#like it's also the fact that AFO forcing quirks on others to is treated as intensely negative but forcing OFA onto someone--

[20001541]

You know, in AFO's place, I would have really been very angry with Yoichi and felt betrayed, not wanting to justify any of the atrocities that AFO committed, but Yoichi only had the opportunity to live and be good because AFO did the dirty work for them to survive, All for one provided (in his view) everything to Yoichi and while Yoichi contributed nothing other than his presence, and when things are finally working out, and even after giving him a Quirk, he goes there and abandons you, and joins his enemies who would kill you if they had the chance, regardless of whether Yoichi was right or wrong, in AFO's position I would feel devastated and would be very angry, from AFO's perspective it looks like he spat on the plate he eat

I think it's ironic that as a child afo viewed yoichi as something that was weak and provided him with nothing, kept around solely because he viewed him as a possession. only for him to later spend the majority of his life chasing after his quirk as it was one of the few pieces left of him, he even kept his severed hand after he died. then he spends his last moments finally admitting that he needs yoichi.

and yeah I can see how afo would feel this way, but at the same time he kind of dug his own grave there. he treated and viewed yoichi as something he owned and while official english translation left it out, afo said his dream was for everyone in the world to exist for his sake just like yoichi does which just goes to show how he views yoichi as a person, just someone who lives for afo and afo alone. 😬

also remembering this panel from 408 where the left side is how yoichi was living with afo while the right is how he lived with kudou and bruce. just look how much better his living situation got once he was away from afo. and yoichi knows what afo has done for him "you kept me alive", he just wishes afo would stop treating people like expendable things. that's literally all he wants from afo, to stop hurting others for personal gain.

and afo just expected yoichi to just shut up and follow him as he's always had once he declared his dream, but yoichi just wasn't going to do that anymore lol. which resulted in the vault, and forced isolation for long periods of times is a form of psychological torture. fandom jokes about it a lot, but it's extremely screwed up what afo did just to get yoichi to join him.

but I believe afo truly did want to connect with yoichi on an interpersonal level, but he was unable to because of the way he grew up, learning only to get what he wants by force so he tried that with yoichi (forcing him to stay by his side and conform to his ideals, not wanting to let him go and try to be his own person, only what afo wanted him to be) and all it did was push yoichi further and further away. quite tragic really.

I think it says a lot in how yoichi was willing to run away with strangers that for all he knows could be planning to hurt him later on as a way to get to afo rather than stay with the brother he's known all his life. just shows how unbearable afo's controlling nature was. it's not easy to leave everything you've known behind, but he had to do it for his own sake. afo was only getting worse.

so yeah I don't think afo should've been surprised at the fact that yoichi refused to look back at him when he was running with the rebels in the sewers, too bad yoichi had to pay for afo's own jealousy with his life.

it's not like vestige yoichi takes joy in seeing afo being beaten, you can see him though the fight looking almost sad that it has to come to this. maybe in a different world they could've been happy.

[pocketramblr]

Naomasa is a traitor working for AFO AU and him and Giran are a thing

hmm something like traitor naomasa or his sugar daddy giran... except something new...

1- Naomasa's father also had a truth-detection quirk, and AfO decided he wanted it. The father attempted to offer Naomasa's instead, then buy time by saying his other child could end up with it, but Naomasa's quirk is limited to activating with eyesight, and AfO wanted to be able to use it over the phone, so no dice. The father vanishes. Naomasa goes looking for him and learns what happens, with a warning to go back home and never tell his mother.

2- But his mother's husband just vanished weeks after she gave birth, and there are bills to pay. Naomasa, young and clever, thinks about his options and about how AfO apparently didn't take his father up on his offer, punish a family or force him to work to pay off the debt. Which means he probably values loyalty and wouldn't be the worst way to get money? probably? So when the kid goes back, AfO knows he's caught him, and tells him he'll pay an allowance for good grades- Naomasa could lend an ear places AfO can't get, but he needs to do well in school to get those places when he's grown up. Naomasa takes the deal, studies hard, etc, and starts as a guileless rookie with an open face and clear and uninteresting as a bit of plain glass.

3- except that is, of course, a facade. it's funny, if you frame your quirk as a truth-detector, people assume you're naturally honest. the fact that it is equally a lie-detector, and he'll have gotten at least a little more insight into every single bit of deceptive he's seen in decades does not seem to catch up to them. Naomasa doesn't ever mention a partner, they think he's simply too focused on the job, or in love with someone as equally plain and nice as him, and keeping personal life away from professional. (absolutely no one would think he'd have started teasing the manager of the villain's intelligence gathering as a dare before it got physical, then emotional. and not just because of the fact that naomasa's gathered some of that intelligence)

4- Naomasa appreciates how Giran wears his masks more naturally than Naomasa does- he's heard Giran introduce himself by a dozen different names, none of them 'real'- but all of them with a shade of truth in what Naomasa sees. His loyalty's far brighter than AfO's, and deeper than what many of their other underlings have for their sensei. Giran appreciates Naomasa's loyalty in return, and finds him amusing. After so many years, they've got a great way of knowing each other without having to say things out loud. Naomasa never asks why Giran agreed to help KD save his daughter, and Giran never asks why Naomasa had All Might ruin Six's plan to save his sister.

5- Naomasa looks so poorly when seen after Kurogiri's arrest because he hasn't heard from Giran in months but can't do much to find out more while on such a high profile case. Not that anyone really knows how to get anything out of kurogiri, so he's not obvious or anything, but he still can't leave. It'd be out of character. Finally, he gets a message- Giran lets him know he's been rescued, going to lay low a bit, heal. Concerned, Naomasa asks how the others are- but Giran says that at least none of them questioned when he said he'd be gone a few days to get something for his hands. at least he's trusted to return, if not treated like one of them anymore. more a loyal dog than a respected colleague. and that's more machia's speed anyway, not Giran's. Naomasa says that's good, and decides that though he's certainly not going to help the heroes find any locations, he isn't going to send a tip about the day the heroes plan to attack either. After all, its not like he technically works for shigaraki anyway. Giran's actually the one who's arranged Naomasa's pay since he graduated, and before that it was one of Ujiko's child minders who got thrown in the nomu soup a few years later. No one in the league is sure where Giran was during the attack at the villa but assume he must have been taken, when they spare a thought for him, and Detective Tsukauchi is missing assumed dead after the battle of Jakku.

[corvidshadowgrovestrega]

So yeah, it seems I have another writing idea. And yes it is another one which I will probably never finish but still. I just can't help the fact that my brain is like that. Thus, now I am sharing what I came up with so far.

First things first is the fact it's a fanfiction from my newest brainrot a.k.a. MHA. It's obviously an AU and in here Izuku has a twin sibling named Hanako. Hanako or Hana as she likes to be called has an unspecified fire quirk. Izu still like in canon at first seems quirkless so Hana is very protective of him.

And when it comes to Hanako themselves, she is...something. Why? Because even if they are twins it's Izuku who's more like Inko. Hana on the other hand is in a lot of aspects a carbon copy of their father and absolute opposite of xer brother. It is even smarter than Izu, tall and muscled. Definitely not beautiful or pretty, at least not in the standard sense. Especially considering their scars, sharp features and narrow eyes. She dyes xer hair green and wears vividly green contact lenses. Why is under the red warning. Personality wise xe IS quiet. Like quiet quiet, she is able to talk but they're still effectively mute as she chooses not to. And well, xe's angry, bitter and jaded. Seeing how the society treats quirkless and people with quirks that are considered weak or villainous, people with mutations she doesn't trust heroes. They're not evil but definitely more morally grey. Xe's not exactly kind or comforting either. Even when she tries you can clearly tell it's awkward & unpracticed but nonetheless genuine. And they understand other people like that on a deep level. Still you can tell xer emotions by her eyes. They also force herself to be strong so the others do not have to be. So in conclusion she' a distrustful & sharp, quite antisocial person. She is polyamorous omnisexual however demiromantic & demisexual nonbinary xenogender(fugogender) with she/xe/they/it pronouns.

SPOILERS & PROBABLY V TRIGGERING STUFF UNDER. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED SO PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK.

Firstly, AFO is Hizashi Midoriya and Inko is Nana's daughter. Momo is a Shimura too and Tomura's sister. She was born the same year as Tomura dusted the rest of the members, she's alive because she wasn't there but at the hospital. She was adopted by Yaoyorozus who needed a heir/heiress.

Hanako is exactly this kind of sibling who when she can, wrecks people bullying Izuku. They still can't be on the lookout 24/7 and Izu hides a lot from xer & their mom to not worry them.

Izuku actually has a quirk. It's telekinesis and it's stronger than Inko's. However it was jumpstarted when he took Katsuki's "good" advice. Kat himself saw it and had a brutal wake up call. Izuku did die for a second there but miraculously came back. (We will come back to how later.)

After that some truths came out. Mainly all about the bullying Izu suffered from Aldera & Katsuki. Also the fact how abusive Mitsuki Bakugo is and how Masaru doesn't interfere.

Well hearing that and the true regret from Kats, Inko made a decision. She formally adopted Katsuki and made him go to therapy, both for trauma and anger issues. Now he fixed his relationship with the twins somewhat and is protective of both. Still not the nicest and a huge tsundere but nonetheless slightly improved.

The sludge villain incident with Katsuki happened as in cannon, Izuku jumped right after. All Might after tried to find him but as Zu was in hospital he didn't have much luck. However he met both twins at "that" beach and approached them. He at first planned to do what he did in cannon when it comes to Izu but after learning of the new quirked status of our broccoli boy he just offer to train them. Hana though agreed only to keep on eye on Izu. In the end both siblings actually got OFA as Hana reasoned that if they share it, it may go 50/50 and as such be easier to handle. She wasn't wrong and as they are twins it also made their sibling connection that much stronger. Now they're literally able to feel each others emotions, pain & unfortunately if one dies.

Hitoshi and Kyoka were pretty quickly adopted after they started UA by the Yamada/Aizawa who are married.

Almost whole class 1-A is dating and all are poly. Most are LGBTQ+ in all ways.

Chisaki here is completely reworked personalitywise. While still a criminal and Yakuza leader few things are changed. He's kind to Eri who is his biological daughter. He's trans and dating Hari though only the Precepts know, also the Precepts, Hari & two Chisakis are a family before all else.

LOV is on the other hand even more found family and you can tear this trope from my cold dead hands.

Dabi is Toya Todoroki but he only wants revenge on Enji without including his siblings and mom a.k.a. he's a good older brother(and partner but that later).

Twice & Magne survive. I repeat they won't die here because I said so.

Hawks had been sent as a spy by the Comission but he quite quickly fully deflected after seeing all of the lies he was fed his whole life. He kept the act to protect LOV though and only stopped when told to kill Twice. He paid for it being tortured half to death before getting broken out by one slightly more decent person (OC) and then being brought to the LOV who nursed him back to health. Said OC though dies for that.

Most parents of the 1-A & 1-B kids suck very much. The only decent ones are Iidas, Inko, Rei, Kirishima's moms, Satos, Ashidos & Seros.

Tokoyami after his internship with Hawks got basically unformally adopted by him which much later was actually formalized.

Toru got adopted by Nemuri(who also won't die) and Emi Fukukado/Ms. Joke.

The war happens in their 3rd year but that would be another much more spoiler-y post.

[villainsandvictimsalliance]

My opinion on bnha 329:

You can check in here my opinion about chapter 328, if you want the context.

I'm glad Horikoshi solved many of the things I pointed out last week. And I'm glad that I'm correctly reading into the manga, at least at some extent.

Let's see what we got this week: (long post)

After a long building up of relating Spinner to common citizens, mutants, people with weaker quirks and in general, the audience or the general public, we finally see this being explicitly acknowledged. He's on the end of his arc now, because the people picked him as their voice.

The last point is really important because Spinner now has great power. This is a direct parallel to the way Uraraka took control of the megaphone and spoke for the heroes. Now, it's Spinner's turn to speak for the villains, but because people wants him to do so.

On another note, we got an amazing graphic parallel of Stain and Spinner. While Stain is in shadows, Spinner is bright. And unlike Stain, Spinner has been chosen by the public. He was not there to be a leader, but people recognize him as one. This is very interesting because it shows how much Spinner has grown and how he is his own character, with his own achievements.

We saw Dabi back in a forest. This is a direct parallel to the way he stopped being Touya and got to be Dabi. It's a graphic reminder that we're getting the end of his arc with the Todorokis. What is his last step? We know he has his own plans and we know he wants to make Endeavor suffer, so could he be on a solo mission to achieve his vengeful desires? In which forest is Dabi? Are we're going to get more flashbacks? Are we going to see him back at Sekoto Peak?

Please note that when they mention Toga, it's exactly the way Curious wanted it. Toga is in front of a black background. She's being inserted on a narrative by force and not by choice, because someone else is putting her there. Alternatively, the white background tells us Toga's arc is still lacking definition and scenario for its end. Her fate is yet to be defined.

There's A LOT to say about AFO. Please look how the League of Villains is broken. AFO is using them as puppets. When referring to Spinner, he talks about him like he's a "bodyguard", not an equal or a friend like Tomura used to do. AFO clearly doesn't care about them and he won't stop to consider what they want, unlike Tomura. He has his own things to do and anything else must be forgotten and put aside.

AFO is still hiding behind Tomura. Please note how Tomura is treated like any other nomu. AFO took the throne of the king (Tomura) and made Tomura into a war dog.

Now, I've written some meta before about how Tomura never had an own identity until he met the League. Kotaro denied Tomura being himself, so much that the hand of Kotaro was still making Tomura faceless long after Kotaro's dead.

After Kotaro, AFO took away Tenko Shimura and imposed a new identity: Shigaraki Tomura. Please note that Shigaraki is AFO username, which means that even back then AFO was planning on using Tomura as an extention of AFO himself. And by naming him Tomura he pressured the kid to never forget his anger and sadness, caused by the tragedy of his family. It was AFO who repressed further the kid, all the hands being a physical reminder of such act. The hands were covering his entire face and because Tomura was unable to touch, he was only able to listen, just like the nomus. That's why Tomura scratches his neck so much. He itches for having an own voice, an own personality, an own identity.

If you pay attention to the panels in bnha 329, you can see how Tomura is wearing both a suit that resembles AFO's clothes and a cloak that resembles the one AFO was using on the world where Deku could see the vestiges. Tomura even has the white hair like AFO now. His pose and clothes are a direct parallel to Deku, but in a way AFO is a parallel to OFA.

Tomura has been stripped away of everything that made him himself. He doesn't have the hands, he doesn't have his clothes, people calls him AFO now, he doesn't even have his friends around. He's alone, a weapon and nothing more. I wrote another meta about how Tomura had no identity analyzing a panel from bnha 328. This is the direct consequence of that.

But this is not a separate case. It is pretty normal, in fact. When a system fails, when an entire country dives on a crisis, it's normal for everyone to question their place in that society and their identities.

Deku had an identity crisis and his friends for UA needed to rescue him and reminded him who he was. Toshinori had a crisis and Stain needed to helped him with it. Uraraka questioned too her identity as a hero and from there her speech above UA was born. Endeavor got a crisis, Shoto got a crisis, Toga needs to decide as much as Spinner does who do they want to be, Dabi is facing his old identity and his new identity conflicts...

This is actually pretty good. The narrative around heroes and villains are being questioned.

Who am I and why am I that person?

Do I need to be that person?

What is my role in society? Why?

What are my goals and why? Are they worth all the consequences?

Do I like the identity of my society? If not, can I change it? Can I change all the things before?

Bnha inner universe is walking towards a redefinition. What is a hero, what is a villain, who are they, why they are heroes or villains, etc. These characters were forced into certain roles or they assumed they needed to play those roles, according to what society told them. And now, they are free to decide. Time and time again, in every journey of any hero, the problems of the identity and the self vs the others is vital, and it shows through the decision making system.

On a final note, I'm a little sad that Horikoshi made a female version of All Might to fight Tomura, instead of giving her a more original character design in general. Women in the bnha universe tend to be seen as replacements of previous existent characters, or they are used quickly to further the plot and get forgotten. They deserve a better treatment, being honest.

The kids will get there rest time, because not all the cards are on the table yet. I love that it's the turn of the villains to play, because the final result of the next battles are going to be partially determined by what the members of the League of Villains decide to do.

Spinner will probably betray AFO, because he's not loyal to AFO's ideals but to his own ideas.

Dabi has his own thing going and he's also going to get rescued by the Todorokis. I really want to see Hawks, Endeavor, Shoto and Dabi all in a same fight, because parallels are going to fly around and I bet we're going to found out more about Dabi's heart.

I think Toga is still going to interact with the UA kids and help them somehow. I hope she gets to talk to Deku and make some good friends.

And for Tomura... He needs someone to reach for him. He has lost himself. His determination is gone, the sparks in his eyes, his fire. He needs a reason to fight, a reason to believe. He needs someone to believe in him, someone to call out his name and make him exists. He needs someone to see him. He's the same lost boy who walked on the streets asking for someone to rescue him. He's the same kid that asked for someone to believe he could be a hero. If Deku gives him that, if All Might helps him too, if the League is there to show them their loyalty, Tomura will be able to snap out of AFO's control and break free.

Nothing like a good villain chapter to make me excited about the future chapters. Let's wait and see.

[achairwithapandaonit]

Au All Smite (evil All Might) is sorta forced into redemption arc when Izuku (quirkless age 15 and full of intelligence and repressed rage) declares himself as his nemesis (forced found family? Forced found family)

:3 :3 :3

okie dokie

- first off, toshinori stays quirkless in this au and by the present time of the au, nana is still alive but has health issues due to having a quirk and ofa

- afo found out that nana was training toshinori to be her successor so he snapped him up and twisted him against her. at first it didn't work, but after a while afo's points really started to sink in and he started to believe them. there's possibly a quirk involved that really brainwashes him

- i guess toshinori's mindset is similar to tomura's in that afo has twisted him to be angry at society for the way they treat people like him and also at nana. nana knew afo was still about when she was going to give toshinori her quirk and still decided to train him despite the fact that he was a teenager and that must mean she's 100% bad. look toshinori, she even gave up her child

- after afo steals toshinori and brainwashes him nana is very heartbroken. she becomes a symbol of peace in his place because she knows it was something toshinori wanted to be to change society for the better. nothing nana tries when she's confronted with toshinori works

- after a big battle with toshinori and afo, nana thinks they're both dead. she sort of grieves toshinori a second time after that. toshinori gets the same injury as before but this time it's from nana. he ends up in a hospital and recovers without ever knowing that afo survived. toshinori for the first time starts living for himself outside of afo's shadow (although he's definitely been working by himself a lot). he lays low for a while

- all smite resurfaces around the time izuku starts at UA (after tomura makes his debut. they don't actually know each other) and is enraged to find that nana has trained up another teenager and actually succeeded in giving him ofa this time

- izuku actually knows a lot about all smite because he's known as driftwalker's (nana) enemy (though she never has anything much to say about it and dodges questions). so he recognises who this guy is

- at some point, toshinori ends up killing nana. this enrages izuku. then after that they both find out that afo's still alive. by this point, even if toshinori never forgave nana because of afo's brainwashing, he's still realised how fucked up afo is and what he did to him and wants him gone. izuku and toshinori team up to defeat afo. along the way they bond and come to understand each other

- tomura is having his own angsty character arc where he's confused by his own feelings because he's both overjoyed nana is dead and pissed off he didn't get to do it and unbearably upset that she's gone even if he never got to meet her

[stillness-in-green]

should the vestiges have talked more to deku about his evolving philosophy?

Put plainly, they should have argued with him more about his evolving philosophy.

Hit the cut, and bear with me for a bit while I set this argument up.

So like, here’s the thing. Yoichi is one of those characters that I suspect I would like a lot, lot more if I were allowed by the narrative to dislike him. If that doesn’t make intuitive sense, lemme explain further. I have a somewhat contrarian impulse towards characters when I think that the writer(s) are trying to force me to feel strongly positively or negatively towards them. If I have the sense that the writer(s) are telling me, “Look at [X Character]! Aren’t they sooooooo great/awful? Aren't you just beside yourself with how much you want to see them showered in love and victory/humiliation and defeat?” then I have a strong desire to pick the other option out of sheer rebelliousness over being told what to think.(1)

If, on the other hand, the story’s willing to treat its characters with more nuance, I’m a lot more willing to engage with them on the story’s own terms. What that usually boils down to is asking whether other heroic characters are allowed to dislike the Designated Hero, or whether anyone who dislikes him/her is painted as villainous or misled. Conversely, is anyone allowed to find the Designated Villain(2) likable or sympathetic, or is he/she just doomed to be heaped with humiliations and defeats from all sides?

I always think back to Snow, from Final Fantasy XIII—he’s clearly a heroic character, meant to be liked, but he also has his flaws. When Lightning punches him in the face in an early scene, this gives the audience implicit permission to find him kind of clueless and full of himself. On the other hand, Lightning isn’t just an audience surrogate, either; it’s impossible to separate that punch from her feelings about Snow’s relationship with her sister, which she is plainly painted as being in the wrong about. Snow and Lightning are thus both just characters, characters who may on occasion clash with each other without that being turned into some kind of moral referendum.

Yoichi and All For One are, at least as of this writing, moral referendum characters. They didn’t have to be! For a long time, I held onto the hope that they would be allowed some nuance, as BNHA is actually fairly good about lettings its characters have nuance. Not perfect, certainly, but so much better than it first pretended to be. But Yoichi and AFO really are the worst of the lot. They’re Perfectly Good and Perfectly Evil respectively, and I have only limited tolerance for that in the archetypes of an origin myth, much less in active, mortal, human characters.

But as I said, it didn’t have to be that way. Like, AFO was always going to be bad news, though I maintain that he didn’t have to be as bad as he is now—he wasn’t always! I find AFO now to be a much more boring, flat version of the character than the one we started with, to the degree that I like to quip that he really did go around the bend in Tartarus; that several months of solitary confinement with only the teeming masses of quirk vestiges in his psyche and periodic visits from hostile law enforcement to keep him company did, in fact, make him measurably worse.

Yoichi, though? Yoichi could always have been more nuanced than what we wound up with. In his very first speaking appearance, we found him loudly espousing not only that quirks should not be used selfishly, but that quirks should only be used to help others.

Some time back, in a long post about the way I write the MLA, I wrote this:

[Destro’s] belief was that one murderer with a fire ability killing people did not justify barring everyone else with fire abilities from using those powers to fire clay, start campfires, engage in fire-themed performance art, char wood in artistic patterns for money, help park rangers set and direct controlled burns, coordinate explosions for the movie industry, light cigarettes in public, or any other of dozens of possible uses for a fire ability that don’t involve burning people alive.

This is a key distinction on quirk use that Hero Society in its current form doesn’t recognize: there is a vast, vast ideological distance between using a quirk only for the sake of others and using a quirk to commit crimes, and in the space between is a flourishing world full of people using their quirks for self-betterment or gainful employment, for interesting new iterations of sports, for truly dazzling and/or bizarre performance art, and so on.

The reason the characters don’t live in that world, I think, is down to how quirks developed in the setting. The vast majority of the population didn’t wake up one morning with powers; quirks developed rapidly but naturally in the world. There was a significant period of time in which quirk users were the minority, and the current status quo is—at least in HeroAca!Japan—a reflection of laws passed by a quirkless majority several lifetimes ago never having been updated or overturned. And what did those laws guarantee? That the minority population of super-powered people could only ever use their powers for the good of the population as a whole.

Guys. No one tells a kid who’s good at sports, “Okay, but make sure you don’t use those sick b-ball moves for personal gain.” No one tells a kid with a talent for acting, “Okay, but make sure you’re not using that talent selfishly.” The reason quirks were treated differently is because people were afraid of them—because, in the beginning, they really were X-Men-style mutants, people who had powers, many of them dangerous, that "ordinary" people didn't have and couldn't defend against. That fear, and the resulting legislation enshrining it into law, is the whole reason the Meta Liberation Army came about!(3)

That era of fear and absolutism is the one Yoichi grew up in. I desperately wish we could have gotten a Yoichi who was really portrayed as the hardliner that we see in the One For All dream, rather than, to revisit a phrase I used earlier, an origin myth made flesh. All perfect right, no flaws, no reason to butt heads with him unless you’re either wrong or evil.

It’s not just Yoichi, of course. There are elements scattered all through the story that could have been used to make One For All challenging to Deku in ways beyond just the physical. Consider also:

The Second and Third bearers are said to have been leading a group against All For One. We know for a fact that they have killed people over this, despite knowing that a great many of the people AFO uses are manipulated victims. They believed in the greater good of a world without AFO in it, and were willing to be ruthless to make sure they could bring that world about.

All Might said, very early on, that OFA could not be stolen against the bearer’s will, but it could be forcibly transferred to someone who didn’t want it. Why on Earth would All Might know that if it had never happened? Who did it happen to? Who is in that mindscape room who—at least initially—didn’t want to be there? Like many, I’ve always thought the smart money was on the 4th bearer, Shinomori, whose Danger Sense should have been blaring, screaming 5-alarm fire sirens at him in response to even the secondhand sense of hostile intent AFO bears towards people carrying that power. It also fits the narrative of the 2nd and 3rd bearers being willing to be ruthless bastards if that’s what it took to beat AFO, for the 3rd to be the one who forced his power on someone who was fighting it. There’s also the (less interesting) possibility that 2nd forced it onto 3rd because they were in a situation he knew he wasn’t going to survive and he didn’t have time to convince 3rd first. Whichever the case, we never have gotten an explanation on that very eyebrow-raising bit of OFA lore.

My headcanons about Banjo and En are just that, headcanons, but we do know that Banjo was a Pro Hero, and En at the very least calls Banjo his senpai; likewise, Nana and Toshinori were both Pro Heroes. That means that at least three, and possibly four, of the immediate predecessors were heroes in the modern sense of the word, and therefore moving more and more toward the modern-day dehumanization of villains. That’s a harsh view to ascribe to those four, who all seem like good enough people, but Banjo explicitly gave us his viewpoint of Tomura as a guy whose eyes were full of nothing but hate; Nana asked directly if Deku was capable of killing Tomura; All Might never even stopped to think about who this ward of the ultimate villain, the demon king, All For One was, right up until he learned about the family connection.

Nana chose OFA and its duty over her family. True, she may well have been afraid that there was no escaping AFO, no matter where she went or even if she had passed the power on to someone else, and she obviously was trying to protect Koutarou—but I don’t think it was only about protecting Koutarou. She was the one asking Deku if he could kill Tomura if that’s what it took; she even said that she removed herself from Koutarou’s life “to better fight AFO,” which suggests to me that she would always have put OFA before her family.

Yoichi, and everyone his vestige has been passed to, prioritized defeating All For One over any and every other concern. Yoichi even said outright that OFA is a power the entire purpose of which is to defeat one man. Yet as laid out in Chapter 304 and 305, One For All is likely coming to an end very soon because there are precious few candidates remaining who could even take it in its current form. That makes it extremely important that AFO be dealt with now, in this time, by this bearer.

Yet these people—people who lost their lives pursuing this goal, who sacrificed the lives of others for it, who lived through times of strife Izuku before the Edgy Deku arc could only imagine—challenged him on his ideals for—a chapter. Just one chapter. 2nd and 3rd seemed like they might hold out a bit longer, but we found out only five chapters later that even they had been talked around (by Yoichi, not by Izuku himself) before Izuku even woke up!

Another thing I think about a lot—and I’m not the only one; I’ve seen lots of people hypothesizing the AU possibilities of Creepy!OFA—is the quirk metaphysics of all this. Like, not only do some quirks give their bearers a certain innate drive to want to use them (quirks like Toga’s Transform, which I have to imagine would have a very strong vestige indeed), quirks carry a psychic signature in their very DNA. The AFO vestige is melding with Shigaraki’s psyche. All Might in his untransformed state once described the way that people calling for help made his quirk actively stronger, as if pleading voices were issuing commands directly to All Might the hero.(4) We have precedent, and a lot of it, for the way a quirk with a strong “will” can influence any vessel in which it finds itself.

So if OFA is a quirk that has an innate drive to “defeat All For One,” built up and honed over generations for that specific purpose, why was it so damn easy for all those ghosts—and that’s what they are; ghosts in the blood, psychic remnants, vestiges, not the real living, breathing people who once fought and struggled and died to pass that power on to the future—to just shrug and say, “Okay, well, if you want to try something different, 9th, that’s up to you; we’ve got your back because we think your whole ‘saving people’ thing is neat, even if it runs the risk of All For One’s continued existence or your total defeat!”? Even 2nd and 3rd were convinced by a line that runs, “Okay, yes, the boy 9th wants to save is our mortal enemy, but I was related to your mortal enemy, and you gave me a chance, so, kisses,” as if Yoichi and Tomura have present remotely the same intents and threat levels.

Shigaraki Yoichi, the first bearer of One For All, is, in a very real sense, a century-old undead spirit driven by a mission of fratricide. Why in god’s name were he and everyone OFA engraved that mission into so incredibly easy to convince? If Deku’s drive to save is “beyond all common understanding,” why were all those people so understanding?

The series’ answer seems to be that they’re all good and heroic people who, after all, only wanted to stop AFO for the sake of other people, so actually their drive to kill this dude is ultimately about helping people, and that’s what Deku’s all about! But there was still room there for some real debate about how Deku was going to go about that: what he was going to do, how he was going to do it, and whether the one (1) lost ghost of a boy he wanted to save was worth risking all the lives threatened now and on into the future by that boy’s current self and the ghost skin-riding him.

And if OFA really wanted to insist on having its way, it could make itself an enormous problem by following through on any of the stuff the vestige collective is implied to be able to do, like withholding their powers, knocking Izuku out at their own discretion, even up to outright possession.

Now there would be something he could empathize with Shigaraki over.

Alas, we’re stuck with this exhausting conflict between brothers that has all the moral complexity of—explicitly and textually—a JRPG Hero vs. Demon King trope that was already simplistic when it debuted nearly 40 years ago in Dragon Quest and has gotten no more challenging in the decades (and, in the case of AFO and Yoichi, decades and decades and decades more) since.

Thanks for the ask, anon!

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

1: Fandom can do this to me—it’s certainly a factor in the way I talk about Dabi—but it has to try harder.

2: This can be an actual villain or just the designated unlikeable asshole on the heroes’ side.

3: Over time, as more and more people develop powers, the X-Men gradually become the norm, and the comparison of fantasy super-powers to a rare but mundane talent becomes more useful, even as arbitrary and outdated distinctions between the kind of super-power you have makes the language of discrimination based on demographic traits more relevant as well. I have a whole other tangent about how I think respectability politics on the part of people with more “acceptable” emitter-style quirks could have contributed to people whose only power was a heteromorphic appearance being left out in the cold, as well as one about how the free quirk-use utopia the MLA had in mind would probably necessitate legal protections for the quirkless, who have now themselves become the minority. Both very fascinating topics to me, but neither of them the point of this post.

4: Vigilantes, Chapter 55.

[xiverni]

“Heroes hurt their own families, only to help complete strangers.”

I feel as though people are taking this line by Shigaraki in weirdly literal directions. While, yes, there is a literal interpretation of this line, I feel like it was included mainly to indicate the larger philosophical difference between Shigaraki (and the PLF in general) and the Heroes.

Considering the literal interpretation, we have the case of Kotarou Shimura, who felt as though his mother, Nana Shimura, had chosen her life as a hero over her life as his mother. 

It could be argued that the actual reason why Nana abandoned Kotarou was to save Kotarou’s life from AFO, and thus Kotarou was wrong in his reasoning. However, this argument misses the basic fact that Nana, no matter the nuance later down the road, did in fact choose to pursue a dangerous career as a hero and have a son. She accepted One For All, likely knowing that AFO would come after her sooner or later. If she had pursued her heroic path before having Kotarou, then it stands to reason that her decision to have her son was at least somewhat careless and shortsighted. If she had Kotarou before becoming a hero, then she willingly chose a career path that would put her life and her son’s mental wellbeing in danger. In either case, Kotarou’s initial feelings about Nana are, at least to a point, justified.

This interpretation, however, is not the one I believe is the most important. Rather, I feel like the line above is supposed to show the core disagreements that Shigaraki has with hero society.

Shigaraki values individual desires and wills above “the greater good”, much like his mentor does. We even see Shigaraki being taught this very lesson as a child, planting the seeds of his unawakened philosophy.

Even before this lecture, Shigaraki saw the way the bystanders in the streets looked at him and treated him: not maliciously and not benevolently. The people on the streets were, for the most part, completely apathetic to Shigaraki and his struggles. This phenomenon, known as Bystander Syndrome, is something that occurs in our own world, although it has been plainly stated to have worsened within the world of MHA, as people have become complacent and shirked at their individual responsibility.

This disagreement is shown quite clearly in the ideals of the PLF: absolute freedom to express one’s very identity and powers, at the expense of the larger health of society. The PLF, much like Shigaraki, seeks to “liberate” the world from heroes, by tearing down the fabric of society and replacing it with a system in which people are taught to defend themselves. 

The way Shigaraki treats his comrades is quite indicative of his individualist outlook as well. He treats them with relative compassion, even declaring to the world that all he wants is for them to live the way they see fit. 

(this is not given nearly enough focus by the fanbase, even though it’s one of the most important things Shigaraki has said, ever)

Interestingly enough, Shigaraki’s individualist philsophy rings true for nearly all of his comrades, and all of his comrades seem to represent different ways that society can fail a person.

Toga was rejected and driven insane by her parents’ (and society at large) rejection of her deviant quirk, which had caused her to be attracted to blood. She represents the way that some people who have difficult mental conditions are forced to conform to societal expectations that can simply be alien to them.

Twice made a simple and honest mistake that led to his life spiraling out of control. He represents the plight of individuals who are left behind in the cracks of society, people for whom society simply didn’t care enough about to seek after.

Spinner was a victim of discrimination and racist vitriol, due to his appearance as well as his unusually weak quirk. His weak social position caused him to seclude entirely from society, until his will was reawakened by Stain’s conviction and later Shigaraki’s conviction. 

Dabi, if we assume that he is in fact Touya Todoroki, is almost a perfect showcasing of Shigaraki’s philosophy. He was abused by his hero father in order to become a hero that could then go on to save “complete strangers”. It almost fits perfectly with Kotarou’s words.

In general, every main villain we currently have in the story has been a victim of the larger society pressing down on their individual characteristics. What Shigaraki, and the PLF in extension, fight for is the exaltation of the individual over the larger society. 

Compare this with the philosophy of heroes such as All Might, who have a very collectivist understanding of the world: secure and promote peace in society, disregarding the cost to the individual. All Might lost multiple organs and his devoted sidekick and friend, all because of the fact that he was a hero and it was his job to protect “complete strangers”. His characteristic smile is an extension of this, as Nana Shimura once stated that no matter how scared and distraught a hero is, they should always keep smiling, as to ward off the fears of others. Compare this to Shigaraki, who is constantly showing off his emotions at every second.

This is not to say that one side is clearly better than the other. From a utilitarian standpoint, the heroes are obviously justified in nearly everything that they do (and even from more deontological frameworks, the villains aren’t looking too great on that scale either). I’m not trying to make a moral judgement, rather I’m trying to clarify what I see as the root of the main philosophical battle of MHA: individualism versus collectivism, the closer good versus the greater good, and “your own family” versus “complete strangers”.

EDIT :

I don’t think Nana is a horrible person or anything. In fact, I actually think she made the right decision in abandoning Kotarou. It was either that or having her son die due to exposure to AFO. My point is that Nana’s decision to become a hero, whether or not it came before or after having a child, probably cemented this belief into Kotarou that his mother was more concerned about saving “complete strangers” than her own family. While her decision to abandon Kotarou after learning about the fact that AFO was hunting her down was perfectly understandable and correct, the fact that AFO was hunting her down in the first place was due to her status as a hero with OFA. If Nana never became a hero, and thus never chose the path of saving “complete strangers”, then her family wouldn’t be in such danger that Nana’s husband was killed and she was forced to leave behind her son. Of course, I also believe that her decision to accept OFA and become a hero was justified and correct, especially considering the state of society at the time. But it is undeniable that she chose a path that would result in her saving countless people from AFO, but at the same time putting her family in danger and eventual doom. 

TLDR; If Nana didn’t give up Kotarou, he would probably have died from AFO anyway. That said, the only reason AFO was after Nana was because she had decided to become a hero, and with OFA to boot. Thus, Nana’s choice to save the greater society would come at the expense of her family’s safety. Which Nana recognized, thus is why she abandoned Kotarou. 

[ignitification]

at this point d.ku saving shiggy would just feel hollow. of all these 10 solo d.ku chapters he hasn't had any emotional or mental development/understanding. Like d.ku just isn't where HK's writing shines. Not giving him any tragic backstory may have seemed like good subversion at the start but rn my emotional attachment to his growth/lack of it is just at an all time low. And yass way to make another pro hero look infantile due to MC-armour. Istg as soon as any character interacts with either en.dv or d.ku they take negative infinity in power, potential and likeability. Even the vestiges went down on the likeable scale. Also, these chapters were deserved more by literally any other character.

I'd begin addressing your last point anon, and by saying that while on one hand I agree with you, on the other I really understand that on some level (except physical) these chapters are needed for two reasons. First of all, because BNHA has picked up at ‘intense pace’ which translates into a lot of stuff happening all at once (It took us 285 chapters for Bakugou to admit that he cares about Izuku, and then we got in the span of 20 chapters Touya’s reveal, Mr. Compress face reveal, Mirio is back, BJ is alive, Todoroki’s backstory, Tartarus breakout, the name of the 1st OfA User, Izuku dropping out of UA, Overhaul and Lady N - just to name a few), which consequently means that we are fast approaching the final battle (excluding the Traitor affair, the grounds for the last arc are all already in place) of AfO against Midoriya, which bring me to the second point being Izuku, as also confirmed by himself, would not be able to save Shigaraki and also destroy AfO in the shape he is (or rather was, when leaving the hospital), meaning that he needs an upgrade of his abilities, and he needs it quickly. These chapters, unfortunately, are exactly that: a boring build-up needed in order to show us Izuku’s progress in managing OfA. Therefore, while I do agree that it would be nice to have other characters (from which we haven’t heard from in ages, like Toga and Bakugou), I also sadly understand why exactly we are at a halt in terms of ‘story progress’. And this is mainly due, as you pointed out, to the fact that Izuku is definitely not where HK’s writing shines, not in the slightest. 

Izuku’s main flaw is that he does lack some sort of baseline growth which in his case should translate into less hero worshipping and more concentration into his rightful mission of wanting to change the status quo (by saving the villain). HK planted the seed, and at some point it feels like he forgot to water it, and while still holding the principle (on some level, as we saw in his fight with Muscular), it still feels very superficial for something that should be the main goal and more interesting lapel of the manga? I totally understand how someone would feel dejected when faced with this characterisation, especially if the character in question is the Main Character, the story is ending and he STILL appeals to the only thing which caused the entire problem. 

As for me personally, I am still very much attached to Izuku and the Vestiges (because nowadays they represent an interesting development in the Quirk area, in a scientific and symbolic aspect, which I’d like to be explained and explored more, but let’s be realistic - this is a shounen and fans eat this content like famished lions just because it is content, with no critical thinking whatsoever), but I do admit that sometimes I feel frustrated because my main issue with BNHA is how is actually treats its victims and the way people feel attached to toxic traditions (and in particular Izuku’s attachment to the notions of hero as represented by AM, and his will to copy him in the slightest detail). This is even more evident for Endeavour, who seems a catalysis for bad decisions and just a cluster of condoning actions which would not be accepted if done by anyone else, and a lot of crap justifications about themes like violence and abuse, and the implicit lack of consequences each of these actions have in the manga (because preoccupied with more important things, sure - but I think a line would be enough).

Nonetheless, yeah - Izuku should have shown some kind of advancement (not Quirk-wise), but instead in a way to contrast Gran Torino’s view and the example set by older heroes, but instead we get a team up with those same heroes, with Izuku as a bait (which, very much is a problem for both him because he still disregards himself, and the heroes who accept this condition voluntarily) and now that they get separated and Izuku is fighting the possibly only threat (besides the remaining villain at large - and because I really cannot define Lady Nagant as a villain, more like an anti-hero) and he is still winning? Where is the realisation that maybe, even with his Quirk - what Izuku is missing is actually the experience of the pain and grief of this world, which he should have acquired since he appositely left UA? I would agree that until Izuku reaches a level in which he can admit to himself that heroes are not what this world needs, but instead a more inclusive and less-Quirk based society (and the fun fact here, is that he himself is a victim of that and instead he just lets it happen because he is selfless that way) which does not allow loopholes in terms of bad behaviour and where villains are not villains by default when they spur on a bad action, but instead can be guided on a different path - since no such injustices exist in the first place, it would feel very superficial and forced for him to save Shigaraki. It would be seen as a duty, he is forcing himself to make because he consider himself a hero, instead of the contrary and that he is a hero because he decided to save Shigaraki. I hope this can change in the next few weeks, and a good first step would be to have Izuku being overpowered by Lady Nagant - finally showing Izuku that weaknesses are real and that he is still human, and that there is no concrete rule by which someone could be judged as weak or strong (especially if we talk Quirks), and then finally brought forward to AfO, so we can see how he reacts to a. Overhaul; b. AfO; c. ShigarAfO. 

I do not want to hope too much, but at the same time there are reasons for which I am still holding a candle for that. I hope this helps believing, even a little, that hope for a better narrative is still possible. Thank you for the question and thank you for reading.

[linkspooky]

1.) What do you think is AFO's deal? Is he just person born with a certain pathology that happened to have been born with a quirk that let him to advance much further than what a person like him should be able to "achieve"? Sorry if this doesn't make much sense. Personally I consider him having factor 1 psychopathy with some traits of factor 2 as well. On one hand he is bold, and seems to be able to keep his emotions "in there" for the most part but on the other hand he seems to get enjoyment

2.) from tormenting others, as well as gloating about his deeds. He seems to be fearless that does not stem from being powerful. Despite being mutilated by All Might he does not fear him. Even after being beaten a second time into submission and prison he is just monologuing, the pain of his injuries don't seem to matter to him. He is a talented manipulator of those who don't know better which I equate to superficial charm, he may present himself well but behind it is just an empty malice.

3.) He does not seem to feel remorse for any of his actions, I don't think for a second that him claiming to feel guilt from the internal voices of those whose quirks he stole is sincere. At best it is him having the feeling inserted to himself but unable to process it, or at worst just him saying shit to reinforce his status, can someone as great as me truly feel guilt, of course not, that kind of nonsense. The fact that he actively gathers quirks could be interpreted as him being sensation

4.) Seeking. The claim that he likes to take a quirk that he wants as soon as possible also implies impulsiveness on his part. I wonder if there is much time between him wanting something and him doing it. However in contradiction this is him staying in prison. I'm sure that he could at anytime escape, especially with kurogiri and forceable quirk activation.

The best explanation I can come up with for AFO is that he’s someone who emodies a symbol of evil. The same way that All Might tried to be a symbol of good, and a pillar of society. However, in All Might’s case there was a crumbling man behind that mask. With AFO there seems to be no man at all. AFO has no personality, or rather, he makes playing his role as the villain, manipulation and control his entire personality to the point where he’s kind of sort of not a person beyond that. Most of the villains have psychological reasons for why they lash out in violence, everything we’re shown about AFO implies that he doesn’t. Unlike the others who have villainy forced upon them, AFO is someone who chooses the label of villain. 

1. A Quirk of Personality

In vigilantes we get our first ever peak into AFO’s mindset, not from his brother’s perspective but his own. Tellingly enough, he gives his little speech on what he considers villains to be while playing with a set of toys. Which is what most likely AFO regards others as, toys to play and tinker around with. 

In a society where people are labeled as “villains’ and the cops are lauded as “the heroes” and most small crimes are treated as a clash between good and evil, AFO is someone who sets out to define what a villain is. I think an important thing about AFO’s mindset is that he is one of the only people still alive that remembers what society was like before the previous society fell. Not only was he there for the society before Hero Society, he also was the one who witnessed the chaos in the transition between societies. For a long time it ws also, AFO’s authoritative control over things that kept things stable, because he ran most of the villains like an organized crime output due to his ability to take and give away quirks as he pleased. 

This is just a side note but AFO serves as a dark mirror to the heroes in both cases. Hero Society retains an oppressive control over everybody by regulating who can use their quirks by liscensing and operating heroes who can even act like a mini-army in times of crisis, and also villifying people who use their quirks without government approval as quirk offenders, and then after three strikes villains. In both cases it’s a centralized authority determining who in the masses can use their quirks and who cannot, AFO by taking them away, Hero Society by manipulating the masses through key words like “hero” and “villain”. Both All Might and AFO sought to bring stability to the chaotic society by centering all the power on one person, All Might on one hero, and AFO on one villain. Basically, despite being the opposite of hero society and what people would term the enemy of society AFO’s society, and Hero Society are pretty much the same power structure that accumulates all the power at the top. Hero society, also, like AFO only prefers a certain type of powerful flashy quirk.

Another thing that AFO shares with Hero Society, as that he exclusively defines people by their quirks. This is what AFO’s monologue is about, he believes if he changes somebody’s quirk, if he were to suddenly give them a violent quirk they’d inveitably turn violent as well because he believes deep down your quirk is who you are as a person. 

This entire speech is also probably foreshadowing for the fact that he might have been the one to give Shimura Tenko the “Decay” Quirk. Even if it’s not foreshadowing for that, it’s clear this is how he intended to use Shigaraki. Give someone with a destructive quirk too much power, and they’ll become the enemy to the stable society that everyone built up. This is word for word, the speech AFO gave to young Tenko. 

That Tenko’s violent impulses emerge from his quirk. That he must have been born wanting to destroy things, because he has a quirk that focuses around destruction. This is also what Re-Destro says to Shigaraki during their fight that triggers his flashback. Considering that Re-Destro was raised in a cult to be the second coming of Destro, a revolutionary for the same era, “People are their quriks” is probably an idea that emerged in the same history that AFO is from. 

The only thing we know about the era before besides Makoto’s musings in vigilantes, is the short history lesson that  Re-Destro gave to Shigaraki. Quirk discrimmination was rampant.

The word quirk apparently arises from Destro’s mother saying that “this is just another quirk of my child.” IE. Quirks are an aspect of personality but not the whole personality. It seems like a common response to this oppression of meta humans in the previous era before they became the majority was for people to view their quirks as their whole personality, because that’s how they were treated. To view their quirks as something that makes them special and above others, hence why the Meta Liberation Army believes the strongest quirks should be entitled to rule on top. 

My best bet for AFO is that he shares this belief, that your quirk defines the entirety of who you are. It would explain his obsession with returning his brother’s quirk. 

AFO is ecstatic to find out his theory on quirk vestiges will live on in other people. His attempt to get OFA back is probably because of this. He doesn’t actually need the OFA quirk to be complete, but rather it’s a last ditch attempt to retake possession of his brother who he wants to own. 

AFO seems to be obsessed with the vestiges now. He is currently possessing Tomura’s body through use of the vestige of himself in the AFO quirk that got passed down to Tomura. In other qords I think this is AFO’s eventual goal, to live on as a quirk vestige forever. AFO’s viewpoint is that people are their quirks, so therefore if he sheds his body and lives on as a quirk that keeps getting passed down than he’s effectively more immortal than he was before. Which also explains why he needs OFA back, OFA can transfer quirks and stack them much more easily which would allow him to pass AFO onto others without the necessary months of horrifying surgery that Tomura had to endure for the transfer to work. So in essence I would say his goal right now is to become a quirk. One that can keep passing itself down like how OFA passed down the line. 

As for his personality, if AFO views people as their quriks then it’s really simple what he views himself as. 

The villain of the story. AFO is in some regards, a child who believes that comic books are the same as reality. However, if most people would see themselves as the hero of the story, AFO is playing out the part of the villain. There are many characters who also view themselves as villains, but that’s in response to a society that forced that label on them, Dabi, Shigaraki, Toga all have motivations outside of being villains. Being the villain is something they wrestle with, while AFO wholeheartedly accepts. He’s such a void of personality, he can just play the villain perfectly because there’s really nothing else to him. Except for his brother. 

His treatment of  Tomura and his own Brother differs from everybody else. He regards everyone else as tools, but he deliberately gives Tomura his own last name, and also orces a quirk upon his brother in hopes that they’ll walk the same path as him. 

They’re in a special class called ‘family’. Which means that AFO is not devoid of the ability to feel connection to others. AFO even says that he regards Shigaraki as above all the others. In both cases however, while he considers them family his behavior is exactly that of an abusive family member. Here he becomes a more classical abuser, rather than just a mob boss. He’s someone who has power and control over them, and usually presents himself as someone who is uncritically on their side, and doing everything for their sake. He is the victim’s best friend, both for Shigaraki and his brother. He’s on their side. He’s doing this all for them. 

Only for the victim to disappoint and fail them in some way, which causes them to brow beat the victim into doing what they want. AFO’s brother, Tomura’s personal desires ultimately don’t matter. If they try to act as their own person separately from AFO’s wishes for them, AFO will do anything to reassert control. He even does classic abuser behaviors, like cutting Shigaraki off from his friends and the rest of the league because they give him healthy support and strength to break away from AFO’s will for him and what AFO wants him to do. 

AFO’s relationship to both his brother and Shigaraki, resembles Enji’s relationship to the rest of his children. His children only exist to carry on his quirk, and carry on his legacy. He lives vicariously through them. The moment Enji’s try to break away from him, and become people separate from him he does anything he can to force them back into submission to his will. Shigaraki to AFO is what Shoto is to Enji. Someone who inherited the perfect version of his quirk, and therefore someone who also has to inherit his will. Shoto is slotted to become the next Endeavor, to carry on his father’s legacy as Shigaraki is forced to becoming the next AFO. He will sweet talk and cajole Shigaraki into thinking that he is on his side, only to come down hard when Shigaraki shows any resistance or free thinking at all. 

If AFO’s beliefs about people are so shallow, that people are just their quirks. Then his entitlement makes sense. His ability to control quirk should give him absolute control of people. AFO is so void of personality because he’s never had to develop one, he can control most of the people in his life, and make them submit. A person who could mind control anybody, and did so with every human interaction would never need to develop a sense of empathy because they’d never truly interact with others. They wouldn’t see people as having free will separate from them because they could just do what they want with it. AFO isn’t his quirk though, he just chooses to see himself that way. Because we have met a person with a mind control quirk who has both a definite personality, and who doesn’t use his quirk willy nilly. So AFO is completely correct that quirks aren’t the entire personality, they’re just one aspect of personality. Really for AFO he’s choosing to believe that his quirk entitles him to be the lord of all evil. Just because AFO has a really shallow idea of other people, because he’s never seen them as people, just as toys for him to control and tinker with as he pleases. He has an incredibly shallow idea of himself. He’s just the lord of all evil, nothing more, nothing less. 

I don’t think it’s psychopathy or an inability to feel it’s just shallowness. In a way it reflects the shallowness and black and white nature of Deku’s beliefs. Deku only sees people as good or evil, heroes or villains because he buys into the “idea” of heroes being always good and is such a “fanboy” of heroes. AFO is a “fanboy” of hero comics too, he doesn’t care about the nuances, the grays of reality, because he doesn’t have a complex understanding of other people. This isn’t really what people would say is “psychopathy” (that’s kind of a bad term to use in fiction anyway) it comes from AFO not caring about the complexity of other people because he’s never really needed to. AFO has always been so good at manipulating people he’s never learned about how they are thinking and who they are. 

However, Deku is a child. His childish naivete, especially in regards to the fact that villains are people too capable of being good and evil makes sense because he’s fifteen. AFO echoing a dark version of Deku’s words at the beginning of the manga “the greatest hero” and “the greatest demon lord” show that AFO despite being hundreds of years old is basically mentally a teenager. He never grew out of his childish naivete and black and white view of the world because he doesn’t need to. If Deku is a character committed to growing up to become a hero, if Shigaraki is a character committed to learning and improving himself despite being cast out as the muck of society, then AFO is committed to not changing himself and remaining the same person forever, which makes his aspirations for immortality make sense. Shigaraki and Deku are both characters defined by their potential for change, AFO will never change because he doesn’t feel like he needs too he’s perfect already. 

[petri808]

Bakudeku canon divergent, vampire quirk AU

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When Bakugou finally woke up in the Ena City Hospital, his head was splitting worse than a punch from Kirishima in full quirk, and ears rang with the force of all 108 New Year’s bell tolls. If he’d had no memory of the night before, Bakugou swore he’d just survived the worst hangover in history. Even his eyes hurt from the bright, piercing fluorescent lights and they weren’t even open! He turned his head to the side, noticing how much effort it took just to shift in such a small manner. It was as if his body was drained of... “Ugh, that bastard,” he groaned. ‘Fucker bit me.’ And as if to add insult to injury, a pin-prick pain in his neck revealed itself in that revelation.

His arm flopped up, hand straining with jerky strokes, reaching to touch the fresh bite wound located at the junction of his neck and shoulder. He flinched at the tender, bruising pain that sent a shock down his spine. Son-of— This just in! Pro Hero Dynamite cast in one of those cliché vampire movies that went straight to video. Definitely not the career start he’d envisioned.

“Oh, good you’re finally awake Mr. Bakugou.”

“Who the fuck are you?” he spat at the male voice. “And can someone turn the fucking lights off?!”

“I am Doctor Ishihira, and my apologies,” the doctor flicked off the overhead light. “Is that better?”

“Yeah,” he grumped.

“Mr. Bakugou, you were found yesterday morning and brought in suffering from hypovolemic shock due to severe blood loss and dehydration. We’ve treated you with 3 liters of IV fluids and blood plasma to bring your numbers back up, however you’ll still be groggy until your body replenishes the nutrients you were stripped of.”

Over a day had passed! At hearing he’d been out cold for so long, Bakugou immediately clenched his fists, swearing up and down about being released until they threatened to sedate him for longer. Longer?! He begrudgingly relented and settled down, but damn it! That meant Midoriya had another head start on him again! And now that the man knew he was on his trail, finding him would be a lot more difficult!

“What the hell is hypo-whatever shock?” Bakugou questioned.

“When you were found, you were in and out of consciousness and rambling incoherently, all signs of severe blood loss. The fatigue you’re still feeling is also due to the effects of it. Luckily the amount of loss wasn’t enough to start shutting down your organs.”

The doctor continued explaining a few more details regardless of the tantrum like a robot. Minor injuries he’d been treated for. The obvious puncture wounds in his neck, questioning Bakugou about any description he could provide of his attacker. He wasn’t about to tell this doctor or any authority figure who the true culprit was, so he feigned a temporary retrograde amnesia. Based on a raised brow, peering over his glass’s expression, the doctor didn’t look very convinced. Oh well, Bakugou really didn’t care about the man’s opinion.

“Mr. Bakugou, we also called you parents…”

“You what?!” Bakugou tried to jump off the bed, but his body absolutely refused to respond and ended up flopping like a dying fish. Ugh! He really was worse off than he’d thought.

“I’m sorry, but you are a minor, so we were obligated to do so. However, they did give us permission to treat and release you on your own recognizance once we felt you were better.”

Well, that was good news. ‘Sounds like mom actually listened to my letter.’ Or the authorities surely would have shown up by now. “Ugh! So, how much longer am I stuck here?”

“If you continue to recover well, tomorrow morning.”

Fuck! Now a three-day head start! Just great, he groaned. Midoriya could get far away with that kind of a jump start. “Fine, whatever! Now go the fuck away.”

The doctor left the room after explaining how nurses will be monitoring his progress, but to also let them know if anything started to feel worse. They needed to know if he developed any lasting effects from organ damage. Once he was alone again, Bakugou rolled gingerly onto his side as his mind processed the new information. Whatever Midoriya had been hit with must be the cause of this weird blood thirst that resembled a goddamn vampire plot line. Perhaps the significance of the blood coloring in his eyes was a sign of that thirst taking hold? That’ll be a handy tell, too bad it seemed to appear within seconds of the next step.

But if Midoriya had just fed on a victim, and history showed at times, a span of days before the next incident, what had caused his friend to attack him so fast? Was this thirst like a hunger? And what happens when you exercise or exert yourself? You use up energy. ‘Duh, Katsuki.’ Fighting and expending all that energy must have triggered the attack. ‘Wow, it burns fast.’ That meant Midoriya probably struggled to control this thirst, and that’s why he was pleading for him to leave him alone. But sorry, he couldn’t do that. ‘Fucker shouldn’t have run!’ One way or another he is getting his friend back home where he belonged. In fact, this only made his drive to find Midoriya stronger because he felt like he was partially to blame for the predicament his friend was in. The guy had to be scared, freaked out, and lonely. Bakugou’s heart clenched at the thought. He knew his friend was a social person by nature who loved being around friends and family. To be stuck out here all by himself and too frightened because of whatever this new quirk was had to be horrible… and utterly not fair. Of course, he did have a tendency to isolate himself when he feared…

Bakugou groaned. “Kami, not again with this shit!” When was Midoriya gonna learn to stop running away!

As his eyes relented to the fatigue and his mind slipped back into unconsciousness, Bakugou could only pray he’ll get a lead as soon as he got out of this hospital. This strange new quirk, if that’s really what it was, posed a serious danger not only to Midoriya, but the public. The reputation of pro hero’s had taken a major hit already because of AFO and the league, so if the public found out about a blood drinking hero attacking people… ‘I gotta get you out of here…’

After his encounter with Bakugou, Midoriya had rushed out of town as quickly as possible. Tears poured down his cheeks as he took off into the sky from having given in to the lust of this uncontrollable quirk. But he couldn’t stop it even if he’d wanted to. He’d learned the hard way right at the beginning that once it took hold of his mind, the only thing he could do was give-in or succumb to an even worse ravenous state that literally hurt. The pain of holding out on the hunger made him feel like a starved predatory animal that tore at his insides until he relented. In this state, the blood of any creature that came too close became a meal. But it was never enough. Animal blood didn’t satiate him in the same way that human blood did. Plus, he worried that if he let it get completely out of control, he might just end up killing someone. So far, he’d been lucky to leave them all unconscious but alive.

It was obvious that the light AFO had hit him with contained this strange quirk. How ironic, to take down a villain, only to be turned into one. That’s how Midoriya felt. How else could he feel? A hero wouldn’t hurt other people, so by taking the blood of others for sustenance, that made him a villain. Therefore, he couldn’t be a hero anymore. It must have been AFO’s plan all along once he’d realized he was losing. The villains end goal was to ruin hero society and this was definitely one way to do it. Take out his primary rival. The man poised to carry on a torch of safety and security, and snuff out any who chose to do harm… The whole situation with Bakugou really turned this into a nightmare out of body experience. To see his friend’s eyes suddenly show fear, then fade away the more he drank… his mouth clamped to the man’s neck… it was a horrible imagine that was sure to haunt him. He could still smell the burnt cinnamon from such a close encounter. If only he had clothes to change into or even a pond to bathe in, because that lingering scent was gonna drive him mad!

Midoriya curled up and clenched his eyes shut tight in an abandoned and overgrown castle he’d found outside of Ena. It didn’t look like it’s been maintained for a very long time, so the likelihood of a human showing up seemed low. He knew he should have travelled farther away, but he was too tired, too upset and just wanted to quit. All the years of growing up quirkless, to gain OFA and become the very thing he’d dreamt of, only for those dreams to be dashed again. It was as if life just didn’t want him to be a real hero. Maybe he should just put himself out of his misery, and yet— he couldn’t do it. To die out here alone where no one knew where he was or what had become of him, that wasn’t fair to his family and friends…

They must be so worried about him right now. His poor mother didn’t deserve any of this. Would his friends look down on him now? And All Might, his idol, who’d taken him under his wing, was he disappointed? And that just left Bakugou. He’d said the truth in answering the man’s question. No, Midoriya never would have expected him to come looking. Katsuki Bakugou giving a damn about him? Yeah, right. Bakugou wasn’t doing this because he cared. There was always a selfish reason behind his madness. Fear. Anger. Jealousy. Shouldn’t big bad Dynamight be thrilled that his biggest rival was gone?

Okay that was a big, fat white lie he’d been telling himself for the last two years. He knew Bakugou had moved past those pettier behaviors, but it was simply easier to believe and keep their relationship as rivals than to hope his childhood friend would ever see him as something else. And yet… ‘Kacchan was genuinely surprised by my answer. Did he really come looking for me because he cared that much?’ Yet in what way? Why was the man trying so hard? Did he… ‘miss me?’

Midoriya shook his head violently of those thoughts. No, no, he didn’t want to believe that because it would make this situation even more unbearable than it already was! He’d already given up everything he’d ever loved. His hopes and dreams, a future and losing an affection he’d craved for years would just simply be too much.

[pikahlua]

I think my opinion is based upon Izuku’s perspective. What I think Izuku would be thinking when it turns out he’s a vessel, and I put a lot of thought into the insecurity that must exist (like when AfO took over shigaraki, which huh,,, parallels with the possession thing here, but you have a post that mentions it a little, that I’ll probably need to read again lol) and your perspective is outside of it all, you’re looking at the whole forest and I’m looking at a singular tree. Izuku’s lack of a quirk makes him adaptable from a wider (and can I say biological? Because quirks are biological?) perspective, but it originally was only ever a cause of pain and shame for him. I think that those differences in our opinions are really cool! We’re focusing on different angles. On a lighter note, ( no never mind this is NOT A LIGHTER NOTE) in a ending where all quirks are eradicated, what happens to those with mutation quirks? Are they okay???? Horikoshi does not shirk away from body horror, so I have genuine fear here. I guess that thought leads into the fact that I can’t imagine there being a perfect ending to the story. (Here’s something actually lighter, in a world where everyone ends up quirkless, does that not contrast the very first line of the manga? “People are not born equal” would lead to people being forced to understand that everyone is equal. I really think that that would be cool) (And hey! This discussion has been lovely, thank you for allowing me to pick your brains!)

I'm giving you the last word while just adding my little clarifications and acknowledgements here:

1. Hmm, actually, I would be curious about Izuku's perspective. I think it's hard for me to start from there when it comes to these theories because...he barely ever thinks or talks about his quirklessness anymore. It almost fell off the story's radar entirely once he got OFA outside of a few instances like...versus Shinsou at the sports festival and with Kouta at the summer camp. But I guess I'm comfortable referring to Izuku as a vessel because I'm not the only one who has. The vessel imagery is there when All Might or the vestiges talk about bodies containing OFA, like when we see the imagery of the drinking glasses.

2. Haha oh god mutation quirks. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I mean, at least not all mutations are quirks... [glances nervously at Tokoyami] (Wait, oh god, does Dark Shadow die in this scenario?)

3. I personally don't think "people are not born equal" refers solely to quirks but also ultimately to the acknowledgement that people have different strengths and weaknesses (kind of like what Aizawa talks about in the quirk assessment test). People aren't born with equal abilities, which is the type of equality this quote refers to. (It's not the same as Thomas Jefferson's "All men are created equal," which refers to fairness and afforded rights; or in other words, society should be structured to treat all people equally.)

Thanks so much for your input!

[azurewoods]

‼️bnha 285 bakugou

yepp it's me again. This chapter wrecked me fr so I need a moment of peace and convince myself that everything is going to be alright

soo this time is about bakugou's injuries, like he took a big hit this time and we have no clue if this will kill him immediately or left him severely injured in the rest of the fight. That's why I decided to research what intestines are going to be affected and how lethal can be.

First I looked out for an illustration of the inner parts of the human body and a picture of bakugou. I tried to place from the manga panel the location of the injuries.

It would be like

(blue circles is where the injury could be)

so, first outcome is that the AfO thingy got through between the liver and stomach (tearing them a bit)

I looked up on internet about liver damage and it said that it depends what percentage of the organ was damaged, e.g it can be calmly treated if it was 15% of damage. But if it was a 75% that's directly lethal for a person.

Also, in the liver circulates a lots of blood so tearing this organ would mean blood loss. It was recommended to stay still and apply pressure to the wound in case the shark object was still through the liver. (bakugou better stay really damn still if he wants to survive).

if we think about it, there's still hope. The thingys went clean through bakugou and it didn't see like a gore festival, so.

And tearing open de stomach would be our point lf concern. The stomach still has unprocessed food and leaking it into the rest of our system would mean a serious infection from a bateria that came from the stomach contents, it has to be treated immediately.

Well, and the resa of the AfO quirk would go through the tiny whole between his liver and stomach

next we got the outcome of the injury being directly at the liver (and even his kidney)

As I mentioned before, liver damage will lead to blood loss or death from blood loss of the injured doesn't stay still and with pressure in the wound. But now we are talking about a hit directly at the organ, it can be fatal but if bakugou is treated ASAP by doctors he might survive.

And the kidney, well you can live without one but is still an important organ so im not really sure

finally, any organ from this zone lmao

organs as the liver, kidneys, pancreas (?) and stomach can be compromised in the attack. I don't think he'll die in the moment, he can be saved. bc at least it wasn't in the heart or the lungs, or his ribs (that could have shattered and compromised other organs.)

honestly my only concern rn is the stomach thing and the fact that there's like an important blood vessel on the shoulder that if you get stabbed you can die from blood loss real quick. (i'm really not sure about that, but correct me of i'm wrong)

but yeah, that would be it guys. All in all, there's hope of bakugou living through the attack, if he knows how take care of himself while he gets to the hospital (i'm referring to not getting himself in an even worse state, not loose too much blood and die, or having lack of self-preservation in that moment, etc).

GUYS I TOTALLY FORGOT OMG AFO USED THAT QUIRK ON ANOTHER VILLAIN IN KAMINO ARC, REMEMBER? when he forced kurogiri to open a portal in his unconscious state. or when he also stabbed the guy with the magnetic force quirk to send shigaraki + company through the portal.

Does that mean that AfO will force bakugou's quirk out of him??

DUDE NOOO that would end me fr and that also would mean that all my research is going to trash bc if AfO is gonna use him then he'll get bakugou in a worse state of health or even kill him.

I mean, there's always the possibility that AfO will just drop him, like he did with endeavor but in this case he was going for deku. maybe trying to hurt him, force his quirk... idk i just want them to be okay

[hamliet]

I think your blog is one of the best out there. Maybe becuase of this , maybe because of your awesome takes... I find it hard being in the fandom. And I wanted to share this very unpopular opinion. The more it goes on the more I wonder : how did Enji turned into this? Most of all in fandom tends to justify touya because he’s the result of Enji’s abuse. However Enji isn’t a natural born abuser. I’ve read and saw plenty: he has not manias of control. He accept easily his wife to leave him (he wanted to build an house for her and since Shoto’s accident he hadn’t forced himself on her). He wanted an heir, true and he was more neglecting (which is a form of abuse). But many time were found evidences in studies neglecting parents have issues of their own. Which can be found in their original family and / or society (if no mental illnesses are implied).

This made me wonder. I love Japanese culture , novels and society. And one of the most recurrent theme , especially some decades ago, is the high pressure people are exposed. It was and sometimes still is a nichilist model in which you die or fly and sometime you can’t hope to Rise once again when you fail. For example the concept of “you need to go at a go prek to get in a good university and find a good job” is often depict and put to extreme in many media. This inspire even books in which families are up for anything to push their children and they are under great pressure. Since Enji seems a not so bad man per se, has no mental illnesses , the only thing left is his immense obsession that must come from something. And the fact that in society a man must be successful... I think here it is.

The fact he can’t express his feeling correctly for the most of MHA , neither he can’t read them at the point of being perceived “with no compassion at all” comply the stereotype of the father with way too high standard , this can’t come from nothing. It’s not hard unreasonable thinking he was most likely pressured as much when younger , and that broke him at some point (which is a recursive theme in many others novels). This doesn’t justify him, but it might explain why he ended up like this.

But while everyone seems to be able to... forgive dabi , justifying his doings becuase of how he was raised while condamning 100% Enji. However the lingering theme of my hero’s villains is that they aren’t a monster , they’re turned into one; and society played a huge role. I don’t stand for Enji’s actions (who would) but ultimately? If all villains were broken by society at some point (being AFO the only exception for now) why can’t be him too? Broken by a society that demands from heroes to be perfect , to never be weak, even through total desperation? Society even made a joke of all might who gave his life entirely and part of his organs for Japan. Rather than only condemning Enji for his doings , much like is doing with Dabi, the spotlight should be society again.

He did wrong. Terribly wrong. and now everyone is ready to crucify him. But how society taught him better ? How society perceive heroes as humans , how far they can be weak and fails and not be blamed? Like father , like son. Touya is the result of his family , I think it should be considerated Enji was the product of a corrupted society. Which never correct itself , never tries to change... they just discard heroes and villains alike just for not being “perfect”.

Hi! Aw, thank you for your kind words <3

So, I’ll break this down a bit, because I think this discussion needs a lot of nuance. I agree society affected Enji, but I don’t quite think that a victim of society is remotely comparable to being a victim of parental abuse.

To start with, I fundamentally disagree with the notion that abusers are born, and hence don’t buy that Enji is somehow different (or better) because he wasn’t born that way.

To note, I talking specifically about physical/emotional/spiritual domestic abuse, not about sexual abuse (and I don’t wanna talk about that because it’s not relevant here, so no one send me asks about it, thanks).

Abuse is a description of an action and its affects. I’ll quote @linkspooky’s meta on Hawks last week: abuser is not a bad word, it’s not just something that bad people do. It’s an unhealthy relationship dynamic that even good people, even sympathetic people can participate in. It’d be great if we could just do a genetic test and determine if someone is an abuser (actually it wouldn’t be great; it’d be dystopian and terrifying), but that’s not how people work.

However, “abuser” is seen as a bad word, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing (nuance/abuse is horrific and takes such a toll on people that I’m glad it is given serious weight in some respects, although imo it’s overemphasized in fandom places and underemphasized in real life) and I’m not getting into good/bad/pluses/minuses of linguistic connotations here.

Hence, I would actually categorize what Rei did to Shouto as abuse, and I do think the story indicates she was neglectful towards her other children. However, I have never labeled her an “abuser” because of the negative connotation as is clear she is not a repeat offender and Shouto doesn’t even blame her--he blames Enji, and I don’t think that’s an incorrect assessment either. It’s complicated. Abuse victims can be abusers at the same time as they are victims (ask many a kid of an abusive dad what their mom was like; at best if they didn’t intervene it’s usually neglectful and often people go no contact with both parents). People we love and care for can participate in abuse.

Mental illness is also complex in its relationship to abuse. Mentally ill people are far more likely to be victims of abuse than perpetrators, and  mental illness doesn’t make someone predisposed to being a bad person. Mental illness does affect how I see Rei’s actions, because she was clearly out of her mind at the moment she burned Shouto’s face; at the same time, mental illness doesn’t erase harm done even if the person can’t be held super culpable. Enji on the other hand was not mentally ill in the same way; he was able to think logically and separate right from wrong even within society (because society clearly still views beating your kids as bad).

It’s actually not really accurate to say that Endeavor didn’t try to control Rei and just let her go--he put her in the institution to keep her away from Shouto, which may have been motivated of course by trying to protect Shouto, but was more likely “trying to protect his masterpiece.” Rei instantly regretted what she had done; Enji didn’t show regret until after Kamino. Also, Shouto himself views it as taking their mother away, not as protecting him. In fact, he sees it as removing his protector and leaving him with just the abusive dad. Plus, Rei’s doctors probably wouldn’t have let him see her. So I absolutely do think Enji is a control freak.

For Enjii, there’s no indication of prior trauma besides just not getting what he wanted. But, as you say, I do think Enji was absolutely a product of society--culturally, though I’m not qualified to comment on that, and within the manga’s own framing of that culture. However, while Enji is a product of society, he is not framed with the child framing that is present around Touya; hence, why he’s not a victim in the same sense. He was an adult when he started doing bad things, capable of reason, as far as we know and there’s no indication this isn’t the case. He was ~20 when Dabi was born, so that means he was looking for a quirk marriage at the very latest by 19. That’s like starting your career as an administrative assistant and being pissed you’re not CEO like, a year after starting! That implies that he had a sense of entitlement at a very young age, entitled to the point of believing kids were not full people but instead extensions of himself to ignore, beat up, and cast aside as he pleased. Every aspect of Enji’s personality screams of toxic masculinity as well.

Also, almost every person who has ever done something wrong (and those who haven’t!) is a product of their environment as well as of their genetics, but I wouldn’t classify everyone as a victim--even though technically I suppose they would be, but the connotations are just not particularly fitting--and I wouldn’t call Enji one. Enji might be a product of society, but his kids are victims of a deliberate choice he had to be a terrible parent. Society sucks, but we don’t choose it and it doesn’t choose us in the same sense a parent chooses to treat their kids a particular way.  So, rather than saying Enji’s a victim of society, I think it’s more of society reaping what they’ve sown in terms of their #1 being revealed as a mass abuser; it’s karmic.

So to return to his character and Enji is also a representation of toxic masculinity--that is why for me personally, his crying this chapter  actually resonated. Like, I think it was well-framed in that his victims didn’t feel sorry for him and he cried before he knew they were coming, and while I get that people think he has no right to cry (as Rei and Natsuo said!). I see why people interpret that as manipulative, and while I absolutely think it was self-pitying, I also personally see it as human and realistic, and perhaps as a slight chipping away of the toxic masculinity that he embodies. We’ll see. I’m still no fan but that was the first moment in his redemption arc that struck me as sincere.

[villainsandvictimsalliance]

Tf was that trash arc anyway. Could've handeled Star better + Hori is a misogynist piece of crap fr I'm sure no male hero will die like this even in the finale

Hmmmm, being objective, male heroes have died. A clear example of this is Nighteye.

Now, Horikoshi needs to improve how he writes female characters. That's a fact. We can understand where his issues come from, but the context doesn't excuse him of course.

Is this a bad arc? I would say it was not well executed. Introducing a character near the end of the manga is not a clever thing to do. Making this character a really important one is also not a good move, when you just introduced the character. Rushing the narrative to tell the backstory of this character, along with making room in the plot for it, it's... Well, this whole arc is very forced.

Most things you see in Stars and Stripes were already in other characters in the story, so they were also in the narrative. Stars and Stripes for moments feels like a mix of traits from all the other characters. This is something that doesn't happen to me with the rest of the women in bnha. Idk, Stars and Stars feels a little like she's lacking a personality, mostly because we didn't have her for long and because the story didn't treat her properly.

It's not my favorite arc. It feels a little out of place or a little like the extra arcs in animes. In mean, this arc feels more like a bnha movie than anything else. But I also respect that this arc has some potential and good points. I like the narrative regarding Tomura mixing with AFO, or the idea of New Order disrupting the quirks inside AFO's mind.

Until now, the best arc was the War arc for me.

[arcticapple99]

Time-Travel Theory Time

So there have been hints through the BNHA story that not only does time-traveling exist but that their current timeline is the direct result of such a time-traveler messing with history. Here’s how:

Everyone remembers how Izuku got his quirk right? Iconic moment right here

All might got his quirk from Nana. The method of transfer is fairly simple.  The previous holder feeds their DNA to the next holder and wishes they get the quirk. No problems so far... but how did the First holder know what to do?

See here everyone, including the First thought he was Quirkless.

AFO forced a stock-billing quirk on him... and nothing else. So as far as the First knew he now had one(1) shiny new quirk and nothing else.

So how the hell did he learn about his ability to transfer his quirk to another person. The chances of him stumbling naturally into a situation where he is feeding his DNA to some other sucker while at the same time intensely wishing for his quirk to somehow magically jump from him to this person... it’s pretty much zero.

So the only way he could have known what to do is that someone told him. But who could have done so, no one knew. Except... we have seen the second holder’s silhouette and it looks eerily familiar.

Now I’m no Bakugou fan but if they toss my angry child into some shitty quirk war history time I’m gonna riot!

On lesser note there was also small scene in the first episode when the students in Izuku’s middle school class were mocking his desire to go into UA. There seems to be a rule that Quirkless people can’t even take the exam to heroic course but then Izuku says:

It’s a blink and you will miss it kind of scene but why would they change that rule? For that to happen there should be some sort of demand for the rule to change and so far we have seen that this society treats Quirkless people like they are invisible at best and useless at worst.

It is not mentioned how long the rule has existed but the fact that there are no Quirkless heroes is telling. Like none, in any country, at any point in known history. Izuku would have known if there were any and fan-boyed like crazy but there were none.

You could argue it was due to lack of quirk that none dared to try but in spin off manga Vigilante there is a Quirkless vigilante and he manages to beat up Villains just fine without a Quirk. It cannot have been lack of interest either, Heroes are so glorified and children are indoctrinated into liking them at early age. Even the teacher in this particular scene just shrugs and says you all want to go into heroics right?

So the only reason there are no Quirkless Heroes is that they were forbidden from even applying to Hero schools. Can’t get education, can’t get license. 

But this likely very old rule changed, just like that. And just in time for Izuku to still have some hope to apply for Hero school. Suspicious!

[stillness-in-green]

Thoughts on Chapter 314 (and surrounding events)

Being a loose summary of several things I thought about in relation to the leaks, what they say about the series as a whole, a bit of new operating headcanon on the Peerless Thief, and a dash of how fandom is responding to the revelations. Spoilers, obviously.

This chapter makes it quite clear that the HPSC absolutely would have gone in and eliminated the PLF quietly, lethally, and wholly unlawfully if Hawks hadn't reported back the numbers that he did. The only reason the raid involved non-Commission-affiliated heroes at all is because the PLF's manpower was simply too much for the Commission to deal with via their usual methods. I'm both appalled that the disregard for human rights in HeroAca Land is somehow even worse than I thought it was and smug that that tiny little piece I recently posted criticizing the PLF's treatment has turned out to be totally justified and supported by the canon.[1] (Note that this does not absolve Horikoshi of the responsibility to, himself, treat the PLF better than paper dolls tossed into the incinerator of Plot Irrelevance when they cease being convenient to his story.) The fact that the Commission was forced to involve heroes might mean Re-Destro, Mr. Compress and the others are somewhat safer than might otherwise be the case. Because of the involvement of the unsuspecting stooges law-abiding heroes, and because the botched raid became such a huge disaster, there’s far more public scrutiny on this than would otherwise be the case. Of course, "accidents" can still happen,[2] especially in a chaotic environment, but the factors above (combined with Clone!RD murdering the bejeezus out of the Lady Prez) do, I think, suggest that there probably isn't an organized push for quick solutions going on behind closed doors.

I don't think Nagant has been around for a terribly long time or that there was an uptick in vigilantism in recent years—I think the scene where she mentions vigilantes becoming accepted as heroes is just in reference to the early history of heroism. It's in keeping with what Tsukauchi Makoto described in Vigilantes, and forms the basis of the current system—the current system that Nagant was a single cog in a big machine grinding away to preserve.

Speaking of Nagant and the system, it's interesting to me that one of the groups Nagant apparently targeted at the HPSC's behest was corrupt heroes—those who colluded with villains or specifically goaded/incited civilians into using their quirks illegally, thus turning civilians into capital-V Villains in the eyes of the law. One might easily say that targeting corrupt heroes (albeit using a much broader definition of "corrupt") was Stain's whole shtick, but it actually puts me more in mind of the Peerless Thief, Harima Oji. Harima punished greedy or corrupt heroes with theft, and presumably with a measure of declaration and exposure,[3] then distributed their money back to the streets. Someone who ridicules those who abuse their power, and gets away with it for long enough to build a reputation: that right there is a recipe for a folk hero. The HPSC, in whatever form they existed at the time, obviously couldn't let that go on—such repeated humiliations would weaken peoples’ faith in (and obedience to) the system the HPSC was trying to build. At the same time, though, it would also weaken faith in the system to openly acknowledge that system's flaws, to acknowledge that some pretty awful people had found their way into the heroics business specifically for the power and ability to abuse it that the title of Hero afforded them. Public trials would make it a matter of record that some heroes—and, accordingly, heroes at large—did not deserve the public's unquestioning faith. Obviously in a system that was built from the ground up on faith, that was unacceptable. And so Harima was branded a supervillain for exposing the system's flaws, while the corrupt heroes who embodied those flaws to begin with were—and continue to be—quietly disposed of at the HPSC’s discretion.

There's a lot of talk around about how Lady Nagant is stupid, or hypocritical, or delusional, or whatever other dismissive adjective people want to use, because she expresses a preference for AFO's rule over the HPSC's. Firstly, I think it's dubious Lit Crit to fault a character for not being a Paragon of Rationality, especially when they're under the cascading stressors Nagant has been under since she was, what, 13? 14? Forced to live this dichotomy of smiling gallant hero and ruthless covert assassin, had her life threatened by the man who'd taken her in,[4] probably dumped in Tartarus until such time as her trial could be held,[5] and kept in those ghastly, dehumanizing conditions for who knows how long? How shocking, that her objectivity might be somewhat compromised! Secondly, it's not like she's saying that AFO's rule would be a sunny walk in the park. The kanji she uses doesn't even mean "better"; while it can mean serene or tranquil, her more likely meaning is clear/transparent. Her phrasing indicates that she's aware it would be pretty bad; she's simply of the opinion that at least his rule wouldn't be a sham, a pretty lie. It would be bad, but everyone would know it. No one would have these comforting illusions they could lose at any time; if you stepped out of line and got shot in the head by an assassin, well, at least you would probably know you that being defiant was running that risk, rather than never seeing it coming because you'd been told all your life that Heroes Didn't Do That To People. Again, this is a woman whose life was shattered no less than three times by the duplicity of the highest acting authority in this comic.[6] She doesn't have to be Objectively Correct By The Standards Of Ethical Utilitarianism—nor do you have to agree with her choice that because she doesn’t want to live in the Matrix, no one else should get to either—for her opinion to make sense from her own perspective! Thirdly, while I think it's fair to say that the HPSC and AFO actually use fairly similar methods to recruit followers and punish dissenters, we have no idea how much Nagant herself knows about AFO's recruitment tactics other than her own brief experience of it. And while AFO is a controlling and manipulative bastard, at least in his case it's coming from a man who openly styles himself as a Demon King, not an organization positioning itself as lawful regulators of the protectors of society at large while secretly training child soldiers to flagrantly violate every law protecting the human rights and due process of that society's people.

Overhaul's presence is delightful, and yes, he is a victim of Hero Society, if only because Hero Society could have put him in some kind of prison-based rehab facility after Shigaraki was through with him, but chose to dispose of him in Tartarus instead, for absolutely no justifiable cause. I suspect it's only due to Horikoshi not being very interested in the harsh realities of the trauma caused by enforced isolation[7] that Overhaul is the only Tartarus escapee that talks to himself and has dissociated from reality almost completely. Overhaul's maiming was not the fault of Hero Society, nor did Hero Society force him to torture Eri and repeatedly commit cold-blooded murder. But his madness? Yeah, I'm pretty comfortable laying that one at Hero Society's feet, actually. I can’t wait for Deku to have to face the victim that Chisaki Kai has become due to levels of systemic cruelty and negligence that really ought to be criminal—and which, if this were real life, would be.

--------Lately, footnotes are really popular with us!--------

[1] Lady Nagant: *talks about how the Hero Society everyone believes in is illusory, a thin fake over a brutal reality, and that returning to the false simplicity of that status quo will only cause history to repeat itself* Me, two weeks ago: Hero Society will never stop creating its own villains so long as, every time it fails people, it does nothing but shrug and write off the victims as unavoidable, inevitable sacrifices for the greater good.

[2] Yes, I'm still highly suspicious of the "Destro committed suicide in prison" claim.

[3] Compress tells us Harima “preached reformation,” but regardless, you don’t dress up in a modified kabuki costume and waltz midair through nighttime cityscapes raining cash out of the sky if you’re trying to keep your activities a secret.

[4] And her family situation couldn't have been much better than Hawks', if she was targeted by the HPSC to begin with. I would guess she was an orphan in the childcare system, easy to move from whatever alternative care arrangement she was in, be it an orphanage, a group home, or simply mature enough despite her relative youth that she lived alone on government support payments—that kind of thing isn't as unbelievable in Japan as it is in the U.S.—to the HPSC's care.

[5] And given what we learned between this chapter and 297, I doubt she was even allowed to be present for it. Japanese law states that everyone by default is supposed to be present for their own trial, but as in the U.S, that right can be waived if the defendant proves themselves to be a threat to the safety of the judge, court staff and other attendees. And of course, what a threat the HPSC could have painted her as being!

[6] At least until Hori deigns to show us a damn Diet session.

[7] To say nothing of the physical consequences of spending six months stuck in a tiny room with no natural light while frequently being strapped into a straitjacket, of which there should also be several.