#look don't get me wrong mirio isn't a bad person

[delawaredetroit]

Nedzu's analysis of what All Might was looking for was rather surface level. On the other hand, All Might probably gave him zero guidance for what he was looking for in a successor.

Always smiling and making a space where others can laugh isn't all there is to All Might's ideals. All Might was a change to the system as it existed when he was young. He had a vision for something new and implemented it. He had the spirit of self-sacrifice from a young age and attempted to save everyone that he could reach.

Mirio lacks vision. Despite his flighty demeanor, Mirio has grounded realistic goals that fit neatly within the existing system. He did not believe it was possible to save everyone. He had no critique of the status quo. Izuku, without meaning to do so, challenged All Might's views on heroism when they first met. Mirio on the other hand was a safe pick that no one would oppose because he would change nothing.

[codenamesazanka]

I feel bad for a lot of Shigaraki fans because they're hyping up this mysterious person to be Tenko, but to me I just don't see how. They look slightly similar, but what they are wearing doesn't look like what Kurogiri was wearing. I think this is someone that's supposed to remind us of Tenko, but ultimately isn't. A stand in for him so heroes can save this person before they become the next big villain.

😭 It's the copium. I get it!!! And I guess if it helps someone survive the next three weeks, it's fine? And who knows. Maybe they're right.

While I understand the impulse, I'm also skeptical about Mystery Person being Tenko. I agree with you that the visual similarities - hair, skinny figure, bare feet (and what they're wearing is totally different from what Kurogiri was wearing) - are supposed to remind us of Tenko - and so, yeah, symbolic of this person being a victim who can potentially becoming a Villain born in this period of turmoil unless saved by Heroes. So far, they're no where on that wrecked street, so they're already failing!

(But actually - they've already failed much earlier, haven't they? For this kid to have ended up in this situation in the first place - using scissors to cut something off their face, all alone in a damaged house in a damaged town.)

I wonder if Mirio's speech can be applied. Heroes bring 'minuses' back to zero - the default, the status quo, the normal. This kid's normal is... this. If they turn Villain, that's a minus; defeating a villain and arresting them brings it all back to zero. But there are no pluses made from just an arrest and imprisonment. For this kid, it seems like it would just be their normal again - mask/gag and straitjacket.

I'm actually a bit disappointed in the some of the Shigaraki/Tenko fans right now, especially after all the talking points in the past few weeks about abuse and grooming and how victims should and must be saved... only for them to care so much about Mystery Person because it might be Tenko. That Mystery Person might be a character in their own right, a completely new victim who went through their own unique Bad Circumstances doesn't seem to actually matter; especially with those Bad Circumstances - being abandoned in a wrecked house, wearing a mask and confined - are huge flags to consider and care about in the same society that failed Shigaraki/Tenko. I feel it's a bit. :/ But maybe it's me going down the wrong track! And I am also heavily projecting my own wants onto Mystery Person.

If so I apologize!!!! And we have to carry on as always - being mindful and accepting things as they come.

Thanks for the ask!

[faulty-writes]

Hi, I hope your week is going well! Could you please do a Mirio headcannon with an openly queer reader? Along with the big three? To make the story more interesting maybe something happened to read that made them not sleep for four days and eventually lead to a fight with Mirio? Idk if this helps but do as you wish with it! Much thanks!

[ Oh another headcanon request with my boy Mirio! ]

You tried to pretend their words didn't get to you. After all, they were a villain and what did they know? Sure your outfit was colorful and your mannerisms somewhat questionable. But that didn't give them any right to state that there was no room for 'heroes like you' in this world.

The more you found yourself thinking about it, the more you began to trick yourself into blaming Mirio, and the rest of the Big Three as well. But it was Mirio who always encouraged you and ironically was the first person you had come out to and right off the bat he accepted you.

You couldn't help but think it was thanks to his encouragement that you didn't hesitate to be open to everyone, to implement who you are into everything including your costume which was the main aspect that the villain was making fun of.

The more you thought about Mirio, the more you found yourself slipping into regret. Wishing you had never opened your mouth to him about who you are and what you like. You didn't care if this was the wrong way to think as you were too emotional and sleep deprived at the moment to care.

Nejire and Tamaki were the first to notice something was wrong considering you were acting withdrawn and barely spoke a word to them the next you returned to school. "Is Y-Y/n feeling okay? I h-hope they aren't m-mad at me..." while Tamaki was being his usual self, Nejire took the assertive role. "We need to ask Mirio, he knows Y/n better than anyone!"

"Sunshine isn't themselves?" was the first question out of Mirio's mouth when Nejire and Tamaki informed him of what had been going on. "I d-don't know what's wrong...t-they're kind of giving us...the cold shoulder!" the thought of something bothering you this much didn't suit Mirio well and like any hero, he sought out to help you.

Of course, he never thought he would be greeted with anger. You were still mad at him, despite the fact that you knew what happened wasn't his fault. You still took to screaming at him before demanding that he leave you alone.

Mirio tried to confront you again later and ceased your effort in trying to run away from him. "If something is wrong, you can tell me sunshine! I'm always here to help you and I would never try to steer you wrong! Please...can you tell me? Promise I won't freak out or reject you! That would be a little too mean," even after those heartfelt words, you still refused to tell him.

A few days passed before Mirio once again confronted you, but unlike before he wouldn't leave your side until he got the answer he was looking for. So, you finally admitted what happened. About the villain, about feeling like you regretted being open, being who you are.

"There's no way that villain is right, I mean you're amazing Y/n. No matter what you label yourself as or how you dress or who you decide to be, you'll always remain that same amazing person to me and I know Tamaki and Nejire feel the same way!" he assured before giving you a hug that he believed would 'erase' all the bad vibes.

You realized how wrong you had been to blame Mirio in the first place, nothing was his fault and maybe you shouldn't have been so hard on yourself. After all, there's always something so beautiful about an individual who can balance both their masculine and feminine energy and use it according.

[roll-da-credits]

A Bunny with Bunny?  -Tamaki x reader-

Word count: 2k

Tamaki was someone who needed constant reassuring, you knew that when getting in a relationship with him. But sometimes, you forget. With a new tiny addition to your family distracting you and taking all your time, its hard not to get insecure and jealous.

A/n: AHHHHHHH, I can’t. I hope you guys enjoy the first fanfic I post here. I’ve literally never posted in Tumblr ever. I’ve always used Wattpad.

It was common knowledge by this point that Tamaki Amajiki had a lot of insecurities and anxiety. It only heightened when it came to you.

Although, a lot of the time you diffused his anxiety and insecurities pretty quickly once you realized. Whenever it came to you, he found himself deep in thought at night thinking if he deserved you.

In his mind, you were an incredible person with an equally wonderful personality. While he, on the other hand, was shy and riddled with nervousness at any social interaction. You shone bright, much like Mirio, he thought of himself as nothing compared to you.

Every single time he's had one of those thoughts, you'd be able to sense his doubts by the way he carried himself. Not doubts about your relationship or you, but on himself.

So, the entire day you'd stick close to him, showering him with light affection that you knew won't embarrass or make him feel even more embarrassed.

He considered himself EXTREMELY lucky to have someone as understanding and caring as you in his life. He knew dealing with his myriad of issues was difficult. But you went through them with no problem.

You even helped him with helping himself. By your constant words of affirmation, he's been able to be a bit more confident, even when you weren't there to help him.

Time went on, and by the second year you were dating, he barely had any doubts about himself in your relationship.

That is until he heard your conversation with Nejire.

"Just look at him!!!" You squealed in excitement.

 He was going through a hallway when he heard your and Nejire's voice when the hallways separated to the right and left. He stopped to listen in, curious about what you were talking about.

 "He is adorable." Nejire seemed to agree with you, peeking at the corner. He saw how you gushed about whatever photo you were showing Nejire.

His heart sank a little bit, but he wanted to give the benefit of the doubt. Maybe it was a photo of a family member.

"I just met him like last week and already have A LOT of photos of him."

Ok, this is starting to not sound like a family member.

Maybe it's a friend's baby brother. You have a lot of friends outside of the school you were close to their siblings as well.

"I just want to pamper him with all the kisses in the world and give him world!!!" You gushed.

Shit.

 Tamaki felt his heart drop. There's no way you were talking about a family member. Not by the way you seem to be enamored by them.

He tried to think back on when you seemed to lose interest. Thinking back to last week, did you act any differently?

If you did, he didn't notice it. The problem was last week you said you were ridiculously busy with stuff at home. He could even see from the tapping of your foot to the ground when it was last period you were aching to go back home.

Was it because of this new guy?

His heart clenched at the thought.

"God, I love him so much." His mind begged him to stop listening.

But before walking away, he wanted to hear what Nejire might say. There's no way his best friend would be ok with this.

There's no way she wouldn't protest at you being infatuated with another person when you were still in a relationship with Tamaki. That's just what a good friend would do. Instead of that, she said jokingly.

"Watch out a certain blue-haired boy might get jealous." You both laughed at her remark.

Did you think he wouldn't get jealous over you doting on another guy?

Did the nights you spent together cuddling and napping together really meant nothing to you?

His insecurities crept back into his mind. Tiny voices whispered about how he should've expected it. He should've expected someone as radiant as you would never want to be with someone like him.

His vision was blurred by the lot of tears that came down as he furiously tried to wipe them away.

He didn't watch the way he was going, and as a result, he bumped in head first to someone's chest.

He tried to mutter an apology, yet it came out as a stuttering mess of squeaks. "Woah! Slow down, Tamaki. What's wrong?"

Mirio.

Thankfully the guy he bumped into was Mirio, one of the most understanding guys he ever known.

Mirio pulled Tamaki to the side, where they both sat on a nearby seat. He patiently waited as Tamaki rubbed his eyes red, trying to clear his eyes from tears.

When Tamaki finally calmed down a little and is now just sniffling once in a while, Mirio braved himself to ask the question.

"Hey, Tamaki, what's wrong?" Tamaki's gaze still fixed to the ground, spoke in a voice barely above a whisper. "I think Y/n doesn't love me anymore."

Mirio's eyes went wide in shock. He didn't believe that in a second. You're the person who'd take any chance you can get to attack Tamaki with kisses or force him to cuddle with you whenever he felt unloved.

"Why do you think that?" Mirio composed himself. "I overheard them and Nejire talking about some guy she found cu- cute."

He stuttered a little bit at the end, finding it hard to believe that he would ever say that out loud.

"There has to be a misunderstanding here. Are you sure it's not just some celebrity or a family member?"

Tamaki heard the small panic in Mirio's voice. He knew Mirio didn't want to accept the fact either. "I heard them say that they just met him last week and that they wanted to give him kisses."

Mirio rubbed his temples to try and cope with the upcoming headache caused by stress.

There would be no way that you'd do that to Tamaki, is there?

There was a possibility that you and Tamaki's relationship didn't work out. He knew relationships aren't always permanent. But he didn't believe that you'd be such a coward, flirting with other guys when you were still in a relationship with someone who's head over heels for you.

"Tamaki, how about this." Mirio wanted to come up with a plan. Since it was already time to go home anyway, he thought it'd be a great idea to do it. "You and I can both go to Y/n's house, where they're most likely at right now, then we can talk about it."

Tamaki looked like he was about to disagree until, Mirio cut him off, "We need to make sure we read the situation correctly. We don't want to assume the worse, but at the same time, we shouldn't be needlessly positive either."

Tamaki gaped at Mirio's calmness. He knew he was so lucky to have Mirio as a friend. Someone level-headed that was able to bring Tamaki's mind to the situation at hand.

Tamaki agreed with Mirio together made their way over to your house. Albeit, both of them pretty nervous about what they might uncover.

When reaching your front door, Tamaki noticed how your parent's car wasn't there, which meant they weren't home. Tamaki took the spare key you gave him and opened the door.

It was relatively quiet until there was a high-pitched squeal from your bedroom.

Tamaki jumped at the sudden sound, and Mirio identified it as Nejire's voice.

"HE LOOKS CUTER IN PERSON!!!" They both heard Nejire scream.

Both the boys had incredibly bad feelings about this. Nejire's statement only confirmed the fact that you had brought this guy to your house.

Tamaki shook his head when Mirio motioned him to open the door to your bedroom.

He didn't want to see you all over a new guy who took your interest.

Hell, he didn't even want to be there in the first place.

Mirio sighed and nodded. He understood the circumstances his best friend was in and decided to open the door first.

When he did, the sight made his mouth gape open.

"Mirio!" You greeted the Tintin looking man (he looks like Tintin sue me.) "I've been looking for you everywhere. I want you to meet a special someone."

Tamaki, from behind Mirio's muscular physique, was still hidden from the two other people in the room and also couldn't see anything.

He only assumed the worst.

"This is Shiro. My parents bought him as a gift, and isn't he just the cutest little thing."

Wait

Wait

WAIT

BOUGHT??

WHAT DO YOU MEAN BOUGHT???

Tamaki pulled Mirio away from the door frame and looked at the sight that made Mirio so speechless.

Nejire was sitting cross-legged on the bed, her hand filled with fresh and clean greens.

You were sitting cross-legged as well, but on the ground. In the middle of your legs slept a tiny little black and white Dutch rabbit. (search them up they're adorable)

Now he understood why Mirio was speechless.

It was never a family member.

It was never a new guy.

It was never even a human being.

It was a fucking bunny.

He got so jealous to the point of crying, over a damn bunny.

Embarrassment seeped through him and he instantly walked to the corner of the wall to face it.

He should've noticed the litter box in your house. And how there were tufts of fur stuck on your clothes.

God, he felt so dumb.

You were so confused at your boyfriend's sudden timidness, but because of the tiny little ball of fur currently sleeping where you're sitting. There's no way you'd move and stir him from his sleep.

Mirio laughed out loud, and you quickly quieted him, explaining how bunnies are easily spooked.

He apologized and sat cross-legged in front of you, examining the tiny bunny thankfully still deep in slumber.

"Tamaki heard you talking about little Shiro to Nejire today." You nodded, while your hand softly caresses Shiro's head.

Tamaki shuffled closer into the wall, wishing to any god out there to melt into the wall. "After he told me, we genuinely thought you found a new boyfriend."

Your eyes widened and you looked over to your shy boyfriend.

Your heart ached at the thought.

Luckily for you, Shiro began waking up. Upon waking up, he promptly walked away from you to examine the new human being in the corner of the room, Tamaki.

You stood and gave Tamaki the biggest hug from the back you could muster.

Shiro nuzzled on Tamaki's ankles a little bit, making you giggle. "He seems to like you a lot!" Tamaki still refused to turn your way.

"You know in the RARE chance that I find someone even better than you. Which may I add is close to impossible I would never lie to you and still be in a relationship with you." He valued your honesty and the way you didn't try and make empty promises.

Mirio and Nejire took this as a cue to leave. Nejire, leaving the leafy greens on your bedside table above some tissues.

You took Tamaki's arm and turned him to look at you.

"Hey, hey. Have you been crying over this?" His gaze still fixated on the floor, he nodded.

You sighed and took one of your hands to his cheek to caress it. He enjoyed the warmth of your hand and leaned into it more.

Still trying to reassure him, you gave him a small peck on his lips.

Reminding him that right now, he was the most precious HUMAN guy in your life.

Shiro suddenly thumped at the ground with his two back legs. Both of you glanced over at the tiny bunny.

He looked pissed. He seemed to be demanding your attention and is furious to not be getting any.

Both of you burst into laughter at the silly behavior your bunny was now showing. You both sat down on the floor and began to give the bunny attention.

"See even he's jealous of you." You picked Shiro up on both your hands, all his four feet safely planted on the palm of your hand close to your stomach and not high from the ground.

Tamaki looked at you and Shiro and smiled intently. "Bunny with their pet bunny."

Your face heated up at the comment he made using your pet name, "oh shut up." You tried not to sound flustered but failed miserably. By the dopey smile you have decorating your face right now, Tamaki knew you were still ridiculously in love with him.

Even if one day you're not, Tamaki feels good knowing you'd break up with him before you hurt him any further.

After all, you are his most precious, incredible, kind, caring, daring, loving, patient.

Bunny

[ice-cream-nekogirl]

Oh my God... finally... someone else who's said it, finally someone who actually gets it, I'm so... happy... XD

THANK YOU!!!

I'm sorry I'm being so dramatic but it's true... literally 90 percent of this godforsaken fandom has adopted her as their pet moeblob. Eri is basically a stuffed toy, she's got a cute face but she's ALL fluff, there's NOTHING there. Even what little we had with her was HARDLY a challenge. Nothing about her challenged Deku and the heroes, she was just the little girl who needed to be saved from the Big Bad of the arc. Even after that, she's just reduced to a traumatized child. People are gonna burn me to the stake to this, but trauma is NOT a personality, and even then Eri's trauma isn't all that challenging. She's not like Shigaraki, Kota or even Todoroki, all who lashed out and got angry because it stemmed from major trauma, Eri suffered MAJOR trauma, but she just looks sad and sheds a few tears that make her look more cutesy and sympathetic.

At the end of the day she is just made to be this cute little thing that the audience is MEANT to sympathize with.

Adding to that, she IS a plot device.

People deny, deny, and DENY that she is a plot device... she IS. She's a plot device, end of story. It was her power that helped Izuku beat Chisaki when all else failed, a Deus Ex Machina. Which is a pretty poor and infamous writing trope in itself.

And now she just won't be put on a bus. Which aggravates me to no end.

If I wanted something to fawn over and gush about how cute it was, I would have gotten a puppy. That's basically what Eri is, a pet moeblob, but she's a moeblob with a purpose that may or may not detriment the plot but that's highly likely given that Mirio got his quirk back from her and that her so-called training showed results SO fast...

Which is honestly worse, I'm okay that they served her, honestly, she deserved to be rescued that was a horrid situation but... to keep her and probably just use her again?

It's exactly like you said that is only SLIGHTLY better treatment than Chisaki's. Oh yeah, they gave her a fun time, a home, they don't abuse her, but it doesn't change the fact that I can see them still planning on using her. I can just see that happening, at the end of the day, I see her being used and she'll be okay with that because they rescued her, they can't be bad.

Which in it's own way, is totally messed up. So... yeah she's in my least favorite category because of that. But I am actually sad that at the direction the story is going, she's just going to be used but it's fine because they're heroes, so them using her isn't wrong like Chisaki.

And I hate that. I'm not okay with it.

What's your opinion about eri? I mean, she's cute and pitiful, but does she seem... bland, at some points? I don't know how to put it in words but, like from writing good characters point of view, rather than the good, nice person point of view, or something?

She’s boring. Boring! My god. She’s cute and all, but with only very rare exceptions, she’s cute in the way that a stuffed animal is cute—harmless, an object to be acted upon, something to be plucked, somewhat worse for wear, out of a garage sale and taken home and cleaned up, then put on the bed to sit there and look cute and be periodically cuddled.

That’s overstating things somewhat, obviously, but I think Eri was at her most interesting when she was at her most difficult—and she was never really all that difficult.

(Hit the jump for more about the wrinkles Eri introduced in the "saving" narrative, her parallels with Shigaraki, and the impact of her powers on the story.)

So, as I said, Eri was never really all that challenging for Deku personally, but at least back in her origin arc, we had the idea that she was difficult for the heroes to reach because she couldn’t bring herself to believe that being “saved” was a possibility for her, because Overhaul had firmly established himself in her mind as just too strong to fight. She tried to run away, of course, but she never confronted him directly, because doing so was useless, so that was the mentality she had when anyone else confronted him as well.

I liked the approach that before heroes could save her, they needed to make her believe that saving her was even within their capabilities. I liked even more that, even after they got her out of there, they immediately ran into the problem that just because they got her out didn’t mean they’d addressed her trauma. There’s fantastic nuance to the idea that a hero can get someone out of immediate danger, but if the person they saved is just dumped right back into a bad situation, or into a freefall with no social safety net, the hero has done nothing but stave off an inevitable situation where that person gets themselves into trouble again—maybe a trouble they need once more to be saved from, or maybe a trouble that now involves saving others.

The big problem with Eri is that she was just so…Easy Mode. She was easy to sympathize with because she was little and cute and wounded (but in a clean way). She wasn’t angry and disillusioned like Kouta was. She was never creepy and covered in blood and smiling in a weird way like Tenko was. She was tattered and hurt-looking enough to make viewers want to take care of her, but not so much so that she became uncomfortable to look at. Possibly because Overhaul is a clean freak, she was never dirty or grubby; she had those big doe eyes and a perpetually sad or scared face, rather than being angry or—what seems more likely for her situation—completely shut down emotionally. There’s basically no one who could reasonably look at her and think, “I don’t know; I don’t know if trying to rescue that person is worth our time and effort.”

Compare this to victims like Tenko: also a child, but one who looked off-putting enough that people kept shying away from him. Or try Bakugou instead: older, less sympathetic, so he got hints dropped by a reporter that he might have gone villain already and no longer needed to be “saved.” This scales all the way on up to e.g. the Noumu, the all-out villains, the masses of the PLF, and so on.

One of the things that strikes me as most interesting about Eri from a narrative perspective is how clearly saving her serves as a prelude to saving Shigaraki. From manifesting (alleged) quirk mutations that lead to them killing their parents, to being picked up, abused and manipulated by villains, all the way from rejecting heroes’ attempts to save them despite how obviously they need it down to their very coloring, Eri was obviously a dry run for Shigaraki. She therefore serves as a highly useful comparison point for how things are liable to go with Shigaraki.

The trouble for me is that there’s no middle ground there. Eri is the version of Shigaraki who’s nice and sweet and easy to save, who doesn’t lash out, whose ignorance or warped understanding of morality and social norms goes no further than the extremely on-the-nose “doesn’t know how to smile.” Her issues all basically get resolved in the space of a school concert, with no further plot time dedicated to e.g. her long-term housing situation, her schooling, or her upbringing outside of training her quirk.(1)

That by itself makes her not as interesting as she would be if the horrific situation she was rescued from were allowed to influence her in more realistic, ongoing ways, but it’s particularly annoying because it makes her—well, not even much of a dry-run for Shigaraki, either.

I’ve seen people suggest that Eri isn’t the preview for Shigaraki, but rather the Good End of Shigaraki: the version that suggests that children like Tenko are not beyond help if they’re helped in time. I don’t think that’s Horikoshi’s intent myself,(2) as there’s far too much of the series’ overall tone riding on the matter of saving Shigaraki, but I can understand why some people who don’t care about the villains might get to that conclusion, because there’s so little bridge between them, so little that points in the direction from Eri towards Shigaraki.

Deku is thick-headed. It’s clear at this point that he doesn’t see this stuff until it’s shoved in front of him while someone yells in his ear about it, ideally while crying. I suspect that’s why we have Crying Inner Five-Year-Old Tenko, because Deku and/or the narrative has been so bad at establishing a continuous line between where Eri was when heroes saved her and where Shigaraki is now. Thus, instead of a line that points from Eri to Shigaraki, Vision!Tenko becomes a line that points backwards, as if Deku hasn’t matured in his understanding of how to save people at all.

I wish it didn’t have to be that way, and one way we might have had a Deku who didn’t need that psychic vision would have been an Eri who was a little bit farther down Shigaraki’s road to begin with.

On the other big consideration with Eri, her power and the role it will play in the narrative, I have less to say. I used to be extremely concerned that she would be used to rewind Shigaraki back to his child self (which is, to quote a webcomic, “just a complicated way of annihilating the person [he] is today”), but I don’t really think that’s on the table at this point. Her ability to rewind people is tied to her horn, a finite resource, and going by how much it shrank when all she did was rewind Mirio six months, the amount of it growth she would need to rewind Shigaraki 16+ years is just not something I think is feasible.

Also too, there’s been no indication thus far that people who get rewound lose their memories of the intervening period, and what has it actually fixed in Shigaraki’s psychology if you just put his current mindset back in the body of a five-year-old, probably against his wishes?

That just leaves the prospect of healing fatal wounds, and while that’s possibly an option, it would be so time-consuming that you’d quickly run into the same problem—if she had a good build-up she could help a number of people whose injuries were all relatively recent, or one person who’d been out of commission for some time, but until the heroes figure out what her accumulation condition is,(3) they’re stuck waiting for her horn to build up naturally. She might have one more major play in the story, but it’s going to have be either saving one person on very recently injured with the little horn she has available right now, or it’s going to be in the epilogue, and either way, I’m not expecting her to come in and handwave Shigaraki back to harmlessness.

That, of course, is setting aside the fact that keeping Eri around for no reason but that her quirk is potentially convenient for the heroes is only less dehumanizing than what Overhaul was doing to her because the heroes aren’t literally enacting medical torture on her in the meantime. Seriously, let that girl find something—anything—else to do with her life. It’d go a long way towards helping flesh her out as a character beyond the sad waif who needs to be made to smile again because no one likes it when cute girls aren’t smiling or the heal spam button whose only relevance to the plot is who she’s undoing consequences for today.(4)

Aside: ...I am, it must be said, somewhat annoyed at the idea that Mirio needed his powers back to be a hero. Jesus wept, guys, he’s a third-year high school student who fought Overhaul solo for five full minutes while protecting a helpless child, possibly still under the effects of a quirk wreaking havoc on his sense of equilibrium, and quirkless. I’m not saying it’s bad for him to want his quirk back, or bad for Eri to want to restore him, but why in god’s name was someone that good at fighting ever pulled out of the Hero course? Fuck’s sake. He could never have gotten his quirk back at all and he would still have been, exactly as Nighteye predicted, as fine a hero as any.

Thinking about it takes me right back to one of my early objections to the entire premise of Deku as a character: "Wait, why would he need a super-power to be a hero? Hasn't the author ever heard of [long list of American superheroes who fight crime with entirely mundane talents and abilities]?" I got past that question for Deku because the legacy power plotline is more interesting anyway, but I shouldn't have needed to get past that question for Mirio because Mirio would have been a goddamn amazing way to address the entire setting's belief that people are defined by the quirks, for better or for worse, and a great way to challenge Midoriya to continue deepening his understanding of what it means to be a hero.

---

1: I mentioned this once before in, I want to say, one of the MVA In Memorium posts, but it’s striking that Eri is reassured by even the main character that her quirk is kind and gentle, rather than Deku reassuring her that she is herself a good person. Person and quirk are completely conflated, and while I’m sure it was a nice thing for Eri to hear in the moment, what with Chisaki having tried to pour so much poison in her ear about how cursed her quirk was (more, one suspects, to keep her easy to handle than because Overhaul himself believed such spiritualistic nonsense), it becomes a lot more problematic when you consider that Eri is staying at the school entirely on the understanding that Aizawa and the rest are helping her train her quirk. Absolutely no mention is given to the rest of her development as a human being and citizen of the world.

2: Largely because, “Every victim has an expiration date, and if they don’t get saved or somehow manage to save themselves before then, too bad; now they have to die,” is a monstrous read on the material and its genre.

3: Hmm. I wonder if there’s someone the heroes could ask about that. Someone they have in custody and who has something he very badly wants that it wouldn’t hurt anyone to grant him in exchange for his knowledge of the workings of Eri’s quirk. No? Oh, well. Guess everyone’s just going to have to suffer in the meantime.

4: RIP all lasting consequences of the Overhaul arc; you were nice while we had you.