BNHA Ch. 429
So, I guess Toga is dead, and people are losing it.
I get why people liked her--she was actually queer, being pan/bisexual. She was representation for them and that's rare in shonen manga.
But here's the thing--she was bad representation at best and insulting at worst. Nor do I think she was made queer because Hori really wanted to represent a queer girl. Himiko was always the author's poorly hidden fetish--she just was. She liked girls as much as boys because Hori wanted to draw a girl touching sexually on another girl. You can see this in how he draws her and Ochako in solo pics together.
I mean, people seem to understand this when it comes to Momo and her outfit being overly sexual or that both Himiko and Hagakure's Quirks either leave them naked or they have to be naked to use them. These are excuses to draw girls in a sexual manner. Himiko being into other girls is the same thing and that's the kindest interpretation.
Given how Himiko acts and her Quirk being heavily coded sexual desire, and therefore her use of it against someone unwilling being sexual assault, it could just being playing into harmful stereotypes of predatory gays.
As a queer person myself I just found Toga insulting. She was designed to be overly sexual and give the male author a female character that he could draw being suggestive with his other female characters. When he did flesh out her character, her backstory was eventually the trope/fear of straight people, that gay people will be so overcome with their lust that they end up sexually assaulting them.
In the end Ochako accepts this part of Toga and says she'll giver her blood forever, but as much as a lot of readers took that that as some deep lesbian confession, for me it really fell flat. Hori never really gave any of the main kids time to actually learn about their villain or show how that changed their minds toward them. Shoto only works because Touya is his brother (even though he admits he barely remembers him). But Ochako goes from not thinking of Toga at all pre-first war, to one thought about her during her speech, to suddenly caring about her so much she--given how Toga's quirk is coded, is willing to essentially fulfill Toga's kink for the rest of their lives.
It's weird and it comes out of nowhere. It's made even stranger because Toga doesn't actually change or show remorse for anything she did, which included personally hunting and murdering people before she joined the LOV. None of the death and destruction she is also partially responsible for is brought up either, something that Ochako was rightfully upset about during the first war when less people and property had been destroyed. Ochako just accepts everything about her suddenly and her past serious crimes are forgotten so they can cuddle and cry.
Am I shocked Toga died--a little. I didn't think Hori would have the guts to kill off a young girl character, especially one that he clearly got a lot of joy drawing in sexy poses. But at the same time, once he killed off Shigaraki and ended Touya's story with his slow death, I'm not surprised he went the same route with Toga.
This isn't Naruto--Hori isn't really kind to characters that do something wrong, especially if they don't try and change. Enji, Bakugo, Hawks, and Aoyama all sort of got punished for what they did. Enji is the worst off, being permanently crippled, missing an arm and burned everywhere. Bakugo's hand is damaged, his heart weaker, plus he feels bad that Izuku lost his Quirk so they can't compete the same way he wanted them to. Aoyama, despite doing way less wrong and even helping his class during the forest raid, still leaves school because he doesn't feel he earned being there yet. Hawks lost his Quirk and even though him running the HPSC could be seen as good for him, Hawks always wanted a break, but now he has one of the most time consuming and stressful jobs out there.
So, if this is what characters who actively did good things and even changed and fought to be better get, what would characters who never changed and never did anything positive for anyone but their friends/themselves get?
Before the last Arc started, when so many people said the LoV were 100% going to be redeemed I had doubts and always thought it wouldn't make sense with how the story presented redemption or treated other non-LoV villains in the past. That if the main LoV did get some happy ending where they were bffs with the main cast it would clash with how other characters had been treated.
That doesn't mean that I think how Shigaraki, Toga, and Touya ended up in the manga was well done. I think their endings fit far better then a last minute redemption would have, but at the same time you can feel how rushed everything has been since the end of the first war arc. Hori was done with this story months if not years ago, yet he was contractually obligated to finish it. Because of that I think he left out as much as possible. As much as I think he's written some pretty obsessive stuff, particularly towards women, I can't really fully blame him cutting corners or the story being shit at the end.
We know Manga authors, particularly those that work with Jump are treated like shit. That they suffer incredibly long hours at times not even getting to go home for days. We've gotten messages for Hori saying he's sick quite a few times. On top of that, weekly story telling is not a great way to tell a cohesive narrative. Ideas probably change week to week or at least month to month and you can't go back and change the last chapter no matter how much you need or want to. Then you remember he also gave a lot of ideas to the people who made the movies, which would also change his plans for how he wanted the main story to go.
The story is bad--it has been for a while, but I think a lot of people put their hopes on their favorite characters getting a happy ending, even when there were signs that probably wasn't going to be the case. I know how much it sucks when a character you love gets a shitty ending (Stain was my fav, but he got an absolute dogshit ending) but at least, knowing what I know about the industry I can't really blame Hori the way I see some other people doing. Criticize it, sure, but saying Hori hates his readers or is horrible writer isn't true. BNHA was popular for a reason--he's great with characters and the beginning of the story had some great pacing. We'll never know, but I wouldn't be surprised if BNHA could have been amazing if Hori had been treated better and the story hadn't needed a chapter every week.
If anything BNHA has taught me how much a story suffers when authors/artists are treated like crap and forced to work past burnout.
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Read a fanfiction longer rhan the bible. Do it. Waste years of your life on it. You may regret it, but the journey will be amazing.
Then do it again for the thrill.
Then do it again because you've lost your sense of time.
Then do it again because...
Oh, also the Bible is just fanfiction, so I *GUESS* you could technically read this post as me telling you to read the Bible, but nah. Go read a Fallout Equestria fanfic instead. It'll last longer. And it's less cringe than someone's power fantasy self insert original character "Jesus Christ" do not steal.
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Imma need Sakaki’s hand in marriage pls🤲🏽💍🥹
I swear I could treat him right♥️
I can already tell you he’s the type to go for odd choices, like those rings that cause a lot of pain if ever removed. Or something like a Victorian poison ring, so he can quickly put his misery to an end if ever faced with the possibility of losing you. He’s just dramatic like that.
Betrayed by my own creation. What in the Mary Shelley hell…is this the karma I get for writing so much cuck lore?
It’s Japanese single-tooth geta. Surprisingly common, you can buy them online and there’s many people walking in them. No idea how it works either, especially on soil and not solid pavement 😂 It does require a lot of balance. Sakaki doesn’t really do much outside of his artsy hobbies and the occasional walk, so I guess he’s not too challenged wearing them. He can always fly away from anything too troublesome.
Happy to hear you like the design! I’m kind of trying to make all of them unique in their own way, so no one ends up as a background character. :’)
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I need to learn more about christian theology so I can larp as a medieval monk who hasn't left the abbey in thirty years and has opinions so esoteric as to be functionally useless. I think this would be funny
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In one post you mention that you needed to make designs for wrath and gluttony (if I read it correctly I think they’re supposed to be parts of the assassins) and I was wondering who are the other deadly sins? (If the answer doesn’t contain spoilers that is, if it does then ig I’ll ask who’s your favorite assassin to draw so this ask isn’t mostly useless)
so there are 7 deadly sins in total, all ranked from least to most formidable/powerful/prolific/etc -
7. vivica de la crux aka envy
6. needles of the church (+ pins) aka sloth
5. dice demonné aka greed
4. lunette strikewhite aka pride
3. V.A. angel aka lust
2. gluttony
1. wrath
you'll notice that dice demonné hasn't been mentioned yet until this point! he's not a spoiler unlike the last two assassins (who are between designs, i've even been considering rebooting their concepts entirely or swapping around their ranking). he's one of the more lighthearted assassins so his sin is expressed pretty literally through a casino, where he's the high roller who makes and wins crazy bets and puts people into bankruptcy!
but, by day, he acts as a priest for the church, who has the same people he cheated the night before come to him confessing their sins and asking for forgiveness. he basically says "pay a tithe and god will forgive you" - when they can't pay any longer, he has them killed. usually it's enemies of the organisation who get put in this trap. (or sometimes in the middle of a game, he'll get pissed and have people killed regardless. witnesses are just given hush money.)
he has a cane to defend himself, but doesn't really fight on his own - he has his two sidekicks to fight for him, just like how needles has pins. (ignore how i forgot to draw kimberly's gun.....) they're nuns by day and casino girls at night!
(and my fav assassin to draw is probably vivica, though i have fun with all of them equally!)
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