HERE COMES NORT, YAPPING ABOUT FANDOMS THAT I’M NOT EVEN IN!
(And i’ll be typing the rest here because there are too many slides so read bellow)
⚠️ WARNING ⚠️
My LONG ASS rant on how MHA (among other things) fails to present its ab*se victims in a good way,
Starring the todoroki family
So, i know literally no one cares but i feel like it needed to be said: but MHA has a BIG issue with victims of abuse being treated kinda shittily, to making whole arcs about their abusers.
This isn’t a HUGE thing, as the lack of sympathy for Hawk’s abusers was definitely there, but they still were portrayed in a semi-sympathetic light. This is not the main focus however.
I’m sure many could go on and on about Bakugou and Midoriya’s relationship, but thats not what i’m focusing on.
I’m focusing on the most OVERLOOKED and ABHORRENTLY handled dynamic of the Todoroki family
I will be going over each of the characters and why they suck in some way, but as a whole i have to talk about this: Each one of the characters of the family are all victims of abuse in some way, and represent the different ways that trauma affects the victim, i understand that.
All in all, they do a good job of portraying the different ways in which the people handle abuse,
Endeavor being one who never dealt with his past egotistical superiority complex and threw his baggage onto his family/children to live vicariously
Rei being the one who is emotionally/physically damaged to the point of a mental break
Touya being the ex-golden child, and the one who continued the cycle of violence (and misogyny but thats another topic for another paper)
Fuyumi being the one who holds onto an idealized version of a family that possibly only existed in her dreams, being codependent and longing/working to get those “happy times” back with her family, clinging onto smth that was possibly never there
Natsuo being the one who is (justifiably) angry at his abusers, cuts his family off and goes to pursue his own life/dreams
and finally shoto
the one who realizes his role as the golden child is only for his parents to live vicariously, breaks his cycle and is trying to figure out who he is.
These are all great representations of how people cope/handle trauma, and i believe that was on purpose, considering that it also speaks on abuse of children on baselines of being in a famous family.
However, certain aspects are clearly not handled properly; allow me to explain.
Shoto, the youngest of the family, is often seen as the architect of the abuse, as the family was actually quite “fine-living” (i’ll come back to this) before shoto was born.
There were obviously cracks in their family from the beginning, Touya being the golden child despite not being able to physically handle his own power without hurting himself (an allegory i’ll discuss), the fact that Enji (endeavor) basically bought his way into marrying Rei, and of course enji’s complex of being less than All-might.
However, many characters seem to blame the birth of Shoto for breaking the camel’s back, and starting the domestic violence that had already threatened to spill through.
It’s shown through the anime that shoto has a kind heart and never liked enji, due to the fact that he would harm him, his siblings, and his mother,
but for being the tritagonist of this show, we never get to see how he really feels. In all of this, perhaps we could see him feeling guilt for being the reason his family is broken, the possible resentment yet dependency he has for his father, the thoughts on how he feels conflicted yet guilty about his mother and continues to blame himself.
Its interesting how he never stops blaming his father, but regardless we only get his apathetic views on his father and no one else. Its saddening to see the sideline of the victim of abuse while his abuser gets a whole arc. But i’m not there yet.
Moving on we have Natsuo and Fuyumi. I grouped them together because they both have opposite ways of dealing with their trauma, as Aforementioned: Natsuo tries to cut all ties while Fuyumi tries to be a “normal” family with her remaining members.
Both of them have valid ways to why they act this way, and its tragic, however, the way they deal with their youngest sibling, shoto, is disheartening to say the least.
Both of them understand how Shoto was physically abused since he was 5, and neglect to form any sort of connection with him despite his better efforts in natsuo’s case, using him as leverage against his father and nothing more, while in fuyumi’s case, basically presents him in her fantastical version of him in their fantastical “perfect” family life, causing him to have multiple meetings with his abuser and forcing him to relive the trauma so she can have peace of mind.
In hindsight, this is all interesting heavy topics to explore in a character, and i was honestly curious to see how it would be handled
however it all faltered as soon as I saw the hospital scene.
SPOILERS:
After Dabi’s Dance, the todoroki family comes to visit Shoto and Endeavor in the hospital, both of whom are heavily bandaged and bed-ridden.
Despite this all, Rei, Fuyumi, and Natsuo force todoroki, who is burnt and recovering his voice, to get up and walk over to his father’s ward to speak to him.
Shoto, despite being unable to form full sentences, makes it FULLY CLEAR he does not want to be there, by closing the door to his ward, and attempting to leave. Despite his clear efforts, his family makes him go in to talk to him.
this 16 year old boy being forced out of RECOVERING, fully bandaged and barely able to talk, forced to visit his abuser to hear him cry about not being able to fight his own son, depsite also being his son and physically harmed by him since childhood.
In my opinion that wasn’t a good move on any of the family’s part.
Rei is a difficult subject to discuss. She is clearly a victim and has been for. while. She is mentally distant after being harmed for so long and spent time in a psyche-ward to handle herself.
Saying that she was a bad mother would be too far in my opinion, as she did her best to provide a nice life for her kids as well as defend them from her husband.
Not much is said about her, but from what we can tell she loved her kids very much, until the abuse started.
I feel the blame for shoto began with her, not being able to face her own son after the “death” of her first and the fact that his face reminded her of the abuse she’s faced from endeavor.
Her character is honestly an interesting one, but she is not safe from my scrutiny of the hospital scene. She was very brave for facing her abuser like this, however, she did not have to drag her bedridden youngest into the fray.
She is the DIRECT reason shoto has a scar on her face, (indirectly endeavor’s fault)
But i will never blame her for the abuse she faced for her children, by her husband and to an extent, her own son touya, which leads me into my next point
SPOILERS
Touya, aka Dabi, is the “Late” eldest brother who was originally Endeavor’s ticket into living vicariously to defeat all-might and be the number 1 hero.
I could go into the psychology of his character but he is ultimately very interesting. In all honesty the way he is presented as being the consequences of endeavor’s actions is palpable and honestly quite raw. At a young age, he was handling the pressure of being his father’s perfect creation, and the fame and fortune that followed as he sought his father’s approval. Soon, his quirk began to burn him every time he used it, a fact that endeavor ignored to pursue his goal. Touya’s power became self-harm at some point, an allegory for his disregard for his own life and well-being for his father’s dream which ultimately (literally) exploded on itself.
Touya’s story is interesting, from his abuse causing him to act like his father craving his approval, which lead him to act put against his mother and shoto, while laying his baggage onto his younger siblings, to losing his mind and realizing that he wanted his father dead and continuing the cycle of abuse further.
This is all a deep and interesting way to look at abuse and how the abused may become an abuser, HOWEVER.
MY critique here, is how sidelined his whole arc is, as his story is more portrayed of Endeavor’s past coming to haunt him, all for the watcher to sympathize with endeavor rather than understand how the abuse endeavor put onto touya made dabi. This whole arc was framed to be sympathetic towards endeavor, and to fear Dabi. Don’t even get me started on how Shoto’s feelings meant nothing in this arc, as well as being immediately cut off by a surprise cameo of a character that possibly discredited Dabi’s expose video on his abuser.
Finally, we get to talk about the elephant in the room: Enji Todoroki, endeavor himself.
What is there not to say about this man.
I feel I should start eith the obvious:
The forgiveness/sympathy arc for endeavor was quite possibly the worst thing to ever happen in the anime, and this is not subjective.
The whole arc is based around how Endeavor is a victim of his own mind and is trying his hardest to make up for being a terrible person.
Personally, i love to see character arcs of villains becoming a better person, but thats the very thing: Endeavor is trying to ask for forgiveness from his family, who he abused for 15 YEARS. This is no exaggeration as Shoto is now 16, and his cracks started forming as soon as he was born.
Endeavor had illegally married a woman that he basically bought his way into,
was illegally “breeding” (eugh) for quirk benefits,
Treated one of his son’s like a vicarious version of himself
Physically abused his son (age 5+) his wife, and verbally abused the rest of his children
isolated his son
treated his son like a weapon
and finally felt too prideful for any sort of meaningful apology.
This all adds up to a character who only felt sorry for his actions after the consequences started hitting him in the face, as he only felt remorseful when Shoto refused to be associated with him.
Now, some of you may be thinking: “A lot of characters are forgiven for more, why would he be the exception? It’s fictional why do you care?”
There are several reasons to why I care but i’ll speak in terms of framing for now. This show is highly influential to not only kids (as it is a KIDS SHOW) but to adults as well. May i direct your attention to the man who saved a woman from a murderous ex-boyfriend by blocking his machete hits all because My Hero Academia inspired him to take action and be a hero?
Or how about a murder that took place because the accused was inspired by an invader zim episode (the dark harvest)
Whether you like it or not, fiction HAS an affect on reality. Yes, we can determine what is real and what is fake, but you cannot deny that a lot of what media we consume helps us be who we are.
If the show promotes more sympathy towards an abuser than their victims, then people may find themselves sympathizing real world abusers over the voices of victims.
I wont speak on delicate subjects but I can already see affects of this happening, as people rally to defend famous people accused of being abusers rather than listen and provide support to the alleged victims.
In conclusion, These topics are definitely not easy to write, and I, for one, am NO expert and my word should not be used as gospel truth or a guideline on how to write these characters.
This is all simply my opinion on how the bias towards abusers in the show leads for the message to be skewed and marred in action.
I understand that no one is perfect, but if we only reward and sympathize with those who only seek redemption after they face scrutiny, then we lose the meaning of what makes someone worthy of forgiveness.
These topics are deep and interesting, but the way they are handled in this show is simply bad writing.
Thank you for coming to my ted talk and again: no shade towards the writers. Just critiques!
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Wasn't gonna tag this originally, but if you follow me for my current chaiflower atsv fic, although it has nothing to do with it, being on the tag for atsv on AO3 has really made some things apparent to me.
Specifically how the fandom, and the fic writers on ao3 writes for the characters and their subject matter.
Now, dark fic and taboo subjects in fanfic isn't a new thing and it's never going to go away. Which is a good thing, bc the second we demonize and try to censor that kind of stuff, is the second we loose a lot of the kinds of stories we can tell.
Writing is a medium for humans to experience something with no stakes. Be it dangerous or just a good time, it helps us explore our thoughts, and feelings of scenarios we might never have to face but prepare us, or have already had to deal with and help us deal with those scenarios.
I'm also not gonna police anyone and tell em what you can and can't write fanfic about. Do whatever the hell you want, and make sure to tag your shit appropriately, it's a common courtesy and it's a bad thing to not do because even if you don't face any repercussions for it; do you really want to be the one people avoid because of a bad rep?
Moving on, let me just preference; I am an aroace person. I am also Mexican/Salvi. I think Miguel is cool complex antagonist and I'll admit he does have a sculpted ass lol. He's cool and conventionally attractive, with a neat personality people can mess around with. I get why there's a thirst for him.
But I think we should acknowledge how... He's treated by the fandom. Especially during that first week of spiderverse coming out. I don't mind smut, I just ignore it and move on with my day if smth doesn't appeal to me. But when you don't put fics under readmores, or put in tags so it's seen by everyone ur gonna have to deal with people skimming or having a base understanding of what kind of smut n stuff you're writing.
I'm not kinkshaming or anything, you do you, but it quite frankly has made me (and maybe a few others I've seen but don't quote me on that I only speak for myself.) Uncomfortable with this 'Latine Lover' trope people have stapled onto Miguel. I can imagine it's worse for his comic fans, but sometimes people really do be out here writing wish fulfillment smut fics where they're plastering their, kinda racist stereotypes and fantasies onto this Mexican character. If that was it tho? I wouldn't be making this. Because I know that eventually it would die down as time passes and we'd all move on.
Then came the flowerfang/MilesxMiguel (or any other of the spider teens) fics.
Look, again. Dark fic is a part of fandom whether you like it or not, it's up to your personal decision whether or not to engage with it. I don't. But I do think some people should be self reflecting and analyzing why these are being written at the high rate that they are and if you enjoy them or get something out of it is fine, but just be aware and critical of what you're reading and not let it cloud judgement or the actual characters' movie portrayals. It's so easy to let fannon dictate how you view characters, which are often dumbed down and stripped of their original identities for instant gratification.
When these characterizations become wildly accepted, it's often not an issue because people don't have to read it or engage with it in their own little corners. However it ends up highlighting the racism prevent in these spaces. Because to me, it feels like a lot of this is coming from white or young fic writers (although that maybe might not be the case, but I'm trusting my gut here. No shade to young writes either lol I'm close in age w the spider kids) Doing what they want with these amazing black and brown characters and low-key ruining the fun for non white fans, specifically Black and Brown fans.
Fandom is only a safe space and escapism for white fans, and anyone else is forced to carve out their own space and safeguard it from these racist depictions.
When Miguel is not being painted as a 'Latine Lover', he's a predator, or a violent monster, hypersexual Mexican man, or a creep, or someone who's unreasonably angry worthy of no redemption. It makes him so terribly black and white, and while he may be a dark gray that doesn't negate the fact his complexity is being washed away so these writers can have a clear villain who fits this view of violent Latino men hurting women, and kids.
And while I still have this view of a cool antagonist, and can block tags for my own safe experience, that doesn't fix the fact that his character is going through this fanonization with an abundance of dark fic will change perception. Things don't just disappear if they're outta sight. It's still there. With an oppressive force and sour after taste to see how bastardized he's becoming to a majority of what fics are being created and setting precedent for.
Same goes for Miles; saved by the fact he's a young, smart, skinny kid and the protag. But that doesn't spare him from his own fanonization as this meek, weak, soft, baby, cryboy who needs to be comforted or face the worst trauma ever in order to get some trauma porn/wump outta him bc that's all he can be used for apparently. Instead of the confident, heroic, creative, outgoing and friendly kid who sticks up for what's right. I can't speak for black fans and how they feel about this characterization of him. But as a latine fan?
Miles is amazing. He's funny and cool, he's young and talented, and he doesn't take anything from anybody because he's been taught right. I may not be Puerto Rican but Miles is just.... Such a good representation for other latines. So to see him be striped of these traits a lot of the time for others that have been exaggerated; clumsiness, awkwardness, emotional availability, sweet, and caring attitude taken too far it's bad.
Part of it is the racism. People see this dark skinned boy and babyfy him to make him less complex, take away the sharp edges for something soft and malleable, something more digestible and able to process for their own needs. And another part of it is;
Writing is hard.
Believe me! I'm a fic writer! It takes me a long time to write, I edit, and I go back to add or take stuff out, I rewatch or reread whatever I need to make sure I'm doing my best with these characters and somehow try not to fumble the bag with my own scenes and how I interpret their character and relationships to tell a good story to my standards.
And sometimes I still get it wrong!
Which is totally normal! Hell! You don't have to even do all that, fic writing should be fun. You wanna write that chatfic, dark fic, one shot, smutfic, fix-it? Do it! Find your creative drive and do something with it! You get better the more you try!
Sometimes people write and don't realize what they're doing. They're doing it for fun and maybe don't consider some of these problematic traits they're writing. Or they don't know how to approach the character, dumb em down so they can start easy at first, and then get comfortable writing like that instead of slowly getting better with time bc it's for fun.
I take the steps because I want to make something accurate and introspective, not everyone is like that. Even I like wild fun chatfics or crack fics once n a while to shut off my brain.
But you're gonna have to learn that not everyone is gonna like what you write. That if properly representing the characters is what you want, you take that time to put all the love and care into that writing. Putting in that extra work does wonders, and it makes you a better writer! And it creates a good space for others to feel welcomed into!
I didn't even get to how Pavitr Prabhakar is also woobified most often than not, or how discarded his girlfriend Gayatri is in favour of gay shipping (although she doesn't have much screentime, and his ships aren't with white characters so I get why it happens.), Or all the drama I didn't even know about till recently around Punkflower, and Hobie's character. But I'm getting tried so let's wrap this up;
Fandom is gonna fanon. Yes we are responsible for our own experiences and what fan content we engage in, but that doesn't mean we should also turn a blind eye to racism, problematic tropes, or bad characterization. Just because it outta site doesn't mean it's outta mind, and doesn't effect others. I'm not saying harass these creators, no. They are people and at the end of the day they're not hurting anyone and just creating like you are. Leave them be.
But what I am saying is that you have to be the change you wanna see in fandom. As cheesy as that is. You gotta create and encourage the people you do like and enjoy the works of, and foster a fandom that does more than take the easy route. With time we might just win out the bad white fanon.
Or maybe not.
But at least we tried, and we made our point.
(and for the folks who do struggle or participate in these racist tropes or portrayals and fanonized characters and realize their mistake or want to do better; I encourage you to take a step back, rewatch the movie of you can and really study the story and characters. If not? Then listen or read the posts of black and brown fans. We're not all right, and some even have bad takes, but try to broaden your circle. It'll help you make your writing better. I'm not mad, I don't hate these writers. They have their own amazing moments and fics it's great! They're not villains, they're just people doing what they think is fun. They just need a push in the right direction sometimes.)
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