#bnha 59

[delawaredetroit]

What a visceral first shot of the main villain's "face"

And from his first real appearance, All for One doubles down on the idea that there are people who are born to be villains. And in retrospect, this seems like a justification to himself. Despite knowing Shigaraki's backstory and the influence All for One has had on his trajectory towards villainy, All for One still must tell himself that Shigaraki was inherently twisted. All for One needs to think this in order to justify that he himself was born twisted and there was no other path for him than to become the demon lord of his comics.

[dekusdarling]

(I’m late. Not too late, but late enough. Sorry.)

“does this place really need to be this bright?” the blonde asked with a sneer, narrowing his eyes at the giant Christmas tree lit up in the dorm room. For a boy with such wealthy parents, you'd think he’d be used to people going above and beyond for Christmas.

he’s not.

“cmon, Bakugo, it’s nice! Doesn’t it look pretty?” Uraraka asked with a grin, clad in a red dress with a fluffy white hem; Santa Claus themed.

“yeah, pretty annoying” he grumbled, earning himself an eye roll, which he took with a quiet snort, scratching at his scar discreetly.

it still hurt. Not physically, that pain had quieted to a dull ache as the war ended, but Katsuki had always been a bit narcissistic. He sniffed a bit, the scent of peppermint tea invading his nostrils, making him more irritated.

“uh, do we really need to put up mistletoe?” A nervous voice rang out, the voice belonging to a certain green haired boy, who stared at the mistletoe Denki was putting up like it was on fire. Denki simply grinned, ignoring Izuku and continuing to put up the mistletoe.

Katsuki sighed, plopping onto the couch and rubbing his temples with a quiet groan.

“hey, Kacchan” a teasing voice rang out, as delicate arms wrapped around him. Y/n, his lover, his friend, his sparring partner, his. His lips quirked up in a small, brief smile before turning down again.

“that’s not my name” he grumbled with a huff, earning himself a brief cheek kiss and a giggle.

“sorry, sorry. Merry Christmas, baby, sugar, honey, sweetie, love, darling, dear-”

“ok, ok, I get it.” He said with a grin, kissing them on the jaw quickly.

mood officially brightened.

“are you gonna open presents or are you gonna sit here like the Grinch?” Y/n asked jokingly, playing with his hair.

“I always liked the Grinch. Never understood why the Whos didn’t just leave him alone.” He joked back, chuckling at their immediate pout, which made him wanna kiss their lips until they were sore. “Kidding, kidding. Why don’t you open yours first, sweet thing?”

Y/n smiled, handing him a gift with Izuku’s name written on the “from” side, the handwriting shaky as if the boy was tired or nervous when writing it; probably both. Y/n themself had a gift in their hands too, a beautifully wrapped one from Momo.

they opened the gifts in silent anticipation, practically cuddled together as Y/n squealed over the manga Momo had picked out specifically for them, and Katsuki pulled out the All Might collector’s edition baseball cap, signed by Toshinori with both “All Might” and his real name.

“little nerd knows how to pick gifts” he grumbled approvingly, pulling on the hat and rolling his eyes at the small squeak of excitement that escaped the green haired boy from across the room, who played it off (or tried to) with a cough.

“you should thank the little nerd” Y/n said with a chuckle, kissing his cheek as he nodded absentmindedly.

“Open my present. The one from me” he demanded, causing them to snicker at his imploring expression. Y/n grabbed the gift so delicately wrapped with Katsuki’s name scrawled out on it, and pulled a gift out from them to him with a sheepish smile.

“it’s not a lot, but I think you’ll like it.” They said nervously, to which he nodded and carefully opened the wrapping.

it was a black box containing a lot. First, a comb from Best Jeanist’s official website. A shirt with Katsuki’s full hero name and stats he found on Etsy some time ago and showed to them. A gift card for a full year of Spotify premium (which was a gift to themselves too, as they shared the account anyways). And a simple gold ring, solid gold with topaz gemstones accenting it; orange like his hero costume, and his favorite color. all the while, Y/n let out a gasp at the gift they got from Katsuki. A watch, a Rolex to be specific, fitted and styled for their body and clothing style, yet keeping to elegance that came with a watch of that kind.

“no, it’s too much. I can’t take this, love. There’s no way my gifts are worth this much!” They exclaimed, but Katsuki ignored that, already slipping off his shirt to yank on the new one, which fit him perfectly.

“you’ll take it, and you’ll take it with a smile, sugar. It’s for you.” He said with a smirk, chuckling as they pulled him into a hug and kissed his cheeks fervently.

this was a pretty great Christmas, to be fair.

it got better when it ended and the class had started to wind down for the evening, Katsuki walking Y/n to their room, always the gentleman. When he stopped at their door, they grinned and pointed upward. Ah, yes.

a green snap of mistletoe hung above her door, a tag that read “from Denki. MERRY CHRISTMAS BAKUGO.” protruding from the plant.

he groaned, leaning in expectantly, pretending not to enjoy the moment, anticipating their lips pressing in a brief kiss.

this kiss was not brief.

this kiss was a flame of need, silent proof that y/n had been holding out on Katsuki.

they kissed him silly, biting his bottom lip and their lips never once left his for a full minute, before they broke apart.

“well. Goodnight, Katsuki” they said, brushing off their outfit with a breathless sigh and slipping into their room.

cue Katsuki: 【*ﾟдﾟ*】

“oh no you don’t…” he growled, slipping into their room with a grin, shutting the door behind him.

that sure as hell was a Merry Christmas

[moron-hassaikai-and-more]

Ms joke: *walks into Aizawa’s room and puts their kitten on him*

Ms joke: Here, have the fuckwit who’s been drinking my paint water.

Aizawa, half asleep: Ew…

Ms joke: exactly.

[eleventeenratsinaflannelsuit]

Just went through my Document Of Fandom Shit and numbered all my AU's/headcannons because I reached the point where I didn't want to keep having to scroll all the way up and count 50 entries down so I could reference one idea in another.

[theophagie-remade]

The Shigaraki brothers...... creating the narrative (AFO) vs being haunted by the narrative (Yoichi) vs haunting the narrative (AFO & Yoichi)...

[kikyoupdates]

⭑˚💘⭑ bnha x f!reader

reverse harem, my hero academia x fem!reader, slowburn

Ever since your Quirk first manifested, you’ve been the apple of everyone’s eye. With the goal of becoming a hero, you enroll to U.A. and soon find yourself drawing the attention of many. Will you form genuine connections with others, or is this all just your power's will?

00 — prologue 01 — beloved 02 — pastel heart 03 — new class cutie 04 — lover boy 05 — sweet & spicy 06 — sugar cheeks 07 — freckles 08 — win their hearts 09 — divine presence 10 — overtake them all 11 — pretty hurts 12 — two of a kind 13 — princess of mischief 14 — mesmerizing 15 — the charmed 16 — wondrous beauty 17 — blessed by the gods 18 — cherry lips 19 — cats are great20 — chicken nuggets 21 — drunk on love 22 — affectionate storm 23 — simply lovely 24 — boyfriends 25 — like a butterfly 26 — disillusioned 27 — aesthete 28 — serendipity 39 — love trumps all 30 — enchanting 31 — chance meetings 32 — no love 33 — serene 34 — sun kissed 35 — melting gaze 36 — exquisite 37 — tainted beauty 38 — whispers in the night 39 — beautiful torment 40 — revered 41 — helpless little lamb 42 — a friend's hand 43 — flickering flame 44 — the gods must be crazy 45 — saccharine 46 — new home 47 — strengthened desires 48 — song of voice 49 — progress 50 — love you a latte 51 — center of attention 52 — thriving devotion 53 — graceful rescues 54 — disagreements 55 — a troubling feeling 56 — long overdue 57 — friends once more 58 — better than a kiss 59 — sowing the seeds 60 — instant defeat 61 — golden gaze 62 — love's in the cards 63 — humorous introduction 64 — repressed emotinos 65 — a discovery 66 — violent embrace 67 — arisen 68 — newfound appreciation 69 — shackled by pain 70 — infiltration 71 — the meaning of fear 72 — ghost-like beauty 73 — misguided love 74 — the raid's aftermath

More chapters are available on Quotev and Wattpad!

⊱.⋅follow + post notifications on for story update announcements or join the author's discord!⋅.⊰

💘 main masterlist ♡ oneshot masterlist

[villainsandvictimsalliance]

Rereading the manga, I notice something really interesting. If you go back to chapter 59, you'll find All Might explaining how AFO and OFA as quirks were born. That's the first time Toshinori explains the history of AFO too.

The interesting part is the way he tells the story of Yoichi, the first user of OFA. It reminds me a lot of Tenko's story. It can be just me, but please read it for yourself:

" The man had a quirkless little brother / the man had a quirkless younger brother.

The little brother was small, and frail, but he harbored a strong sense of justice...! / This brother was small and fragile, but he had a strong sense of justice!

His brother's actions panged his heart... and he opposed him / and the deeds of his big brother pained him... So he opposed the tyrant. "

( A quirkless little brother asking why the world is so unfair finding out he actually has a quirk when he decides to oppose his abuser? Of course, here the difference is that Yoichi was older than Tenko when it all happened. He was not a confused 5 years old trying to understand why and how.... )

" Yes... He who was thought quirkless, did in fact possess one prior. / Yes... It turned out he hadn't actually been quirkless from the start.

Though neither he himself nor anyone around him had ever noticed / thought neither he nor anyone else has known it. "

That means there is a previous instance in which a young man thought quirkless had indeed a quirk: Yoichi himself!

It also makes me think about how Tomura/Tenko's control over decay depends on his emotional and psychological state.

The night his quirk awakened, we saw that Tenko had no control over it; everything that touched the ground he had contact with decayed. After he was "rescued" and after he was given the hands of his deceased family, AFO noticed that Tomura had unconsciously restrained decay so he would only affect the things he directly touched. Later on the story, Tomura was able to expand his quirk, evolving to decay without using all his five fingers during My Villain Academia. He was able to decay things at will during the War arc!!!

Could it be possible that Tenko had unconsciously repressed his own quirk for years before the night he killed his family?

Maybe when he tried to repress his own feelings about what was happening at home, Tenko also repressed decay without knowing. If he kept all his negative feelings in check as to not upset his family, it'd be an option.

If we wanted to reaaaally go crazy theorizing, we could even make a case about how Tenko having a previous quirk before AFO implanted decay on him is a possibility (within the frames of the bnha narrative). I'm not going there, but I think that fic authors would appreciate the prompt.

[bnhawinterzine]

Something Just Like This x Wintertide COLLAB GIVEAWAY!! You've gotta stay warm when it's cold outside!! And boy does Tired Dad agree!! Introducing the coziest giveaway—winner gets a blanket AND a set of gloves!! More details below! 👇 This FREE giveaway bundle includes ONE fuzzy blanket and TWO pairs of custom, hand-knitted Erasermic fingerless gloves! To enter, you must: - Follow BOTH the @loudntired & @bnhawinterzine accounts. - Reblog the post above! (Likes don't count, sorry!) - Deadline is SATURDAY, AUG 3, 11:59 PM CST - Sharing both Erasermic+Fam & BNHA Winter Zine posts count as 2 entries! - Only public, personal accounts will be counted. No giveaway accounts! - We will ship internationally! - If you have already pre-ordered one or both, you can still enter! If you win, we'll work with you on whether to replace your original orders, or add the new ones to your shipment. - Giveaway also on Instagram and Twitter! - Comment + tag a friend on Instagram and retweet on Twitter for an additional entry each! Drop us a DM if you have questions!

[mhadadmightzine]

WinterTide X Successor COLLAB GIVEAWAY

The radiance of summer and the wonders of winter combined… We're raffling a Solstice Bundle—winner gets a ZINE book each from both projects!

This FREE giveaway bundle includes a DadMight Zine & a BNHA Winter AU Zine. (This will be the LAST giveaway to involve Successor!)

To enter, you must:

Follow BOTH the @mhadadmightzine & @bnhawinterzine accounts.

REBLOG this post! (Likes don't count, sorry!)

- Deadline is MONDAY, JULY 29, 11:59 PM CST - Sharing both DadMight & BNHA Winter Zine posts count as 2 entries! - Only public, personal accounts will be counted. No giveaway accounts! - We will ship internationally! - If you have already pre-ordered one or both, you can still enter! If you win, we'll work with you on whether to replace your original orders, or add the new ones to your shipment. - Giveaway also on Twitter and Instagram! - Retweet on Twitter and comment + tag a friend on Instagram for an additional entry each!

Drop us an ask if you have questions!

[loudntired]

Something Just Like This x Wintertide COLLAB GIVEAWAY!! You've gotta stay warm when it's cold outside!! And boy does Tired Dad agree!! Introducing the coziest giveaway—winner gets a blanket AND a set of gloves!! More details below! 👇 This FREE giveaway bundle includes ONE fuzzy blanket and TWO pairs of custom, hand-knitted Erasermic fingerless gloves! To enter, you must: - Follow BOTH the @loudntired & @bnhawinterzine accounts. - Reblog the post above! (Likes don't count, sorry!) - Deadline is SATURDAY, AUG 3, 11:59 PM CST - Sharing both Erasermic+Fam & BNHA Winter Zine posts count as 2 entries! - Only public, personal accounts will be counted. No giveaway accounts! - We will ship internationally! - If you have already pre-ordered one or both, you can still enter! If you win, we'll work with you on whether to replace your original orders, or add the new ones to your shipment. - Giveaway also on Instagram and Twitter! - Comment + tag a friend on Instagram and retweet on Twitter for an additional entry each! Drop us a DM if you have questions!

[delawaredetroit]

Characters get on Izuku's case for his mundane power visualizations for One for All, but not enough people clown on All Might's. He just created a metaphor where One for All is Valentine's Day chocolate here.

It becomes funnier when probably the only reason All Might knows the unwilling recipient part is because of whatever bizarre experiments Kudou and Bruce were doing with the quirk in their hideout

[samthehyena]

Event Announcement!

Crack(fic) or Treat is a BNHA event dedicated to the Crack and Crack Treated Seriously tags (we all know how much I love the sillies). This event will run from September 10 until October 31 2024 at 11:59 PM EST. This event took a lot of inspiration from @aimportantdragoncollector's Three Weeks of Trioholders and @fractiflos's Middle May events which were both well organized and so much funnnnn!!

Rules:

Works submitted should have humor, silliness, Crack (Treated Seriously) and/or general goofy premises as a main focus. I welcome mixtures of tone so if you want to write “crangst” (crack + angst) for this contest be my guest!!

The minimum for submissions are fics with at least 1000 words.

Any multi chaps submitted should be completed by the October 31 deadline.

No AI should be used to write submissions.

Any degree of NSFW works for me as long as the crack (treated seriously) tag is still a main focus. Please do note that I am pickier when it comes to reading NSFW works so I might have a subconscious bias.

Submit as many fics as you want, but note that an individual person can only receive one prize.

Collaborations are allowed and should a co-written work place, the co-authors will share a prize.

Prizes:

First place winner will receive a fic with a 2500 word minimum from me (samthehyena on AO3) based on a prompt of your choice.

Second place winner will receive a fic with a 1500 word minimum from me based on a prompt of your choice.

Third place winner will receive a fic with a 1000 word minimum from me based on a prompt of your choice.

I reserve the right to ask you to request a different prompt should I feel uncomfortable/ incapable of writing it.

Submission:

Please submit through AO3 and use the tag Crack(fic) or Treat so I can find your submissions. Also if you want to make extra sure that I see your submission feel free to @ me here or on Discord 😀

Anyways, have fun y’all! Stay silly and feel free to ask any questions. I’m looking forward to seeing what y’all create!!!

[moron-hassaikai-and-more]

Kai: I don’t need to go to bed yet, I’m not tired.

Hari: but don’t you want to hold me, for me to curl up in your arms? I’ll be so cold and lonely without you…

Kai: o-oh…I hadn’t thought of that…wait, are you trying to seduce me into healthy sleeping patterns?

Hari: …is it working?

[stillness-in-green]

On Heteromorphs & Heteromorphobia (Arcs VI - X , Hero Killer to Provisional License Exam)

(This post will also cover the bonus chapter “Tsuyu's Ribbity Diary.”)

Thank you all for your amazing response to last week's post, my goodness! I thought I'd found about all the audience I was likely to get for my harping about heteromorphic discrimination, so I was delighted to see a number of new names!

I do have to warn you all, if you haven't done much looking into my archives, that I'm pretty critical of BNHA these days, especially of the ways it insists on holding up individualistic solutions to problems clearly established as systemic in nature. That will become more apparent when I get into the post-war material, as the endgame is absolutely rotten with it.

This week, though, we'll start by getting out of the school to get a look at signs of and contributors to heteromorphobia in the wider world.

The Vs. Hero Killer Arc (Chapters 45-59)

Chapter 45:

Mina’s preferred alias, Alien Queen, in reference to the Xenomorph queen from the Aliens franchise, is turned down by Midnight.  The reason for this is never made especially clear.  Class 1-B gets away with a number of villainous or monstrous hero names, like Phantom Thief and Gevaudan, violent ones like Battle Fist, even an animal reference in Jack Mantis.  But Mina, for whatever reason, gets pushed towards the indescribably twee Pinky instead.  Does Midnight the R-rated hero not think girls should get to have hero names with some edge?  Surely not; her entire persona is based on titillation.  Length is clearly not a factor, given that Midnight personally approves Can’t Stop Twinkling. I don’t know exactly what went down here (from a Watsonian perspective, that is; the Doylist guesses are readily apparent and all eyeroll-inducing), so I will simply point out that a non-baseline gal wanted to name herself after a famous monster with acidic blood and was pressured into going with something cutesy based on her skin color instead.  Bakugou’s choice gets turned down as well,[1] but he actually has “murder,” like, right there in the name; Alien Queen is quite roundabout by comparison!

Chapter 48: 

Introduction of Uwabami, the Pro Hero gal with the head snakes.  She’s a bit of a weird case.  Given that all we know she does is find hidden people using the snakes’ keen senses, do they have some self-awareness that makes them able to communicate with her—a case somewhat like Tokoyami and Dark Shadow, perhaps?  Does she just tap into their senses at will rather than being able to speak to them?  Or are they rather just extensions of herself, with no particular consciousness of their own, and they function like what must be a fairly dizzying array of extra-sensory perception that she receives at all times?     Whatever the case, she’s a model and celebrity, and thus our first clear example of a heteromorph who doesn’t seem to suffer for her looks. Her looks are, of course, quite accentuated, given that her hero costume is a low-cut evening dress with a slit in the side up to her hip.  Other than the hair-serpents, she’s a baseline woman who checks all the boxes for modern beauty standards; she will serve in this fashion as a good predictor of other highly ranked heteromorphic Heroes.

Chapter 51+55:

Endeavor, as will be made clear in Chapter 55, doesn’t really have any idea what the Noumu’s deal is.  As far as he knows, it’s just like any other villain—and yet in Chapter 51, he opens up with an attack that bathes the Noumu in flame anyway, and comments in 55 that he’s never known anyone to remain conscious after such an attack.  While I think this mostly speaks to the general brutality with which villains are treated by heroes—much different from standard police practice in real-life Japan!—it’s nonetheless notable that the Noumu he attacked with such casual ferocity certainly doesn’t look very baseline to the casual eye, between the exposed brain, the significant height, and the crawling movement.

Chapter 56:

Midoriya is startled by Chief Tsuragamae’s “woof” interjections.  He doesn’t comment on it out loud, so I’m not inclined to hold it against him (not like someone else I’m about to bring up), but it wouldn't be the first time he’s come across this kind of vocalization: Tsuyu makes ribbit noises pretty frequently.    

Tsuragamae notes that the authorization of a certain class of people, called “heroes,” to weaponize their quirks against others was initially a heavily criticized decision, one which only garnered public support because those original heroes were careful to always obey the laws dictating the circumstances in which they used their quirks.  He goes on to say, of using one’s quirk to inflict harm without explicit instruction from the powers-that-be, “Such action would represent a stunning breach of law.”  Like Thirteen before him, he completely omits any mention of how such laws disproportionately affect heteromorphs, who can’t turn off a permanent physical trait, and, particularly in cases of people whose entire bodies are divergent, have little choice in whether or not to use their quirk in any sort of physical altercation that might lead to harm.    

Shouto, angry over what he perceives as punishment for a good deed, calls Tsuragamae a mutt.  The chief doesn’t react particularly strongly to this, but as the chief of police, you have to imagine he’s pretty used to the slings and arrows of public opinion.  The incident passes without comment, but it will not be the last time we hear a Todoroki derisively referring to another human being as an animal.

There are some sweatdrops and exhortations to get the kid to cool it, but those were ongoing before the animal words came out.

Chapter 57: 

Gran Torino notes that the age they live in, for better or for worse, is one of suppression, and that the situation with Stain and the League will draw people out who are influenced by that ideology.  Gran doesn’t elaborate on exactly what sorts of people he has in mind—All Might says only, “Then heroes will deal with them,”—but it’s an early hint that there are people in this society who feel unjustly suppressed.  Crucially, Gran Torino doesn’t even necessarily think those people are wrong; he just thinks it’s a necessary evil.  But what, exactly, is it that he’s grudgingly accepting as inevitable for the sake of maintaining the status quo?  And how might his circumstances need to differ for him to have a different opinion?    

In Chapter 27, we learned that producing support goods requires a government license; here we find out, courtesy of Giran, that dealing in and producing support goods without such a license is a major crime.  So if you, for any reason, failed that “rigorous examination” to get cleared for support goods for quality-of-life reasons, you’re unlikely to find someone who’ll just provide them to you out of sympathy provided you keep quiet about where you got them.  Instead, you have little choice but to turn to black market brokers—all because the government doesn’t think your quirk is affecting you negatively enough to qualify you for support equipment.     Again, this isn’t specifically about heteromorphs, but someone having an emitter quirk they can’t control well who needs the support item because they are choosing to pursue a career requiring them to learn that control is a very different case than someone who needs government support because of an immutable, always-on physical trait.    

This chapter contains the first appearances of both Gigantomachia and Spinner, both fairly extreme heteromorphs: Machia for his size and rocky hide, and Spinner for animal traits considerably more prominent than e.g. Tokoyami’s bird head or even Tsuyu’s conglomeration of mildly froggy traits.  Indeed, Spinner’s heteromorphic traits are so much more prominent than something like Jirou’s earlobes that it hardly seems accurate to even categorize their bodies the same way.    

The sidebar for Daikaku Miyagi, the anchorman with the quirk that gave him two big horns who amputated one so that it would be less in the way during newscasts and other things that required there to be a camera on him.  This in and of itself wouldn’t necessarily be notable, save that the same extra goes on to describe how the decision garnered some backlash from “a certain human rights group” who said that decisions like his fostered discrimination and were linked to the rejection of quirk-based society on the whole.  Horikoshi further notes that he enjoys thinking about the lives and stories behind minor characters—even this far back, then, three and a half years before the introduction of the CRC, we have concrete evidence that the author was thinking about quirk-based discrimination and the politicization of heteromorphic features.

Chapter 59: 

All Might drops some exposition about the Advent of the Exceptional, during which we see an image of a crowd full of implied-quirkless people holding up signs proclaiming their humanity and the monstrosity of those with quirks.  Conversely, three of the four quirked people we see have obvious physical divergence from baseline human appearance.  So from early on, that “monster” turn of phrase was heavily associated with changes in the physical appearances of those with special abilities.  Later on, the PLF advisor at the hospital will tie these two things together explicitly.

   

The Final Exams Arc (Chapters 60-69)

Chapter 61:

Ectoplasm’s character sheet.  The teeth are creepy no matter which way you cut it, but they look much more profoundly unsettling when they’re right there on his unmasked face, as opposed to behind a black cowl, where you can let your eye fool you that they are in some way part of its design.  His hero costume, naturally, includes the cowl, but his daily clothes do not—I wonder if he ever tried to have a gentle talk with Shouji about why Shouji wears the mask even in his downtime?  I wonder even more how much the teaching staff in general, and Nedzu and Aizawa specifically, actually know about Shouji’s history.     o It’s also noted that Ecloplasm looks scary, but has received continued support after coming back to the job after losing both legs in a fight with a villain—we see this same pattern with Jeanist after Kamino.  No word on how regular his support was before the traumatic double limb loss, though.

Chapter 66: 

Nedzu, we find, was “toyed with by humans in all sorts of ways in the past.”  Nothing we know about him suggests that he has any particular longevity, but his dynamic with Endeavor,[2] many chapters down the line, does suggest to me that he was at least on the staff when with Endeavor was at UA some thirty years ago.  Thirty years is within the span of All Might’s career, well after society began to stabilize with the formalization of the Hero System.  And yet, despite that, a sentient being, one with human—above human!—intelligence, was mistreated badly enough that he bears a grudge to this day.  Nedzu is, again, not in precisely the same situation as a human heteromorph, but he serves as an indicator of what humans have, even in the age of heroes, been willing to do to those they think of as “animals.”    

A shot of Koda and his mother, who look much alike.  Interestingly, the biggest difference in their appearance is that she has horn-like protrusions that her son lacks.  We’re a long way from the first quirk evolutions, and even farther from Koda’s quirk evolution, but we will later see Koda’s mother specifically tie those horns to her animal communication quirk becoming more powerful.  This makes for another good piece of evidence towards Horikoshi having a grasp of heteromorphobia from early on, as the evidence is pretty good that Koda-mama got those horns as a result of a quirk evolution of her own, and those don’t happen under normal, non-stressful circumstances.  More on Koda’s parents in a bit, as they're a pretty stand-out case in another way that isn’t immediately apparent here.

Can we call it foreshadowing for Koda defending Shouji at the hospital that Koda is wearing the same scarf as the main character in Horikoshi's Oumagadoki Zoo? Hmm. I'll leave that one to codenamesazanka.

Chapter 67: 

A flashback panel to Mineta’s days in middle school.  While I don’t doubt that there are P L E N T Y of reasons Mineta would be unpopular with the girls in his class, it is nonetheless notable that the popular boy getting showered with attention is perfectly baseline, while Mineta and his friends are not.

Note also that the cute heteromorph girl has long-ish ears and no other obvious divergent features.

Chapter 68: 

Shouji and Iida are specifically called out to at the mall, trying to attract them as customers with claims that whichever storefront employee is hailing them can help them find anything they need.  Midoriya mutters to himself about the difficulties of catering to everyone, given the many different types of quirks scattered across multiple age groups.    

Crowd scenes at the mall show scattered numbers of heteromorphs, a somewhat higher number than usual for such civilian crowd scenes.  The Kiyashi Ward Shopping Mall is noted for being the biggest and trendiest in the prefecture, with a variety that attracts lots and lots of people, so perhaps it’s no surprise to see somewhat more heteromorphs than usual there.

   

The Forest Training Camp Arc (Chapters 70-83)

Chapter 70: 

Introduction of the Wild Wild Pussycats.  A team of three Emitters and a Transformation-type, none of them in the slightest heteromorphic (give or take Tiger’s permanent :3 mouth), they nonetheless theme themselves after cats, including fake tails, big costume paw gloves, and cat-ear-esque headsets.  It’s cute and unobjectionable in and of itself, but I do wonder what people like e.g. Officer Sansa think of it.

Chapter 71: 

Shouji is missing from the hot springs scene.  It doesn’t hugely stand out in the moment because Aoyama and Sero aren’t there either, but it does read a bit differently with the benefit of hindsight.  Given the strong possibility that Aoyama is off doing Traitor Activities and Shouji is avoiding any possibility of having to torpedo the hot springs fun-times with an explanation of that time he was savagely beaten by people in his hometown right in an open street, it kinda leaves Sero as the only one who maybe just skipped for normal reasons, like that hot springs would gunk up his tape or something.

Chapter 73: 

Bakugou addresses Ojiro as “Tail”—referring to him by his heteromorphic trait.  He’s not even particularly angry at the moment; he’s just still nursing a grudge about Todoroki’s underwhelming performance in their Sports Festival match and wants to swap partners for the Test of Courage.  Early Bakugou is very much a “judge a person by their quirk” sort.    

Pixie Bob ushers Tsuyu and Ochaco into the woods for their turn at the Test of Courage by referring to the latter as Uraraka-kitty and the former as Ribbit-kitty.[3]  While in the English, this reads as a baseline woman in a cat costume referring to the heteromorphic student by her animal-themed verbal tic and the baseline student by her actual name, uraraka is a fairly onomatopoeic way to say bright and cheerful.  I would guess that Pixie Bob is probably referring to Ochaco’s personality here, which makes it somewhat less egregious.  It won’t be the last time someone refers to Tsuyu via the frog sound instead of her name, though.

Chapter 75:

Mandalay telepathically compliments Spinner, calling him both cool and handsome.  While I doubt he’s the only person in the world who’d react the way he does—he blushes, gets flustered, and missteps, giving Mandalay an opportunity to attack him—the moment does get some new context when you consider how everyone called him “the lizard freak” in his hometown.  Approximately zero people calling him cool and handsome back there, one imagines!  Having it immediately turn out to be a ploy likely informs some of the outraged anger in his response.

Chapter 81: 

Mandalay points out that Spinner never used his quirk during their combat, implying that she doesn’t think just his lizard-like appearance or his claws “count.”  Chalk another one up to the classification problems of “heteromorph” as a descriptive term.  This will turn out to rather neatly illustrate one of the issues I’ve been talking about with regard to the way heteromorphs are unfairly disadvantaged by the current laws about public quirk use.  Remember, a “Villain” is someone using their quirk illegally.  So if Mandalay doesn’t think Spinner used a quirk here, and since he has no record, why does he get categorized as a Villain instead of just a garden variety criminal?     Now, one could say that by associating with the League of Villains, Spinner is rather claiming the designation for himself, and we don’t know how the legal system will technically classify him, when and if he ever actually faces trial.  To that, I would say to hold the thought, because Skeptic will eventually back me up on the, “Heteromorphs are unfairly targeted by Villain designations,” claim all but word for word.    

BONUS CHAPTER 1: Tsuyu’s Ribbety Diary

We meet Tsuyu’s family, all various froggy types.  They’re a cute family, but the husband and wife both being froggy kind of raises some questions about pressures that might exist about marrying your same “type,” or at least refraining from marrying anyone too obviously not.  I’d be more willing to wave it off if not for two things.      First, we get the same sort of scenario from Spinner’s character sheet, that his is “a family full of reptilian quirks.”  Second, there are very few romances in the series between someone close to “baseline” and someone with a more extreme heteromorphic appearance.  The most obvious, clear-cut, canonical example is Koda’s parents—his dad has slightly weird hair but is otherwise entirely baseline; we see him defending his wife from other peoples’ mockery.  That, of course, is a single panel limited to a flashback inside a flashback, so not exactly very visible to the reader!  The next-most significant one I can come up with is Natsuo and his mouse girlfriend, who has likewise been seen in one (1) panel, had no dialogue, and whose appearance and identity were so incidental the anime deleted her entirely.     Who’s next?  Well, if you assume all those No Comments from Kamui Woods and Mount Lady about their relationship are indicative of a relationship between them, they’d be another, though we don’t actually know what Shinji actually looks like under his mask, only the implication that it’s divergent enough that he prefers to cover his face.  Next up on my tally would be Thief Takami and Tomie, but since the sum total of Takami’s animal traits are tiny little elbow wings, you can see how fast the drop-off is there.     Compare this to the number of pairings/families we have between people of like type: Bakugou’s parents, Iida’s, Jirou’s, Aoyama’s, Tsuyu’s, Ochaco’s, Shouto’s, Toga’s, Spinner’s, and Tomura’s whole family on both sides.      Then you get the ship-teasy stuff that’s more about crushes, people dating, or hints that are perceived as pointing towards epilogue romances: Deku and Ochaco, Jirou and Kaminari, Shindo and Yo, Gentle and La Brava, Miss Joke’s flirting with Aizawa, and Toga’s variety of crushes (among which Tsuyu is the most distant from Toga’s own body type).[4]  I think Kirishima and Mina are right on that borderline, with Mina having a normal body type but a collection of minor but highly visible divergent traits.     So like, the vast, vast majority of the romantic relationships in the show are between relatively baseline people.  In that context, it sticks out like a sore thumb to me that Tsuyu and Spinner are both explicitly said to have the same type of animal heteromorph quality on both sides of their family tree.  It’s not an incest concern or anything, just that I wonder what the pressure is on cross-type couples, or what social circles look like post-graduation.    

Two classmates talk about how it’s hard to tell what Tsuyu is thinking; one of them says, with her eyes hooded and a kind of cool expression, “That expression of hers never changes.  Maybe ‘cuz she’s a frog?”    

Tsuyu tells us that she never really made any friends; while some of this may simply be because Tsuyu didn’t have much time to socialize, between hero training and looking after her family, it’s also true that all of her classmates that we see have baseline appearances.    

This lasts until she starts getting stalked by a snake-headed heteromorph girl named Mangusu Habuko—a fellow loner.  Tsuyu is initially frightened by Habuko’s behavior, but has an intuitive sense for what the deal is, that Habuko wants to be friends but is awkward and doesn’t know how to broach it.    

When asked if she wants to be friends, Habuko flips out.  She calls herself treacherous and untrustworthy; she calls Tsuyu a foolish frog and says she must be joking, and that she should choose her friends more carefully. She then immediately dissolves into tears.  Somehow, I doubt all this self-loathing about her innate nature manifested out of thin air!    

The Hideout Raid Arc (Chapters 84-97)

Something that’s observable throughout this arc is that we’re in another sequence, like the Sports Festival, where the percentage of people with heteromorphic features in the crowd shots tends to run a bit higher than the norm of the series to date.  Unlike the Sports Festival, though, these crowds are just civilians, not heroes.  So what’s the difference between Kamino and the earlier on-the-street crowd scenes?     Well, the neighborhood the Noumu warehouse is in is a somewhat rougher area.  Part of the visual shorthand for that is people in edgier clothes, stuff that’s indicative of districts with bars, clubs, sleazy hangout spots, and so forth, but another shorthand is an increased number of heteromorphs.

These panels are respectively from Chapters 87 and 92.

Chapter 87:

The character sheet for Kamui Woods notes that the story of his early childhood is “grand and compelling,” and that his story was made into a documentary.  That, to me, has Inspiring True Story written all over it.  Probably not coincidentally, Kamui Woods is another character whose face we’ve never seen.  As more pointing in the direction of him having a childhood marked by severe discrimination, he’s not sure of his age—it’s given as “29 since he started counting.”  So was he abandoned as an infant for his weird face?  I could come up with other explanations, all equally over the top (extreme confinement, for example, that left him unable to properly mark the passage of time), but the fact that he can’t e.g. look up a birth certificate for himself suggests that whatever went so wrong for him, it happened very early.     …Though I suppose there’s the possibility that he’s not human, but rather a tree that manifested a quirk.  As documentary-worthy origins go, though, that feels less Inspiring True Story and more Educational Biopic About Rare Phenomenon.    

The Provisional Hero License Exam Arc (Chapters 98-121)

Chapter 99: 

Shouji’s room is shown, all but barren.  He says that he doesn’t care much about owning things, but knowing what we come to know about his history, it’s easy to wonder if he really doesn’t care about owning things or if this is rooted in a childhood in which it was believed that anything he touched would be polluted.  Not a situation that led to him being given much of his own, one suspects!

Chapter 103:

This chapter introduces Yokumiru Mera, from the HPSC, who gives an opening statement that has some very interesting ruthlessness lurking in its subtext.  Particularly relevant to our current topic is his comment that in the modern era, the time it takes to resolve a given incident is incredibly short, so the test that year will be prioritizing speed.  Prioritizing speed (wouldn’t want some other hero to get the metaphorical kill first, after all!) is a surefire way to guarantee that heroes are not taking the time to really examine all factors in a situation or make any attempts whatsoever at calm, considered de-escalation, but rather are just making snap judgements based on their biases and gut reactions.  Guess what group of people that’s going to disproportionately impact?        o Now, it’s notable that Mera says the test prioritizes speed, but the conclusion many others come to is that the test only pretends to do so; that actually, it prioritizes care and information gathering.  Indeed, we find a few chapters later that the actual priority is teamwork, as requested by police higher-ups—the idea is to fill in the gap left behind by All Might with hero squads that work well together.[5]   However, while the intention may be to gather those good at teamwork, it certainly doesn’t stop people like Shouto and Inasa from cruising through—and, in any case, whether the groups learn teamwork or not doesn’t take away from an HPSC rep telling them to their face that speed of incident resolution is one of the most important things to a modern hero and never following that up with any kind of amendment or clarification.

Chapter 107:

Introduces the HUC, or Help Us Company, professionals trained to act as victims in disaster rescue exercises.  Given that context—what they’re communicating to students training to understand what “victims” look and act like—it’s extremely worth examining what they, well, look like.

God, this is so Yikes.

And having asked that question, we find that the only people in this group that might not be baseline—the ones with short, childlike statures—are dressed to emphasize that stature.  The end effect is a crowd of “victims” with not a single heteromorphic representative.

Chapter 109:

Shiketsu’s class rep, Mora Nagamasa—the extremely hairy one—approaches Bakugou to extend an apology for Shishikura’s behavior during the exam.  It’s noticeable here that, having matured somewhat since Early Series Bakugou, and having been approached in downtime in a reasonable manner, Bakugou manages to refrain from coming up with any demeaning nicknames centered on Mora’s appearance.  Kirishima remarks internally on all the hair, but only internally; he’s much too polite to say anything out loud.

Chapter 110:

A big splashy introduction for the man ranked #3 in the Heroes Who Look Like Villains ranking, Gang Orca.  He’s at the test to play villain and is, just as noticeably as all the play-victims are baseline, a heteromorph.  At the time of his introduction, he’s ranked Number 10 in the Hero Rankings, but will be bumped out later on.  This does, however, make him the highest-ranked known heteromorph who doesn’t have a human face,[6] with the possible exception of Kamui Woods—who, like Shouji, covers it with a mask.

Gang Orca’s character sheet notes that, while he’s a popular guest at aquariums, his intimidating face and “stony personality” always result in weepy children.  He apparently finds this relatively upsetting (“lots of angst”) but, unlike Shouji or Kamui Woods, has not taken to wearing a mask, nor trying to tone down his personality on any level—to the contrary, Present Mic suggests much later on that he exaggerates it.

-----------------

Next time, I'll cover from the Shie Hassaikai arc through the end of Joint Training. Thanks for reading!

--------------------- FOOTNOTES ---------------------

[1] Initially.  He sticks to his guns long enough that he gets away with it in the end, though.

[2] The big tell is that Nedzu addresses Endeavor as Todoroki-kun rather than Todoroki-san or simply by his hero name, but his observation that Todoroki-kun has “matured” (literally in the Japanese, “become an adult”) doesn’t hurt, either.

[3] Kerokero neko and Uraraka neko.

[4] You can get further out there with this, but by the time you get to e.g. Shouto and Momo or Ojiro and Hagakure, the ice is definitely getting thinner on whether you’re seeing groundwork for future wedding bells or just reasonably close male/female friendship.  Your mileage may vary depending on how tightly attached your shipping goggles are or how cynical you are about shounen authors’ tendencies towards timeskip marriages.  Also, I can’t be bothered to dig up and list out the crushes or shipping patterns among the Class B kids. Koroiro likes the mushroom gal?

[5] Note that Mera phrases this as being merely a stopgap until they find the next All Might.  The HPSC is not so eager to change the methods they’ve come to rely on over the last thirty some-odd years!

[6] We don’t know enough for me to say for sure whether Wash is a heteromorph.

[fandomtravelers]

Found family dynamics in shows

Okay I'm a sucker for found family dynamics in shows so I'm going to list all the found family or platonic relationships I know of. In TV shows/series. Just because :) ALSO please add if you know more, because I'm probably missing a whole lot. I JUST WANT MORE.

Here are the ones me and my friends know or have found (some might be father daughter centric and they're all from very random fandoms so excuse that) :

1. Kakashi & Team 7 (Naruto)

2. Anakin & Ahsoka & Obiwan (Clone wars. I know the whole star wars universe too, but I'm focusing on clone wars)

3. Kate Bishop & Clint Barton (Hawkeye)

4. Farah Dowling & Bloom (Fate : Winx)

4. Charming & Emma (Once Upon A Time)

5. Bay Kennish & Daphne Vasquez (Switched at Birth)

6. Cirilla & Geralt (The Witcher)

7. Calliope & Augie (tidelanders)

8. Byakuya & Rukia (Bleach)

9. Sara & Danny (Witchblade)

10. Georgia & Rube (Dead like me)

11. Silco & Jinx, Vander & Vi (Arcane)

12. Andrè & Jane (Painkiller Jane)

13. Jamie & Jonas & Jay (Bionic woman)

14. Dr. Tom & Erica (Being Erica)

15. The pines family (Gravity falls)

16. Tom & Cassie (the inbetween)

17. The Gaang & Team Avatar (Avatar the last Airbender & Legend of korra)

18. Kara & Clark (Supergirl & superman/batman apocalypse)

19. Charlie & Miles matheson (revolution)

20. Arthur & Joan & Auggie & Annie (Covert affairs)

21. Khlyen & Dutch (Killjoys)

22. Guerrero & Ames (Human Target)

23. Adam & Emma (Mutant X)

24. Nolan & Emily "Amanda" (Revenge)

25. Voight & his whole team (Chicago P. D.)

26. Elena & Jeremy (Bitten)

27. Jinggang & Chu hun (double world)

28. Hannibal & Abigail (Hannibal)

29. Dream & Death (The sandman)

30. Jiwoo & Mujin (My name)

31. Buffy & Giles (BTVS)

32. Benedict & his kids (Mysterious Benedict society)

33. The cullen family (twilight)

34. Elijah & Yo Han (the devil's judge)

35. Magnus & Clary (Shadow hunters)

36. Gu xiang & Wen Kexing (Word of honor (Cdrama))

37. Optimus & the human kids (Transformers prime)

38. Mildred & her teachers (Mainly miss hardbroom)

39. Dylan & Lizzie (instinct)

40. Marina & Arturo (A private affair)

41. Moiraine & Lan (Wheel of time)

42. the BAU team (Criminal minds)

43. The SVU team (Law & Order : SVU)

44. Ellie & Joel (TLOU)

45. Barbara & the batfam (Batgirl, batman comics)

46. Carmen & Shadow San (Carmen sandiego)

47. Nile & the rest of the old guard (the old guard)

48. Nick Fury & Maria Hill (secret invasion)

49. Jordan & Garrett (crossing Jordan)

50. America chavez & Doctor strange (Multiverse of Madness)

51. The Eternals (Eternals)

52. Enola & Sherlock (Enola Holmes)

53. NCIS team/family (NCIS)

54. Aizawa & his kids (BNHA)

55. Abigail & Ichabod (Sleepy Hollow)

56. Carol & Kamala (The Marvels)

57. Gojo & his students (JJK)

58. The golden trio (HP)

59. Ryan & Max (The following)

60. ICC team (crossing lines)

[seiwas]

ᯓᡣ𐭩 bakugo katsuki

࿔ 4:59 a.m. [drabble. 682 wc. ex!bakugo. angst. sfw.] ···· bakugo rises with the sun, and runs.

࿔ just a taste [blurb. <500 wc. bakugo + his spice tolerance vs. you and your non-existent one. ambiguous relationship. fluff. sfw.] ···· bakugo swallows a spoonful of food too fast and lets out a small cough.

࿔ papa bakugo [blurb. <500 wc. papa bakugo. established relationship. hurt/comfort. sfw.] ···· bakugo intently raises his kids to be in ways unlike him.

࿔ must be [drabble. 518 wc. he's a little love-whipped!. established relationship. fluff. sfw.] ···· bakugo can't sleep until you're home.

࿔ jealous katsuki [drabble. 529 wc. pro-hero!bakugo. established relationship. fluff. sfw.] ···· katsuki finds out about that crush you had on shouto.

࿔ ex!bakugo [blurb. <500 wc. ex!bakugo. trying to be friends again. hurt/comfort, a splash of angst. sfw.] ···· bakugo watches you from across the bar.

࿔ faded tees [blurb. <500 wc. pro-hero!bakugo. established relationship. fluff. sfw.] ···· you wear katsuki’s clothes to bed.

࿔ right fucking there [drabble. 769 wc. pro-hero!bakugo. established relationship. fluff. nsfw.] ···· bakugo's muscle tee looks as ill-fitting as it'll ever be draped over you.

to browse by tags: #shotorus.writes (for full fics, one-shots, series) #shotorus.workbook (for blurbs and writing exercises) #shotorus.bubble (for text posts and headcanons)

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