#and focus on the abuse he actually suffers while being a hero

[fstarnd1sco]

being the only normal tim drake fan out there is so hard cus this person is so right

people who like tim dont like him at all, they just like the idea of him and thats why thers this narrative around tim fans that we are the absolute worse which is true but also its not cus i dont want it to b you feel me? like i LOVE tim but the way some of you need to pick up a comic and close ao3... all this misinformation haunts me

i will make comic guides i will provide with free sources to read them i will do everything to free my boy off this horrible misscharacterized prison because tim drake is an awesome character, hes well written and has a good canon story damn it!! free him!!!!

[redphlox]

How long do you think Dabi survived for in the tube? I’m regards to Natsuo’s character, do you think he got the chance to reconcile with Touya despite the Ending incident? How do you think that went down?

One thing I will credit to the ending of MHA, the fact they still have Touya’s shrine (wonder if they still have kid Touya’s picture or if it’s a different one) considering Shoto prays to it. They never forgot about him, and they never seemed to blame him either saying they would always be there (Fuyumi and Rei said anyway.) Although I hope he didn’t die in the tube and was able to hug them one last time. The idea that Dabi is probably the only villain to be remembered by his family/have a grave while Toga and everyone else were abandoned is low key heartbreaking. But the whole ending for the LOV is LOL

I think maybe Toya survived a couple of weeks or months. Not too long, of course. Let the man escape this cruel world.

I like to think that Natsuo reconciled with his brother. The story emphasized that they had a strong bond and implied that Toya was a main source of emotional support and comfort to Natsuo during a time when he felt abandoned and rejected by both parents, as Endeavor was focus on his career and abusing his family, and Rei's energy was focused on protecting Shouto from Endeavor and her own mental health was deteriorating. I'm sure Natsuo had a lot of anger and confusion about Touya's actions as a villain, but I believe they got closure.

It would be nice if the author had confirmed this in some way, seeing as he put so much emphasis on the relationship, but... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ it's just another writing failure that didn't need to crash and burn but did anyway.

I also hope Touya didn't die in that tube by himself. Hopefully he was able to be held as he died or something. Especially since this second death was supposed to fix the first way he died (alone, unseen), but again, who knows! A major plotline of the story being so open-ended that readers get no closure and no satisfaction from the story... that's what we were left with.

I agree. It's truly all laughable. Shigaraki and Toga will only be remembered by Spinner and their respective hero kids, and neither party has a complete picture of the villains' stories. We're not shown that Spinner learned about his best friend's childhood abuse, and we're not shown if Ochako knew about the quirk counseling and all the childhood trauma that Toga went through. And it's not like Spinner will be let out of prison to make a grave or altar for them. Lol. Despite Deku saying he'll never forget Shigaraki, we're never shown that he's thinking about him or is moved by him in any way besides that "do your best" flashback which wasn't even in context to what Shigiraki would have wanted. Lol. And yeah, Ochako's quirk counseling program was inspired by Toga to prevent more kids from suffering her same fate, but it would be much more impactful if she actually shared this with the public and TALKED about Toga to the public. But no, let's keep Toga's dying heroic action on the down low so that people's perception of her is not challenged and she remains a heinous humanless villain in the annals of history. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

It's just all one giant superficial, forced ending that feels hollow and disingenuous.

Chapter 431 at least redeemed Shouto's ending for me and gave me some closure on Touya... reassurance that he's remembered and considered even in death, loved and seen unconditionally, which is exactly what Touya wanted after he died on Sekoto Peak.

[class1akids]

Did Shouto ever end up having legit closure with endeavore bc i dont even remember anymore??? (sorry bed english

No, not really. Hori's cowardly writing left it super-vague and up in the air. Their last few interactions are:

Endeavor's apology to Shouto, which Shouto probably didn't hear, but then again we know that Hori writes apologies for the perpetrators' sake, not for the victims'

The Endeavor - Shouto combo (which I read as Endeavor's reward as a hero - he gets to have his last action as a hero be the first ever combo with the heir he wanted so desperately, and which I think is one of Hori's truly awful writing choices, priorizing giving Endeavor rewards over what would make sense in the family arc: Enji staying with Touya and Shouto being let to return back to his friends after carrying the family burden this far)

The family FINAL - where Endeavor sets his kids free (while also clear that he doesn't actually have the power to do so bc the family scandal affects all of them) and Shouto tells his parents that he'll be fine with Class A and returns to the dorms (even though the students get the choice to live at home).

It's up for interpretation. I personally read this as Shouto finally allowing himself to put down the family baggage and focus on the things he wants to do for himself and allow himself to grow in his found family (Class A) where he feels safe and loved.

I also think it's important how after this moment, Hori never shows Shouto again with Endeavor, and only mentions Endeavor once as in "people think of him less and less as Endeavor's son"

There is also a mention in Ch 431 of Shouto praying at Touya's altar, which implies that Shouto does in fact go to his parents' house from time to time (and it makes sense since Rei lives there). So he didn't cut them off the way Natsuo did. Him and Fuyumi probably visit sometimes. That's not necessarily forgiveness, but more like filial duty (I remember my father taking care of my grandfather for years as he was dying from lung cancer despite he never forgave him for being an abusive asshole, because he wanted to make it easier on my grandmother - in some cultures this is strongly about defining who you are as a person and something that transcends personal forgiveness) and also given the fact that Rei is staying with Endeavor, Shouto would want to help her regardless of how he feels about Enji personally.

But I think, mostly he just let go without necessarily forgiving. For his own sake he let go of the negative feelings that he was a slave to for so long and started to focus on the things that made him happy and allow himself to grow the bonds with his friends.

I think his blood family will never be a place of comfort to Shouto, but more a place where he is bound by his guilt about the suffering that his birth meant for these people - meaning mostly his mom and siblings.

But it's also pretty clear that the place of comfort, reassurance, family, joy are his friends where he can be just Shouto and be loved for who he truly is.

[amysgoblinhorde]

The Anti-JK Rowling: Praise for TJ Klune

I am going to overshare. I do not apologise for this.

Way back in the mid 1990s, I was I young girl in school and I was badly suffering the years of harassment and abuse by my peers and also by the grown ups who should have cared for me. I was told I brought it on myself by being weird, I was told I was an attention seeker (yes, and can't you hear me cry for help?) and it was actually the lip curling disdain of the teachers that broke me the most.

I began to feel like maybe I did deserve it. I must have been so unpleasant, so hideous a person that others could see me for what I was and the universe itself was punishing me. I developed Body Dysmorphic Disorder, I kept checking mirrors to see if I could glimpse the monster, mocking myself whenever I thought I looked normal.

Anyway. It all came to a head in my third year, when I became admittedly a bit of an edgelord. I sucked in the darkness and screamed it out.

I was sent to a hospital school. This was a little tiny class of mixed ages for children who needed extra help. It was better here, I made friends - but I also learned a dark lesson here that no child should have to -

There is an appropriate face for trauma.

And I didn't have it. I was not the cute cancer kid. I was not the brave smiling little trooper. I was told by some of the staff in the hospital school that I didn't really belong there, I should consider myself lucky. One teacher said that those of us who were there for mental health issues were weak, we had failed. If we were braver we would be in a normal school.

I would have been 11 when the first Harry Potter book came out, though I didn't read any until sixth form college. I wanted to know what the fuss was about, a movie was being made.

I thought they were fun, as many did. But I can't pretend it didn't hammer an extra nail into my heart as it yet again told me that there was an acceptable face for trauma and it was not mine.

Harry Potter. He was written to be a good looking lad, sporty. Tragically dead parents that he didn't remember anything about. Suffered abuse, but it didn't break him in any inconvenient way. He was a tragically brave little hero with his friends the impossibly clever poster girl (who incidentally was very pretty when she wanted to be) and the token dweeb who appears to have mostly be written to prop up the other two.

Then we have Neville. His story was genuinely heartbreaking and yes it was addressed, but not really. His horrors are not something we talk about. Let's not go there, let's treat it like a dark embarrassing secret. But what a brave lad he is, standing up to his friends! Not for, you know, visiting his brain damaged parents and living with his abusive grandmother. No, no, it's the friends he stands up to. Brave silly Neville. Not the hero, of course. But isn't he brave?

And at last we come to TJ Klune. I read The House in the Cerulean Sea only recently. And wow. I laughed and cried in equal measure.

As with Harry Potter, we have a collection of magical youths, learning to navigate their powers as they grow. But the differences are diamond sharp, the focus instead on all the right things while still being joyful, fantastic and often hilarious.

How can this brilliant man get it so right in such a simple way? It's obvious, when you think about it.

All traumatised children matter.

There is no right face of trauma, least of all on a child, but hey let's not leave out the grown ups. At 40 years of age I thought I knew this, but I must have kept my younger self in a little cell in my mind (ahhh but she's different, she was a monster. We don't talk about her ...).

I was David. And I was Lucy. Why is it so much easier to forgive myself when I see myself as a yeti?

Children will lash out. Forgive yourself that. Children can be little weirdos, little balls of chaos and anger. That's okay. And no child's suffering should be ignored in favour of another, no matter what they look like or what they have done.

No child should be expected to be a poster boy hero, and no child should be chastised if they do not perform trauma right.

So yeah ... Thanks for reading until the end. And thanks to TJ Klune for making a 40 year old woman feel so many things, the strangest of all being forgiveness and acceptance of her 13 year old self.

Also, Chauncey is handsome as crap.

[phantomkinoc13]

Imagine you’re a little kid and your dad is a hero and he’s really strong and badass and you wanted to be a hero too! And you trained and practiced really hard to be a hero but you trained too much and got burnt by your quirk, and your dad realizes you can’t safely handle your own flames, and instead of teaching you how to focus your power to not hurt yourself he just stops training you, and tells you to give up on being a hero. Give up. and he has another kid, and you know that other kid is meant to replace you, so you keep trying to train on your own to prove you still deserve attention and love, you’re still worth paying attention to! You’re trying! You can still do it! And he just admonishes you, and goes and has *another* kid and you’re still not enough and this one is obviously perfect and you know you’ll never get any attention again unless you prove you’re good enough and you cry about it every day but he never acknowledges you and after a few more years of trying you discover you can do something powerful and you’re so excited and so you tell your dad to come see! And you’re waiting for your dad who you begged to come see you, and you wait and wait and he never shows up and you’re just 13 and you know you’ve been replaced and they didn’t show up they don’t love you so you start crying but you start crying fire. And you cry flames and the flames spread and you panic and your emotions are too much and you burst into flame too and everything is on fire and you’re on fire and you can’t put it out, and while you’re burning up, you do the only thing you can think of, which is jump off a cliff into the river below to hope it puts out the flames, and it does work but the fire still rage above you, and you pass out, and someone finds you, unconscious, body totally burnt beyond normal repair, but this guy showed up because he saw those flames and he happens to be a guy who wanders around looking for abandoned and homeless children and he happens to know an excellent but unhinged doctor, and he brings you to that doctor and they give you skin grafts on your arms and face and chest and probably most your body honestly, and you’re in a coma for three years recovering before you wake up, and your first thought when you wake up is to wonder where your family is. Where your dad is, if he was worried. they’re probably just busy. You were in a coma after all. And your voice is different now from your vocal coords being burnt, and because you’re older now, you’re 16 and you’re taller- but surely your family has seen you. Surely they visited. So you go home, as quickly as you can, and instead of them being excited, you see a shrine set up to mourn your death, with a picture of you from three years ago, and your father is still abusing your youngest sibling. He’s still acting the same way. He thinks you died and even your death didn’t get him to change his behavior and if this is how he treats the golden child, putting all of his expectations on them, and completely ignoring his other children, Nothing changed. He didn’t find you in the fire and assumed you were dead and moved on. He never visited you. No one did. You’ll never be a hero now. You’re even weaker now than you were before. And you can’t even cry about it because your tear ducts burnt. So you just pray at your own altar and leave. you hate him. You hate him so much. It’s easier to be angry, it’s easier to hate him than think about how much it hurts that you were simply replaced. And you consider killing the golden child sibling to make your dad suffer but as much as you hate him, and resent him, you’re actually kind of proud of him, and you feel this twinge of guilt for leaving him there because he also hates your dad. But finally you come to the conclusion that the way to get back at your father is to publicly reveal on national television everything he did to you and your siblings to try ruin his reputation, and then go confront him, in the middle of a massive battleground, and dance around and traumatize him back before trying to destroy him.

Anyway Dabi is so valid actually

[flightfoot]

got any fic focusing on marinette's trauma? all i can find are adrien trama fics

That makes sense. All Hawk Moth related trauma is stuff that Adrien would also have, and who it would be ten times worse for. Still, I'll see what I can do. I'm gonna stick to ones where the trauma Marinette suffers is derived at least somewhat from canon, and not like, from being captured and tortured, or having a fatal illness, or her mom dying, or anything like that. I'm assuming you want ones that are at least close-ish to canon, instead of just "Marinette angst" fics.

---

A Small but Stubborn Fire by @cardiac-agreste

What if you were the parent of a teenage superhero, but didn't know they were? All you know is the nightmares, the panic attacks, and the bruises. She's missing school, she's disappearing on you, and she's not telling you anything. So you assume the worst: Assault. Depression. A permanent rift in the family. And what do you do when you realize you weren't thinking dark enough? Because your fourteen-year old daughter is the hero who flirts with death on the nightly news. -- Come inside and read about one mother's struggles to raise her daughter in a dangerous world while avoiding the mistakes her own mother made with her.

This is a more serious take on the consequences of Hawk Moth's war on Paris, with actual bloody, painful deaths as a consequence of many akumas, and Parisians developing PTSD because of what they've gone through. Ladybug can fix all the physical scars, but not the mental ones, including her own.

I love the focus on Sabine here. She's not just presented as being a mom - though of course that IS an important role she has. But she's explored as a character in her own right, one with a lot of emotional baggage as a result of her abusive mother, and trying to not fall into her mistakes, but sometimes doing so anyway out of fear for Marinette's safety. She's a really fleshed out, humanly flawed character, sometimes admitting that she would do something selfish if it means protecting the people she cares most about, like her daughter, even if its at others expense. She grows and changes a lot throughout the course of the story, her perspective on many matters changing multiple times as a result of getting new information or seeing the consequences of her previous approaches, and adjusting as a result.

If you want a fic that more realistically explores the dark consequences of Miraculous's setting, that fleshes out Sabine, or just develops a character in a complex way, then I highly recommend you check "A Small but Stubborn Fire" out!

---

In Pursuit of the Uneatable by @nemaliwrites

Who do you trust when your own reflection becomes a stranger? In a Paris where Lila weaves tales that blind the city, Marinette stands accused, isolated. Her parents' trust is shattered, her friends distant, and in battle, illusions blur the line between ally and enemy. As the shadows and uncertainty threaten to close in, Marinette finds herself turning to the last person who claims to be on her side: a boy in a white mask who calls himself a fox hunter.

THIS IS NOT A BASHING FIC. Well, Lila bashing, I guess, but even then she gets a lot more consideration than usual. Anyway, there's no animosity towards Marinette's friends and family here. Instead, the fic has more of this melancholy, contemplative tone, with Marinette feeling boxed in by Lila, and trying to figure out how to navigate her circumstances, especially being around Lila. Even when there isn't any particular threat against her, just having Lila around, knowing that she could pull something else to make Marinette's life worse, and thinking that there's no way to counter her, that she always wins... you can feel how suffocating it is. But she does have a way out, a mysterious boy who she's seen around, who completely has her back as far as Lila's concerned... but she might not want him to, to the extent that he goes.

By the way, this IS a Lovesquare fic, the thing with the boy... well, that'll make sense once you read the fic. But it's not romantic, I can tell you that.

Anyway, it's this interesting psychological, low-key sort of fic. If you want a look at the more emotional consequences of Lila's brand of bullying and isolation WITHOUT any sort of demonization or bashing towards anyone else, but just exploring the effects on Marinette and how to respond to it, then this fic is worth a look.

Oh, also, this is rated M, though I'm honestly not sure why. Marinette's not in the best headspace, but it's not a "this isn't appropriate for teens" headspace, there's nothing sexual, and the most that is present in the story as far as violence and gore goes are some bruises that were acquired under indeterminate (though probably abusive) circumstances, and the breaking of an arm and being bludgeoned in the head, and neither of them are described particularly graphically. So long as you're 13+, this fic's probably fine.

---

Stop Time by @liiinerle

— she put her hand on the page, blocking it so the words wouldn’t scream so loudly at her. They had screamed more than enough already. Gritting her teeth, she pulled her fingers together, crumpling the paper slightly — just enough that it didn’t look so pristine and mocking. It needed to be full of despair, in every possible way. “Marinette —” started Mullo. “No! Never again. Marinette is… gone, forever.” She let go of the paper. Now it lay alone in the light, as the last thing she could ever tell them. That she loved them, that she’d miss them, that she would never talk to them again. A suicide note. Of sorts. ----- Fu accidentally names Marinette as the new guardian, and not Ladybug. She's forced to fake her own death and go into hiding in order to get away from Hawk Moth. She finds a hiding spot in the Louvre, but there she's forced to face the effects of her going away by a very unexpected source: her friend Alix.

Definitely mind the tags on this one! But if it ain't triggering to you, then I highly recommend reading it. You can really feel Marinette's struggles here, with basically making herself homeless, unable to reach out to her friends and family, needing to steal just to feed herself and the kwamis, and then dealing with everyone in her life grieving... and then moving on. Except for a few people who don't...

It's just... it's really good, really heart-wrenching.

---

Bend the World Around It by @kasienda

“Tell me it was real." She can’t look at him. She can barely stand the pain in his voice. She definitely can’t face it. “It wasn’t.” He shakes his head, and turns to her - his eyes swirling in their intensity. “That’s not what I meant and you know it. Tell me that you were there. We were there together, having the same dream.” She squeezes her eyes shut. She wants to lie to him. She needs to lie to him. But she can’t. Lying would be like it never happened. But it did happen. And if it’s all they get to have, she wants him to know it. “I think we were having the same dream,” she whispers, unable to meet his eyes.

So this is an adorable Jubilation aftermath fic, with Ladybug and Chat Noir both mourning the loss of what only they remember, of a dream that never was. And them deciding that screw it, it may not have been real to anyone else, but it was real to them. They remember those years together, and they want to live together, if only during the times when they can afford to be missing from home. They remember being happily married, and crave that life.

---

I (Wish I) Knew You by @buggachat

University has been hard on Marinette. Making new friends and maintaining her grades is a lot easier said than done when she has to disappear at odd times to fight akumas. She's struggling, and with Alya away with family and Adrien painfully out of reach, she's never felt lonelier.

If only she could talk to someone who really understood her struggles... but it's not like Chat Noir would know anything about loneliness. Right?

Nice aged-up Ladynoir fic here! Marinette’s struggling with losing friends and lovers because of her flakiness due to her superhero activities, until at last she breaks down. Thankfully, Chat Noir’s there at least - and it soon turns out he’s got problems of his own that he’s been hiding.

There’s some fluff and angst, it’s mostly just the two of them navigating life, dealing with their feelings and talking things out.

---

Accidents Are Also Miracles by @liiinerle

After a few turbulent days where four new people discover her secret identity, Marinette loses faith in her ability to keep the secret hidden. Wracked with doubts and insecurities, she pleads with Alya to take over as Scarabella, but she still can't let those worries go. Especially not once Monarch starts taking a particular, and personal, interest in her.

Along the way, she also starts to date Kagami, and has to deal with changing feelings about herself, Adrien, Alya, Kagami, and the idea of being Ladybug. At the same time, Alya works to uncover Monarch's secret identity, while Kagami struggles against a controlling parent, and a girlfriend who seems bent on destroying herself - with or without Monarch's involvement.

Fantastic Marigami fic here! You’ve got three major POVs in this fic: Marinette, Kagami, and to my delight, Alya. I loved getting to see Alya cope with taking over as Scarabella especially.

But of course, this fic centers more around Marinette and Kagami, with Marinette struggling with Monarch targeting her, and Kagami struggling against her abusive parent, as well as both of them trying to navigate their relationship together when they know that not everyone will approve. 

There’s also some other plots going on in here, like Sabrina breaking away from Chloe and becoming more independent (and closer to Adrien in fact), as well as a Lila takedown plot, though thankfully not one that involves demonizing other characters. While there are conversations about people believing Lila and siding with her, no one’s actually attacked for it except for Lila herself.

Oh yeah, and while this fic may not have much focus on Adrien, he’s still treated fairly and with respect, even when he messes up. He can make mistakes, but people understand where he’s coming from, and are still kind to him and want things to be okay, and to help him escape his abusive circumstances.

[cj-ghostemoji-destielpie]

Arvid's Pack:

I've read a lot of runaway Harry Potter gets adopted by Snape fics but what about a story where the muggle raised kid isn't Harry Potter? how about a different abused runaway wixen?

Summary:

Severus Snape had just been walking through an alley in Diagon Alley to avoid the many people shopping last minute for the school year when he comes across a half feral boy, two dogs, and a cat.

The animals are friendly, the boy though growls at him. Severus of course doesn’t let that deter him. He continues on his journey through the alley and returns half an hour later with food, water, and coin for the kid.  

Snape never thought he’d be a father, but he knew he’d never be the type of person to allow an innocent child to be harmed. Just like Snape when he was a boy: Arvid hasn’t had anyone. And Snape’s going to do his best to make up for that. Because no kid should have to suffer and if Snape can be the hero that he always wished for as a kid, then he's going to do exactly that. Even if he's not 100% sure of what he's doing the entire time.

Arvid’s mother killed herself when he was five and there to witness it. She’d tried taking Arvid with her in a twisted attempt to save him. Arvid runs away from home at eight years old.

At almost 11 years old (his birthday isn’t until April), he’s suddenly safe but he’s still unsure of how long Mr/Professor Snape will continue to have patience for him. He’s broken and messed up; why would Snape ever want to deal with him? Or his crazy pack; which is slowly growing because Arvid can’t say no to an animal that likes him and Snape can’t seem to say no when Arvid looks at him with puppy eyes while hugging an animal in his arms adorably.

There will be a few original characters that will be fellow Hogwarts students including a black werewolf muggleborn who has a half sister that was raised as his twin despite them having different mothers (drama in that family for sure), a trans fem witch who was kicked out of her pureblood family and raised by Lovegood as Luna treats her as her sister, a wheelchair bound witch who manages to get to her classes thanks to kind House Elves since the school isn't wheelchair accessible and no one bothered to help her find a way to her classes, an ofc Malfroy who's Draco's sister and very rebellious against her family/parents and refuses to stay quiet or support their views just because they're her parents and is slowly encouraging Draco to have his own path and stop falling into the path their parents want.

This fic basically will touch on many subjects from child abuse of many types, attempted murder, wars, racism, classism, basically a bunch of isms, homophobia, transphobia, a bunch of phobias, disabilities and how narrow-minded or unaware some folks can be, werewolves and house elves and other "sub humans" and their struggles for equality; I don't know about you but being called "sub humans" sounds awful.

Basically my fanfic is going to be "woke as f*ck" or whatever the folks be sayin' these days lol. When I actually post it on AO3 I'll post a link on here too. For now, enjoy the summary/idea and maybe I'll finish chapter one through three and feel confident enough to actually post it lol.

(ps: thought about shipping Severus with someone in the background, not like the main focus of the fic, any ideas? I was thinking Remus but I kinda wanted to have a background Remus and Sirius thing going on. Lily is dead in this fic but James is alive but crippled and half blind. So Harry lives with his father and has never met his cousin and muggle family. Voldemort is dead and isn't a problem anymore but his old followers still lurk in the shadows and occasionally still stir shit up.)

[qqchurch]

against my better judgement, I got into reading the entirety of what's translated for I Got Killed By My Classmates And Became God's Gofer, or what would better be known as Passive-Aggressive: The Revengeance

I actually read the first few chapters long ago when the translation was just starting out, but my eyes kind of glazed over the execution of what's written

Getting back to it now, with around 8 times the chapters it had back then, it kind of got even worse

The gist of it is this:

We have the typical mob protagonist get swept up with his entire classroom (25 people in all) in a Hero Summoning. He finds out that he has a Contract skill and takes the initiative to bind the entire kingdom that summoned them into treating his classmates humanely and without hostility. Unfortunately, this largely backfires on him as him stepping up upset the social heirarchy in the class and he becomes a target to escalating abuse by his classmates (with secret assistance by the kingdom wriggling around the contract)

Things come to a head when the MC's personal maid is found raped and killed and he takes the fall because everyone else has been manipulated into thinking he used his Contract skill on her. By this point, he's sick of this shit and knew that he was going to be killed, so he let's himself die against the Hero of the class while knowing that the Contract on the kingdom will be broken and that the rest of his class will be put into slavery. That's the entirety of his "revenge".

The genderbender part comes in when capital G God scoops up his fading soul and tells him that he's gonna revive him into a demigod if he does a few errands for him, with some nudging to let him know that personally seeing the results of his vengeance would be better than just fading away. And so the MC is respawned as Finis the Demigod with the entire powerset of her former classmates, with the mission from God to free the major spirits before the world ends in 50 years

There's a few bits of dysphoria when the MC transforms to her old body, but it's kind of few and far in between, and any references to the state of her body is basically nonexistent since being a demigod just makes any human function an option. This probably would work out more as a manga since we can always see her, but it's a first person story with a deadpan/apathetic protag

The only outbursts of emotions we'll really see is when she's facing her old classmates that she's labeled as her targets, but that's largely sadism and schadenfreude on her part

The biggest flub I can say about this entire thing is the focus on the MC saying that experiencing death is the ultimate suffering compared to anything else, when there's PoV chapters of the former classmates experiencing constant severe physical abuse, dehumanization, soul-rending experiments, and even rape

(this doesn't even include the favorite trope that gets shoved in european ambience isekai: Slavery. the MC genuinely doesn't care and even buys one of her former classmates just to twist the knife on her even further before leaving her to die in a forest full of monsters)

Speaking of perspectives, a full third of the current release is just multiple chapter interludes of a single classmate recounting the entire beginning arc, up until they realize they Fucked Up by getting the MC killed, and then it's a montage of them suffering as the kingdom's weapon of war

There doesn't seem to be anything going with the MC's story that would be any much of a twist since she's already all-powerful. It's just gonna be go to a country -> fuck around for a bit while worldbuilding -> release the spirit -> repeat. It honestly would've been better if the MC just peaced out when she died and just have the rest of the story be about the classmates left behind, either the ones suffering or the ones that left the moment the MC died

All in all:

Genderbending: Not even a factor, little to no exploration

Main Plot: bland worldbuilding interspersed with frankly sadistic PoV scenes

[super-paper]

Long ask btw, but I loved the incredible Armored Might post, especially after so many bad takes that I've seen about it. People keep calling him a hypocrite because it "goes against what he said in chapter 1" -as if Toshinori changing his mind after 400+ chapters of character development isn't possible- , or calling him selfish for not using the suit to help Izuku during the dark deku arc, or that he's reducing his students to quirks and going against their wishes of saving villains by using their quirks to inflict violence on AFO. I even saw the insane argument that "he was wilfully complicit in the mutilation and murder of his students" because he didn't join Endeavor or saved Bakugo. I've seen this fandom call him all type of stuff, from abuser to groomer, and even kidnapper. That he's manipulating Izuku for selfish reasons, and he's the most toxic influence in Izuku's life and should stay away from him. But to see fans actually claim that Toshinori, of all characters, purposely left his students and other heroes suffer and die just so he could get a grand entrance later on is one of the worst takes I've ever seen. WHO is this character these people are talking about?? What manga are they reading even????? So yeah, your post is refreshing in the midst of all negativity. I personally love Armored Might. The art is stunning (as always), the little details of Nanas color squeme are so sweet, the mecha suit looks so cool!! His unhinged attitude and feral expressions!! I LOVE ALL THOSE EXPRESSIONS! And while I'm not a huge fan of Class 1A, I found Toshi using his students quirks to help him fight as a way to honor them, to be very endearing. I know a lot of people were getting bored and tired of AM vs AFO and wanted the focus to shift to others, but I was enjoying every bit of that fight. I missed seeing the focus on Toshinori after being sidelined for so long, I loved seeing him fight again, and learn more about him and seeing the payoff of his character arc. I loved seeing him SMILE! And a real smile too! I was worried about how this would go, with the death flags and prophecy, however I think hori has so far handled Toshi's character beautifully :)

Thank you for the kind words! 🥹

"I've seen this fandom call him all type of stuff, from abuser to groomer, and even kidnapper. That he's manipulating Izuku for selfish reasons, and he's the most toxic influence in Izuku's life and should stay away from him. But to see fans actually claim that Toshinori, of all characters, purposely left his students and other heroes suffer and die just so he could get a grand entrance later on is one of the worst takes I've ever seen."

Yeah man I can't believe Toshi poisoned our water supply, burned our crops, and delivered a plague unto our houses. 😔

Picture related: The face of MHA's true villain (AFO who??)

I even saw the insane argument that "he was wilfully complicit in the mutilation and murder of his students" because he didn't join Endeavor or saved Bakugo.

Yeah, what I've been finding most baffling is that the people who are raking Iron Might over the coals for being a "suicide mission" and claiming that it "ruins Toshi's arc" are usually the same ones who argue that Toshi should've helped out in the fights at gunga/UA (where Toshi’s chances of actually being killed for realsies would’ve quadrupled bc prime AFO and Tomurafo would've been gunning after him at full health and with comparatively sound minds lmao). Iron Might was an untested last resort and it was only effective in the first place bc everyone at gunga wore AFO’s HP bar down and made him super emotionally unstable in the process-- but pointing that out is something else that gets met with derision from a lot of fans lmao.

Anyway, I feel that most of the arguments against Iron Might (esp. the argument that Toshi is falling back into bad old habits and trying "shoulder everything by himself") are ultimately lacking in both bite and sincerity-- because most of the time they completely disregard the whole of his arc, the context behind his decision to step in, and the multitude of events that led up to his stand off with AFO. Like:

Toshi legitimately trusted that the heroes at gunga would finish off AFO (and as much as I love punking on Endeavor, we do need to give credit where credit is due-- Endeavor did succeed in killing AFO. for like. five seconds. lmao.), but no one could have truly expected that AFO would have access to rewind.  

Toshi trusted that the UA fortress group would be able to contain TomurAFO, but no one could have expected that Himiko would yeet Izuku away from his intended battlefield (or that Kurogiri would later yeet Aizawa away from the fortress).  

Toshi trusted Shouto and Iida to stop Touya-- he had unshakable faith in Iida's speed and Shouto's phosphor, and hey, that belief in his students was rewarded! (and this point is especially important because if Toshi hadn't stepped in and encouraged Shouto to put his family/Touya first, Shouto would have chosen to confront AFO instead and *literally* everyone at Gunga would have died). 

But to see fans actually claim that Toshinori, of all characters, purposely left his students and other heroes suffer and die just so he could get a grand entrance later on is one of the worst takes I've ever seen.

Yeah, exactly.😭 This is another example of what I mean when I say their arguments lack sincerity bc like. The last time we actually saw Toshi in the control room was immediately after Touya got "defeated" at Kamino, when everyone at UA/Gunga was completely fine and the heroes actually thought they were gonna get an easy win (R.I.P, my guys-- never let anyone tell you u didn't shoot for the stars lmao). The next time we see Toshi, he's leaving the control room in a *flashback* panel-- so it's pretty heavily implied from this panel alone that Toshi left the control room the moment things started going south for the heroes. So like. He was rushing to help them as soon as it became apparent that they needed it and not just waiting for the perfect moment to "step in and steal all the glory."

Anyway, Toshi himself does not view his last stand against AFO as as him ~once again doing everything by himself~. He makes it very clear that the only reason he can stand up to AFO in that moment is because of the bonds/blessings/help he has received from others. The narrative doesn't treat this fight as Toshi shouldering everything alone, either-- and neither should the readers. 

I missed seeing the focus on Toshinori after being sidelined for so long

Yeah, the Toshi fans definitely deserved this. I'm glad they not only got their food, but a four-course-five-star meal.

[thequietkid-moonie]

Toshi Mashibasa, Kaguya Shinomiya, Hero, Kyoya Ootori, Natsuki, Monika with a bullied reader.

Bullied!S/O

[ HEADCANONS ] [ Toshi, Kaguya, Hero, Kyoka, Natsuki, Monika ]

[ A silent voice ] [ Kaguya-sama Love is war ] [ Omori ] [ Ouran High School Host Club ] [ Doki Doki Literature Club ]

I really REALLY hope that you aren't suffering of bullying and you just like the prompt!

Anyway, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did while writing it ❤️ stay safe my dear

Toshi Mashibasa

Toshi is the kind of person to be best friends with his partner, and he doesn't show it much but he is really caring, also he is perceptual and smart so even when he doesn't pry on your personal life if you don't talk about it he can tell when you aren't feeling well

Still he doesn't pry until he sees you really bothered for something or it had passed a long time, his first approach is to ask you if you are alright or if you have a problem, as well as remembering you that you can count in him for everything

For him to discover that you are being bullied could be because you open up to him or because he see it himself, in both cases he will be furious (he tries to seem calm and collected if you tell him but if he sees it he imediatly step in to defend you), it doesn't matter the intensity of their abuse it still make him angry, but he will never dare to let it out on you or blame you for it, and in this case he will pry for more information but still trying to be gentle

Depending on how deep the bullying you are suffering is it would be how furious and eager to do something he will be, and even if they just make bad comments he won't tolerate it, and not matter how mad he is he will try to calm down enough to comfort you (even if you insist that it doesn't affect you he insist on take some time to spoil you)

Toshi used to be bullied but he get over it some time ago, still that doesn't mean he isn't worried about you, he decide to just stay by your side to protect in case you need it, he will even be a little more clingy to let clear to everyone that you aren't alone. As well he will try to talk to the teacher about this problem (and you won't be able to stop him, although if you are nervous of doing it he will help you feel safe before doing it, comforting you and promising to not leave your side), but even if they actually do something to help you that won't stop him to help you on his own

Toshi will confront your bullies only if he has the opportunity (like they show up and try to mess with both), he is really smart and will know how to handle it without having a physical confront, still if it end like that he will do it only as the last resort and making sure they were the ones starting the fight

However he doesn't really want to confront your bullies since he just want to focus on you, he wants to shield you and comfort you, making sure to help you recover from whatever those bastards did to you, either emotional or physical

Kaguya Shinomiya

Kaguya's prideful side stop her from show how much she really loves and cares for you, as well for how much attention she puts on you (something that she is actually proud of) so even is if you try to hide something from her is probably that she will find out at some point

Kaguya herself won't really ask you directly about your problems (or at least not imediatly), but that doesn't mean she doesn't care, whenever you seem troubled or struguling with something she is eager to find out what is troubleling that pretty mind of yours, so she does it discreetly, slowly leading the conversation to whatever that could give her hints of what is happening to you

It won't take her long for her to find out that you are being bullied, specially with Sayaka's help, still she probably find out by her own and once she does she is furious, she is surrounded by a dark aura while asking for more details, even if people are just saying bad comments about you to her is like a sin, Kaguya take it as a personal offence and she will treat it as such

Kaguya is making her plan to take revenge and make them pay for whatever they had done, and how cruel she will act towards them depend on how deep the bullying was. As well, Kaguya will try to find out a way to tell you that she knows about this situation (she is surprisingly nervous about bring out the topic), but once she finally does it she focus on making sure you know that you had done nothing wrong and it isn't your fault, as well as comforting you, if physical affection is your comfort she will do it (while trying to not conbust from the inside), but she prefers to spoil you to try to comfort you

Kaguya will totally take care of the bullies on her own, so don't be surprise if they stop messing with you overnight, or even if they seem afraid and/or apologetic with you (again, it depend in how bad they treated you)

Also, from then Kaguya grows a little more clingy for a while, wanting to be able to shield you in case some other idiot try to mess with you, and if you actually grow clingy yourself and even hide behind her it make her really proud of herself (and really flustered too)

Hero

Hero has been always really caring, is like a second nature for him (specially because he is constantly taking care of his friends), and even when he isn't the most perceptual or observant person he always tries to look after your well-being

Hero doesn't like to pry because he feels like he is invading your privacy but he always remind you that you can rely on him when you have troubles, although if he sees you really down or affected by whatever is bothering you he insist on wanting to know, making clear that he is just really worried about you

For how caring he is is easy to bring you a sense of security that could lead you to open up about you being bullied, although it could be that he see it himself too, in that case he immediatly step in to defend you. No matter how he find out at the end he is really worried about you, he is mad at whoever are abusing using you like this but his worry is bigger

Hero immediatly comforts you, holding you close while he ask you what they exactly have done to you, although if you don't want to talk about it, either because you don't feel comfortable or you are nervous is alright, he will wait until you feel ready, in the meantime he will be focus on comforting you

Hero knows that this kind of problem doesn't get solved overnight so he will hold an immense patience with you, helping you get out of it little by little, if you let him he will become more clingy, not really wanting to leave your side to be able to protect you from the bullies and don't let you forget that you aren't alone. Also, he wants to ask for help to the teacher, and he even ask Mari some advice (that could make the rest of the group find out too and they aren't going to stay quiet)

The intensity of the bullying you suffered is just important to him for how much it affected you, he is bothered by it even if they were just saying bad comments about you (but the more aggresive they were to you the more angry Hero gets, even reaching the point where he will think on confronting them)

This just make Hero more caring towards you, specially in the emotionally part, he wants to make sure you don't get yourself carry away for what they had told you and done to you

Kyoka Ootori

Is really difficult to get into Kyoka's life since he isn't really interested in relate in a personal way with anyone, however once he decided to start a relasionship with you is because he is really sure that is what he wants

Kyoka is observant and perceptual, even if you try to hide it he knows when something is bothering you, although if you decide to don't talk about it he will just make it clear that he knows that you aren't al right, but also makes clear that even when he isn't going to force you to talk if he is able to help you he will

Even when it doesn't seem like it he is pretty caring over you, you are special to him and even when he has problems to say it out loud he show it in other ways, like paying attention on you making sure you are taking care of yourself, that is why, soon or later, if you don't tell him he will find out about the bullying (the worst it is the bullying or the more it affects you the faster he will find out)

Since the start he suspect that something is bothering you but he didn't wanted to jump into the conclution of the bullying right away, but at the end his fear become true because you were actually being bullied, and once he finally found out exactly how deep the bullying is he is furious, even if others are just talking bad about you it still makes him mad

Kyoka normally doesn't pry in your personal life but for this he has the intention to pry every single detail, and he will use his intimidating stare if he has to, but he isn't mad at you is just that he is frustrated that something so serious is happening to you and he didn't notice it earlier (but he will scold you later for dont telling him)

He isn't the best to comfort but he will try (specially if you start crying), but he is more focused on making a plan to take revenge of those bastards who made you suffer like this, Kyoka is smart enough to come up with a plan to make them pay without getting involved into, and he will be just as harch as they had went to you, he won't directly confront them but they will be too busy trying to solve whatever Kyoka cause them to keep bothering you

Again, he isn't the best when it comes to comfort you but he will be more direct with his care for you, making more clear how much he worries for you, even making sure you are taking care of yourself, as well he makes sure to remember you how amazing you are (his attempt to give you compliments)

Natsuki

Natsuki has problems to read other people, specially because her anxiety and past bad experiences she could easily misunderstand a little the situation, and even when loves you that doesn't make easier things for her

She want to be able to help you when you need it but she still has a lot of problems to express herself so she does it in other ways, trying to get more close and a little affectionate when she sees you down or baking you some cupcakes to cheer you up

It would be really difficult to reach the point where you open up to her and tell her about the bullying because she gets nervous whenever you two talk in a more serious manner and abuse is a sensitive topic for her, so is more probably that she end up seeing it herself and the moment she does it she react immediatly and aggresibly, going against the bullies and calling them idiots for what they are doing (still she doesn't want to get into a physical fight)

Is probably that she will seem mad at you when she ask you about it, but she isn't, is just that it frustrated her that you are suffering from this kind of abuse, and even more that she didn't noticed it earlier (even more because she is a victim from abuse too), she will apologize later and make it clear that she isn't mad at you but at herself

She will overcome her nervous and frustration and ask you about what those idiots had been doing to you, it doesn't matter if they had been just saying bad things about you or they actually physically attack you she is mad at them, Natsuki won't really ask for help to anyone else (maybe to the rest of the club only if is something too deep)

Natsuki isn't the best to comfort you but she still tries to, but she is more focused on shield you from the bullies, she already has a bad reputation since she tend to be pretty aggresive with words so it isn't nothing new for her, she react really aggresive to whoever even speak bad about you but still tries to avoid getting physical

Natsuki still has problems dealing with her own traumas with the abuse she suffer from her house so after this she probably end up insolating with you a little more as well as getting more clingy, and since now you somehow can understand her better she will open up more about her own experience, being a healing process for both

Monika

Monika is really caring and she is pretty observant too so for her isn't too difficult to tell when you aren't feeling too well, and she wants to be of help whenever you have troubles but she still has problems to bring up the topic, fearing that she may be invasive or rude

Whenever you seem troubled with something Monika tries to motivate you to talk to her, remembering you that you can count with her and that she will always help you at the best of her habilities

For Monika to discover that you are bullied is because she sees it herself (in this case she will imediatly stand up for you, she doesn't want to confront them directly but she at least will help you get away from them) or because you open up to her (since she is pretty caring and willing to heard you vent it could give you a sense of security about saying her directly)

Monika feel horrible that you had to suffer from all that, she has to hold herself back before she start crying out of sadness and frustration, even is they are just saying bad comments about you it doesn't matter because you shouldn't be suffering for that, and she doesn't want to cry right now because she needs to focus on you, in how to help you and to comfort you

Her plan is to notify the teachers or someone who could help as well as not leaving your side in hopes of not giving the bullies the opportunity to attack you again, although if the bullying is really bad or it affected you a lot, or even if no one is willing to help Monika herself will step in, she won't fight them physicaly but she can be really intimidating when she wants to, also she know how to identify and take advantage of others weakness if she has to

Aside from that Monika is really worried about you so she will be taking care of you for a while, both physicaly and emotionaly, she just want to make sure you don't let yourself down just because others can't see how amazing you are, and she is eager to be of help

Also Monika feels really bad that she didn't notice it before, and the more time you suffered this the more frustrated she feels so, somehow, she is trying to make it up for you too

[bnhaobservation]

Ramblings about the Shimura family

So, one thing I noticed is how BNHA presents interesting family dynamics with a special focus to how parents deal with their children.

And where there’s an interesting dynamic I love to dig into things so let’s start.

PREMISE

For the sake of this observation I’ll assume that ‘what is not shown just never happened’ meaning that if a character is never shown doing a certain action, it just means he never did it. This might not be necessarily true, sometimes stories don’t show things because they’re of no use (the character does it but it changed nothing so it’s unnecessary to add it to the plot) but, as assuming what wasn’t shown happened would just constitute a debatable speculation, I’ll simply leave it out.

Also, if you’re solely an anime viewer, this will contain spoilers. Consider yourself warned.

With this said let’s start with the Shimura family.

In the Shimura familywe see a characteristic that’s common with the other BNHA families which are abusive, this characteristic being that the main perpetrator of the abuse is the father.

So let’s give an in deep look to Shimura Kotarou.

The interesting part about Kotarou is that he isn’t just an abuser but also a victim of abandonment. His father was killed from All for One and his mother, believing to protect him, left him in the care of a foster family when he was a small child. [Chap 95/281]

While Shimura Nana’s intentions were good, her choice is debatable (her first loyalty and duty should be to her son) and the psychological effects of it on Kotarou will be terrible as he comes to see his mother as a monster and would have preferred for her to have never loved him [Chap 235].

Victims of abandonment can react by becoming unable to form future attachments so as to avoid the pain that might come should they be abandoned again, and this is probably what happened to Kotarou, who is 32 now and is still plagued by the pain he felt for his own abandonement.

Adult Kotarou therefore is depicted as an anaffective man, he married Nao, who knows of his sad past and feels sorry for him and hosts in his home his in-law who probably feels equally sorry as well as indebted to him (as they’re living in his house) and promised them all a home full of joy [Chap 235]...

...but it’s clear he never delivered what he promised, he’s actually not even shown making an effort to deliver it in some ways beyond giving the home they live in.

We never seem a single panel of him making happy, or at least being happy with one of the members of his family, of them smiling together.

Tenko’s wish to become a hero didn’t disrupt the peace of an otherwise happy family, the family was never depicted to be happy to begin with, people just contented themselves with what they had, probably feeling they couldn’t ask for more to Kotarou and Kotarou ends up taking advantage of how people seems okay with humoring him.

The one rule Kotarou forced upon his house, “never talk about heroes”...

...and that he alone enforces, clearly exists TO PROTECT HIM AND SOLELY HIM from pain, as no one else in the family is shown having a problem with talking about heroes.

Kotarou doesn’t consciously mean to be cruel toward his family, he’s not doing this out of a wish to harm them or of a sick pleasure in seeing his kids suffer, he is a victim of abandonment and just wants to protect himself from that same agonizing pain he felt from when he was a small child, and, in his mind, it makes sense his own experience and way to feel would apply to everyone, so he sells his own rule as a rule that would protect his family as well, because to him heroes are monsters and so, by this logic, everyone would be protected by staying clear of them.

However it’s clear there are 4 adults in the house and not only he is the sole person who’s believing such thing. This alone should really make him reconsider his beliefs, if he really cared about making people in his family happy. The problem is, he actually doesn’t.

Everyone is uncomfortable when he leaves Tenko out in the garden but he’s just ‘rules are rules’ and ‘I’m doing this for Tenko’, but shows 0 care for how, due to this, Tenko will end up skipping dinner (he’s a kid of 5, eating is very important for his growth!) and, when Nao points out how Tenko’s allergies are getting worse, he expresses no concern whatsoever.

What matters to him, it’s that the rules that exist to protect him will be respected, so he’ll be safe.

He dresses up his intentions as aimed to protect his children, but the only one he selfishly cares to protect is himself.

Kotarou, in upholding his rule, is not even caring of the societal pressure that presents heroes as good, forcing on his family his personal view.

His children live in a world in which people talk about heroes, has toys about them, view them as good people. He’s actually asking them to go against society’s view of heroes when they’re kids, to be different from the rest of the children. He forces them to hide their own aspirations (Hana too wishes to be a hero but doesn’t voice it, she actually lieas about her own wishes [Chap 234])...

...or tries to squash them (Tenko is clearly more vocal about how he wants to be a hero and so he suffers the brunt of Kotarou’s anger).

In short, this means the rule he forces upon his family, doesn’t protect it but actually psychologically harms his children.

The other adults in the family, Nao and her parents, don’t seem to fully realize this.

Likely, part because they feel bad for what he went through as Kotarou is a victim and they’re sympathetic toward him, part because they’re indebted to him (as he paid for the house they live in and everything else), they humor him, apparently without too many troubles. It’s not hard for them not to talk about heroes, after all, and this cause them to buy in his excuses (what I’m doing is for Tenko’s well being, he has no quirk so if he doesn’t understand he’ll only be more miserable). Because it’s not a big deal for them to respect Kotarou’s wishes, they assume the same should apply to the kids and their support is merely aimed to encourage them to endure/dismiss the situation and their feelings about it.

They fail to notice the psychological damage Kotarou is doing to his kids and continue to enable him to damage his kids. They should notice instead, the warning signs that what Kotarou is doing isn’t good for the kids are all there.

We can see how both his children are actually scared of him, Hana to the point she keeps her wishes to herself without daring to voice them and, when caught peeking in Kotarou’s study, she’s so scared she pushes the blame on Tenko...

...and Tenko finds so distressing living in that house to the point he develops psychosomatic itching in response to feeling himself rejected and in danger.

Tenko even tries to verbalize how ‘it’s the house, he gets itchy there’ but the other adults, despite caring for the kids, don’t really seem to truly notice, or, more likely, don’t want to see.

Tenko’s family is a microcosm, it reproduces, in smaller scale, society.

Heroes and common people don’t want to see what fails to conform with their pretty vision of their society. They prefer to sweep it under the rug, to pretend Endeavour isn’t an abuser because he’s so much more useful fighting what threaten them.

In the same way Tenko’s family doesn’t want to see Kotarou is mistreating/abusing his kids, that their family is flawed, that the one who allows them to live a comfortable life because he pays the bills with his works, also selfishly cares solely to protect himself and damages his own children.

They realize Tenko is sad and try to comfort him, they try to cure what they believe is an allergy, but fail to nail the cause of his pain, fails to see he feels in danger, that he feels he needs to be saved, that he feels like the house is rejecting him, leaving him to his own devices, making him miserable.

And this works so easily because one of the problems with psychological abuse is how easy is to fail to notice it or how damaging it is or persuade themselves that what they’re witnessing is not abuse.

The scars psychological abuse leave are not visible so they can be conveniently missed.

In fact we see the adults grow concerned only when the abuse becomes physical, we can see they are uncomfortable and complain when Kotarou causes Tenko to skip dinner, and they outright rebel short after they see him beat Tenko up…

...but they don’t even seem to realize Tenko’s psychological state is being harmed to the point he developed a psychosomatic rash.

(And in a way this parallels how Deku realizes Shigaraki needs saving when he sees him being threatened by All for One… but can’t quite wrap his head around how Shigaraki needed help even before that point and was screaming in the battleground that what he was doing was because society itself lead him to that point with its constant rejection)

Also, as said before, Kotarou’s status as a victim contributes to protect Kotarou, to make him look as blameless (the way hero status helps heroes to get away with what they do).

Although Nao sees her son’s distress (but still doesn’t manage to connect the dots between the hitch and the family situation) she swallows the idea that Kotarou acts in sush way because he KNOWS and therefore he’s acting for Tenko’s well being, instead than for his own.

And mind you, Kotarou was probably genuine when he said (after slapping Tenko twice and leaving him out of the house and being confronted by the family) he didn’t want things to get that far (after all his profile confirms all he wanted was a happy family), although it was probably not for Tenko or his family’s sake but for himself.

Kotarou likely built a home hoping to find back what he lost when his mother left him, his own happiness and security but, due to the psychological damage he received from it, he wasn’t capable to create a happy, joyous family, a safe environment that could fill the hole his mother left inside him because he can’t connect with his family nor truly care for them. He’s too busy protecting his own old wounds.

As a result, his family becomes a mean to an end he can’t reach (finding happiness and safety), it exists to serve to that purpose and he can’t accept his children wouldn’t conform to this and give him distress instead.

The most obvious example we have of this is when Tenko ends up losing control of his quirk.

Although Nao is scared and she’s dying due to Tenko’s quirk having hit her too, after a second of hesitation she still opens her arms and still tries to embrace her son, to comfort him, to save him from the desperation he was feeling...

...where in Kotarou’s case, despite him not even having been harmed, his instinctive first reaction is to try to protect himself by trying to keep Tenko at distance, to swat him away, hitting him with the first thing he finds, a garden instrument.

Kotarou’s first reaction isn’t to protect his son, to save him from pain, he wants to STOP TENKO from harming him, he wants to protect and save himself, with the result that, according to what we’re shown, Tenko deliberately kills him or comes to think he has deliberately killed him (I’m not sure the narration is 100% objective, previously Shigaraki claimed he hated everyone but the visual seems to imply Tenko didn’t want to kill his mother and the story overall didn’t show him as hating his mother, Hana or his grandparents, so it’s entirely possible Shigaraki is now feeding himself a narrative in which young Tenko was in control and did it out of hate still to protect himself from the pain of having murdered his family by mistake and out of fear… and also because All for one did his best to groom him to hate things).

(And again this parallels how the heroes, who shouldn’t kill, all feel perfectly justified in the idea they should kill what threatens them, be it Twice or Shigaraki)

In a way what makes it terribly ironic is that the ‘symbol of fear’ is nothing else but a very scared little boy himself, someone who nobody saved, the living representation of ‘All Might wasn’t here (to save him)’… and at the very same way that little boy who used to play with Mikkun and Tomo because no one wanted to play with them, is the young man who collects around himself people rejected by society (aka the league of villains) and plays with them videogames, wants their dreams to become reality and even sends Machia to retrieve them when they’re parted.

Ultimately, although a lot of Tenko’s issues come from having been groomed by All for One and from the trauma of seeing his quirk kill his family as well as not receiving help by passing people, the harm done to him by the abuse he suffered at home at Kotarou’s hands, is still equally visible and is the groundwork for All for One’s manipulation.

Even without the trauma due to his quirk and All for One getting involved, Tenko was a child showing signs of deep distress (Tenko scratches so much he basically ruins his skin and the itch is clearly a psychosomatic manifestation of his psychological distress) and, very likely, they would have plagued him even if he’d been allowed to grow up in his family. Actually, considering it’s implied his father’s abuse was escalating, they would have only gotten worse.

On a sidenote it can be that Tenko/Shigaraki can currently see that his father was a victim as well.

He quotes his father’s words “Heroes hurt their own families just to help complete strangers,” and claims to hate his grandmother even if he clearly couldn’t expect help from her as she was deceased. Kotarou informed him she was a monster who abandoned him so it can be Tenko/Shigaraki could see the causality of all it. Because Shimura Nana left Kotarou, Kotarou abused his two children and this in turn triggered Tenko’s loss of control over his quirk and the murder of his own family as well as his descent into becoming a villain who’s now threatening the whole Japan. As Shigaraki said, it added up, little by little.

By the way, in case I hadn’t stressed it enough, Kotarou being a victim doesn’t excuse what he did to his kids, no, not even if Tenko/Shigaraki himself can understand Kotarou was, but the idea that Tenko/Shigaraki could see the progression even in his family’s history makes for an interesting food for thoughts.

Tenko, after all, despite everything he went through and what he’s doing has, differently from Kotarou, shown more humanity.

He’s not a completely anaffective person, he showed worry for his master (before All for One tried to take him over), he cares for the league and doesn’t try to force them to do things that make him feel better. It’s little things but, for example, he remembers how the league wanted to eat Sushi and asks for it or accepts it when Dabi doesn’t want to tame Machia or doesn’t get angry when, Himeko, Twice or Spinner question him but explains himself the best he can, how he sends Machia to protect them and seems to want them to have a future in which THEY can be happy.

The league became an environment which accepts people, instead of making them feel rejected as Tenko felt rejected by his own home.

And despite everyone claiming he destroys things for the fun of it, we see that’s not quite the case. Although he claimed that, by killing Kotarou, he finally put a end to the itch (because he finally put a end to the distressing feelings his father summoned), we see him not much later racked with guilt (he’s again scratching himself as he walks).

Tenko/Shigaraki ‘s trauma due to his father’s mistreatment was never healed and got only worsened by All for one who capitalized on how Tenko came to think that, in order to find relief from what haunts him, his only way was to destroy it. Yet Tenko/Shigaraki knows this is not a fix all solution, he believes deep down that the weight in his heart will never go away but he believes all he knows is how to destroy things. He doesn’t want a future for himself (which in a way hints at how he’s suicidal too), however he cares for the guys in the league and wants them to have a chance to live how they see fit, to have all they want to have.

So, although Tenko is a victim like Kotarou, he tries to take care of his newfound family and this makes me hope that where Kotarou was ultimately what triggered his own family to be destroyed, Tenko will, instead, be the one who’ll manage to protect it as, in a way, his intentions are the opposite to what his father claimed the heroes are. If heroes are people who hurt their own families only to help complete strangers, Tenko/Shigaraki hurts complete strangers to help his found family.

It’s probably no coincidence Tenko/Shigaraki looks like Shimura Nana, down to having the same mole she had.

Now, the ideal outcome of the story would be that those two positions were to be reconciled into a ‘let’s hurt no one and help everyone’ because, if we accept the parallel family/society, saving your family saves society and saving society save your family.

After all the league members became a threat to society because their families didn’t save them, if their families had properly taken care of them they wouldn’t have ended up in such situation… but at the same time if they continue to care solely for their own little group at the expense of society, society will continue to try to destroy them in a vicious circle where no one gains something and everyone loses.

“One for all, all for one” should be a single unit after all, a single philosophy, a single person should be protecting society and society should be protecting the single person… but at the moment no one seem to fully have realized this in the story so we can only wait and see.

[class1akids]

Rant about Midoriya and Bakugo. I think their friendship is one of the worsts of MHA (yes, even worse than Uraraka and Tsuyu) because it sends an extremely dangerous message, especially to people who dealt with abusive friendships. The thing about them is that I don’t mind abusive friendships in fiction (in fact, I personally find them extremely important because there’s little to no representation of abusive friendships compared to other types of relational abuse, especially for people who dealt with abusive friendships), but the way Horikoshi handled both characters, especially Midoriya, sends a horrible message that your feelings hurt aren’t valid and that you have to forgive them no matter what (that’s how the apology scene felt in general, especially with the lack of Midoriya’s reaction). I don’t understand why he decided to make them reconcile in the first place especially when Midoriya has actually friends that look out for him instead of being reduced as a prop of his childhood friend. It doesn’t help that Midoriya fits into the perfect victim trope to the point where he doesn’t even have any reaction to his trauma.

I know BKDK are "childhood friends" (which basically just means two people who grew up together as children - and does not necessarily depict a friendship in the conventional sense), but I feel like this is not a Silent Voice kind of scenario focused on the bullying and the relationship development afterwards.

While bullying is part of their history, the BKDK dynamic primarily is not about friendship, but an exploration of the different facets of the All Might hero legacy. It is comparing what a child like Deku - who has no power or great prospects in hero society and who admires All Might for saving people - sees in All Might vs what a child like Bakugou - a talented golden child, with great power and future, but also ego problems - sees in him. It's pitting those two ideas against each other and showing that they are not diametrically opposed, but rather complimentary and that All Might was both of those things, and all of that is his legacy.

And I think it also shows how Deku and Bakugou mature into their own hero image, which is still different and rooted in their personality and values, but it's closer to each other by the end. They also have a closer relationship by the end because they manage to work through their differences, but I feel like the primary focus in their relationship is not the interpersonal, but both of their coming of age and formation of their hero persona, as well as a reflection of the changes in the wider hero society.

Having said that, I do agree that Horikoshi didn't explore Deku's side of the story well, and generally seems to have a hard time reconciling that someone can be a victim and a hero at the same time. This is unfortunate, because he spends a lot of time dissecting how villains can be victims at the same time. It leads to kind of a lopsided representation, where it almost feels like a binary path: either a person overcomes their trauma on their own (Deku, Shoto), suffer in silence and become heroes, or they get stuck in their trauma and spiral into villainy (Tomura, Toga, Toya, Jin, etc). And that comes across an awful lot like stigmatizing victims (which I don't think the message Hori wanted to send, but I don't think he really thought through what the message was).

[iwasbored777]

I don't get the Marinette Antis or most of them.

They claim that Marinette's the worst person on the show... But also say "If Marinette gave Chloe another chance after EVERYTHING she put her through, Chloe could've had the greatest redemption arc EVER!"

So they want who they think believe is the worst person, to reward an actual bad person for doing the bare minimum with super powers AFTER almost killing a bunch of people with said powers?!

My brain hurts!

I didn't make this, this and this post for nothing...

To most people Marinette is only worthy in if she takes care of other characters and if any other makes a mistake too it counts as Marinette's mistake. It's not even the show that makes it like this, it's this crazy fandom. But also Chloé stans can be so ignorant sometimes that it's hard to take them seriously so I stopped taking them seriously. I honestly didn't even consider that Miracle Queen will earn Marinette salt when I watched it for the first time, because the girl suffered A LOT in that finale, but it still did.

Apparently rough childhood is a good reason to team up with a terrorist. The same way people keep defending Félix. What Chloé and Félix and also Lila do is their choice. Marinette didn't tell them to choose to destroy the world with a terrorist, they knew what they were doing. Sorry for mentioning these two but I wanted to compare her to them for Chloé's character:

Lila didn't just help Hawk Moth because she was angry with Marinette/Ladybug (which was also a dumb selfish reason), Lila also teamed up with Gabriel to keep an eye on Adrien. Marinette gave Lila chance too. Lila agreed on both terrorism and abuse of her "crush". This is not just a rival of Marinette, this a messed up girl on a whole new level.

Félix knows what Gabriel is capable of and he knows what he's doing to his son yet he still let him win. Have in mind that Félix wanted to betray them all along, it's not just sentimonsters being sent into the sun, he had this plan all along. If Ladybug didn't sent sentimonsters into the sun he would still do it. Maybe that's why I ship him and Lila so much, they are literally the same person.

Chloé mostly did it for her social status. She never stopped bullying her classmates while being Queen Bee, she thought wearing a costume is enough to make her a hero - it's not. If Chloé was this quick to turn to Hawk Moth that means that her loyalty to Ladybug has never existed in the first place. People salt on Adrien for giving up his miraculous but imagine if THIS is what Chloé did instead of imprisoning the guardian. This just a proof that she wanted to be in the focus somehow and when she got kicked out of one team she went to the other one. Now she wants to make sure Adrien doesn't end up with Marinette more than anything because she has nothing now. She can still change tho and I would support her if she does but she has a long way to go and she has to actually try more. Even if she doesn't change completely which is not always possible I would love to see her try and I would support her. Chloé doesn't need a reward nor punishment, she got punished for it by never being Queen Bee again and Adrien ending their friendship, what Chloé needs now is to realize she was wrong and try to become a better person. Being a good person means not asking for anything in return, which is opposite of what Chloé did. She wanted fame, she wanted a reward. She wanted people to know who she is under that mask and love her.

That's why for betrayal you only blame the person who betrayed you. If they didn't like you they should've just break up with you and move on with whoever they want. When someone cheats on you with this other person it's not about this third person at all, they would cheat on you with others too, believe me. Chloé could've just walk out but she chose the hard way. And she keeps talking about how Ladybug failed her while being mean to everyone, which only further proves that Chloé wanted power, not a real friendship. It's not even Hawk Moth's fault that she did this, she was given a choice. When Marinette fails or when someone let her down she either turns the other cheek or she change her strategy, she doesn't blame it on anyone else. Chloé had to deal with consequences unlike Lila and Félix but Chloé also didn't regret her decision like these two.

I love how Chloé's character is written, you know? After so much analysing I STILL find new details and I'm so amazed by how deep her character is and how it divided the fandom but I hate how most people don't understand her. Yes, I sympathise with her sometimes, yes, I understand why she did what she did, no, I wouldn't do the same and, no, I can't blame anyone because she is the only one to blame here for her actions.

[bestworstcase]

I'm sorry, but claiming that the people who are upset with how Cassandra and Varian were handled are not only part of the fandom, but misogynistic is absolutely insane. I'm sorry that I don't think one measly apology to Rapunzel, and no one else, after going out of her way to try and hurt and KILL Rapunzel and her loved ones is enough to redeem her or make her any type of hero. She was handled SO poorly, and so was Varian. Varian played an important role as the antagonist and to Rapunzel, challenging Rapunzel's morals and having to force her to ask the question: who do I prioritize, my friends or my kingdom? and then he was left to rot in a prison for an entire season. And then he was brought back and used as essentially bait and nothing more. But then the next season with Cassandra goes against her entire arc with Varian, because then she just drops everything, ignores her duties as a princess, and fixates on Cassandra. She ignores the fact that Cassandra is hurting her subjects and her loved ones, kidnaps Varian, and tries to fucking KILL Rapunzel, but somehow, she's more important to Rapunzel because "she can fix her", which is a problematic concept in itself. So, yeah, I think it's entirely unfair to assume that people who don't like how your favorite and least favorite characters were handled are part of the hatedom, and even worse, misogynistic and racist. It's really bold and disgusting and downright delusional. Please, think about how your words affect others and realize how the world doesn't revolve around you.

beloved are u trying to insinuate that i think the writing in season three was good? SKDHKLGSKDF

you must be new here

so to break it down:

s3 was objectively bad on technical merits

s3 is where the myriad structural weaknesses in the tts narrative collapsed, after two seasons of the story mostly making the 'grand overarching quest narrative but rigidly episodic storytelling' thing work. this is largely because cassandra is, structurally speaking, the protagonist during s3

the character writing from ep to ep was exceptionally poor for everyone in the cast, with cass, rapunzel, & varian getting the lion's share of the fucking-over

i am categorically anti-redemption arc for reasons i have discussed at length, literally just search 'redemption' on my blog lmao

the primary reason cassandra's villain arc got fumbled so badly is that tts was unwilling or unable, as a narrative, to tackle the actual legitimate grievances she had against rapunzel, and therefore resorted to using the gothel fig leaf and not allowing rapunzel to reflect or grow or change meaningfully throughout the season; varian's s3 arc suffered in a similar way but to a lesser extent from the inability of the disney princess cartoon to actually like. focus on the systemic problems that harmed him. the blame for this lies squarely on disney and corporate fiction in general

being cognizant of / acknowledging / talking about narrative weaknesses or failings and/or expressing disappointment or irritation at the way a story turned out =/= participating in hatedom, hatedom is the toxic phenomenon that emerges when subfandom spaces begin to revolve primarily around vitriolic vivisection of a piece of media

i want u to look me in the eyes and tell me that the tts fandom by and large taking the arab-coded man whose central motivation is attacking the kingdom that conquered his people a few hundred years ago and going 'this is a sadistic insane child rapist here are a hundred fics about him viciously abusing varian often so the white protagonists can brutally retaliate' isn't racist jesus christ anon

tts put the 'don't be blatantly racist about the racially diverse separatists of saporia' bar under the ground and the tts fandom collectively pulled out a shovel

anyway,

let me put it like this:

in s1, varian slips through the cracks of corona's non-existent support network and is let down by his friends while the king sends secret police to hunt him down after the traumatic (apparent) death of his father, and as a consequence he slides into a downward spiral which ends in him terroristically attacking the capital, grievously injuring many guards, kidnapping and threatening to murder the queen, and then trying to personally murder three people before he's stopped.

the typical hatedom stance here is that varian did nothing wrong because he was just a child and how dare that bitch rapunzel not help him like she promised (even though she...did, without hesitation, as soon as he got in touch with her and she discovered that her father was lying to her about having handled his problem!)

in s2, after two years of being taken for granted and having her boundaries stomped into the ground by rapunzel--who for all that she does truly care has zero experience with what it takes to be a good friend and fucks up a lot--& a LIFETIME of being expected to do two or three times the amount of work for a tiny fraction of the reward as anyone else, cass gets her hand burnt to a blackened husk by her best friend, who then 1. does not apologize for this, 2. gets mad at her for being upset, and 3. blames her for the injury. as a consequence, cassandra decides to trust the weird ghost who is kind and sympathetic to her and grabs the moonstone, then spirals hard on account of the ghost being a malicious demon bent on manipulating her, and eventually returns to corona to... terroristically attack and eventually raze the capital and try to murder rapunzel.

the typical hatedom stance here is that cassandra is a narcissistic abusive power-hungry bitch who had zero reasons for doing what she did and deserves to be executed or at least imprisoned or otherwise harshly punished for it. (even though the entire point of varian's imprisonment and subsequent radicalization by the separatists, and his hasty redemption arc after rapunzel offered him a second chance, was to illustrate the vague stance tts takes that punitive measures are not the answer to criminal behavior and are in fact actively counterproductive and harmful. which. is a stance that the folks in the tts hatedom will largely agree with as long as you are talking about varian instead of cassandra)

like u see the contradiction here, right. i invite u to explain to me why "boy does bad things because trauma = boy did nothing wrong, girl does bad things because trauma = girl is evil bitch who should die" isn't a misogynistic double standard gmksdfh

[todomitoukei]

I know you don’t like Endeavour but would you like Horikoshi to delve further into Touya and him’s relationship ? I know it’s quite controversial but even though Touya is my favorite I like Endeavour a lot, and I think their relationship is probably the most interesting one out of all the Todorokis, even if it’s completely fucked up lol.

Not really. Chapters 301 and 302 already showed their relationship and its key developments over the years until Touya's "death". Their relationship is obviously important both to the story and the Todofam characters, but what we've gotten so far is really all you need to know about them.

Considering that their relationship was never a healthy one from the beginning - despite Touya being happy at first - the point of their relationship and showing that progression is to highlight the issues of hero society, where being a "hero" is more about the ranking than actually helping people and not harming anyone and one that enables heroes to abuse their power, as well as showing the negative impact the current hero system has on victims like Touya, who will suffer due to the existence of heroes without ever receiving any help.

With that in mind, seeing more flashbacks focusing on those two wouldn't add anything to the characters or their relationship.

Also, personally, I think - while somewhat nonexistent at this point - I think the relationship between Dabi and Shouto is a lot more interesting since they're on the same site but were in a way raised to be enemies? That whole thing Shouto is currently going through of realizing that Dabi is the same way Shouto was before and clearly wanting to save him and build a relationship with him, has a lot more potential and is a far more compelling story and relationship than that of an abusive crybaby who can't get his shit together and his victim who has spent all his life trying to get his abuser's love and attention for nothing. So that's why I think their relationship is far more interesting, especially because there is at least a future - and a healthy one at that - for them in-store, whereas I personally just don't see a future for Dabi and Endeavor (although that's subjective).

What I would like to see more, though, is additional flashbacks showing Touya's relationship with his siblings and mom. Of course, Horikoshi choosing to only focus on scenes of Touya that revolve around Endvr, was on purpose, to better portray not only the effects Endvr and his actions have had on Touya over the years, but also the tunnel vision Touya developed during that time as a result, to the point where now in the present he can even excuse his own actions (to himself) of almost harming Natsuo by focusing on what it would do to Endvr. Because that is the shell left behind - everything that Touya was did "die" with only that obsession with Endvr remaining. Everything he does and says is to harm Endvr.

However, while that is true and the main focus, it doesn't mean that Touya never had conversations not revolving around his dad or that he wasn't able to just hang out with his siblings without thinking about his dad. The scenes we got of Touya and his siblings during those two flashback chapters were still about Endvr because, again, that is simply what the point of those chapters was, so I understand why Horikoshi didn't include the siblings having more "normal" moments.

So while we never got those more light-hearted moments, they do exist and I would love to see that since so far we haven't really been shown what their relationship dynamics were like outside of a few facts, like Natsuo and Touya having been especially close and those little moments that were included in the two chapters.

And also, of course, I'm dying to know what his life was like during those ten years between his "death" and him joining the lov. This will probably never be included in the main story other than maybe at least showing what happened right after his accident, but I will continue dreaming about there one day being a spin-off or a light novel focusing on those ten years...

[ladyloveandjustice]

Spring 2021 anime overview: Quick Takes

Now for my Spring 2021 anime thoughts! I’ve decided from now on if a season’s like, 20- to-24 episodes I’m just going to wait ‘til it’s done to review it unless I feels super passionately, so though I watched To Your Eternity (it’s good!) and MHA (eh), I’ll comment on them next time. Also, for the record, I watched the first eight eps of Joran: Princess and Snow of Blood but I dropped it because it had clearly crossed the line from entertainingly dumb to boring dumb. 

I will probably give Supercub and some other stuff a shot later, this was a stacked season! May give updates on all that later, but this is what I have for now.

ODDTAXI

Quick Summary: A mild mannered middle-aged walrus taxi driver is drawn into a case involving a missing girl, yakuza, Youtube clout-chasers, manzai comedians and idols with big secrets.

It’s rare to walk away from media and be like “that is a singular experience I will definitely never see repeated again” but ODDTAXI is definitely one of those. A tense noir thriller murder mystery starring cartoon animals that spends an entire episode detailing the one (cat)man’s very fall into darkness triggered by addiction to gacha games and an online auction for a novelty eraser? Also there’s a porcupine Yakuza who speaks entirely in rap? Also there’s tons of meandering conversations about stuff like manzai comedy and the struggle to go viral on Twitter?

Admittedly, I had a hard time getting into the first episode, the dry meandering humor not being enough to hold my attention while I was sitting still, but once I watched this while I was working out at the end of the season, I found it an easy binge. A ton of characters with dark secrets or dangerous ambitions, each with their own part to play in a tableau of intersecting events- and it all actually comes together really well.(As for the female characters, it’s a pretty dude driven story, but they do get nuanced characterization and even some good heroic moments from one of them.)

 It’s a great example of a carefully planned narrative paying off, with all the twists appropriately seeded and foreshadowed to reward viewers who paid attention. Even when it ended on a perfect “OH SHIT” moment and denied me closure, I couldn’t help but respect it. If you that all sounds interesting to you, definitely check out the first couple episodes and see if you like it- you’re likely to have a memorable, satisfying experience!

Shadows House

Quick Summary: Emilyko is a ‘living doll’ who’s told she was created to act as the ‘face’ of her shadow master, Kate. The shadows and their ‘dolls’ all reside on the mansion and are required to pass a ‘debut’ to prove they’re a good pairing. If they don’t pass, they might be disposed of. And so the mystery of the Shadow mansion grows...

This slice of gothic intrigue was my favorite of the season, tied with ODDTAXI. With an interesting premise, slightly tense undertones and a strong focus on character building and relationships, it kept me hooked the whole way through. And for any squeamish fans put off by the hype about it, don’t worry, while there are some suspenseful elements, I wouldn’t qualify it as horror. I thought the relationship between Kate and Emilyko might end up being a completely sinister one, but it’s thankfully a lot more complex than that and it’s really interesting to follow how both their characters and relationship grow. The focus of the show is, unsurprisingly, on the “dolls” slowly discovering their autonomy and personhood as they struggle under the rigid system imposed on them by the mysterious elders of this weird Victorian mansion. Can they develop a more equitable relationship with their shadow “masters” (who are also shown to suffer under this system)? There’s a lot to dig into there, and the show has the characters develop through learning to understand and appreciate each other, which is pretty heartwarming. Our hero, Emilyko, is the typical plucky ball of sunshine (they even nickname her sunshine), but she’s also shown to be clever in her own off-the-wall way and she bounces off the far more subdued and cynical Kate well, not to mention the other ‘dolls’ she ends up befriending. 

What’s more, the show spends plenty of time to developing several other character pairings and combinations, and they all have their own interesting dynamic that makes you want to see more of them. Same-gender bonds are at the forefront of this show, and many of them are ripe for queer readings (I definitely appreciated the healthy helping of ladies carrying ladies), but even outside that it’s nice to see a show where a strong, complex bond between girls is at the forefront. My only real complaints about the show are the anime original ending is noticeably a bit rushed (though it’s not too bad, and leaves room for a season 2) and I wish the animation used the whole “shadow” theme more strikingly (like the opening and endings do)- instead the colors are a bit washed out which makes the shadows blend into the background sometimes. The “debut” arc also drags a bit in places, but it makes up for it by having a lot of good character integration.

I hope to check out the (full color)! manga soon and see more of this quirky, shadowy story. There’s some physical abuse depicted, sad things happening to characters and naturally the whole “oppressive familial system” thing, but otherwise not much I can think of to warn about. I give this one a big rec, especially If you’re a fan of gothic fairytales and stories of self discovery.  

Zombie Land Saga Revenge

Quickest summary: In this sequel season, everyone’s favorite zombie idol group must claw their way back into prominence after a disastrous show- the fate of the Saga prefecture LITERALLY depends on it!

This was a fun follow-up to the first season- if you liked the first zombie-girl romp, you’ll probably enjoy this one. In fact, there were a couple areas it improved on- namely, Kotaro failed, ate crow and embarrassed himself a lot more this season, which made him more likeable (as did the fact the girls gained a lot of independence from him). This season also shed more light on what the ‘goal’ of this zombie raising project is and what kind of shit Kotaro got involved with to make this happen, and it’s appropriately off-the-wall and ridiculous. We finally got some backstory for Yugiri too! I wish it had focused on more of her interiority, but she got to be a badass in it, and it was a treat to see this zombie idol show turn into a period piece for a couple episodes (also her song ruled).

 Tae also got a cute focus episode and there was a particular SMASHING performance early on! Also That revelation last season that had the potential to turn creepy hasn’t yet, and hopefully never will. The finale was heartwarming with big hints of more drama to come- I’m definitely down for more zombie hijinks!

Vivy: Flourite Eye’s Song

Quickest Summary: A songstress AI named DIVA (nicknamed Vivy) is approached by another AI named Matsumoto, who says he’s from the future and they must work together to prevent AI exterminating all of humankind 100 years from now.

This show is absolutely gorgeous visually with some really nice action scenes, but when it comes to the story my feelings basically amount to a shrug. It’s fine! I guess! Vivy starts out as an interesting layered character- and I guess still is by the end- with her stoic but stubborn determination bouncing off her fast-talking bossy partner Matsumoto well. She never listens to him, which is delightful. The way the show took place over the course of 100 years was an interesting conceit as well. However, it bought up a lot of themes and then sort of... dropped them. For instance, Vivy interprets her mission (PRIME DIRECTIVE if you will) as protecting humans at all costs, no matter how destructive said humans are or what their fate is supposed to be, and is perfectly willing to murder her fellow androids to do this, showing she inherently thinks of androids (herself and her own people!) as less worthy. Which is a little alarming! There’s a very dramatic point in the show where they bring this up as a potential conflict for her character but then it’s sort of...dropped. Pretty much.

Actually, despite the premise, the show doesn’t dip into the “AI rights” as much as you think it would with the main theme being more about Vivy’s search to find her own creativity and discover what it means to ‘pour your heart into something’. Vivy herself doesn’t actually care if she has rights or anything. Which is in some ways fine, because ‘AI as an oppressed class’ has been done to death, but IT’S ALSO KIND OF IN THE PREMISE, so that means that the show just shrugs really hard at a lot of the questions it brings up  basically just going “humans and AI should work together probably” and that’s it. There’s a lot that feels underexplored. The antagonists in the show also either have motivations that don’t really make sense or have boring hackneyed motivations. In the finale in particular, it feels like a lot of things happen “just because” and it falls a little flat.

I also have to warn that one of the arcs focus on a robot ‘pairing’ where the dude-coded robots actions toward his partner are straight up awful and rob her of her autonomy, but it’s played like a tragic love story. I suppose you could read it differently too, but it definitely made me go ‘ew’ the story seemed to want me to sympathize with this robo dude,

Overall, I wouldn’t anti-recommend this show, it’s an all right little sci-fic romp (and definitely SUPER pretty). My favorite element was definitely the episodes where Vivy develops an entirely new (an loveable) personality, because it played with the idea of of an AI getting “rebooted” really well and interplay between her two “selves” was done really well. But there are a lot of other parts of the show that just feel...a little underexplored and empty, making me have an ‘eh’ feeling on the show overall. It’s definitely an ambitious project, and while it didn’t quite stick the landing, there’s something to be said for a show that shoots for the stars and falls short over a show that just languishes in mediocrity.

Fruits Basket The Final

Quick summary: The final season of that dramatic drama about that weird family with a zodiac curse and the girl who loves them.

It’s very weird that after not cutting a lot out, they kinda sped through some material for, you know, the finale. I guess they thought they couldn’t stretch this final arc to 26 episodes? Or weren’t cleared for another double cour? However, though there were a couple places that felt awkward, despite being a bit condensed it mostly held together pretty well for a D R A M A T I C and ultimately heartwarming conclusion. I was really disappointed they kept the part where Ritsu cut their hair for the ‘happy ending’, I thought  their intro episode not showing them in men’s clothes meant the anime had decided their presentation didn’t need to be “fixed” but WELL I GUESS NOT. That was the only big upset for me though, otherwise the adaptation went about how I expected, sticking to the source material. Furuba has a lot of bumps, from weird age gap stuff to ...gender, but it also has a lot of important feels and great character arcs. It was a gateway shoujo for many and has its important place in animanga history, so I’m glad it finally got a shiny, full adaptation.