#league of villains

[moodyvoid]

Imagine the league working a regular job and a customer starts being rude and berating to Twice. Twice is non-confrontational and isn’t arguing back. Meanwhile, Dabi rounds the corner, heading straight for the customer.

Cue the customer being like “Why do I suddenly hear boss fight music?”

[toshiimura]

[marbled-magician]

Mr Compress Sir, why does everyone keep insisting you keep your marbles in your ass?

I feel like that would be uncomfortable. Not to mention highly unsanitary.

You use those to capture people, plus I've seen you put them in your mouth.

And you're not Shiggy-chan, where the stuff that goes in your mouth is highly concerning.

~ Shinsei, @codename-firedancer

It's a running gag between the league members... I do not, or would ever, stick them anywhere that is not easily accessible!

Dabi and Twice started the rumor I believe, and Toga and Mustard are heavily influenced by them... I'm just letting them entertain themselves with the lies they believe.

 - Mr. コンプレス

[lovebeatriceplz]

Touya using his last breaths to tell his family how much he hates them right after having a cutesy hehe haha vision of them actually being happy is the realest shit I’ve seen in a while

[call-me-copycat]

Because of one of my recent posts, I feel the need to ask:

If you have not read it (or at least haven't read it all), would you guys be interested if I were to share some panels every now and then?

I've noticed every time someone online posts a strip without context, everyone finds it hilarious and wants to know where it's from - I don't see many people that know about SMASH? So I thought I'd ask

I own all 5 books, it's terrible but in a good way in my opinion (⁠๑⁠¯⁠◡⁠¯⁠๑⁠) - I will admit some of it is a little too crude for me though..（´・ω・｀）

SMASH is where a lot of popular artwork came from! (Most of it was from Horikoshi responding to Neda's work but still)

He drew the cast as children for a chapter, and little Aizawa caught a lot of attention:

Then Horikoshi drew this for Neda after that chapter:

There was another with a genderbend artwork from Horikoshi after Neda (I believe it was from the same novel too) made a genderbend strip:

Anddd here are some random panels for those unfamiliar! (´∇｀)

Bonus warning from Horikoshi:

[autumnmobile12]

Just so we’re clear…

...the irony that Ambush Simulation was inspired by a Soul Eater episode where a white haired, patchwork dude with questionable sanity pulls the same stunt on some unsuspecting high schoolers and thought it was the funniest shit ever is not lost on me.

[manicpixieyandere]

The League of Villains

Society and Quirks

So we just finished binging all of MHA and read the remaining chapters of the manga. And damn we did not expect the League of Villains to be some of our favorite characters to ever grace this Earth! But it's kinda unfortunate the franchise the ended up in. Let's talk about that!

First let's start by talking about the LoV and what quirks represented for them. In MHA it's quite common for quirks to be used as allegories for different kinds of marginalization.

Heteromorphs like Spinner are a representation of racism.

Toga's quirk is a representation of how she loves someone and how society deems that love "wrong". Toga is shown to love both boys and girls. People beg her to "just be normal". She is obviously queer.

Dabi's body was not made to deal with his own quirk. This reads as being born disabled. He also has the common disabled experience of being told to forget his dreams and aspirations.

Twice's double quirk and the trauma that came from it lead to him developing dissociative identity disorder.

Some in the LoV were also marginalized / had a rough start without anything to do with their quirks.

Magne is a trans woman.

Mr. Compress comes from a family lineage of criminals.

Shigaraki is a League of Legends player.

(No but seriously this poor kid was abused and manipulated his whole life).

Speaking of which a lot of the LoV were abused and / or neglected as children. Most of the shit Shigaraki went through was due to All For One, but it's not like his bio dad was stellar either. We all know Endeavor gets the worst dad of the year award for how he raised Toya, but Dabi also got the AFO manipulation to a degree as well. Toga's parents were neglectful and verbally abusive.

All of this is to say; The LoV members clearly had a rough life. But they found a family in each other! They all cared for each other in their own way! Twice and Toga were very close and would take care of each other. Dabi burns down Toga's childhood home. Spinner and Shigaraki bond over video games and were genuine friends. Compress takes care of everyone and saves them. Everyone is sad when Magne and Twice die.

All of this leads to this beautiful line from Shigaraki:

He wanted to be their hero. He wanted to destroy the world not just for his own urges, but to make the world a better place for his friends, for the LoV. But did he succeed, even a little bit?

Wellll... The hero society that doomed them all is still going well and thriving. The most change to come out of their mission was a bigger focus on quirk counseling. This is definitely important but it is not the only thing that needed to change. And it only changed because of ONE PERSON. The ONE person who showed empathy for Toga. Ochaco is the one to implement this change, but she is only one person. She cannot change the entire world on her own.

This is where we just can't get past the clear biases in the writing of MHA. The villains are not treated fairly. For example the heroes get off scott free with practically EVERYTHING. Bakugo dies? Just kidding! Oh the condition for him coming back to life was now Edgeshot has to die? Nah he's fine too. Deku had an entire arc about wanting to save Shigaraki when no one else agreed, only for him to kill him in the end. And after killing him it's not like he implemented changes to help prevent whoever the next Shigaraki is gonna be. The cycle will continue until changes are made.

So as you can see there is clear favoritism in the writing. And that is something that tends to be an issue whenever you have a plot device such as quirks that represent marginalization and you have villains who are trying to fight their oppressors. Let's look at a few examples!

For animation fans an example that leaves a bitter taste in our mouth is The Dragon Prince's dark magic. Dark magic is something that is seen as corrupt but also explained to be a way for humans to have magic to fight their oppressors as they were seen as less than since they had no magic. But dark magic is also used as an allegory for drugs and addiction, so it gets messy.

For the superhero fans let's look at The Boys. Supes are a complete mess. You have them representing conservatives and cops in an "all supes are bastards way" while also having them as a marginalized race in danger of being genocided. You can't have both.

Both of these examples show messy allegories in fantasy where rising against your oppressors is painted as wrong and the marginalized are also seen in a negative light due to some other component of their fantasy (drugs and cops respectively). MHA falls into the same trap with its villains. They're fighting their oppressors. They are oppressed due to their quirks just being who they are, but those quirks also lead to violent murderous urges (decay and transform most of all). It ends up creating a scenario where you teach the audience that it's bad to rise against your oppressors, it's bad to want change.

So what could they have done differently? Without completely redoing the quirk fantasy, the simplest answer would be to REDO THE SYSTEM! They hinted many times in the series it needed to change somehow and just never did. Normal civilians even wanted it changed, not just the villains! But it just doesn't change. They needed to put more focus on that push not just from the villains but from the innocent civilians as well to prove it's something that needed to change. But it never will. It's fiction and the book is closed.

But just because it's fictional doesn't mean it doesn't represent real world events. The story teaches negative things about marginalization and how we should never make a stand. It's like telling all the women right now in America to not be angry their anatomy and rights are being taken away from them. It's telling those women to love the man who is doing this to them. It's telling queer people to just accept they can't get married or transition anymore. It's telling us there is nothing to be done. But remember that isn't true! If you keep fighting things could change. It unfortunately may not be in your lifetime, but at least we can try to make things better for the future generations so no one has to hurt like the LoV did, like real people do today.

[shiggyartist]

Appreciate you Horikoshi blessing us with this gorgeous ass man.

[teapetal44]

TW: ABUSE, CHILD ABUSE

“He wants to air this dirty laundry to the world does he…? Dabi, you fiend…you’ve been waiting for this moment…when they couldn’t prevent mass destruction…and faith in heroes is wavering.” - chapter 292

I truly, wholeheartedly, believe that MHA as a story upholds the myth of the perfect victim. I do not want to discuss if Horikoshi did that on purpose, or subconsciously because of inner bias – I find no meaning in doing so. For me the execution of an idea, in the grand scheme of the narrative, holds more value than the intention of the author. I’ve also had my fair share of people infantilizing Asian authors in the anime community for their poor writing decisions for one lifetime. It’s patronizing to both the author and the people reading it. Whether or not Horikoshi intended for his themes of abuse to paint the picture they did does not matter, because that’s how it reads as.

MHA puts victims of abuse in narrow boxes and softly dictates what’s an acceptable reaction to said abuse. Victims are continuously walking a tightrope between being deserving of compassion and sympathy and being unredeemable monsters who are too far gone and are only good for martyrdom after being put down.  

Eri fits the clean cut depiction of abuse victims that media usually gears towards. She is untouched by the cruelty around her - she preserves her innocence and kindness. She isn't assertive, but rather meek and passive. She doesn't fight back with force. And when offered help, she is receptive to it. That is not to say that Eri's depiction doesn't have a place in fiction, or that her portrayal can't be representative of the experiences of some - as we all deal with trauma and the inhumanity people throw at us differently. We see the same thing in the portrayal of Fuyumi, who shares many of the qualities discussed above. The same thing applies to her - i personally love the idea of all the siblings having different reaction to their childhood trauma and abuse. It shows that victims are not some type of monolith.

But the narrative treats the "forgiving" or "receptive to help/support" victims of abuse with more grace and with much more kindness. if you are willing to forgive, or the very least be quietly tolerant, the story grants you a happy ending. Forgiveness isn't a bad thing, it is an individual choice - but an abuse victim shouldn't have to do it for them to have a happy ending.

In a vacuum Eri and Fuyumi's character arcs and depictions of abuse are good but it becomes a problem when that's the only experience and type of victim we ever hold in high value or recognize as valid and deserving of compassion. Which the story reinforces.

Touya and Tenko's backstories aren't pretty nor comfortable or easy to sit through. Their responses to abuse aren't either. Reactive abuse is very much real.

[tmufruitss]

pouting and scheming

[mhaaddiction19]

It is confirmed that the final volume would have 38 pages of new content

[myheroacademiadaily]

day 6, Toga is so pretty in some pastel bisexual lighting.

[poppy5991]

Toga: *sets down Tarot cards*

Toga: Bro, you are the problem. The cards-

Dabi: Shuffle that shit again.

[greatdecaygreatrenewal]

hey yall i may be buried deep in school work atm but doesn't mean u can't send me doodle requests for this bloggg ! doesn't have to be shigaraki related jus as long as its mha ! jus a lil fun thing to have on here! wanna interact more w yall, feel free to send ur requests in my asks!!

[little-sis-toga]

Always remember that no matter how much life twists you out of shape, there's always something left of the person you used to be, and there will always be people out there who will love you as you are

Those are some awfully kind words, I really appreciate it. Thank you anon~! 💕🫂