#and idk much about visuals

[allebooklover]

Can’t say much about parallels because I didn’t notice those (pretty sure it’s there tho. Maybe the panel of everything breaking? And how AFO’s big thing is his smile, which matches the whole ‘I want a house of smiles and laughter’ thing Kotaro had in mind for the house), but for me, when AFO revealed himself as part of Tenko’s past, and the main reason why Nana decided to abandon her son, Tenko’s dad, it sort of linked him to the house for me. He was not a part of the household, but he definitely contributed to why and how it came to be. Same for Shigaraki himself.

This is going to be a very long ramble as to why - and how Deku's failure to save Shigaraki relates to this. Spoilers under the cut:

Definitely agreeing that Deku failed to save Shigaraki - but not for reasons most people agree to. Deku failed to save Shigaraki not just because Shigaraki died (although that’s part of it), it’s also because of who he tried to save. He wanted to save ‘that little boy’ - the person who needed saving aka Tenko, before he took on the identity of Tomura Shigaraki. Deku didn’t say anything about wanting to save Villain!Shigaraki, the possessed by AFO villain leader who destroyed Japanese hero society and terrorized him and his classmates throughout the past year. He wanted to save Tenko, the boy whom hero society and civilians ignored in his time of need, who was then picked up and groomed by AFO into becoming Shigaraki.

That distinction between Tenko and Shigaraki is important.

In order to save Tenko, Deku must first fight Villain!Shigaraki, who Tenko became. And he succeeds - they exchange memories during the fight. Deku gets Shigaraki’s memories and perspective of why and how he came to become LoV leader villain possessed by AFO; Shigaraki gets the same but about Deku’s path onto heroism, which helps them understand each other enough for Deku to amateur therapy punch his way into the exact reason Tenko turned to villainy - aka ‘everything to do with that house’. This grants him access to the Tenko who has yet to become Villain!Shigaraki, succeeding in his goal of reaching the boy he wants to save.

Deku gains access to Tenko’s reason for villainy. Tenko’s trauma was caused by his mom, sister, and grandparents turning their eyes away from his father’s abuse, cementing his hatred of how hero society has made people complacent. By reaching out to Tenko even as he’s in the midst of destroying everything he touches uncontrollably, Deku proves that a complete stranger wants to be there for him in his time of need, destroying the reason for Tenko’s hatred. By being there for Tenko in his time of need, Deku eases Tenko’s pain and hatred, and is the first person to help Tenko take a step towards healing from his trauma and become a better person, as seen by his decision to help the disenfranchised and the friends he gathered around him. In that sense, Deku does save ‘that little boy’….

But only in the mindscape. Deku’s desire to save ‘that little boy’, while admirable, was always futile, because that boy has already became an adult. Deku’s support of Tenko in the mindscape doesn’t mean he’s managed to rewrite reality, which is that Tenko became Villain!Shigaraki because nobody saved Tenko back then. It doesn’t change the fact that Tenko became LoV leader and mass murderer Shigaraki. What it does change is Villain!Shigaraki’s mindset - Deku saving Tenko in the mindscape changed Villain!Shigaraki’s goal from ‘destroy the entire earth’ to ‘become a hero for the villains (aka his friends)’. This gives Villain!Shigaraki a chance to change back into Tenko, the person who wanted to be a hero, and meld that childhood desire with his villain experiences to become Hero!Shigaraki. Deku’s goal was to save both civilians and Tenko (not Shigaraki), and by being there for Tenko in the mindscape, Deku does manage to do both, by changing Tenko’s mind from Villain!Shigaraki’s goal of ’destroy everything’ and completing his metamorphosis into Hero!Shigaraki that has the goal of ‘save my friends’, which leaves Hero!Shigaraki open for communication without having to fight to the death.

How this relates to the house:

so Villain!Shigaraki’s main goal has always been to ‘destroy everything that came from that house’, which is his childhood home. Which he did destroy in reality, but is present in the dreamscape bc it was part of his trauma. One big thing that really stuck out to me was how Deku saved Tenko - he did this by holding Tenko’s hand when Tenko lost control of his Quirk, until he regained control again. This is a really cool bit on multiple levels, but how he does it is what matters here.

By reaching out to Tenko and grasping his hands, Deku forces Tenko to redirect the urge to destroy onto himself instead - which does end up destroying Deku’s arms. This prevents Tenko from killing his family (which was a big factor of his trauma), but it also prevents him from destroying his childhood home (source of trauma). It’s still standing pristine. Which to me symbolizes how even though Deku gave Tenko his biggest desire - being someone who was there for him, obliterating his ideology of everyone in hero society being complacent about suffering which gets rid of his hatred and helps him take a step towards recovering from his trauma - it doesn’t change the fact that the trauma existed in the first place, and that Tenko became supervillain Shigaraki.

How this relates to Deku saving ‘that little boy’ (aka Tenko):

by saving Tenko, this opens up a new path for Shigaraki to take. Deku was saved by All Might offering him the chance to become a hero via giving him OFA, and he’s offering Tenko the chance to turn away from villainy now by also giving him OFA - the narrative offers Tenko the chance to be a hero. That’s why child Tenko becoming adult Hero!Shigaraki who resolves to no longer destroy as a supervillain but instead be a hero to villains, aka his friends, is such a good scene imo. It’s a melding of both their goals - Tenko’s desire to change society in a way that validates his past trauma without harming others, Deku’s desire to save. Deku succeeds in his goal of saving Tenko (who has yet to become Shigaraki). In doing so Villain!Shigaraki (the person Tenko became) changes his mind about destroying everything as a supervillain to being Hero!Shigaraki, who wants to be a hero to his friends instead. The reason Deku was fighting Shigaraki was because Villain!Shigaraki wanted to kill Deku and destroy everything; now that Villain!Shigaraki has become Hero!Shigaraki, they can talk things out instead of fighting, which opens up the possibility of them working together to save the people society couldn’t save, aka villains.

That’s what Deku’s desire to save that little boy means to me - the recognition of and expending a helping hand to someone in need that is lashing out due to trauma, while ensuring that traumatized person doesn’t harm anyone else.

Shigaraki presents himself as someone who didn’t need saving when he very much did. By reaching out to Shigaraki in a way that validates his trauma in a supportive way that harms nobody else at great cost to himself, Deku inspires Tenko (the person he was trying to save) to stop being ‘LoV supervillain leader out to murder the whole world Shigaraki’ and instead try to be ‘hero to villains aka people that society failed to save aka the friends he made in the LoV Shigaraki’, which opens up Shigaraki’s path of atonement for his crimes and makes an ending for both of them to live be possible. We see via Gentle and La Brava that villains must be the ones to make the decision to stop villainous activity and stick to it; all heroes and civilians can do is encourage them to change for the better and help them along that path. By inspiring that change in Shigaraki, Deku does in that sense save him by deescalating Shigaraki enough to be open to talking about their ideologies instead of killing over it, which makes an ending where both of them live be possible.

That’s all about Deku saving Tenko who became Shigaraki, how does this relate to Deku failing to save Shigaraki: After Deku changes his mind, Shigaraki newfound desire is to be a hero to the friends he made in the LoV - the villains, and those that hero society failed to save. Specifically, a hero to the villains - aka his friends and the disenfranchised. His villainous self is literally cracking away - he no longer wants to fight, but talk ideology. It’s entirely possible that he and Deku could have resolved their issues peacefully in a way that satisfies both of their desires to save - which makes AFO’s appearance and subsequent takeover all the more tragic.

But there’s more to it, except this involves a very long ramble to explain how Deku’s failure to save, Hero!Shigaraki and Villain!Shigaraki’s desires, and AFO all link to ‘that house’ leads to that Shigaraki’s tragedy.

Hero!Shigaraki motivation and it’s link to AFO: A hero is someone who wins against villains to save others from harm. Shigaraki’s desire is to be a hero to his LoV friends - someone who wins against villains to save the LoV from harm. Who’s harmed both him, the people he cared about (his family sans dad) and his friends? AFO. AFO groomed him his entire life and is the entire reason his grandma and dad made the decisions they did. AFO’s bestie Garaki brought Toya back to life deliberately as someone with a short lifespan. AFO turned Shigaraki’s best friend Spinner into a semi-mindless noumu who’s lost sight of his original goals by manipulating their friendship to each other. And AFO is now currently trying to take over Shigaraki’s body to get OFA (aka his brother) to himself after revealing that he’s the mastermind of every single trauma in Shigaraki’s life.

Congratulations, Hero!Shigaraki - you have your villain to fight against. That it’s the sole villain in the villain gallery you inherited alongside OFA is icing on the cake.

How it relates to the Shimura household:

So there’s this whole thing about the Shimura household being a microcosm of hero society and its flaws. I wholeheartedly agree with this interpretation. Shigaraki’s destruction of the house and desire to destroy anything from that house symbolizes his desire to destroy hero society; that the house was left standing when Deku offered comfort symbolizes that although Shigaraki is now at peace, the trauma and issues caused by hero society still remains. But there’s also cause and symptom to consider.

So for the Shimura household, it’s generally accepted that Kotaro is the one most at fault for how Tenko came to be, because abuse. This is very much true - if Kotaro hadn’t became an abusive parent whose hatred of heroes overcame any love he had to his kids, Tenko wouldn’t have became Villain!Shigaraki. The reason for Kotaro’s hatred of heroes is because Kotaro’s mom Nana abandoned him to be a hero (for very good reasons, but it is still abandonment to the Japanese orphanage system which is like. Really horrible. No wonder he bears a grudge). Why did Nana abandon him? Because she was scared AFO would use him against her or kill him to get OFA - a fear that was very much well founded considering AFO’s whole ‘I manipulated Tenko’s entire life to groom him into becoming Shigaraki since birth’ thing. That would’ve been Tenko’s dad AFO was grooming if the whole ‘hide kid in foster family’ situation hadn’t hidden Kotaro from AFO until adulthood.

And the reason he targeted her family in the first place was because she inherited OFA from the hero he killed, who inherited it from the hero he killed, all the way up to and including the first user of OFA - who only got OFA in the first place because AFO gave it to him. When AFO said he was behind Shigaraki’s creation he wasn’t kidding - he’s the main reason for everything that went wrong within the Shimura household, just that it starts from two generations back in Nana’s time. Which isn’t to absolve Nana’s abandonment or Kotaro’s abuse - that’s on them, all this is doing is explaining the reasons behind their actions - but I honestly believe that if Nana hadn’t been so terrified of AFO, and that if AFO and OFA hadn’t existed in the first place, they wouldn’t have made the actions they did. They could have been happy together, and the house Kotaro built because of his trauma wouldn’t have been made.

Which brings us to ‘that house’ - the Shimura family household. The entire reason Kotaro made the house is because he wanted 1) a place of joy and laughter & 2) a place without heroes, primarily because of the abandonment issues and resentment Nana gave him. Which she wouldn’t have done if it weren’t for AFO. If AFO didn’t exist, Nana wouldn’t have abandoned him, and Kotaro wouldn’t have reason to build such a house. Much like how villains are initially seen as a cause of evil but are later revealed to be a symptom that was created by the flaws of hero society, Kotaro is a person who is initially seen as the cause of evil (an abuser and the main reason for Tenko’s trauma) that is later revealed to be a symptom that was created by AFO’s obsessive hunt for OFA (which AFO created in the first place).

Which is a super long way of saying that when AFO goes ‘I’ve been working on turning you into Shigaraki since birth’ to Tenko, it’s also him going ‘I’ve been working on this ever since I realised your grandma existed’. Which in turn causes Villain!Shigaraki to go from ‘my dad (and later on hero grandma) is the reason for my dysfunctional household’ to ‘AFO is the reason my grandma turned my dad into an asshole that created a dysfunctional household’, adding onto his reason to kick AFO’s butt.

(also visually, AFO's main thing is his wide smile and laughter, and Shimura household is a 'house built for joy and laughter' - aka smiles. so there's definitely a visual link there. and possibly other parallels in the panels in the manga.)

So now Shigaraki has two reasons for going after AFO - AFO being the cause of ‘that house’ fulfills his villainous reason of getting rid of anything related to it, and AFO hurting his pals makes for the heroic reason for it. This melds both the newfound Hero!Shigaraki’s motivations with old Villain!Shigaraki’s motivations together in a way that gets him to join the other heroes in defeating AFO. Which brings us to:

Deku’s reaction to Hero!Shigaraki (and failure to save): So we know from everything said earlier that Shigaraki declares his desire to be a hero to villains to Deku.

Deku doesn’t actually negate Shigaraki’s decision to be a hero. Part of it is because no time since AFO appeared directly after Shigaraki’s statement, but since he’s been shown to accept people so long as they show the desire to change no matter how horrible they were before, I think he would have accepted Shigaraki’s decision to become a hero and attempt to help him with that in a way that benefits society, while also holding Shigaraki accountable for his crimes at the same time.

Whether society accepts and accommodates that desire to become a hero is another matter. There’s a lot of reasons as to why this desire isn’t likely to be fulfilled - we know from how Aoyama and Gentle have been treated by the hero system that a person who has committed a crime will have an incredibly difficult, near impossible path of becoming a hero. Ditto for the dude who threatened to destroy the world, killed hundreds of people in his effort to destroy society, and showed no remorse about killing all those people - Hero!Shigaraki’s main goal is not becoming a hero to atone to society, but to be a hero to his friends aka villains. Doesn’t matter if he’s a changed person now, dude’s lucky if he gets lifelong imprisonment, let alone the opportunity to make up for all the lives he’s hurt and taken - if he even wants to try and atone, that is.

Which is why Deku’s actions after hold so much weight.

Shigaraki wants to be a hero. His goal as a hero is to defeat AFO. In the Final War arc, heroes work together as a team to defeat a villain stronger than they are - in this particular case, the villain is AFO possessing Shigaraki’s body. Thanks to Deku giving Shigaraki OFA, Shigaraki has the vestiges as part of his hero team to fight AFO in the mindscape, and with their help Shigaraki stays present enough to punch out AFO’s vestige, killing AFO and fulfilling his goal as both hero and villain.

Except Shigaraki doesn’t just have OFA on his side - he’s got Deku too. Deku got flung out of the mindscape and has all rights to call it a day especially after losing his arms, but he gets them back and rallies the rest of the heroes (and civilian rooting for him) into helping him defeat the AFO possessing Shigaraki’s body. Hero!Shigaraki and Deku share the same goal - defeating AFO. By gathering people to help him punch out AFO’s physical body, Deku punches AFO and Shigaraki’s body into oblivion the same moment Shigaraki kills AFO - helping Shigaraki in his goal of defeating AFO and saving the world at the same time, at the cost of failing to truly save Shigaraki.

I don’t blame Deku for his failure to save Shigaraki. He didn’t actually want to kill Shigaraki - he wanted to stop AFO, who was trying to possess Deku and kill everyone else. To do that Deku had to pick between saving Shigaraki vs saving the world, and he chose the world. However, I don’t think Shigaraki blames Deku for punching his body into oblivion either - Shigaraki wanted AFO dead just as much as the rest of the heroes did. Dude literally clung to life in the mindscape with the help of OFA just to kill AFO. Deku is a hero trained to save; Shigaraki is a villain who was trained to kill, and they both wanted to get rid of AFO. That AFO died is Shigaraki’s victory and Deku’s loss, even if it results in Shigaraki’s death, because AFO’s death was what Shigaraki wanted and Deku helped with that. Except I’m not sure if Shigaraki views his own death as a loss, either.

How Shigaraki’s death relates to ‘that house’:

Villain!Shigaraki’s goal was to ‘destroy everything related to that house’ - the Shimura household. And he did - in his history, he killed everyone living in that house up to and including the dog, as well as turned the house itself into dust. Deku and Shigaraki killed AFO (main reason for the existence of the house) with the help of OFA and the rest of the heroes. The only product of ‘that house’ left is Shigaraki himself.

Tenko is the only survivor of the Shimura household. Villain!Shigaraki was formed from the dysfunction of the Shimura household. Hero!Shigaraki is an amalgamation of his childhood desire to be a hero, and his experiences as a villain - all of which originates from ‘that house’. So long as Shigaraki lives, so too does ‘that house’, even if it still only exists in the mindscape (Deku prevented Tenko from destroying the house in the mindscape which led to the formation of Hero!Shigaraki). By dying after killing OFA, Shigaraki has fulfilled his goal of destroying everything and anything related to that household, finally fulfilling his original goal as a villain.

And Deku helped him in that goal.

Thing is, Deku didn’t save Shigaraki. But he does something I haven’t seen many people talk about - he listened to Shigaraki’s desires, and helped Shigaraki achieve them. Shigaraki wanted OFA - Deku gave Shigaraki OFA. Shigaraki wanted validation for his trauma - Deku validated it at the cost of his own arms. Shigaraki wanted to defeat AFO - OFA helped him with that, and Deku alongside the rest of the heroes helped Shigaraki deal the final blow. Shigaraki wanted to be a hero - by including Shigaraki in the ‘defeat AFO’ team, Deku gave Shigaraki hero status, unintentional as it might be. Shigaraki wanted everything ‘from that house’ destroyed - Deku punches Shigaraki, the final product of that house, and causes his body to disintegrate at the same time Shigaraki kills AFO.

OFA turned Deku from victim to hero, OFA helped Shigaraki go from victim to villain to hero. By giving Shigaraki OFA, Deku gave Shigaraki agency. And Shigaraki used that agency to aid in his own destruction to stop AFO. That he went out the way the rest of the household, AFO, and his method for killing everything - disintegrating into nothing via his Quirk - is poetic. Tragic, but fitting, and fulfils every single one of Shigaraki’s goals.

Their last conversation supports this line of thinking for me.

Deku fulfilling Shigaraki’s goals: Shigaraki confirms that Deku was right about him being traumatised and couldn’t even destroy Deku’s outreached hand (which is a lie, he actually did destroy Deku’s arms lmao). Deku doesn’t call him out on this, instead changes to subject and says he fought not because he wanted to kill Shigaraki - he fought because even though he wanted to save Shigaraki, he also wanted to hold him accountable for every single wrong he’s done (like terrorising his entire class for a whole year and committing countless murders). And Deku brings up Shigaraki’s desire again - he thought Shigaraki wanted to be stopped so that the cycle would stop with him, so Deku also fought to grant that desire. Not sure if that means he knew Shigaraki wanted to stop AFO possessing his body even if it meant Shigaraki’s death or if it meant stopping Shigaraki from destroying everything because of his trauma during the final battle, tbh - probs the latter. Shigaraki’s small laugh can be interpreted in many ways, but I’ve taken it to mean he’s surprised Deku saw through him and agrees with that assessment. But whether you view this as a correct assessment of Shigaraki’s desires, it’s Deku confirming that he thought about what Shigaraki wanted and tried to make that come true for him - helping Shigaraki achieve his goals once again.

Not just that, either. Shigaraki’s last words to Deku is a request to tell Spinner that ‘Tomura Shigaraki fought until the end to destroy’. And he did - Villain!Shigaraki destroyed society as planned, OFA (vestiges catapulted themselves into him with Deku’s help but it did end up destroying them, with the remnants of the vestiges only rising up at the end). Hero!Shigaraki worked with other heroes (Deku and the OFA Vestiges) to successfully destroy AFO and by extension himself, destroying the villain that hurt his friends and fulfilling Villain! Shigaraki’s desire to destroy everything related to the Shimura household which includes AFO and himself. And when Deku tells him that ‘yes, you did it’ - he’s confirming that Shigaraki has achieved in that goal of destroying AFO and himself. That Shigaraki has won, so that Shigaraki will be at peace.

(Which is why I’m fine with that final panel of Shigaraki’s death by Deku Punch looking so victorious. Deku failed to save Shigaraki, but he defeated AFO and saved the world. Shigaraki failed to be saved, but he achieved all his goals, which included AFO’s destruction. Bittersweet, but more sweet than bitter.)

NGL I also think this is Tomura’s way of telling Spinner ‘hey so you remember my mentor AFO who treated me like shit, groomed me into a nihilistic serial killer, took over my body and used our friendship to manipulate you into becoming a brainless Noumu for his own gain? You don’t need to worry about that guy anymore. I turned him to dust. I also turned myself into dust by killing him, but no worries - we got everything we wanted, like destroying the complacency of society, bringing attention to society’s flaws via its destruction and OFA. I’m dead but we win!’ Which is like. My dude your death is a loss that Spinner’s gonna mourn, telling him you went out with all your desires fulfilled won’t make it feel like a win, you socially awkward man. Deku agrees to pass on this message and does so - another of Shigaraki’s desire fulfilled.

And this leads to Shigaraki telling Deku ‘that depends on what you do tomorrow, do your damn best’, which is like. Shigaraki wanted to destroy society’s complacency and reliance on heroes by killing everyone. He succeeded in destroying society and revealing that complacency and reliance on heroes as flaws, causing massive loss of life, but there are still enough survivors to rebuild that society, and those survivors might once again become complacent and reliant on heroes to do everything, making all that destruction pointless. To me that line is him leaving his final desire up to Deku - being a hero to the villains and ensuring that the complacency and over reliance on heroes remains destroyed, and to do his best to rebuild a society where everyone helps each other instead of leaving it up to another person instead.

Shigaraki’s final desire - hero to villains and how that applies to Deku:

Shigaraki entrusts one desire for Deku to inherit - making sure over reliance on heroes to save everyone in society remains destroyed. Part of this is because Deku is the only one he can pass those desires onto (parallels OFA users getting OFA because they were the only ones available), part of this is because Deku is the one who both reached out to him in sympathy and held him accountable for his crimes. Because Deku was there for him, because Deku held him accountable, he wants Deku to do the same for him - hold society accountable, to prevent the mistakes that created him from being repeated. To do his best to prevent history from repeating itself, and continue what Shigaraki started - not the whole death of hundreds civilians things by killing them, but to keep society from relying on the heroes for everything and to do their part.

And one way Deku can do that is by taking on Shigaraki’s final desire - being a hero to villains.

Shigaraki’s idea of being a hero to villains is by assisting them in their villainy - he enables them in their desire to harm others, because that was all he’d been taught. This applies to those who turned to villainy because hero society couldn’t save them, and those who turned to villainy because they want to fulfil their own desires even if it harms others. Defeating AFO falls in this category - AFO harmed his friends, who were villains, so AFO had to go, amongst all the other reasons Shigaraki had for defeating him. Deku has the drive to make sure history doesn’t repeat itself and desire to do better than the ones that came before him, as we can see with his inheritance of OFA and working to become better than All Might. If he inherits Shigaraki’s goal of being a hero to villains - he can do better than Shigaraki by helping to save those that hero society failed to save, and holding those who are villains because their desires are more important than the lives of others accountable for their crimes, preventing more victims that could become villains in the process. Which I think Deku was already going to do, but like - it’d be more poignant if it was to grant the desire of the man he tried but failed to save.

Anyway. To summarise: Deku inspired Villain!Shigaraki to change back into Tenko mindset by being there for him during the trauma and giving him OFA. This causes Villain!Shigaraki to mindmeld with Tenko to become Hero!Shigaraki. Villain!Shigaraki wants to kill everything related to the Shimura household, Hero!Shigaraki wants to be hero to villains aka his friends, cue AFO, who has hurt Shigaraki’s friends and is a direct cause of the existence to the Shimura household even without the whole manipulation thing, appears and takes over Tenko’s body. This gives Shigaraki the opportunity to fulfil all his desires by killing AFO with the help of OFA, and Deku with the help of every other hero helps Shigaraki achieve that goal by punching AFO possessed!Shigaraki at the same time vestige!Shigaraki punches out AFO in the mindscape with OFA’s help - by giving OFA to Shigaraki, Deku helped Shigaraki regain agency to do as he pleases and an opportunity to accomplish his goals of being a hero. Shigaraki and Deku simultaneous defeat of AFO causes Shigaraki’s own body disintegrates, which means Deku failed to save Shigaraki but Shigaraki achieved his original goal of getting rid of the final product of the Shimura household aka himself. Deku proceeds to have one last convo with Shigaraki where Shigaraki asks Deku to fulfil his last few goals, which is farewell message to spinner, to do his best to make sure society doesn’t repeat its mistakes, and potentially hero to villains, which to Shigaraki are people like the LoV that society failed to save. Deku failed to save, but he did the next best thing which was listen to Shigaraki’s desires and help Shigaraki achieve as many of his goals as possible in a way that helped to save others, and he’s been shown doing that by informing Spinner of Shigaraki’s final words, so from one OFA recipient to another, it’s possible that Deku inherited Shigaraki’s goal of being hero to those society couldn’t save, and definitely inherited Shigaraki’s goal of making sure society’s mistakes don’t repeat itself.

or to put it another way -

All Might rose in a time of fear, when people needed to believe that things would turn out alright in order to move forward, and so he became a symbol of peace—his strength was a comfort to everyone. Because of him, society was able to come out of a state of chaos and stabilize.

But Midoriya was born in the era of complacency that followed. If he became the same symbol of peace that All Might was, then society would stagnate. Another strong OFA user would just reassure society that the heroes have everything handled, that they don’t need to intervene, and that they didn’t have enough power to help even if they wanted to.

That’s why his loss of OFA (a terrible thing in itself!!) is going to work out for the ultimate good of everyone. It actually frees Midoriya to wield the power he was born with—the ability to inspire other people to act. I don’t think it’s an accident that he was quirkless in his rising chapter. When people see Midoriya running to save, even without any power, they loose any excuse for complacency they had. They feel compelled to do the same.

That power—the connection of hearts that formed OFA in the first place—is greater than any quirk. It’s what makes Midoriya the greatest hero.

[lunacias]

She's feeling a swell of an emotion at confessing all of this. She works to get it under control. /// Although he can't understand her, HAYWARD, too, is choking up a little at the sound of PAIGE's voice.

[fairmerthefarmer]

My take/designs on the pevensies! (They’re definitely heavily inspired by their looks in the movies.)

Beginning of the lion, the witch and the wardrobe

End of golden age-ish

I’d call this a WIP but it’s not really, mostly once we get into designing clothes in fantasy settings I feel very out of my depth, but I wanna practice more. I’m the most happy with Lucy’s but that’s also cause I most heavily referenced with hers.

Im mostly still just figuring out the clothes design for when they’re in narnia. I want brighter/more jewel toned and warmth to contrast with the more muted London clothes. And for the clothing design I want embroidery, but other than that I have no idea how I would make the designs of the narnian style in this era cohesive.

I also have vague main colours for each of them, lucy green, secondary red, edmund blue secondary brown, Susan purple secondary blue, Peter red secondary purple, and all of them use gold as well.

[snarkspawn]

HAPPY HALLOWEEN FRIENDS

[heydragonfly]

alright i know lots of folks don’t love the chaos redesign and some folks are saying they look like meg which like i get, esp with the singular wing but to me? they look like Nyx. they look like they molded their new appearance in the image of their daughter, who they’ve recently reconnected with after aeons of separation. like they have not just emotionally become more the parent of Nyx, but physically mirrored this parenthood, this embodied connection, by choice

(this relationship which they’ve now lost, leaving them alone, again)

(until a certain princess of the dead arrives)

[faunandfloraas]

Seungmin saying they changed song by so it would be easier for people to watch and listen and then me seeing people going "Yes! It's good it's on tiktok and shorts now" and I'm like. Oh. You're all so fucking stupid <3

[ganondoodle]

(idk if anyone wants to keep hearing my opinions on totk book stuff but-)

apparently it says that rauru DID have kids, multiple even, which yeah... is kinda necessary for zelda to even be connected to them so much so that sonia can SENSE a blood connection (which, even with all the excuses with magic, is just a little too far for me to suspend my disbelief bc its over, OVER, ten thousand years worth of generations that seperate her from them that one lil touch of the hand can sense that (feels more like an attempt to make you care about them or .. see them as zeldas "better" parents just bc they exchange a few nice words, i never got the feeling they were 'better' parents and its also kinda disrespectful to her actual parents, like sure rhoam wasnt the best but i wouldnt call rauru better just bc he was polite)- i could see maybe the light power of hylia or sth but since its the coolest dude that ever lived rauru now that had it which still doesnt make sense and makes me unreasonably annoyed and she can sense BOTH of their powers in her? nah) the fact theres NOTHING about them in the game itself is just so ... no way they planned any of this

i dont think theres anything they can do or say that wont make be believe they either

are making it up alla 'fix it in post' mentality trying to hastily explain stuff the game never bothers to do to try and appease fans or let it appear as if they thought about it at all

something went really REALLY wrong during development, which kinda seems likely given how the game turned out (im sorry i cannot let go, its not just the writing, the game design too and how little was changed in the map while being so damn expensive, i dont know how people dont feel scammed q_q)

given that they (allegedly) spent the last entire year of development on polish (where??? where????? huh??? like it would make it more understandable (EXCEPT for the price) if there was alot of trouble, which was also bc it got delayed and ... turned out like this, but they dont want to say it, especially given their reputation, with that quote i have heard way too many times 'a delayed game blah blah') i just??

are they just gonna go and do it like they did with kashiwa (kass)? "they uuuh where flying around the whole time ony cool sonau tech maschines, you just dont see or hear from them ooooorrr they were uuuuh out of the country at the time" (sending invitations to other continents to join their glorious kingdom ;) )

(bet they are also gonna say they did all the stuff like ... moving the shrines around (lol?) and lifting the islands up into the sky- which is still weird bc ... didnt they also say they were living in the sky before coming to the surface?? so where?? did they park all their islands on the surface and the mystery kids had the keys so they had to repark them back into the sky after they returned off camera?? xD also why are the islands so different as an environment if they where from the surface? like even the STONE up there is different- and if they were first in the sky then on the surface and the nback in the sky .. why is there not a single yellow tree or grass in the past- you cant really argue that it changed bc they were up there so long bc .. nothing else changed, the suddendly and totally always there sonau buildings are largely in prime condition, only some slightly moldy, and what we see of the glorious past looks barely any different from the present, aside from like ... some standard trees shuffled, no castle yet and that glowy uwu filter DESPITE that stupidly long time frame between it)

[narfin-frood]

what if you swapped dominator and screwball would that work?

well, since they're both villains, it doesn't really seem to count as a roleswap? screwball dominator WOULD be very fun with lackadaisical though. i imagine they'd have to have the same kind of rivalry wander has with screwball in the show - same goals with wildly different and in screwball's case morally dubious ways of going about it. that would also make screwball the Big Bad....... which could also be fun

[per1w1nkl3]

im sorry is there any straight explanation to spocks character arc in the motion picture??? or am i missing something???? he mindmelts with the machine and- as hes clinging onto kirks arm- tells him how v'ger is just a cold logical machine and it'll never understand this simple feeling (what simple feeling spock. wHATSIMPLE FEELING.) (spock has just come back from the ritual which purges vulcans of all emotion, making them only logical beings). hes so overwhelmed by this realization (hes JUST about to cry. ive never seen him teary-eyed im unwell) that at the end of the movie he decides to forego kolinahr completely. oh and this insane arc and life changing decisions are never really verbally adressed btw.

[synthshenanigans]

something something the window in light & night is a mirror and its all just been Whole looking in a mirror thinking about himself/his brain

[b4kuch1n]

IT ARRIVED IT ARRIVED IT ARRIVED

DESPITE EVERYTHING DESPITE MY CHRONICALLY CURSED INTERNATIONAL MAIL PROBLEM I AM STILL THE ZONE RPG

[twosidedcherrytrees]

Every time I play Pokémon Scarlet I always end my play session by running over to Arven's room to complain about something or to give him a summary of what i did or whatever

Which is ESPECIALLY funny when it comes to the DLC because my character is flying across ENTIRE REGIONS just to complain to this poor man

Door slams open "Arven you will not BELIEVE the audacity of this bitch-"

"What the hell are you doing here???"

[it-may-be-dull-but-im-determined]

On the verge of doing a deep dive compare and contrast between both Wicked and Evita being adapted for films because the parallels are RIGHT THERE. In this essay I will

[melodiousoblivionao3]

Mel Barcenas really is just baby Alex that’s so crazy…13, pink pre-wrap, shorts rolled up/tucked under spandex, high socks…wild

[idon-twannabeperceived]

Btw seeing gringos trying to dance tango or salsa is so 🫥🫥

Like I don't mind at all bro go off but like put some flavor in there I AM BEGGING i swear u won't die WHERE IS YOUR SOUL DO YOU NOT HAVE A HEART

[commsroom]

to me, the question of whether hera would want a body is first and foremost a question of autonomy and ability. she has an internal self-image, i think it's meaningful that the most pivotal moments in her character arc take place in spaces where she can be perceived the way she perceives herself and interact with others in a (relatively) equal and physical capacity, and that's worth considering. but i don't think it's about how she looks, or even who she is - and i think she's the same person either way; she's equally human without a body, and having a body wouldn't make her lived experience as an AI magically disappear - so much as it's about how she would want to live.

like most things with hera, i'm looking at this through a dual lens of disability and transness, both perspectives from which the body - and particularly disconnect from the body - is a concern. the body as the mechanism by which she's able to interact with the world; understanding her physical isolation as a product of her disability, the body as a disability aid. the body as it relates to disability, in constant negotiation. the body as an expression of medical transition, of self-determination, of choice. as a statement of how she wants to be seen, how she wants to navigate the world, and at the same time reckoning with the inevitable gap between an idealized self-image and a lived reality, especially after a long time spent believing that self-image could never be visible to anyone else.

it's critical to me that it should never imply hera's disability is 'fixed' by having a body, only that it enables her to interact with the world in ways she otherwise couldn't. her fears about returning to earth are about safety and ability; the form she exists in dictates the life she's allowed to lead and has allowed people to invade her privacy and make choices for her. dysphoria and disability both contribute to disembodiment - in an increasingly digitized world, the type of alienation that feels like your life can only exist in a virtual space... maybe there's something about the concept of AI embodiment, in particular as it relates to hera, that appeals to me because of what it challenges about what makes a 'real woman.' when it's about perception, about how others see her and how she might observe / be impacted by how she's treated differently, even subconsciously. it's about feeling more present in her life and interfacing with the world. but it's not in itself a becoming; it doesn't change how she's been shaped by her history or who she is as a person.

i think it comes back to the 'big picture' as a central antagonistic force in wolf 359, and how - in that context, in this story - it adds a weight to this hypothetical choice. hera is everywhere, and she's never really anywhere. she's got access to more knowledge than most people could imagine, but it's all theoretical or highly situational; she doesn't have the same life experiences as her peers. she has the capacity to understand that 'big picture' better than most people, but whatever greater portion of the universe she understands is nothing next to infinity and meaningless without connection and context. it's interesting to me that hera is one of the most self-focused and introspective people on the show. her loyalties and decisions are absolute, personal, emotionally driven. she's lonely; she always feels physically away from the others. she misremembers herself sitting at the table with the rest of the crew. she imagines what the ocean is like. there's nothing to say that hera having a body is the only solution for that, but i like what it represents, and i honestly believe it'd make her happier than the alternatives. if there's something to a symbolically narrowed focus that allows for a more solid sense of self... that maybe the way to make something of such a big, big universe is to find a tiny portion of it that's yours and hold onto it tight.