#dwells whines about mha

[hero-dwelling]

Once again, writing something based on a quick skim of Reddit...

I was not convinced by the final chapter with regard to the middle school students having ideas to go into careers other than Pro Hero work--and that is supposed to be inspiring compared to Izuku and his classmates in Chapter 1 all wanting to be Pro Heroes.

It bothers me because enough other stories in this series--and yes, admittedly, some of these are not from the manga directly but from light novels, spinoff manga, and the films and OVAs--show that there are people who had zero interest ever going into Pro Hero work and were delighted to have found careers outside of Pro Hero work.

It just comes across as shoddy writing, that, oh, now suddenly because of La Brava and Dr. Yoshida there are students interested in computer programming and medicine.

It's not that I don't get how this is realistic: numerous people will point out they did not consider a career in some field until someone made them aware of it, whether a mentor, a relative, a teacher, a classmate, or, yes, someone who got famous for that work. (That's its whole other problem: "Oh, so now people want to get into computers and medicine because other people got famous for it, not for the work itself?")

I know people like David Shield and Melissa Shield getting into the sciences owed as much to how impressed they were by Pro Heroes like All Might. I know that the point of the first and last chapters is to serve as bookends to hammer home just how much has changed in this world. But it still is bothersome to me that the change is not a person's own passion for that work, just trading off one celebrity status for another.

And as I was trying to say earlier, it bothers me because we already made this point repeatedly in this series: there are numerous people who had zero interest ever becoming a Pro Hero and were happy to either use their Quirk for other work (albeit, again, still towards helping Pro Heroes: David Shield as All Might's tech support, Makoto as Captain Celebrity's PR) or just had a fulfilling career and passion outside of anything anywhere close to Pro Hero work (the theme park manager in Team-Up Missions, Rody wanting to become a pilot). It just is a hollow detail pretending to be deep--of course there were always people who were inspired to pursue their passions into a career that had nothing to do with Pro Hero work, how else would a society have people doing other jobs that they actually enjoyed?

"I was not interested in going into art, or science, or medicine, or sales because Pro Heroes were so popular--but now that society has changed that assessment, I'm now super into the thing I already was passionate about!" That'd be like if in our real world we said, "I am really excited about talking about literature, but rather than going into teaching, because there are movie stars, I'm just going to have to be satisfied only pursuing a career in acting!" It's not that this isn't realistic or even believable; it's just missing a ton of steps, including that someone may just not have the talent or the passion for acting but have both for literature.

I know this reverses so much of Izuku's story--that a hero can come in any shape or form--but it also ignores that, yeah, some people are not cut out for a type of work, not due to ability but because they legitimately never were interested.

(And Team-Up Missions at least does share that message...Too bad it handles it so badly by having Bakugo be the oh-so-perfect never-does-anything-wrong character to preach a message that should not be coming out of his bullying, arrogant shitty mouth.)

And, yeah, I also get that this is supposed to support the still unbelievable claim the story makes that, if not for Quirks, this society already would be doing outer space travel. That makes sense when you remember that the arrival of Quirks also set back society due to instability caused by people who could not control their powers and villains like All For One; it makes less sense when you have the tech exceeding our own reality, creating advanced robots with impressive artificial intelligence, the support equipment being built, and, if this is a series insisting on being so close to our reality, the fact that we already have gone to space and, again, with all the technological advancements we have seen in this series that are far ahead of our own, of course these people in this setting already would be far ahead at exploring more of outer space, even if you want to believe they haven't progressed too much past where we are now so maybe only get just a little past Mars and aren't settling on other planets.

[soul-dwelling]

Sorry to bug you with another MHA rant - but I think it's a point that isn't often brought up: The storys/Deku's "elitism" (maybe not the best word)

What I mean is the fact that Deku allways has to be "the best" and everything is framed through that lense in a way - maybe not in every moment, but in the ultimate analysis - like him only becoming a hero after getting the best quirk or how he only wanted to go to UA or only really idolised All Might - like I know Endeavor had a bad rep but wasnt he said to have solved the most crimes, ergo saved the most? Or shouldnt Izuku care about rescue heroes more if "rescuing" is what he actually cares for.

But the UA thing - it seemed to me like his dream wasn't even to become a hero, but his twisted romantisced perfect life version of a hero. Hence why he didnt try to apply to a mediocre school - I mean if UA lets quirkless do the exam, wouldnt there be any low to mid level school taking him, even if for PR reasons.

Yet other schools are so unimportant that they disapear basically as soon as they get mentioned.

But maybe my point is still debatable, and I admit one can find examples at the start that contradict it, like Deku basically jeopardising his chances of winning the sports festival to save Shoto.

Yet what matters is the end - and the way to it too - cause yeah, in the end, without a quirk, he didnt even try to be a hero, and didnt even try to get support equipment that literally wasnt some experimental futuristic uber powerfull suit, from the same makers thath gave non powered Allmight the ability to go toe to toe with the biggest villian of history. But that was already clear on the way during the end - like the fact Deku got seven quirks - obviously only made to show how he is special and strong on another level than anyone else

Yet why should he be? Especially with how popular Bakogou and Shoto where, why couldnt they just stay on a simmilar level and take on the main vilian 3 on 1. I mean even Naruto did that (even if Kaguay was bad for unrelated reasons) Especially with how the whole "saving Tenko" thing basically went nowhere, and could as well not have been introduced - might as well show AFO taking Tenko totally over to drive the point how evil potatoe man is way earlier and then focus the fight on guts and everyone working together - cliche, but doesnt bait the audience with some redemption and reform Hori obviously doesnt want to adress. But even speaking of Hori, i dunno, even his comments about "oh if Hero Academia didnt succeed, I would have quited being a mangaka" - like other magazines dont exist, like there aren't any other alternatives, like a story can be succesful without going for hundreds of chapter - seems to be the same attitude. But lets see if he actually does the Horror manga or if his health really declined as badly as many fear, in the later case, maybe he just got depressed, cause bad health sucks, I ain't gonna lie...

Long response below (about 14 pages, single-spaced)--and disorganized at that. 

I am going to again copy your question (in bold below) and respond to it in bits and pieces, as well as putting in headings to help outline my answer. 

I’m writing this as quickly as I can, so I apologize for rambling, awkward transitions, and going all over the case within a dash-filled sentence or a paragraph that is way too long. 

(Spoilers and whining as well about Fire Force.)

Izuku should be the best boy

Sorry to bug you with another MHA rant - but I think it's a point that isn't often brought up:

The storys/Deku's "elitism" (maybe not the best word)

What I mean is the fact that Deku allways has to be "the best" and everything is framed through that lense in a way - maybe not in every moment, but in the ultimate analysis - like him only becoming a hero after getting the best quirk 

I’ll get to more specifics about this first part of the submission in a moment. But first, a little rambling. 

My defense of Izuku as having to solve most problems in My Hero Academia: he is the protagonist, I have said he should be too good to be true (without ignoring how, if Izuku was a girl or a woman, the worst people online would make bullshit “Mary Sue” misogynistic arguments). We need to be cheering on Izuku: having his literal only so-called flaw be that he has no Quirk means that we side with him when we see how helpful he is, how smart he is, how heroic he is, and we take his side against even the best and most rational arguments by Bakugo, All Might, Recovery Girl, Gran Torino, Nighteye, Shigaraki, and All For One. 

That being said, that doesn’t mean you have him solve every last problem or else you undermine the manga’s message that collaboration is good. (Granted, Horikoshi undermined the value of collaboration repeatedly in his own story.) If you have Izuku solve everything, then Ochaco does not fix the poor counseling and health care system to address what potentially dangerous Quirks do, then Shoji and Koda don’t teach anti-bigotry practices, then the Todorokis don’t stop Dabi, and on and on. 

Now, to focus my answer a bit more: 

I talked about this elsewhere, but I think Izuku’s story would have improved had the manga made Izuku the best hero before he got the best Quirk. I know this lapses into “too good to be true” territory--but that’s the point, make him too good to be true: kid who knows more about Quirks than anyone else, kid who helps the elderly in his neighborhood, favorite “grown up” to the kids in his neighborhood, helpful neighborhood civic-minded community organizer. 

Maybe my recommendation is too clean and risks making Izuku without flaws. And it makes All Might too perfect as well: the plot can move forward only if All Might does something reckless, like handing over the Quirk to someone who even with a months-long workout regiment has zero time or instruction how to use One For All without almost getting himself and Ochaco killed during his entrance exam? But that means the problem is also that I don’t think Izuku and All Might ever clear the bar of early installment foolishness--similar to how the manga never convinced me that Bakugo could ever make up for telling Izuku to go kill himself. Maybe these are problems in the writing that will get corrected in the next adaptation, like that Hollywood adaptation, but as I also said, if you do correct these problems, I don’t know whether that takes out complexity in characterization and potential for character progression. 

Is it good that All Might was an idol?

or how he only wanted to go to UA or only really idolised All Might - 

I may push back a bit on whether Izuku only really idolized All Might, for two reasons. 

First, I wish the story had done more to toy with whether idolizing is a good thing. 

My Hero Academia ends without a useful thesis statement on the whole thing. All Might serving as the Symbol of Peace had its benefits and disadvantages, and the story never came across to me as defining whether he did more harm than good, although Stain’s final remarks to him get close to a summary statement. And Izuku idolizing All Might gave him inspiration and examples what to do, but he never quite made the base of One For All his own and kept struggling even to the end to figure out a way to use the base of One For All as his own, an opportunity thwarted as well when Izuku defeats All For One and Shigaraki with just punches and when so much of his fighting in the final arc was using a whole new set of Quirks comparatively recently introduced such that it is harder to really compare how Izuku uses One For All compared to how All Might uses One For All. 

Second, while “idolize” may not be accurate enough, Izuku’s joy and knowledge about pretty much all Pro Heroes is something integral to who he is. But yeah, I do wish we saw him pulling more from their examples. The manga barely gave attention outside of flashbacks as to how Izuku took inspiration from others to learn how to use his other Quirks, and even then he was pulling more from the examples of his classmates like Ochaco and Sero to use Float and Blackwhip. 

Izuku and Endeavor should have interacted more

like I know Endeavor had a bad rep but wasnt he said to have solved the most crimes, ergo saved the most? Or shouldnt Izuku care about rescue heroes more if "rescuing" is what he actually cares for.

I would have loved to have seen more interactions with Endeavor and Izuku, and I say that as someone who despises Endeavor and would rather never have him pop up in the manga again. 

Like, the anime gag of Izuku breaking the fourth wall to look at the audience with a question mark after Endeavor said something abstruse but profound and understanding Izuku’s link to All Might--that is something that shows Endeavor’s knowledge and wisdom while not ignoring he is an abusive sack of shit and that even Izuku is perplexed that this violent hothead may have something deeper going on. 

Izuku is our main character--while I do not want to overshadow how Shoto responds to his own father, it is weird not to have our main character have some one-on-one interactions with just him and Endeavor. We had that really good scene between the two at the Sports Festival--could we do something like that again, especially when it comes to how we contrast what heroics mean to each of them, how their regard for All Might could influence the other (such as Endeavor inadvertently making Izuku realize that All Might is human and hence makes mistakes, and Endeavor getting over himself and realizing that while he now knows the burden All Might carried he also needs to appreciate that All Might is a good guy and has done incredible good for Izuku as well as for Shoto).  

I also want to push back about Endeavor solving so many crimes--not that this is not true, it is true, you have that correct, the manga says so. 

I just get bothered how that detail feels like a retcon, even though technically it’s not. 

When we first meet Endeavor, we know he is the Number Two Hero, so it is not out of the ordinary to realize he got to that title not just by strength and superpowers but also by actual skill, whether in rescue, detective work, or number of people saved. 

You bring up rescue work, not necessarily about Endeavor but in general. I’ll talk more about rescue work in a moment. But rescue work never struck me as Endeavor’s forte, although some of that is the fault of writers other than Horikoshi: dude ended up killing someone in Vigilantes and not noticing--I do not think he is that good at rescue and saving people. (And this all becomes even more disturbing for me to try to make jokes about as I have the dawning realization that of course he sucks at rescuing people, he got Toya killed and couldn’t save his own dad.) 

I just wish that we did more with that detective work long before we’re just told, “He’s good at detective work.” He is able to decode Hawks’s message--great, why couldn’t we have gotten this hint earlier? If he had figured out that All Might somehow passed on his Quirk to Izuku, maybe that would have helped make him look smarter--he could have the same reaction Shoto has to emphasize this similar familial tick (“Izuku and All Might have a similar Quirk”) and unlike Shoto (“Are you his secret love child?”) could instead take the more accurate approach (“All Might somehow passed on his Quirk to Izuku--is that why his Pro Hero work has been slowing down?”). 

Rescue work and Izuku’s lacking skills

Let’s circle back to rescue work, and what it says about Izuku’s lacking skills. 

Remember in the License Exam arc, how Izuku did not realize he had to talk to the actors playing victims, because Aizawa either sucks at teaching or Izuku is just that bad at understanding the logistics of doing hero work? Either way, it shows that the story had more to offer--and just didn’t. 

Numerous complaints about this final arc and its last chapters have circulated so frequently that I can’t tell whether they are repeated so much as to be correct but cliche, or repeated so often that we accept them as truth and ignore the glaring flaws. In other words, I am bothered by the repeated complaint online that Izuku was never serious about hero work, that he had no plan before getting One For All, that he was not thinking enough about the logistics of what he was training to do. I’m not going to say whether that assessment of Izuku is correct or incorrect, as the complaint strikes me as something that is a flaw with the story itself, not the character. 

Izuku strikes me as someone who of course would think about a plan to be a hero, how to save people: he had a plan for delaying the Slime Monster to try to save Bakugo, it just wasn’t a good plan; he had numerous Pro Hero names thought up when he was a little kid; he had copious notes about how Quirks work and was still filling out new journals during the Sports Festival. 

But, yeah, I can’t ignore that Izuku did not have a plan in mind for the logistics for Pro Hero work--because he is inexperienced, he is a teenager, he has not yet worked as Pro Hero, of course he doesn’t know all the logistics, that’s why he is in school and that is ostensibly what the manga is supposed to be about, teaching Izuku how to do Pro Hero work and by extension showing us in the audience how this world works. This is not an insult to Izuku: he literally does not know these things, that’s great, we get to learn along with him, we don’t feel ignorant because even best boy / smartest boy Izuku didn’t know. 

But actually educating Izuku, and by extension us audience members, on Pro Hero logistics would require this “academia” manga to actually be about “academia,” and Horikoshi or his editors or the audience itself seem to have an aversion to learning shit. 

(This is also why I hate the excuse that we only get Year 1 of the Class A because otherwise it would be boring to keep having another Sports Festival arc, another School Festival arc, another graduation arc for each school year. Look, Horikoshi is exhausted, I appreciate he does not want to repeat those stories--but as for fans saying that stuff would be boring, bullshit, that’s a challenge, rise up to face it, give me that Sports Festival that shows how far those who lost the first year have come, show how far those who won the first year have fallen, give me new School Festival activities with new characters, make the graduation change each time especially depending on whether the world is doing well or has gotten worse since All Might retired.) 

So, the manga does not do the “academia” thing much--and then the manga never felt like it actually addressed how these logistics to Pro Hero regulations work. We get bread crumbs that don’t lead very far: we wait until the Nighteye arc to learn that there is the Hero Network, and it gets namedropped so that Ochaco and Tsuyu can ask about it and get answered by Ryukyu. 

The thing is, having the students be flat-out ignorant about some of these details would help build the world and help characterize these characters. I wrote in another post how we had this great opportunity to show that Izuku is so idealistic that he may be ignorant as to all the workings that go into an agency: insurance, staffing, merchandising, specialization. I wrote in that post how excellent it would be to bring back Tenya’s brother Tensei to talk about how in Vigilantes his agency was such a well-oiled machine because he had numerous sidekicks all focused on making up for skills he as a speedsters lacked, as a way to show that an agency has to be designed smartly--and that Izuku is someone who just hopes that things will work out and never struck me as an organizer. 

If Izuku really is that ignorant about organizing and is better suited as a cog in the machine, a teacher, or someone who is just good at designing plans and executing them but not leading a team, we could build on what the manga already showed us about who is good at that leadership. I mean, hell, we did an entire opening arc in the manga that Izuku is not a good class president, leave that to Iida and Momo. 

And we also saw during the School Festival that Mina, Momo, Jiro, and Iida are good at organizing the Class A activity--maybe those are skills they have that Izuku lacks. It would help to do more to justify Mina’s value to this story: she is a fan favorite, but there are only so many gags you can do about her academic skills being wanting before you need to emphasize that her people skills and leadership skills are why she is in this cast. And it would go a long way to clarify why Ochaco recruited Iida, Momo, and Jiro for her Quirk counseling initiative. See why I am getting annoyed with how this manga went? It already had the details there in the characters but never gave us those stories. And it’s going to be annoying should those stories ever happen because they were not part of the original manga, not in order of chapters to read in order to get to these logical conclusions, and will instead be some light novel or OVA or spinoff manga or film that you have to pay more money to get rather than just being part of the main manga that I’m already paying Viz to subscribe to. 

The manga failed to criticize its own romanticizing and show a changed world

But the UA thing - it seemed to me like his dream wasn't even to become a hero, but his twisted romantisced perfect life version of a hero. 

We really needed this manga to dig into its worldbuilding. 

There was a post my friend dchan87 reblogged from ilovereadingandstuff and thekingofwinterblog a bit ago, about how Amphibia did well at leaving enough holes for you to fill in, while My Hero Academia was trying to answer so many questions that it could not answer some of them at all, could not answer some of them sufficiently, or over-explained some of them and failed to satisfy enough of the audience. On a related note, I am loathe to say that Ohkubo did great with Soul Eater by leaving so many holes there for the audience to fill in the gaps, which the fans did expertly for 18 years…until Ohkubo fucked that up and gave bad answers in Fire Force, thereby cancelling out much better fan theories and compromising the intended message of both stories, but I’ve complained enough about Ohkubo’s bad writing for a decade. 

But to get back to my point: we needed that worldbuilding to either be like Amphibia or like Soul Eater--just enough, not too much to weigh down the story with “realism” that cancels out believability. We got so many hero schools that we don’t know why UA is so good and whether Izuku’s choice was just obsessing with the alumni (All Might but also Aizawa, Present Mic, Endeavor, and so on), or whether he was making a rational choice. 

However, as I am someone who went to grad school because I slightly idealized one of my professors having gone to that same school, and have some regrets about my educational choices: I mean, yeah, believable and realistic, so, can’t quite fault Izuku entirely for romanticizing. Izuku needs to have flaws so that we have a plot--I am fine with him romanticizing UA and the overall Pro Hero society. I just hate that nothing much comes of that once All For One shows how under-prepared the heroes were to stop Shigaraki’s transformation, how unprepared Japan and the world were for All For One’s threat, how little of Pro Hero society seems to have changed in Chapter 430, how little we see Izuku change his mind after Nagant, how it’s left to Ochaco and others to verbalize what needs to change but the story skips over just what exactly Ochaco, Shoji, and others do to change this world. 

Should Izuku have gone to UA?

Hence why he didnt try to apply to a mediocre school - I mean if UA lets quirkless do the exam, wouldnt there be any low to mid level school taking him, even if for PR reasons.

God, I would have loved it if we had had Inko take Izuku aside and bring up that UA may not be his best choice. I know we don’t want to step on Ochaco’s storyline, and money doesn’t really seem to be a concerned in this story despite the lipservice given to it, but imagine if Inko, practically a single parent, having to tell Izuku, “UA is too expensive, try a mid-level school.” We got close to that when she refused to send him back initially despite All Might’s encouragement, but that wasn’t money, it was because All Might and the teachers could not protect the kids from a fucking villain attack. 

Again, maybe I’m grabbing too much from my own life, but there are totally parents who will say, “Does it really have to be that school? Think about money, whether this education is worth it, location. Why not aim for this school instead?” 

Even All Might could have brought it up: “UA was right for me; I don’t think it will be right for you. Don’t chase the ring, focus on the plan that works for you.” But we already saw from Gran Torino that Izuku and All Might reinforce their worst qualities in each other of romanticizing, idealizing, and not trying something new. Again, do you want flawed characters who can progress, or do you want everyone to be perfect from the beginning? I’m not even asking you--I’m asking myself, because this is the trap I fall into when re-writing these stories, making everyone absolutely perfect instead of believable and having flaws that keep the plot going. 

The manga also sort of retconned a lot of the entrance exam details. The manga does show Izuku was able to go into the exam when he had a Quirk--although, yeah, wouldn’t he have to schedule this ahead of time even without being registered with the government as having a Quirk? Then the manga reveals that Support and General and Business Tracks at UA may not require a Quirk, so Izuku could have gone into any of them…but that would require he show technological aptitude, or take Shinso’s path, or have PR skills, and none of those quite work, especially as we need Shinso as the foil to Izuku for both of their storylines to persist. (Aside: Man, Shinso deserved a better wrap-up in this manga. What is his Pro Hero name?) 

Yet other schools are so unimportant that they disapear basically as soon as they get mentioned.

We needed more spinoff stories. I loved that all-girls school in the anime-only Momo arc during the license exam. I wanted more of the schools doing something in the final arc and especially getting closure: what happened to Inasa and Camie and the rest in Chapter 430? 

Is self-sacrifice heroic? 

But maybe my point is still debatable, and I admit one can find examples at the start that contradict it, like Deku basically jeopardising his chances of winning the sports festival to save Shoto.

The manga did well at explaining the stakes for the Sports Festival, and while important for the sake of characterization, it wasn’t life or death (until Izuku almost got himself killed by Shoto, which…yeah, these two characters have flaws, to put it nicely). 

Aizawa said it was about being scouted--and any of us can use logic to suppose that, first, they have three years of these festivals to make an impression, and second, there are other ways to make an impression, as Shinso shows. 

All Might said this was Izuku’s time to show he can be like him, a symbol to people and the inheritor of his legacy--and while that is too much to put on Izuku, especially (as online people have said on Reddit and elsewhere) All Might brings all of this up without also putting on the pressure or just being honest about the potential threat of another All For One or indeed the actual All For One returning. And even those stakes are not that pivotal: Izuku and All Might make it a big deal, and it is for the arc, but in the overall manga, even before the Sports Festival ends, we know it’s not as big a deal, it’s just Izuku’s entrance to the larger national and international audience, it won’t end his career. 

I guess my point is, yeah, I see how Izuku’s willingness to lose the Sports Festival butts up against his idealized image of a superhero--and even then, it is hard to discern how those two details contrast or potentially contradict because the story itself overly idealized and overly romanticized it. Think about it: it’s Recovery Girl who has to set Izuku and All Might straight, that this play-hero routine is going to get Izuku killed. The story wants us to see Izuku almost getting killed by Shoto as heroic and the correct thing--and keeps emphasizing that Izuku is going to get himself killed. 

I can’t quite wrap my head around all of these details to make a clear statement, beyond saying that My Hero Academia has always has a problem when it comes to whether self-sacrifice and death are ideals that heroes should aim for. We have shown over and over again that self-sacrifice in this story, or otherwise reckless actions, are not wholly good: Gentle ruined his career by inadvertently showboating or interfering and not paying attention; Ochaco may have redeemed Toga in her eyes but almost died and ended up with Toga dead; the Todoroki family got physical scars but no better ending and now have Dabi slowly dying; Izuku is scarred up, without a Quirk, debased by his teacher and now coworker Aizawa, and didn’t get Pro Hero society to put away the statues, get rid of the ads and marketing, and get some free time. 

I mean, I keep turning back to this point on this blog, but how the hell was Fire Force better at imparting the lesson, “Getting yourself killed is stupid, you still need to survive another day to keep rescuing people, figure out how to save others without getting yourself killed”? 

The mech suit ending doesn’t hold up and potentially undermines the intended moral 

Yet what matters is the end - and the way to it too - cause yeah, in the end, without a quirk, he didnt even try to be a hero, and didnt even try to get support equipment that literally wasnt some experimental futuristic uber powerfull suit, from the same makers thath gave non powered Allmight the ability to go toe to toe with the biggest villian of history.

I have read enough fans trying to make this work. I’m not entirely convinced by their ideas, but I’ll summarize a few of them. 

First, there are people pointing out that Izuku didn’t have the money to get that support equipment to keep doing Pro Hero work. I’m not convinced, but I appreciate people pointing out the limitations: maybe the global economy got so bad that even rich students like Momo, Shoto, and Tenya could only do so much; the manga volumes say All Might used all of his remaining money on his mech suit against All For One. 

Second, there are people pointing out that, while the All Might suit was proven to work, that was a quick job and that everyone wanted to get it correct, which required eight years of work with Mei and Melissa collaborating in completely different countries. (Sidebar: Just put Mei and Melissa in the same nation--for shipping or platonic or just mutual relationships with the main cast.) I’m less convinced by this explanation, as it is bizarre to wait eight years when you really need to get Izuku testing out that mech suit in a controlled environment instead of out in the field unless you are dealing with the kind of dire situation All Might was against All For One. It’s all the more bothersome because the manga already gave us this story--twice: in the main manga with Izuku almost getting his body torn apart testing Mei’s equipment, and in Team-Up Missions with now both Mei and Melissa almost killing Izuku with dueling support equipment for Crash Test Deku to try out. 

All of the “you can still be a hero with this expensive mech suit” argument also bothers me because the opening conceit of My Hero Academia--”in this fictional world, you need a superpower to be a superhero”--is already a ridiculously stupid question: of course you can, that is answered by Chapter 1, it’s been answered in comic books since Batman and Iron Man, the manga practically says yes, you can, because Quirks held by Mei and Ojiro give them very little advantage in combat (granted, Mei is not a fighter), and Knuckleduster in Vigilantes has no superpowers. It’s that Amphibia problem above: when you over-explain, you answer the question that was supposed to drive the story, so now that you answered it, you have no story, and everything after is over-explaining everything and potentially undermining the point you were trying to make (see also Fire Force over-explaining Soul Eater and hence ruining both stories). 

Izuku should have been the Hulk

But that was already clear on the way during the end - like the fact Deku got seven quirks - obviously only made to show how he is special and strong on another level than anyone else 

And Izuku having more Quirks could show how smart he is at using them all, or have been for a longer story to show this new challenge that affects him physically and emotionally as his confidence is shaken with the seemingly sisyphean failure of getting one Quirk correct only to fail again and again with the next (but I don’t think he even got a handle on the first Quirk to begin with). 

It’s another set of missed opportunities, especially, so that we don’t act like Izuku is special, if we get some more worldbuilding by showing what people like Shoto do with multiple Quirks, how that has been a mental struggle for him and hence allows Izuku and Shoto to both develop their relationship by trading notes on how to do it. 

Or, it can be an opportunity to show the danger Izuku faces that the Nomu face: what happens when you have more Quirks than your mind and body can handle? Then you can bring in Dr. Yoshida, Kurogiri, the science behind Nomu, and actually delve into how evil All For One and Garaki are, the hope Aizawa and Mic have at the potential of bringing back Shirakumo, and keep moving forward with the elements you already have to your story rather than disposing the Nomu as just raw muscle, plot devices, and empty characters. It opens up questions for Izuku: by getting all of these additional Quirks, could his mind get warped? Is Izuku becoming inhuman? The boy is already a bundle of nerves, anxiously talking to himself, muttering his way through all that he knows about Quirks--what happens when he has a momentary slip-up and over-reacts, mistaking an error anyone makes for one where he thinks he is losing his mind? That’d be relatable for readers, especially when dealing with forgetfulness due to anxiety or this godawful ongoing COVID pandemic world we’re in--and it’d be a silly notion for Izuku, of course he’s fine, it’s a fear that quickly would be corrected by everyone around him. But it sets up a contrast that is worth exploring: what happens when the smartest person risks losing himself due to too much physical power? This is literally Bruce Banner and the Hulk--and Horikoshi whiffed at even trying to get his comic book nerd on there. 

The Izuku/Bakugo/Shoto dynamic never worked for me

Yet why should he be? Especially with how popular Bakogou and Shoto where, why couldnt they just stay on a simmilar level and take on the main vilian 3 on 1. I mean even Naruto did that (even if Kaguay was bad for unrelated reasons)

This is a “me” problem, but I don’t like the chemistry of Izuku, Bakugo, and Shoto. Izuku is too meek, Shoto is so passive despite having a fiery temper when pushed, Bakugo is too violent and angry. This isn’t id-ego-supergo, this isn’t Kirk, Bones, and Spock, it isn’t Wonder Girl, Starfire, and Raven, it isn’t Batman, Booster Gold, and Ted Kord, it’s just a mess. Izuku and Shoto are both too passive to balance Bakugo, Shoto and Bakugo are too fiery for the meek Izuku to get to do much, Shoto and Bakugo have far better chemistry bouncing off of each other alone due to shared temper but different elements of releasing it (think Kirk and Spock). 

I have not sat through the entirety of the third and fourth films to see how they coordinate well in combat, but I also don’t like sitting through movies just for gorgeous animation and fight sequences--I want a good story that pushes character progression, even for the movie-only characters, and when the third and fourth movies are instead about the progression of Rody, Giulio, and Anna, I don’t care about Bakugo and Shoto, and Izuku is pretty much just the Matthew McConaughey chaos agent there to cause change, not to be changed. (I took that description of McConaughey from Patton Oswalt. And, disclaimer: fucking hell, Oswalt, stop stanning transphobes like Chapelle, Jesus.) 

I think I get your point about Izuku, Bakugo, and Shoto being better served for the story if they were more like a Naruto trio, as Naruto, Sakura, and either Sasuke or Sai. But I almost think the better option would be like One Piece, where it’s not that any of the three stay at the same level, but that their involvement in the plot and their power scaling depends on the arc, situation, setting, and opponent. Izuku, Bakugo, and Shoto don’t have to stay at similar level: it’d actually help similar to One Piece is any of them feel like the Sanji or the Nami or the Usopp or even the Zoro where they feel like they failed to keep up or failed at a task. Or, think Maka, Black Star, and Kid: Maka repeatedly felt like she was falling behind two gods, why not have Izuku thinking he’s falling behind, then, boom, he has new Quirks and risks falling even further behind rather than using these new powers to pass them by. 

There is that moment in the Sports Festival where it is Izuku slamming down the metal shielding to explode past Bakugo and Shoto: I wish that had been their dynamic for the rest of the series, the three in competition to get ahead of the others. I don’t think the manga ever topped the Sports Festival arc, and I think losing that potential dynamic between these three characters as shown in that explosion is one reason. Izuku had that drive; what happened to that drive after the Sports Festival? Shoto thankfully mellows out after Izuku sets him straight on his Quirk being his alone, not Endeavor’s, but now he lacks the same action-y forward momentum, more of his story being a mature introspective focus on how he mentally grapples with his father both being his greatest enemy and his best mentor at using the same Quirk they have, but as I said, while mature and introspective, it’s not something easy to visual in an illustrated manga that has to use images to tell its story. And Bakugo is just the worst. 

Kill off Shigaraki earlier

Especially with how the whole "saving Tenko" thing basically went nowhere, and could as well not have been introduced - might as well show AFO taking Tenko totally over to drive the point how evil potatoe man is way earlier and then focus the fight on guts and everyone working together - cliche, but doesnt bait the audience with some redemption and reform Hori obviously doesnt want to adress.

My friend has an idea about how to fix “saving Tenko.” We’ll get to that another time, when they are ready to share it. 

Tenko/Shigaraki coming to realize he was a hero to villains, then getting subsumed by All For One, should have been the end of his story. It’d be tragic, but the ending for him already was: if you’re going to kill him off, just do it once and be done with it. Typically a play works better with only one twist; to reverse that twist by having Shigaraki re-assert himself just to die again ruins the twist. 

This could have been salvaged with better visuals: Shigaraki and Izuku both ending All For One could have been visually dynamic, where now Shigaraki is where All Might stood alongside Izuku in the first film to deliver the final punch. Imagine if you staged that image where it is Izuku (in the real world) and Shigaraki (just imagined and hence only a vestige), with an image of All MIght in the same pose as Izuku, and an image of Nana in the same pose as Shigaraki, delivering the last attack on All For One. We are in the eyes of All For One, we are seeing what he sees--or maybe he’s imagining it, and it is freaking him out all the more, the legacy of Nana and All Might in Shigaraki and Izuku, finally ending him. 

But we didn’t get that image; we got something that looks more like Shigaraki and Izuku punching at each other. It’s not even Shigaraki doing that punch to send Decay or One For All back into Izuku. (I’m not saying I would want that ending, I hated that ending in the second film, but it would have justified the worse visuals we got instead of what I think is the better option I’m offering.)

To get back to what I was saying about reversing your twist: just do the one twist, All For One reasserting himself, our last image of Shigaraki is him dying in horrible fashion, his entire life has been suffering, he gets no final words with Izuku, nothing to say to Spinner. Make it hurt. Then you have to have Izuku, Spinner, and the rest making sense of this with each other, not with any direction by Shigaraki, so that they get to be their own characters, not just enacting Shigaraki’s will. It sucks to keep Shigaraki a permanent victim throughout the story, but maybe this story needed one character who is utterly destroyed and a victim--not a Star and Stripe who manages to offer one or two advantages to save the heroes, not Izuku still getting a full life after losing his Quirk, just someone who was groomed from the beginning and never had a chance, so that, when Scissors Boy is saved by Granny, that is our vicarious resolution and higher state, someone who unknowingly carries on the legacy of what Shigaraki could have been if he had been given a chance. 

Does that mean we keep the Force Ghost of Shigaraki there looking at Izuku in the final chapter? I don’t know--I don’t even like that artwork, Shigaraki looks off-model, the image does not convey that it is a spirit and just looks like bad layering of the art. 

Shueisha owes its mangaka more

But even speaking of Hori, i dunno, even his comments about "oh if Hero Academia didnt succeed,  I would have quited being a mangaka" - like other magazines dont exist, like there aren't any other alternatives, like a story can be succesful without going for hundreds of chapter - seems to be the same attitude. 

Horikoshi gets to live his own life: if he would have changed careers if this manga did not work out for him, that is his decision, I respect it, he should do what makes him happy but also should keep doing illustrations that fulfill him as a hobby, as work, or whatever he wants. I will not hold that against him, and I would not hold it against him that he had a mindset of, if this doesn’t work, I give up. 

I’m also less interested in criticizing Horikoshi’s mindset because of what you are pointing out. 

Yes, there are other magazines--and we see how difficult it is to get a pilot manga accepted by any, to get that one-shot to be successful, to get through the first year of publishing, and to attract an audience, advertisers, vendors, and anime producers. 

Yes, a story can be successful without going for hundreds of chapters--but try telling that to the worst people on the Internet. (The stupidest video I sat through this week, more obsessed with what didn’t work with a Hollywood company, than whether their films were any good.) 

Horikoshi could be satisfied with a good story that didn’t last for hundreds of chapters--but we see how enough dicks online are just the worst about good stories that ended before their time or before they were given a chance. Just to name a few from the Shueisha/Viz camp: Magu-chan, Candy Flurry, and Ginka and Gluna all deserved better. 

It’s the equivalent of so many YouTube videos and online essays lifting up some stories and denigrating others: “This manga is the best manga ever!” “This creator is the GOAT!” “This moment in animation changed everything!” Well, why not talk about the stuff that demonstrates good craftswork, is competent or even excellent, is not necessarily the first ever or the best ever but is something someone enjoys and digs into why it works? People do enjoy My Hero Academia without thinking it is the best (it is not), that Horikoshi is the GOAT (he is not)--but because the story has its really good points, that Horikoshi is really talented and one of the best (of many who are also some of the best), and it is fine to just be good enough or excellent, not perfect, not superior, not comparatively better, just really, really good. 

Sidebar: Oumagadoki Zoo had the same problems with ending

Also, just going to throw this out there: Oumagadoki Zoo had one of the worst endings I have read in a manga for some time, refusing to commit to its sad ending, leaving the door open to more stories that would have continued all that worked so well in the previous arcs and world being built but didn’t get the chance it deserved, so I kind of wonder whether Horikoshi has struggled with endings before due to publishing power dynamics outside of his control, or a refusal to commit to something going really bad and not dealing with the darkness that brings. 

Granted, though, Oumagadoki Zoo is more often lighthearted than horrifying, so I can’t blame him for canceling out the pseudo-deaths he introduced just a few pages earlier--at least readers were not traumatized by those pseudo-deaths and got the equivalent of Tinkerbell coming back to life by the readers just believing enough. 

We need to take care of our health. (And I don’t like horror stories.)

But lets see if he actually does the Horror manga or if his health really declined as badly as many fear, in the later case, maybe he just got depressed, cause bad health sucks, I ain't gonna lie…

My petulance: despite running a Soul Eater fan blog, despite what I teach and research, I am not a big fan of horror in visual content (I can read it, I don’t like watching it or seeing it). And I tend to prefer a good story over good visuals, so I don’t know whether a horror manga by Horikoshi will appeal to me. 

And yes, health problems are serious--not ignoring what I am going through with health problems and what people I know are going through as COVID persists, mental health problems persist, and aging, lack of accessibility, and physical health problems persist. And all of that is an indictment against me, as I am failing at being more sympathetic to Horikoshi when I am highly critical of how My Hero Academia wrapped up. 

[fire-dwelling]

Revealing that Lord Death made Kid in Shinra's image (even when the two do not look at all alike, not any more than any other characters Ohkubo draws look alike) but likely didn't make Asura in Shinra's image (even though Liz sees family resemblance between Asura and Kid--although, as I just said, all of Ohkubo's characters start to resemble each other, that's just the visual style) just makes this all the more messy and, rather than entertaining, just frustratingly over-explain-y.

It retroactively makes Soul Eater more annoying. This over-explaining stuff in Fire Force then makes it so that, when we're told "There can only be one Lord Death at any time, so Kid ascending will kill Lord Death," that ends up seeming like an ass-pull, too, in retrospect after looking at how "Shinra made Lord Death" comes off like an ass-pull, too. It's these last-minute reveals that aren't exactly twists, because they don't change much of what we already read, but they also come so close to the end of each series that they feel like a surprise without having anything substantial to change the stories at all.

I get it, you don't need to explain everything, and I just pointed out that explaining why there can't be two Lord Death's at any one time would also risk over-explaining stuff. It is believable enough that, over 800+ years, Lord Death figured out on his own, "Oh, okay, if I make a kid, that kid will end up replacing me, and I will die." But as I just said, so much of this timeline over-explained everything, then decides not to explain that detail--no more than one Death at a time--at all. We're left to take it as just pure symbolism--"There can only be one death at any time, because we all only die once"--but that also was already frustrating enough that Lord Death is not Death itself, he's just some robotic force Shinra made to clean up his and Haumea's mess.

(That's not even getting into the logistics for how Asura could be Lord Death's "son" when he is just a fragment of him, Lord Death's fear given its own autonomy--but Ohkubo rushed all of that anyway, only to ignore any real fall-out between Kid, Asura, and Lord Death, because everyone insists Kid just ignore it, Asura throws it out in the middle of a battle, and Lord Death freaking dies. It almost makes me think that the upcoming chapter of My Hero Academia going into Dabi's back story will do better at that family drama with his brother and father than Soul Eater did.)

Damn it, ignoring Fire Force and just enjoying Soul Eater on its own is preferable.

[dabifixation]

see you later

pairings: dabi x fem!reader

warnings: smut, fluff, angst, major character death, mha manga spoilers, slight gore, MINORS DNI

summary: Dabi knew he had to end things soon before they got out of hand. He knew this wasn't supposed to last long, he told himself that everytime he left your apartment in the early hours of the morning. Until he found himself back here again, in your arms and lost between your thighs.

word count: 4.7k words

"... We encourage everyone to stay at home tonight, as there is a possibility of a severe thunderstorm, along with it flashfloods all over the city..."

The television only served as background noise for you as you moved around your kitchen. Cleaning up the dirty dishes and utensils, a small smile on your lips after the friendly company you had tonight.

It's been a while since you invited your friends over for some supper after the long depressing week you had. You needed that, the entertainment and companionship only they could offer you. You've never laughed or cried so hard in months, telling each other about your sorrows and thoughts for your futures ahead.

Being an adult was never easy, especially in a world full of rejected heroes.

You were so lost in your thoughts that you hadn't heard the warning cough behind you, or the tap against your kitchen counter. But you did give a short shriek when you felt someone wrap their arms around your waist, their chin resting on your shoulder, inhaling your scent.

You relaxed once you felt the familiar warmth of who it was. Only one person in the entire world could be dubbed a walking, breathing furnace, and it was him.

"I missed out on a big meal didn't I?" He drawled, his warm hands rubbing soothing circles against your stomach.

"Maybe if you didn't pop into my life every few months, I would've saved you a plate." You sarcastically replied, but you didn't miss the way how you sounded partially hurt.

You weren't expecting much all those years ago when you found him bloodied and passed out behind your childhood home, and you weren't expecting much now.

You never asked questions, and he never pried in your personal life. You were quite fine with that. Not everyone was an extrovert and had their whole life story ready to be dished out. He was a very private person and you respected that.

He ignored what you said and continued to nuzzle his face into your neck. Using one hand to push your hair over your shoulder, exposing your neck to him.

You suppressed a sigh when you felt his warm lips give short kisses against your neck.

"I've missed you." He breathed cold air into your neck, making you stiffen at those words. He's never said something like that before, not once in the six years since you've known him.

Dabi noticed you stiffen in his arms, but he didn't say a word. He wasn't lying. He did miss you, achingly so.

He missed your stubborn attitude, the sarcastic replies that were on par with his own, the homemade cooking you offered to teach him countless of times that he doubt he'd pay attention to cause he wouldn't be able to keep his hands to himself. But most importantly he missed you. The way your touch lingered even days after his monthly visits, the way your lips would pay close attention to the magenta scars all over his body, and the different ways you'd say his name depending on what he was doing to you.

God, he was going to miss all of this once he leaves for the League of Villains.

"I've missed you too." You shyly said, you've never admitted these words aloud before and it felt good to tell him that.

"Turn around for me, I wanna see how good you look." He whispered in your neck.

"Dabi I'm wearing nothing but my puppy printed sweater." You deadpanned.

"It doesn't matter, you always look good no matter what." He playfully nipped your ear, making you roll your eyes despite the heat in your body relocating to your cheeks.

You turned around to face him, a beaming smile on your face that was only ever directed at him. Your heart always soared whenever you looked at him. He was beautiful. The most beautiful man you've ever had the pleasure of laying your eyes on. His eyes were the most vibrant blue you've ever seen, little specks of grey dancing in those pretty blues that were half lidded but always calculative and aware of his surroundings. He licked his lips, bringing your attention to the plump flesh that were an interesting contrast between soft and jagged, and the pink tongue residing in his mouth.

Your eyes were transfixed on his appearance, making sure no hair on his head was missing or any new injuries to his increasing collection. You rested your forehead against his hard chest once you found nothing out of place, letting out a sigh of relief when you finalized that he was okay, and not sporting a limp or any other injury.

"Damn, I stress you out that much huh doll?" You could hear the smirk in his voice, but didn't have the energy to make a snarky remark, only offering him a small smile.

"Your visits are becoming less and less you know, the last time I saw you was five months ago. I was..." so worried about you, you wanted to say. You were so worried that you stayed up everyday, two hours after your initial bedtime hoping that he'd at least show up once in those five months. He didn't, and you were beginning to think he never would, until tonight. You didn't want to tell him that.

He wouldn't care.

You felt embarrassed that you were crying to your friends about him earlier on. Scared that you'd never see him again, not because he's moved on from you as you know there's nothing keeping him here other than sex and a warm bed to crash in, but because you were worried he'd get himself injured or worse. And you didn't like dwelling on what worse could imply.

"I kno–" Dabi's words were cut off by a small sneeze he muffled into his arm. Sneezing twice more before he regained his composure.

You only noticed now that his clothes were slightly damp and heavier than usual. It made your eyesbrows furrow.

"How long were you in the rain Dabi?" You questioned, knowing you wouldn't like whatever answer he'd come up with.

"Ever since your lady friends came by."

"That was over two hours ago? You've been sitting in the rain this entire time?!" You felt your blood pressure rising when he only shrugged at your accusations. It was like arguing with a toddler sometimes.

You sighed again, pinching the bridge of your nose. "I've got a box of mens clothes laying around here somewhere. Go take a shower and I'll get them for you and make you a cup of hot tea."

He quirked one eyebrow up, staring intensely at you.

"What?" You averted your eyes away from his, embarrassed that he was searching your face for something.

He shrugged again, rolling his battered coat off his shoulders and started stripping the rest of his clothes off. You turned around before he could go any further. Busying yourself with getting his tea ready.

Dabi stopped undressing, standing there with nothing but his jeans on. Watching you as you got the correct items in order to make him tea, muttering to yourself about which biscuits he might like with it.

He liked the butterscotch ones, but he didn't bother opening his mouth. Too memorized by the way you moved around so frantically as if he was dying instead of coming down with a small cold.

He liked that about you, he liked a lot of things about you. Especially the way you cared about the simplest things pertaining to him even during moments of intimacy. You treated him like glass even if he didn't offer the same treatment in return, not because he didn't want to, he just didn't know how to go about it.

He frowned.

Dabi was only ever vulnerable around you, and you didn't even realize it. You didn't know the power you had over him, and he'd like to keep it that way. Afraid that you'd use it against him and he wouldn't be able to bring himself to hurt you for that. He could never hurt you.

He found himself walking towards you on impulse, hugging your waist once again. This time pressing his body flush against yours. He heard you gasp and that pulled a smirk out of him.

"Do you know what you do to me?" He gripped your hip with one hand, and snuck the other hand underneath your shirt. His lips against your neck, right above your pulse point.

Your stomach tensed when you felt his hot fingers rubbing soothing circles against it. He pressed you further against him, making you feel the growing length against your ass. You bit your lip, stopping yourself from whimpering too early.

"The way your nipples are perking up so nicely for me in this shirt that's practically transparent is driving me nuts." He snaked his hand further up your shirt, brushing the skin underneath your breasts gently. Your breath caught in your throat as you gripped the counter tightly.

Your panties were clinging to your pussy uncomfortably, you could feel the material getting wetter with each passing second. You tried rubbing your thighs together for some friction, but Dabi wasn't having any of it. He clicked his tongue out of irritation, the hand on your hips falling towards your inner thighs, parting your legs. His hold was strong enough to prevent you from rubbing your thighs together, you wanted to whine when he didn't place his hand right where you wanted them.

Just a little higher.

"I asked you a question doll." He spoke into your hair, taking a deep breath from the rooibos shampoo you used. The smell turned him on even more.

"W-what question?" You whimpered, resting the back of your head onto his chest, sighing out as he brushed the pads of his thumb against your hardened nipples.

"I don't like repeating myself." He growled, pinching your nipples harshly causing you to whimper pathetically in his arms. He continue to tweak at your nipples roughly before groping your breast and fondling it the way he liked.

"Dabi... " You mewled.

"Don't. Don't say my name like that." He gave your nipples a warning pinch.

You bucked up into his hips, involuntarily grinding against his cock. The swollen head rubbing in between your ass despite the jeans restricting him. Making him choke back a groan.

Dabi was just as impatient as was it in his nature to tease. He took his hand away from between your thighs to quickly lick the tips of his index and middle finger, bringing them back towards your aching pussy. You were such a good girl, not once taking the opportunity to touch yourself or rub your thighs together.

He wasted no time in pushing your thong to the side, sucking a deep breath through his teeth when he rubbed his fingers through your slit collecting the thick moisture gathered there. You always got so wet for him.

After coating his fingers in your arousal, he moved his fingers towards the bundle of nerves that had been pulsing ever since he rocked up at your house.

You let out a breathy yes, eyes rolling to the back of your head as Dabi rubbed your clit just the way you liked, grinding it down in tight circles that had your toes curling. He pinched at your clit piercing, knowing how much you liked it when he played with the metal and how easily it could make you gush for him. The pleasure was overwhelming and had you feeling light headed.

Without warning, Dabi plunged those same two fingers into your tight pussy. You bit back a scream as your body jerked and writhed against him. Hips chasing after his fingers as they thrusted deeper into your spongy walls, the palm of his hand grinding against your clit. The stimulation was too much for you.

"Fuck!" You shouted out, bringing your hand down to his, gripping on his wrist tightly so he could go deeper and faster. He could get you cumming around his two fingers alone, he didn't need more than that.

"Dabi please." You begged.

"Please what?" He asked curiously, knowing exactly what you so deeply craved.

The hand around your breast disappeared. He reached for his jeans so he could unzip it and pull it down. A short relieved sigh left his lips once his jeans were pulled down his thighs, just enough to free his heavy cock from all that pressure. He gripped his cock in his free hand, he wanted to feel you around him so bad but he had to be patient, as much as he hated it.

Dabi watched you from underneath his dark lashes, the way your body responded to him in delicious squirms and moans drove him mad. He added pressure to your clit, grinding his palm hard against it. Your body rocked back into him for more, a high pitched wail leaving those beautiful lips he couldn't wait to claim.

"I want you ins- shit shit shit!" He watched your body shaking silently against him, thighs trembling, pussy clamping so hard around his fingers he hissed as he pulled them out and quickly replaced them with his angry, pulsing cock.

"Fuck." Dabi let out breathlessly in your ear, feeling you clench and gush around him as you came. He wasn't prepared for this. To feel you around him after five long excruciating months. He loved the way your pussy gripped onto him after all these years, as if it was the first time all over again.

Dabi pulled your head back by your chin so he could look into your eyes as he drove you into your next orgasm. Ignoring your pained whimpers of pleasure from being overstimulated like this. He dragged his cock slowly out of you, holding back a gasp as he slid out of your warm walls, missing the snug warmth around him, and then slammed right back into you without warning, making you cry out.

Your ass bounced against his thighs as he gained momentum, making him cuss underneath his breath at the squelching noises that came along with it and the mess you made on his jeans. Your hands fell down to Dabi's thighs, gripping them tightly but not tight enough to leave your mark, as he practically seethed from the power trip of fucking you after so long.

The drag of his cock inside you had you nearing your second orgasm so soon, and with the animalistic grunts Dabi let out, you could tell he wasn't too far behind. He usually lasted longer than this, way longer, he underestimated how much he truly missed you it seemed.

"Dhabi... Phleasinside... Please!" He could barely make out what you were saying, a stroke to his ego at fucking you so silly to a point you couldn't use your words properly.

"What doll? Use your words." There was a slight wheeze to his words, your pussy clenching so tightly around him had him close to losing his breath.

"Please cum inside... fuck your cum inside me please. Please!" You momentarily gained back your speech long enough to form coherent sentences. You screwed your eyes shut as you felt your orgasm nearing.

His grip on your hips tightened immensely, no doubt leaving his fingerprints there for days. He wouldn't last much longer and you knew it, the telltale signs of his thighs tensing and the urgent bucking of his hips told you he was close.

Dabi let out a groan so deep from the very depths of his stomach, goosebumps began to rise on your sore arms from the intense sound alone. He forced your head to the back so he could kiss you as he came, making a sound so damn carnal it had you cumming alongside him.

The two of you came together in perfect harmony, your pussy clenching down so hard on his cock it had you lurching forward from the force, breaking the heated kiss. Long strings of hot semen shot up into your awaiting womb, dripping down your thighs when it had no more room to go.

Your breathing was uneven, your chest and throat burning from your screaming session. Forever grateful that you didn't live by your parents anymore, back when you had to muffle all your moans from when you and Dabi used to fool around even back then.

He was no better, his breathing shallow and unsteady.

Dabi didn't pull out just yet, savoring the moment of the two of you being joined as one. His fingers traced the long line running down your back, not caring how sweaty you were as he kissed your shoulders gently in gratitude. After awhile he pulled his softened cock out of you, groaning from the oversensitivity while you winced from the evidence of what took place running down your shaky thighs.

The high from sex quickly came crashing down on him. He wasn't here to have sex with you, it just happened. Guilt began to chew at his mind from what he was about to do next, but the way you looked at him, with those caring eyes someone like him didn't deserve, made him drag this moment out far longer than it should've been.

He wasn't a ''now rather than later'' kind of guy after all.

"Let's get you cleaned up." His stomach churned when he watched you look up at him in confusion.

That's right, Dabi never cared about aftercare or basking in the afterglow. He thought it was unnecessary, but couldn't say he hasn't wondered how it would feel to have you running your fingers through his hair and humming childhood lullabies the way his mother used to do to him.

A pang shot out to his heart at the thought of his mother, quickly stomping those traitorous thoughts from making an appearance tonight. Not now, he thought. Returning his full attention towards you and your warm hand grasping his own. Squeezing it gently to bring him back down to earth.

Usually after he was done he'd leave, not that you were bitter about it or anything. That's just how it was. A small smirk would grace his two-toned lips with a "See you later" sent your way before he left your apartment. It was a little tradition shared between you two, the first time he said it you were still 16, applying ointment to his injuries after you found him in your parents backyard. He abruptly left without so much as a thank you, only offering those three words.

Now whenever he left, he'd always say those words to ease your brewing anxiety in promise of seeing you next time. And he never broke that promise.

He didn't speak to you about it, but you could tell he risked everything by coming to your place every once in awhile. You were not ignorant to the things Dabi did, some part of you knew he was involved with some shady things. Things you didn't want to bring up with him.

A man didn't get that many scars in their 23 years of life by being a good samaritan.

You reached your shower, stepping in while Dabi adjusted the settings to both of your liking, joining you once he was satisfied. You've come to love the heat as much as him, hot showers always reminded you of the flame user.

The water ran hot against the both of you. You looked up at Dabi, surprised to see him watching you. For a short moment, you held his gaze. Wondering what could possibly be running through his head that had him looking so defeated.

He wanted to tell you then and there that he'd have to leave for good this time. The League weren't people to be taken lightly, especially with that unhinged brat as their leader. He wouldn't be surprised if the creepy fucker was the type to kill the loved ones of people in order to maintain compliance.

But Dabi kept his mouth, and reached for your blue loofah instead. Squirting some of your lemon scented body wash onto it, scrunching it up so it could get more soapy. He worked in silence, scrubbing your body gently with utmost care and concentration.

Hell would freeze over before Dabi allows anyone to touch a single hair on your body. He didn't care who it was, even if it was the League members, he'd make damn sure their life would end with them being nothing but dirt underneath his shoe. He had to stop coming over after tonight, he was heading into dangerous, unknown territory afterall and he'd rather avoid killing the people he needed to exploit. His plans were finally at his fingers tips, and he wasn't about to throw them away over sex.

No, it was more than sex, no matter how many times he tried convincing himself that he was only here for one reason, he'd just end up fooling himself. At night when he'd look for shelter on the streets, when his quirk couldn't keep him warm the way he wanted, you'd plague his mind with your sweet smile and honey voice. Scolding him for not taking better care of himself and that he could crash at your place if he needed to get back on his feet.

That's why Dabi stopped scrubbing you just as you began to relax at the newfound comfort. You felt his hands tense against your body, making you turn around in concern.

"Hey. Is everything okay?" You were so concerned about him, his chest tightened. Why did you care so much about someone like him. You were so ignorant and stupid. Could you not see the blood on his hands from all the innocent people he convinced himself he killed out of pleasure. It infuriated him to no end, but he could never get mad at you. Not really. He tried pushing you away before, but you were as stubborn as him so he gave up on that method.

Your shoulders fell from his lack of response.

You were too grown to be playing guessing games with him, it was cute entertaining it before, but not now. Not when you were just coming to terms with... with what exactly?

You had an inkling of what was going on, but didn't want to push further. If he was going to tell you, he would. So you asked the next best thing.

"When will you be back?" You asked hopefully, water running down your face. He flashed you a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. His fingers brushing your wet hair out of your face. He learned in, placing a soft kiss against your forehead, his lips lingering for a moment.

"You're so important to me and I don't want you getting hurt because of my suicidal actions." Was what Dabi wanted to say, but he didn't.

So Dabi did what Dabi did best, deflect from the situation and push his true feelings down. Just when you thought you were making progress (as small as that progress was) in this twisted relationship you had with him, you were right where you started.

"I don't know when, I can't tell you exactly. But just know it won't be anytime soon." Or ever.

"Okay. Just... just stay safe." You whispered, placing your hand above his chest, where his heart was. You could feel the way his heart was beating ferociously against his chest, like a caged animal.

He brushed his thumb against your cheek, wanting to remember how soft your skin felt underneath his fingertips, wanting to remember everything from tonight before he left for good. He gave you one last kiss, this time on your lips. A quick peck that said a thousand words, and got out of the shower getting ready to leave. You stood still underneath the scorching heat of the shower, for the first time in years it actually made you flinch in pain.

You watched as he dried himself off with your towel, not paying any attention to you as his hand reached for the doorknob. Much to your relief, he spared you a brief glance that said everything you needed to know in that moment.

"See you later."

-

It's been ten months since you last saw him, almost a year. And in those ten months you've moved out of the city, got a new job and apartment better than the last. You were happy, content with how life has been treating you lately. Your skin was healthier and glowing, you made time for the gym and started toning your body to your liking. Everything was perfect.

It's been ten months since you last saw him, until you finally did.

There Dabi was, or as it said on the news headline, Touya Todoroki, all over your television. Standing above the ruins of a burning building. His clothes were torn, and his body full of cuts and bruises. You didn't even notice the white hair until the news reporter pointed it out.

There was a ringing in your ear as the camera zoomed in on what looked like a teenage boy emerging from one of the ruins, sporting dual coloured hair. Shouto Todoroki was his name they said, Dabi's younger brother who was a 1st year student at UA High School.

Dabi burst into those beautiful blue flames that you admired so much, while the young boy's left side burst into flames of red and orange. They appeared to get ready to fight, the entire country watching with bated breath.

And then everything happened so fast after that.

You don't remember when the tears started falling, but you do remember the loud sob that tore out of your throat as you watched Dabi's flames engulf him from over-exerting his quirk. He fell on his knees, face twisting as he screamed in pain. You couldn't hear what was happening as the mic from the camera crew melted from the overbearing heat of the two flame users, but you could tell that the pain he was going through was excruciating.

You didn't even recognize your own scream when his body swayed as his flames ate away at his flesh. The staples holding his two skin types together, melting into his flesh. You felt sick to your stomach.

Dry sobs continued to leave your sore throat as you watched the man you've known since you were 16, the man you were afraid to admit that you loved so deeply and finally came to terms with it after six years, slowly dying on national television as the entire world watched and didn't do anything about it.

The anchorman's voice was muffled as you watched your lover fall down, face first into the concrete. His body immobile. Your throat clogged up in pain, all you could do now was cry and watch as his little brother tried reviving him using CPR. A failed attempt, but what else could a 15 year old with zero experience in the medical field do.

A part of you felt like it was being ripped out as you watched heroes rush to the scene trying to pry the young boy away from his older brother. You watched as he pushed them away baring his teeth at them, tears streaming down his young face. You watched as a stretcher rolled by, two medics picking up Dabi's burnt corpse and putting him in that black body bag, zipping it up and slowly moving away from the scene.

The screen went blank, offering nothing but silence as you came to terms with what just happened, before the news anchor popped up, a nauseating smile on his pinched face.

"... The villain Dabi has finally been defeated by his own quirk. A win for hero society against their fight with the villains!!"

You were too numb to tell how many hours passed by as you sat there all alone in your room.

While the country celebrated his defeat, your entire world came crumbling down.

You would never be able to feel his warm hands cup your cheeks, pecking you all over the face while he praised you. You would never get to kiss him again, the type of kisses that left you weak in the knees. You would never get to do things with him that you always wanted to do, simple things such as falling asleep in his arms after a long day of work.

But most of all, you would never hear those three special words of his again, the words you didn't even realize until now, were his way of proclaiming his love for you.

"See you later."

[hero-dwelling]

On the "is tenkos dad bad for disliking superheros" message - I think it was not intended. For context, I'm someone who actually does dislike superheroes and find it kinda stupid with all the costumes and stuff - and I also by that point had soured on MHA and only read it to see how it would end - but at no moment thought I "wow Hori is attacking me and calling me a bad person for not watching MCU movies" Still I think there are other moments, where more serious problematic messages were spread by Hoir, so even if this one was true, it would kinda pale in comparison

(I mean, Horikoshi and his associates have done official tie-ins with Marvel, and he has cited it as an influence, so…)

Building off of my previous post:

I think you are correct that it is not intended. 

But I do think I am onto something. 

By its final chapter, My Hero Academia ends up perpetuating the same superhero system it tries to interrogate, criticize, and reform--with the ending offering almost no reforms. 

Maybe the supervillains end up disappearing in this ending. 

But the worshiping of heroes persists. 

And I can’t help but read Kotaro’s animosity towards superheroes as still a message of, “Don’t be like this guy--keep buying the merchandise.” 

Granted, a lot of what I’m writing here is probably plagiarizing what Bob Chipman has already covered when comparing the films The Avengers and Batman v Superman. 

To summarize Chipman’s interpretation: The Avengers presents the World Security Council as antagonists who don’t believe the Avengers can work as a solution, the film audience is now put into a position to cheer on the Avengers as an idea and hence the MCU as a viable storytelling avenue. By contrast, Batman v Superman takes more from its director’s previous work on Watchmen, suggesting that superheroes are actually a terrible idea and would not work in society.

(Chipman has gone back to this well when talking about Matt Reeves’s The Batman, so who knows whether he and I are chasing windmills.)

To share a bit where I’m coming from: I got into My Hero Academia right before the anime came out because I had heard good reviews from manga readers I knew, and I was already a fan of both the superhero genre and school life manga series. 

And the tone of the story matched largely what I prefer in superhero stories: I want the Adam West Batman, the animated Brave and the Bold, stuff like Dr. Horrible (go to hell, Whedon) and The Tick. I like the goofy, the campy, stuff that can parody the conventions of the genre. I’m not saying My Hero Academia had to be wacky, but when I enjoy something lighter but still a bit subversive or deep, I do tend to be critical when the supposed depth is illusory. And My Hero Academia did feel like it was less deep than it acted like it was. (If I can ever organize my thoughts, how Toga was handled at the very end felt like a refusal to really go further with the queer text with her and Ochaco, and killing her off refused to commit to that story.)

Since you gave your context, I’ll share mine: I have taught, written about, and presented on comics and superhero stories, including My Hero Academia. I appreciated a lot of what My Hero Academia started with--before it just fell apart for me, coincidentally when we meet Kotaro and get Shigaraki’s back story. And I think that moment if fell apart for me still ties into the point I made about Kotaro: the story is making a massive shift in focus from the heroes to the villains, and if you want people to sympathize with the villains, why not have a parental figure who is not only abusive but commanding “No superhero stuff”? 

That may be one reason why I’m also reading the manga during that League of Villains arc as insisting, intentionally or not, that the superhero stuff is still cool, because the story just felt like it was struggling to figure out how to both criticize the superhero stuff, while not getting rid of the cool costumes and powers. 

I think you could relate that as well to what Overhaul was trying to do, take on the aesthetics of supervillains while updating the yakuza for that time period. (The Seth Rogen Green Hornet film had a ton of problems, but having a villain who also was struggling to maintain his organized crime racket by slowly morphing more and more into a stereotypical comic book supervillain was an idea that had the potential to be a lot better.) 

“Sure, these villains are villains, but, first, aren’t they sympathetic, and second, while the villains have legitimate grievances against superheroes, you don’t want to be like Kotaro who just hates the heroes for being heroes! I mean, look how cool all of these characters look! Don’t you want to cosplay Shigaraki’s new outfit? Don’t you think both the superheroes and supervillains have good appearances and fun powers? Buy the video games and play as them--embody them! Buy the merch! Don’t let this dark spin to the story stop you from enjoying the story--keep giving us money!” 

However, in defense of that series, I did massively misinterpret a lot about My Hero Academia when I first wrote and presented on it. (I initially thought it was far more aspirational than it ended up becoming: I thought it was presenting a world that figured out how to be anti-racist, anti-bigotry, and pro-accessibility, then the English dub had Jiro insulting Tokoyami’s appearance, Vigilantes talking about NIMBYs and discrimination against larger-size people, and much later the back stories for Spinner and Shoji.) 

And to emphasize: I enjoy the camp and the costumes, I completely understand someone else like you not liking the superhero story and the costumes and tropes, and I don’t think My Hero Academia, intentionally or not, was trying to compare someone like you to Kotaro, so much as the story was telling the superhero fans “you don’t want to be like Kotaro, so support the superhero stuff.”

And if I could keep writing, I would talk about whether My Hero Academia had a problem that Attack on Titan ended up having, where the message, iconography, and historical references got so muddled that you don’t know what the story was trying to communicate. In other words, was Attack on Titan anti-fascism or pro-fascism? Because I gave up on that series, and it was too uncomfortable to keep seeing that story take on the icons of fascism without seeming to meaningfully condemn them so much as use them as window dressing. In other words, Attack on Titan seemed more like Starship Troopers the novel rather than Starship Troopers the movie. 

But I wish I could figure all of that out, because I think it would help address what you hint at with regard to the “more serious problematic messages” in My Hero Academia. 

I won’t put words in your mouth as you didn’t mention what those problematic messages were. 

But for me, having the heteromorphs yelling about bigotry at a Black superhero like Rock Lock was poorly done (is this story suggesting Rock Lock is propping up a bigoted system when he as a Black superhero should not do so?), the last-minute lore dumping and worldbuilding with the various anti-heteromoph massacres that could have been set up earlier, Toga just getting absolutely fridged while other characters survive far more brutal injuries and the potential refusal to just commit to a queer story there without it requiring burying the gays (and whether this ties into killing off Midnight, an incredibly in-your-face sexual person), not committing to visuals that show the actual reforms Ochaco and Shoji accomplished, and, outside of the text, the goddamn jackasses online that can’t get over that maybe Izuku is happy teaching and aren’t just insulting Izuku and the women in his life as if he is a loser in case he is still single and as if the women owe him anything. 

[hero-dwelling]

Hajime No Ippo, somehow better at giving its Izuku the fan he deserved for his hard work*, as well as making an Izuku x Bakugo ship actually work and not just perpetuate toxicity.

*Not ignoring Izuku having a fan club in Kota and others, but it still sours me how the final chapters propped up only the "flashy" victories of Bakugo and Shoto and ignore what Izuku did to save the day from Shigaraki and All For One.

[hero-dwelling]

Responses to submissions soon.

But for now, as an underdeveloped thought:

Trying to make sense of Shigaraki's character, philosophy, goals, and progression is a real pain. (This is more so my problem, not necessarily a problem with the text.)

It still doesn't come across as natural to me how Shigaraki went from trying to kill Toga and Dabi, to accepting all members of the League as people he wants to live free. Maybe I'm missing something, but it never struck me as there being a major moment that forced Shigaraki to change his perspective and realize he had to accept these people. If it was just what Kurogiri said, that Shigaraki needed large numbers to achieve his goals, that'd be enough; to read that right before the fight against the MLA as a "found family" is lacking; actually having them be a found family right before Shigaraki and Toga died works but is underbaked.

It could also have worked if it was simply that we in the audience didn't know Shigaraki's back story--but none of that back story really sold me on this seeming change of behavior on his part when it instead just came across as a random development to force a found family structure that really has been lacking. As with the problems for Class 1A not feeling as close as they really should, at least Class 1A had the films, OVAs, light novels, and spinoff manga to make the students feel like they are really close. The League just never had had those moments. (That Magne gets forgotten doesn't help. I get not caring about Mustard given how limited a presence he has and a seemingly unlikable personality--but that's not saying much amongst a group of capital-V Villains, even with how sympathetic or even "correct" they may be in their philosophies and actions.)

Granted, I hated the very early remarks by the UA staff that Shigaraki was a "man-child," even as I now see why that comment was thrown in: to communicate how far Shigaraki had to go so that we accepted that he moved beyond his instincts. But even that part still bothers me, as Shigaraki suddenly revealing he was actually a chessmaster against Overhaul all along is bizarre when he never showed that skill set when dealing with the USJ attack, Stain, or Bakugo. Again, this can work easily enough: All For One is gone, Shigaraki has to step up, and he shows he always had that in himself. I just wish the progression felt more believable.

[hero-dwelling]

Just going to ramble for this part:

My Hero Academia and Bungo Stray Dogs are the inverse of each other, then just arrive at the same result for its characters with regards to governmental regulations anyway.

My Hero Academia: World goes to hell, All For One is pulling the strings, All Might intervenes, the "old west" model is retired, a new age of Pro Heroes who are regulated for their powers to be instruments of power by the government, children get roped into fighting in wars.

Bungo Stray Dogs: World goes to hell due to a world war, no regulations, it's pretty much "the old west," no social safety net especially not for children, numerous superpowered individuals were fighting in that war and now wanted criminals or supervised by the government to continue to be used as instruments of destruction, as conditions worsen one city eventually tries to regulate the ability to run any business with these superpowered people and settles on an armed militia group posing as a detective agency and the literal mafia such that these superpowered people are regulated and used to fight another war that also involves recruiting literal children, and yet somehow the "old west" persists because the regulations on these businesses and individuals is rather haphazard.

And no, I don't know what each story ends up concluding about governmental oversight on superpowers and bodily autonomy. MHA began and ended with, "People with superpowers should have their powers regulated, because if you use your powers in public, you're like a villain," and Bungo Stray Dogs is still being published, still trying to say something about how war is perpetuated by countries and other power systems that deny individual rights while failing to support safety nets that can prevent people from falling through the cracks and ends up losing track of that message to instead say, "Veterans with PTSD can become villains pretty easily."

[hero-dwelling]

Back in this post, I started to touch upon how structuring the ending of My Hero Academia as part of Izuku’s journal is bothersome. 

I’m not a fan of how My Hero Academia acted like this was Izuku’s story since Chapter 1, narrated by him--only for the last chapter to reveal it is just another bit of writing he has been chronicling in yet another one of his journals. 

That detail bothers me because we do not see forward progression from Izuku. 

And I don’t mean the same crap by others online. So much of the worst takes online by the worst people online is that Izuku is the same as he was in Chapter 1--still lacking any motivation or agency to make himself a hero, needing someone to intervene to tell him he can be a hero rather than just doing it on his own. I get that complaint, but it ignores how Izuku did change, as shown how he became a teacher, revised his approach to rambling his analysis, helping that new student determine how to best use his Quirk for Pro Hero work. And yeah, I have complained that Izuku’s physical appearance as an adult still looks too similar to his younger appearance: I wish Horikoshi had leaned in another way to make him look a bit different. 

Really, the problem of forward progression for Izuku is what he does with his journals. He has all these journals about his Quirk analysis, now we learn that he wrote all of this journal as his narration for this manga--and it turns out he was writing it for himself, not to publish it, not to teach others, not an interview, nothing. I’m not saying Izuku turning this into a textbook or something would help, as that reveals how empty a lot of textbooks are as a project to make a teacher feel like they are putting in an effort to busy themselves or to make money or to create yet another empty book rather than something timeless or at least of its time. But at least that would be different and fit for a teacher. Why is Izuku burying his talent, why is he not sharing this story? It is again Izuku’s weird self-sacrificing behavior: he won’t share his story, but he’ll help Spinner get his story out there--and that’s not even touching on how on earth are we to trust Spinner’s own interpretation of events, especially for events where he was not present? 

And yes, that also means Izuku’s ability to narrate this story is weird when obviously he did not and could not narrate parts where he was not present: Toga versus Ochaco, Dabi’s back story, what the League and Shie Hassakai were up to. 

Elsewhere I whined about how much I despise the newest Ninja Turtles animated series, Tales. That is such a diatribe that I’ll link to it elsewhere. But my point is, Tales there failed to do something with its narrative framework that meant something other than to shit on its characters and repeat back a story that they already heard, because “hur hur hur isn’t it funny when we acknowledge the thing we’re doing?” No, you’re wasting time. 

And that’s what this feels like when making this manga Izuku’s story--when almost none of Izuku’s personality comes through in that narration or how the story is told. 

This is my point: if this is Izuku’s story, why didn’t he publish it and take some initiative to tell his story? Why didn’t we use the conclusion to discuss what Izuku did and did not know, and how he will not figure out what truly motivated those villains, especially those who have died, even those heroes who died and didn’t get their story told? Where is the reflection as said in the anime theme song “Make My Story”? This is Izuku’s tale--why does none of this ever feel like the last 430 chapters were any of his story, his point of view? That almost would make sense how we got to an Izuku who is barely in his own story: he’s an observer, the narrator, the analyzer, the one who lost his Quirk--of course he’s the outsider looking in. But then make Izuku more of a character as the narrator--where is our obvious narrator? Why is Present Mic more of a fixture to tell us which Quirks are which? Why does it sound like Bakugo takes over narration to call out Izuku as a nerd when Toga confesses her attraction to him? 

If you are going to make this Izuku’s story, and then it turns out it is just one more journal that he has done nothing with to inform others (aside from the obvious good work of using that writing to plan his lessons in the classroom), why should I cheer on Izuku when eight years later he has done nothing with his writing? Where is Izuku’s initiative to do something with his writing? It is so pathetic that he is writing this--then puts it away so Aizawa can (wrongly) chew him out as a bad teacher for letting his students walk all over him (when we didn’t see his students walk over him, when Izuku seems loved by Kota as one of his students, and when we see he is great at analyzing Quirk application and supportive of new students--all when Aizawa can’t even rope in Bakugo and others from their worst qualities and has to tell Izuku Bakugo has not changed in eight fucking years)? We literally have Izuku close the book on his story--all so Aizawa can tell Izuku who he really is. Izuku didn’t get to tell his story--he buries it.

[hero-dwelling]

is it as bad fire force's ending with it was a novel?

I’m not quite sure I understand the question. 

Are you asking whether the ending to My Hero Academia is as bad as the ending to Fire Force? 

Because, no, I don’t like either ending, but I think MHA had a better ending. 

The ending to MHA reinforced the messages we already had (people are not created equal but that means they should help each other). 

And the ending of MHA didn’t randomly change characterization (Izuku becoming a teacher makes sense). 

In contrast, Fire Force decided to get rid of its message (“take death seriously”) just to become a Soul Eater prequel (“death is less important”). 

I’m not sure what you meant about “a novel.” 

But I could rant about the narrative structure of this all being Izuku’s narration, turning out to be something Izuku wrote in his journal--but I’ll post that separately.