#ochako critical

[mikeellee]

MHA can be officially label "anyone can be a hero but Izu" already? Bc like the manga is following a theme where Izu is the joke....his pain is a joke....everyone in the fandom and the story treats him so poorly. Ochako's latest comment makes me made (I call her superficial bitch. I'm aware as I writer I can change her, but honestly. Why? She has nothing interesting to want to salvage. She is not a good friend to Izu. Izu has no friends)

Watch as the next episode will have more bs

"the next big hero is a quirkless hero...and is not izu"

"izu is kicked out of ua bc yes"

Fuck there so many ways Hori can make his life awful....izu already thinks he is worthless. The rest is details.

[thaeonblade]

Okay MHA...I’m tired...

I know I’m going to get hate for this and I don’t care. But can My Hero Academia go five minutes without romanticizing a fucked abusive unhealthy, destructive or terrible relationship? Because right now, the heroes look like self-righteous dumbasses who should not be trusted nor have any good sense of reason, logic or frankly a consistent sense of morality, ethics and justice. And every time the story pulls out that “the villain is a child inside” crap or goes on about how life was unfair to the mass murderer, it makes the villain look more and more unintentionally unsympathetic. Can heroes like Izuku and Ochako be allowed to set boundaries and priorities to let horrible people hurt them without being considered bad heroes or bad people? Is it really bad for them to not let themselves get hurt just to validate some asshole’s feelings? Ochako doesn’t owe Toga shit. Toga isn’t entitled to shit. But the story is basically absolving Toga of all of the shit she’s done so that Ochako looks heroic for bleeding to death to reach out to this selfish murderous psycho bitch with a stalker complex. It doesn’t make Toga sympathic, it makes her look even more selfish. It doesn’t make Ochako a better character, it actually makes her kind of pathetic and hard to respect. I’m not sorry, I can’t respect people who disregard lives lost, families destroyed and can actually look a mass murderer in the eye and say that she has a lovely smile and admires how carefree she is while attacking her and her friends. This is Ochako’s big moment apparently. Enabling and coddling a fucking murderer because holding her accountable for her crimes and telling her that she mad bad choices and she’s responsible for them is “bad”. Society may have been unfair to Toga, but Society didn’t make Toga kill Saito (yes he’s dead per the databook) or any of the people she left to bleed to death, Himiko Toga choose that for herself. However, when I say Toga’s responsible for her choices I also state that she has the ability to make the right choice and do the right thing. Same goes for Shigaraki, but that requires taking personal ownership and responsibility for your actions. This is why the Toga and Ochako storyline sucks so much because it acts like Toga’s entitled to sympathy and patience and completely ignores all of the horrible and shitty things she’s done or been apart of. When Ochako says that she “can’t forget Toga’s actions”, this is empty protest and her actions and other words like “have my blood for the rest of my life” don’t add up. And no, Toga being bisexual does not excuse shit. She’s still a psycho murderer and deserves consequences. She sure as shit doesn’t deserve Ochako after nearly killing her and all of the harm she’s caused against her and her friends. I won’t change anyone’s mind here, but wanting TogaChako canon is basically saying you support a fucked up relationship between a selfish psychotic murderous borderline-sexual predator and the girl she’s trying to murder. If you want to support a Yuri ship, at least pick one that isn’t romanticizing or enabling abuse and romantizing suffering for an abusive or harmful partner like for example Momo x Kyoka. If Toga was a male, ya’ll would agree with me and you know it. I halfway wonder if some of you only ship TogaChako despite all of the objective red flags because you’re that desperate or thirsty for some kind of validation. Well sorry folks, you’re picking the wrong hill to stand on because canon-wise it sucks. Fanon wise, you can make it whatever you want, I mean it. I’ve read plenty of good fanfics where Toga got the help she needed before she went off the deep end and I enjoy reading about her relationship with other characters like Ochako and Izuku. But just like how Fanon Aizawa or in some cases “Dadzawa” is very different from the objectively asshole Canon Aizawa, Fanon Toga is a sweetheart compared to the psycho murderer Canon Toga is. I honestly wouldn’t care what you ship because it’s your business. I highly question your choice of ship, but feel free to ignore me and enjoy your warped fucked up ship as you please. With that said, I’m free to dislike said ship and use evidence from the story to point out how this is the worst possible cruelty you could inflict on Ochako. But please stop pretending like Canon Toga wouldn’t be a constant threat to anyone she was with. She fucking stabbed the first guy she had a crush on and he died (again databook) and even if he didn’t die, that’s still not someone who should be shipped with anyone. And after reading all of that, if you think I’m some kind of sexist, homophobic asshole because I don’t absolve or excuse murderers regardless of race, sex or sexual identity then we have nothing to discuss because I’m not wasting any breath on you. Fuck off. For the record, I already had this problem with the Bakugou and Izuku dynamic where Bakugou basically gets no consequences for his objectively bad actions and attitude. No justice for ten years of abusive bullying; No accountability for trying to kill Izuku during the training exercise; Izuku holds Bakugou on a pedestal he doesn’t deserve and basically does all of the suffering and giving for their messed up relationship; and the story doesn’t even do the bare minimum to make Bakugou’s “redemption arc” passable. The story ignored it for almost 300 chapters and then puts in a few grand gestures then acts like that’s all that’s needed and goes no further. I also have this issue with how Izuku is lionized for acting on blind idealism and emotionality to try and “save” Shigaraki despite the thousands he’s chosen to kill; the path of villainy that he’s chosen to take; and how he’s going to kill everyone if he’s not stopped. Society didn’t make Shigaraki become a villain; attack USJ; attempt to murder the Class 1-A students and teachers multiple times; send an attack against the Camp; try to make Bakugou join him or die; make an alliance with Overhaul whose torturing a child; or willingly take AFO’s quirk to be even more destructive and evil. That was Shigaraki’s choice. Tomura Shigaraki made that choice. Tenko Shimura made that choice. The little child within Shigaraki is irrelevant. It’s not who you are underneath, but what you do that defines you. If Izuku and Ochako really respected Shigaraki and Toga, they’d respect their choices and stop holding back. Take off the kiddie gloves and defeat them however they have to. If the villains have to die so that no one else is killed at their hands? So be it. Nope, instead the story treats Shigaraki and Toga like children who can’t be held responsible for their actions because it’s all society’s fault. Which is insulting to them as characters, insulting to the many they’ve killed and Izuku and Ochako are also disrespecting their friends, teachers and comrades who’ve died or almost died including Midnight who was killed by one of Shigaraki’s men on Shigaraki’s command. What is heroic about disregarding the families destroyed? How will Ochako and Izuku explain themselves to the families of Shigaraki and Toga’s victims? Will they have any answer that doesn’t involve blind emotionality or idealism? I doubt it. What’s wrong with holding the villains accountable for their actions and giving them deserved consequences and acknowledging that society is flawed and wrong them? They are not mutually exclusive. You don’t have to scream at the audience about how you’re ignoring the problem if you don’t absolve these unsympathetic people because you know murder is wrong. And while we’re at it, if Horikoshi really wanted a story about Izuku and Bakugou repairing their relationship, then he needs to hold Bakugou accountable and responsible for his shit. Izuku needs to be allowed to love himself, knock Bakugou off of his “symbol of victory” pedestal, and learn that he doesn’t need to tolerate shit from Bakugou nor prove anything to him. Instead, Horikoshi’s portraying his characters as emotional pushovers and I’m sick of abusive horrible harmful people being treated like they’re entitled to sympathy, empathy or whatever. All because society wronged them and that apparently validates their chaotic emotions and how they’re lashing out and killing thousands of people. Yet, the story expects us to treat them like they’re the victims and they’re therefore entitled to infinite patience, forgiveness and empathy. They’re not. They’re entitled to a punch to the face. And I’m done here. Note: If you disagree with what I said then do so with respect. I don’t care if you agree with me, but harassment, threats and bullying will not be tolerated. Note: Just because I’m critical of MHA, doesn’t mean I’m any less of a fan. I just will not ignore its major problems as I’ve outlined. So if anyone wants to tell me that “I’ll have no peace in this fandom”, then just know that I don’t give a damn if you think I belong here or not. PS: Despite my harsh and blunt language, I really have nothing personally against TogaChako, BakuDeku shippers or whatever. I just hate these ships because of the unfortunate implications within them due to the canonical actions and attitudes of Bakugou and Toga. I strongly and fundamentally disagree with anyone who’d support or defend these ships and it honestly annoys how much some fans desperately force their interpretations over other fans, but otherwise you can like what you like. I just reserve the right to hate what I want to hate and sadly, your ship checks off all of the wrong boxes.

[mettywiththenotes]

I hope my gf is okay (longingly touches the stab wound she gave me during her breakdown)

[sammy-the-dead-dumpster]

I mean, listen.

This death wouldn't hurt so much if it weren't for:

-Toga committing suicide -Toga committing suicide in an exceedingly preventable way -Toga committing suicide because she felt like she wasn't meant for this society and like she had no other options, which nobody disavowed, not even Uraraka directly -So many other characters with way worse odds surviving (like Bakugou, Nagant, Edgeshot?? Dabi???) -Seriously, why did she have to die? Let her be comatose, at least?? -Hawks being all like, 'Yeah, I shouldn't have killed Twice, the villains shouldn't have to die' -Hawks being nearby at the time, right? And of the same damn blood type? -Anyone willing to help nearby, actually -Didn't they put her on the helicopter? You're telling me that Dabi survived the stretcher ride, but not Toga? -It being. so preventable. not like Dabi's path toward destruction, or Shigaraki turning his body into a vessel for a greater evil. she was just a girl who was helping someone she'd hurt. and didn't need to give up all her blood to do it. -She didn't need to give up all her blood to do it. (Bakugou survived worse. Uraraka would've been fine.) -Her being seventeen -Her death feeling so meaningless, as the theming could have been accomplished by Shigaraki's death alone, except as a conduit for Izuku and Ochako to hold hands together. Which stings. My film professor would be completely unsurprised. -Bury Your Gays -Bury Your Unconventional Love Interests (thanks, film professor!) -the frustrating positive tone of some parts of the epilogue, with no real address of the character's failures and emotional struggles -Not even Uraraka gets to monologue about what this means for her future? Izuku's just slapping an emotional bandage on this? Really? -What even is Izuku's characterization right now? -Is Shoto really the only one who more or less Saved, in addition to Winning?

[linkspooky]

TOGACHAKO VS. FUFFY: How To Save Your Evil Girlfriend

So, once again My Hero Academia has failed to deliver on its promise of saving / redeeming one of the main villains of its story, and victims of its ficitonal society. This time I'm going to make the added argument that not only does failing to save Toga make the story worse, it also makes Uraraka's character almost completely hollow. While you can dismiss Deku's lack of character development as him being a shonen protagonist, both Uraraka and Shoto had arcs and Ochako's is effectively ruined by her failure to save Toga.

In order to make my point I am going to compare it to a villain redemption arc in another piece of media that does it right, Faith's character, and her strained relationship with Buffy in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. A series which is overall anti-state punishment and pro-redemption and delivers on practically all the themes MHA promised us.

MORE UNDER THE CUT:

THE GOOD GIRL and THE BAD GIRL

There is a reoccurring dynamic between two female characters in media, usually between a heroine and a female villainness that I like to call: The Good Girl vs. Bad Girl complex.

However, if you were a Freudian you'd be calling this a Madonna Whore Complex.

To explain the Madonna Whore Complex, one of the biggest examples in other Media is Aronofsky's Black Swan. The entire movie is themed around the Madonna Whore complex, and the impossible double standards the male perception imposes upon women.

"The white swan and the black swan are not merely characters, and not merely characters that are relevant to Nina. The black swan and the white swan are archetypes of women. They are emblematic of the Madonna and the Whore [...] . The white swan is the Madonna, she is pure, innocent, the ingenue. The black swan is the whore, she is cunning and deviant. The seductress. Nina and her ballet counterpart Odette are characterized as perfect ingénues. Ingénues are young, innocent girls who possess qualities of youth, innocence, kindness, naivete and purity. She is the fawn eyed damsel in distress and in literary films she's often the heroine or protagonist. On the other side of the coin from the ingenue, we have the seductress, embodied by Lily and her ballet counterpart Odelle. The seductress is characterized by her promiscuity, cunning nature and sex appeal. She is the alluring femme fatalle, willing to do whatever it takes to get what she wants. She's most often framed as the village. These draw parallels to Freud's psychoanalytical theory, a theory that suggests in the minds of some men they struggle to fully see women as fully realized and rather view them in archetypal categories." [SOURCE]

Black Swan is also a movie where Natalie Portman attempting to live up to the impossible expectations society has placed on her to be both the White Swan and the Black Swan goes insane, and quite possibly dies at the end of the movie.

Considering that Toga's entire story is that she is a shapeshifter who went mad because she could not fit both her parent's and society's expectations of being a "normal girl" then you can see why the Madonna Whore Complex is relevant, with the oversexualized, vampish, femme fatalle Toga quite obviously playing the part of the whore.

Before you call me a fraud for citing freud though, let me prove my point that the Madonna Whore Complex is quite literally everywhere in media.

I could literally keep going if this post didn't have an image limit: Jean Grey and Emma Frost, Jean Grey and Madelyne Pryor, Starfire and Blackfire, Raven and Terra, The Two Sisters from Ginger Snaps, t's literally everywhere all the way back to Lilith and Eve.

More intelligent takes on this trope play with the concept of the Madonna Whore Complex (MWC) to either present the archetypes as two fully rounded people (Catra and Adora) or demonstrate that it's impossible for women to fit into these two dinstinct categories (Natalie Portman in Black Swan).

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a work that challenges the MWC, by allowing both its good girl, and bad girl to be fully realized characters. My Hero Academia plays the MWC straight to a sexist extent by not allowing Uraraka and Toga to escape their categorization of Good Girl and Bad Girl, and also going out of its way to punish and kill the seductress for her sexuality like this is a slasher horror movie. Actually, it's worse than a horror movie because at least Jennifer's Body plays with the MWC in a clever way.

It's not just bad writing anymore Hori's writing has crossed over into actively murdering female characters to enforce puritan values, but let's not get into that just yet we'll talk about the writing portion instead.

I'm going to outline what BTVS accomplishes, demonstrate how it does this below, and then go on at length picking apart how MHA fails.

BTVS:

Shows Buffy and Faith as fully realized people

Shows the pressure to conform to the "Good Girl / Bad Girl" label.

Breaks down those two categories

Redeems it's bad girl

With that out of the way let's get the ball rolling.

HOW TO (NOT) SAVE YOUR EVIL GIRLFRIEND

This is the part where everyone in the audience is going to gasp. Even though I'm using Buffy and Faith as a positive example of deconstructing the MWC and redeeming a villain, Buffy does not save Faith. The two of them reconcile in the end, but Faith is not redeemed or saved by Buffy, and in fact Buffy is in part responsible for Faith's fall.

So, why would I say Buffy and Faith are a better example of villain redemption then Uraraka who at least did everything she could to offer a helping hand to Toga?

Because Buffy not saving Faith is THE POINT and Faith receiving redemption even though Buffy gave up on her is also THE POINT. Lemme explain, by starting at the beginning.

BTVS is a story that exists to flip both horror tropes, and the idea of the chosen hero on its head. The concept started out with Joss Whedon noticing that the Cheerleader is always the first victim in any given horror movie, and wondering what it would look like if the Cheerleader could fight back. If the Cheerleader was the thing that monsters ran away from.

Which leads us to Buffy Summers. Buffy is chosen by the universe to slay vampires, she is hero with super strength that can easily take on legions of vampires and often has to fight even tougher villains for each season's conflict. Buffy carries all the classic features of both the ingenue and the chosen one protagonist rolled up into one:. Ingénues are young, innocent girls who possess qualities of youth, innocence, kindness, naivete and purity.

However, after dying in the first season, and having to kill her boyfriend in the second season after he turned evil and inflicted a lot of psychosexual abuse on her Buffy has also got a whole lot of trauma. Which is when Faith appears on the scene. One of the first ways that the show challenges the idea of the "Chosen One" is that there are actually two Chosen Ones, Faith being the other Slayer.

Buffy much like Deku has a case of protagonism brain rot, but in her case she was actually chosen by the mystic powers that be to be the protagonist of reality. Buffy, who views herself as the hero of the story as a coping mechanism (we'll get back to this later) is suddenly challenged when the fates chose yet another chosen hero, challenging her pre-conceived notion that she is the hero of the story. If Buffy is not the only hero then who is she? What is all the suffering she's endured so far if it's not a part of her own personal hero's journey?

Buffy begins to dislike Faith on sight for projection reasons, before Faith does anything wrong. In a way Buffy herself the female lead is enforcing society's standards of the MWC because all the reasons Buffy decides to disturst and dislike Faith on sight are because she exhibits qualities of the seductress.

Faith is openly promiscuous, often comparing the art of killing vampires to sex, she is also someone who is proud of her power as a a slayer and uses it for her own purposes. She is a slayer for selfish reasons (apparently) while Buffy is the selfless hero. In the first episode Faith appears in, Faith, Hope and Trick Buffy is almost immediately hostile to Faith who has so far done nothing wrong for, trying to get along with Buffy's friends, getting a little bit too into vampire slaying and openly relishing her strength, and like occasionally making lood comments.

FAITH: Don't… touch… me…! BUFFY - yanks Faith off the unconscious vamp with one hand, stakes the vamp withher other. Then she turns to Faith who is breathing hard, high on adrenaline, rubbing her fists. BUFFY: What is wrong with you? FAITH: What are you talking about? BUFFY: I'm talking about you living large on the great undead here. FAITH: Gee, if doing violence to vampires upsets you, I'm pretty sure you're in the wrong line a work… BUFFY: Or maybe you like it just a little too much. FAITH: I was getting the job done. BUFFY: The job is to slay demons. Not mash them into sloppy joes while their

Buffy then escalates to like ableist slurs towards Faith within half an episode for getting slightly violent in a fight against vampires that were trying to kill her.

GILES: Well, Buffy, you have to realize you and Faith have very different temperaments… BUFFY: I know, mine would be the sane one. Giles, she's not playing with a full deck. She has almost no deck. She has a three. GILES: You said yourself she killed one of them, she's a plucky fighter who got a little carried away. Which isnatural, she's focussed on Slaying,she doesn't have a whole other lifehere like you --

The twist this episode is that no matter how much Faith tries to present herself as a free-spirit, she's actually a scared homeless girl who just happened to become the Slayer. Unlike Buffy she does not have a watcher, a mother, or friends to support her. She lives in the cheapest motel in sunnydale. The reason she's so violent against vampires is because she is understandably having a trauma flashback because her mentor was murdered right in front of her by a different vamp.

This is repeating pattern throughout the whole season, Faith is shown to be a victim of trauma, and occasionally acts in ways that are understandable for a victim like her to ask, only for Buffy to start mischaracterizing her as someone violent and insane and throwing the slurs.

You can compare both Faith and Toga as characters who are complex victims of trauma who society turns their back on and become bad victims, but Faith is a special case because we actively see her turn to the dark side. Faith starts out trying to be a hero like the rest and she practically does nothing wrong for half a season, and when she does finally make a mistake and become a bad victim it's the hero's desire to punish her and castigate her that turns her into a villain.

We actively see Faith's fall happen onscreen, and it's like totally Buffy's fault. Buffy throws her completely under the bus, because she's so desperate to see Faith as the Bad Slayer and Buffy as the Good Slayer. Faith is almost pushed into evil because of the MWC, the characters around her can't see her as a fully fleshed out human being so they are quick to demonize her when she starts acting like a bad victim.

So the two episodes appropriately named: Bad Girls and Consequences depict Faith's fall. In that episode Faith and Buffy are fighting vampires, and one human is mixed among the vampires. The human grabs Faith by the shoulder, and Faith thinking that the human is a vampire turns him around and stakes him.

It's a complete accident, something that Giles even says later on is an accident that can happen to any Slayer on the job and is completely normal. It's a murder that Buffy herself could have committed.

GILES: This is not the first time something like this has happened. BUFFY: It's not? GILES: A slayer is on the front lines of a nightly war, Buffy. It's tragic - but accidents have happened. BUFFY: What do you do? GILES: The council investigates, meters out punishment if punishment is due… I've no plan to involve them,however. That's the last thing Faith needs right now. She's unstable, Buffy. She seems utterly unable to accept responsibility. Shows no remorse.

However, even in the same breath Giles explains that it's an accident and not Faith's fault, he's also calling Faith unstable and irresponsible. Basically when they're not calling her a psycho (just hitting her with the ableist slurs), the protagonists all lowkey imply that Faith is somehow inherently violent and unstable because she displays symptoms of a bad victim.

I might also remind you Faith has not done anything to earn any of these accusations, until she kills someone in a complete accident. A complete accident that Giles once again said wasn't her fault and wasn't really a big deal.

FAITH: My dead mother hits harder than that.

Faith is stated to be a victim of physical abuse, heavily implied to be a victim of sexual abuse, and is homeless (none of the main characters offer to let her stay in her house she spends half a season in a terrible motel). However, Faith is quickly demonized by the white wealthy main characters for acting in ways that are completely typical for a homeless teenager.

The moment she commits one mistake they all turn on her and use that mistake as proof of these violent tendencies they all want to accuse her of having. Faith can never be the ingenue so she must be the seductress, because she can't just be a person.

Buffy: So, I, uh... (sees Faith scrubbing) How are ya doin'? Faith: (still scrubbing) I'm alright. You know me. Buffy: Faith, we need to talk about what we're gonna do. Faith: (looks at Buffy) There's nothing to talk about. I was doing my job. Buffy: Being a Slayer is not the same as being a k*ller. Faith has nothing to say. She's finished scrubbing. Buffy: Faith, please don't shut me out here. Look, sooner or later, we're both gonna have to deal.

It is essentially two episodes of this, Faith after killing someone on accident in a life or death fight is constantly called a murderer by others. She wasn't even like, drunk, or high, or being especially reckless she was being a normal slayer.

FAITH: So the mayor of Sunnydale is a black hat. Shocker, huh? BUFFY: Actually - yeah. I didn't get the bad guy vibe off him. Faith shakes her head. Scoffs. FAITH: When you gonna learn, B? It doesn't matter what kind of "vibe" a person gives off. Nine times outta ten he face they're showing you? It isn't the real one. BUFFY: I guess you know a lot about that. FAITH: What's that supposed to mean? BUFFY: Look at you, Faith. Less than twenty four hours ago you killed a guy. And now you're laughing and scratching and zipidee doo dah. That's not your real face, and I know it. I know what you're feeling because I feel it too. FAITH: Do you? So, fill me in. I'd like to hear this. BUFFY: Dirty. Like something sick creeped inside you and you can't get it out. And you keep hoping what happened wasjust some nightmare…

Faith is dirty, faith is disgusting, faith is unstable, Faith is sick for... killing a guy on accident in a way that Giles said was a perfectly understandable accident, and not showing clear guilt because the moment she did it everyone around her jumped on her and started accusing her of being a murderer.

Why do the selfless main characters suddenly start demonizing this girl before she even did anything wrong - well it's because she's poor problem solved.

No, but it does play a factor. Why do most american white middle class look down on the homeless? Because, they must have done something to deserve it, right? If Faith killed a man, that clearly is an indication that she was violent all along and the heroes don't have to sympathize with the fact she's homeless or you know lift a finger to help her.

Now, this makes it sound like I hate Buffy, but Buffy is actually my favorite character in the whole show. The thing is Buffy's complete lack of sympathy for Faith makes her a better character. Buffy needs to demonize Faith and throw her under the bus, because Buffy is a victim of sexual abuse too. Her boyfriend turned evil after having sex with her once, and spent an entire season stalking her and terrorizing her the entire season 2 Buffy / Angel plotline is a thinly veiled groomer metaphor.

The thing about Buffy is she's not allowed to show any kind of reaction to her trauma. The episodes preceeding Faith, Hope and Trick are Anne, an episode where Buffy runs away from home after being sexually abused (stalking is sexual abuse) by Angel for a whole season and feeling like no one would understand her, and Dead Man's Party, an episode where every single one of Buffy's loved ones ruthlessly criticize her for having run away. Like, how dare a teenager not react perfectly to being horribly stalked by a serial killer after she had sex with him for like half a year.

JOYCE: Buffy! You didn't give me any time. You just dumped this… this thing on me and expected me to get it. Well -guess what? Mom's not perfect. I handled it badly. But that doesn'tgive you the right to punish me byrunning away. BUFFY: Punish you? I didn't do this to punish you XANDER: Well you did. You should have seen what it did to her. BUFFY: Great. Would anybody else care to weigh in? What about you? By the dip. XANDER: Maybe you don't want to hear it, Buffy. But taking off like that was selfishand stupid. Buffy's breaking down. It's all too much. BUFFY: Okay - I screwed up! I know it - alright!? But you have no idea. You have no idea what happened to me or what I was feeling

The reason Buffy is so hard on Faith is because everyone else is equally hard on her. The label of the ingenue is so difficult for Buffy to maintain, because she has to be pure, and without any flaws, especially when reacting to trauma that she throws Faith under the bus for her bad victim behaviors.

The white middle class demonize the homeless because they don't want to face the reality it can happen to them, Buffy doesn't want to reflect on all the things her and Faith have in common because she could very easily become Faith. Buffy is the victim of extremely similiar trauma to Faith, and being pressured to be the perfect victim of that trauma in a way that's destroying her mentally slowly.

FAITH: It was good, wasn't it? The sex? The danger? Bet a part of you even dug him when he went psycho BUFFY: No FAITH: See - you need me to tow the line because you're afraid you'll go over it, aren't you, B? You can't handle watching me living my own way and having a blast - because it tempts you. You know it could be you... ( Something snaps in Buffy. She rears back and POPS Faith a good one. Faith falls back, but she's smiling as she puts a hand to her bleeding mouth. ) FAITH: There's my girl…

Buffy is suffering under the expectations of the MWC too, but in her desperation to make Faith out to be the seductress instead of... like... a csa victim... Buffy is reinforcing those standards on both herself and another woman.

The entirety of Bad Girls and Conesequences is Faith being called a murderer by several people, having another trauma flashback to a sexual assault because Xander came to her motel room under the guise of "helping her", getting hit over the head and chained to a wall, then getting the swat team called on her and almost dragged to London for trial. Then the heroes do nothing to help her. The first thing Faith does is go to the main villain, who buys her an apartment AND A PLAYSTATION. So... the evil main Villain of the show helped Faith with her homelessness situation while none of the main characters lifted a finger.

it sounds like it sucks but it doesn't because it's all intentional. Buffy cannot process her own sexual trauma so she is just awful to people who are also domestic abuse victims. here's one of my favorite scenes, Buffy yells at a girl being beaten by her boyfriend with a visible black eye.

Buffy: Where can we find him? Debbie: I-I don't know. Buffy: You're lying. Debbie: What if I am? What are you gonna do about it? Willow: Wrong question. Buffy takes her by the arm again and pushes her up against the sink in front of the mirror. Buffy: Look at yourself. Why are you protecting him? Anybody who really loved you couldn't do this to you. She takes a few steps away. Debbie turns around to face them. Debbie: Would they take him someplace? Buffy: Probably. Debbie: (shakes her head, sobbing) I could never do that to him.(Willow sighs) I'm his everything. Buffy: (disgusted) Great. So what, you two live out your Grimm fairy tale? Two people are dead.

That poor girl gets her neck snapped like five minutes later and Buffy just kinda, moves on even though it would have been an easily preventable death.

Buffy getting mad at an abuse victim for showing textbook behaviors of abuse victims in bad relationships. Buffy is a good character because she is a hero, she can be empathic, but she really only understands heroism in term of defeating the bad guys, and when called to relate to people with complex trauma, especially trauma that reflects her own trauma she can't! She just can't process it! The expectations of being the ingenue, the perfect hero are so crushing she can't cope with a messy reality so she needs to have a black and white view of herself and other people.

Buffy needs to be firmly in the good category, and Faith needs to be firmly in the bad category in order for Buffy's brain to keep working.

Not only does Buffy's conflict with Faith characterize how much Faith suffers for being a bad victim, it shows how the pressure to be a good victim destroys Buffy mentally to the point where she starts using Faith as a punching bag.

Literallly.

It's all intentional too, Buffy gets called out on it, Faith always gets the last word and the final episode of the season makes out Buffy to be a hypocrite. After Buffy literally threw Faith under the bus, called her disgusting for murdering a man, Buffy is completely willing to murder Faith to get a cure for her vampire boyfriend who's been poisoned.

All human life is sacred and needs to be protected, but Fuck Faith I guess.

Faith: I could say the same about you. I mean, you're still the same better-than-thou Buffy. I mean, I knew it somehow. I kept having this dream, I'm not sure what it means, but in the dream the self-righteous blond chick stabs me, and you wanna know why? Buffy: You had it coming. Faith: That's one interpretation, but in my dream, she does it for a guy. Faith: I wake up to find the blond chick isn't even dating the guy she was so nuts about before. I mean, she's moved on to the first college beefstick she meets. Not only has she forgotten about the love of her life, but she's forgotten about the chick she nearly k*lled for him. So that's my dream. That and some stuff about cigars and a tunnel. But tell me, college girl, what does it mean? Buffy: To me? Mostly, that you still mouth off about things you don't understand. (Sirens) Uh-oh. I guess somebody knows you're here.

So the show goes to great length to show you that there are two sides to this conflict, Buffy demonizes Faith, because her friends expect her to be the perfect hero. Faith reacts badly to trauma because she has no support system, and the people around her have no empathy for her because they're too privileged to imagine the things in Faith's life ever happening to her.

Buffy and Faith are fully realized people.

Buffy and Faith are presented to the audience as the ingenue and the seductress but they're both fully realized characters. Buffy's not the ingenue because she's just as capable of murder as Faith is. Faith isn't the seductress because she's a homeless teenager. They are both victims of sexual trauma, though one reacts in what people consider an "acceptable way" and the other is a total slut about it.

Shows the pressure to conform to the "Good Girl / Bad Girl" label.

Buffy throws Faith under the bus specifically because the pressure in her life to be the perfect slayer is so immense that it could be her that takes the fall so she needs to believe in black and white concepts like she is inherently good and Faith is inherently bad to justify the bad things that happen to Faith and therefore convince herself said bad things could never happen to her. "You can't handle watching me living my own way and having a blast - because it tempts you. You know it could be you..."

Faith: Angel said there was no way you were gonna give me a chance. Buffy: I gave you every chance! I tried so hard to help you, and you spat on me. My life was just something for you to play with. Angel - Riley - anything that you could take from me - you took. I've lost battles before - but nobody else has -ever- made me a victim. Faith: And you can't stand that. You're all about control. You have no idea what it's like on the other side! Where nothing's in control, nothing makes sense! There is just pain and hate and nothing you do means anything. You can't even.. Buffy: Shut up!"

Buffy needs to fit her and Faith into neat little boxes because she cannot face the inherent senselessness of the world (and also that she is a victim too "you made me a victim")

Breaks down those two categories

Even in Seasons where Faith is not present she haunts the narrative, because the writers were well aware that Buffy and Faith are the same person under different circumstances.

All of Season 6 Buffy is faced with many of the same situations that Faith was, she suddenly becomes poor and in danger of losing her house, she has extreme depression from coming back from the dead (long story) she can't share those feelings with any of her friends because they treated her much like they did Faith - having no sympathy for imperfect victims. Buffy even gets into an unhealthy, sexual relationship, and like Natalie Portman basically changes from the ingenue into the seductress.

A relationship she has to keep a secret because once again, Buffy must fit into the box of the ingenue in order to be loved by her friends. This leads to her committing several bad behaviors, and at times borderline emotional abuse towards her sister (and debatably her boyfriend) and all comes to a head when Buffy is faced with the exact same situation as Faith.

Buffy in Season 6 believes she has killed a person accidentally while being the Slayer. It's a repeat of Bad Girls with several paralels, including someone trying to hide the body only for it to turn up later, and Buffy insisting she has to turn herself into the police and face jailtime.

However, in this version Buffy unlike Faith has friends who try to stop her from turning herself in and explain to her the murder wasn't her fault - and Buffy still reacts the same way Faith does. She basically borderline quotes Faith.

Faith: Shut up! Do you think I'm afraid of you? [Faith grabs Buffy and throws her down, then sits on top of her and starts punching her.] Faith: You're nothing. [Punch. Punch.] Faith: Disgusting. [Punch. Punch.] [Faith grabs Buffy's hair with both hand and bangs her head.] Faith: Murderous bitch. [Bang. Bang...] You're nothing. [Bang. Bang...] Faith: [Switches back to punches] You're [Faith is now crying.] disgusting.

This is an earlier scene which plays out as an exact parallel to this scene:

BUFFY: You can't understand why this is killing me, can you? SPIKE: Why don't you explain it? She hits him a few more times. He takes it, not fighting back. SPIKE: Come on, that's it, put it on me. Put it all on me. (She kicks him) That's my girl. BUFFY: (yelling) I am not your girl! She hits him hard. He falls back onto his butt. Buffy gets on top of him and begins hitting him over and over. BUFFY: You don't ... have a soul! There is nothing good or clean in you. You are dead inside! You can't feel anything real! I could never ... be your girl! She continues hitting him throughout this. Now Spike goes back to human face. He's looking very bruised and bloody, but he doesn't fight back, just takes it. Buffy hits him again and again, looking angry and desperate. Finally she stops and looks at him in horror.

So if Buffy can react the exact same way that Faith does, when faced with the same trauma there is no good girl or bad girl, there's only two people who are complicated human beings.

The story *gasp* lets the hero be a bad girl.

Redeems it's bad girl

Faith's redemption is a shocking contrast to MHA the plot of BTVS does not allow Faith to commit suicide in order to redeem herself. In fact, her entire arc is an argument against the "put her down like a mad dog" trope. Starting with the fact that the heroes who are partly responsible for Faith's fall in the first place, are all too willing to just let the homeless teenager fall by the wayside, and then put her down for her own sake.

As I stated above, the inherent hypocrisy Buffy shows in her calling Faith a murderer and irredeemable for killing someone on accident because all human life is sacred to her, and then going on to try to murder Faith at the end of the season already shows the "put her down like a mad dog" argument doesn't work. Faith isn't too far gone, it's just Buffy who sees her that way. And because Buffy has given up on Faith she's failing at being a hero.

As I said above, Buffy is not the one to rescue Faith. In fact, in the episodes where Faith's redemption arc starts, Buffy is the one trying to hunt her down and enforce punishment on her. The episodes "5x5" and "Sanctuary" are both focused on Buffy going to LA to hunt down and interfere when Angel is trying to help Faith get back on her feet. The two episdodes basically explore the concept of redemption vs. punishment and how punishment saves no one.

5x5 depicts Faith's spiral as she runs away to LA to escape Buffy who is hunting her down, and accepts a job to assassinate Angel, which if she succeeds will get her rich and also get the cops off of her trail. We're led the whole episode to believe Faith has learned nothing until the confrontation with Angel at the very end, which you should really watch because it's great television.

Faith: You hear me? - You don't know what evil is! - I'm bad! - Fight back! Faith keeps whaling on Angel, sometimes he ducks, sometimes the hits connect. Angel grabs a hold of her: Nice try, Faith. He tosses her away from him. Then walks after her. Angel: I know what you want. She hits him and he hits back dropping her. She comes back up hitting and screaming, but not making much of a dent. Wesley leans out of the window and sees Faith beating up on Angel. He goes into the kitchen and grabs a butcher knife, then heads for the door. Angel as he dodges another hit: I'm not gonna make it easy for you. Faith throws herself against Angel screaming: I'm evil! I'm bad! I'm evil! Do you hear me? I'm bad! Angel, I'm bad! (She begins to sob, grabbing a hold of Angel's shirt and shaking him) I'm ba-ad. Do you hear me? I'm bad! I'm bad! I'm bad. Please. Angel, please, just do it. Wesley comes running out of the house. Faith sobbing: Angel please, just do it. Just do it. Just k*ll me. Just k*ll me." Angel wraps his arms around her shoulders and pulls her against him. She over balances them and they sink to their knees, Angel still holding her as she cries. Angel: Shh. It's all right. It's okay. I'm here. I'm right here. Shh.

Faith tries to take the Toga approach to commit suicide in order to atone, but Angel actively understands that is what she's trying to do, and denies her the chance to die to redeem herself and instead holds her until she calms down.

Angel doesn't just save her once though he spends the entire next episode defending Faith from Buffy who has come to LA to take her revenge, and trying to talk Faith into believing she can still keep on living in spite of all the bad things she's done.

Faith: Are you saying I got to apologize? Angel: Think you can? Faith: I don’t' know. - How do you say 'Gee, I'm really sorry tortured you I nearly to death? Angel: Well, first off I think I'd leave off the 'Gee.' And secondly I think you have to ask yourself: are you? Faith: What? Angel: Sorry. Faith: And what if I *can't* say it? There are some things you can't just take back, no matter how sorry you *are*, right? Angel: Yeah, there are. I've got some experience in that area. Faith: Right. And you've been doing this for a hundred years! I'm not gonna make it through the next ten minutes. Angel: So make it through the next five, the next minute." Faith: "I don't think I can. Angel: Yes, you can. Faith walks away: God, it hurts. I hate that it hurts like this. Angel follows her: Oh well, it's supposed to hurt. All that pain, all that suffering you caused is coming back on you. Feel it! Deal with it! Then maybe you've got a shot at being free.

Angel's advice is "Guilt is supposed to hurt but if you face your pain you can try to find a way to be free of it" which is something much more profound then any of the forgiveness crap they peddle in MHA. More importantly though, the conflict the whole episode goes out of its way to show that revenge is bad, and punishment doesn't save a soul.

Angel: I didn't - I didn't think it was your business. Buffy: Not my business? Angel: I needed more time with Faith. I'm not sure... Buffy: You needed - do you have any idea what it was like for me to see you with her? That you went behind my back... Angel: Buffy, this wasn't about you! This was about saving someone's soul. Buffy: I came here because you were in danger. Angel: I'm in Danger every day. You came here because of faith. You were looking for vengeance. Buffy: I have a right to it. Angel: Not in my city.

Faith's suicidal ideation is a recurring theme that carries through her character arc in the following season - she does in fact go to prison for awhile (Elizabeth Dushku had to go make Bring it On) but Buffy remains anti-state punishment because going to Prison doesn't help her whatsoever. In fact, she just breaks out when she has to save Angel and spends the rest of the season free.

There are two episodes that actually are dedicated to showing prison didn't help, and what Faith needs to redeem herself is to spend every day of her life trying to be good, not just accepting punishment.

ANGEL: Faith, wake up! FAITH: (wakes) I've rolled the bones. You for me. ANGEL: I used to think that. That there'd be a point when I'd paid my dues. Angel and Angelus are fighting in the alley again. Angel leaves the fight and goes over to Faith's side, holding her up in his arms. ANGEL: Faith, listen to me. You saw me drink. It doesn't get much lower than that. And I thought I could make up for it by disappearing. FAITH: I did my time. ANGEL: Our time is never up, Faith. We pay for everything. FAITH: It hurts. ANGEL: I know. I know. ANGEL: Get up! You have to get up now. Faith, you have to fight. I need you to fight. Do you understand what I'm saying?

So you have one manga series where the teenage girl who did bad things commits suicide because she believed she was going to be in prison for the rest of her life and had no future, and you have the other where the teenage girl tries to commit suicide - only for Angel to stop her and encourage her every step of the way that there's still a future for her even if she can't be "forgiven".

One work ends Toga's life because she's done "unforgivable things" and the other tells Faith that the things she should feel guilty for the things she's done, and she should feel that guilt so she can keep working to be a better person every single day.

One of these is a good message to send to your teenage homeless trauma victim, the other is incredibly harmful. With that out of the way let's switch to BNHA.

HOW TO BURY YOUR GAYS

Now I'm going to attempt to demonstrate why MHA fails to truly deconstruct the MWC, and this not only ruins any potential character development for Uraraka, it also sends a deeply harmful message with Toga's death.

I think I've gone to great length above explaining how BTVS communicates it's stance of being anti-punishment and pro-redemption and even goes as far to demonstrate how punishment does not save anyone. Yet, here is the manga about heroes saving people that completely fumbles those exact same themes.

MHA:

Doesn't show Toga and Ochako as fully realized people

Doesn't show the pressure to conform to the "Good Girl / Bad Girl" label.

Doesn't break down down those two categories

Doesn't redeem it's bad girl

So let me start by saying outside of the context of the story Ochako and Toga both had the potential to be great characters. Unforunately this isn't Gacha, so the way the characters are written in the story, and the quality of their story arcs affects how well they are characterized.

Toga is much better off as a character as opposed to Ochako who sort is reduced to a satellite that revolves around Deku, but their story arcs and the way they conclude does a disservice to both of them as characters. They fail entirely to be shown as fully realized people by their narratives, because of the narratives desire to force them into the good girl and bad girl box.

More or less, Ochako isn't allowed to have flaws, and Toga isn't allowed to redeem herself in any way that doesn't involve killing herself.

Let's get to the characters though, the basic premise of the comparsion between Toga and Ochako is that Ochako perfectly fits into the mould of what society considers a "good, nice girl" she perfectly embodies the ingenue. Whereas Toga was horribly abused for most of her life until she snapped, because she was unable to simply pretend to be the normal girl that Ochako is naturally.

One thing I will give credit to MHA for, it does Toga being pushed to the margins and eventually falling off the edge of society as a young eventually homeless girl that no one cared enough to help about as effectively as Faith did. Toga and Faith were also both demonized before they did anything wrong, and were further demonized because they didn't act the way good victims were supposed to act.

The manga is almost masterful at portraying how much being forced into the box of the ingenue caused Toga's mental decline, until she eventually snapped and became the seductress instead.

Toga hasn't even done anything yet, she's already being punished and demonized simply for appearing deviant. Because once again the categories of Ingenue and Seductress aren't for viewing women and girls as fully realized people, you are either a perfect, innocent, girl, or you're a whore.

Toga is also hypersexual the same way Faith is. Of course it's not done with any of the same amount of nuance of BTVS because Hori has a habit of using Toga for fanservice, but Toga does have a habit of sexualizing herself, in a way that would be classified as deviant love. We also in the manga first view her as nothing more than a shallow yandere who creeps Uraraka out with her blushing and hot desire for blood, only to be shown she's actually capable of being an emotionally intelligent and caring individual when it comes to how she relates to her friends.

Toga viewing sucking blood as love is a clear metaphor for deviant sexuality, or even hyper sexuality, it's something that makes her a literal vamp. Toga being overly sexually aggressive and suggestive with the way she sucks blood is something the society she's in demonizes her for, Deku even makes a thoughtless comment that pushes her off the edge that he'd never even think of hurting someone he loved.

Faith is a CSA victim who is constantly trying to play off her trauma, so she's totally into sex guys, she loves sex, she loves it rough, she goes to clubs and grinds on guys, she's all into sex and violence and safety words are for chumps.

Toga was told her way of expressing love and attraction was wrong and deviant from a young age, and as a result of that the same way that Faith embraces hypersexuality, Toga embraces her femme fatalle / yandere persona and plays it up. Well everyone was right about her, she's fine with being a monster, so she just wants to live as a monster stabbing people randomly and taking their blood before moving onto the next victim.

They can't ever be the ingenue, so Faith and Toga embrace being the seductress instead. Yes, Hori does use Toga for fanservice, but at the same time you can't deny she's deliberately playing up her sexuality like a femme fatalle in a way that is not healthy (Faith is a hypersexual teenager too, I'm saying it's a trauma response for both of them).

MHA also shows much like with Faith how Toga despite being just a teenager is someone all of society has given up on - the same way that everyone gave up on Faith for being a homeless teenager. Then further demonized her for acting in ways homeless teenagers act, until she at last finally committed one crime and they turned on her.

Toga's first crime was committed after her mental breakdown, but it's revealed much later on that Toga wanted to ask Saito for permission to drink his blood, and if she'd just been granted it or at least the emotional abuse heaped on her had stopped she never would have had her breakdown.

For Toga it was Saito, for Faith it was killing by Mistake, after being abandoned they endured violence that further radicalized them with no help from the heroes.

Toga's character also textually acknowledges that the heroes are not going to help her, and are likely going to kill her, whereas in Buffy it stays subtext. Which isn't a problem, it trusts it's audience to go "Oh, the good guys are being jerks here" however, it's a direct facet of MHA's worldbuilding that Toga has watched the heroes kill her best friend, and now thinks she has to fight to the death because the heroes will kill her too. She can't back down and let herself be saved, because the heroes don't even see her as human.

Buffy can't forgive Faith for accidentally killing some random guy because all human life is sacred, but also she tries to kill Faith multiple times, because Faith's not human I guess. Uraraka and Deku believe themselves to be heroes but they actively support people like Hawks, who murdered Toga's best friend and have done absolutely nothing to show her that they won't kill her.

Toga reflects a lot of Faith's suffering for being a bad victim that society allowed to fall through the cracks, and a Seductress who needs to be punished for expressing her sexuality. In fact if it were just Toga, you could call it at least an effective deconstruction of the "seductress/whore" because Toga is a fully realized character and her entire backstory is about how society's expectations for her to be a perfect ingenue, and then punishing her when she wasn't a perfect ingenue is what led to her complete mental breakdown. She couldn't be the white swan or the black swan, so she became the blood-soaked swan instead.

Where the comparison starts to fall apart is Ochako. Toga is a character, and Ochako is not. Just like Deku Ochako more or less just kind of morphs into a plot device that exists to save the villain counterparts to prove what good heroes the kids are - and then she doesn't even do that part. Failing to save Toga is the final nail in the coffin for Ochako being a character and not a plot device to show how good and virtuous the heroes are.

BTVS goes to painstaking extents to establish how Buffy and Faith are the exact same girl in different circumstances. They are both victims of sexual abuse. They're both the Slayer. They both lose their mom at different points in the story. They both struggle with the fact that slayers are also killers, they're both the "chosen one". They both have issues that makes them conflate sexuality with violence.

Buffy is put through several situations that parallel Faith, she loses her mom, she becomes financially destitute, she starts exploring her sexuality in a very faith-like way. The two of them swap bodies at one point and nobody can tell the difference.

There's no strong parallel between Ochako and Toga to give the audience a reason why we should care about the relationship between the two girls in the first place. Ochako's connection to Toga tells us nothing about her character, because there's no strong parallel as shown to us by the story.

There are some parallels, the story attempts to tackle the emotional repression angle of how much the ingenue suffers because she's forced to repress her emotions and how much she envies Toga's free expression.

Why does Ochako think that way? Why does she focus on Toga in particular? The plot tells us why Buffy feels she has so much in common with Faith, they're both the chosen one but Buffy feels like she's under such intense pressure to be perfect that seeing Faith get to act out and express herself makes her jealous.

The manga tells us that Ochako is emotionally repressed, but it doesn't show us, because there are never any real consequences for Ochako repressing her feelings. Natalie Portman in Black Swan, and Buffy both experience mental spirals because the pressure to be the perfect woman is too much for them - to meet the impossible purity standards of the ingenue while still being a sexual creature.

In Uraraka this is the extremely simplified belief that she can't have feelings for a boy, while also being a hero because those beings are selfish and she should be focused on saving people. However, we never see her suffer because of these feelings. We don't even get the bare minimum of having her angst over unrequited love.

I don't want to give Ochako too little credit, there are several things that could have been a connection to Ochako, but they all turn out to be non-starters. Ochako is poor and often makes remarks like "The best way to save money is to not eat" in omake and she hangs out with mostly rich friends. She had early angst about the fact that her friends were becoming heroes for mostly altruistic reasons and she became a hero for money.

That could have also connected to the scene where Ochako witnessed the scene of a hero quitting amongst all of the destruction after the end of the first war arc, to show her the consequences of all the heroes who were heroes for less than altruistic reasons.

Ochako could have even told Toga something along the lines of "I was poor, I know how it is to struggle" especially since Toga spent a good portion of time homeless after she was throne out by her parents.

Instead that goes unaddressed except in this scene which makes it look like Toga is ignorant for assuming Ochako never suffered.

Toga and Ochako both feel like they need to repress their feelings but Toga was emotionall abused by her parents, then experienced psychiatric abuse, and then was disowned after her mental breakdown led to a violent incident. Uraraka feels like she can't tell the boy she loves how she feels. One of thsee things is not like the others.

There are more possible connections that you could draw between them, Uraraka gives a big speech about how the heroes have it rough too guys and at that point it cuts to a picture of Toga crying and that could have led to a revelation that if Ochako is asking the common people to see heroes as human beings, then they should try to see villains as human beings too.

This could also couple well with the fact that Toga believes Ochako wants to kill her the same way that Hawks killed Twice. Both of these facts, Ochako originally only being a hero for money and watching heroes for money quit, and also Ochako learning about Twice killing Toga's friends could lead to some self-reflection on the hero system and Ochako could listen to Toga and be the one to convince her that heroes will save her.

However, none of these happen so we don't know why Ochako feels compelled to save Toga, other than the fact that Ochako is just that nice.

It is really a repeat of Deku's writing, we are told that Himiko just really, really, really wants to save Toga, but not only are we never given an in character reason why that is, but we're also supposed to ignore all the evidence that contradicts this.

Ochako wants to reach out and touch the sadness inside of Toga, but she never actually does anything to try to understand or talk to Toga until the last possible minute. In fact, it's Toga who reaches out several times and Uraraka who ignores her. It is Ochako who insists several times that Toga's deeds are unforgivable and then the conversation stops there.

There's also the scene where Deku and Ochako are looking over the cliffside and Ochako is actively reminding herself of the damage that Ochako caused as a reason that she doesn't have to think of her as a human being.

Ochako doesn't even go in with a plan to take down Toga non-lethally like Shoto did with Toya, nor does she even think about what she wants to say to her until the last possible moment.

Ochako's actions make her more like Buffy, someone who actively doesn't empathize with the villain and doesn't want to save her because of her own personal hangups. (However, we're given no personal hangups for why Ochako, the most perfect hero ever wouldn't want to save Toga). Her actions are like Buffy's, not reaching out a hand to Toga she only gets worse and worse, but we're told the opposite. That she's someone who wants to reach and touch Toga's sadness.

It would be better if Ochako DIDN'T want to save Toga, because at least there would be an arc to it. The lack of empathy would be a character flaw on Ochako's part, something that she needs to overcome to be a proper hero. It would be better if Ochako DIDN'T want to save Toga, because then she'd need an in character reason why she doesn't empathize with Toga, like Buffy does with Faith.

Ochako is supposed to be deconstructing the ingenue, but she's not allowed to have any flaws, or be anything other than the perfect, empathic hero and because of that she ends up reinforcing the Ingenue instead. The ingenue isn't allowed to be anything other than perfect, and the Seductress must be punished.

Doesn't allow the Bad Girl to be redeemed:

Toga's death ends up reinforcing basically every backwards double standard about the MWC including the need for men to punish and villify women who freely express their sexuality. Toga's entire character arc is asking the question if soemone like her is allowed to live in this society, if the heroes will save the life of someone like her and the answer we receive is: no she can't live.

Toga can't live in this world, she has to die. Not only does Twice die and never receive justice and his murderer get off scott free, Toga who asks the question of if she's going to die too, the answer is yes.

In both of these plotlines you have young woman who have done bad things but are still teenagers, who are struggling with suicidal ideation who believe their only escape is death. Faith is told that the guilt of the things she's done is painful, but she has to live in order to make up for it because that's the only way to free herself. Whereas, Toga comes to the conclusion that there is no future for her other than being in jail for the rest of her life and therefore it's not worth living.

Toga has to be punished by the narrative in a way that's completely unnecessary, because characters like Bakugo and Edgeshot somehow survived doing open heart surgery in the middle of an active battlefield, but Toga dies from a blood transfusion.

One of these narratives is telling a troubled young abuse victim who's still a teenager to live, and the other is telling her to die. Now which one of these plotlines would you want a young girl to read?

[sapphic-agent]

When I'm in a "My character got pushed aside for Bakugou" contest and my opponents are any of the Dekusquad

Wow, what a nice picture of the MC and his good friends, I sure hope they aren't ignored or lose complexity in favor of the MC's childhood abuser

[angy-grrr]

spoilers for chapter 429

idk if you guys remember but ochako does have parallels with All Might, specifically as the side who saves. It’s not that he feels the same for them both or something like that, they serve to represent the type of heroism he naturally goes to; his friend is not his love interest, from his perspective she’s out there having a crisis over not being able to save her, and Izuku reminds her that she is a hero bc she is his hero -she saved him multiple times, and she should be able to feel like a proper hero.

This conversation is not about the nature of their relationship, is about heroism; Izuku relates to a conflict between being a hero who saves and failing to save someone, and doesn’t want to see Ochako ending spiraling because she couldn’t also fulfill that role as expected. She’s his hero not because he loves her romantically -he’s a nerd I’m sure he would be way more nervous and blushing if he was confessing anything he thought was romantic- but because she’s able to go and do what All Might does to Izuku, save him physically and emotionally.

He knows she hides her feelings in order to not be a burden, yet he doesn’t talk about his own feelings outside of his guilt in heroics -what does he feel about losing OFA? About his own failures? About the people he personally lost? He can’t talk for others and claim Ochako is everyone’s hero, but he can speak for himself, and that’s his personal perspective -she is a hero to him, she’s his hero. And then the class appears to make sure she’s able to get support and understand she’s not alone, and she’s important to them too.

but Izuku doesn’t get support. Izuku cries a little and talks a little about himself, but he doesn’t get supported. If this was meant to be romantic, I don’t understand why he would hold back what’s inside of him.

the end of the chapter reveals that boy is going to be helped by that woman who regretfully ignored Tenko, and they both witness it and are happy about it while hearing izuku inspired that change, and iida wonders what’s up with them -this is the conclusion to their relationship. In their hearts these two are saviors who struggle to be heroes who save others, and they are happy there are appearing more people who want to be heroes like them. Heroes who save. Save like All Might.

That grandma for example, interpreting the narrative as what I think is intended, would be that boy’s All Might; she’s his hero.

Izuku and Ochako are heroes who save, and Deku is here to remind her at least she did save him many times, that she is still a hero because she is his hero. I don’t believe is meant to be interpreted as romantic, not that Izuku sees that phrase as it neither -after all, he said he does want to be like All Might and feels good to imitate him, but he doesn’t love him.

Ochako’s All Might hair moment, the parallels with Toshinori telling him he can be a hero, the trying to save from black suffocating quirks, the we can do it and do your best…

Do I need to remind you heroes arent a romantic thing for Izuku Midoriya?

[bicheetopuff]

I just saw the worst takes about bnha’s ending on Instagram (three days ago now, as of posting this). So, today we’re gonna talk about Izuocha, shonen homoeroticism, and fandom… not in that order though…

I: Fandom

Fandom culture for all media has basically always been a war zone that you have to actively avoid, usually with two defining sides: people who try to enjoy media the way they want to enjoy it, and the people who say that everyone is wrong and attack others who they don’t agree with. There are shades of gray on both sides, but in general this is usually the case. It’s never been “‘alphabet mafia’ vs ‘normal’” or “fanon vs canon” or “right vs wrong”… I almost always see people having fun being attacked unwarranted (I am not saying that people being legitimately problematic shouldn’t be called out, pls don’t get me wrong. I’m talking about innocent fun!). And I’m not just talking about dudebros attacking shippers, I’ve seen a lot of shippers attack non-shippers/other shippers of a different ship, and it’s almost always people just saying “you’re wrong, I’m right, and your take ruins this media piece of media for everyone else.” That being said, I wanna talk about the highlighted parts of these comments, okay? But first I need to explain the video that these comments were on.

It was a video by @/d_rich7 on Instagram, a big anime creator, talking about this tweet:

To summarize the video, he went on to say that he’s not surprised because bnha has the worst shipping community since Naruto and how Horikoshi probably felt forced into not confirming any ships because of “threats and hate mail” that he got from his fandom. I’ll come back to that but first I’ll talk about some of the comments:

“At least, they can say they weren’t the reason for the downfall of their anime.”

I've seen this take from different parts of the fandom, whether it was in regard to ships, todofam, or the villains. Just because the narrative of a story ends up matching the theories of people you disagree with, doesn't mean the story is going through a downfall. Just accept that you were wrong and move on. It is okay to not like certain aspects of the story and it's okay to discuss and criticize it, but pinning the blame on people who just happened to be right, no matter how much you hate it, is not okay.

“People need to stop demanding the literal CREATOR of a series to do things how they want it done…They to learn it’s not their story to tell…”

“…like I don’t get how people who have no impact on the writing of a story get mad because the CREATORS don’t wanna use their personal ideas.”

“…from now on imma blame the fandom for fucking up the anime/manga, we could’ve had a better ending if it wasn’t for them…”

Outside of the context, I actually agree with the sentiment that fans shouldn't feel so entitled that they think they have any control over the media they're consuming. But, the commenters don't realize that they're doing the exact thing that they’re talking about. They're convinced that the queer shipping community is the reason the creator decided not to confirm any relationship and are pissed off that the ship they were rooting for, didn't happen. Why are they exempt from this rule? Because straight ships are supposed to happen and queer ships aren't? Because the boy is supposed to win the girl at the end in order to develop a good shonen? I'll go into the misogynistic implications of that later.

Other than that, I have seen a lot of people on tumblr get mad about other things, like before, regarding to the villains and todofam drama to the point that they started insulting Hori. Like I said, it's okay to be mad. Being mad about something doesn't make you a bad person but it was never our story to tell. Criticism and hate, are two different things and come off very differently.

“MHA’s fandom is filled to the brim with toxic, no shower taking, furry loving, lgbtq idiots…”

Honestly I added this one because he's right. We're here, we're queer, and we're idiots in the best way possible. However, I think this also says the quiet part out loud when it comes to the hatred towards bnha and it's fandom.

Shipping communities in other fandoms don't get anywhere near as harassed as often as the shipping communities in the bnha fandom despite not being much different. The difference is, a lot of us identify as and are recognized as queer and Hori himself even recognized that the LGBT community especially took a liking to his manga. But, in other fandoms, it's only okay to consider queer ships if they're recognized by the cishet audience.

Most people in the aot fandom don't have an issue with eremin because it was something recognized and memed by straight men, even if it was mostly as a joke. The kny fandom doesn't care about inotan because it was also recognized and memed by straight men. Narusasu doesn't get much hate anymore because the straight men of their fandom also started to recognize the characters weird obsession with each other and it became more difficult to ignore the ship since there was literally multiple accidental kiss scenes--one of the few times where the source material actively encourages shipping. I can keep going too.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, non-shonen animes with majority cishet women as their audience, no one bats an eye at their ships either, because there's not enough men in their communities to tell them they should feel ashamed for their fanon content and their words hold no weight… and there’s a lot less queer people in those fandoms. You see the trend, right? It's almost like queer shipping is perfectly okay and mostly accepted as long as the community is either majority cishet men, or those men grant permission/approval for the specific ships or the piece of media wasn’t “meant for men.” Otherwise, it's seen as gross and cringe.

There was one other community that was kind of similar to bnha in a sense that it was mostly consumed by queer people and cishet men, where there was a lot of discourse on whether the two main characters were queer or not… which is the Buddy Daddies fandom. When the show was airing, those two sides that I talked about earlier were pretty apparent, with people having heated arguments about whether there were queer undertones or not. The cishet men of the fandom didn't give their approval to ship Rei and Kazuki, so it became an issue. Same with JJK now, more so with itafushi though. SatoSugu was given a somewhat stamp of approval but itafushi is still seen as taboo.

However, for some reason, every queer ship and character (even if it's canon) in bnha is seen as something shameful to recognize which I think is very telling considering how large the queer and disabled part of the fandom is. Minorities are being punished for relating to a manga with discrimination as one of it's core themes. Do what you want with that...

“…hate-mail just pushed him over the edge so he just scrapped everything just as punishment to spite them…”

This kind of references rumors from a few years ago about the shipping community sending hate mail and death threats towards Horikoshi and everyone just running with it without doing their research.

Horikoshi did receive death threats but it was about Dr.Garaki's original name which you can read about here. It was mostly the eastern side of the fandom being aggressive, even going as far as posting videos of them burning the volume where Garaki's name was revealed which isn't okay. However, everyone blamed it on the western shipping community... for whatever reason...

There was another instance where people in the western fandom started sending Horikoshi death threats on his twitter because of a chapter about Endeavor getting attacked by Dabi and an Nomu and the Todo family being worried about him, people claiming that Hori "deserved to die" for romanticizing and glorifying abuse (when that wasn't at all the case, I'm genuinely confused on how they interpreted that...). This came out six years ago but somehow is still narrowed down to the queer community and women being toxic... like what? Do you see my point now of it feeling like we need to be granted permission to do certain things in fandom if we don't want to be punished?

Also who was Hori punishing by not confirming any ships? If anything, I’ve seen most shippers appreciative than not…

II: Ochako Uraraka and her relationship with Izuku Midoriya

Back to that point about misogyny that I mentioned earlier...

"...I would have lowkey wish we got to see deku and ochaco end up together since their relationship was hinted from the beginning..."

Quick warning... this is gonna be a long point.

Yes, they were attracted to each other at the beginning, no one is denying that. No one is denying Ochako’s crush either. Izuku’s nervous around her for the first like 50-ish chapters because he's still used to having friends (especially a girl. If you think about it, if his childhood friends were the only friends he had ever had before getting shunned by his community, then he had never had a girl as a friend before... ever) but their relationship eventually mellows out into a normal friendship. Given Ochako and Toga's arc, I don't think Izuocha was ever destined to end romantically.

Toga was desperate to be loved by someone who accepted her for who she was while Ochako was desperate to be able to show love to someone who she truly admired. Ochako wanted to be like Deku and tried for a while until she realized that she couldn’t and shouldn’t want to be like Deku. She thinks he’s amazing but she realizes that she can’t strive to be like him because she’s already like him but wants to change.

(this is kind of off topic but I just want to point out what Ochako said about Toga being sad about not being able to totally become Jin. Correct me if I'm remembering wrong but, Toga was only able to ever transform into Ochako completely, quirk and all. I think there's an analogy there, where her being able to be just like someone possibly means she's in love with them but she convinces herself that she loves everyone equally. I think it's supposed to be saying that "even though you can't be him completely, doesn't mean you don't love him, you just don't love him in the way you thought you did" and I think Ochako realizes that because she possibly had the same realization with Izuku. Becoming him didn't work out for her because she didn't love him the way others told her she did... I guess it wasn't off topic... oh well.)

The highlighted parts can apply to Ochako too if you replace “bloodlust” with “envy”. She suffered the same issue that Toga did with other people telling her how and who to love which made her feel like she was supposed to be jealous.

She didn't like these feelings of jealousy, so she began to unintentionally be like Deku and hide them. I don't think she ever had an issue with loving Deku but she had an issue with the way she convinced herself of how she loved Deku made her feel. It made her feel like she was hiding something because I think she felt conflicted for not loving him the way everyone expected her to. All the way up to her final fight with Toga, we were only getting intel about her crush from other characters. Not her.

There's a lot of Mina just telling her what her feelings are despite Mina canonically not knowing much about love. Her crush has always been projected onto her which is why she's able to relate to Toga so well and wants to be more like her since Toga is able to live as herself so comfortably and broke away from conformity and what's expected of her.

Ochako's crush is only there because it's expected to be and her arc is meant to prove that she can be more than just the MCs love interest. Ochako's projected crush is Horikoshi trying to prove a point about basic shonen tropes which he's done time and time again throughout the story. SHE WANTS TO LIVE AND LOVE HOW SHE PLEASES WITHOUT SOCIETY TELLING HER HOW TO JUST LIKE TOGA WAS ABLE TO DO! I WILL KEEP SAYING IT UNTIL MY THROAT IS RAW AND DUDEBROS BEGIN TO FINALLY UNDERSTAND AND NOT VIEW FEMALE CHARACTERS AS NOTHING MORE THAN EYE CANDY FOR THE MALE CHARACTERS!!!

In the epilogue. she hides her feelings with a smile because she doesn't want to worry anyone (sound familiar?) so it only makes sense that it was Deku who pushed her to let out her feelings despite not practicing what he preaches. So, she embraced her inner Himiko and let out her feelings with her whole face. Those feeling just weren't for Deku... and they shouldn't have to be.

I genuinely feel like (especially with the way dudebros hate queer ships in this fandom) if Ochako was a boy, her arc wouldn't have been so widely misinterpreted. Because if he had talked about how amazing Izuku was and Mina came in and still said "It's love!" most fans would've taken it as a joke and/or even going as far as pointing out that the crush wasn't real because he didn't actually admit to it and it was projected onto him by other characters. But, the world ain't ready for that conversation.

"...I saw it as the fandom tryn to force their ships into the story 100% ruining key moments..."

I mainly added this quote because I thought it was so absurd. How do you see class-a coming to support Ochako as "omg it's the fandom forcing their agenda and controlling Hori through mind control to force their ships into the story and ruin this key moment,"??? Like, is it really so unthinkable that Horikoshi can have creative freedom outside the norm of treating girl characters as a trophy for the MC? You expected Izuku to marry her on the spot while she's having a mental breakdown? It's just... anyways...

III: Old-Gen Shonen Homoeroticism and it's Relation with Internalized Misogyny and how New-Gen is Changing That

The Shonen genre - especially old gen - is notorious for it's accidental misogyny, queerphobia, and racism. It got to the point where it's just kind of expected at this point.

The main one is usually misogyny. A lot of shonen mangaka like to write women as nothing more than eye candy and when they are actually given a personality and power, their character arcs are suddenly ignored/neglected and turned back into eye candy. Take Tsunade and Nezuko for example. We're told that they're important and powerful and yet they rarely do anything and almost never get important speaking lines and when we get to see them in action, the author makes sure to highlight certain parts of their bodies. Nezuko I think is an especially obvious one, being literally muzzled for most of the story, and when she powers up, she grows up and is suddenly given huge boobs...

Almost every shonen girls' character arcs revolves around a man and if not, then their existence is for the sake of a male character. I will say, I havent watched much shonen because of this aspect that's always apparent, but almost every older shonen I've watched, read, or seen other people talk about, it rears its ugly head at least once.

Because of that, most love interests weren’t given enough personality to actually form a meaningful relationship with the MC that the audience - especially female and queer audiences - can connect to. More often than not, it’s “I like her cuz she’s pretty” or “I like her cuz she likes me” and it’s irritating. And since these relationships are so shallow, authors are forced to create an interesting bond between the MC and a different character which usually ends up being the deuteragonist who is usually another boy more often than not. And boys in media written “for boys” are almost never neglected the way a girl would be, which is a sad truth.

These relationships almost always end up feeling like they’re passed the point of friendship and because of that, a lot of women and queer people end up shipping them instead of the canon love interest. Because their relationship being romantic actually makes sense most of the time.

BakuDeku, Eremin, KilluaGon, NaruSasu, ItaFushi, SatoSugu, IsaBachi, HideKan, GenoSai, LawLight, the list can go on for fucking ever.

However, in bnha and BakuDeku’s case, especially when the “canon” relationship with the “canon” love interest wasn’t really developed at all, and we never got a hint from Deku that he liked her, I don’t think this homoeroticism wasn’t intentional. Like with a lot of new-gen, there wasn’t really blatant misogyny towards the “love interest” present to explain away the closeness between the two male leads.

All of the roles a love interest would usually have, were given to Katsuki. He was damseled for Deku to save, he was Deku’s biggest cheerleader, he risked his life to save Deku, he died in Izuku’s honor, he showed up for Izuku when no one else thought to, he showed up to his hospital room and cried over the condition he was in, and then he devoted nearly a decade of his life trying to bring Izuku’s dream back into fruition… He cares so fucking much and Izuku cares right back. And no one can convince me that it was accidentally gay, because Horikoshi literally felt the need to tell AND remind us that Katsuki doesn’t like girls. Plus, like I said before, all of that was done without neglecting Uraraka’s character arc.

But even though all of that is in text, I think shonen bros just expect it while also expecting the main girl and boy to be together… because that’s how it always used to be. It wasn’t until new-gen - starting with mha - started to purposely parody dated shonen tropes and twisting them into their own stories that shonen bros began to feel threatened by queer ships. Because they know that there’s actually a chance of them happening now, and I feel like IzuOcha not being canonized is the beginning of a new trend. And misogynistic anime fans already hate it.

Conclusion - TLDR

uh idk what to say here.

In conclusion, fandom culture kinda sucks because of unexpected reasons, Ochako’s character arc is ignored for the sake of men wanting her to be Izuku’s prize and it’s irritating as fuck, and I think previously accidental homoeroticism in old-gen shonen is becoming purposeful in new-gen shonen as new-gen slowly becomes more progressive and less misogynistic. Oh and bkdk canon ig (I don’t think I’ve ever said that before, strangely enough…)

[rewrittenmha]

UA Sports Festival Arc

I've been waiting to get my hands on this arc (this is a long one so be prepared).

Despite the USJ incident, the Sports Festival is still going on. However, Aizawa, Midnight, and Present Mic vehemently protest against broadcasting it nationally. They remind Nezu that the school is very clearly being targeted and that exposing the weaknesses of their students- especially their first years- is not a good idea. Nezu acknowledges their concerns and agrees, but tells them that the HPSC has demanded that the Sports Festival goes on as planned. That the country needs to be reassured that UA- and the hero world- is as strong as ever.

(Me trying to make UA a competent school be like-)

All Might stays quiet during the discussion, but internally realizes that security concerns never even crossed his mind. He wonders why that is and why his younger colleagues seemed to recognize that while he didn't. He's starting to realize that there's a lot that goes on around him that he fails to recognize.

(Deconstructing All Might's toxic ideals around heroism is a very important part of the story as they're usually perpetuated through him. He's the poster boy of toxic hero society even if that isn't his intention and he doesn't realize it. Changing All Might's way of thinking- especially because of the affect is has on Izuku- is very crucial)

In the days preparing for the Sports Festival, Izuku notices how focused Uraraka is. She's been quiet, scribbling in her notebook and not being as talkative. When he asks about it, she admits to him and Iida that she needs to succeed at UA and feels like she's behind compared to the two of them. Her parents have struggled financially all her life and becoming a hero is her only chance to do right by them. She knows that it isn't a selfless, noble goal but it's been important to her all her life.

Iida assures her that wanting to provide for her parents is a noble end goal. Izuku agrees, but begins to think about his own mother. He had always had everything he needed, but Izuku knew they didn't have much money to spare. Inko had wanted to move to get him out of Aldera due to the bullying she knew about, but it just wasn't possible. His father refused to send more money from America and she could only do so much on a seamstress' salary.

He never wanted to be a hero for monetary gain, but he would like to make his mom's life a little easier, if he could.

Lunch with All Might goes about the same (it's so wholesome). The one difference is that All Might asks Izuku about his relationship with Bakugou. Izuku wasn't expecting that question and stumbles over his words, answering that they're childhood friends. But when All Might points out that Bakugou seems to be very aggressive towards him, Izuku replies with, "That's just how Kacchan is."

All Might's concerns are not alleviated by this.

The school day ends with 1A being confronted by the other classes. Bakugou is being his usual self, but Uraraka- who has found herself growing more and more annoyed with his attitude- tells him to stop being such a jerk. This stuns Izuku, who has never seen Bakugou being called out directly. But before he can process what's happening, Iida agrees, reprimanding him for his unsportsmanlike and pretentious behavior. Yaoyorozu chimes in that his actions reflect on the rest of the class and calling people "extras" is childish and not befitting a hero.

(Izuku.exe has stopped working)

Bakugou is about to rage at the three of them. Kirishima, however, brings up that while Bakugou's attitude sucks, it's unmanly for the other classes to gawk at and gossip about them. The kid in the front of the crowd- a general department student- scoffs and says that he has the chance to take one of their places in the hero course. He declares war on their class and tells them to watch their backs.

(Oh Shinsou, as pleasant as ever)

A class 1B student is also there, remarking on how unimpressive 1A appears to be. He warns 1A not to embarrass them during the Sports Festival since the audience is mostly going to be looking at them.

(Monoma being a bastard as usual)

The first event of the Sports Festival and everything leading up to it goes relatively the same. Todoroki confronts Izuku in the locker room and Izuku maintains that he'll try his best. Because Bakugou came in first during the Entrance Exam, he confidently and seriously declares that he'll win, which continues to make 1A a target.

Izuku wins with Todoroki and Bakugou coming in second and third. I'm keeping this because it's one of the best moments of the Sports Festival (the only thing I'm changing is Mineta on Yaoyorozu's back). And it sets up the Third Event well. I don't feel the need to change the Cavalry Battle that much either. I thought about having Monoma's team win instead of Shinsou's, but decided against it.

I'm also having Yaoyorozu confirm with Midnight before listening to Kaminari and Mineta about the cheerleading uniforms. She tells them that no, of course that's not a requirement for the female participants. Yaoyorozu, silently furious, scolds Kaminari and Mineta and tells them that she's reproting them to Aizawa.

Battle Tournament: Round 1

Round one basically goes the same. Except, I do have a few minor changes and one big change.

Izuku Midoriya vs Hitoshi Shinsou: I was going to change this fight, but then I realized that the OFA users snapping Izuku out of Shinsou's control was the first contact he made with the OFA users. And that's preeettty important. So I'm only changing it slightly.

Instead of OFA breaking Izuku's finger, a voice intervened before Izuku can snap at Shinsou. It's a woman's voice, reminding him of what Ojiro said and warning him not to lose his head.

She tells him that his quick thinking and ability to stay calm under pressure is one of his most valuable abilities. She tells him that keeping a level head in every situation is important. So Izuku, despite being upset as Shinsou's taunting of Ojiro, easily knocks him out of the ring.

(Nana gets scolded by the other users for intervening so soon. But she shrugs and defends that he was doing so well and just needed a little nudge in the right direction. Izuku reminds her so much of Toshinori- who she misses immeasurably- that it's hard not to get attached)

Izuku is snapped at by Shinsou, who accuses Izuku of having it easy because of his quirk. He assumes that Izuku had it easy his whole life and doesn't know what it's like to be outcast and labeled.

Izuku, who understands more than Shinsou could ever know, simply smiles. It's both kind and heartbreaking, which shocks Shinsou to his core. Izuku thanks Shinsou for the fight and tells him he can't wait to see him in the hero course one day.

Shinsou doesn't know why, but he gets the feeling that Midoriya does understand. But he doesn't know how that could be possible.

Momo Yaoyorozu vs Fumikage Tokoyami: This fight doesn't change much, but I thought I would get into Yaoyorozu's head a little here. Her entire life, she was the smart one. The one with the plan. She thought that she could face anything as long as she was smart and careful. It had worked all her life. It impressed her teachers, it made her parents proud. How could it not?

But for some reason, it never occurred to her that sometimes, she wouldn't have time for a plan. She was completely thrown off by Tokoyami's relentless assault. He didn't give her time to think or process, just kept dealing blow after blow that she couldn't counter in time.

Yaoyorozu was forced out of the ring. And she had never felt the sting of failure until that moment.

Ochako Uraraka vs Katsuki Bakugou: Uraraka has... a plan.

She distracts Bakugou as best she can. Using the smoke from his explosions, she attempts to attack him from all angles, diverting his attention from her real attack. She knows that it's risky and even a little foolish, but she has to try.

All this time, she's watched her classmates push themselves and give their all. That's something she's never done in her life. She can't be left behind, she has people counting on her. She has to succeed.

But much to her dismay, Bakugou figured out her plan. He blows up every bit of rock she had sent into the air, crushing any hopes of victory with it. Uraraka falls to the ground in dismay, fighting off tears. She's exhausted and hopeless and knows that she's going to lose. So why bother? She can't beat Bakugou.

She's been on the ground for too long. Midnight starts counting down.

5... 4...

Bakugou advances, telling her that she knew she would lose and that she should have quit earlier. He stands right in front of her, ready to deal the final blow and ring her out.

3... 2...

But something about his words make Uraraka angry. She's seen how he talks down to people. She's seen how he treats everyone as below him. She's seen how he targets Izuku who never fights back or defends himself. And she knows he's been looking down on her this whole fight.

And she's sick of it.

1-

In a fit of rage, Uraraka's arm shoots out and she grabs Bakugou's ankle. Making him weightless, she flips him over her shoulder and towards the edge of the ring. Bakugou, completely thrown off since he assumed she was defeated, falls to the ground.

Ochako Uraraka wins.

This was so, so satisfying to write this y'all don't even know. I told you guys that Uraraka's underdog story was coming. Idk what Aizawa's on about, but trying to say that Bakugou didn't look down on her was BULLSHIT. He literally told her she should have given up. So I thought, what better way to have her beat him than to use his own arrogance against him?

Every other round one fight stays the same.

Humiliated and angry, Bakugou confronts Izuku after the fight. He, through tears, accuses Izuku of telling Uraraka to fake him out and is upset that Izuku would use his weakness against him. But Izuku firmly tells him that Uraraka refused any help from him and that she won completely on her own. Bakugou doesn't believe him and tries to attack him, only for Iida to intervene and tell him to back off.

Izuku, who's never had someone stand up for him against Bakugou, is extremely touched, but also guilty when Bakugou runs away. He hadn't wanted to upset him, but he was telling the truth. He'd had nothing to do with Uraraka's victory.

And he wasn't going to stop himself from being happy for her.

Battle Tournament, Round 2:

Izuku Midoriya vs Shoto Todoroki: This fight goes relatively the same. The only thing I would change is that Izuku tells Shoto he's free to be his own hero and that what Endeavor wants doesn't matter. He encourages Shoto to reclaim his fire for himself. That's essentially what he does say in canon, but apparently Izuku haters need everything spelled out for them (eyeroll).

He loses this round, but he's not upset by it. He's just glad he could help Todoroki.

Toshinori is both proud and incredulous. Proud because Izuku helped his classmate. Incredulous because it had cost him his win. Nevertheless, Young Midoriya has impressed him greatly. This calls for a treat after the Sports Festival!

Ochako Uraraka vs Eijiro Kirishima: You know, at first I thought that Kirishima would be the winner of this fight. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that Uraraka could easily win. Kirishima can't fight without touching her, which immediately gives her the advantage.

It's hard to touch Kirishima with all give of her fingers due to his quirk and attempts to rush her out of the ring, but Uraraka isn't giving up. She's determined to push herself as much as she can. Grabbing hold of his jagged flesh, she makes him weightless and kicks him square in his chest. This is enough to push him out of the ring.

Because she actually likes Kirishima, Uraraka apologizes profusely. But Kirishima is completely impressed and admires her manliness. Uraraka isn't sure how to take that, but thanks him anyway.

All the other fights stay the same.

Battle Tournament: Round 3

Ochako Uraraka vs Fumikage Tokoyami: Unfortunately, Uraraka is unable to effect Dark Shadow with her quirk. It's solid, but it seems to be able to regulate its own mass with negates her quirk's functionality.

However, she doesn't allow the fight to end quickly. She holds off against Tokoyami, dodging his attacks and targeting his body. She's able to kick his feet out from under him and gain the upper hand for a split second.

(Yaoyorozu watches enviously from the audience. How could Uraraka do that and not her? What was she missing?)

But while she did that, she momentarily forgot about Dark Shadow. It wraps around her and while she struggles futilely, it gently places her outside of the ring. Uraraka was disappointed to lose after coming so far, but she was met with an admiring smile from Izuku as she joins him in the audience. He commends her for getting so far and tells her she did a really good job. Uraraka blushes and compliments his performance back.

They sit back and watch together as Iida loses to Todoroki. He joins them in the stands as they offer apologies, but Iida waves them off with a smile. His phone rings and he goes to answer it.

Izuku and Uraraka don't see him again for the rest of the event.

Battle Tournament: Round 3

Shoto Todoroki vs Fumikage Tokoyami: Even though Todoroki doesn't feel the same disdain towards his left side, he still hesitates to use his fire. It still came from Endeavor, no matter how much he wishes he could reclaim it as his own like Izuku advised him to.

He thinks that maybe someday he could manage to use it without seeing it as what drove him mother away. But for now, he's unable to stand bringing the heat to his palm. It burns, even though it realistically shouldn't.

Tokoyami is thankful that Todoroki doesn't use his fire. If he had, then he might have negated Dark Shadow resulting in his victory. But because Shoto is exhausted from his earlier display of power against Sero, it gives Tokoyami the upper hand. He's able to maneuver Dark Shadow around Todoroki's defenses of ice and slam it into him.

Todoroki gets knocked away and falls outside the ring. He collapses from the emotional and physical toll and passes out.

Fumikage Tokoyami has won the Sports Festival.

FINAL RESULTS:

1st Place - Fumikage Tokoyami

2nd Place - Shoto Todoroki

3rd Place - Ochako Uraraka & Tenya Iida

All Might hands out the medals to the winners, though Iida is suspiciously absent. Izuku is happy for his friends, though he wishes he could have performed a little better. But he's cheered up by a call to his mom, who's simultaneously worried about and proud of him.

Izuku knows his mom loves him and knows that she would do anything for him. But to hear those words from her in support of his dream... It breaks something in him. He starts crying, thanking her and quickly hanging up.

He's so glad to hear those words from his mother, but he can't help but wish he had gotten those words of encouragement from her sooner.

Notes:

Of course it's right after I say I was struggling with this arc that it all comes to me. Idk, rewriting Hawks got me motivated

I seriously debated having Uraraka beat Bakugou. I wondered if it was even possible at this point. But the more I thought about it, the more I realize she didn't have to overpower him. Bakugou's biggest weakness is his ego. All she had to do was target that. My original plan was to have Bakugou lose to Todoroki but you know what? Fuck that, this is Uraraka's underdog story

So the thing with Izuku vs Shinsou. I did think that OFA breaking his fingers out of nowhere was... dumb. Like, it just came out of nowhere to get Izuku out of that situation. I think the OFA users gently guiding him throughout the story before revealing themselves makes a lot more sense. Also, I love Nana

I actually do think Tokoyami could have beaten Todoroki at this point. Tokoyami had relatively easy fights before this. He only lost to Bakugou in canon because Bakugou had an inherent advantage. Todoroki not using his fire + him using all his energy against Sero and Izuku means that the fight was in Tokoyami's favor

I intentionally didn't give Iida a lot of focus because all of his major characterization is being saved for Stain

There was no glazing from Aizawa or booing from the heroes in the Uraraka vs Bakugou fight. Both were dumb and plot manipulation in canon

[khonaker]

So.

New chapter dropped.

And it was filled to the brim with BKDK bullshit.

MAYBE a bit of All Might and Izuku bonding time, but Bakugou had to make sure that he gets to invade that too.

Who fucking cares how the rest of his classmates feel about Midoriya after seeing him save the day? Especially Iida, Todoroki and Ochako? Pfft, those three specifically are losers!

Or the pros and acknowledging Izuku as the world’s greatest hero?

Or the civilians that Izuku saved and giving him gratitude?

Or Inko, and the fact she indeed is seeing her son alive and well after going up against the greatest threat in existence?

Just make sure the Bakugou stans are pandered, spoiled and kept satisfied, because only they fucking matter at this point.

Fuck me, this series is complete shit now.

[mikeellee]

As much I don't like Ochako, I dont judge her too harsh here. Deku and Dekiru sound similar where she comes from- as I have been told- which ok fair. Some regions in my country can have the same word and two different meanings.

I do side eye her for how she is calling him deku right away...when BK tried to kill him. Guys, his quirk is explosion...and he was aiming at Izu in the test - some would weakly say "he wasnt thinking in killing" which I digress. He was thinking in causing harm to Izu for no reason- and on the exercise (yes, that scene happened before Ochako says deku I think)

And I dont get why Izu would be ok in accept this name. Is bc Ochako is a girl? What if Iida said the same thing?

The scene is iffy to me...Izu should hate the name and wants distance and ...even if Nejire, the prettiest girl of UA, calls him as such using Ochako's words...Izu should have said no. "No. Dont call me that"

But one thing here...why Izu reacts this way to anyone giving a crumble of attention? Legit, all those gag moments make me think of bad scenarios....did the girls ignored him? Was he too afraid to talk to one? @doodlegirl1998 mentioned once how BK could have asked for girls's help to bully Izu...its possible but at the same time...BK is possessive in the sense "only I can abuse Izu"

Sorry I'm ranting here. I legit dont get why Izu acts this way. Ochako IS a stranger to him at this point- still is through- and Izu acts in a lovely dovey mode...blushing and being marvelled a person is talking to him.....dude if this was a shoujo written by someone not Hori (aka competent) this would mean smth...

Here it just feel its mocking Izu. And it gives me the idea no one talked to him in Aldera aside bk ...with his abuse. Which makes sense within cursed canon and god...makes me wonder if bk isolated him for the abuse and if so...why and when? Its scary imaging a 10 years old kid systematically abusing someone like this and knowing what they are doing.

"He is a kid. He didnt know any better"

Nah. He knew and did anyway. Actually, continues to do so.

[spring-dust-sillythoughts]

Im gonna ramble abt my feelings with toga death, it rlly make me mad, this is the second lgbtq female character who dies in this manga, who still was a teenage girl who everyone failed her in all her life and the one with most redeemable traits and possible love interest with ochako (that is actually interesting unlike yknow), and dies in the most dumb way when character like bakugo died TWICE and still made it,

there was no reason to let her die and make her give her life (again a bi girl) to save a straight girl to develop her relationship with a boy sucks, idgaf she deserved to live and love and be loved the way she is!! And it just let ochakos character as lame asf like a stab was all it took her to nearly die? Idc toga dying is evil im taking out of this manga

[dirt-apple-productions]

Never in my wildest nightmares did I think BNHA would end like this. (Derogatory)

[irontragedyreview]

People who are saying "you can't criticize Horikoshi, it's his story and he can do whatever he wants", etc. Yeah, it's his story but he's made it public so I can do whatever I want and if I want to be a bitch and I call hi, mediocre I’ll do it. Like I love Naruto with all my heart and I have defended Kishimoto over certain criticisms in relation to female characters, etc. I have also criticized him for the absolute shit that Boruto is, even considering that as a manga Boruto isn’t 100% his work considering that at the beginning he was involved in the movie but on the manga he was only a supervisor. What I'm trying to get It’s that if you believe that just because a mangaka creates a story it should be free from criticism then you aren’t ready to get involved with any type of media or sincerely the public believes that consuming a movie, book, etc. means being a passive subject without critical thinking.  

That being said, Horikoshi largely deserves as much criticism as he can get because these chapters were truly a shit show since this last arc began. Let's just start listing first, AFO vs Endeavor and every hero in existence was too long and repeated for a large number of chapters the formula "villain takes the advantage, heroes take the advantage, the villain takes the advantage again and finally wins and move on to something else", all of this perhaps understandable to give some prominence to characters who were forgotten for entire arcs.

Shouto and his arc plus his relationship with Dabi, Shouto had a very interesting arc and incredibly much material to exploit but his arc and his relationship with Dabi never managed to take off because he was so tied to Endeavor that the interactions between them felt empty. 

Ochako and Toga were honestly the only thing that was worth it, you could see the commitment to giving them both a great moment and the way she wanted to approach Toga and truly have a conversation. The only thing I can criticize about their ending is that obviously there is no completely satisfactory closure in giving Toga an answer to what happens next, apart from Ochako's offer of understanding, there is no easy way out of what the other heroes will do, therefore which I can’t criticize her for not giving an answer to a complicated situation in this way. 

Also Horikoshi added things to his story that in the end he didn’t finish closing or that surely even if he touched them again it would no longer make sense, what happened to Spinner? What happened to everything about heteromorphic discrimination? I have to believe that everything is fixed by the good heart of Shoji telling Spinner that his way of doing things only makes the "achievements" of equality go backwards by giving them a bad image. In other words, we know that quirk society is discriminatory, especially in less urbanized towns, that those heteromorphs who reach places of power are the least and no real change has been achieved, but of course the victims of discrimination have to keep quiet and be good. So, maybe in the future they will no longer be discriminated. I'm going to be fair here, touching on issues like discrimination is complex, but putting an idea like this in the manga and then going for a simplistic or rather completely ignored resolution, because while a person may not share Spinner's actions, it’s understandable why he does it and simply saying that you have to be better because then people will see that you are good and not discriminate against you is stupid, Horikoshi covered a topic that he honestly didn’t know how to deal with or wasn’t interested in doing so. 

Kurogiri/Shirakumo being just a plot device for Aizawa and being resolved in 5 panels, I'm going to be understanding and say that this arc had the least to explore, but in the end it was meh. Tbh I'm not going to criticize this because it is so empty of content that it is no longer worth criticizing it. 

About Tomura and Izuku, the truth is what can I say the most that I haven't said in previous posts? from all the fights or confrontations it’s the most ignored, neglected and rushed of all, we don't know anything about them other than loose panels for a whole year, they barely interact and now Tomura dies, Izuku is "well, I honestly don't give a damn and I want you dead", if no one who has followed these two characters realizes the damage that this chapter has done to their conclusions then I'm not going to explain it. If Horikoshi felt incapable or was tired of his story he could have ended it with something else, however perhaps this was always the plan, we are talking about a guy who said that the second movie was the end of his manga,that is Midoriya without quirk giving it to his childhood bully. It's obvious that he doesn't care about Izuku as a character and I think he did care about Tomura but he didn't know what to do with him, which is why we have this ending.

Final note for any comments I may surely receive for calling bk a childhood bully. Don't waste your time replying, commenting or trying to argue, Horikoshi took it upon himself to make bk a gary stu who never faces real consequences for his actions (dying is not a sign of karma) and his abuse is never treated seriously by the author, because his victim never reflects on himself, which is ironic considering how many BK fans recognize that Midoriya has self-esteem problems, contempt, and poor self-care but do not recognize BK's role in this or minimize it.

[teapetal44]

[delawaredetroit]

The removing of the mask symbolism is back - Aoyama's mask is sucked up by Thirteen immediately before he drops his façade and starts acting more underhanded here.

"I am what I am." Aoyama knew he would be forced to give away the location of the training camp and that those who fail would not be permitted to go. This is Aoyama accepting that he is the kind of person who would sabotage Ochako's exam in order to prevent something worse because he recognizes that he isn't brave enough to try to come forward.