#also also i am genuinely curious about the how early was afo pulling the strings question

[synecdoki-fresh]

look i just gotta get this weirdo theory off my chest:

Eri is going to use her power to turn Shigaraki into a baby.

one thousand tangents below -

why?

first of all, eri’s power is so hyped (for good reason!!) and I think it needs to have a bigger role in the ultimate plot than what’s happened so far. 

(Also, consider the parallels drawn between the two of them in terms of backstory).

but also like - i think this would be the most optimistic possible ending for shigaraki tomura as we know him!

everything that’s happened to him so far has spilled out, broadly, from this major trauma in his childhood (talking specifically about his quirk awakening and the circumstances surrounding that - i think he could have been a relatively normal person prior to that and especially prior to getting picked up by AFO***)

What if that could all just be... taken back?

I mean, obviously, not all of it can be, but here is what I can’t stop thinking about:

what comes up again and again throughout the series is this fuzzy boundary between powers and personality, and the way this plays with whether or not someone will become a hero or a villain.

Prime example: is early series Bakugō Like That because he’s a teen boy who can make explosions come out of his hands? Or Is he Like That because of how everybody treats him... as a teen boy who can make explosions come out of his hands? ... Or is he Like That because... (etc etc). 

And there’s tons of examples - see: Bakugō’s kidnap by the League, see: Shinsō’s middle school experience, see: Lady Nagant and Hawks, see: Todorokis Shōto and Tōya. It’s like ‘bad powers/good people’ and related tropes as a storyline in itself.

Anyway, where I am going with this is: there are a couple of ways we could ‘save’ Shigaraki without killing him, and I know so far, a lot of what we’ve seen Eri’s power do is take away/restore quirks...

But yeah, I don’t think he’ll be nerfed. (Also keeping in mind, iirc taking away quirks is something Bad People do in this world).

So... do I think he is beyond help as he is?

... yeah kind of.

Taking into consideration that I am in NO WAY saying people can’t recover from emotional trauma etc. etc. - think about all the SHEER PHYSICAL TRAUMA that has been dealt to him over the past few arcs. That dude’s body is essentially overpowered hamburger meat kept ambulatory by various applications of Mad Science and Dark Magic. We know he’s In There Somewhere, but that man’s eggs have been so THOROUGHLY scrambled...

And then - would he accept being ‘saved’ as he is? Can you turn this around?

From my perspective, it feels like the most practical way to save him is to give him a new start - let him become the person he could have been before he got picked up and manipulated by AFO, whether that person is a hero or a normie or hell, someone who is Not Very Nice... if he’s going to be a villain again, let him choose.

(Also give him a reasonable out from being locked up in some Tartarus-esque crime against humanity situation...)

So, yeah, Eri’s gonna turn him back into a baby.

***unless - please consider this: (and consider the possibility that this has been addressed in universe and I am too dense to remember)

how lucky was AFO to have stumbled on Shimura Nana’s grandson in the way that he did? Like, when he was bragging about it to All Might, it’s like - yeah, you did find the perfect guy to mold into your little Demon King puppet... how? 

Like, think about it: 

this kid is incredibly vulnerable and unstable (plenty of those kicking around BNHA universe)

his power is apparently a terrifyingly destructive random mutation (fewer those kicking around, especially considering that Shigaraki is 10+ years older than the crop of terrifyingly OP children that lots of people in universe are wringing their hands about)

he is the blood relative of an OFA holder?? (At that point in the story, we have evidence of three of those... and two of them are Kotaro and Hana.)

Each one of those qualities is like - sure, okay, easy enough to find someone like that (even the last one - AFO could have been/probably was keeping tabs on the Shimura family) - but all of those things? Every thing about little five-year-old Shimura Tenko was perfect from both a practical and symbolic point of view for AFO. How?

Essentially: were there strings being pulled somehow or was this just some massive coincidence? (And if so, what strings?)