them to avoid answering. But she has no intentions of hiding.

So what is she really planning?

“I will still destroy. I can’t turn back to it now.”

He simply said. And that’s the truth.

She had a bit of shock but quickly changed her expression to a more sorrowful one, like she knew that was the answer she was expecting but wishes it was something different.

“Even so… I still want you… to live in a world where you can be who you really are… with me… I want to get to know you more. I want… I’m doing this for you. And yet, you are just giving yourself away like this…”

He’s not begging. He doesn’t want to. Because no matter how much he begged, she won’t change her mind. That just shows how stubborn he is. It’s probably because of him. 

“I love you Yuki-chan. And you’re taking my heart with you… please…” He told himself he wouldn’t beg. But he can’t help it.

“...I’m sorry… that heart belongs to Rochelle… not me… I can’t take it.”

“But Yuki-chan… you’ve always been there. From the first time we met as kids. From the moment you joined the League. When I treated you like a ghost. When taking care of me when I was fighting Machia. Hell, even when I was in surgery you watched me! You see? I don’t care where you came from or what you become after that. I care about you! All of you!”

There was a long silence. Yukina looked shocked. But she sadly smiled and that look alone, gave Tenko the answer.

“You really… are devious ones… but then again… that’s the one thing I love about you… Yuki-chan.”

Yukina smiled and looked up.

“Ah… My final hour is here… and now I must take my final bow. I must say… I’m a little scared of death. But I will welcome it with open arms…”

With a soft look, “Take care, Tenko-kun… I hope you will be able to live a life full of happiness… just like I wish I had… and I hope we meet again… in another life. I love you.”

Tenko held his breath as Yukina softly started dancing under the scythe that would soon drop. He wants to move, but his body refuses. All he could do was watch. Watch Yukina dancing away to her death.

There was a soft look on her face, like she had accepted that this was her end, yet she was happy. What is she happy about? Why is she happy?

What felt like forever, she finally took her final curtsy and waited, as the reaper raised the scythe.

As soon as Tenko reached his hand out for Yukina, the scythe went for her neck and the next thing he knew, he was back in the hellhole of a cave.

He was stunned. He couldn’t even get to at least see Yukina’s corpse. He fell to his knees, processing what just happened before he slowly started to scream.

Shuichi heard the pain scream and went over to the depths of the cave to check Tomura, holding the hand and blue flower that his dearest friend always wore in her hat.

[princess-of-the-corner]

Ok, sending this, cause I sent an ask, and sometimes if I send two in a row, one deletes itself, so we’ll see if this works!

So, I vaguely remember the MHA-Monster AU was Enji/Rei/Hikari, and I had a thought. What if Hikari, in this verse, just straight up said “no”? Like, AfO TRIED to manipulate and control her, and she slammed on the breaks, turned around and bolted? And, like, AfO at first thought, “Oh, that’s kind of cute!” and “let” her get away. Like, he wasn’t that invested at first, she was just there in passing. But then he runs into her again, tries again, and she still goes “nope, not happening”, and books it AGAIN. So, AfO is a bit annoyed, but like, once was chance, twice is coincidence … the third time is a PATTERN, ok, now he’s pissed. AfO spends a while trying to get Hikari to sign some kind of deal, but she keeps refusing, and then she gets into a relationship with a literal Angel and Demon, which effectively puts her out of his reach. AfO is angry now, WHO DOES THIS BITCH THINK SHE IS!? So, because he’s petty, he goes after her family, gets her nephew/third cousin/godson/family member of some kind (Aoyama), but that’s long term, and involved with something else he’s working on, it doesn’t quite have the punch he wants. Then he sees an opportunity with one of her kids (I’m assuming, genetics aside, she’s helping raise the Todoroki kids, she’s Mama Kari), and manages to get Toya under a deal by taking his name, forcing him to become “Dabi”.

(That’s a thing in a lot of literature dealing with Fae, Names being a big deal. The way I tend to think about it best is, have you ever watched Spirited Away? When Chihiro goes to work for Yubaba, Yubaba literally steals parts of Chihiro’s name [symbolized by taking certain Kanji] and says while she works for her, Chihiro’s name is Sen, then gets her to answer to the new name - gifting Chihiro a new name to replace the one she took, and getting verbal acceptance. Through out the movie, Chihiro is referred to explicitly as Sen by most of the characters, and later, begins to refer to herself as Sen, actually forgetting that she’s called Chihiro, until someone gives her a card with her real name written on it, symbolically giving her her name back. I imagine Fae Deals for MHA-Monsters could work similarly, at least for how AfO uses them to control people. He gets them to give up their Name to him, then gifts them a new one, which puts them under his control. If they stay under his control too long, they can start to forget their old name, or even other important parts of themselves, and the easiest way to start breaking the Deal, is remember and try to reclaim your old name.)

-

Oh yeah like!

Honestly I was swinging back around because I debated on this being a Hikari!Lives AU because like.

one of the things about bnha aus is that when you take away the Hero System, things change a lot. And in this AU while all the Hero characters are still being like. They’re still doing good things and helping others and the like, it’s less formal and all.

But also yeah in this AU where while not a Hero exactly she still started looking into some shit and got in over her head. But because of the nature of what AfO does changed....

Because in Canon/CC he’d just yoink her Quirk and kill her. But within this AU, while he could just kill her, if he wants to use her he’d have to force her into making a Deal. So she’d have much more of a chance to escape. Perhaps not entirely unscathed, maybe I could damage her Magic in some way. Something to work with for the later Aoyama deal.

But yeah then we also. Due to both her living and the lack of the Hero System, Enji’s in a much better place mentally. He’s still got some shit to work out but he’s at a point where that can be more easily worked out.

Hell yeah let’s lean into the Hikari lives au and AfO’s a bit annoyed she managed to escape (especially because this absolutely gets Enji on his ass which messes with some other plans)

Aand yeah even if none of the kids are hers biologically they’re her kids. And, well, a very common Deal in folklore is to take the firstborn.

[thequietmanno1]

Thelreads, MHA 292, Replies Part 1

1) “Anyway, let us get started with Chapter 292: Threads of hope

I see what you’re fucking doing Jeanist…”- He who wears the jeans of hope, gets to make the puns!

2) “I would joke about the parachutes but Horikoshi beat me to it with that extra page.”- Where Jeanist’s going, they don’t need parachutes, only cables of restraining justice!

3) “Not going to explain how you pulled that off huh. Alright that’s fair, I suppose we should take into consideration that “any kind of fiber” also includes the threads of fate and thus you can manipulate the universe.”- He does have little shockwave lines around his feet when bouncing up and down on that cable, indicating he had it stretched itself below him to act as a tightrope-trampoline to land on and neuter his momentum. So long as the cables landed first (easy with their weight) Jeanest could manipulate himself a safe landing point.

  4) “Yes Dabi, but considering you did just lie to the public in part of your speech, even though you couldn’t know you were lying, the rest of it will end up being doubted as well. Also the fact you are, you know, a villain, will probably not help much your case there.”- Yeah, but Dabi’s pissed off now that he’s accidently caught himself in a nationwide lie, which is why he falls back on supporting the narrative he knows to be true immediately, bringing up himself and Shoto. It’s also why he blasts Hado when burning himself free of Jeanist’s restraints – not because she’s a hero attacking his “friends”, but because she’s a young hero whose future he can snuff out with “his father’s flames” and he’s a petty enough bitch to get back at the heroes for humiliating him this way. 5) “Now that I think about it, holy fuck Jeanist managed to subdue Machia. Jesus Christ man.”- Underestimate his fashion at your peril!....Though, it also helps that Machia’s now achieved the orders he was given before, and thus is in a “down-time” between getting the next one from Tomura, which means he’s more vulnerable than when he’s putting in effort to achieve his orders. 6) “He doesn’t? Well I mean, during the training against Shigaraki he did took 2-hours naps between fights, but they mentioned that if he woke up before he was ready to fight for another two days, so I thought they were more as a way for Shigaraki to recharge than him.”- His stamina recharges really fast, but it is still necessary for him to have some downtime – if he breathes, he’s alive, and no living being can go forever at 100% effort, even one as simple-minded as Machia. 7) “Oh so killing all those heroes and powering through a few cities did tire him a bit, that’s interesting. So he can run out of stamina, it just takes a fuckton to actually get there.”- Machia was invincible as long as he was undertaking an order from one he considers his “master” and AFO’s instructions to him on training Shigaraki were apparently open-ended enough that he could just keep going to fulfil them day after day, as long as Tomura was still able to keep fighting. 8) “So, the same way as waking him up earlier will let him continue fighting, Shigaraki, or in this case, AfO, giving him an order will force him to be ready. That’s a serious glitch in the system someone should warn the devs to patch it.”- The downside of his immense drive to fulfil any orders he hears is that Machia immediately runs out of steam the second said orders re fulfilled, becoming vulnerable and “inert” until he receives his next one. He had practically unlimited energy fuelling his charges through the cities to reach Tomura, but without a follow-up command, all that fatigued and effort catches up with him until the next order “dopes him up”, so to speak. 9) “OH HERE COMES HADOU

You better wake up Shigaraki, or your head will fly a really long way before you can even think about what’s going on”- Spinner channelling immense gremlin energy by resorting to biting Shigaraki in order to wake him up – heck, that may have even done the trick. 10) “OH YOU FUCKING- GODDAMMIT DABI SHE BETTER BE OKAY OR I’M GOING TO FUCKING BEAT YOU

ALSO, NICE GOING THERE, DOING AS YOUR FATHER DID IS SERIOUSLY GOING TO SHOW HIM UP HUH”-Dabi will do anything if it means dragging his father’s name through the mud, especially attacking unrelated people to their feud in order to make himself, the prodigal son, look more despicable and unforgivable.   11) “ALSO, JESUS DID HE MELTED THE STEEL CABLES?

BUT HE DIDN’T MELTED HIS OWN CLOTHES??”- Burning so hot he warps the very boundaries of the panel borders, yet he does still have enough control over the fires to avoid killing himself…immediately that is. Heat at this level will damage him, but he’s a knife-edge between uncontrollably burning and steadily self-combusting that Dabi dances across in every battle, especially now he’s at this level of firepower. 12) “OH JESUS FUCK HE WOKE UP

AND HE GAVE AN ORDER

FUCK FUCK FUCK- THIS IS NOT GONNA BE GOOD, FOR ANYONE.

YOU GUYS FROM THE LEAGUE, YOU BETTER TAKE COVER AS WELL- ESPECIALLY YOU SPINNER, YOU’RE THE ONE IN MORE DANGER BEING THIS CLOSE TO HIM”- At this point, the league are just riding the chaos train, making sure they don’t slow down and let the heroes’ forces overwhelm them, no matter how many upsets and city-destroying events they have to cause to get there. 13) “Ah right, there’s still the high-ends to fight.

jesus fucking christ this day is getting worse and worse for Midoriya.”- These moments of the arc are just a non-stop escalation of dramatic chaos and stuff going wrong for the heroes more than they go right, such that you seriously start to doubt there’s any possibility of them being able to pull off a win at all. 14) “FUCK THEY GOT THE ORDERS FROM SHIGARAKI, THEY ARE ON THEIR WAY AS WELLOH LORD HAVE MERCY”- The villains are not only powerful,  they are smart, and they keep making the best choices for their side, which means screwing over the heroes’ own hopes at stopping this madness.

15) “Well, it’s both that they are finishing warming up and that Shigaraki was getting the hang of his powers, and probably giving subconscious orders to them, like this one to go his way.”- Even beat half to shit and with his mind fragmenting, there’s some part of Tomura that still giving orders…at least, I think it’s Tomura calling the shots in there…

16) “OH THANK GOD IT SEEMS SOMEONE SAVED HER, BUT FUCK ME THAT WAS WAY TOO CLOSE FOR COMFORT. FIRST WE LOST HADOU, I WOULDN’T BE ABLE TO HANDLE LOSING BURNING AS WELL”- And in our darkest hour, Lo, the man who will save a million adds one more life to the count! @thelreads

[theetwinkleboy]

Alternate 423 just for funsies:

Okay so first things first a bit of setup to make this specific scenario work: let’s establish in previous chapters that the quirks of the vestiges still exist and tomura is still able to use them. So let’s say he uses smokescreen and danger sense to obscure himself from izuku. But—almost as if they have a psychic connection—izuku can find him anyway and they end up in tomura’s mindscape.

And after they get out of the mindscape, and all for one takes over, have him try—and fail—to summon any vestige of one for all. Oh well, he’ll get back to that later, time to kill some randos.

So in the aftermath of izuku midoriya rising, izuku reaches all for one possessing tomura’s body.

Kuroboro jumps in the way to plead all for one to give back his son tomura

All for ones face twists and he reaches out to blast kuroboro

Izuku shoves kuroboro out of the way, narrowly avoiding the blast himself, and then his eyes widen with understanding as he looks at afo

We’re momentarily confused until we see a glimpse into afo’s mind, where yoichi’s whisp is there all of a sudden, doing his thing and being a great distraction

Specifically, yoichi says that he was woken up again by their new holder/the strength of emotion from the one they’ve been protecting, reframing tomura’s emotions as a source of strength now, rather than an avenue for afo’s manipulation

So then we get the shot of tomura reaching out of the vestiges, but crucially there’s a bit of fiery unformed vestige energy taking part in the protecting—a surprise tool that will help us later!

And then we get the two way punch because this IS a shonen, and between their two efforts, afo is blasted into dust

And then we’re launched into a white void with tomura alone. He looks around, but it’s just him here. Alone. For the first time in a long time.

He walks for a while. Calls first for kurogiri, then for his other friends—spinner. Toga. Dabi. He even calls for magne, thinking ‘hey, maybe I did it. Maybe I self destructed after all.’

He finds this thought…not as comforting as he has in the past. He wishes he could see if kurogiri survived.

After a while, he sits down. Screams at the void, “there’s nothing here! What am I supposed to do?!”

His fingertips are fading. His arms. Maybe this is just—what oblivion is, he reasons. He lays down and closes his eyes.

Then, a shadow passes over his face. He squints in confusion and opens his eyes to see a ghostly, fiery, ill-formed figure leaning over him. A short figure, flickering green, reaching out its approximation of a hand.

“Of course you’d be here,” Tomura says. The figure doesn’t reply.

“I’m not sorry,” he tries. The figure keeps reaching out a hand.

“I’m a villain,” he says. “My friends are villains. What are you even doing here?”

No reply. Just a hand, reaching out.

“You heard me earlier. You can’t change me into your perfect—whatever you want. I’m going to keep being a hero for the people who actually need me.” As he speaks, he feels, suddenly, more solid. He looks down and his fingertips have reappeared. He looks at them, then up at the figure.

He smiles wryly. “You’re really not going away, are you?”

He reaches out and takes the figure’s hand and pulls himself to his feet.

As soon as he’s back up, the figure starts to dissolve, and tomura is momentarily startled, until he realizes, the energy is flowing through their connected hands, wrapping around his limbs like ropes, turning black and staticky, and—

Tomura opens his eyes. Huh. So he’s alive after all. There’s a pressure on his chest—on his whole body, really, but especially around his chest.

He looks down. Midoriya Izuku is hugging him as tight as he can, and ropes of black whip are pressed flush against every inch of tomura’s arms and legs.

It takes him a moment to realize that he’s the one in charge of the black energy, but the moment he goes to dismiss it, midoriya squeezes so tight that tomura’s ribs creak a little.

“Don’t!” The kid says frantically. “It’s holding you together.”

Huh. So the kid gave him one for all to—to break him? To save him? Both? Was he manipulating him? Was he trusting him?

Tomura doesn’t understand why he would do something like that. It’s so stupidly—idiotically kind, it doesn’t make any sense.

Tomura—doesn’t really know what he’s supposed to do now. But he doesn’t dismiss blackwhip. Or shove the kid away.

[autumn-foxfire]

"Conservatism taken too far is the death of critical thinking!" - Skeptic. "You've stopped thinking for yourself. Please think more critically!" - Dabi. Oh yeah, I see why these two are best friends. Lmao, in a DabiHawks AU Skeptic is the middle man. He simped for Hawks and defended his honor against Slidin' Go, and refused to accept any blame when freaking out about how he failed to catch anything suspicious about Hawks on camera, "no not me! Bubaigawara is to blame!" And then the second the divorce arc happens, he becomes Dabi's new telephone buddy. And seeing him rant about how people cut him off from his company when he's super skilled, and how Dabi uses those skills often, (since you don't know, it's not just the video during the Machia March, but he calls for Skeptic's help during his battle with Shouto too, and well he's blatantly stated how excited he was over Skeptic and that he was perfect for his plans, idk the exact words) it really reminds me of AFO's ideology to pick up people down on their luck because he wants to make use of their potential, that he's the only one who sees it, and they are eager to show it off. Remind you of Twice? Yeah me too. Dabi never says anything, Hori keeps all his thoughts in his head, and reveals what he was thinking in that moment after he takes action, or throws us a bone and gives us still, wordless Dabi panels that are meant to be a hint that thoughts are stirring in his brain. But for things he did say? I def remember him praising Twice's potential, and he knows how Twice feels about all this. Maybe Dabi has some empathy for people who get cut off like him or come from bad families? Regardless, it's still all very AFO-like in what he does. Because hell, even AFO has shown some kind of "empathy and understanding" before still enabling people in a way that seems to give them more power and self-authority, when really it's all still just benefiting himself in the end.

I wouldn't say that Skeptic simped for Hawks honor more that he was so confident in his own abilities he doubted Hawks could go against their back like that. That's why he placed the blame on Twice when it turned out Hawks had done just that because he has to accept his own fault and for a guy that wants to be useful, the worst thing you can be is someone who causes more harm to the cause than good.

I do agree that Dabi probably specifically chooses these types, ones who have been abandoned by society in some way, because of how it reflects his own story. It's another way to further his own agenda, to say look at us, the people you left behind, now standing at the top. Maybe he also understands the drive these people have and, so, knows how to manipulate it.

Dabi is such a fascinating character when you look at him from a canon point of view.

[villainsandvictimsalliance]

thoughts on toga?

Sorry, I was putting some good music to do this 😌 our vampire princess deserves only the best.

PERSONAL THOUGHTS ON TOGA HIMIKO :

First of all, I still maintain that she's one of the best written female characters of bnha.

I used to think she was heavily sexualized on the manga, and while I still maintain that she is hyoersexualized on the fandom and still sexualized on the manga, I came to realize some of Horikoshi's choices are not that bad. Of course, it has a lot to do with certain common motives and symbolisms.

I think my main complain about the way some people write Toga (pushing aside the way the ship her with adults), it's that people either put her a a total child or a total woman.

Oh God, Toga is so smart. She's so under-appreciated, so so much.

"She's a murdered". She's what? 16-17 years old? Let's see the facts.

Toga was born in a family with money.

The first memory we got from her is Toga bitting a bird and showing it to her parents. They reacted pretty bad, like it was terribly spooky and told her to put that away, rejecting her.

After that, she created a mask for herself. She started pretending to be normal, smiling a lot, becoming the sweet overexcited girl.

However, the feeling never went away, because it was part of her quirk. The need to bite people to become them, the joy of wanting to taste the blood of someone she loved.

This could be a side effect like a person with wings wanting to fly, or a person with fire wanting to see the flames.

After stabbing her school crush, she ran away and began a criminal career of stabbing other people, hiding from the police.

This all means she lived in a lie for at least 13 years of her life, before becoming a criminal and loving on the streets at least 3 or 4 more years.

Toga has both taste the high-middle class class and the low class. She knows what is like to have too much money and be empty inside because no one sees you or accepts you, as much as she knows what is like being hungry and with cold, but living with people that love you for who you are.

This girl learned to erase her presence from a young age, before any of the UA kids ever dreamed about having that level of skill. She knows how to fight pretty well in close combat, how to fight with knives, how to trick people, how to choose her preys and when to retire from a fight.

She's extremely smart because she has successfully infiltrated in the heroes side at least three times: during the license exam, during the overhaul arc and on the war arc.

Her great goal is to live and live well. This is fucking magnificent because many people with her experience would reject themselves, thinking they're the problem. Toga knows she's not the problem, but society. She knows she deserves to live and love and have friends and family and she fights for it. In fact, even when so many people say she's insane, she's uses her logic all the time, way more than many other members of the League.

She see humans as they are. Not villains, not heroes. She was able to love Izuku and Ochaco even when they were heroes, she was able to hate overhaul while he was a villain. This shows she's outside the hero-villain toxic narrative, clever girl.

She's not afraid to face anyone when it comes to her rights. She faces Tomura more than once (overhaul arc, mva arc), she doesn't let Dabi intimidate her, she protects Twice and sweetly answers to Mr. Compress and Spinner's worry.

And God, maybe she doesn't have a mutant quirk, but almost. See her pupils, see her fangs. The reason why she makes people uncomfortable it's because she doesn't fit their standards. And she's perfectly okay with people not knowing how to categorize her. In fact, her fight in the MVA arc was because someone was trying to frame her.

I don't know how to make this clear but she's not crazy or psycho.

Toga Himiko would have passed the UA test with honors. She's so further above from the rest. She knows the older generations are full of shit and she knows they can't follow their paths, enough to outgrow Stain's legacy and make her own ideals.

I love how she shows that one can be totally feral and go against the system without stop being oneself.

Her speech to Ochaco on the war arc was incredible. She quickly questioned the idea that heroes can decide who deserves to live and who doesn't by saving only the people they think that deserve to be saved. She criticized the heroes decision to forget and dismiss and put away real people suffering just because they were not passive about their pain. She also make Ochaco see that she was a girl, just like her, not some type of hell demon trying to consume her soul.

She refused to say Shigaraki and decided to call him Tomura instead. This is so important!!!! From a narrative point of view, she's rejecting AFO's last name and accepting Tomura, the boy mourning for a father, a family.

She's observant, analytical, good at judging people, great at adapting and changing her mind.

I love how she kept being so happy and vibrant even in the worst moments.

And she's not just a victim, please. Toga Himiko is not some lost child, not a know-it-all woman. She's a teenager that can understand the situation but still needs tsome guidance.

She's actively changing the system. She's not passive or easy to manipulate. Like Spinner said, she's a free spirit.

So I'd love to see more fanfics depicting this. She's an amazing character at the level of most male characters on bnha, just like Ochaco, for example.

I'd love to see more headcanons about her with people her age. Real headcanons.

What about Momo and Toga talking about how boring can fancy parties be? How people with money are crazy sometimes?

What about Toga talking with Jirou about beinf girls that are considered "bros" by her friends?

What about Toga talking about being a little mutant and Tsuyu talking with her about hating cold weather?

What about Toga and Kirishima being overexcited and full of positivity together? About Denki and Toga talking about celebrities and TigTog? About Toga and the people from class 1-B bonding over being considered less when they're as good as class 1-A? Toga and Shinsou? Toga and Koda loving cats? Toga and Shoji playing card games? Toga and Tokoyami loving metal music? Toga and Bakugo loving romance stories?

What about Toga admiring female pro-heroes? Mirko seems loud and determined, Toga would adore her under other circumstances. Fuyumi helping Toga with her self-care because she ran away young. Toga showing Eri that they both have "scary" quirks and it's not wrong! They're both went through really bad moments and they're not bad! Toga being a big fan of the Wild Wild Pussycats. Toga adoring Vlad King and Present Mic.

The potential is there.

Anyway I just want more creativity, maybe. People writing more about Toga and the implications of her childhood, about how insane she is a fighter and a human being.

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 299: No Chains Left

Previously on BnHA: Horikoshi was all “and then AFO broke out all of the inmates from six other prisons and took a nap. well anyways, here’s the hospital angst.” Kacchan woke up two days later and was all, “WAIT BUT HOW ARE DEKU AND TODOROKI AND ALL OF THE OTHER CHARACTERS EXCEPT IIDA DOING” and then we cut to Shouto’s room where the other U.A. kids were sitting around being Mutually Traumatized and giving each other moral support and such. Everyone was alll, “...”, and then the rest of the Todofam showed up, INCLUDING POSSIBLY REI?! which, omg. The chapter ended with Kacchan STOMPING THROUGH THE HALLS all “WHADDYA MEAN DEKU HASN’T WOKEN UP YET”, dragging along Satou and Mineta behind him, fueled by the power of ALL OF THE FUCKS HE NOW GIVES. He gives so many fucks now you guys. This boy cares so much he can probably deduct it on his taxes.

Today on BnHA: SPEAKING OF PEOPLE WHO GIVE A LOT OF FUCKS, the story cuts abruptly to Hawks, freshly recovering from his near-death experience, and pondering the threads that have weaved the tapestry of his life and led him to this moment. Basically he grew up in poverty with his Jerk Dad and Jerk Mom until his dad got arrested one day and his mom sent him off to go Find Money Or Something, and so he rescued a busload of people and found himself a new career. Back in the present day, Hawks and Jeanist ride around town in Jeanist’s Jamborghini having awkward encounters with civilians in a country on the brink of social collapse, and visiting Hawks’s mother’s home. Hawks is all “I know from an outsider’s perspective it must look like my life currently sucks, but now that the HPSC is gone, my public image is shot, and my parents are finally out of my life, I’m actually feeling SURPRISINGLY GOOD.” Anyway so he’s gonna go meet up with Endeavor now, and p.s. this chapter was fucking fantastic though, damn.

oh my god?? is this Hawks narration?? something about him growing up watching the heroes on TV and thinking of them as fictional characters

okay I scrolled down a little bit more to see the rest of that “Keigo” panel, and wow

this is basically a shed. poor boy definitely grew up rough. let me tell you guys, I came in here ready for some BakuDeku shenanigans; I was not prepared for Hawks Flashback Angst. I AM HERE FOR IT, but also wow I gotta brace myself now lol

HELLO MISTER HAWKS’S JERK DAD, SIR

BnHA sure does have an array of Jerk Dads, doesn’t it. makes me appreciate characters like Masaru and JirouDad all the more for bucking the trend

anyway. so Horikoshi, you really thought that one itty bitty chapter of hospital catharsis would be enough to calm us all before you went right back to showing us child abuse huh. my god man can we rest

BABY HAWKS

swear to god this kid can’t be more than five or six, and yet he has this completely blank look on his face even with his dad looming over him being all threatening and shit. like he’s shut down his emotions to protect himself. imagine what has to happen to a child for him to have learned this at such a young age. fuck

AND MEANWHILE THIS GUY

don’t mingle with humans?? not “other” humans, just humans?? what is this implying here?? and also holy shit Hawks definitely didn’t inherit his looks from his dad orz

then again he doesn’t really bear much of a resemblance to his strung-out mom here either

omg omg omg. and this child is basically trapped here in this environment with these two people. this explains a SHITLOAD about Hawks’s personality though you guys. his ability to completely separate his real thoughts from the face he presents to the outside world. his pragmatic approach to analyzing and solving problems. his layers of emotional walls. turns out almost none of that came from the HPSC training -- that was all learned hands-on in his own personal do-or-die survival nightmare childhood!! oh, boy

and small wonder then that he latched on to Endeavor so strongly if he really is the one who brought down his dad and inadvertently saved him from this. also, just putting this out there, I know people are always talking about him and Dabi being foils, and I think it’s very interesting how Touya grew up in a household where he saw firsthand the dark side of hero society, and so ended up becoming a villain in order to bring it down. whereas young Keigo had almost the exact opposite experience, growing up experiencing the dark side of villain society and becoming a hero in order to bring about a world where no one else has to experience that. just. both of them are so determined not to become their fathers. some interesting parallels there

so Hawks was sort of an accident after his parents had “thanks for helping me not get caught after I killed that guy” sex, and now this little boy is growing up in squalor and being beaten by his father for things like Sitting In The Wrong Out-Of-The-Way Corner Trying Not To Be A Bother To Anybody. holy fuck. this is so rough to read through you guys

wait so does Jerk Dad have a an eyeball manipulation quirk?? because he doesn’t have the wings like his son, but wth are these things??

this presumably also means that Keigo has never been to school or anything either. he basically doesn’t exist. he thinks heroes are fictional characters, he doesn’t realize that they’re real people. these are people who could help him if he could escape and find them, but he doesn’t know, and they don’t know about him

OH MY GOD HE’S JUST SITTING IN HIS CORNER HUGGLING HIS ENDEAVOR PLUSH OH MY GOD

how could this child possibly have an anti-fandom when he’s done NOTHING WRONG HIS ENTIRE LIFE. huh. just explain that to me. lol I mean I’m not looking to pick a fight with anyone, but also, MAYBE I AM, idk?? this kid has gotten me all riled up lmao

anyways, Protect Keigo 2021, and thank you Horikoshi for these three very terrible pages. I am pleased to inform you that you’ve effectively gotten your point across and you may now commence saving this kid already

YAY

oh no, Keigo’s dumbass jerk dad tried to steal a car and the popo nabbed his ass and now his mom can’t just sit around neglecting her VERY YOUNG SON all day long, oh horrors. sorry lady my tiny violin is on backorder. just imagine that I’m playing a very sarcastic song on it for you

anyway so what are you gonna do now, abandon him? I can hardly imagine he’d be worse off, if anything it might be a near-instant improvement

LMAO HE’S ALL “WAIT WHAT ENDEAVOR’S A REAL FUCKING DUDE?!”

AND THEY SAY THAT A HERO CAN SAVE US~~~~ I’M NOT GONNA STAND HERE AND WAAAAAIT~~~~~ I’LL HOLD ONTO THE WINGS OF THE EAGLES, WATCH AS WE ALL FLY AWAAAAAAY~~~~

lol what a randomly pivotal moment in his young life. TIME TO GO MAKE THESE MEMES INTO DREAMS YOUNG ONE

anyway so his mom freaked out and grabbed him and they wound up at a train station with her TELLING HIM TO GO GET HER SOME MONEY, oh my god. SURE MOM LEMME JUST WALTZ RIGHT ON DOWN TO THE “JOBS FOR FIVE-YEAR-OLDS” STORE AND TELL THEM I NEED SOME CASH. ffff manifesting someone to come help him in 3... 2...

...

SIGH, JUST GO RESCUE THE PEOPLE FROM THE BUS, KEIGO. is this the outfit he was wearing when that happened?? it must be, right?? I can’t imagine them surviving more than a couple days out here unless this starts getting REALLY dark in a way I know that even Horikoshi won’t explore, so yeah. cut to the HPSC now please. never thought we’d be glad to see them. I mean sure, it may be an “out of the frying pan...” case, but good god

THANK YOU!!

and I guess it was his mom’s eyeball quirk then. anyway, whatever, see you again never, hopefully. lol oh man. thaaaat, was upsetting. need to center myself here for a sec. NAMASTE

OH YAY THE PRESENT

so we cut from Baby Hawks Angst straight to Present Day Hawks Angst, huh. not that this exhausted and traumatized lil lad isn’t still a baby to me too, I’ll have you know

BEST JEANIST, ALWAYS WITH THE JOKES

“WHEW, THOUGHT YOU DIED ON ME FOR A SEC THERE KID.” lmao. Caleb will no doubt ruin this by making his word choice all stiffly formal as usual, so I’m just going to treasure this “WOULD YOU LOOK AT THAT, I’M FRESH OUT OF FUCKS” version of Jeanist while I can

look at him, driving his Jeanistmobile

again, is it any wonder Kacchan was bitching about Endeavor’s dinky little car when he was used to riding around town in style like this. anyone else staring at this panel trying to figure out how this car is somehow secretly made of jeans

NOOOOO

FUCK YOU DABI LMAO. PUTTING THESE VOICE ACTORS OUT OF A JOB ONE BY ONE

anyway so Jeanist is all “GOOD THING IT’S THE FUTURE AND WE’RE SO GOOD AT MEDICAL SCIENCE” to handwave how Hawks went from one step shy of being a very handsome corpse, to sitting around texting Jeanist in a car all of two days later

OH MY GOD, AND FINALLY AN EXPLANATION FOR THIS

wait a minute. I’m so confused lmfao. soooo, was Hawks all “anyway, here’s Jeanist’s dead body, you can examine it but please don’t look at him too closely and also I’m gonna need that back unharmed.” how tf did you pull that off lmao

(ETA: also isn’t this technically confirmation of the ol’ Noumu Jeanist theory lol. I’m gonna go ahead and say it is.)

NO BUT PLEASE, CONTINUE. I unironically love reading Horikoshi’s overly convoluted “SEE IT’S NOT A PLOT HOLE” explanations

lkldslfk so wait, you’re telling me Hawks convinced Dabi and the League to put Jeanist’s body in storage, and basically just hoped they wouldn’t use him for any experiments until he could put his plan into action and have the HPSC’s people break in and find and revive him?? WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG. A FOOLPROOF PLAN IF I’VE EVER HEARD ONE

fff this man really asked Jeanist to risk it all to prop up his little cover story, and Jeanist was all “sure why not” omfg. anyways, thanks for recapping all of this out loud for no particular reason in your car conversation you two

LMAO NOW WHAT

TROUBLE YOU SAY? GOOD THING THE NEW NUMBER ONE HERO IS ON THE JOB THEN

okay no it’s just some random thugs strolling around terrorizing the downtown. fuck ‘em. so Jeanist is making short work of them now

uh oh

won’t come? not can’t, but won’t?? what???

WOW

well I guess that makes the local heroes A BUNCH OF SHITHEADS now doesn’t it?? jesus

and okay, serious question, if the cops are spread too thin and the heroes have literally walked out on the job, what exactly is stopping everyone from deciding to use their quirks to defend themselves, legal or not? nothing, as far as I can tell. society just got a hell of a lot more chaotic

anyway so this is an interesting panel here

man, Dabi really did pull it off, didn’t he. well anyway so here’s that better world all of the villains were wanting, you guys! isn’t it so great?? everyone’s terrified and angry and losing hope and society is inches away from collapsing into total anarchy! but hey, at least we exposed the number one hero as a hypocrite

anyway so what are these guys up to

fucking hell, he’s visiting his mom. I really wasn’t prepared to commit this much emotional energy towards reading this chapter today. BUT VERY WELL, WE PRESS ON

?? wait she’s not there?

is this supposed to explain how Dabi knew who Hawks really was? except that there’s the little matter of how he even know where to find his mother in the first place. feels like we’re still missing something there, but oh well

OH MY GOD

RHA I TAKE BACK EVERY WORD I EVER SPOKE AGAINST YOU. YOU ARE A SCANLATION GROUP FILLED WITH ANGELS LMAO. I WILL TAKE THIS PANEL IN MY HANDS, AND TREASURE IT AND KEEP IT SAFE

ANYWAY, BECAUSE MY TIRED BIRD SON’S LIFE SUCKED SO MUCH ALREADY, IT TURNS OUT HE’S ACTUALLY PLEASED WITH THIS NEW TURN OF EVENTS LOL HOW ABOUT THAT

GOOD FOR YOU BBY. YOU GO OUT THERE AND BE YOUR OWN PERSON

and in all seriousness, I love that identity he chooses -- chooses, because it actually is him making a choice now, possibly for the very first time in his life -- is “guy who helps people”, though. it really is nothing short of miraculous that he held on to that kind of optimism and desire to do good even with everything he’s been through. there were so many times he could have chosen to turn his back on the world in retaliation for the way it treated him. but he didn’t!! and here he is now, finally free, and what he wants to do with the rest of his life now is simply to help others. anyway please excuse me for a moment, I need to go find some sort of basket or a big vase to put all of my fresh new Hawks Feels in, pardonne-moi

YEAH BOIIIIII

“FIRST ORDER OF BUSINESS, MISTER JEANIST, WHERE DID YOU FIND YOUSELF THAT SWEETASS CAR.” hey, all I’m saying is if this boy’s wings really aren’t growing back, he’s gonna need to find himself a new means of transportation y’know?

oh my god you guys it’s a flashback to his mom buying him the Endeavor plushie when he was like two because, and I quote, ALL MIGHT WAS TOO EXPENSIVE

oh my god oh my god. my boy out here with a new lease on life finding hope in the darkest of times

wasn’t your throat supposed to be all fucked up lmao. Horikoshi was suddenly all “oh shit the VAs are gonna be pissed at me if I keep this up huh”

“that’s why Bubaigawara was such a great guy” motherfucker IT IS A TERRIBLE DAY FOR RAIN. FORECAST SAID NOTHING ABOUT THIS

:’)

yes ma’am. yes indeed. confirmed, I really will straight up fight some motherfuckers for this child. well not really, but YOU KEEP YOUR DISCOURSE OFF MY LAWN AND OUT OF MY BLOG YOU HEAR. THIS IS A HAWKS-FRIENDLY SPACE. WE RESPECT TAKAMI KEIGO IN THESE STREETS

and he’s saying (or is he thinking?? what a weirdly shaped speech bubble this is) that even if what Dabi said about the Todoroki household is true, “I’m not sure it’s the same now.” which happens to be ABSOLUTELY CORRECT. man this whole chapter really is all about saying “fuck the past” and moving forward and I am living for it

SON!!!!

“the first step is at my beginning” fklkjlk. what an iconic fucking line??

AND HIS WINGS!!!! THEY ACTUALLY ARE GROWING BACK AHHHHHHH. “PUT A RAINCHECK ON THAT CAR, JEANIST-SAN.” THE HAWKSMOBILE CAN WAIT, RIGHT NOW HE HAS TO GO INSERT HIMSELF BACK INTO THE TODODRAMA WHETHER THEY LIKE IT OR NOT

you guys. I came here ready for some BAKUDEKU HOSPITAL ANGST, and I got DIDDLY SHIT of that, and none of my other kids were even in this chapter, but!!! ASK ME IF I CARE LMAO omg. because bird son is hanging with his new best friend, and he’s out here Finding Himself and picking up the pieces and putting them back together stronger than ever because RESILIENCE HAS A NAME, AND IT’S SPELLED H-A-W-K-S, and you guys. profound, my love for this child. holy shit. hey google, play Silence by Marshmello

[shih-coulda-had-it]

71, afohiko?

holy fucking shit that is horny. are you the horny afo anon by any chance?

71. "I'm [going to] fuck you in front of the mirror, I want you to see how pretty you look when you're spreading your legs for me." | afohiko | wc: ~1.2k

a/n: definitely a canon divergence au. probably set in the first few years after Toshinori's gone to the U.S.? also! brief moment where AFO uses his Quirk w/o consent to glean some Stranger 101 info, and it feels invasive to Sorahiko's senses.

//

In Sorahiko’s defense, he doesn’t mean to distract All for One from watching the rise of All Might in that way. Honestly, Sorahiko shouldn’t even be on All for One’s radar. He doesn’t have an especially strong Quirk, and he is so firmly aligned with the users of One for All, it’s a miracle that he wasn’t assassinated after Shimura’s husband.

It’s a miracle that Sorahiko isn’t dead, even with All for One walking him through a mountain villa in Miyagi Prefecture. Their footsteps echo down empty hallways, the undecorated walls broken by shoji screens and large glass windows.

Sorahiko’s here to buy time. All for One caught him lingering at the Shimuras’ grave, caught him by the wrist in an unbreakable hold and tilted his head, red eyes boring into pale brown.

(“I don’t know you,” All for One says thoughtfully.

“That’s by design,” Sorahiko retorts, the reflexive urge to backtalk overpowering the instinct to play dumb.

“Oh?” A brief pause. Something cold yanks at Sorahiko’s balance, or maybe it’s more of a chill running through the soles of his feet and crawling up the connections to his lungs. He nearly doubles over with a wheeze, and All for One says, “A flight Quirk. Not terribly strong. It uses the air from your lungs, that’s no good… ah. Shimura’s friend.”

“Could we skip to my violent and brutal murder?”

“That would be a waste,” he muses. The cold and slimy sharp feeling disappears, leaving Sorahiko like some integral part of his body had just been clinically searched and discarded. He can’t stop the shudder as it wracks his frame.

“I’m not working for you, if that’s your next thought,” Sorahiko rasps.

“Would blackmail even work on you now?”

“You’d be hard-pressed to try.”

All for One laughs, quiet and eerily personable. It’s a far cry from that smug tone of voice used when he gloated over Nana’s last stand. Sorahiko can almost trick himself into thinking that this is some random stranger, especially as his next words are: “Let’s be civilized, then. Come with me, I’ll buy you a coffee…?”

He runs through several pseudonyms, discards them all for being flimsy, and hesitates.

“You can call me Shigaraki,” All for One invites. “A family name for a family name.”

Sorahiko swallows his trepidation. How truthful can All for One be? Isn’t his whole shtick ran on white lies and blatant manipulation? What connections does Toshinori have to Torino Sorahiko—oh, that’s right. None. Sorahiko had erased the school records (illegally) himself.

“It’s Torino, you bastard.”)

Sorahiko had been caught, and then he’d been courted for something far less serious than crime. Several sporadic coffee dates, and Shigaraki had been honest: he found Sorahiko a peculiar player in this long game, and an attractive one at that.

After Sorahiko processed the fact that he was being considered a potential conquest, he gave it some actual thought.

It’s just a fling. It’s a way to turn All for One’s eyes from the future to the past; Sorahiko represents a forgotten target that’s turned up too late for the culling, and his lack of ‘heroic’ action since Shimura’s sacrifice has piqued All for One’s interest.

“You did slip the mind, after that woman was gone,” All for One says, tugging Sorahiko into the bedroom. There’s a large king-size bed sitting in a bed frame that has slats in the headboard, and four bedposts. Opposite to it, resting against the wall adjacent to the door, is a gigantic mirror.

“Go back to that. It’s more in-character.”

Shigaraki ignores him. He’s studying Sorahiko with a gleam in his eyes. “At first, I thought she might have passed the Quirk to you. One for All users are sneaky and underhanded like that, always finding successors just before I can retrieve it. And it wouldn’t have been the first time a holder vanished from society.”

“But?”

“But,” he drags out, “the more we talked, Torino-kun, the more I realized. She didn’t choose you to hold One for All.”

His blood runs cold, but Shigaraki crowds into his space, hands rucking up Sorahiko’s shirt and pushing him back to the bed.

“She didn’t choose you at all,” says Shigaraki knowingly, and this, somehow, lets Sorahiko breathe again. Shigaraki isn’t omnipotent. He’s just grasping at straws, still trying to see how best to manipulate Sorahiko. (Not that Sorahiko has any kind of upper hand in this situation so long as Toshinori’s identity remains hanging in the balance, but—it’s nice to know that Shigaraki can miscalculate.)

“Her decisions were her own,” Sorahiko snaps, and he slips out of the shirt as Shigaraki starts unbuckling, unbelting, and divesting Sorahiko of his jeans and underwear. All these articles of clothing are flung off to the side.

Leaving Sorahiko lying naked on the bed, waiting.

Avarice lurks in the delighted twist of Shigaraki’s smile, and he says, “Are you in a rush, Torino-kun?”

“Why? You got plans to do anything but stand there?” His brashness is a front; as Shigaraki goes to his knees, Sorahiko pushes himself up halfway so he can see what the hell the villain is doing.

“I’m going to fuck you in front of the mirror,” purrs Shigaraki, and his hands go to Sorahiko’s thighs and urge them apart. The unbreakable hold flicks a switch somewhere in Sorahiko’s head, and he stares at his reflection: wild-eyed and flushed with arousal, naked longing clear in his face. “I want you to see how pretty you look when you’re spreading your legs for me.”

The moan that escapes his throat is guttural, and it breaks into a stutter as Shigaraki drags his mouth along Sorahiko’s cock. It’s wet, hot, messy—as that sinful mouth sinks down on the head, Sorahiko attempts to be selfish for once and thrust—

Shigaraki hums at the futile attempt to push against his unbreakable hold.

“Fuck,” says Sorahiko feelingly, and his fingers curl into the duvet. The teasing up and down motion, easing the slide every time— “Ah, ah, fuck, Shigaraki—!”

Time and time again, he catches a glimpse of himself in the stupid mirror. He’s getting closer to climax, and his legs keep jumping with all the aborted Jets because Sorahiko can’t remember how to fucking breathe. His hips jolt with every encouraging suck. Excess saliva leaves cooling trails down, down—

“Shigaraki!” yelps Sorahiko, as one hand leaves to busy itself smearing drool and precome past his tightened balls, brushing his perineum as it makes a path to his hole. And hey! It turns out that All for One only needed a single hand to hold Sorahiko down. “I—slow down—!”

Incredibly, Shigaraki obliges. He pulls off, tongue lapping at the underside of Sorahiko’s cock and playfully flicking the frenulum so there’s a thick, viscous, translucent white line connecting them still. Shigaraki lets it hang for a tantalizing second, then breaks it.

“Hghk—”

“You’re cute,” says Shigaraki, and uses his thumb to rub that line of saliva/precome against a still furled muscle. Sorahiko helplessly moves into the touch, legs trying to spread wider. A high-pitched keen escapes the stranglehold Sorahiko has on his vocal cords. “Look at yourself in the mirror, Torino-kun. All you need is a little push.”

He looks at the mirror again—wild-eyed, aroused, lips parted in shock and pleasure—and Sorahiko watches, feels, his face spasm around a choked moan as Shigaraki presses inexorably on, the first knuckle of his middle finger delving past any resistance—

Sorahiko comes crying Shigaraki’s name, body wrenching at the force of his first orgasm of the night.

[linkspooky]

Why do you like these morally broken characters so much?

Broken characters are more interesting because they have something to fix -  by that I mean there’s an obvious reason why we might get invested in their story, and follow them, because we want to see them get better. Characters with more obvious flaws are usually better written, it’s as simple as that. Let’s go over two basic ideas of storytelling. 

 Character Arc - we choose to follow a certain character because there is something they’re wrong about, or something wrong about them, they have some conflcit that needs to be resolved by the end of the story, usually centering around a character flaw. Flaws are important because they give the character an impetus, a reason to change. Flaws are what get people invested in characters, because they want to see the character do better by the end. 

Show don’t tell - there’s a lot of debate of what this storytelling rule means exactly, so I’m going to simplify it. A story is essentially trying to make an argument. A story is trying to persuade you of an idea. An argument is more persuasive when there is evidence behind it. For example you can tell the audience a character is empathic, but going great lengths to show that character practicing empathy will always be more effective storytelling. If I can point to something that happened in story and say this is the character doing the thing then that character has strong characterization. 

Shigaraki is a better written character than Deku. He has a character arc, and everything about Shigaraki is shown instead of just told to us. Whereas the story continually tells us that Deku is special, that Deku is a good person, that Deku is empathic but his actions never really support what the story tells us. I’m going to go more into this under the cut. 

1. Character Flaw

What is Deku’s character flaw? What is the thing he needs to work on in order to become a better hero. The problem is Deku never has a clear and consistently written character flaw. We as the audience are never told what exactly is holding him back, and what he needs to improve upon in order to become a hero. 

Deku’s only real obstacle has been the fact that OFA is an unstable power. The only thing that’s held him back in sitautions is power incontinence, the fact that he has unstable control of his power and therefore will injure himself. 

Deku loses the tournament because he can’t control OFA. Deku can’t rescue bakugo in time because he can’t control OFA. Deku fails to defeat Bakugo in his rival battle because he can’t control OFA. 

Deku’s failures come from not being able to control his power, and Deku’s successes, when he defeated Chisaki, when he defeated muscle, always come from him using his power. 

Except that’s boring. Why? Because it has absolutely nothing to do with Deku himself as a person. Nothing about Deku changes as a character throughout all of this. The only thing that changes is his workout regimen. 

The only real thing that has changed about Deku is the number. Oh, he’s gotten the NUMBER to 45%. People cannot be summarized by numbers. People are usually a little more complex than that. 

The problem with this is, Deku is given countless oppurtunites to reflect and change something about himself internally. There are conflicts that Deku constantly interacts with. We just never see Deku even think about these problems. There are conflcits in the story. There are problems in society. Deku just isn’t affected by them. Everyone time Deku is asked to think about these things he goes NO THOUGHTS HEAD EMPTY. And that’s just not very interesting. Characters are interesting because they struggle and change as they learn new things about the world, whereas Deku is just perpetually ignorant. 

Deku’s characterization comes across as weak because the story just, tells us a lot of things about him, without providing good in text evidence. We are told Deku is empathic. Except he really isn’t?

It starts with Shinso. Deku hears Shinso say something that is something he could sympathize with. Deku was also told he couldn’t become a hero because he was born quirkless. Deku should sympathize with Shinso in this situation and recognize there is something wrong with quirk society. 

Deku just doesn’t say anything and doesn’t respond. Even though he has an obvious chance to empathize, he doesn’t. We see another character actually empathize with Shinso later in the story.

Monoma’s speech acknowledges that it’s harder for them to become heroes, because they weren’t born with the HERO SOCIETY APPROVED TM quirks. Monoma’s speech is sympathetic because it acknowledges the difficulty  that Shinso has struggled with all along. Deku isn’t ever allowed to see anything wrong with HERO SOCIETY, so he never really sympathizes with its victims. He never demonstrates any empathy where he has to understand somebody who’s circumstances might be different than his, he never has to understand somebody outside of his own feelings. 

Even in story, we’re told that Shinso has some kind of special relationship with Midoriya but why? Midoriya never said anything to him. Midoriya never sympathized with him in any special way. The story even goes out of the way to show us that Midoriya just... didn’t say anything even though he understood what Shinso’s feelings were. 

This is what I mean by show don’t tell. Shinso and Midoriya’s relationship is something we are told about being special, but I can’t point to anything in text  to show that Midoriya did anything special to Shinso. In fact I can point to examples of Monoma being much more sympathetic and actually addressing what’s unfair about Shinso’s situation, and I can even point to characters like Denki being outright friendlier to him. We are told that Deku makes friends easily, and that he’s an empathic person, but we never see him reaching out that way in the story. 

And we’re not even told what Deku’s character flaw is. Why does Deku lose in each arc? Ummm....??? Why does Deku fail??? Ummm. The only reason is because he can’t control his quirk. 

2. A Flawed Character

I can just point to the text and show you these things about Shigaraki. The problem with Shigaraki in the first arc is he had no real plan, he had no real motive, and he didn’t care what happened to his allies. 

No Plan.

No Motive. 

No Allies. 

These three things are obviously things that are missing from Shigaraki at the start of the story, and his arc is a quest to gain these things. If you notice, every single character explicitly points out how much Shigaraki sucks, like all the time. 

Stain won’t work with Shigaraki because Shigaraki doesn’t have any ideals that can convince Shigaraki to work with him. The attempt for Shigaraki to recruit allies fails. This is a problem. Shigaraki fails twice, not only does he fail to get Stain on his side, but he also fails to make someone sympathize with his cause because he can’t reach out to others. 

This is something that Shigaraki learns by the camp raid arc. That he needs to gather allies with sympathetic ideals, and he needs to be about some kind of cause otherwise people won’t listen to him. 

Shigaraki’s first two fights are spectacular defeats that are very humbling for him, and the reason he fails has entirely to do with these flaws. It’s after this point he starts learning. The first thing is he learns to take advantage of Stain’s publicity to recruit people with similiar ideals to his cause. However, Shigaraki is still flawed going into the next arc. Camp Raid arc, Shigaraki uses the vanguard action squad essentially as disposable pawns. He manipulates them from a distance not taking any actiong himself. 

Shigaraki is not a good enough leader at this point. Not only do the flaws in his plan catch up with him (his inability to get Bakugo to sympathize with him, his helplessness when All Might shows up, his overreliance on AFO to bail him out) but he once again suffers a consequence, loses something, and needs to imrpove by the next arc. The Chisaki arc revolves around the camraderie that Shigaraki was lacking in, in the camp raid arc. 

It starts with a very specific and precise callout. You have no plan. You misuse the crimminals you have under your thumb, and let go of them too easily. Then, Shigaraki suffers another consequence. Because he is not a good enough leader at managing his people, Magne dies, and Shigaraki is put into a tight position. This all happens because of failings on Shigaraki’s part, the direct result of them, which challenges him to grow and improve. 

Shigaraki is a twisted cycle path. However, unlike Deku I can point to the first moment in story where he began to open up with other people and share his feelings. 

Why is Twice so loyal to Shigaraki? Because Shigaraki accepted him and his struggles in this movie. THIS IS EVIDENCE. If the author is making the argument that Shigaraki is an empathic character, he has moments where Shigaraki is SHOWN to be empathizing with others.

Shigaraki tells Twice he knows he’s asking him to do something difficult, and that he knows Twice is suffering, but that they’re in this together and he believes they can overcome it. Deku tells Shinso. Nothing. Literally nothing. Just doesn’t even open his mouth. In this case Shigaraki is written as the more empathic character, because Shigaraki actually empathizes with people. 

Deku’s writing is so weak because it’s wishy washy. He has no central beliefs his character is written around. He has no strong emotions. And he especially has no flaw. Deku is so wishy washy he’s not even allowed to hold a simple opinion like child abuse might be bad. He’s so malleable that he just tells Todoroki that Enji should be forgiven now, because the writer is TELLING YOU instead of showing you that Enji has improved in his character arc. 

Whereas, by the end of the Chisaki Arc we can see the difference in how Shigaraki has changed. He has opened up to the other people around him and now includes them as essential parts in his plan. He’s gone from “I’ll be the next one” to “We’ll be the next one.” He’s gone from hiding at the bar and plotting far away, to fighting on the front lines with his people and even using himself as a distraction so Dabi and Compress won’t be hurt. 

The story is constantly trying to tell me what is so special about Deku, but I don’t see it. Because the story doesn’t have any evidence to back up its argument. Wheras, the story doesn’t need to tell me about Shigaraki. The story never tells us Shigaraki is a special boy. It never tells us he’s a good person. It in fact, tells us how much Shigaraki sucks, and needs to get better. In that way, when Shigaraki makes progression it’s clearer because the story is always clear about what he’s missing, what his flaws are, and what he needs to work on. 

The Re-Destro arc once again, points out Shigaraki’s shortcomings. He has no real plan for what is coming next. He has no clear motive. He has no way of gathering resources. Because of that, the League has been failing. 

Shigaraki reevaluates his origin story. He wants to destroy the oppressive society, the same way he destroyed his father’s house. Once he does that he’s able to tear down the structures of Deika city, and defeat Re-Destro because he realizes what he wants to accomplish. 

Shigaraki listened to his allies that they had no resources, and then made his next priority to acquire those. Then, to skip ahead a little bit we have the latest fight Shigaraki is struggling in. Remember, Shigaraki was missing three things in the UA Raid. 1. No Plan, 2. No Motive, 3. No Allies

At the start of the manga, All Might said that Shigaraki couldn’t accomplish anything because he had hollow ideals. Endeavor repeats that accusation.

However, we know that’s not true now. We have seen Shigaraki gain all three things, an ideal to center himself around, allies, and a plan for what he wants to do and accomplish. 

This scene, parallels this scene. Except we know now why Shigaraki does the things that he does, that Shigaraki has motivations, that Shigaraki has learned from his experiences. 

Shigaraki’s speech has substance now, because we’ve seen the long journey for how he came to acquire these beliefs. Why does Deku want to be the number one hero? Why does Endeavor want to be the number one hero? Neither of those questions are things you can answer by pointing to events that happened in story. 

Shigaraki is the result of everything that has happened to him so far, and all of his struggles have taught him a lesson. When he repeats essentially what he said to All Might at the beginning of the arc, this time we know his words have meaning. Shigaraki believes society doesn’t save people, because he’s lived it. He believes that heroes are violent, and contribute to the system of violence, because he was violently abused all his life. Shigaraki believes that society rejects the victims who needs it’s help the most, because Shigaraki has been collecting people like that in the league all of whom dropped out of society  through no fault of their own. When Shigaraki makes his arguments, I can point to things that happened in the story that back up his arguments. There is evidence. I can’t do that for Deku, because everything about Deku we are told rather than shown even though he gets three times the amount of screentime. 

Deku may be a better person, but who cares about that? Deku and Shigaraki aren’t real people. I don’t have to interact with them. Deku is not my roommate who I have to talk to on a daily basis. This is a work of fiction that is WRITTEN. Shigaraki is better written. That’s why - Shigaraki is a better character. 

[rarepears]

Time travel!Bakugou X Endeavor

Inspired by the fact that I want to see more of Bakugou primped up and dressed to the nines going around looking like a trophy wife.

Time travel! Bakugou X Endeavor

So yeah, we have an adult version of Bakugou time traveling back to stop AFO and kill LOV before LOV begins.

Why marry Endeavor? First it was a great way to get close to the No. 2 hero so he could strategize, manipulate, and use the hero against AFO and future LOV without AFO (or the hero) knowing. Plus it would give half and half a better childhood... hopefully?

Some other details:

Bakugou crossdressing when he goes out so he doesn't look like an aged up version of kid Bakugou. Also doesn't want to draw attention to the kiddo version of him (esp. with quirk traffickers and all.)

Bakugou is too busy gathering intel and taking down parts of AFO's criminal empire to officially be a hero. Plus that would be way too easy to track Bakugou down as the cause if he's a hero considering how HPSC has so many AFO spies. So on paper, Bakugou also appears as a trophy wife. People assume that he was some small time model that managed to snag a rich hero for a husband. (Gold digger Bakugou lmao.)

Bakugou does work as a model cause it's a great way to meet heroes and get their contact info. And works as a great excuse to meet up with the heroes too. AFO has no reason get suspicious of some model meeting up with heroes after all.

If you think Endeavor is headstrong, Bakugou is even more so. Plus he's so competitive that he draws out the competitiveness of all of the kids. Aka the kids now find training fun. And of course, seeing how the world goes to shit in the future, he demands Endeavor to train Fuyumi and Natsuo as well.

How do the kids appear? Surrogacy. Yep, Rei served as the egg donor.

Mei did her Mei stuff to make sure all the Todoroki kids would pop up.

So why not have Rei be married to Endeavor first? Lots of reasons.

Rei's parents (since they are willing to sell their daughter into marriage basically) probably thought: oh, it's just a few eggs, Rei. You got thousands more. And we can still sell you off to another marriage so this is basically free money.

Don't think Rei would be willing to leave her kids either in a divorce since it's obvious that Endeavor would be keeping the kids.

Another issue would be that generally it's thought that step parents will mistreat the children (at least in China, dunno about Japan) and Bakugou would be coming off as a Mistress and Gold Digger since Endeavor is divorcing Rei to get married to Bakugou (lmao) which would give Rei even bigger reasons to not divorce for the safety of her kids if Bakugou becomes the step mom. (There's a lot of horror stories about step parents in Asian culture that the fear would be warranted, particularly with rich families. And Rei would worry about if/when Bakugou has "her" own kids with Endeavor that her kids would get severely neglected.)

Oh shit, we can have Bakugou adopt all the kids too. Hello Farmer!Shiggy. Adopt the cute Eri too. Maybe add a birdy named Hawks into the nest as well.

[thequietmanno1]

Thelreads, MHA 286, Replies Part 1

1) “Things are about to get spicy, on Chapter 286: The one withing us

Oh, is this about how AfO is here, inside what used to be Shigaraki?”- Within Shigaraki, Izuku – it’s a regular family reunion between the living, the dead, and the asshole who’s just here to rub it all in their faces.

2) “Even AfO is not taking this shit, he knows Bakugo is fine, coughing blood when stabbed on the lungs is something all healthy boys his age do.

Now, are you going to activate his quirk and blow him up to damage Midoriya even more? Please?”- If he could have, he would have, but fortunately, Tomura’s fighting from the inside at the same time AFO’s hijacking control of his charcoal corpse to strike out at the heroes, so that means AFO can’t be as effective in killing the heroes as he wants to be- at least, not until the control gets a little stronger….

(MHA ch 248)

3) “Ah, so Todoroki will get a dash skill as well? Fucking hell everyone now has a dash, the balancing team needs to get their shit together”- Frankly, I’m more impressed by Shoto’s balance of everybody on just one foot. Even if he’s carrying one half-dead adult and one nearly-dead Pomeranian, that is some impressive skill to be able to keep himself aflost without any stabilising thrust. Boy’s got mad balancing skills.

4) “Oh this is definitely not Shigaraki talking, that’s for sure. Time for an evil speech?”-  AFO doesn’t need to speak long to stab straight to the emotional heart of the matter…

5) “Nope, no evil speech, just trying to drive the knife deeper, but what he’s not counting on is that Midoriya is about to flip his fucking shit and he’ll make the potato face that All Might gave him look like a classical sculpture.”- Actually, that is what he’s counting on. AFO’s goal is to bring Izuku in close to finally get a hand on him to steal OFA with, and he figures that if Izuku’s anything like All Might, all it’ll take is hurting and more importantly, insulting his allies to make him flip his shit out and forget about the “bad touch” powers….and he was bang on the money.

6) “Oh this is definitely not a good sign.”- AFO pressed the Kachan button. Tomura really wishes he hadn’t done that… 7) “OH JESUS FUCK

MIDORIYA

WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU FUCKING RIPPED HIS TENTACLES WITH YOUR TEETH JESUS”- Midoria: Your throat and my teeth have an urgent appointment, bitch!

8) “CHRIST THIS VESSEL IS REALLY FALLING APART AND MIDORIYA IS ABOUT TO MAKE SURE NOT A SINGLE CELL REMAINS TO TELL THE TALE”- Tomura’s gone through a small army of assembled heroes, been burned, battered and pushed to the brink of death, and he’s never once panicked or thought he was in danger of losing. But this?. Seeing Izuku’s sheer wrath aimed square at him? That’s the first time he’s actually gone “Uh-oh” ever since he awakened, faced with a force more primal and destructive than even himself.

9) “NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE

WHAT THE FUCKING NOPE

YEAH I MEAN, WE KNEW AFO WAS IN THERE, BUT WHAT THE FUCK NO

IS HE EMERGING FROM SHIGARAKI’S BODY LIKE A COCOON?”- And as always, AFO’s greatest skill is his ability to incite the anger of his opponents, pushing their buttons precisely so to manipulate them to his tune without effort, allowing him to puppet Izuku into reach as easily as he’s puppeteering Tomura’s body

10) “OKAY ALRIGHT LET US MOVE AWAY FROM THAT IT SEEMS

AND NOW GIGANTOMACHIA JUST REALIZED THAT AFO IS THERE AS WELL, AND BY THE VISUAL METAPHOR HIS SMELL IS COMING FROM INSIDE SHIGARAKI

I’M STARTING TO FEAR LIKE SHIGARAKI WAS PRETTY MUCH JUST A COCOON FOR HIM TO GET A STRONGER BODY”- It’s half symbolic….for now. But given how their vestiges/souls appear to be merging within Tomura’s body, it may well be that AFO could indeed be “reborn” within the chrysalis that is Tomura. All the advantages of youth and experience rolled into one. 11) “Oh what the fuck I thought that was Hawks there on the right for a moment Also, unfortunately that’s no more than to calm them down, because there’s no way to stop that thing. Those heroes don’t stand a chance, there’s no stopping it”- And he’s not even the real superweapon the villains have, but the prototype! @thelreads

[palbabor-writes]

I have, uh, thoughts...

M’kay, I know this has likely been harped on until nothing is left but little bits and pieces, but after reading this latest chapter, I realized what’s been bothering me about this current arc. It’s the imbalance of violence and aggression that is heaped onto Shigaraki.

I don’t know if this is Horikoshi’s intention, and I’m likely looking wayyy too into this, but I’d argue you don’t have your characters say things for no reason. So, if you’ve got a minute, let’s see if I can sort through these nagging emotions of mine.

warnings: manga spoilers 220 - 285, basically, no touch if you don’t want to see the current arc 

Ok. Let’s roll the clock back and look at something Shigaraki told us at the USJ.

Now, while he has changed a lot from these early arcs, that core motivation he carries here is the same. He wants society to see just how fragile and how ridiculous their reliance on a hero state of justice really is. And, I would say that he’s absolutely right in this assessment.

The idea of heroes and villains needs a foundation of violence. They need that evil, almost as much as they need the concept of justice. It’s the age old right and wrong theory. It doesn’t leave space for grey, for nuance, for differences in ideology or upbringing.

However, heroes like to ignore what they can’t fix. Like anyone, they’re human and humans don’t often take pleasure in looking at the uncomfortable. I’d argue that’s why Gran Tourino doesn’t check back in on Kotaro. Yes, he made a vow, but those memories of that crying child being placed with a trusted friend, and not his mother, not Nana, have stuck with him. Nana wouldn’t be any wiser, or any less dead, if he checked in on her son. In chapter 281, we finally, FINALLY see Gran reflecting on that choice both he and Nana made

If he had checked in, Kotaro might have known a different memory of his mother, or he might have at least been able to see the threads of aggression and abuse that were riddling Tenko’s life. He might have seen AFO, manipulating and watching. Might, might, might. No matter how you shake it, everything changes when there’s some kind of monitoring, of looking out for your fellow man.

With that in mind, BNHA’s world state, which is based on hero work, would need a strong set of checks and balances to function properly, to catch those falling into the cracks & I’d argue we don’t see much push for that from the everyday populace.

Which is wild. Because society itself is practically Quirkless. Sure, 80% have a quirk, but in Japan you cannot use your quirk in public. If you do, you run the risk of arrest or classification as a villain.

That is why we see moments like these

Izuku is likely one of the only people in this massive crowd who really has no quirk. There is a horde of people standing there and no one is lifting a finger. It’s kinda a “bread and circuses,” mentality. They look fucking entertained and no one is freaking out except for Izuku, who knows what it feels like inside that goop thing. Instead, they’re all waiting, watching for the next hero, or for All Might to show up. But wait, aren’t there heroes there? It’s a city and this is a massive attack, it’s brought foot traffic to a standstill, surely a hero will get there and save this boy who is literally dying.

Oh. They’re there. But they’re waiting too

They are all “managing,” the situation and hoping Bakugo will survive long enough for someone with the right quirk to come along. Not polling the masses of people to see if any of them could possibly assist in the meantime, no, all these civilians get to watch this miscarriage of “justice.” Don’t worry. If the kids strong enough, he’ll make it.

So far, Shigaraki’s underlying motivation calling for a more rigorous, critical, take on heroes doesn’t feel too far fetched. Looking at chapter 1 alone, the current way things are isn’t right and it’s not fair.

Now, Shigaraki isn’t going about asking for it the “right,” way, but I bet he’d see a similar response even if he wasn’t hurting and maiming people as he goes.

The latter would let him be swept aside just as easily as the former. We see this happen with Stain. The news isn’t talking about the Nomu, or the countless people who were terrorized and hurt. No, they’re talking about the Hero Killer, because just like in our real society, that’s what get the clicks, the likes and the attention. Again, people don’t like to look at things that make them uncomfortable.

Yet, even with this horrifying fact, that Stain could go down in history books as a villain, as someone who gleefully killed others, people, both good and bad, sat up and took notice. Many even identified with his ideals: That heroes are corrupt and they are only in the field for the fame and money. Only All Might was the perfect specimen to Stain. Because this is an idea that people can get behind, to me, that means that others know things are stacked against the underbelly, the downtrodden. But they can’t be bothered to call for change.

On the flip side, Shigaraki, who has a better grasp on the true ills and neglect of hero society is often told he has no “real,” ideology, no real conviction, and this is a theme that’s repeated over and over and over.

Like most things in BNHA, it begins with All Might

Then it’s carried to Stain, Dr. Ujiko, an ally and long time supporter of AFO, to Re-Destro, and, most recently, to Endeavor. They all can’t see what Shigaraki is wanting, what he’s calling for.

It’s easier to name him a monster, a freak, scum, then to listen or to absorb any of what he’s saying.

But, as he says, he’s got convictions. He’s got his father’s, he’s got AFO’s ideas on the ethics and morals of hero society, AFO’s drive to crush OFA, once and for all, and his own deep seeded resentment and neglect toward a broken hero society. Honestly, he’s got more motivation than almost any other character.

And how is he treated? How does Horikoshi show us the “heroes” response? He gives up a heaping of violence. From chapter 270 to 285, Tomura Shigaraki is hit, punched, burned and beat around a whopping 36 times. And, for most of this fight, he is effectively quirkless.

How many hits does he get in? A grand total of 6.

And his first reaction is never to maim, in these moments, instead it’s to talk, to rattle, and to question

He only goes for Endeavor after he’s been burned, likely, without his regeneration abilities, to the point of death. These heroes aren’t aiming to subdue, they’re going in for the kill. And yes, he has just decayed an entire hospital and the surrounding area, the heroes are warranted in their anger and their frustration. After all, they’re the ones who dropped the ball here. This was a “planned” raid and they should have been the only ones in any real danger. They’re heroes, so I’d argue that it’s their job, their life’s mission to save, no matter the cost.

Besides, if they can spare AFO, not once, but twice, they should be trying to spare Shigaraki just as hard.

This has been a long and drawn out arc, with many, many ups and downs, but the one thing I don’t wanna see is the heroes getting a pass. This society has pitfalls and it’s got big ones. People are treated as lesser if they don’t have quirks, or if they have the wrong ones, the ones that don’t make them look normal. People are pressed to the side when they don’t conform and a hero, the current number one, has gotten away with mentally, and physically, scarring his family for over 20 years.

Right now, there are no checks. There is no: who watches the watcher in this world and I’d argue society has suffered for it.

Yet how are we shown how to treat those who don’t agree with us? With anger, untapped rage and physical violence, of course. And this is true of BOTH sides.

At the end of the day, as he said back at the USJ: violence only breeds more violence and while I don’t like predicting future chapters or arcs, I’m hoping that thread won’t be dropped. It’s one of the things that drew me into BNHA and I hope we get to see more, not less, of that grey morality.

[autumn-foxfire]

Bones cut Spinner in MVA and then Hori countered with making so much of future Spinner call back to that arc. They cut CRC mansion, he made Dabi have a couch monologue in the CRC mansion. They cut Hawks' recorder and Dabi being a tricky, sneaky player? Hope they bring it back when Toga demands answers from Hawks for killing Twice + she missed the last Touya reveal and this parallels it as a part 2, since she's here, hope she learns the truth about Dabi's manipulation since he did more. Strengthening her resolve to "twist the knife in Endeavor more" not because he's a kind big bro erasing her past trauma. In the same chapter AFO does the same thing as Dabi to Spinner, and both Spinner and Toga end up "resigned" to that, thinking "it's too late to back out now" right after Dabi complained to AFO that "if your so called friends turn on you, it'll be bad for us!" re: Aoyama, so he goes to secure his alliances. "You sure you're ready for what's coming?" "Even you can get caught up in emotion huh?" EVEN YOU, whomst else? Oh yeah, Hawks. "Looks like sentiment tripped you up!"

And the icing on the cake for people who think Dabi burning Toga's house had nothing to do with Endeavor, it didn't yeah. It had to do with making her use Twice's blood. Recently Dabi thought to himself that he wouldn't be able to bring Shouto to Endeavor as a present, so he decided to fly to Gunga himself before Kurogiri appeared. In comparing Dabi's Dance to the manga, I found out he uses the same word when talking about Hawks. "This is my present to you Endeavor!" when he talks about digging into Hawks' history, calling him out as a filthy spy. Endeavor is in no position to protect Hawks, and if Toga using Twice's blood kills him? Dabi knows Hawks cared about Twice, to have him be killed by Toga wearing his face, after he screws over Hawks for ruining Dabi's plans last time, all happening in front of Endeavor? Who treats him as an adopted son?" Well let's just say that in giving up Shouto, like AFO said, "you and I differ, because I have many side-plans, and friends to spare" Dabi got himself all buddy buddy with Toga, and got a "side plan" aka killing Hawks to be his "present to Endeavor" in place of the failure to kill Shouto. The first thing he said to Endeavor in the war was "come to see your pals get cremated?!" so I'm absolutely not surprised. That also offers good miserable Endeavor expressions for him to eat up.

I feel bad for Hawks. He made sure Toga didn't have Twice's blood lying around, not sure HOW. Did he just scoot over to her and ask "hey do you have any vials of the League's blood? oh why am I asking? haha no reason!" and ig the heroes might've cleaned up the body afterwards, or he had called back-up in case he had to kill Twice to clean up the body but the back-up never arrived. OR he was certain he could get Twice out of the mansion and restrained so Toga could never reach him for blood. Or he trusted that the heroes were strong enough to stop the League so they won't come find Twice during the battle. And they were, until Twice killed the guy capturing them. Regardless, the only one there was Dabi so his mind immediately jumped to him as the one responsible.

Dabi got the last laugh, he got to one-up Hawks as payback for Jeanist and "my dreams had a way better chance of coming true with Twice around!" and he was RIGHT. "I guess we didn't bully them hard enough." because the only reason people listened to Dabi, who btw the civilians said "this Dabi guy is annoying" was because of all the damage from the war, which became SO BAD because of the PLF escape and prison break. The prison break made things un-salvageable, which that army? Would've been what Twice's army of clones would've been doing. Dabi understands heroes and public opinion. He fucking meant it when he said Twice was useful despite villain stans saying he didn't really need Twice. And now he's got Twice back and it's all gone to hell. So I'm hoping Hori's promise to us about Ochako and Hawks being a shining light for readers comes in clutch. It'd be great if we can throw egg back in Dabi's face for all the manipulation. Oh, what's that? Like Aoyama it's bad if your allies switch sides? Well then I hope Toga enjoys her seat at Touya reveal part 2 with this 2nd father-son encounter since she missed it last time, with a bonus featuring of Hawks' own confessions.

All I'm getting from this is that Dabi is a bitch, specifically to Hawks.

I do hope that the recorder returns, even if I don't think it actually will as it seems to have been forgotten by Hori while the other parts that the anime didn't include weren't. I would think it would be interesting to see how Toga would react to Dabi not caring about Twice beyond his usefulness, unlike her who mourned and is still mourning his death (or well, she is... kinda? She seems more focused on her idea of love as well? It's confusing).

Now it just depends if Dabi can keep himself alive before that as he seems very intent on burning himself to his bones.

[awkwards]

Kinktober Day 2. Given Up | AFO

Day 2: Incest

Title: Given Up

Pairing: All For One x F!Reader

 Count: 1.6k

Summary: Your uncle has kidnapped you and killed his brother. You’ve been his captive for a long time now. It’s clear, no one is coming to your rescue so you might as well give in. At least then it won’t hurt as much.

Warnings: Noncon, Incest, Age Gap, kidnapping, manipulation, forced breeding.

Notes: So this is my first ever fanfic! I hope you enjoy, and if you have any recommendations/critiques/requests feel free to send them my way! :D

You can hear the door slam open as your Uncle returns from whatever his business was. You try really hard to stay calm and quiet, your heart rate picking up.

“Baby girl, where are you?” his voice rings out like a sing-song taunt.

You know that if you don’t leave your hiding spot, you’ll be in even more trouble.

With shaking limbs, you quietly crawl out of the closest, forcing your legs to move down the hall.

You hear him before you see him. His large form rounds the corner and stops when he sees you standing there, shaking.

“There you are. What  a good girl, not hiding from me.” Your lip wobbles as he takes a deep breath. It doesn’t matter that he’s blind, he still takes you in. He opens his arms up wide, beckoning you towards him.  “Come give me a hug. I missed you.”

Your whole body trembles as you slide down the hallway closer to him. You try to resist flinching as you press yourself against his front.

He only chuckles sinisterly as he wraps his arms around you. “Come on, doll. Tell me how much you missed me.”

You feel your eyes mist up, shaking in his arms. It takes everything in you to conjure up the slightest hint of your voice, your throat still raw from your last punishment. “I missed you very much Daddy.”

He hums, his arms pulling you hard into his chest. Whatever fake, sugary tone was in his voice before is gone now. “Hm, I don’t think I believe you. Why don’t you try that again.”  It wasn’t a question. It was an order.

Your eyes widen as the fear creeps through you stronger. Your body trembles harder. You don’t want to be punished again.

“I missed you very much. Please, I don’t want to be punished. I promise I missed you.” You feel a tear slip past your eyelashes.

You feel his chest shake with a silent chuckle. “Well, your words aren’t convincing. Perhaps you can show me in another way.”

Before you can respond, you’re being pushed down the hall you came from, towards the bedroom.

When he steps through the door, he releases you from his hold.

“Now. Show daddy what belongs to him. Strip, baby.”

You back away slightly to give yourself room. You know better. If you don’t do what he wants, he’ll force you. He’ll punish you. You can’t go through that again.

Slowly, you lift the tiny night dress off your body. You stand bare in front of this monster. The man who killed your father and kidnapped you.

A bemused chuckle rumbles through him. “Come here child.”

You do, forcing your body to relax. His hands immediately slide up your arms and to your shoulders. One hand moves up to cup your face, and your eyelashes flutter closed.  “You’re being so good for me today. So pliant.”

“You’re so much like him,” he muses softly. His hand on your shoulder begins to squeeze harder with each word.  “Weak. Without a purpose. If it weren’t for me, you’d be dead.”

You groan in pain as he finally lets go of your shoulder. Your head is tilted to look up at where his eyes should be.  “Don’t worry. Unlike my dear brother, you belong completely and totally to me. You’re mine.”

He dips his head down until he’s pressed his nose against your pulse point. Pain blooms against your neck as his teeth dig into your flesh. You cry out in pain.

“See, I knew you could raise your voice.” All For One stands up to his full height again. “Undress me.”

He’s never asked you to do that before. You pry your eyes open to look at him. He’s smirking wide, knowing he has you pinned. Slowly, you begin to unbutton his shirt. You run your hands over his arms as you pull his suit jacket and white shirt off, being gentle so as to not mess up. Folding the pieces of clothing, you set them on the chair in the corner of the room.

With his chest bare, your panic returns fully. You don’t want this! He knows you don’t want this. So why are you going through with it so willingly.

“Pet, I’m beginning to get impatient.” The threat in his voice makes you shiver.

You drop to your knees in front of him. Your hands shake as you fight with his belt and pant buttons.

You try to keep a steady pace of pulling his pants down, jumping as his cock is freed. He steps out of his pants as you make it to his ankles. He already removed his socks and shoes.

“Mmm, See this is where you belong. Kneeling before me. Ready to serve like the good girl you are.” His hand finds your hair, petting it softly. “Why don’t you show daddy how much you appreciate him? Show him how much you missed him.”

Oh god. You’ve never… he’s never made you do this before. A small whimper escapes you before you can silence it.

He tilts his head, as if in question. His grip tightens in your hair. “My patience is running very thin, pet. I would rather not have to punish you, but if you keep me waiting, I will.”

“Sorry, Daddy.” You whimper.

The smile he gives you only makes your skin shiver.

Tentatively you crawl closer on your knees, and lean up to kiss the head of his cock. Precum sticks to your lips, and you desperately try to not grimace. Instead, you close your eyes and give a tiny lick along the slit.

A satisfied hum has All for One loosening his grip on your hair. You take that as the sign to go further before he gets mad. So, you force yourself to swirl your tongue along his head, tasting his saltiness. Pinching your eyes shut, you breathe in deeply and begin to suck and bob along his shaft.

He groans in content, grabbing your head with both of his hands and forcing your mouth to the base of his cock, your nose brushing the hairs at his pubic bone. You try not to gag as he gives short, hard thrusts to the very back of your throat. Your eyes water from the pain of the stretch.

Before you can react, his seed shoots straight down your throat. You swallow quickly, afraid of choking as it slides down the back of your throat. He slides you off his cock and lets go of your head.

You sag on your knees, catching your breath. Hopefully it’s done now.

“Get on the bed, pet.” He growls, smirking.

You stand up on shaky knees and place yourself how he likes you.

“I thought I liked breaking you over and over, yet, there’s something so satisfying about you bending to my will so easily. I love that you accept your fate, baby girl.” He’s already hard again as he climbs over you.

Two fingers slip past your folds, smearing around you juices, and finding that spongy spot inside you that has your toes curling. You whimper out as he pulls his hand away. “So wet already.” He licks his fingers clean.

Before you can properly prepare yourself, he’s wedged himself between your legs. You force yourself to just relax and let this pass. If you don’t, he’ll be rough. He’ll hurt you again.

“What a good girl. You learn so quickly.” He rubs the head of his cock along your sopping slit. Then, in one quick movement, he sheathes himself fully inside of you. Tears run down your face at the painful stretch of his cock bumping against your cervix. You mewl in pain, writhing against the bed.

He doesn’t wait for you to adjust before beginning a slow but hard pace. His hands find purchase at your hips as he rocks into you deliberately, hitting the spots inside your tight muscles that have stars flashing in your eyes.  His pace gets harder as he almost pulls out all the way before slamming back in with one sharp thrust of his hips after another.

Your pussy flutters around his cock as little whines and noises tumble from your lips. The coil inside is quickly twisting tighter and tighter, the pleasure making you breathless.

“Good girl. Such a good girl for daddy.” His hands trail over your body. One pinches your nipple hard, twisting it. His other glides down to your clit, his fingers tapping the bead vigorously. “Cum for me, baby girl.”

You don’t want to. This isn’t what you want.

His fingers grind hard on your clit, and it sends you over the edge. Your pussy flutters as a silent scream rips from your throat. He slams his hips against yours before stilling, pushing your legs wide as he finishes alongside you.

You can’t move, your body frozen as the warmth fills you from deep inside. He holds you still until he empties himself completely.

He gives a soft chuckle, running his fingers under your eyes to brush away the tears. You groan as his hips grind down into you.

“Please, no. I’m so sensitive.” you cry out, shuddering and squirming. You’re pussy flutters from the overstimulation.

His grin only turns more sinister. “Baby, you’re proving to me how much you missed me, remember? You didn’t think we were done yet, did you?”

Your eyes widen as you feel him start to gently thrust into you again.

“Oh no, we’re just beginning.”

[makeste]

hello! I’ve seen some debate as to whether the 2nd meant allies in general would bolster izuku and although I do think that’s true (ofc any sort of support system that he lets himself rely on would bolster him) I feel like if that was what was meant it would’ve been made clearer? maybe instead of just katsuki showing up, the final panel would’ve had several students burst onto the scene. what are your thoughts?

agreed. and incidentally this is another big reason why it's not Toga. if it was her then Horikoshi wouldn't have devoted any time to OFA II's little hype speech. it just makes it kind of pointless, unless this whole time we've been sleeping on Toga's hidden ability to bolster Deku lmao.

but anyways, yeah. and I mean, Two's commentary here is really just acknowledgement of something we've long since known already. Kacchan is the one who will ultimately be able to reach Deku. we don't actually need a piece of dialogue to tell us this, because the manga has been showing it to us since day one. his resume is fucking stacked. I mean, let's go through it.

he is mean.

I love this you guys. I honest to god love it. because the thing is, if you ask anyone what Kacchan's absolute worst quality is, this would be the obvious answer, right? "he's an asshole" lmao.

but that's exactly what we need right now!! someone who's not afraid to tell it like it is, and won't try to sugarcoat things. someone who's not afraid to argue back and risk hurting someone's feelings. because right now Deku is walking all over anyone who can't do that. All Might tries to feed him lunch and he's like "nah I'm good, anyways bye." Endeavor tries to tell him to rest and he's all "I'm fine" and fucking hangs up the phone. nuh uh. enough of that. what we need is someone who will call him out on his shit. "hah!? don't tell me you're fine when it's obvious to anyone you can barely stand on your own two feet, dumbass."

he is stubborn.

kind of ties into the other thing, but yeah. right now we need a bullheaded asshole who won't take no for an answer if he thinks he's right. good luck trying to sweet talk your way out of this one, Deku.

he understands the situation.

this one is important, because in fairness, simply standing in front of Deku and saying "you shall not pass" isn't gonna be enough to actually accomplish anything here. ultimately he's going to have to be able to reason with Deku too. and so in that respect, it certainly doesn't hurt that Kacchan is someone who understands the OFA situation as well as anyone, and has always had clear judgment about it. he understands the threat of AFO ("they all died young"), and he understands the burden of All Might's legacy. he knows what Deku is dealing with, and that's going to give him an edge when it comes to finding that elusive-yet-critical talk no jutsu knockout blow.

he's been where Deku is now.

Kacchan knows a thing or two about burdens. granted, they've more often than not been ones that he's put on himself, but that didn't make them any less heavy. Deku right now is struggling not just with his feelings of responsibility, but also with all of the misplaced guilt that's feeding into it. AFO is targeting him. if innocent people get caught in the crossfire then that's on him. every minute that AFO stays out there getting stronger and causing more chaos is all on him, because he hasn't defeated him yet. and so on and so forth.

and Katsuki knows what that's like. because he blamed himself for what happened to All Might. that feeling of "if I'd only been stronger" is one that he's intimately acquainted with. that feeling of blaming yourself, of not being able to look someone you care about in the eye because you think it's your fault they got hurt. this is something he knows. this is a road he's already been down. and so if Deku tries to pull any "you don't understand" nonsense, Kacchan is uniquely situated to immediately shoot that shit right down.

he's immune to low blows.

lol I keep thinking of all the different counterarguments that Deku could make, and all the different ways in which Kacchan is perfectly equipped to handle them. anyway, so this particular thing is a very recent development, but very fortunately timed. so as we all know, Kacchan was a first class dick to Deku during their childhood. something which Deku, with his abnormally kind and forgiving nature, has never once confronted Kacchan about, even though he would have absolutely had the right. but anyway, so here's the thing though -- right now I fully believe that Deku can and will do or say just about anything in order to get Kacchan and the others to leave. and that includes hurting them in order to save them. so it would not surprise me at all if Deku goes as far as to throw Katsuki's old, cruel, selfish behavior back in his face as part of a last-ditch effort to get him to back down. desperate times and all that.

and maybe there was a time when that actually would have worked. but here's the other thing -- we know something Deku doesn't. namely, that Kacchan has recently leveled up emotionally and has finally unlocked his atonement quest. he finally understands that it's not all about him. which means that it doesn't matter even if Deku pulls out the big guns. he may hurt his feelings, but he's not going to scare him off, because Kacchan's focus right now is on atonement, not forgiveness. he's not doing this for a pat on the head. he's doing it because it's the right thing to do. and no amount of insults will be able to sway him from that.

he learned from the best.

I said this in another post a couple of weeks back, but yeah. Angsty Nomad Deku has nothing on early Kacchan in terms of pushing people away. early Kacchan was the motherfucking king of pushing peeps away. if you so much as LOOKED at this kid in such a way that SUGGESTED you might even be THINKING about possibly trying to save him, he would straight up throw a ten-year hissy fit lmao. Deku's "All Might, you don't have to tag along anymore"s ain't got SHIT on all of Kacchan's "STAY BACK DEKU"s and "I'D RATHER LOSE!!!"s and "OMFG HOW DARE YOU BE THE ONLY PERSON TO TRY TO SAVE ME FROM THIS RAMPAGING SLUDGE MAN WHO'S ABOUT TO SUFFOCATE ME TO DEATH"s. Kacchan is the undisputed goat here lol.

but anyway, so what this means is that he has accumulated a whole HOST of iconic lines and fateful parallels which he can throw back in Deku's face at a moment's notice. and the best part is that he learned it all from THIS EXACT MOTHERFUCKER, RIGHT HERE. what is Deku even gonna do!! argue against his own past actions?? "well, uh, I guess now that you mention it I should have just sat back and watched you die all those times" OH REALLY?? YOU DON'T SAY. THAT SOUNDS SO CONVINCING.

and so guess what, Deku -- if Kacchan was worth saving, then you're worth saving too. it's an ironclad argument. congratulations son you played yourself.

he always wins.

okay so real talk, we all know that what's really driving Deku right now is his fear of losing people. he's helpless against that. he saw Kacchan get stabbed right before his eyes and it fucked him up. he saw all these other people getting hurt and killed because he couldn't save them, and he straight up could not deal with those emotions at all. he's scared. he's more afraid of that happening again than of anything else. and AFO knows that, and that's why he's resorted to his current tactics, which have isolated Deku even further and caused him to push even All Might away.

what Deku is missing right now, and what he needs to have restored, is trust. trust is the antidote to fear. and when you're as scared as Deku is, it takes an extraordinary amount of assurance in order to ease those fears. basically you don't want to place your faith in anything less than an absolutely sure thing.

but Kacchan is exactly that. this is the exact type of situation that Kacchan's "aiming for the top" overkill confidence was made for. he's the one who never loses!! the hero who's going to surpass all other heroes!! Deku inherited All Might's compassion, but Kacchan inherited his determination. Kacchan is someone who brings reassurance. his confidence is unwavering. and in the end, I think it will be strong enough to pull even Deku back out from the darkness.

he is strong.

Kacchan is Deku's rival in every sense of the word, and I fully believe he's capable of matching him step for step even now. and so Deku can try to push him away, but Kacchan is capable of withstanding that force and staying his ground. Deku can try to run, but Kacchan still has him matched for speed. and as a last resort, Deku can even try to defeat him -- but Kacchan won't ever concede to defeat.

and all of this ties back into what I was saying about trust. because Kacchan is strong. strong enough not to die. strong enough to live. strong enough to not make others worry about him. and that's what Deku so desperately needs right now in order to finally let go of his fears. Deku needs someone who can get him to trust in others again, and to do that, he has to be able to trust in their strength.

and last but not least...

he has a secret weapon up his sleeve.

several, as a matter of fact. his hero name reveal. his apology, if he chooses to give it now (though I could see him waiting for a more sincere moment, rather than whipping it out now when it could be misconstrued as a manipulation tactic). but perhaps most importantly...

never underestimate the power of an iconic role reversal. because that's what I'm getting at here, if it wasn't clear lol. this probably would have worked better if I had a picture of him actually reaching out to Deku. but I mean, that's kind of the point lol. I don't have one because he hasn't done it yet. BUT CAN YOU IMAGINE. good luck withstanding that, Deku.

so yeah. look at all that. he really is a one-man Deku-saving army. which is not to say that the other kids won't have a part to play as well, or that it's not important for them to be there, because it is. but as far as the lead role goes, it's Kacchan. like that astronaut meme guy says. always has been.

oh and as a bonus he was smart enough to finally leave the mask at home today lol. LET DEKU SEE THE SINCERITY IN YOUR EYES. YESSSSSSS.