#but I do read the meta on characters manga readers write so I feel like this kind of is Kabru and Laios’ dynamic

[coconutcows]

One of the biggest relatable Autism experiences with Laios tho has got to be multiple people around him vocally wishing he’d get better at “reading the room” or subtle social situations, but nobody tries to help him with it. It’s like they think he has the skill but lets his own interests take precedent which is not the case.

I’m glad he’s finally met Kabru in the anime, since Kabru is with people the way Laios is with monsters I feel they’ll balance each other. It feels like if Kabru was there when Laios misreads a social situation he’d explain it to him rather than just pulling him away like Chilchuk and Namari did.

[stillness-in-green]

Counting Cliffhangers: The Heroes Are Not the Underdogs in BNHA's War Arcs

(Being a project to tally up which side, if either, of Team Hero or Team Villain is "on top" at the end of each chapter in the war arcs, in consideration of the impact of the overall totals. This is one of those mega-long list posts; do not click the Expand/Read More unless you're prepared for a lot of reading and/or scrolling.)

One of the things that bothered me throughout both of the war arcs was the persistent sense that, for all that the manga was trying very hard to convince me that the Heroes were up against the wall and really having to give it everything they had, I never really felt that level of danger.  Of course, one always expects a degree of that—it’s not as though any sensible reader would really think this manga could end with the Villains winning!—but the problem went beyond that.  Expecting that the protagonist will win out in the end is the standard, after all, but good stories still find ways to keep readers engaged and believing in the stakes.

So why didn’t I?  I certainly believed in the stakes for the Villains—Twice’s death happens very early in the first war, and it sets the stakes quite clearly!  Was it just the difference between my own engagement with the Villains compared to the Heroes?  That didn’t seem quite right—even if I cared about one side for more than the other, it shouldn’t have been the case that that affection alone was skewing my suspension of disbelief about the dangers faced by the Heroes.  The threat posed to Midnight certainly seemed real enough, as was also the case for the Heroes left trampled in Gigantomachia’s wake, like Gang Orca and Fatgum.  As I’ve had to tell the occasional asker here before, just because I don’t particularly care about a character doesn’t mean I become incapable of evaluating their story beats!

What was the problem, then?  Why did the dangers to the Villains seem so desperately real, while the dangers to the Heroes, for the most part, just had me rolling my eyes and waiting for the next asspull that would save them?

I think there are two primary factors.  The first and biggest factor is simply baked into the worldbuilding and the decisions made in the writing: the sides are poorly matched.  I’m not going to go into all of that here, but as a thought exercise, go through the arcs of the story that contain active conflict and consider which side has the advantage in each of the following categories: individual combatant quality (stuff like raw power, endurance, and training/experience to improve upon their inherent capabilities), equipment quality, information about the opponent, ability to set the terms of engagement, and raw numbers of warm bodies to throw at a fight. 

By my measure, much of the early confrontations in BNHA work because these advantages are divided evenly between the Heroes and Villains.  Likewise, My Villain Academia is so gripping because the Meta Liberation Army has virtually every advantage over the League, making the League really and truly feel like the underdogs in the fight.  Conversely, the Heroes are the ones with virtually every advantage in the war arcs,[1] meaning they cannot convincingly be the underdogs the story so desperately wants us to believe they are.

1:  I swear I’m not going to go into all of it, at least not in this post, but to be very brief, I think the only advantages the Villains could even kind of claim during the war arcs are numbers and combatant quality.  The numbers advantage is mostly illusory; the PLF are leveled in the cursory mass arrest of the first war and, despite repeated insistence otherwise, the only place where the Villains’ numbers are a true threat in the second war is at the hospital attack, where said numbers consist chiefly of untrained and easily swayed civilians in a battle it’s desperately unclear why the Heroes allowed to take place at all.  The quality advantage, meanwhile, is heavily concentrated in only a handful of hard-hitting, A-to-S-rank threats on the Villains’ side, while the Heroes maintain clear quality supremacy in rank-and-file or side character battles.

The other factor, and the one this post concerns, is the structure of the chapters themselves, to wit, the way that they end.  In a serialized story being published and read week to week, each installment’s ending is a crucial factor in the story’s overall tone.  What happens on the last page is a major factor in the impact each chapter makes, the feeling the reader is left with while they wait for the next part.  If the intent, therefore, is for the Heroes to feel threatened, pushed to the very edge of their endurance, then a very basic thing needs to be observed: don’t end every fucking chapter with the Heroes having the fucking advantage.

I’m so serious here, guys.  It’s not that the Villains never have the advantage, never get twists or reveals or reinforcements that turn the tide of the battle in their favor.  It’s that, by and large, those advantages come in the middle of chapters, while the Heroes’ twists and reveals and reinforcements get the benefit of being at the end of chapters, so the dominant feeling—the side that’s left wildly cheering for their “team” at the end of the week—is usually the Heroes.  While it’s possible that the impression left is different when reading the story in volume form,[2] when reading week to week, that imbalance critically damages the story’s ability to portray the desperation and strain of the Heroes’ struggle.

2: Having not read the arcs in this fashion, I couldn't say. Obviously I don't know how a volume-only reader would experience this aspect of the story, but even reading (or rereading) a bunch of chapters all in one go online suffers from some impaired momentum between chapters by having to specifically navigate to the next chapter webpage and wait for it to load rather than just being able to turn pages freely.

That, in any case, was my thesis when I first started this count, listing which side has the upper hand at the end of each chapter of the two war arcs, as well as the total overall.  With the second war arc finally having ended, I figured I’d go ahead and post my results. 

Hit the jump!

For each arc, I started counting at the chapter where active conflict breaks out, including as a dramatic end cliffhanger.  Thus, for the first war, I didn’t start in Chapter 258, where the groups are still gathering, but rather in Chapter 259, when the forward momentum begins and the first Villain (Ujiko) is confronted.  Likewise, the second war count begins with Chapter 343, when the armies confront each other.  The counts end with the last chapter containing active Hero/Villain conflict rather than narrated montage.  Thus, the first war ends in 295, when AFO and the League flee the field, not in 296 with the looming threat of the long-awaited jailbreak.  The second war ends with Deku’s weather-clearing fist in 423.

My basic categories are Hero Advantage, Villain Advantage, and Neither.  Fake-outs are categorized as they are perceived in the moment of reading them, not as they read in retrospect.  Further, I do not categorize based on the overall tenor of the chapter, but only the impact of the final page.  This is by nature somewhat subjective, but I’ve done my best to call them as I think they’re meant to be read.

What is the feeling the reader takes with them into the next chapter?  Excitement for the heroes?  Dismay and fear?  A simmering tension?  Which side, if either, got the HELL YEAH HELL YEAH fist-pump?  If there's a relative clear answer, I'll call it for one side of the other; chapters that end with no particular new reveals, arrivals, power-ups, or other such shifts in the tides with be called as neither.

Finally, for ease of tracking and reading, my tallies and accompanying brief explanations are separated by volume. I'll provide totals for each category at the end of each volume, and full totals, as well as a total count for which category the volumes end in, at the end of the arcs. Final counts and commentary will close the post.

Let's get started.

FIRST WAR ARC

Volume 27: 259: Hero Advantage.  Endeavor and company confront (apparently) Ujiko, catching him completely flat-footed.

260: Hero.  Mirko crashes into Ujiko’s lab, to his horror, and kills John-chan in doing so.

261: Neither.  Mirko and the High Ends square up for their Round 2.

262: Hero.  The Villa gets cracked open like an egg, catching its inhabitants entirely off-guard.

263: Hero.  If they were on more level footing, I’d call this Neither, but given the positions Hawks and Twice end the chapter in, and the clear difference in emotional preparedness, this one goes to the Heroes.

264: Neither.  The Hawks/Twice fight continues inconclusively; Dabi is revealed to be on his way, but has not yet arrived on-scene to affect any changes.

265: Villain.  Dabi makes a strong and, for Hawks, unexpected entrance, pinning Hawks beneath his boot.

266: Neither.  Twice dies, which is a huge hit to the Villains, but the narrative sympathy is so clearly with Twice and Toga that it’s impossible to describe the chapter as ending on a fist-pumping note for anyone.

267: Hero.  Doubly so, as Endeavor and Tokoyami both show up to intervene in fights that were about to go to the villains, but we'll be fair and only count it as one anyway.

                   Heroes 5 | Villains 1 | Neither 3 | Total 9     

Volume 28: 268: Neither.  Basement action.  The tube gets cracked; Aizawa and Mic are told not to let Shigaraki wake up.  Nothing conclusive.

269: Hero Advantage.  Literally ends with Ujiko wailing that the Lord of Evil’s dream is over.

270: Villain.  It ends with Deku getting a warning about Shigaraki, which makes it a bit borderline, but Shigaraki being awake at all has to count for the Villains.

271: Villain.  Gigantomachia stands up.

272: Neither.  The kids start rallying against the Decay wave.  Deku gets a new move that doesn’t seem like it should have any effect but is played as being effective.  Shigaraki’s Decay wave is being monstrously effective, even apocalyptic, but the tone of the last page is ambiguous.

273: Neither.  Shigaraki faces off with Endeavor.  Both are known factors on this field of battle.

274: Neither.  Deku is on the move in hopes of leading Shigaraki to a more deserted area.

275: Hero.  Aizawa arrives at the Shigaraki fight, locking down his quirk use.

276: Hero.  Deku and Bakugou arrive in time to save Aizawa from what likely would have been the same kind of blow that will later cost him his eye.

                   Heroes 3 | Villains 2 | Neither 4 | Total 9     

Volume 29: 277: Neither.  Mount Lady attempts to stop Gigantomachia.  Results inconclusive; both known factors.

278: Neither.  Leans a bit Hero side because it’s Momo dramatically getting her head on straight, but it’s really just more preparations for a face-off.

279: Hero Advantage.  The League is getting swarmed and Mina is on the brink of delivering what’s framed as a knock-out blow to Machia.

280: Neither.  Shigaraki laboriously gathers himself, preparing to monologue.

281: Villain.  Shigaraki readies a quirk-destroying bullet with Aizawa’s name on it.

282: Villain.  Gigantomachia, who is very much not knocked out,  looms over an unsuspecting city.

283: Hero.  Deku negates the (immediate) danger of Decay by activating Float.

284: Hero.  Deku lands a full-power blow on Shigaraki, who’s been largely unable to fend him off in the air.

285: Villain.  It pains me to grant this because I knew good and well Bakugou would be completely fine.  But he is a major combatant and face for the Hero side and this is clearly intended to look like it will take him out, at least for the fight.

                   Heroes 3 | Villains 3 | Neither 3 | Total 9     

Volume 30: 286: Hero Advantage.  The action moves to the vestige realm.  Very borderline, but Nana’s words are definitive: “Let us handle this.”  The implication is very much that there’s no need to fear because the vestiges have got this.

287: Neither.  Chapter ends with Toga reflecting on heroes and the weight they give to the lives of Villains.  Could represent a major turning point for Toga, but it’s still soft-pedaled by making that turning point dependent on a Hero’s yet-unspoken words.

288: Neither.  Chapter ends mid-dialogue in the Toga/Ochaco fight.

289: Villain.  Machia and his passengers arrive.

290: Villain.  A little borderline because the actual very last panel is the plane containing Best Jeanist, but the audience doesn’t know that yet, and the bulk of the final page is dedicated the devastation of the Touya Reveal, so I have to give this one to them.

291: Hero.  Best Jeanist arrives.

292: Hero.  Mirio arrives with his quirk restored.

293: Hero.  Machia goes down because the sedative finally kicks in.

294: Villain.  Mr. Compress backstory reveal and big escape moment.

295: Neither.  The battle ends save for the wrap-up.  The villains are neither victorious nor defeated.

                   Heroes 4 | Villains 3 | Neither 3 | Total 10

FIRST WAR TOTAL: Heroes 15 | Villains 9 | Neither 13 | Total 37 Volume End Advantage Count: Heroes 2  |  Villains 1  |  Neither 1

                       

SECOND WAR ARC

Volume 35: 343: Hero Advantage.  The Heroes counter AFO’s army by “unexpectedly” whipping out their own via Warp Gate.

344: Hero.  The Heroes take the offensive and split up the villains’ army.

345: Villain.  Toga lassos Deku through a gate, separating him from the field he’s supposed to be on.

346: Villain.  The beginning of Fingervetr.

347: Neither.  Borderline because it’s a big dramatic page of Toga, but it’s more conversational then confrontational to me, and isn’t revealing anything particularly new.

348: Neither.  Deku flees the island, leaving Toga to Ochaco.

349: Neither.  Dabi gears up to provide the answers Shouto has specifically asked for.

350: Neither.  Dabi’s coming on strong, but Shouto remains undaunted.  I’d give it to the Villains if the last page were Dabi liquidating the All Might statue, though.

                   Heroes 2 | Villains 2 | Neither 4 | Total 8                    

Volume 36: 351: Hero Advantage.  Shouto unleashes Phosphor.

352: Hero.  Shouto appears to beat Dabi.

353: Neither.  AFO is talking a lot, but not about anything groundbreaking.

354: Neither.  AFO and Jirou exchange smacktalk.

355: Hero.  Hawks and Jirou combine efforts to break AFO’s mask.

356: Neither.  Endeavor has a big moment, but AFO gets his hands up in time to block and is still shown intact at the end of the chapter.  Borderline, but I’d say not quite definitive enough to qualify it for the hero side.

357: Villain.  AFO regenerates.  A little borderline because it actually ends with Deku, and the approach of what I guessed at the time were the American jets, but I think it’s a similar enough scenario as the end of Chapter 270 to call it for the Villains as well.

358: Neither.  No impact from the Hero attack leaves it a little unclear how much effect it will have, and a new attack is not a big enough game changer for me to really count it even unproven.  It’d be easy to call it for the Heroes, though.

359: Hero.  Return of the Big Three.

360: Hero.  Bakugou’s in rough shape, but there’s a hint that he’s noticed something important, which could foreshadow a change in the tides of the battle.

361: Hero.  Suneater’s Chimera Cannon, which certainly looks incredibly hype and impressive in the moment.

362: Villain.  Bakugou’s “death.”

                   Heroes 6 | Villains 2 | Neither 4 | Total 12                    

Volume 37: 363: Villain Advantage.  AFO finishes regenerating; full face reveal.

364: Hero.  The impossibly moronic Edgeshot-as-Bakugou’s-heart business.  Not conclusive, but it steals one of the Villains’ victories out from under from them.

365: Villain.  A shift in Inner Tenko’s emotional state heralds Shigaraki’s next form.

366: Hero.  Deku arrives at the Sky Coffin.

367: Neither.  Deku attempts conversation to ask about Shigaraki’s status.

368: Hero.  Deku lands a full-power hit on ShigAFO while Yoichi talks to his big brother about letting this being the day that their battle ends.

369: Villain.  A scene change to Spinner that’s timed in such a way that it could really only foreshadow Spinner’s victory.

370: Neither.  It’s very close to a Hero call, but mostly what Shouji’s doing is shaking off mundane attackers and making a dramatic proclamation.  Not quite enough direct impact for an end-of-chapter Hero Advantage.

371: Neither.  Even closer than the last one, but neither blow the kids are gearing up for actually connect on-page.  I wouldn’t fault anyone who called it for the Heroes, though.

372: Neither.  An extremely effective cliffhanger, for once, as Spinner and Mic call out to Kurogiri simultaneously.

373: Villain.  Kurogiri gets up, calling himself the protector of Shigaraki Tomura.

374: Villain.  Toga deploys Sad Man’s Death Parade; Hawks proves he hasn’t learned jack shit from the last time he faced this question.

                   Heroes 3 | Villains 5 | Neither 4 | Total 12                    

Volume 38: 375: Hero Advantage.  Toga’s narrative-destined rival manages to follow her off the island and to the Villa ruins.  Close to a Neither call.

376: Neither.  Setting up a Dabi/Endeavor clash with Endeavor not caught on the back foot.

377: Hero.  Return of La Brava.

378: Hero.  Return of Lady Nagant.

379: Neither.  Sets up a reengaged clash between Shigaraki and Deku.

380: Hero.  Arrival of Shiketsu.

381: Hero.  Tokoyami lands a blow that AFO is explicitly afraid to get hit with.

382: Hero.  Shinsou and Kirishima arrive with a brainwashed Gigantomachia.

383: Neither.  Reiterates that AFO is in trouble, but it’s not new information, and the choppers coming in at the very end are an unpredictable element.

384: Hero.  The choppers are full of Hero-supporting journalists here to tell the world how incredibly hard-working and earnest and admirable Heroes are.  Gag.

385: Neither.  AFO’s belated but impressive show of force gets dampened somewhat by the Heroes refusing to give in, and even getting one of their number back.  It’s back and forth, but Stain really tips it for good over to a neutral chapter ending.  While he’s obviously not aligned with the Villains, he’s far too murderous to chalk him up as a Hero yet, either, especially on-scene watching two kids he tried to kill last time he saw them.

386: Hero.  All Might gets a cool robot suit and the last-page chapter title drop references his iconic catchphrase.

                   Heroes 8 | Villains 0 | Neither 4 | Total 12                    

Volume 39: 387: Hero Advantage.  Rei is, of course, a civilian, not a hero, but she’s clearly aligned on the Team Good Guy, so I have to give it to them.  It’s not a hill I’d die on, however, particularly with the very last panel being the flashback to Touya emphasizing Rei’s culpability.

388: Neither.  What a nice vision of hell as everyone burns to death, including Dabi.  If I gave it to anyone, I’d lean Villain, because it’s certainly more in line with what Dabi wants—what he’s always wanted.  But in terms of impact on the reader, it certainly isn’t going to get anyone whooping and cheering for the Villains.

389: Neither.  It’s a good last few pages of Shouto and Iida, but the reader already knows they’re on their way, so it’s not a pleasant surprise to see them enroute.  The fact that they are still enroute rather than dramatically arriving to save the day keeps this from being a full Hero moment ending.

390: Neither.  Teasing more of the fight between Toga and Uraraka, but no sudden turns, new elements, or grand statements on either side.

391: Neither.  Ongoing fight; while Ochaco gets the stirring line, the actual last page is Toga lashing out.

392: Villain.  While I’m loathe to give it to them on the basis of an injury I was not for one second actually worried about, the chapter does end with Toga putting a knife into Uraraka’s gut and a flashback to Twice asking Toga about a Villain name.  A clear Villain-upper-hand ending.

393: Hero.  Ochaco comes through with flying colors, getting a quirk awakening and making Toga an offer she’s dreamed of her whole life.

394: BOTH.  For literally the first time in this whole count, I can’t count this against either side.  If pressed, I’d call it a Hero win, but it’s a win because it validates both sides.

395: Neither.  Sorry, gang.  I’m utterly incapable of calling this one in an unbiased way.  It’s an all-too-real death scare for Toga and, regardless of how happy she is in the moment, I can’t call her potential death a victory.  But since Ochaco obviously feels the same, it’s not a Hero win, either.

396: Hero.  And get ready, ‘cause there're about to be a whole lot of them.  Good god, but I hate this All Mech sequence.

397: Neither.  Ongoing battle, no major tides turning in the final page.

398: Neither.  As above.

                   Heroes 3 | Villains 1 | Neither 7 | Both 1 | Total 12                    

Volume 40: 399: Hero Advantage.  The big turn-around with Aoyama, with All Might dropping the Aoyama-themed laser of AFO.

400: Hero.  Stain’s return.  Stain’s a Villain himself, but far too aligned with Hero orthodoxy for me to count him returning to help All Might as anything but a Hero-side victory.

401: Neither.  All Might’s still kicking, AFO is within range of Shigaraki, but nothing decisive deployed on the final page.

402: Neither.  To all appearances, All Might continues to shovel more battle damage onto AFO.  There’s a death threat in the explosion, one I don’t think I took very seriously at the time, though plenty of others did.  Left to my own devices, I’d call it for Team Hero, but I’ll err on the side of restraint and call it a hero equivalent of Toga’s death threat.

403: Hero.  Unequivocal Hero victory—Bakugou’s back up.

404: Hero.  Saving All Might with the literal power of prayer.

405: Hero.  If I wanted to be snide, I’d point out that Final Boss is definitionally a Villain role, so Bakugou enthusiastically claiming it for himself implicates Heroes as having been the Villains all along, while the Villains are the clear heroic underdogs struggling against a corrupt, violent system.  But that’s just my bitterness making me perverse; this is a clear Hero victory.

406: Neither.  Exchanging of smack talk, Bakugou gets a good but not definitive hit in.

407: Neither.  AFO’s flashback ends with one of the most crushing emotional defeats of his life, but you can hardly call AFO slice-and-dicing Yoichi a Hero win, either.

408: Neither.  AFO’s going all-out, but Bakugou remains undaunted.

409: Hero.  AFO’s effective defeat at Bakugou’s hands.  Yoichi’s regretful glance is not enough to shift the needle.

410: Villain.  Shigaraki does what the narrative has long been warning that he can and steals a portion of One For All, grabbing Danger Sense for himself and stealing Shinomori from the OFA collective.

                   Heroes 6 | Villains 1 | Neither 5 | Total 12                    

Volume 41: 411: Neither.  Deku’s readying an offensive that gives Shigaraki lots of Danger Sense tinglies, but nothing definitive.

412: Neither.  The temptation is strong to call this for the Hero side, as it’s the moment Kudou formulates the plan that will soon be leading to Shigaraki’s ultimate defeat, but the caveat that the plan requires losing One For All kiboshes that feeling very triumphant.

413: Hero.  There’s some nominal sadness for Deku gearing up to lose OFA, but the tone here is much more about how great and awesome Deku is for being willing to do it, on top of how incredibly fucking rad the art plainly wants us to think that he looks.

414: Hero.  I’d normally call it Neither for lacking new elements or definitive actions, but I have to acknowledge the sheer disparity between, on the one hand, the vestiges telling Deku that it’s working and to keep going as Deku gears up to unleash another punch while, on the other hand, all Shigaraki can manage is huddling in on himself and choking out a few pained grunts.

415: Neither.  Borderline in that Eri is a clear Hero-side ally with an absolutely game-changing power, but the truth is that she’s at U.A. with no immediately clear way to make it to the battle even if anyone were to let her go, so it’s not too different from any other chapter that ended with a major player en route but not yet arriving.

416: Hero.  Deku finally breaks into Shigaraki’s inner mind, over Shigaraki’s protestations.

417: Neither.  Deku and Nana make a major breakthrough, but Shigaraki’s backstory yet has terrible bombs to drop.  I can’t call it a Villain advantage, though, because it’s still stuff Shigaraki very much does not want Deku meddling with.

418: Villain.  AFO returns yet again, spoiling Deku’s hard-won moment of equilibrium and understanding with Shigaraki.

419: Hero.  We can’t even get a week to savor/freak out over Deku losing his arms because the actual last beat of the chapter is Aizawa bringing in a pair of classmates via Kurogiri’s warp gate, suggesting (albeit inaccurately) that Kurogiri has settled as a Hero ally.

420: Hero.  More of the above and Deku gets his arms back after a world-shakingly relevant and momentous chapter and a half.

421: Hero.  All around Hero support, now including from civilians too.

422: Hero.  More of the above and now Deku’s punching Shigaraki at the end of it under a chapter title of Midoriya Izuku Rising.

423: Hero.  Deku’s triumphantly raised fist clears storm clouds, changes the weather, and kills the man he was trying to save.  This is framed as a victory anyway.

                   Heroes 8 | Villains 1 | Neither 4 | Total 13

SECOND WAR TOTAL: Heroes 36 | Villains 12 | Neither 32 | BOTH 1 | Total 81 Volume Count Total: Heroes 2 | Villains 3 | Neither 2

                   

TOTAL CHAPTER COUNT FOR BOTH WAR ARCS: 118 CHAPTERS Final Page Hero Advantage: 51 Final Page Villain Advantage: 21 Final Page Neither: 45 Final Page Both: 1

Total Volume Count: 11 Volumes Last Page Hero Advantage: 4 Last Page Villain Advantage: 4 Last Page Neither: 3

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

Now, you could (and I might) write a whole different post about the unbalanced strategic advantages that I discussed at the beginning of the post, but I think this breakdown also serves to illustrate the scope of the problem with raw numbers (percentages rounded off a bit such that they total to neat 100s).

In the first war, 40.5% of the chapters end with the Heroes on the upswing, 35% have no clear advantage, and only 24.5% end with the Villains waxing triumphant. Despite Hawks reflecting at the end of My Villain Academia about how the Paranormal Liberation Front was a power on par with, or possibly even greater than, that of Hero Society, the numbers don't really back that up. Instead, Heroes have the advantage over half again as often as Villains do, and even the uncertain chapters are still more numerous.

The second war is worse—much worse. Hero Advantage chapters account for nearly half of the arc at 44.5%, while chapters where Neither side clears account for the bulk of the remaining chapters at 39.5%. Only 15% of the chapters, well under a quarter, are Villain Advantage. For an endgame that wants to be about "saving Villains," only one single chapter (1%) ends with something you could credibly call both sides winning.

Now, of course, the second war is the climax of the whole series, so of you might say that of course the Heroes are going to ultimately do better. They have to win in the end, after all, so of course the arc will eventually feature mostly Hero victories.

I would counter that, while that is true, the story repeatedly tries to convince us that the Heroes are really struggling, that they've lost so many people, that they're at this huge disadvantage that neccessitates the extreme measures they use. And the numbers simply don't back that up, even less than they did in the first war!

If you look at the totals for each volume, Heroes have a wild advantage in two of the first four volumes (the arc is seven volumes in total), numbers the Villains never come close to meeting. There's one volume (the third, Volume 37) where they have the majority of the chapter-ending advantages, and even there, it's a narrow margin. Volume 38 is then a blow-out with not a single Villain Advantage chapter cliffhanger in the whole book, and in the final three volumes of the arc, the Villains get exactly one Advantage chapter per volume.

Not very convincing numbers, if the aim is to convince the reader of how much Plus Extra effort the Heroes are going to have to exert, if you ask me!

Between them, Hero Advantage and Neither chapters make up a shocking 81% of the two war arcs, with merely 18%, less than fifth, of the chapters ending on Villain Advantage beats that could serve to freshly drum up, "Our heroes are really in trouble now!" anxiety.

Looking back to what I said about the Heroes having the bulk of the strategic advantages for both arcs, that surely can't be all that surprising. You can't expect a set-up that slanted to leave much room at all for Villains to get time to shine; they simply don't have the room in the story for that when, for everything they try, the Heroes already have some countermeasure.

As a final comparison, remember I praised MVA back at the start for being gripping in large part because the "Heroes" of that arc, the League of Villains, were at such a disadvantage?

I briefly ran the numbers there, and I'd say, of nineteen chapters that contain active confrontation of some sort between the League and an antagonistic force (Gigantomachia, Ujiko, and the MLA), the League have the chapter-ending advantage beat in four of those chapters: Toga's victory in 226, Twice overcoming his mental block and starting to replicate himself in 229, and the two chapters covering Shigaraki's ultimate victory over Re-Destro, 238 and 239. That's a grand total of 20% "Hero" Advantage chapters for them, and half of those are the arc climax chapters.

The "Villains" for the arc likewise have the ending advantage in 20% of the arc, four chapters: Machia having comprehensively whipped the League at the end of 419, RD making the League an offer they can't refuse in 223, Skeptic pushing all of Twice's buttons in 228, and RD plucking off Shigaraki's fingers in 233.

The remaining eleven chapters—60%—go to the Neither category. Compare that back to the percentages for the war arcs, and you can see that, while the Villain Advantage percentage is similar (~5% higher in the first war and likewise lower in the second), the Hero Advantage is twice the percentage (40+%) in both arcs, while the Neither chapters are accordingly lower (the war arcs are 35% and ~40% Neither respectively).

In other words, the Heroes in the war arcs just straight-up have more chapter-ending awesome moments and reveals, and spend less time facing chapter-ending uncertainty, compared to not just the Villains they're fighting in those arcs, but also compared to what those same Villains got when they were being Heroes for an arc.

And to think, Horikoshi wants me to think his Heroes are being challenged. Pull the other one, Sensei; it's got bells on.

(I welcome anyone else to run similar numbers with e.g. the trainng camp attack or the Hassaikai base raid. For myself, I'm too sleepy to figure out a better ending for this post, so I'm just turning out the lights and hitting the sack. Sorry if there's any formatting wigginess or the closing analysis is lacking; I will clean it up later if need be.)

[hamliet]

Less of a question but I was never an avid manga reader till 2019 and mha was the first manga I kept track of weekly, and I read Tokyo ghoul after it ended, and seeing everyone be dissatisfied with how Tokyo ghoul ended after keeping up weekly is something I’m reminded of after seeing the latest chapter of mha. So this is what it feels like to witness 6 years of a character you hold in high regard be undermined(to put it lightly). I’m rather sad, but I can’t help but feel fondness for shigaraki even if the way he ended wasn’t satisfying, how do u feel about how mha has gone?

Yeah it does feel very reminiscent of Tokyo Ghoul in that they just went "ah yes, killing the right people is actually how we solve world issues." Which I find morally reprehensible, but also genuinely bad writing because the story as a whole doesn't support this message.

@linkspooky explained in her meta yesterday why Deku has completely failed as a character, and why the manga has failed thematically as a story. I'm just gonna say I completely agree with Link.

To be fair, I'm not sure Shigaraki is dead dead, but either way, it's bad writing and it doesn't conclude his arc with any sort of satisfactory element. Like, why would Shigaraki see Deku as different than anyone else who tried to punch him? That's nonsensical and written from the POV of an audience, not from Shigaraki's POV. It's like in Star Wars when Rey calls herself "Rey Skywalker" when she knew Luke for 3 days and none of the people she was actually close to (Leia, Han, Ben) were Skywalkers. That's writing for the audience, with their perspective, ignoring the logic of your story. It defies believability because the character does not have that perspective. It's "forced" because the audience can see the hand of the author.

If Shigaraki is dead dead... Not gonna Star Wars this one again, but since I also hated the ending of The Rise of Skywalker, I must make a comparison. The idea that Deku may have saved Shigaraki's heart but couldn't save his body (which to be honest, nothing in the actual chapter supports, but if he stays dead might be the argument) is still bad writing. Why? Because to Shigaraki didn't even make the decision himself. He didn't sacrifice anything. How can his heart be saved if he had nothing to do with it? Saving an object is easy as pie. Saving a person is different, and that's what the whole story has been about. Like, in TROS, Kylo Ren gave his life for Rey! Was it stupid? Yes! But at least his "saved heart" did something. Shigaraki's saved heart did what exactly?

So then, is the message that Deku failed? Then why isn't it framed as a failure? Why was BNHA never set up to be a grimdark tragedy? If he failed, then shouldn't he have a miserable ending? Unless it's "heroes always become bad guys and life is unfair," but then shouldn't Deku be framed critically?

Basically, Horikoshi can't come back writing-wise from this in BNHA, and it's sad to see.

Horikoshi's biggest flaw throughout the entire story was that he kept flip-flopping on what he wanted to say, and made the characters more about his trying to please every single fan than about being, well, characters to explore important questions he has that are worthwhile. And you can do this while still having a "cool" factor!

Instead the characters tell us one thing while cocooning Deku in the sweet bliss that no one ever has on this earth--being 100% right all the time. And it's sad, because BNHA had so much potential as a story to challenge its audience and entertain too.

I thought even if it flopped in some aspects it'd at least get this right. It's disappointing.

Anyways every day that goes by I want to send Isayama and his editors flowers for actually writing a thematically coherent ending, even if some aspects were dropped or messy along the way.

[i-just-want-to-destroy]

the last chapter for walking study in demonology was CRAZYYY im so happy you updated. im so curious about what your thought process in writing it and if youre willing to share?? you dont have to if you dont want to btw! but in any case thank u so muchhh

hey thank you! appreciate it

okay super long answer below

honestly this one was difficult. idk if its bc its been a while since i write fics from scratch so i might have forgotten how difficult the whole thing is, but this one was tough. ch 8 wasnt from scratch tho cos i had the drafts since like 2022 or smthg lol

ik the formatting is non conventional in ch 8 and i was aware that itd be hard to read for some people. but i do think abt the readers often when i write.. mainly not what the readers want in terms of storyline (altho ofc i consider this too sometimes lol) but what the reading experience will be like for them.

i.e consider if id written the chapter in a linear, traditional way and narrated the confrontation between 1-A and LoV (or even other wackier “Villains” like godzilla and invading aliens or whatever). the truth is, although def easier to read, that version will be very boring.

(i know bc i tried and scrapped those versions.)

(im sure a better writer can write it interestingly but i am not a better writer.)

the thing w writing these traditional fight scenes is tht im sure — im 1000% positive in fact — that the readers have read it before. there r literally thousands and thousands of bnha fics out there with great fight scenes, on top of the actual manga, where youve read these characters fight their assorted villains. why would i make you read that again, esp when i know i cant do it better? i already know the readers r just gonna skim the chapter if thats the case. ive been a reader, ik what fic fatigue is like — esp with bnha when everythings been rehashed infinity times in infinity different ways.

same thing also applies with even the “metaness” of the fic itself.

i dont want the fic to come off like its talking down to readers, whom i believe alrdy have the instinctual knowledge of what the fic is trying to do. im willing to bet tht the readers have read something similar to this before, like multiverses n time loop n meta stuff, also cosmic horror. i still end up narrating some things even though often i feel im being too explanatory. i jst feel like the readers will know what im talking abt by virtue of their familiarity to the tropes involved.

therefore the least i can do is serve it in an interesting way, aka the fuckass formatting. like although the tropes im doing r done so many times before, at the very least i cld let the readers hopefully have fun by piecing it together puzzle-style with the fragmented formats — so its more of an experience thing rather than jst a lore dump. i dont like lore dumps, they can be condescending.

demonology def doesnt succeed in avoiding that however. in fact its fallen to that exact trap. ch 4 and 6, those r very lore-dumpy. i tried to make it fun w the humor dialogue style but its not perfect. i know tht by ch 8 that tricks alrdy old, and the readers have all the puzzle pieces at this point anyway so itd be even more repetitive than it alrdy is. even so i still feel im being too explanatory esp with the emotional arcs but thats a skill issue on my part

overall i feel demon can be more oblique and “elegant” in its mechanics.

but anyway, it IS crack… it was never meant to promise intelligence, least of all eloquence lmfao. its never meant to be taken seriously.

of course, at this point u can tell that i actually am taking it pretty seriously LOL. i never meant to write meta fiction. i have some gripes w it, namely that i feel meta fiction is used by weaker writers as a storytelling crutch n it can come off as lazy — demon is guilty of this too. but now that i end up writing meta fiction, i might as well fucking commit and try to push it as crazy as i can. if its not gonna be good, at least it can be interesting, or weird.

blah blah im yapping. point is, ik the end product might look very “random” and pastiche as if i was jst doing whatever i wanted … which, true … but it went thru a lot of trials and errors until this final version. you would not believe the amount of time ive rewritten this chapter, due to all those ^ considerations.

however i always knew i was going to start ch8 with the classic mary sue “fanfiction” — that segment was written a long time ago like in 2022/2023?? and mostly stayed unedited since, unlike the rest of the fic which i stripped and repainted and restripped again lol

ok thanks for reading abt my wack anime crack fic writing process that, again, shld not be taken seriously. i will admit however that i do put a lot of effort n heart into it so i cannot pretend i am aloof and disaffected. id be lying if i say its been easy. i consider it a miracle i updated at all. i keep saying its not meant to be taken serious but if i managed to make it even a little bit meaningful, id be very happy.

ah also. bnha ending actually forced me to scrap a lot of things too. but it kinda ends up for the better, maybe.

[bookwyrminspiration]

omg i was anon and it IS orv how'd you guess!! anyways its so incredibly quilcoded you NEED to read it like. yesterday. its so good

firstly!! you would actually rlly adore kim dokja he's a complete fucking loser. picking him up kicking him around like a soccer ball do you catch my drift. he HATES himself he likes reading trashy novels he's concerningly relatable. also you could ship him with anyone if you tried hard enough or he could definitely be aroace if you squint. choice is yours the world is your oyster. also he canonically has a very funny kink that the novel likes to bring up over and over again. like i said. loser

(tbh i think youd also really be partial to yoo joonghyuk or one of the side characters but. idk thats up to you to decide. when you fucking read it)

secondly! the worldbuilding quil you would go HAM on the worldbuilding there's soooo much to explore with the star stream and constellations vs incarnations and its just SOOO insane. ugh i dont wanna spoil a lot but theres just so many different THINGS and it makes me a little bit feral

THIRDLY found family. thats it thats the post. they are all so unbearably lonely and they all find each other and they LOVE EACH OTHER and contrary to kim dokja's opinion they love him too and its just so fucking. ugh. all of their dynamics. (the kids especially get to me they are SO funny and stupid. siblingcoded as fuck)

also would it help if i tell you that there is quite literally no romance in this book! which is kind of unheard of for power fantasy novels! (ok there is like one side couple but its slow burn af and they take forever to get together and theyre rlly cute anyway but i digress)

there's mpreg. will not elaborate but it seems like youd fuck with it

furthermore!! idk the overarching themes......... story inside a story the inherent and unconditional love of a reader for said story reader vs writer vs protagonist OHHH love letter to stories themselves. actually. fuck man the feelings

its rlly stupid sometimes. actual crack. then it kicks you in the balls and makes you feel emotions you never knew you had before

but yeah pls read it!! i will convince you even more if necessary. you need to get in on this before 2025 at the very least bc there is an anime coming out and you have to be able to say you were here before that to assert dominance. anyways

(also WHEN you read it bc you will. pls livetweet in my inbox i love reactions its a fucking ride)

Not only was I right that it was orv, but I was also correct that it was you, Roshan. Though I didn't write that down, so you'll just have to trust me

I do have some understanding of the story beyond this because an irl of mine was reccing it a couple weeks ago, but from that it's also my understanding that learning anything about the story prior will not help me going in. it simply defies explanation and I just gotta read it

I must say though, you do know the right things to say. I LOVE stories about stories I LOVE meta I LOVE love letters to stories! I LOVE worldbuilding I LOVE found family. i LOVE wet rag guys, sopping on the floor pathetic loser men. and no romance!!! that's not to say any romance is bad, it's just nice to have a break sometimes

"there's mpreg. will not elaborate but it seems like youd fuck with it" can. can I confess something real quick. i deadass almost included mpreg in the "keys to get quil to read something." but then I was like no i shant, even though it's true. and then you said it yourself anyway! because it seems like i'd fuck with it! well i DO and I WILL. mpreg is like an automatic read for me. don't worry about that

OKAY okay i will read. where. where do I read it. i've heard of both a manga and a webcomic...maybe..? which should I go with and where should I find it. I am at your command 🫡

(i will probably liveblog instead of directly in ur inbox but maybe i'll do both)

[lej222]

Hello.. I am actually afraid with the recent jisu miae centered episodes also the case with the flyers.. Like you said the fate thing is trying to set her up with jisu. do you think soonkki will actually do something like breaking up the main characters? Normally the webtoons don't have sad endings. On the other hand in soonkki's previous work it feels like she likes to play with various emotions and shows like the mcs gonna break up but they DO NOT. Also making the fl ends up with second ml is totally a huge thing to do. There's certainly more cheolmiae shippers than jisumiae. And isn’t it like cheol has more potential than jisu in every way? He has her pink book there's a photo of theirs which is now in miae's room which miae is still not aware of. But there's also this point how not a single photo in the whole story is with miae. Soo,,, what's your opinion in all of these?

Hi! This is indeed the most difficult question to answer!😃 I'll share my own opinion, and it's totally subjective so please be kind to me🥲

So, lately I've been thinking this series might not be targeted at teens. As I was writing my meta on supernatural clues in the story, I found so many little details that would be easy to miss. Like the synchronicity theory I wrote about, the things the parents keep saying in the story, or you could just look at Jisu's character and how so many people misunderstand his actions. As an adult, when I saw the scene of him getting hit by a teacher, I felt a sense of dread. I started thinking about why he provokes the teacher, why he seems so disengaged, etc. These things are easier to notice if you're an adult. Which takes me to my next point.

The ending of the webtoon heavily depends on the message the author wants to convey. If she wanted to tell a simple love story there was no need for supernatural clues in the story. Jisu's involvement and the way he was introduced also required a great deal of effort and pre-planning. Ominous signs have been present since the start. Even in the latest chapters, Miae thinking about how they will have time to talk in high school or Cheol imagining their life together - they all feel like promises that might not be fulfilled. Every time I've read about a character imagining their future in a story, it never really came true, like I've been keeping up with Firefly Wedding which is a beautiful manga, and the moment I saw them daydreaming about their future I knew it would never come true.

Reading ASLFUA, I cannot help but agree with a Korean commenter that Miae lives in a dream world. It's not a bad thing, don't get me wrong. She is still a child so it's expected, but she hasn't had her own arc where she matures. Cheol's story in the first half was all about him opening up to new people and experiences. If you compare Miae to how she was at the start vs how she is now, she hasn't really changed much. But we know that she must, even the narrator pointed it out. Living in a fantasy world is not a bad thing, but one day she has to step out of it. Life is not always kind and there are things that might not be under her control. Her parents are a good example. Her mother had to give up on her passion because of the financial crisis. Her father works tirelessly to make ends meet. Soonkki presents this story through a child's eyes, but she doesn't ignore the harsh truths of growing up. Miae's mom is watching the news about how adults should help their children to have a healthy view on sexuality. Miae has no idea what being in a romantic relationship means. These are all messages to the adult readers of the story.

This doesn't mean there's no possibility of Cheol and Miae ending up together. If Soonkki's message is that their love is so strong it can overcome fate itself, that's one possible route. For this ending, I think all the supernatural elements would be a little bit pointless, but it's a likely outcome. Or she can go the bittersweet route, where the emphasis would be on the growth story. For me, the supernatural involvement makes more sense in this scenario, but it's just my personal opinion. As for Cheol's popularity, I would say it would be more of a problem for international readers. Most Korean readers also love Jisu, people on the KR side are more open to multishipping in general. Take Operation True Love for example, most top comments are about how no one would be mad if the ML switched to Dohwa after the timeskip. Whatever happens though, Cheol is the ML of the story, because it's partly his own growth story.

Yes, the book in her dresser is still a plot point that needs to be addressed. Other than that, we only have one countyside memory we haven't seen, but we've already had lots of coming-to-full circle moments, like Miae touching Cheol's scar, them acknowledging their feelings, Cheol's POV, etc. We know almost nothing about Jisu and Miae only remembers two things about him. Why did he single her out? He did not ask to be helped and when he transferred they were wearing winter clothes. Miae became his friend after summer break. That's a big gap we don't know anything about. Why did Jisu not give her the accoustic guitar? Why did he look surprised when she said she wanted to study together? What is his wish? There are still a lot of questions that need answers.

I'm not saying I'm sure Miae and Cheol won't end up together, but I believe it's a possibility. At the end of the day, I'm obviously not the writer and what I wrote here might be all wrong, but I wanted to look at all sides of the argument and you are obviously not wrong to believe in a happy ending🙂

[tamelee]

Personally I don’t really get people who say they acknowledge Sasuke and Naruto’s romantic bond but still ship Sasuke with a woman… Like, they saw that he was gay (he’s shown to not be attracted to women so he’s not bi) but kinda don’t care?

Actually I don’t really understand the whole shipping culture, or even mainstream fandom culture… I don’t know, I just don’t see the point in just making up content for pre-existing characters while completely destroying what made the characters unique in the first place by ignoring canon entirely (like crack-shipping). I get why people wouldn’t like everything about canon, it’s my case too, but if they don’t like anything about canon… Why are they here in the first place?

Nooo now I sound grumpy. I must be bothering you I’m so sorry 😭😭

Anyway, you’re amazing and I hope you know it 🥰

You don't sound grumpy to me dw 🫶

Well, I don't believe such ships have much to do with Canon either way. And I doubt all of them hate Canon per se, though some change 'Canon' to like Canon, which is funny. "This is my Canon." Yeah, not how it works, but ok- have your Canon your way ofc ┐(￣ヮ￣)┌

Side-note though, I don't think Sasuke even knows who Hinata is? 😆 It's as you say; crack-shipping. (I saw that giant/small-yaoi meme here on Tumblr again. No idea what it's called, and immediately thought; a yes, Sukuna and Levi. Kinda want to draw xD Makes no sense at all.) A lot of Headcanon is derived from personal... ideas/desires/inspiration or self-inserting reasons? (Isn't that exactly what 'x-reader' fics are?) Or even trend-posting. As much as characters are used to tell a story for the original author/creator (they're essentially tools), do fans use them to create new ideas. "Ah yes, we all know this character, let's create something around it simply because I want to." Which is completely fine, right? Look at rare pairs. And to be fair, a lot of content, fictional writing and art aren't even based on canon either. The closest thing through fan-work are Manga analyses or meta's, even panel redraws- stuff like that. People adapt 'canon' into fanwork through various degrees or sometimes ditch it altogether. Nsfw/spice is by default made up and entirely Headcanon :') (Though personality can be depicted in a way ig, through expression/behavior and whatnot.)

I totally get what you mean though, although I guess I'm caught up in fandom-culture now. Personally, I do like characters as 'canon' as possible, but it really depends. For some Animanga I don't really care. I think I ship pretty much all TR/BlueLock-characters for literally no reason, but I wouldn't claim it to be Canon in any way (˚☐˚! )/

However, I don't like it when Naruto and Sasuke's characters are butchered. Made-up context or not. The originals are so special to me and it's the reason why I'm a fan, though I don't mind too much in fics, depending on the story. I find it hard to feel the same when they've practically become someone's OC's with only the same name and design. I can't even read height/age-differences because I can't imagine it xD But anyway, this all includes "official" work made for financial/marketing reasons also- especially those damn novels. Those never have anything to do with canon, nor does it align with it. No matter how passionately people claim otherwise.

I'm only a tiny bit petty about it >< u&me grumpy 🤝 And aahhww I don't actually, you should see me sitting here in giant red Christmas socks and a glittery green sweater that's kinda itchy tbh. I don't really feel anything other than those glitters annoying me every 3 seconds... which reminds me I should change -.- anw thankyou <3

[ursafootprints]

E, I, M, V, Y

c:

Aaaaaa you spoil me!!!

E: What character do you identify with most? Is there a certain fic of yours that captures these qualities particularly well?

HMMM I don't think there's a "most" necessarily! Neither Tony nor Peter is a character I super identify with just on the face of things, but there are individual traits that they have that I resonate with-- Tony's "gotta fix it (alone)" attitude, Peter's dorkiness and "gotta prove myself" drive, but those traits are expressed very differently in those characters than for me, haha.

The things that I identify most with for them in my fics are things that I put there through my various Situations rather than stuff they reflect in canon, lmao. I identify more with Peter in YNYD and with Tony in the Starkercest saga!

I: How many fandoms have you written in? Do you have a favorite?

Oh I counted this up one time! Assuming I'm not missing any from the actual fics/accounts being long lost to time, I've written for 14~16 fandoms:

Digimon

Inuyasha

Detective Conan

Fullmetal Alchemist

Gundam Wing

The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)

Cardcaptor Sakura

xxxHolic

X/1999 (unposted)

Yu-Gi-Oh!

di[e]ce

07-GHOST

Eyeshield 21

Chihayafuru

Ookiku Furikabutte (unposted)

MCU

Everything on that list that isn't MCU or The Outsiders is an anime/manga of widely varying levels of obscurity, haha. My favorite original work on the list is Cardcaptor Sakura, but my favorite fandom experience has been y'all here in Starker fandom! :P

M: What’s the weirdest AU scenario you’ve ever come up with? Did it turn into a story?

The weirdest AU I've ever come up with/written was the Tokyo Babylon-Starker fusion that @shivanessa and I are collaborating on! Because they drew some Peters and Tonys in the style of early CLAMP and I was immediately possessed by CLAMP Starker brainworms.

TB is a manga from the 90s written by CLAMP about a teenage medium tackling supernatural cases in Tokyo while being romanced by a kind and flirtatious much-older man… who secretly has very dark intentions for him. I might be the only person in the world that it appeals to but I am excited for it to be posting-ready!

V: Are there certain comments you’ve received on your stories that have stuck with you?

Any time a reader has told me that my portrayal of trauma felt resonant/especially realistic/cathartic based on their own experiences-- it's one of those things where obviously I'm sad for anyone to have to have that in common with me, but I also know how important and special it can feel when you read something that really resonates with your own experiences, too, so I'm always very touched by those comments.

(Also, any time I end up writing a paragraph or straight-up essay of meta in response to a comment it means that they said something that I grabbed and ogled and rotated in my mind in delight, so those ones, too!)

Y: What are your thoughts on your personal satisfaction with something you’ve written vs. the popularity of your stories? Do you tend to be most satisfied with your most popular stories?

It varies by fandom! I'm pretty much equally satisfied with everything I've written for Starker-- there's always stuff that I feel like I did really well, and stuff that I feel I could've executed better-- so it's a moot point there. But for Eyeshield 21, there for a while my most popular fic on that account by far was something I wrote when I was 13 and had only posted for archival reasons/a fun little stroll down memory lane, and until my multichap for the same ship overtook it I was a little jealous of my 13-year-old self!

Thank youuuu for all the questions! 😭💖💖💖😭

[seiwas]

I was reading tons and tons of metas regarding latest chapter on Satoru and now comparing it with your col series, it seems to me that in an ideal world/alternative, Satoru finally understands and acknowledges that people are around him, and that they understand him, and that they want to be in his life. His starting point is with col darling, hence his almost surreal affection, feelings and fondness for her(them) as a person and a living being. It's like as in this world, he is choosing to live as just Satoru and approach life differently.

I could be wrong with my analogy but i'd love to read your thoughts, darling, Sel. 🤍

hi tina!! thanks for dropping by 🤍

i’ve been trying to avoid reading meta/analysis lately because that’s how i try to cope with what’s been happening in the manga! (but i also don’t rlly read a lot of them in general—just the ones i chance upon here and there)!

that being said, i like to see col as an escape from whatever’s happening to him canonically! though it may be based off some canon events, i like to think i’ve built a story that fits a version of him i personally love to write and explore!

which !! i think !! is what makes fanfic so wonderful !! i like how we’re all able to read and write about this one character, and have a thread of familiarity tying them throughout the different versions of them we can create. my col gojo might be different from another writer’s version of gojo (or even another kind of gojo i might write someday!) and that’s what makes it so great !!

similarly, we can read the different versions of these characters and have our own interpretations of them (and that is also what makes fanfic so great!! we can read the same character in so many different ways!! have different aspects of them highlighted, have them be put in diff au’s—all of it!!)

all of that to say that though i do depend on the past canon events to give context to col, i don’t intend to write col gojo with the idea of ‘how would gege write him’ !! bc i think !! there are different sides to him i might want to focus on that maybe aren’t in gege’s radar at all !! and that becomes my interpretation of gojo here on !!

col gojo’s relationship with reader is a slowburn, one that’s been a decade in the making, and there has always been a satoru that reader knows and loves him for being. his hesitancy for a relationship (at the start), at least for me, stems from many things!! and how he chooses to navigate through that also happens for many reasons—which i hope are all seen and conveyed in the pieces i’ve written for col!!

[abysscronica]

I hope it's ok to ask, I noticed you don't interact with many blogs or fandom discourse in general. Is there a reason?

Okay, I've received a couple of asks and DMs more or less revolving around this topic, so I'm going to address it here.

My blog's main goal is to interact with my existing readers, since all my stories are on AO3 and Wattpad (I've only posted a couple here). I use it to answer your questions on my writings, the characters, and whatever you guys want to ask me, and I love it. Of course I'm happy if I get some more readers from Tumblr, but that's not my primary aim here, at least for now.

It would be great to use this page to expand my followers, but I barely have time to actually write these days, so unfortunately, at the moment, I can't afford to spend any to curate this space... except for answering your asks. (on this regard, I know I'm months late for some, please don't lose hope, everything is there and will be worked on eventually!)

That said, even if I do get time to dedicate to my tumblr at some point, it'll probably be ordering my posts and posting my other stories, not much more. Before I go into more details on my thoughts on fandom discourse and fics/headcanons, let me repeat the usual disclaimer...

The ones below represent my very personal views. They are not right or wrong, and it absolutely does not mean I disapprove of different views. I encourage you all to enjoy the fandom experience and community in the way you see fit, as long as it's not damaging you or anyone else.

Fandom discourse. I... simply don't really care about it. I'm talking mainly about One Piece, but this can apply to any content I enjoy. Here's how my experience goes: I read the manga, the SBS, watch the anime, consume basically any content available. I follow a couple of OP youtubers talking about every little thing, from chapter reviews to any kind of news (Tekking101 and Sawyer7mage). Then I write fanfictions based on all the knowledge accumulated, of course expanding into my personal headcanons. This pretty much satiates my thirst for content and need for sources.

Obviously I enjoy talking about OP with other fans, especially like-minded ones such as Kid Pirates fans. Buuuut being an active part of the community can also be exhausting. I'm sure you know there's a lot of Kid dissing going on for example, and Kid fans are often caught in battles to defend him. I honestly don't want to take part into it, because I don't think other people's feelings about a character should influence my experience of the show anyway, so I don't care about changing their mind either. I just... wanna do my own thing and share it with my mutuals & readers.

Analyses, meta, theories. Honestly, the two OP youtubers I follow (plus Arthur's posts on Twitter) fulfill this need in a very comprehensive way. I've yet to see a single tumblr post that comes even close to their insights (but if you know some, feel free to point me in that direction, I'll be happy to check them out). They often even contain inaccurate information. I do reblog whatever I deem interesting though, and I'll gladly answer to anything if you wanna know about my thoughts.

Fics & headcanons. Once again, I'll always be super happy to share my content with you guys. I cannot accept fic requests but feel free to ask for any headcanon you may be interested in!

As for other people's stuff. I said this before, unfortunately I'm a terribly picky reader (this does not only apply to fics, but to literature in general). The slightest hint of "unjustified" OC, a Mary Sue trait on a MC, too many cliches, a writing style that does not catch me... I'll scroll ahead. I know many will roll their eyes at this, and they are right, but I just won't impose something I don't fully enjoy to myself, not with my limited spare time. But writers should write whatever they want and I'll never be unsupportive of that, even if it's not my jazz! The stuff I read and enjoyed, I reblog.

This should be all I have to say on the matter. If you have any further question, feel free to send and ask.

[villainsandvictimsalliance]

OK BUT STAR ACTUALLY DID GOOD WORK

Now I see what Horikoshi wanted to do and let me tell you, it wasn't as bad as I thought.

Does he keep writing superficially some female characters? Yes, I think a proper foreshadowing of Stars and Stripe would have helped the readers get use to her presence and even like her more, creating a greater impact with this whole fight between her and AFO.

Do I think the whole New Order thing should have been treated with more time? Also yes. Just little snippets, nothing big if he wanted for this to be a sort of plot twist.

However, Stars and Stripes could have made greater sense in the narrative. Right now she doesn't feel as much as a strange invader, but she is more integrated with the narrative. Also, the idea of using New Order to tear AFO apart from the inside is a great idea, but I think it could have been better if Horikoshi had showed us a more clever or creative use of New Order during this fight.

I'm sad that Stars and Stripes, as a strong female character with a complicated or complex existence in the narrative, died so fast. She really went against the law and used all her violence to do what she thought was good, and it is actually helping the heroes.

( I still don't like her very much because I think the whole bug patriotic theme is bullshit, even if it's a parody. She got the martyr treatment and died like most USA heroes in media. )

From my point of view, I think Horikoshi is taking the narrative as far as he can. He's pressuring Tomura and AFO to an extreme, while also making the heroes lose their queen (this all thing reads like a big chess game being honest).

And omg, my favorite part is probably how meta is this manga. And when I say meta, it's because the main theme focus on two powers (AFO and OFA) how read each other like the two sides of a hero comic book, and they are a hero manga after all. You have the narrative of the narrative, and the instructions in how to read said narrative.

Forgetting the flaws and mistakes of the manga, I'm really excited right now to see the end. I must confess I was not convinced with Horikoshi's storytelling (idk what happened in the last chapters, it could have been due to him being exhausted), but now it's back on the road.

And please note how the only way to fight AFO is from the inside, because he's too powerful to defeat him with bare physical abilities. See how the mind and the will are the ones fighting in here, not the body as a whole. This is a nice metaphor, one I'll explain tomorrow because it's pretty late where I live and I need to go to sleep.

[telehxhtrash]

A masterpost on Togashi’s gay subtext and why it’s intentional.

Hi ! After seeing so many posts about Togashi dropping subtext about Killua's possible romantic feelings for Gon, I thought it'd be a good idea to make a sort of "masterpost" with all the subtext that Togashi has included into his work.

I usually see a lot of people trying to say that HxH isn't about romance and that Togashi isn't interested in writing romance into the manga, but when you analyze all the subtext that's been going on the further Gon and Killua's relationship progresses, I think it's incorrect to say that Togashi has never hinted at the possibility of romance in HxH.

This is going to be a long post, enjoy your read!

Also, please note that I will only base this analysis on the manga, so there can be no mistake that "maybe this is just something the anime made gayer" : i want to prove that the subtext is 100% intentional on Togashi's part.

I'd also like to mention, although I will analyze it further after listing the subtext, that Togashi is a VERY smart man. There are always little details in the story and/or foreshadowing that are easily missed at first but when you notice them, it truly makes you understand how much attention and care Togashi puts into his work. There are countless details and symbolism that are analyzed daily through wonderful meta posts, from the main 4′s birthdays and their link to their character or the religious symbolism in Kurapika’s story arc.... Togashi loves to foreshadow and plant little details into his work, so when Togashi plants subtext, I'm sure he 100% knows that he's writing it, and it can't be seen as unintentional.

I'll also link all my references for this post at the end of it, so feel free to read all the additional textposts and content if you want to know more.

Well, let's get into it!

EDIT : i can’t believe this post is still being used as a reference it makes me so happy... thank you so much !!! i edited this to tweak it a bit because i wrote this a while ago and the phrasing seemed off to me, so if you’re reading or re-reading this post, hi, welcome to masterpost on gay subtext 2.0 !

GREED ISLAND ARC

Greed Island is to me the arc that lays down the nature of Killua and Gon's relationship. It's during this arc that we get to see a bit more of what Killua thinks, how he's lucky to have met Gon and that he feels really grateful. Gon’s behavior in this arc is also very affectionate, with him always reassuring Killua about his place next to him. While the scene where Killua thinks "You've got it backwards, Gon, I'm the one that's glad I met you." can't be considered as subtext, I think it's something that lets the reader know a bit more about how Killua feels towards Gon. 

But other than this scene, which can clearly be dismissed as platonic, there are 2 more moments in the Greed Island arc that are layered in subtext.

• The Rainbow Diamond (chapter 151)

During their time in Dorias, Killua uses Risky Dice to gain cards from the slot machines. The first card that Killua gains is called "Rainbow Diamond", the description of the card being "A diamond that shines in a rainbow of colors. Propose with this diamond and she is guaranteed to say "yes"". 

There are 3 different things we can take from this panel. First, the card is a marriage proposal card, so it's obviously romantic in nature. Second, the object is a RAINBOW diamond. And third, Killua, wanting to keep the card safe, gifts it to Gon.

In short, Togashi sat down at his desk, decided to draw Killua winning a MARRIAGE PROPOSAL CARD (it could've been any card, but Togashi CHOSE to make Killua win a marriage proposal card) that has a RAINBOW diamond on it and made Killua gift it to Gon. 

While I personally don't think that subtext can be used to 100% ascert that Killua has romantic feelings for Gon, I think it's a funny little touch from Togashi, and I'm even gonna say a sort of hint towards how Killua's feelings for Gon are going to evolve in this arc and the next.

• “It has to be Killua” (chapter 166)

Now this is a scene that I've never seen anyone talk about, at least on Tumblr, but when I read a bit of analysis on it I was 100% convinced this was intentional subtext. I'm basically quoting here what this article explains, so if you want more detail, I recommend reading it.

As you probably recall, during their deadly dodgeball game against Razor, Killua decides to sacrifice his hands to ensure that Gon could use all his strength. When confronted about it, Killua insists that it's nothing, and Gon shocks him by saying that he knew all along that he was hurting himself for his sake. 

Gon then says that it can only be Killua holding the ball, and that it has to be Killua, resulting in Killua being absolutely awestruck and embarassed. I'm also going to talk about the anime adaptation for this one, because it's perfectly executed and translates extremely well the nuance that the second sentence bears. If you want to rewatch it, this scene happens in episode 70. It's worth noting that in the anime, we see Killua not reacting to Gon's first sentence, but losing his composure entirely when Gon says the second sentence. But why ?

The reason was lost in translation. His exact words are "Booru wa Killua ga motte-kurenai to. Killua ja nakya dame nan da.". Both sentences basically say the same thing : It has to be Killua holding the ball. That second sentence can be translated literally as "If it's not Killua, that won't do." However, the second sentence, in a different context, can also be used to say a totally different thing. 

While it's certain that Gon used this sentence in the context of the dodgeball match, the sentence "~ja nakya dame nan da" also serves as a confession of one's feelings in japanese. It's basically the equivalent to "you're the one for me". When you google the sentence, it turns up romantic songs, forum posts asking what it would translate to in English and posts on how to confess to someone. 

The sentence basically drowns in romantic subtext. As mentioned before, Killua has no reaction to the first sentence "Booru wa Killua ga motte-kurenai to.", but loses his composure at the second one, and I think that was a very deliberate thing Togashi wanted to convey : this sentence has an additional layer, and clearly Killua is taking it to heart.

I will come back to this specific subtext in a bit, because we can parallel it with another subtext-y situation, so please keep it in mind for now.

CHIMERA ANT ARC

Now onto the sad gay arc! This arc is so RIDDLED in subtext and parallels that it's making me lose my mind.

• Gon, you are light. (chapter 199)

This scene is just... So romantic in nature. I’m not too objective on this, but I really do believe that this moment is the exact moment Killua fell in love with Gon and started to realize he felt a bit more than friendship towards him. It’s Killua respecting Gon for who he is, realizing that he’s light and he’s always been, he’s the one who saved him and who’s always been so bright and optimistic and always makes the best out of any situation. In this scene, Killua lets himself drown in Gon’s light, allows himself to feel this “wow” moment of pure admiration and love, and it’s absolutely beautiful.

It's extremely important to take the context of this scene into account. What happened is that Killua, who has been struggling mentally for the entire series with the fact that he's always running away, ran away once more, leaving Kite to die with Pitou. This ENTIRE chapter is literally adults absolutely DESTROYING Killua, first Kite's troupe bashing him for leaving Kite behind, and then Netero, Morel and Knov coming in like icing on the cake telling Killua that "After all, he's just a kid", and that he should hurry up to his mommy. 

Killua is beating himself up for running away again, got destroyed by Kite's team and 3 extremely strong pro hunters. His morale is down in the drains right now. He expects Gon to be mad at him for betraying Kite, for running away once again, for leaving Kite to die alone and ripping Gon away from Kite : he expects that he'll lose Gon for his cowardice.

HOWEVER, the first thing that Gon says to Killua after having been passed out for god knows how many hours is "Thank you". 

Gon woke up and instantly eased up all of Killua's fears : he wasn't a loser for running away, and Gon was actually thankful for him. Gon, at this moment, was the only one that showed kindness, understanding and gratefulness towards Killua. Gon even goes so far as saying that he knows that Kite isn't dead, and that they have to help him. At this instant, Gon is truly Killua's saving grace. He's the one that trusts him with his entire heart, and believes in his choices when even he can't believe in himself. Gon is truly Killua's light at this precise moment, because he was the only one who supported him, trusted him and reassured him in this awful situation.

How can someone shine so bright in such a terrible situation ? How can someone be so positive that nothing bad will happen ? 

Gon asserting all of this makes Killua respect him a lot. Keep this word in mind, because it’s going to be important in the next piece of subtext I’m analyzing, because those two scenes canonically follow each other and are basically Togashi highlighting that something special happened when Killua called Gon his light, and that his feelings deepened.

• Introduction to Palm's character (chapter 200)

This piece of subtext is very very easy to miss but it's one of the most important subtext-y scene, because coupled with the “Gon, you are light” scene, it’s very clear that this dialogue is deliberately highlighting Killua’s feelings.

This chapter introduces Palm's character (which, imo, is a character introduced for the sole intent of being a catalyst to Killua's feelings towards Gon, but I'll talk about it in my post talking about the CAA parallels) - edit: i talked about this briefly here.

So, Killua having looked into Gon's eyes for like 10min straight and concluded that Gon was the light of his life a chapter ago, is now chilling with Gon as they meet Palm. 

Palm takes them to a café and STRAIGHT OFF THE BAT harasses them about how much she's in love with Knov. Like when I say harassing, it's literally a whole page of her explaining her feelings towards Knov. 

There are two interesting things that can be drawn from this interaction.

First, it's extremely easy to draw parallels between Palm's situation towards Knov and Killua's situation towards Gon. Palm starts by saying how amazing her master is, that she probably has special feelings for him but the most important thing is to respect the other person. Remember how I talked about how this last scene was Killua having a surge of deep, deep respect for Gon ? Palm makes sure to highlight that special word, that it’s important to respect someone when it comes to love.

She then goes on to say that she hasn't said anything to Knov, and never will. All of this adds nothing to the story, it's empty dialogue, Togashi could've introduced Palm in virtually any other way possible, but he chose to drag her and the gay duo to a café and make her have a monologue about love RIGHT after the extremely emotional panel of Killua declaring that Gon is his light just a chapter ago.

But there's more. Not only does Palm monologue for a while about love, but after finishing her monologue, this happens :

This panel features ONLY Palm and Killua, her looking at him like the psycho she is, and straight up telling him that "love can suddenly spark out of nowhere, don't you think so?". 

What's so interesting about this is the fact that Togashi made the deliberate choice to have Palm say this to Killua and Killua ONLY, which after the gay existential crisis he had last chapter, can very much be applied to his situation. Love DID spark out of nowhere, and Togashi wants you to notice. Togashi could've made Palm say this to herself, with no distinct listener like the last panel, but he made the conscious choice to draw this panel with Palm adressing herself to Killua SPECIFICALLY. 

Those two pieces of subtext, that fit perfectly together, make me believe 100% that Togashi knows what he's doing and he's not unintentionally planting gay subtext in his work. The fact that Togashi sat at his desk, drew Killua calling Gon his light, and then followed this scene with the introduction to a character who picks Killua apart to tell him that "love is something that just happens, don't you think?" is 100% proof that Togashi knows what he's doing.

• Date with Palm (chapters 217 and 218)

I think this situation has many layers, but many people still dismiss it as bro behavior so I'm gonna try my best to counter argue. First of all, and although that's not proof of anything, Killua looks EXTREMELY distressed by the prospect of Gon going on a date with Palm, but that can be counter-argued by saying that Killua is just worried because Palm is completely crazy. 

What I want to talk about is the scene that happens right after, when Gon and Killua go to the gym (because theyre DUDES YEAH WE WORK OUT NO HOMO), and the conversation casually drifts to Killua asking Gon if he's ever been on a date before, valid question considering what just happened previously. There are multiple things here :

1) Killua seems distressed that Gon has been on dates before. While it can be argued that it's a normal reaction because Gon has and he hasn't, I believe that Killua - who is in no way a normal person who would get flustered about "not having been on dates before a certain age" - would not feel uncomfortable that his friend is more experienced than him - especially when literal seconds later, he monologues about how he doesn’t care about dates and just wants to stick with Gon.

2) Gon then proceeds to ask Killua if he's ever been on a date, to which Killua responds :

What I want to highlight is the panel where Killua says "And the truth is, I want to stay by your side... Always...". Basically, what Killua is saying, is that he doesn't care about dates, all he wants to do is be with Gon.

I don't think this can be counter-argued as bro behavior, but with all the subtext I've explained before, this right here is pretty gay. Togashi put this panel deliberately to show that Killua doesn't give a crap about dates when he can stay with Gon, and with the "gon you are light" scene and everything in mind, this is another intentional subtext.

There's also the fact that Killua stalks the date like a jealous girlfriend - but I'm not gonna count that as subtext because it can be argued that he's just worried about Gon because Palm is insane.

• Gon is my best friend ! (chapter 219)

Remember how I told you to keep the "It has to be Killua" subtext in mind because I was gonna come back to it later ? Well.

During Palm's date with Gon, Killua runs into Rammot, who would definitely have ran into Palm and nenless Gon. Killua is forced to confront his worst fear : this is the moment where he knows that if he runs away again, Gon WILL die. Killua is literally overcoming his "programming", the physical representation of years of abuse out of love and care for Gon. He's ripping out the needle from his forehead out of pure, genuine care for Gon, because if he doesn't, then he'll lose him forever. 

Now, what I actually wanna talk about is this panel :

What we see is Killua thinking happy thoughts about all his adventures with Gon because he can't - won't - doesn't want to run away anymore, and all this for his sake. But what I wanna draw attention to is the dodgeball panel that's bigger than all the others, and the only one where you can actually clearly make out what's written : "Killua ja nakya dame nan da". 

Now, isn't that interesting that the panel that takes a bigger place in the whole panel is the one with this particular sentence? Remember what I talked about a bit earlier, about how "~ ja nakya dame nan da" is a sentence with a lot of romantic connotations (would pretty much equal to "you're the one for me" in English). Clearly this particular sentence stuck with Killua. 

I'm not completely objective on this matter since I firmly believe that at this point, Killua has romantic feelings for Gon, but I interpret this as another deliberate thing Togashi did : putting the panel bigger so we can see that it has a particularly significant importance to Killua, and Killua's state of mind right now (not wanting to lose Gon). 

In my opinion, two things happened here: One, Killua remembers this specific interaction because he knows how much Gon trusts him and he doesn't want to betray his trust. But I also firmly believe that Killua remembered this specific interaction because of the romantic connotation the sentence "Killua ja nakya dame nan da" has. Those words clearly shocked him, and I think he remembers them in this life-threatening situation, after the "gon you are light" scene, Palm talking about "love just happens", the "i want to stay with you, always" because he realizes that he wishes Gon would say that sentence in a romantic context, and not in the context of the dodgeball match, thus leading him to surpass himself to prove his love and perhaps live to see the day where Gon could say those words in that romantic context.

Now, of course, all of this is my interpretation, so it's really up to debate, but I really wanna highlight the fact that Togashi deliberately CHOSE to highlight this particular interaction between Gon and Killua, this sentence with romantic subtext, to lead Killua to finally break his chains and be able to be protect Gon fully. It’s also interesting to note that the 2011 anime adaptation also makes it a point to emphasize how deep these words stuck to Killua by making it the last flashback that makes Killua effectively rip out the needle out of his head. 

Also let's quickly mention the irony in the situation here : while Gon is on a romantic date, Killua fights to protect him, overcoming his weakness to prove his love. It’s not Palm who deserves that date, it’s Killua.

• A lovers’ suicide (chapter 286)

Now, onto the most important piece of subtext, that can not be counterargued as platonic in any way, shape or form. During the palace invasion, Killua leaves Gon's side, proceeds to go kick Youpi's butt only to have to fall back because he used up all his electricity nen. When Killua is charging up, he meets with Meleoron, and tells him that once he's done charging, he'll go back to Gon's side. 

They briefly exchange information about the battle, and then Meleoron proceeds to ask Killua what's the plan for him and Gon. That's when Killua explains that "Once Gon is like this, he won't budge an inch. Worst case scenario, it'll be a double suicide.". At worst they both die, cool. They “go down in flames together”. It’s actually much, much more meaningful than that.

The specific word that Killua uses for double suicide is "心中" (shinjuu), which is a heavily romantically connotated word in japanese. Shinjuu, also translated as "lovers’ suicide", is when two people die out of love, by the same method, because there's a belief that this'll allow those two people to spend eternity together. Shinjuu is a major theme of Japanese literature, and it is always used romantically. It's a very uncommon word to use to refer to two people dying together, because of its heavy romantic connotation, and because it always refers to double suicide committed by people bound by love. In literature, it always refers to two lovers, in love. If you want to read more on shinjuu, i suggest this and this, those articles explain its historic roots and the definition, also emphasizing the feeling of "oneness" that characterizes shinjuu. If you’re interested, I also suggest reading the japanese article that defines shinjuu, and hitting the google translate button, it has some pretty interesting sentences like “Shinjuu is traditionally committed by men and women out of mutual love, in the hope that they will be connected in the afterlife because they can't be together in this world.”

So basically, what Killua is saying is that he wants to go back to Gon's side to die with him, committing a "lovers’ suicide" because he doesn't want to leave Gon to die alone, and wants to die with him.

I also want to emphasize how special this word is to Killua, and that he and everyone around him know the special meaning of this word - In chapter 300, Ikalgo literally says "We were... No, KILLUA was ready to commit shinjuu with Gon". Ikalgo is really highlighting the fact that this word holds special meaning, especially to Killua, and that it was HIM who was willing to commit shinjuu by staying with Gon. Ikalgo and company dying with Gon wouldn't be shinjuu, but Killua dying with Gon would be, and Togashi emphasizes this through Ikalgo's thoughts.

This is pretty much the gist of it, but I suggest reading the wonderful post I linked in the references below if you want to know more about this specific subtext.

(edit : i actually wrote a post going a bit more into detail on Killua’s shinjuu wish if you want to read it here ! :3)

• “The one that Gon needs the most is you” (chapter 294)

I will go into this subtext more in details when I write the post about parallels in CAA, but I still want to talk about it briefly here.

Like I said before, to me, Palm was introduced as a catalyst for Killua's feelings towards Gon. Togashi purposefully wrote Palm as having romantic feelings for Gon to foil Killua's feelings for Gon and make him show jealousy towards Palm. 

To Killua, Palm is someone who stole Gon from him, he sees her as a threat because maybe she'll make Gon happier than he does ? (ofc we all know thats not true but Killua is baby) - Basically, Killua thinks Palm might be more important to Gon than Killua is, because he believes they are romantically involved. That's why when he sees her again later on, after Gon rejected his help, leaving Killua helpess as to how to save his dear friend, Killua sees Palm as a saving grace. 

He knows that if Gon sees Palm as a chimera ant, he will spiral down even more, so he tries to reason with her to get her to be gentle to Gon, because if not her, then who could? Palm would clearly be able to comfort Gon, with whom Killua believes is romantically involved with, better than him, right ? If Gon rejected Killua, then clearly Palm could help, since she seems closer to Gon (BECAUSE HE BELIEVES THEYRE DATING), right? 

This confrontation between Palm and Killua closely ressembles a situation like an ex confronting a new girlfriend - and I think this is exactly why Togashi wrote Palm this way. He wanted Killua to confront who he thought was a threat to their relationship, making him believe that this person who's """"dating"""” Gon is more important to him than himself, only to have her openly admit that she means nothing to Gon. The only one Gon needs is Killua.

And that, my friends, coming from someone you believe is romantically involved with your best friend (who you probably have a crush on), someone you're jealous of, the one you thought was the person most important to him, that's a pretty meaningful statement. 

Basically, what's happening, is that Palm reaffirms that Gon holds Killua closer than a potential romantic partner. And that's why Killua is so, so happy to hear that. He was questioning his entire relationship, questioning if Gon even cared about him, because he rejected him a few minutes before, but then his "rival" comes in and reaffirms that even she knows that no one comes close to Killua to Gon.

I also want to mention that this act of pure love (Killua only thinking of saving Gon when in a life threatening situation) is what made Palm come back to her human senses. d'awwwwww

• Illumi and Hisoka’s parallel on lovers who die of Alluka’s requests. (chapter 323)

Now onto the final significant subtext - while I don't particularly think of it as subtext-y, I know a lot of people have so I still want to include it here.

When Illumi explains Alluka's powers to Hisoka, he explains that there are two different types of linked deaths when a request is failed : 1) the person who failed + the person they love the most 2) the person who failed + the people they spent most of their time with. 

When applied to Killua, Hisoka naturally comes to the conclusion that no matter the outcome, Gon would always be the one dying with Killua, because he's spent so much time with him, and because he's the one that Killua loves the most. In the panel where Illumi explains this, we see a romantic, heterosexual couple  demonstrating the effects of not completing one of Alluka's requests, and thus the "most important person dying". 

While not making any true parallels, the fact that Hisoka, and the readers, are drawn to compare a heterosexual, romantic pairing to Killua dying with Gon because he's his "most important person" is an interesting piece of subtext.

_______

I want to finish by talking about Killua's birthday and how significant it is in my opinion. All the main 4 characters have birthdays that fall on specific dates, related to Japanese tradition, and often with events that can be associated to their character. Gon's is 5/5, which is Children's Day. Kurapika's is 4/4, the number 4 being considered an unlucky number, and this being an unlucky day to have a child. Leorio's is 3/3, Hinamatsuri (not really any main parallels here but still). But Killua's birthday is 7/7, and is the Japanese day to celebrate Tanabata. 

If you are not familiar with Tanabata, the story is as follows : Orihime is a princess who works for her father, working hard and well, but she laments the fact that because of her hard work she can't meet someone and fall in love. Her father arranges for her to meet Hikoboshi, allowing Orihime to leave because he expects her to come back to work for him, but the two immediately fall in love and get married, and she never returns. I won't get into the rest of the story as it's this part that interests me the most, but if you want to read more about Killua and Tanabata I suggest reading the post I referenced below.

Does the story of Orihime remind you of anyone ? Killua also works for his father, but laments the fact that he can't go outside and meet someone. His father then lets him go, saying, and i quote: "he will come back, because he's my son". Doesn't this remind you of the tale of Tanabata ? Killua's story references the tale of Orihime perfectly, and I believe this is intentional : Killua's birthday isn't of any importance to the plot, so why make it Tanabata, a day that celebrates a love story that closely ressembles Killua's story ? The answer is simple : subtext.

With all this in mind, I think it's pretty clear that Togashi is writing intentional subtext to hint at Killua's feelings being romantic in nature. Togashi is a master writer, he has years of experience, and I strongly believe he knows what he's doing and not planting unintentional subtext. He's a very smart man, and knows how all of this can be interpreted.

I will finish by saying that Togashi is NOT an author that would deliberately queerbait his readers. So many people dismiss the possibility of having gay subtext leading onto an actual canon gay relationship because "it's not like the author would ever have gay main characters". While this holds true for a lot of manga authors, especially shonen manga authors, it does NOT apply to Togashi. 

Togashi has always displayed interest in queer subjects and queer representation, putting trans characters in all of his major works (Miyuki in YYH, Mikihisa in Level E and Alluka in HxH). There were also canonically gay characters in his previous works : Itsuki in YYH, and a character named Kuramoto in Level E. 

Togashi also always had interest in mangas having BL elements, citing Maya Mineo's "Patalliro!" as a manga he was attracted to during High School. If you're unfamiliar with Patalliro, the story focuses on the main character's love life as a gay man.  He also admitted to basing Hiei's (YYH) design off a character from that manga. 

Last but not least, Togashi mentioned in a note included in volume 1 of YYH that he wanted to write a sports manga, called The Trouble Quartet, where basically all the characters are gay. Togashi said he based it off his own interests as a writer, and that while it was refused by Shonen Jump, he got deeply attached to the project and that he would love to explore this project in a different shape once he made a name for himself. I suggest reading this post because the parallels between The Trouble Quartet and HxH are HILARIOUSLY accurate.

In short, Togashi has always had interest in queer matters, and was always interested in putting queer representation in his work. After YYH, which was a terrible experience for Togashi as a writer, he managed to snatch a contract that basically allows him to do whatever he wants with HxH. Having always held dear BL matters but never being able to explore it to his full intent, I believe Togashi is exploring queer identity further with HxH, because Shonen Jump basically lets him do anything.

To conclude, with Togashi's past experience and skill, his interest in queer representation, and the amount of subtext surrounding Killua, I honestly believe that Togashi is trying to explore further queer representation, and I wouldn't be surprised if HxH ends with Gon and Killua becoming a canon pairing, whether it be delivered in an ambiguous manner or not. 

Edit : I actually wrote a post on why I believe it won’t be ambiguous, and that it’s truly never been ambiguous, just developing : here.

I hope you enjoyed the read, thank you for reading all of this, and feel free to show this to anyone who denies subtext in HxH !

REFERENCES

- "It has to be Killua" - Medium article, "Impossibilities in Translating Queerness : The Dodgeball Dilemma" 

- Palm's Date Scene - Reddit post, "Togashi's love of Ambiguity: Chapters 217 and 218" 

-A thematic analysis of Palm’s character : ”The Issue With Palm”

- Shinjuu - Tumblr post by hunterxhell, "A lovers' suicide, I guess." :  + the post that mentions Ikalgo talking about shinjuu 

- An analysis on different subtext-y situations

- Illumi and Hisoka’s parallel : here and here 

- Killua’s birthday : "Killua, July 7th, and the significance of his birthdate”

- Togashi's interview mentioning Mineo's Patalliro 

[ourmondobongo]

Hello! I'm new on tumblr :) I found your blog and came to love your interpretation on Levi's character ❤

I've recently come to notice that aside from many eruri shippers, there's also a vast majority of the fandom consider Levi as an obsessed revenge-seeker who doesn't give a flying crap about humanity in the final battle. I personally disagree with this idea and can't even bear the thought. Levi only proved to us in the final battle how much he cares. He was ready basically ready to put himself in danger anytime and almost forgot about the promise. But anyway the reason I'm here is because a few people and I were discussing this issue with a guy who keeps saying:

"1) He was just happened to be there in the final battle. He was there for Zeke and he made it clear in 126 that his intention is killing the beast titan to Magath and Pieck. No Zeke. No care"

"2) On the plane all he was thinking about was killing the monkey and it's not because it was Hanji's theory. He just wanted to kill tbe beast"

"3) Before getting onto the plane he didn't participate in battle but once he knew they were getting close to Eren's whereabouts, where Zeke probably was, he took part and don't tell me it was because he was recovering in those days while Hange and the other were fighting the Jaegerists. If we were to consider that then he needed rest till the very end of the series. He didn't need to take part in the battle"

"4) While flying on Falco he kept saying "Where is he? Where is the beast? And kept remembering Erwin's orders. Doesn't that sound like a simp to you?"

I'm sorry this turned out long but these horrible things are only parts of what he said. We tried arguing with him but well sometimes it's really hard to make someone understand lol What do you think about each of these 4 takes? I would love to read your thoughts and analysis. You sound like a very logical person.

Hello!!! 

Welcome to Tumblr!!!

Thank you for the kind words! I love Levi a lot!

And though I'm nowhere near as in depth or accurate as other snk metas writers who long live here, I try my best to at least one or two points here and there as best as I can!

Before we begin exploring your points, excuse me for a sec while I share a bit of a concern I have���

You know, I feel like these last volumes of snk had a strange pacing, which compromised the depiction of facts and how the characters were living the events. Because while many things are getting clear now, almost one year later, the fact that there were an incredibly lot of faithful and sincere readers feeling way off or confused about the end of snk isn't normal, imo. Veteran people here on Tumblr - who used to write very in depth analysis of snk! - were so disappointed they dropped out of the fandom, or wrote frustrating rants. I can’t help but feel like there is a communication gap begging to be fixed and crossed between Isym, the manga, and the readers (at least the non-Japanese ones?).

And besides the seemingly need for a less rushed pacing, be it for the lack of more accurate manga translations, or side material officially published (such the smartpasses and other guidebooks), or snk interviews published in a official place to be referenced easily, or WIT's badass-biased portrait of characters - there seems to be a little gap between what Yams had been trying to say and what was written and shown in the manga, imo. Not to mention all the wild push-and-pull between ships, yeagerist x alliance, "the ML is always right" x "the ML is a complete maniac incel", and whatevers...

So I think this is why the anime now seems to be adapting the chapters slower, more detailed, orderly in timeline, and kinda heavy, brutal, and more humanistic. Though at first I didn't want to see a snk movie for the end, I'm somewhat starting to like the idea - if this is for the anime to fill up and smooth out the convoluted transitions between what Isym managed to present in the manga and what he wanted to do but couldn't on the paper for whatever reason. I think it will be good for the general audience who will still stick to the conclusion!

Now, let's go to the points you brought up!!

"1) He was just happened to be there in the final battle. He was there for Zeke and he made it clear in 126 that his intention is killing the beast titan to Magath and Pieck. No Zeke. No care"

Sometimes I feel like the fandom kinda forgets that EMA are the MCs of snk. I've forgotten sometimes that as well ngl  

Levi certainly grew to become the most beloved and why not to say most important character of snk alongside Eren. But still, the main plot was not his history to resolve the final problems himself. The "hierarchy" is Eren-Mikasa-Armin, and then Levi. Or even, Levi's story was paralleled with Eren's. 

Regardless of this, most of the time I feel like people who claim Levi was just by chance/alive in the final battle are mostly arguing based on "death plot armor" and "Levi was nerfed so Mikasa could shine" ideas. And tbh, it kinda bothers me when I read people saying "Isym nerfed Levi because he was too OP and would have killed Zeke and Eren in a blink" and other typical shounen sayings because I don't think it was the case at all. 

While it's kinda controversial that Levi could fight on such horrible conditions considering that in the Female Arc he was put out of commission due to his injured feet, they were facing the end of the world now, and with barely anyone left to join the fight. But since my own view is but my own on the matter, I like to reference people to this interview here, in which pretty much Isym explains Levi wouldn't always be placed on the front lines by being too powerful. But rather than simply "nerf" him, this actually adds depth to Levi's character (as well to all other characters who had to put themselves together and face the danger). Levi's worried face and clenched fist in chapter 33 tells us how hard it was for him to stand by and only watch people having to fight while he can't...

...But this nuance is mostly lost because anime people usually pick the manga to read from where the anime season ended, and Thank you WIT for bringing Levi out of nowhere and making him save everyone's asses in the anime for the sake of fanservice - it helped to unnecessarily OP his character a lot!! (*sighs*)

(As a side note about Levi's injuries after 115, the drawings of Levi's chest and abs on 126, there weren't broken ribs or any other visibly serious injury, nor major problems aside from his face. I believe Hanji would have wrapped his abs with something to show it, or Yams would have made it bleed or purple or whatever. Levi definitely should have purple bruises since he fell hard on the ground, tho, but please MAPPA do NOT cover Levi's sexy back LOL)

And talking about chapter 126 - imo, it falls in the list of chapters that definitely should have been split into two different chapters. It feels kinda rushed, too much info packed into 45 pages, borderline cringe in some parts. Maybe it's why the aot leaks say the anime will have a whole episode dedicated just for it - they might flesh out the content to make the plot flow more smoothly.

But regarding Levi and Hanji’s talk with Magath and Pieck, something everyone should consider is that MagaPi didn't know LeviHan at all - just that they were highly capable soldiers and leaders of the Survey Corps. They were "sworn enemies", the ones who put into shame ALL their precious Titan Shifters. And as far as MagaPi knew, LeviHan were supposed to be cunning and merciless, vengeful "Island Devils" that had invaded Liberio and wreaked havoc, and killed military and civilians just a month ago; they had been secretly working with Zeke all the time.

So why would MagaPi believe our devoted hearts would want to save their deadly, hate-filled persecutors? And also after all the tragedies Marley itself had imposed on them? 

As humans and soldiers that had all the reasons to distrust one another, LeviHan presumably understood that MagaPi needed some solid goal or purpose besides the "we want to save the same people that want to kill us all!!!". If even readers mocked this idea, and Isym also kinda ironizes this in the "Avengers Pose" at the end of 126 as well as using Yelena to make critics over the superficiality/naivety of the thought of saving the world in 127, what makes anyone think this would simply work with LeviHan and MagaPi right of the bat? 

That's why they use Zeke as a credible link to instigate the start of a conversation.

I presume MagaPi were well aware of Levi and Zeke’s animosity. They might have deduced that Levi’s hurt predicament was due to a fight with Zeke too. I would like to point out, tho, that while Levi proposes the idea, Isym does a close up on Hanji, Magath, and Pieck's faces. Hanji's eye is hidden (meaning it's not simply this killing intention they had in mind), and Magath isn't buying it just yet too, and above all Pieck once again dislikes the idea of killing Zeke, just like in 119.

Their main interest definitely isn't aligned as of yet. But it was the best first step they could try out.

Thus, "No Zeke, no care" is but a heavily blindly obsessive-revenge interpretation of Levi's character. Thank you Kodansha for officially translating Hanji's words of vexing feelings as a need for revenge too 🙃 Levi's character was benefited by it (*sighs*).

As for Levi’s general feelings and thoughts in the final battle, I think chapter 136 couldn't be more explicit than that!

Levi is literally dropping his burden goal of killing Zeke because he is too injured to fight him (and it would bring more dangers to his kids if he died meaninglessly), 

and Levi is shoving up and scrubbing into our faces that the world he himself and the others hoped for when they decided to fight in the SC wasn't to destroy others (but thanks again, KodanshaTM, for changing WE DREAMT to YOU DREAMT 🙃👌), 

and when gripping his sword, Levi is showing he is renewing his will to not give up his dream and die succumb to the pressure of the horrors of the moment, and that he is gonna fight until his dying breath now - whether Zeke appears or not - while entrusting the future to the youth who held the same look of hopeful freedom he saw at the Heart of the SC. 

But, ofc, there comes Erwin's name after this all, and Levi expressing no regrets about having let him die, and near the eyes' sentence; and as the first KodanshaTM "you" wasn't translated as plural you, Levi's heartbreaking and multilayered monologue is read as him being a one-dimensional-soon-to-be-dead-vengeful-impaired-simp nerfed by Isym and that just wanted to fulfill a promise "to kill monkeyTM". 

At this point, I can only hope the animation can somehow save Levi's character now. Or maybe, Isym himself may give an interview which clarifies this all with his own words so people can settle this matter once and for all. I wonder what Japanese readers think of this whole crazy ordeal...

Lastly, Super-peace-fangirl has shown perfectly panel by panel how much Levi cared about snk final events especially on chapter 138, after Zeke's death. If Levi isn't clearly showing AGAIN that he is saving and caring and battling for humanity, I don't know what his character is doing anymore!!

"2) On the plane all he was thinking about was killing the monkey and it's not because it was Hanji's theory. He just wanted to kill the beast"

Being a bit bitter, I'm not even shocked over Hanji erasure here. 

Hanji’s treatment in this ending was… rushed and kinda unfair. And it doesn't help that Yams drew Hanji mentioning the Zeke hypothesis back in chapter 126, in a minuscule panel during a supposedly important conversation that made enemies worked together but that only lasted for 02 pages (*sighs*). 

Still, at least two key points are being forgotten when people argue that Levi is but "obsessively hunting down his prey" in chapter 133 and so on:   

The Characters don't have ORVP 

We, readers, have the omniscient reader viewpoint. The characters don't. So we readers might know whatever is going on inside the Founder and the extension of Zeke’s relationship with its power, but Levi and the others didn't know.

And when we read the scenes projecting our awareness upon the text and the characters actions, then we slip down on the problem of "Oh, this is so obvious!". Which ends up with us proceeding to read events and statements as a "broken record", which I feel that happens with Levi regarding Zeke (and the vow too). 

Hanji is the Biggest Titan Specialist of snk World 

Levi is one of the most sincere narrators of snk, even if sometimes he needs a translator.  

If he himself said "I'm not certain, but that was what Hanji predicted", then Levi (Professional Titan Killer, and not ORVP/reader/Yams) might not be 100% sure that killing Zeke will stop the Rumbling, but since Hanji (the Biggest Titan Specialist of their world, as even hinted by Pieck on 126) predicted as much, Levi was betting on it. To him, following Hanji's experience and knowledge of 10 years regarding Titan studies, killing Zeke has a great chance to stop it all. And if it spares Eren's life, then it's something even better. So Levi is not using lame excuses, or blind vengeful reasons, to go after Zeke. This, or Yams is fucking kidding with Hanji’s character. I can’t believe he would go so low as use this crap with Levi of all characters.

And I also want to highlight that no one else there but Armin and Levi could have thought of that idea. But it's quite logical Armin wouldn't be used in this because his dilemma over killing Eren had to last longer. At the same time, imo, this is Isym also showing that Levi was reluctant on killing Eren as much as everyone else. We can see it from 112, then his behavior in 133 in Paths, and then until chapter 137/138. Things are not simply one-dimensional-in their interpretation in AOT.

Another note, I want to highlight how broken Levi looks when mentioning that it was Hanji's idea, and then how he asks for everyone's cooperation and help later. If revenge is the 1st and only thing that comes into one's mind when seeing these panels - and not Levi heavily struggling to keep focused physically, mentally, and emotionally in the battle ahead because he is deeply injured, and has just become the last veteran, the last one carrying all the weight of thousands of devoted hearts on his back alone, and millions of people are dying because Eren and Zeke meet, and Levi just wants all that slaughter and pain and suffering to end - then...

I.don't.know. 

Levi's character is already a "I will kill monkey" meme by now. Curse it all lol

"3) Before getting onto the plane he didn't participate in battle but once he knew they were getting close to Eren's whereabouts, where Zeke probably was, he took part and don't tell me it was because he was recovering in those days while Hange and the other were fighting the Jaegerists. If we were to consider that then he needed rest till the very end of the series. He didn't need to take part in the battle"

They themselves answer their arguments while overlooking the obvious facts lol Way to purposely find reasons to shit on Levi's character. They must hate Levi for nothing lol

Well, in chapter 128-129, it has been 2 days since Levi nearly died in a thunderspear explosion. While us readers had to wait 10 - 12 months to read the chapters, to the characters it was 2 days! Levi is totally wrecked at that time, which is made even clearer at the beginning of chapter 132. And while Levi's bad hair moment is cute in chapter 127, it is also a little reminder that for a man who usually slept only 3-4 hours per day to be asking people to shut up after he had been sleeping for almost two entire days… well, Levi is definitely wrecked.

And, again, just like on chapter 33 moment, Levi is worriedly watching Hanji, his kids, Titan Shifters, and his former SC subordinates (because as SC Captain, Levi was still on top of the Survey Corps) all fight to death while he is powerless to do a thing - powerless to protect everyone. I dare anyone to look at Levi's body language here, and say he didn't want to be capable of fighting! 

And as if not enough, Yelena also goes and rubs salt on his psychological wounds saying Humanity can't be separated from violence. Levi is being crushed from all sides just in 2 days of having to kill his 30 titanized soldiers + nearly have died + now this, and with millions of people dying meaninglessly under Colossal Titan feet because of Eren!! 

Oh, Levi definitely needed to rest until the end of the story - to be wrapped on warm blankets, cradled to sleep, with someone softly combing his hair, and calmly whispering to him that the fight was over, and that everyone was okay and safe, and that they're finally free so he could sleep how much he wanted!! But Isym said, "No, sweetie! The Titanpocalypse is here, and you better pull yourself together, and get your nearly-kissed-by-Death body into that goddamn hell after rising from the dead in three days, and save everyone's asses - making parallels with the One with whom you share your birthday date!"

He can't even mourn Hanji's death in peace either

"4) While flying on Falco he kept saying "Where is he? Where is the beast? And kept remembering Erwin's orders. Doesn't that sound like a simp to you?" 

That's what we get when the only remaining adult who is not actively engaged on the physical battle to rescue Armin is trying to do something useful despite being nearly incapacitated on a Flying Titan's back (*sighs*).

I don't blame anyone for thinking whatever they think Levi looks like in this part though. This is the moment Levi has to reflect about his and the SC's role, and this also has to do with his matter regarding Zeke and Erwin and the vow indeed.

Levi believed in Hanji's theory that the Rumbling - which was about to crush the rest of humanity right under Levi's sight - was going to stop once Zeke was killed, but I definitely can see from where it comes the "Levi is obsessed with killing Zeke for Erwin's order from 4 years ago". The drawing and Levi's words are all in front of our eyes. Moreover, it's to Erwin (person) that Levi makes the vow to, and in a position where he is clearly set as a Knight making an oath to his King. And at the same time it's interesting that Levi remembers Erwin tired, the lights of his eyes dead, and when he looks up at him, Erwin isn't free as Levi remembered when he saved Armin during serum bowl. If anything, it's the first time Levi feels like he has failed his duty, disappointed his Commander, and imagines a dead person expecting something from him.

But the more I reread Levi's chapters (80, 81, 112, and 136), the more I feel like Levi's take towards the vow is multilayered. Killing Zeke has been one of the focus of Levi's narrative since chapter 75, where Erwin says he just trusts Levi to kill the Beast, and this got to another level along the years/story/chapters, especially after chapters 80-81, 112, 113. And, boy, Levi's devotion to fulfill a promise to the dead was his ultimate shackle - the biggest curse of his life, in a way.

But just like everything else Yams does when dealing with human nature, I don't think the vow can be solely understood as a plain "I'll kill the Beast Titan". It’s part of it, but not it all? Or maybe it's just me struggling to comprehend how Levi succumbed to the danger of being drunk on something that Kenny had warned him in his dying bed. Levi hellbent on fulfilling Erwin's last order as his duty (as he addresses the topic on 136) makes absolutely more sense to me than just revenge.

Still, at the very end, as strong as Levi's unwavering will to give meaning to all SC deaths, he helped humanity have a chance of survive at all because it was the right thing to do. I particularly feel like it is a reduction of Levi whenever he is frequently marked as a man who fulfilled a promise to his Commander rather than also praising ALL aspects that encompasses it. Levi's devotion to his duty, his sense of responsibility, his inhuman willpower to keep fighting even after nearly losing everything is incomparable. And this belongs to Levi's character in such a broader way. That's why he is Humanity’s Strongest after all!!

Another point people forget is that killing Zeke doesn't give meaning to the SC devoted hearts. It might have helped stop the Rumbling, but that's not enough - never was, and never would be worth their sacrifices. Levi also makes it very clearly in 139. The Titans are gone, the nightmare is over, humanity is free and not all doomed to die eaten alive or stomped powerless = "I guess this is the result of all of your devoted hearts". At most, killing Zeke is Levi finally breaking free from a curse that lasted way too long, and Levi held no personal triumphant satisfaction with it - just the damned realization this shit was finally over, forever.

Another poignant matter is that it was thanks to Erwin and the recruits' sacrifices that Paradis could learn about the truth of the World - the most crucial matter at stake at that moment. And the RtS victory allowed for the Island to be freed of the horror of the Titans. Yet, Levi rejects this huge fact as enough to be worth the devoted hearts. I can’t imagine how getting Zeke’s head alone would ever be comparable, or superior, to all that the SC had accomplished until they got the brats to the sea. Unless, ofc, Levi's narrative is really supposed to be the "Revenge-Avenge" Tragic Hero...

Then, if considering this idea is a part of him, it's interesting to remember too that Levi knows Zeke killed Mike, Nanaba, and the Ragako Village; and that Levi chose to send around a hundred people to their death in the Beast's hand so that Humanity inside the Walls could survive; and that the massacre on Marley was orchestrated by Zeke mostly (bc Eren doesn't have the brains for it), and that Zeke titanized Levi's soldiers in the forest... Then it makes sense Levi also had assumed to be his role to guarantee Zeke wouldn't get out of this all in impunity for all the deaths he had committed. But there is still a difference between revenge, punishment, and retributive justice.

Levi knows, though, what Grisha did to Zeke, and he had a brief idea what Zeke lived in Marley, and must have imagined how Zeke was used as Beast Titan for years in Marley wars, and what Zeke ultimately wanted to do when Yelena asked Hanji and everyone to admit Zeke’s plan was better. I really wanted to see what happened in chapter 132, when Levi reflects about Yelena's words, and hearing Hanji blaming herself/taking responsibility for Eren's downfall, and saying she was powerless. But thank you, Yams, for leave me hanging on this too 🙃

Anyway, in chapter 136, Levi has a lot to cover of his and SC's narratives in the brief 03-04 pages he is given. And imo, it goes as the one chapter I wanted Yams himself talking about just for the sake of full understanding. But we're probably never getting it, so at this point, everyone will take Levi's words and actions however they want - from reduced to a simp who just fought to kill monkey to get revenge from the man Levi himself chose to let die (and *cough* had no regrets about it *cough*) up to Humanity’s Strongest soul and last bearer of the Wings of Freedom, with a unmatched devoted heart.

However, blessed be the new OP!! I think the nihilism and despair and desperation and tears are setting even more clear the state of the last events of snk. Scratch the stupid ass shipper interpretation of that moment, and focus on Levi's journey with SC's devoted hearts in a world bathed on blood, death, and meaninglessness. Hopefully, it and the animation will help dissipate the mist over Levi's character too.

Yes, it's raining tears

[transhawks]

So I try avoiding Twitter comments because the fandom their is 😬 when it comes to takes. However, I’m just peeping to see the reaction of the ep, and some people like “missing Spinner’s speech is fine because people don’t care about him anyway.” “No one even cares about Spinner, why are they making a bug deal?”

I swear, I want to bang my head into a wall. Just because he isn’t popular doesn’t mean he’s liked? And they took a lot out of manga already, ridding of their interaction in the little abandoned house. I used to live the anime since I watched it first before manga, but it’s getting frustrating along with the a majority of the fans :/

Honestly, I feel like making a 'defense of the importance of spinner' meta now, but I'm also in a zine devoted to him and making meta so that's just going to be what I make for them, I guess, because it's so frustrating that people don't get that the League are genuinely important characters? Compared to other side villains, the League are there to provide parallels and deepen the narrative of why someone becomes a villain. I'll give you the cliff notes.

Without Spinner's comments, small moments like Shouto calling the cop a dog, the way Shinsou called Ojiro a monkey, the big fox lady being forced out seen as a villain, or the fact that Nagant was taking out groups that seemed to made out of mutants don't have context. Spinner, therefore, is an exposition fairy for concepts like mutant discrimination. An exposition fairy tells us something about the story.

Actually, a lot of the 'side' League tends to play this role at times. Twice did in the first chapter we got a spotlight on him, describing what society had turned into Kamino (also explained why Endeavor wasn't trusted as much). Spinner, by being relatively 'normal' compared to everyone, was the best person to really explain to us how the League was changing - because he had no set purpose or ideology at that point. It's not like Toga, wishing to live and love freely, or Twice, at that point incredibly tied to the League due to his need for acceptance and guilt over Magne. Compress and Dabi have their own agendas. Spinner was /lost/, and thus the best person in MVA to explain things.

And, again, this is short-sighted. One can 'ignore' Compress, but his sacrifice allowed the League to get away. Spinner's devotion towards Tomura might have set the course for AFO to take over fully, but we're not sure what he might do next. He's been consistently the one trying to keep the League together since the beginning of the Raid arc. We have lots of panels foreshadowing his discomfort with AFO and his strong feelings of friendship with Tomura.

Do lay readers genuinely not realize this might go anywhere? When we are missing whole chunks of context - HECK THE CRC MANSION EVEN RETURNED 80 CHAPTERS LATER - how does stuff later down in the timeline make sense? Do they just assume Spinner won't play any role in the future that knowing his backstory and thoughts won't help?

I know it's not just Spinner. There was important things for each character, interactions that were meaningful. But selling Spinner short is indicative of an issue of not understanding they're reading a work in progress, and that there's moving parts. I'm not saying Horikoshi is a genius writer, and I've been vocal about shoddier writing on his part, but the idea he made Spinner to throw him away when we have gotten so much content is bizarre. Spinner has more development than a large majority of the children in this manga, and it's just so strange to see this sort of shallowness. Is it because he's less conventionally attractive? I didn't even like Spinner until MVA, and that's the really sad thing here - one of the things that changed my mind on him (and likely could change other people as well) is now just...gone.

[itsclydebitches]

I kinda wonder, what could bakugou do (hori write bakugou to do) to make him less popular with the "anti" crowd. Like He was a horrid child no doubt and people who try to put blame on Deku or lessen the terrible shit bakugou did aren't great. But as we don't rly see it, we have to assume bakugous behaviour wasn't stopped, we only ever saw his mum "punishing" him when he was being rude after getting kiddnapped. Nothing will excuse what bakugou did, but he has stopped? He's overall a harsh person but he's not harrassing and bullying people anymore, specifically not deku, he's trying to attone for what he did to deku and has now apologised for it. His behaviour was never viewed as justified or good in the series, he's a scary figure in middle school, we're not meant to like his behaviour, so the series itself hasn't justified his actions.

As someone who relate to both bakugou and deku more than I'd like to admit (never told someone to jump tho, that's fucked lol) so I can 100% understand not liking or even hating bakugou but as someone who's not 15 anymore, looking back I also made a lot of really shitty decisions and like bakugou have tried to make up for it, and like deku I was 'friends' with people who hurt me.

Is there anything he can do for the "antis" to just dislike him rather that be "anti"?

(I'm very sorry if you've talked about this somewhere, you can just tell me to look for it if you have, I'll continue to look for your posts on the subject)

Hey there, anon! I think I’ve spoken about this only tangentially and/or in my main Bakugo meta, which is too big for anyone sane to read. So yeah, let’s chat here!

For me personally—and that’s all I can ever do: speak personally. I think it’s important to keep in mind that there is no single solution to please the “anti” crowd. Each fan will be looking for something slightly different in Bakugo’s character, much of which might contradict what a “stan” is currently enjoying. Given how charged a character he is, I'm not sure it's possible to get the entire fandom to like him—what I’m looking for hinges on having a different reading of the story than you seem to. Meaning, I think the series does justify his behavior. Not in any overt, super obvious way like having all the characters go, “Wow, Bakugo! I sure do love how you threaten people all the time. That’s super cool and heroic!” Things are rarely that straightforward. Rather, it’s in a more subtle, but consistent manner that paints a rather conclusive picture across hundreds of chapters.

Simply put, Bakugo is continually rewarded for his actions. Or, if not outright rewarded, his actions are ignored in a way that implies silent acceptance. Characters may not always like what he does... but they're willing to let it slide because Bakugo's heroism was always treated as a given, not something he had to earn and prove.

With the ever necessary disclaimer that I’m not fully caught up yet, here’s a list of some of the things that stood out to me in the first half of the series:

Bakugo’s bullying made him the most popular kid in school.

Bakugo’s bullying was ignored by/outright supported by the teachers.

Bakugo’s bullying did not hinder him from getting into U.A., one of the most prestigious hero schools around.

Despite acting horribly throughout his time at U.A. too, this behavior was continually ignored by the teachers and other authority figures around him.

Bakugo’s struggle to realize that other people aren’t “trash” doesn’t hurt his achievements in any way. He still gets top scores, still wins the tournament, etc.

Bakugo’s behavior gets him special attention from All Might, the greatest hero and Bakugo’s personal idol.

His behavior doesn’t make others dislike him in any manner that’s taken seriously. Everybody is still willing to not just put up with Bakugo, but—in time—start treating his behavior as a quirk (no pun intended lol) that they’re secretly fond of, rather than something he should legitimately be striving to change. Kirishima is the most overt example of this.

This is compounded by his behavior constantly being framed as humorous. Much like with Mineta’s perverted actions, characters might superficially go, “No, that’s bad!” but the story never demands any significant development because then we’d lose the “joke” of Bakugo screaming in rage at the slightest inconvenience, threatening to murder someone over nothing, constantly belittling everyone around him in a “funny” manner, etc. When fans talk about development of a manga character as archetypal and extreme as Bakugo, most don’t really want to see significant change to his base personality. Because then that would result in someone who doesn’t look like the “real” Bakugo: someone nicer, more even-tempered, more mature, etc. But for those of us who were never drawn to that personality in the first place, the continued acceptance of his rude, egotistical, and violent behavior is discomforting. The easiest comparison I can draw is between this and Bakugo’s mother slapping him. That slap is meant to be another “joke”—we see it constantly in shonen anime, something "humorous" you shouldn’t take too seriously because haha, it's just an overprotective mother—but many fans do take it seriously, using it as the basis for a whole “Bakugo was abused and this explains his behavior” reading. Well, I take the “joke” of Bakugo’s threats and insults seriously, especially in a story that starts with something like telling Izuku to jump off the roof. In the same way that many fans want others to treat Bakugo’s mother as a serious topic that has had a negative influence on his development, I want the series to take Bakugo’s everyday actions seriously as a negative influence on… well, everyone around him. But it doesn’t. His base personality is grudgingly adored.

The above two points are seen most overtly in Izuku, who never wavers in his respect for Bakugo despite how Bakugo treats him. Not just prior to U.A., but during their training too. Izuku, as the protagonist, is the emotional heart of this tale, so when he talks about how inspiring Bakugo is, it encourages the reader to see his behavior as inspiring too. Rather than, as said, something that needs to change. Izuku's continued friendship with Bakugo, his adoration of him, and his acceptance of the way he's treated has severely warped how the entire story sees Bakugo's actions. After all, if #pure Izuku can see the good in Bakugo, why can't everyone else? He must not be that bad after all.

I could get into detailed analyses of all the above—like how Bakugo was the one comforted after attacking Izuku outside the dorms at night and how the messed up relationship he has with Izuku is upheld as something to nurture; how the remedial courses he had to take were made to be rather silly, thereby undermining their supposed importance to his development; how Bakugo’s kidnapping had nothing to do with his flaws, but much of the fandom uses it as a way to dismiss any appropriate consequences because, “Hasn’t he suffered enough?” etc.—but in the interest of keeping this within a readable length, I’ll leave it at that. The point is that Bakugo has always been privileged when it comes to his behavior, resulting in others either outright praising it, ignoring it, or demanding that he change a miniscule bit, which always keeps him far below the standards of both his peers and the expectations of a hero. Everyone in 1-A must learn to be even better than the good people they already are... Bakugo needs to learn that other people aren't dirt at the bottom of his shoes. It's never been a particularly impressive development when pit against the rest of the class. All of which can make something like an apology feel pretty hollow. Yes, he’s apologized and I say with all seriousness that that’s great! But how does that apology stack up against 300+ chapters of content? As Bakugo’s words highlight, he's been a really awful person up "until now": he was consumed by Izuku being “miles ahead of [him],” he “looked down on [him]” because he didn’t have a quirk, he “didn’t want to recognize that,” he “hated that,” “grew distant,” “tried to beat you down,” “opposed you and tried to show my superiority over you,” and ends it all with, “it probably doesn’t mean anything telling you all this” before finally getting to the “I’m sorry.” This is basically a laundry list of how horrible a person Bakugo has been for the entire series, with an acknowledgement that this apology is coming really, really late. This is the moment where I could START to like Bakugo, depending on how he acts form here on out, but that pivotal moment arrived after six years of content and in the final arc of the story. It’s too late. Bakugo needed this kind of self-reflection and positive action 250+ chapters ago so he could (hopefully) grow into a better person across the story, not at the story's end. What we got instead is 322 chapters of him being a really horrible person, but the story going out of its way to excuse or even praise that behavior the majority of the time.

As a quick comparison to end on, I think what Bakugo needed was what Soo Jin got in True Beauty. You don’t need to have seen the drama to follow along. The tl;dr is that she has a lot of the core qualities of Bakugo: an all-consuming drive to win that was created due to abusive parents with high expectations, resulting in her bullying a peer to a pretty horrific extent. The difference between them is how the story frames their actions. When Soo Jin becomes the bully she loses everything. Rather than succeeding academically, her grades plummet, making it clear that this anxiety and self-doubt (things the fandom keeps insisting Bakugo is struggling with, but that rarely ever show up in the text) is actually impacting her day-to-day life. Her best friend drops her because she’s not going to support her choices. The boy she likes rejects her. She’s eventually forced to start over somewhere new - which importantly separates her from the girl she was bullying - and get some distance from her parents, resulting in the growth needed to become a healthier, happier, good person again. So when Soo Jin apologizes to the girl she hurt, it feels earned. The story continually recognized how horrific her actions were and put her into a place where she either had to change, or continue losing at everything else that was important to her. Bakugo? Bakugo doesn’t lose. Oh, he claims he does because he’s comparing himself to Izuku constantly, but that’s just him thinking in extremes. He still wins academically. Still wins many battles. Still wins at having friends. Still wins by maintaining the prestige of being a U.A. student. Still wins by getting All Might’s attention. Still wins by receiving Izuku’s respect and an agreement to maintain this rivalry that Bakugo is so obsessed with. Bakugo comes out well 99% of the time, he just thinks he's "lost" because he can't stand not being the absolute best.

For me, the story needed to have Bakugo face consequences for his behavior, not receive rewards and/or have others ignore it, and that revelation/apology needed to come way, way sooner. For me the issue is not a specific action that Horikoshi can have Bakugo do in the next chapter and them bam, I like him now. The problem is Bakugo’s entire concept, how he’s received by the entire cast, and his run across this entire series. "Entire" is the key word there. Which is why the “But he’s apologized. What more do you antis want?” reactions don’t sit well. What we wanted is a better written redemption arc across those 300+ chapters, not a single scene that’s meant to have us forget all the other problems inherent in the story. At this point it’s a far more complicated situation than, “Bakugo just needs to do X, Y, and Z and then we’re golden.” At the end of the day, Horikoshi failed to make me like him as a person and I’m pretty sure he isn’t going to change Bakugo enough to make him likable to me. Bakugo was never the sort of character I’d be inclined towards without a serious, nuanced redemption arc, but sadly, a core, crucial part of that redemption arc took six years to arrive. At this point there’s no way to change the problems in Bakugo’s writing for that huge chunk of the series and not enough time left in the series, it seems, to do the work we should have seen across the entire run. Honestly, idk if the Bakugo we'll get going forward is someone I can just dislike as opposed to being really uncomfortable with, but my money is on there being too little story left and too much investment in upholding Bakugo's base personality for that to happen. I could absolutely be proven wrong! But I think the problems are structural and needed to be better dealt with from page one, not hastily patched over in the final hour.

[beileil]

Increasingly Improbable Predictions on Time Travel

Let me preface this by saying that I am not the person to go to for OPM meta discussion. There are plenty of people on Tumblr that are far more talented in that regard. My strengths are fanfic and shitposts, and I’m way out of my wheelhouse here. I considered not posting this at all. But I have a lot of thoughts about Chapter 166, and I need to get this into writing, even if no one reads it and it’s only to keep me from going crazy. Manga spoilers below the cut, obviously. Also some Mob Psycho 100 spoilers that I tried to keep sort of vague? Ready? Let’s get stupid!

I have a prediction brewing and I don't know how I feel about it. I'm not alone in thinking that the latest chapter was much darker than usual, nor in finding the chapter 164 redraw jarring. I'm sure I'm not the first person to have this thought either: What if there are multiple timelines and we're being shown the darkest one? We've seen ONE do something similar with the Mogami arc in MP100, so we know he's good at making both his fans and his characters go through Some Shit, even if the events are an illusion or aren't permanent. (Also see: Mob going ??? in “Even Then ~Continue Forward~”, an otherwise lighthearted episode that ends with a cliffhanger so brutal that the first time I watched it, I gasped out loud, explained to my concerned spouse that my reaction was because I couldn’t believe the writer would actually go there, and had to stop watching for the night. Obviously, everything turned out to be a trick, but this moment stuck with me.)

ONE is a great story teller. He doesn’t need to kill anyone to make his audience feel pain, nor to leave his main characters with lasting trauma.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get to my stupid time travel theory, which I’m sure is also not very original.

Now surely (and this is the point you may roll your eyes, but stay with me, I promise I'm going somewhere with it) Blast or one of his crew has the ability to send someone back in time. Like seriously, the guy fights with portals and tried to send Garou to another dimension. Let’s say Blast & Co. can send exactly one person back in time. But maybe time travel takes an extreme toll on the person’s body to the point that normal people can’t survive the jump. Hm...do we know anyone who can withstand any amount of physical stress without getting hurt? Oh, I know! How about we send the guy who uses a magma pool as a hot tub!

Scenario #1 (the “immediate fix”): The Blast Crew can only send Saitama back in time by a few minutes. But it’s enough. Enough to stop Celestial Garou’s radioactive attack. Enough to save his disciple. This time, he doesn’t arrive too late. He arrives just in time, like a true hero should.

Scenario #2 (the least bullshit one): Saitama gets sent back just far enough to stop Garou from getting possessed by God (no ID), and instead of continuing their Fistfight to End the World, Saitama (who is the only one who remembers the Worst Timeline and is just so tired) asks Garou if he's done yet, offers to lend an ear…and the chapter ends with a panel of dragon!Garou sheepishly sitting seiza at a low table with Saitama in an abandoned house floating in the sea. It’s odd to me that the Murata would spend so much time on the original, very different version of Chapter 164, only for it to be scrapped three days later. Maybe this scene does happen…just in a different order than expected. In this scenario, nothing is wasted.

Scenario #3 (improbable, confusing, and meta af, but indulge me please): Saitama gets sent back to some point earlier that day. LET’S GET META for a hot second. I remember reading a discussion by @gofancyninjaworld a long time ago (sorry dude, I tried to find it on your blog but no luck) about how the manga is ultimately written for the people who read it in its final, published volume form. But here's an awful, fun thought: What if the redraws are ONE/Murata throwing an extremely meta bonus to the readers who read each update as it comes out? If there's time travel fuckery involved, it explains at least one of the redraws…or all of them if Saitama were to get sent back further than meeting Awakened Garou on the shoreline. I'm imagining something like the scrapped chapters actually being an alternate timeline where Phoenix Man doesn't become chickified, Do-S and Narinki's mercenaries are killed by Sweet Mask, Orochi is killed by a punch instead of a bathtime mishap, etc. Time travel could also create some fun deja vu moments, like Atomic Samurai telling Iaian "I swear I've told you about this before" about the Sun Blade. Maybe he really did!

Scenario #4 (for lulz only, everyone would rage quit the series if it happened): Saitama travels back in time to the meeting that Sitch calls with the S-class to warn them about Shibabawa’s prophecy. Saitama informs him that the prophecy is about Bang’s student going off the rails. The entire Monster Association arc is canceled. Saitama beats up everyone in the subterranean and takes their gold. Garou gets therapy and a job at Fedex.

Pros of time travel being used as a plot device:

Saitama saving the world and no one knowing about it would be very on point for the series.

Saitama retaining his memories ties in with my earlier point: ONE doesn’t need to kill anyone off permanently to leave his main character with lasting trauma. Even if Genos survives this, I guarantee Saitama will be having nightmares about holding his core in his hand for years to come.

Many fans found Saitama’s comment that he’d “rather destroy the world” out of character for him. The comment makes a lot more sense if he’s already seen the people he cares for…you know.

It makes no damn sense to set up future sub-plots (Garou becoming a hero, a fetch quest for a magic sword, etc.) if everyone is just going to die of radiation poisoning anyway. It’s wasted potential, and as much as I’m hurting, I have faith in ONE/Murata to not do that.

Cons of time travel being used as a plot device:

Let's face it. Time travel as a fix-it is kind of a cop out. The only time I've seen it done well is in Steins;gate. (Which is a brilliant show if you haven't seen it.)

The further back in time we go, the less character development everyone gets. The S-class never learns to work together. Fubuki never discovers her healing powers, or stands up to her sister. Waganma never stops being a brat. Sweet Mask never gets to beat a pep talk into Darkshine, and Zombieman never gets to admit that Sweet Mask isn’t as bad as he seems. The Bad Boys don’t get their team-up. Garou doesn’t get to (try to) tell God to fuck off.

We’ve already seen characters we thought were goners come back through the power of magic (looking at you, Tanktop Master), and if it happens too much, it's going to be difficult to truly experience suspense properly again. The stakes just won’t be there. Every time a character dies, it’ll be a case of the boy who cried wolf. (Or rather the boy who cried, "Can't we just have Fubuki/Blast fix it?")

So I’m conflicted. Would a time travel fix-it make you rage quit the series? Would it cheapen the trauma that everyone has been through, or could it be done well? Or can you not see this happening at all? I guess we’ll find out in two weeks.