#nomu are weird

[wholelottatransbians]

Hero time: since Kurogiri is a cleaner noumu, would he provide sufficient DNA samples?

Eh, I'm not sure actually. Quirks are based in DNA, so Nomu with a bunch of different Quirks would complicate things.

Plus, the sheer amount of variance between Nomu would make it really hard to pin down what the peak form of one would be.

[decarbry]

in these hands I'll hide

[lenniereadsalot]

I always forget not everyone has been in fandom spaces for years and/or had my hero as their first anime to thrust them into the world of weird and disgusting ships-

[autumnmobile12]

The League of Morons vs A Summer Camp

All right, so I love the hell out of this nonsense and I want to talk about the Vanguard's plan and how ridiculous it was.

First, most of the crew showed up a night early and…well, then what?  That first night, Dabi says they’re still waiting on a few more people to arrive.  Okay, so what are you all doing here already?

Did Kurogiri warp them back to the bar after they’d gotten a look at the place?  Scouted the area a bit?  You needed seven people for that? Were they that bored waiting for Twice, Compress, and the Nomu to show up?  What were they doing in the 24 hours between this part and the actual attack?  Standing on that cliff and muttering,  “Heroes…”?

Was Toga all, "Guys, I'm tired. Can we go back to the bar already?"

Spinner: "No, as villain protocol dictates, we must stand here menacingly for a minimum of twelve hours."

Dabi: Fuck you, I'm going to bed.

Except for being a scare tactic, having Dabi start a fire was mostly unnecessary. Their goal was to further weaken society's faith in heroes by targeting UA students, so you'd think he'd be a little more proactive in...well, actually harming someone. As it happened, the fire really only to served to announce there was an attack happening.

But I’ll throw the Vanguard a bone here and say this was Spinner’s doing.  Like their original plan was to start a massive fire that would consume both classes and all the heroes in a singular tragedy, but then Spinner said,  “Hey, pump the breaks, people.  We’re here to uphold Stain’s ideals about toppling the corrupt Hero culture.  Do we really want mass child murder as part of our brand?” Sure, he wanted to go after Iida, but he was a specific target since he was on Stain's hit list.

The two copies Twice made of Dabi were virtually useless in a fight since Vlad and Aizawa both took him out so quickly it was embarrassing.  And yet he’s apparently a big enough threat that No. 1 and No 2. can’t handle him.  Go fig.

Endeavor/Hawks:  Oh, no, he’s too strong…

Aizawa/Vlad:  Listen here, you little shit!

...

Muscular goes and reveals their plan even though he didn’t have to.  They all saw the Sports Festival, they knew what Bakugo looked like, and yet here he is asking Deku where he he can find Bakugo as if he was going to answer him.  Yes, he didn’t think there was any harm in telling him since his plan was to kill Deku anyway, but alerting UA to the fact they were looking to kidnap someone is still just hubris.

Going after Bakugo in the first place was a dumb idea.  We can probably credit that one to Shigaraki because only he would look at the violently temperamental teenager raging on national television and think,  “Yes, he seems like a reasonable person to negotiate with.”

...

Gonna drop in some actual light criticism here: Given the inequality issues that arise in the series later, targeting the heteromorph students for recruitment purposes would have been a smarter move for the LoV.  They’re all part of a demographic that has a justified reason for being dissatisfied with society, so there would have been a believable chance of the LoV thinking they could sway some people to their side.

But hey, the League of Villains was on a learning curve. Give 'em a break.

He totally saw Aoyama here.  Or at least he heard him because he clocked that there was something weird about that bush and he was going to go check it out…and then Twice distracted him and Dabi has an total ADHD moment and forgets what he was doing.

And it's not because Aoyama was the spy. Nobody in the Vanguard knew.

1.) Shigaraki says he tried and couldn't figure out where the camp was, but AFO figured it out relatively quickly. So if even his successor doesn't know who the spy was or called on that resource, then why would AFO tell anyone else in the group?

2.) Moonfish, Muscular, and Mustard were all apprehended, but none of them ratted out Aoyama, as someone with nothing left to lose would. Neither did Kurogiri when he was later apprehended, but that one may have been a loyalty matter. So I think this was a case of AFO saying, "I have a source of info and you don't need to know who it is." Because at the end of the day, AFO is an arrogant narcissist who's definitely not placing all his eggs in one basket. Aoyama wouldn't be an easy spy to replace, so of course AFO would want to limit any chances of him being exposed.

So this was Dabi's screw up.

Speaking of forgetting things, Dabi also straight up forgot they had a Nomu because he thanked Twice for reminding him they had a Nomu.

Sir....how the hell do you forget you have a Nomu?

Toga was supposed to get blood from at least three people.  She failed.

Twice had a simple job. Create clones. He succeeded, but the only two he made were Dabi and I refer you to the previous point on how useless they were.

Spinner and Magne’s roles were a diversion. Distract the Wild, Wild Pussycats and give everyone else the opening to find and kidnap Bakugo.

They did pretty well. Up until the point they were almost caught and Kurogiri had to bail them out. Also Spinner lugged the giant, over-the-top blade contraption all the way there only for Deku to destroy it.

However, they do deserve some credit for making probably the best strategic decision of the group that night, and that was taking out Pixie Bob. We saw on the first day of the camp that she was able to hold back a class of twenty students with an army of earth creatures she was simultaneously controlling. That would have been a huge problem, so for the purposes of their team, good on them for removing that obstacle.

Underrated squad members right here.

Mustard was a legitimate threat for same reasons Dabi and his fire was a threat, plus he brought a firearm into the fight. (I want to know what the other villains thought when they saw that.)

But instead of putting him in the center of the fight where he could do some significant harm, they placed him on the outliers and all he did was knock some students unconscious and everybody made a full physical recovery, showcasing the gas he emitted wasn’t all that lethal and didn't cause any long-term complications. (Again, maybe this was Spinner's idea of Stain's ideology on not indiscriminately massacring children. "Guys, I'm telling you! That's fucked up!")

The Nomu (effectively brain dead without orders) did more damage than any of them, which makes the previous point that Dabi forgot they had it even funnier.

And finally, Mr. Compress was missing for half the night and then almost came in clutch by fulfilling their main objective plus extra credit, only to nearly blow it with his showboating. Seriously, they could have gotten away with both Bakugo and Tokoyami had they just booked it while the going was good.

But no, Compress had to make a dramatic production of it. When he first snatched the kids, he could have just left and Deku and company would have had no idea what happened. Had he just kept his mouth shut and left, they wouldn't have known he even existed. Then as the Vanguard members were leaving through the warp gates, he goes and does it again, giving Aoyama enough time to fire at them with his navel laser, something that also could have bee avoided had Dabi just checked the fucking bush!

The Vanguard Action Squad won by sheer dumb luck and their collective incompetence actually succeeding is the most hilarious thing about this arc. In the end, three members of their crew were arrested.  (Although I think everyone was secretly relieved they lost Moonfish.  Even if he was on my side, I’d be actively worried that guy would kill and eat me in my sleep.)

Yet this self-important twerp is smiling like they actually did something to be proud of here.  All Dabi really accomplished personally was grab a marble (coincidentally the correct marble) before Shouto could, which is borderline more standard older sibling behavior than actual villainy. He literally lost two separate fights in one night and called it a win.

This arc was a five episode Scooby-Doo trap going wrong and succeeding.

Seriously, I hope that after the warp gates closed, they all just looked at each other and immediately started calling each other out on everything. Like Dabi slapped Compress upside the head and asked him what he'd been thinking having 'one last bow' before they got away. Spinner yelling at Dabi about how the clones did nothing. And there's Bakugo all, "I can't believe I've been kidnapped by a gaggle of morons."

Fake it till you make it at its finest.

[evilminji]

DP X BNHA Idea!!!!!

Izuku goes missing during the USJ. He falls through a green portal!

I mean? Kurogiri IS there. And we don't know that ALL that neck piece does is support his body. Could be Support Tech too. Portals made by an artificial Quirk are finicky? Why the FUCK would a Nomu, no matter how intelligent, have any control over his portals?

That requires a clear visualization and conscious PREMEDITATED set of decisions.

Something he is no longer capable off. It's one of the major flaws in their shitty, shitty "research". The see only the end results of people working with their Quirks. Mentally processing information and MAKING DECISIONS as INDIVIDUALS WITH FREE WILL and? Reduce it all down to the Quirk itself.

It's bias.

They never saw PEOPLE as anything of worth, after all.

That's why Best Jeanist can have such a "weak quirk" and still kick so much ass. Miriko can be a terrifying war god of a battle rabbit. It was never the Quirk. It was the PERSON weilding it.

The Strongest Quirks in existence, in the hands of weak willed men, could be defeated by one determined quirkless man with a heavy rock or a gun. They would die like insects, cowering in the mud. And All for One never understood that. It's why he underestimated his brother. It's why he was always doomed to fail.

It's WHY... Izuku has no idea where he is.

And there are like... seven? No wait, more. Ghosts. Arguing over what to do.

They CAME OUT OF HIS CHEST!!! ( T^T)

At least Grandma Midoriya is here. She like Aunty Mitsuki and... oh hey! That's Aunty Mitsuki's uncle! At least he has family... sorta... dead family? He's gonna go with family. At least he has people he KNOWS with him, here to yell at the weird chest ghosts.

And Grandma hugs.

As they float in a... void a green. Ha ha... ohgodwherearethey...

There is a crowd forming. Apparently that portal guy is a NOMU? And Mr.? Cloud? Wants his body back. Has been following the portals the Nomu creates to try and tear his way in from the OTHER side.

.....TERRIFYING.

What side?! What side are WE ON? Please EXPLAIN.

And?? Now someone is shouting to break it up. There are skeletons gently shoving people and doing crowd control. And.... wait. WAIT! :O

Is that a HERO UNIFORM!!! That IS! And a crown! Is that part of his outfit? Or is this place RULED by a DEAD HERO?! *vibrates in hero nerd*

[xxknockoutxx]

The beginning

𝙎𝙮𝙣: 𝙃𝙖𝙣𝙜𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙜𝙪𝙚 𝙪𝙣𝙡𝙤𝙘𝙠𝙚𝙙 𝙖 𝙘𝙤𝙧𝙚 𝙢𝙚𝙢𝙤𝙧𝙮.

𝙋𝙖𝙞𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙨: 𝘿𝙖𝙗𝙞(𝙏𝙤𝙪𝙮𝙖 𝙏𝙤𝙙𝙤𝙧𝙤𝙠𝙞) 𝙭 !𝙑𝙞𝙡𝙡𝙖𝙞𝙣 𝙛𝙚𝙢 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙙𝙚𝙧.

𝙒𝙖𝙧𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙨: cursing, screeching nomus and yeah

𝘼/𝙣: this fic is really old and I just never finished it. Lol.

Moments like these are meant to be cherished. Sitting in your boyfriend's lap as he starts fights with all the League members for no reason. Still sitting there with a smirk on his face and a proud hand over your thigh.

Eventually the topic transitions from arguments about whatever into Beginnings rather how everybody met each other. Now the topic comes up.

"How did you guys meet?" Toga asks, looking at dabi with curious and intrusive eyes.

"Uhhhh..." He cocks his head and rubs his chin in a thinking position. The amount of time he put in was a little too long for your liking.

You were shooting mad glares at dabi because why the fuck is it taking so long for him to respond? It shouldn't be that hard to remember something so important.

"Go on, tell her, we're allllll awaiting your response" you say while shooting his sarcastic look.

"I'm getting to it, doll" He says while desperately searching through his mental library for that distinct 'One day' he could feel those glares burning holes in his face and he can see toga's smirk in the corner of his eyes. The things he would do to smack the hell out of that girl.

"Wowww, how are you even lower than my lowest expectations" you cross your arms and move off his lap and find solace in Twice's and Compress' comfort.

"But that was like 2 years ago! My bad that I've had too many near death experiences to remember when I met one person!"

The whole fucking league: Wowwwww....

"The fuck are y'all wowing about!?"

You take a deep breath before looking at Toga.

"I'll tell you. It was kinda weird because I was different a long time ago..."

"This is all your fucking fault Dabi"

"How the fuck is this my fault!?"

"I'm not the one who left their spot to get a beer and look at some women!"

"Ohhh...."

Wonderful when a mission goes WRONG right? Being tied up and gun point in front of a whole bunch of facility members.

"Can you pretty please tie me up away from them.. They're hurting my ears!" Toga shouted at the guard that stood before her, clearly unfazed by her begging.

A loud crash in the next room got all of the guards attention and they basically forgot about the league.

"Oh thank the heavens above, maybe compress used his Spidey Sense and figured up that we're fucking held captive!" Shigaraki was still throwing daggers at dabi not even caring for toga at this point.

"Shiggy, if I hear another word out of your dry ass mouth I swear I will make sure I'm not the only piece of burnt b-!"

A huge wave of blood splashed them, even making Toga flustered. A cloaked figure walked past them so briefly that it looked like they were fazing in and out of reality. Were they really just here to steal? Not even concerned that they have Japan's greatest villains in the palm of their hand?

The figure disappeared and the rope cut by itself or rather by a dagger that ended up in the rope somehow...

After they got back to the base dabi got chewed out pretty good by the league and was sent on his own on a solo mission as maybe apology or to earn the leagues trust but truthfully it was just to get him as far away from shiggy as possible.

"So annoying... Send me on a fuckin' mission like I'm your little minion n' shit"

He mocked shiggy and his scratchy voice. "Look for supercharged Nomu, blah blah blah" The audacity of him to kick ME out. I'm fucking Dabi I don't care if he thinks he's my boss, I swear I'm gonna slap the shit out of him when I see him again...

His thoughts raced, so caught up in his chanting he didn't notice the approaching thundering stomps. Oh shit... That's a...— NOMU!

"Yeah get the fuck out of here, now..." *He runs off the building he was on and through the woods trying to find a short cut to a place he could have more battleground.

Turns out that super charged nomu are faster than a dude who runs in heeled boots and smokes 20 cigarettes a day. So yeah... He got stuck. But don't worry because that same mysterious figure from earlier jumps in and saves his ass again!

Before he could even notice himself slightly above the ground he's launched into a tree, facing the nightmarish monster that was just following him.

"Who the hell are you?"

"I'm gonna drop you from this tree and let it demolish your body"

"Understandable, have a nice day, do as you wish."

A group of trees collapsed on the Nomu causing it to scream and bleed. Dabi looked almost starstruck as he admired the sight before. The gust of air knocked off the figures hood revealing that they were in fact female.

Damnnnn mama was the only thing he was thinking in that empty head. Right as he was about to run his way back home he was being held up.

"So you're with the league of losers?"

"Eh close enough" He shrugged

In a matter of seconds dabi had a burning hot blade pressed against his throat. Wow kinky much? He thought. But nevertheless and he complied out of his own boredom

"Take me to your base now!"

"Okay" He didn't mind, he'll just lure you back to the base, to his specific room, and thennnnn after an extended 'talking' session he'll kill you and return the league in a great mood!

Well, that didn't happen and that's how you guys met.

[scary-grace]

Enough to Go By (Chapter 5) - a Shigaraki x f!Reader fic

Your best friend vanished on the same night his family was murdered, and even though the world forgot about him, you never did. When a chance encounter brings you back into contact with Shimura Tenko, you'll do anything to make sure you don't lose him again. Keep his secrets? Sure. Aid the League of Villains? Of course. Sacrifice everything? You would - but as the battle between the League of Villains and hero society unfolds, it becomes clear that everything is far more than you or anyone else imagined it would be. (cross-posted to Ao3)

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8

Chapter 5

You end up on a rooftop, you and Tenko and Kurogiri. Tenko has a pair of binoculars, and he lets you look through them before you have a chance to ask what he’s looking for. “We’re in Hosu,” he says. “The current location of the Hero Killer.”

“Are you going to fight him?”

“I’m doing what you said.”

You can’t remember what you said, except for your stupid joke. “Making him unfuckable?”

Tenko snickers, and somewhere behind you, Kurogiri does the same – which is extra weird. “No. Putting us back in the headlines.”

“Oh.” You don’t like this. “I’m not a strategist. You shouldn’t listen to me.”

“Why?” Tenko gives you a weird look. “You’re not stupid. Your ideas aren’t any worse than mine.”

“I don’t want you to get mad at me if it goes wrong,” you say. “I’ve heard you get mad at Kurogiri.”

Kurogiri chuckles. “That’s different,” he says. “Shigaraki Tomura. Tell her why it’s different.”

“Shut up,” Tenko says. He put the hand back over his face once he let go of your hand, but he’s turning red around it. Again. “Kurogiri’s not my sidekick. I don’t have to listen to him.”

“You don’t have to listen to me, either,” you say. “I don’t know anything about being – this.”

“You understand them better than I do,” Tenko says. He gestures at the expanse of Hosu before you. “What would it take to make you stop trusting heroes?”

You already don’t trust heroes very much. What would it take to move people like your parents or your siblings, who live in the other Japan, to where you are? “To see them choose wrong.”

Tenko gives you a curious look. “What do you mean?”

“Heroes can’t save everybody. They can’t be everywhere. They can’t be there all the time. But nobody ever thinks that the heroes won’t choose to save them,” you explain. “If you wanted to shake things up, you’d have to make it so the heroes choose wrong. For everybody to see.”

Tenko’s eyes light up, and the smile on his face this time looks less like your friend’s and more like the villain he’s become. “Then we’re in the right place,” he says. “This city is crawling with heroes looking for Stain. Let’s put them in a bind. Kurogiri, bring the Nomu. All of them.”

“Nomu?” you squeak, even as multiple portals open around you. “You have more than one?”

“We have lots. Sensei only gave me three.” Tenko gestures proudly at the monsters emerging from the portals. Everything about them looks like they’ve been put together wrong, from their staring eyes to their featureless faces to their pasty skin that smells like rot. The news reports about the attack on UA were clear about one thing – the Nomu that faced off against All Might was fast and extremely strong. “What do you think?”

One passes close to you and you cringe away, closer to Tenko. “They’re awful.”

“Exactly,” Tenko says. He stares down at the city, an expression on his face that’s somehow grim and vicious at once. “Let’s see what the rest of them think.”

The Nomus crawl down the sides of the building and vanish into the city. Tenko hasn’t given them orders, and neither has Kurogiri. You have questions – a lot of questions – but you’re not sure what it’s safe to ask. You’re Tenko’s sidekick, but that doesn’t mean his plans are yours to comment on. It feels weird to keep quiet, too. You and Tenko used to get in trouble for talking in class because you never ran out of things to talk about.

“You don’t look weird.”

You cough. “What?”

“You don’t look weird,” Tenko says again. You look at him, surprised, and find him looking straight ahead, peering through the binoculars. “I should have let you fix my shoulder the rest of the way.”

“What did you end up doing with it?” You reach over and part the cut fabric on his shoulder, wincing as you get a look at the bandaging job. “Next time, just let me finish.”

“Can you fix the rest of it?”

“I can’t do more stitches when it’s been open this long,” you say. Tenko grimaces but doesn’t swear at you. “There’s a chance it’ll get infected. If it does –”

“I’ll send Kurogiri to find you.”

“Tell him to give me a heads-up instead of just snatching me. I might need to grab antibiotics and I don’t want to make two trips.”

Tenko nods like this makes sense, which it does, except for the context. You’re standing here on the roof of a building in a city that’s already facing one villainous threat, while your childhood best friend turned aspiring supervillain has just released another – on your advice, no less. You try to rationalize it. Hosu is crawling with heroes, like Tenko said. If they’re good heroes, they’ll divert their attention to protecting the civilians. Heroes fighting Nomus will get Tenko the headlines he wants for the League of Villains, and if nobody gets hurt aside from the heroes who signed up for the job –

You need to be careful with that line of thinking. With that line of thinking, you could excuse what happened to the students during the attack on UA. “Can I ask you something?” you say, and Tenko nods. “Why did you go after the students?”

“I wasn’t after them. The point was All Might.”

“But you brought all those other villains,” you say. “On the news they said that Kurogiri moved the kids all over the training facility so the villains could kill them. And –”

You’re thinking of something else you heard, from Kazuo – that Tenko tried to kill at least three students directly, and All Might’s arrival was the only thing that stopped him. “He was supposed to be there from the beginning,” Tenko says. “All Might. Dividing the students up was supposed to distract him. Split his focus so he’d be more vulnerable to Nomu.”

You don’t know what you were expecting him to say, but it wasn’t that. “Those villains were weak,” Tenko continues. “The brats could deal with them on their own. It would have taken All Might two seconds. But two seconds is all we would have needed.”

“So it was – strategy.”

“Yeah.” Tenko lowers his binoculars, glances at you. “Do you believe me?”

The words leave your mouth before you can think better of them. “I’d believe you more if I could see you.”

Tenko was in the process of looking away. Now he glances back, and you can tell he’s startled, even through the fingers of the hand. You’re not sure what the hands are for. When he attacked the USJ, he was wearing multiple sets, but usually he only wears Father around you. You haven’t asked him to remove the hand before – only asked him where it was when he wasn’t wearing it, and when you think it over, you can’t see any commonalities between the times when it’s off and the times when it’s on. Maybe it’s the kind of thing you can ask about now that you’re Tenko’s sidekick again.

Tenko grips the binoculars one-handed, reaching up to remove the hand with the other. “The brats weren’t the real target,” he says.

“But you still tried to kill three of them.”

“Yeah,” Tenko says, like it doesn’t matter, without care – and without malice. “They were right there, and I thought All Might wasn’t coming. Everybody had to see how he failed again.”

Again? You’re not the biggest All Might fan, but you don’t remember hearing about All Might failing to save children who were being held hostage. In fact, when All Might has to prioritize, he saves children first. Tenko is watching you now. “Do you believe me?”

“I believe you,” you say, and you see his shoulders relax. “You’re not a very good liar.”

He never was. When you were trying to get away with things as children, you did the talking. Tenko’s job was to stay quiet and not make eye contact with whichever adult was questioning the two of you. No matter how desperate he was not to get caught, a few seconds of eye contact was enough to break him. In the present, Tenko smiles slightly. “Lucky I’ve got you.”

You like seeing him smile, and you’ve seen it twice tonight. The knot in your chest relaxes, only to tighten again as a chorus of screams rise from the city below. Tenko lifts his binoculars eagerly and you twist your hands together, trying to contain your unease. You have your best friend. He wants you with him – his sidekick, just like you used to be. You still know how to make him smile. And he’s a villain, the kind of villain who, when his plan to kill All Might looked like it wouldn’t pan out, decided to kill three children instead. What are you doing here?

More screams from below. You wonder how many civilians are being hurt, how many heroes are protecting them versus chasing Stain. You know there’s a free clinic branch in Hosu, one that’s open overnight just like yours is. They’ll be busy tonight. At least you won’t have to worry about them treating injured villains as well as civilians.

Or will they? What are the Nomus, exactly? Where did they come from? Is that the kind of question you’re allowed to ask Tenko now that you’re friends again? “Um,” you start, but he doesn’t look at you, just keeps peering through the binoculars. Sometimes he focuses so hard it’s like his ears stop working. You remember that from when you were kids. “Tenko?”

He still doesn’t answer. You reach out, touch his shoulder, and he startles so badly that he drops the binoculars. If he grabs them with all five fingers, they’ll disintegrate. You catch them for him, since it’s your fault, and pass them back once he’s ready. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”

“It’s – fine.” Tenko’s shoulder is tense beneath your hand. You’re still touching him, and you shouldn’t be. You pull your hand back. “What is it?”

“The Nomu,” you say hesitantly. “What are they?”

It’s quiet for a second. “Shigaraki Tomura,” Kurogiri warns. “You should not –”

“She won’t tell,” Tenko says without looking at him. He hasn’t put the hand back over his face. “They’re – I guess you could call them zombies. They’re made from bodies. Usually two or three bodies, and three or four quirk factors. It’s usually the same quirk factors. Shock absorption, regeneration, speed. I don’t care if you touch me.”

You’re too busy trying to wrap your head around the fact that somebody’s figured out how to raise the dead to catch the last thing. It takes you a second to get to it, and even then, you have to ask a clarifying question. “You don’t care? Or you don’t mind?”

“I don’t mind.”

Something is wrong with you. Something is really wrong with you that you’re more interested in why Tenko doesn’t mind if you touch him than in the fact that Tenko has multiple zombies at his disposal to turn loose on unsuspecting heroes and civilians. You try to focus. “Where do the bodies come from?”

“I don’t know,” Tenko says. He’s frowning slightly. A moment later, he puts the hand back on his face – but before you can decide if it’s because he’s mad at you, he hands you the binoculars. “Look.”

You look through them. You’re looking in the wrong spot, and after a few seconds of trying to give you directions, Tenko gives up and just covers your hands with his, moving you in the right direction. His index fingers are lifted, protecting you from his quirk. You see what he wanted you to look at quickly enough – heroes facing off against the Nomus. Endeavor facing off against the Nomus. It looks like the heroes chose right.

You can’t deny that it’s a relief. The civilians will always be your priority, and even if almost everyone has a quirk, most of those quirks are useless when it comes to defending against zombies with multiple quirks, and they’re banned from using them anyway. But you have the sense that Tenko’s not pleased, and when you look at him, you see him scowling behind the hand. “They’re making it look too easy,” he complains.

“These Nomu were not as strong as the Nomu from USJ,” Kurogiri says. “You were made aware, Shigaraki Tomura.”

“These heroes aren’t as strong as All Might,” Tenko snaps in response. “Master set me up – again –”

You spot something through the binoculars. Something Tenko needs to see. You push them back into his hands. “Look at that.”

Tenko’s still scowling, but he lifts the binoculars to peer through them. A second later he startles. Even without the binoculars, you can see a dark shape in distant flight over the city, something clutched in its claws. You don’t know who the Nomu grabbed, or where it’s taking them, but Tenko can’t fail to be pleased with that. Can he?

He can. A moment later he swears. “Fucking Hero Killer –”

Your heart sinks. “What happened?”

“He killed it. To save some hero brat.” Tenko’s binoculars are crumbling in his hand. You wonder if he even notices. “Fucking Hero Killer. Fuck!”

You’re pretty sure that’s not the end of the story. The Hero Killer saved a hero, after claiming that there’s only one true hero, and it’s All Might? You slide your phone out of your pocket, clear a bunch of notifications from your friends’ group chat, and navigate to Twitter. Somebody’s got to be reporting on this live, and sure enough, you find “Hero Killer” trending, plus a livestream of Stain’s arrest. He’s getting arrested, and with at least twenty murders under his belt, there’s no way he’s getting out of Tartarus in this lifetime. You touch Tenko’s shoulder again – after all, he said it was fine – and speak quietly. “Hey.”

“What?”

He won’t look at you. “Look at this,” you say instead, holding out your phone. “The heroes got him.”

“So?”

“So that’s it for him,” you say. “He’s going to prison for the rest of his life. All Might’s definitely not going to fuck him now.”

It’s quiet for a second, aside from a wheeze emanating from somewhere behind the two of you. It’s still weird to hear Kurogiri laugh. You don’t even know if he has lungs. Beside you, Tenko’s doing everything in his power to hang onto his scowl, and it’s not working very well. “Is that the only joke you know?”

You feel a surge of relief. “I’ll stop using it when you stop laughing at it.”

You hear the sound of helicopter blades in the distance, growing closer. Tenko can hear it, too. “Kurogiri, let’s go. We’re done here.”

You barely have a second to wonder where you’re headed before the black mist wells up, and you’re not entirely surprised to find yourself back in the bar. Kurogiri’s behind it already. Tenko’s sitting at it, the chair next to his kicked outwards. As you watch, Kurogiri sets two glasses down and lifts an unopened bottle of champagne. He opens it, pouring first Tenko’s glass, then the glass in front of the empty chair.

Tenko glances over his shoulder, spots you, and gestures impatiently at the chair. You sit down next to him and study the glass of champagne. Tenko’s already chugging his, but he stops halfway and glances at you. “Why aren’t you drinking it?”

You could lie, but you don’t want to. “I watched him pour it, and I don’t think you’d drug me. But I still have to be careful.”

Tenko doesn’t look offended. Instead he swaps glasses with you, and Kurogiri makes a discontented noise. “She doesn’t want to drink your backwash, Tomura. Even if you did brush your teeth before we left.”

“Shut up,” Tenko snaps at him. He’s turning red again. You look down into your new glass, trying not to laugh. “I brush my teeth all the time. You’re not special.”

That one gets you. You start laughing, and Kurogiri makes that weird wheezing sound. You’re starting to realize that unlike the villain you met earlier today, who was all over the place, Kurogiri’s got two distinct aspects – one that’s more formal, more severe, and another that’s significantly more relaxed. The second one sounds younger, too, and the impression only grows stronger when Kurogiri speaks again. “If you drink someone else’s backwash, it’s like making out with them indirectly.”

“No it isn’t! I didn’t ask you!”

Tenko is bright red and sputtering, and Kurogiri’s yellow eyes are crinkling, almost the way a person’s would. It occurs to you what this aspect of Kurogiri reminds you of – a sibling. You teased your younger siblings the exact same way, when you could get away with it. Well aware that you’re making some kind of statement about the whole thing, you pick up the glass that used to be Tenko’s and take a small sip. It doesn’t taste like anything but champagne.

When you look up, you find Tenko and Kurogiri watching you. Staring, more accurately – Tenko’s jaw is dropped. You will your face not to flush. “Thanks for switching with me. As long as you don’t pass out in the next half an hour, we’re good to go.”

“So you have to stay at least that long.”

He doesn’t want you to leave. You take another sip of champagne, giving yourself time to get under control. You don’t want Tenko to know how pleased you are with the thought, or how ambivalent you are at being pleased by it. “I guess I do.”

You stay for another hour and a half, reading over the news coverage of the Nomu attack and the Hero Killer’s capture until you can barely keep your eyes open. But you have an early morning, and even though Tenko complains that you have to go and makes fun of you for agreeing to take Yoshimi to her appointment, he doesn’t suggest that you back out of it. As Kurogiri is determining where to set a warp gate to send you back to Yokohama, you ask him why not.

Tenko gives you a weird look. “I know you,” he says. “That’s not who you are.”

He’s right. It isn’t. And as much as you’re pleased by the thought that your best friend still knows you after all these years, the disquiet lurking underneath it follows you home, curls up on your chest as you try to fall asleep. You’re not the kind of person who’d turn your back on a friend, or go back on your word once you’ve given it. But apparently you’re the kind of person who watches a villain turn monsters loose on innocent people and does absolutely nothing to stop him.

You might have made your choice already. You might have stepped over the line. But you have a bad feeling that you’ll be looking back over your shoulder at it until it’s vanished over the horizon, knowing you made the wrong call and knowing deep in your bones that there’s nothing else you could have done.

You’ve done basically nothing, but you still get the sense that you’re leading a double life. You comfort yourself with the thought that even if you went to the police, you’d have nothing useful to tell them. You don’t know where Tenko’s hideout is. You don’t know anything about who makes the Nomus or where they’re hidden. You don’t know anything about Kurogiri except that it seems like there are two personalities in there, and what Kazuo said about his quirk not being natural. You’re still not sure what Kazuo meant by that. Just like you’re not sure who Tenko’s master is.

The things you know would be absolutely useless to them. You know that Tenko recovered from his USJ injuries only to get immediately slashed up by Stain. You know Tenko likes champagne but can’t hold his liquor for shit. You know he’s smart and strategic, a lot more than the news gives him credit for, which is bad for them and probably also bad for you. You know he likes video games more than he did when he was a kid, but he likes you just as much as he did back then. You like him just as much, too. Probably too much.

You haven’t seen him again since that night in Hosu. You know he’ll send Kurogiri to find you if he needs you, and the fact that he doesn’t need you means he’s not getting hurt. But you’re watchful anyway. No matter where you’re walking, day or night, you find yourself keeping a close eye the shadows, watching from your peripheral vision in case one of them hides a warp gate. Or better yet, hides Tenko.

“Hypervigilance,” Kazuo remarks when he catches you at it, one partly cloudy day in early June. “A hallmark of traumatic stress. You could benefit from counseling.”

“It’s not wrong to be wary,” you say. “Things are more dangerous than they used to be. Don’t you feel it?”

“Another hallmark of PTSD. Persistent, negative cognitions about yourself, others, or the world, exemplified by statements like The world is more dangerous than it used to be.” Kazuo can be a real asshole sometimes. “But you’re correct. Crime rates have steadily increased as All Might’s taken a step back from the public eye.”

“You really think it’s All Might?” You glance sideways at Kazuo. “Not the League of Villains?”

“The League of Villains is a symptom,” Kazuo says. The two of you got to the park early; the rest of your friends are running late for your meetup. “I looked into the backgrounds of those who were captured in the attack on USJ. For the most part, I found petty crime – thievery, fleeing from the police, physical violence committed in the course of fleeing a crime scene or an altercation with heroes.”

That tracks with the kind of villains you run into at work. Most of them have done next to nothing to earn the title. “Looking back further,” Kazuo continues, “I found poverty, substance abuse, quirk-based discrimination, childhood trauma. There were some among the criminals at USJ who sought violence specifically and consistently from an early age, but for the majority of them, it was far from inevitable that they would become criminals. It could have been otherwise.”

Thinking about what’s going on with Tenko, you’ve gotten in the habit of playing devil’s advocate. “And that’s on All Might? One hero can’t fix poverty, or childhood trauma –”

“No, they cannot. But the presence of heroes gives everyone else an excuse not to try to fix anything,” Kazuo says. He gives you a look. “There will always be some villains. The existence of enough villains to allow your friend to form a League of them means that society is failing.”

“You’re not wrong,” you say. Usually when you admit that Kazuo’s right, he moves on, but this time he keeps looking at you. “What?”

“At least try to deny it,” Kazuo says, and you know what he’s talking about. “One day I won’t be the one asking.”

You know he’s right, but as much as Tenko occupies your thoughts, you don’t have much time to dwell on him on a daily basis. Yoshimi’s sick, cancer in her lymphatic system, and with her family out of the picture and her shitty boyfriend dumping her the second he found out, you and your friends are on overdrive trying to support her. Since you’re the only one who works in the field, a lot of the daily stuff is falling on you. You’ve been taking some shifts at the central clinic so you can check in on her while she’s there for treatments, and since the high school students are all studying for their medical assistant exams, you’ve been grabbing fill-in night shifts at your regular clinic at the same time. You’re getting four hours of sleep a night, if that.

You’re exhausted. So exhausted that, when the shadows in the corner of your vision turn out to be mist as you’re walking home from the park, you keep walking straight into Kurogiri’s warp gate without a second thought.

When you arrive in the bar, Kurogiri seems surprised to see you. “I thought you might run.”

“I’m too tired to run,” you say. “Does he need me?”

Kurogiri nods, as much as a person with mist for a head can nod. “Follow me.”

You balk when you realize where you’re headed. “He doesn’t want me in there.”

“He asked me to bring you there specifically,” Kurogiri says. “Don’t worry. He’s cleaned.”

“Oh.”

The door to Tenko’s room is open, but Kurogiri knocks anyway. “Shigaraki Tomura, the girl –”

“You’re here.” Tenko appears suddenly in the doorway, the hand clamped over his face. “That was fast. You didn’t run away?”

“What kind of sidekick runs when their boss calls?” You look Tenko over. “Kurogiri said you needed me. Are you hurt?”

“My shoulder’s a mess,” Tenko says, unconcerned. “I needed to talk to you. Come in.”

He takes a few steps back, leaving room for you to step through the door. The memory of how Tenko reacted last time is still fresh in your head, and based on Tenko’s expression, he can tell. “I cleaned it,” he says impatiently. “Come in.”

In spite of the fact that your best friends have usually been boys, you haven’t spent a lot of time in boys’ rooms. The ones you have been in aren’t exactly standard. Kazuo’s room looked like an interior design magazine spread even before his mind snapped, so minimalist it was hard to imagine anyone actually living there. Sho’s room looks more like a girl’s room than yours does. Tenko’s room back when you were kids just looked like a kid’s room. Like how you would have wanted your room to look if you weren’t already sharing it with two siblings.

Tenko’s room, compared to the last time you saw it, is no longer filthy. You can see the floor, at least, and some rearranging has occurred. The desk and monitor setup has been shifted unceremoniously into one corner of the room, and on the wall where it previously sat is a flatscreen TV. You can see that it’s hooked up to a router, as well as a cable or smart TV box, and there are a few consoles and controllers strewn around nearby. Across the room from the TV is a coffee table. And behind that, a bed.

You gesture at it. “Was this here before?”

Tenko doesn’t answer. “Kurogiri, go,” he orders, and you glance over your shoulder just in time to see Kurogiri vanish from the doorway. “Sit down.”

You sit down on one end of the bed and Tenko sits on the other. He slides a collection of games across the coffee table to you. “I like all of these. You can pick which one we play first.”

“I’m not good at games.”

“I’ll teach you what you need to know,” Tenko says. He pushes the games at you again. “Pick.”

You start sorting through the games, searching in vain for any title you know while you try to shift the subject back into reasonable territory. “You said something was wrong with your shoulder. Can I look at it?”

“It’s not that bad.”

“You said it was a mess,” you point out. “Let me see.”

“Pick a game and then you can see it.”

You see exactly one title you know – Call of Duty. You hold it up and Tenko frowns. “We can play that one for a bit. In co-op mode. But after that –”

“Show me your arm.”

Tenko scowls, but he moves from the other end of the bed until he’s within reach. He’s wearing a short-sleeved shirt, oversized to the point where you can draw the neckline aside and reveal the wound. It’s clear that the stitches have been disturbed. The wound site is red and angry-looking and you can see scratches around it. There should be a scab on the part that Tenko wouldn’t let you stitch, but it’s clearly been peeled away. It’s either infected already or about to be, and either way, the healing process is going slower than it should be. A surge of frustration sweeps over you.

You look up at Tenko and find him watching you, unrepentant. “What?”

“You were scratching this.”

“It itched,” Tenko says. He gives you a weird look. “You never said not to.”

“I didn’t think I had to say not to scratch your open wounds.” Your frustration seeps into your tone. “You should have sent Kurogiri to get me as soon as the swelling started.”

“I tried. You’re always busy.” Tenko’s voice takes on the quality of a sneer. “Kurogiri’s been watching you for three days. You’re at that other clinic with that girl all the time.”

He didn’t use to be like this. He didn’t use to be jealous. “She has cancer. She needs someone –”

“She has other friends and doctors and parents and some loser boyfriend somewhere,” Tenko says. You start to argue that Yoshimi doesn’t have a boyfriend, courtesy of said boyfriend being a loser, but Tenko cuts you off. “She has lots of people. I only have you.”

He has Kurogiri, his master, the doctor, the Nomu – or does he? Shigaraki Tomura has those people. Tenko only has you. You peel your eyes from the angry mess Tenko’s wound has become and look up at him. “If I had known you needed me, I’d have found a way to be here. You’re my best friend.”

“I know. I –” Tenko breaks off, frustrated. “I didn’t mess with it so you’d come back.”

“I didn’t think that,” you say. “I know you scratch sometimes. It seems like less than before.”

“Only when you’re here.” Tenko shifts in his seat. You’re about to tell him he shouldn’t worry about that when he speaks again. “I feel different when you’re here. Can you fix it?”

“I’ll need to take the stitches out and clean it before I bandage it up again, but yes.” You look around for the medical supplies and Tenko pries open a drawer full of them. “Then we can play the game.”

“I can’t believe you like Call of Duty.”

“It’s just the only one I recognize,” you admit, and Tenko laughs. You like hearing him laugh. “Get ready to lose all respect for me. You might want a better sidekick.”

“I don’t need a better sidekick,” Tenko says. “I’m good enough for both of us.”

Warmth floods through you, pooling in your cheeks and your chest and the pit of your stomach. He remembers. You pull on a pair of gloves and open the suture kit. The sooner you rebandage his wound, the sooner you can play a game with your best friend for the first time since you were kids.

But after you’ve taken out the stitches, as you’re bandaging his shoulder, you notice something. The other times you’ve seen Tenko and treated his wounds, he’s been wearing long sleeves, and when you’ve cut them to get a look at the injuries, you haven’t paid much attention to whatever else might be underneath them. Now, with his arms exposed by design, you can see things you didn’t before. Tenko’s always scratched. After fifteen years of scratching he’d naturally have scars. But when the two of you were kids, you never saw him scratch his forearms. And you’ve never seen scratches look so uniform, so evenly spaced. You’ve seen things that look like that before. They weren’t scratches.

You look up and find Tenko looking at you already. “Sensei had me do them. So I’d be stronger,” he says. Your heart seizes in your chest. “Not in a while, though. When I got strong enough he let me stop.”

“That’s messed up.” You’ve been careful not to speak against Tenko’s master, not when you know so little about him, but you can’t hold back this time. “Hurting yourself doesn’t make you stronger. It just makes you hurt.”

“What would you know about it?”

“Lots. I see it every day.”

Tenko gives you a look that tells you just how little he thinks of whatever you’ve seen, and you lose patience. You let go of his arm and pull up the sleeve of your own short-sleeve shirt. “I don’t mean at work.”

Tenko’s jaw drops behind the hand. “Who made you do that?”

“Nobody made me. I did it myself, which makes me a lot dumber than you,” you say. Tenko’s lines are even. Yours are jagged, because you were angry or crying or hurrying to finish up before one of your siblings needed the bathroom or your mom came back to keep arguing with you. “Was your master trying to make you stronger? Or was he trying to teach you not to show when something hurts?”

Based on the way Tenko’s red eyes flash, you know you’ve hit the nail on the head. “What were you trying to do, then? When you were being dumber than me?”

You were being really dumb. So dumb that it’s embarrassing to talk about. “It’s a reset, biologically. Injuries force the body to release endorphins, which make you feel better for a little bit. There was a while where I had trouble controlling my temper. It helped me do that. Or at least not show it.”

“A while,” Tenko repeats. “You should have had trouble the entire fucking time.”

“I did,” you admit after a second. “You used to tell me it wasn’t okay, what my family was like. It took a while to believe you.”

Half the reason you didn’t believe Tenko was because you knew his family was messed up, too. No matter what else your dad did, he didn’t scream at you or lock you outside without dinner. But as you got older, you realized why your parents didn’t do that: They needed you too much. They needed your help with the extra kids they shouldn’t have had, and the older you got, the more it started to infuriate you.

You saw evidence of it everywhere, in places it was and places it wasn’t. They didn’t wipe your memory because they cared that you were upset about your missing friend, they did it because they needed you to be quiet and helpful instead of sad. They didn’t let you choose your favorite snack or go to a birthday party once in a blue moon because it was the fair thing to do, they did it so you wouldn’t complain about all the times you weren’t allowed to. They promised they’d make it up to you every time they shorted you in favor of your siblings with quirks, hoping the apology would make you forget. By the time you were fourteen, you weren’t forgetting anymore.

Tenko’s watching you from behind the hand, but you don’t want to be watched right now. You focus on placing the bandage. Maybe if you do that, you can pretend this isn’t happening. “What happened?” Tenko asks. “With your family.”

“Nothing,” you say. Nothing like what happened to his. “They’re out there. They call me on my birthday. Every so often they ask me for money. Do you really want to talk about this?”

Tenko doesn’t follow up. On that, at least. Three of his fingers brush across your exposed upper arm and it takes every ounce of self-control you have not to jump out of your skin. “These are old, right?”

“Not as old as yours,” you say. “They aren’t recent, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“I stopped, so you should, too.” Tenko’s palm covers your upper arm for a moment, then lifts away. “It wouldn’t kill you to control your temper less, anyway. When was the last time you got really mad?”

“Three days ago. Yoshimi’s boyfriend ditched her, so I called him and lit his ass up.”

“Sure you did. I bet you never raised your voice,” Tenko says. You look up, offended. “You probably sounded like some kind of evil shrink, telling him what a piece of shit he is and how you understand that he can’t help being an asshole but it would probably be best for everybody if he took a long walk off a short ledge –”

He’s mimicking the soft, semi-conciliatory tone you use when you’re trying to de-escalate a situation, looking at you from behind the hand with a smirk on his face. You’d get mad, except it’s a pretty accurate imitation, and you like the thought that he knows you well enough to pick on you like this. “I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about getting really mad. Really losing control. When’s the last time you did that?”

You can’t remember. You shrug helplessly. Tenko heaves an exaggerated sigh. “It’s a good thing we’re playing Call of Duty next. If getting your ass kicked in a video game can’t wind you up, nothing will.”

It’s been a while since you played an actual video game. You were bad at it then, and you’re really bad at it now. Tenko makes you play a round in single-player mode to see what you’re good at and where you’re weak, and he spends the entire time laughing so hard that you’re worried he’s going to dislocate a rib or fall off the couch. It takes you way too long to hide away from the enemies onscreen long enough to ask Tenko a question. “What’s so funny? I know I’m not doing it right –”

“You’re just –” Tenko wheezes, then makes an effort to get it together. “Up here in the corner of your display is the map. The dot is where you are. And then everything in front of you is your point of view. That’s why it’s called a first-person shooter.”

“I know,” you say. “The display –”

“You control that on this side of the controller. And that’s where your trigger is, too. The other side handles motion,” Tenko says. His shoulders are twitching, like they do when he’s trying to hold in his laughter. “I’ll watch the map for you. Just go where I tell you to go.”

“Okay.” You adjust your grip on the controller and prepare to be humiliated.

Tenko directs you to move straight forward, which you do. Then you make a left turn and jump up on a crate for a better firing angle, at which point someone shoots at you. “Shoot back,” Tenko orders. You press the trigger. “Nice work. Okay, now jump off the crate and –”

You jump off the crate as requested, but then you get your buttons jumbled, and instead of running in the direction Tenko told you to run, you find yourself bumping into the wall repeatedly with your viewpoint stuck directly upwards. “Tenko –”

Tenko is howling with laughter again. The hand dislodges and falls off his face, and you see his eyes crinkling at the corners, his smile just a little too big. Some girls in your class said his smile was creepy, but you always liked it. You liked that you always knew which of his smiles were faked and which weren’t. “I’m stuck,” you say, and he laughs even harder. “What did I do?”

“If you were doing what your character is doing right now, you’d be doing this.” Tenko mimics pointing a gun straight up at the sky, and suddenly you get why he’s laughing. “You’ve been running around like this –”

No wonder you keep running into walls. Now you’re laughing, too. “You weren’t kidding,” Tenko says, shaking his head. “You really are terrible at it.”

You set the controller aside and wipe your eyes. “You sure you don’t want a different sidekick?”

“I have the sidekick I want.” Tenko glances at you, almost shyly. “We’ll need allies, though. I want you to meet them.”

Your stomach lurches. “Do you have them already?”

“One of the brokers is bringing them. He finds them through the black market.” Tenko sets the controller back down in your hands, adjusting your fingers to the right buttons. Then he unpauses the game. “Once I have them all – go right. No, your other right. Once I have them all, I want you to meet them. I need them to work together, and to stay calm instead of fighting each other. You’re good at getting people to do that. Watch out, there are – nice work.”

He’s giving you a strange look. “What?” you ask. “I didn’t get killed yet.”

“You’re better at shooting people than running around. That’s weird.” Tenko’s expression stays odd for another moment; then he grins. “Works for me, though. As long as you don’t mess with your viewpoint too much, we can play together.”

“Works for me.” You’re still going to be pretty useless, but at least you can protect Tenko’s back. That’s more than you’d be able to do in a real fight. The thought kicks off a flood of anxiety, and before you can stop yourself, you find yourself speaking out loud. “Tenko –”

He pauses the game mid-switch to co-op mode. “Yeah?”

“I don’t know if I can help you the way you need me to,” you say. He gives you a skeptical look. “Medical stuff is one thing. I’m good at that. If your allies need help with that, I’ll help them, too. But the rest of it, I’m not – planning, getting people to follow you –”

“I can do that part. But villains fight all the time. Like kids do,” Tenko says. He smiles slightly. “If you can handle me, they’ll be easy for you.”

“But I know you,” you say. “It’s different.”

“So you’ll get to know them, too.” Tenko’s confident, just like you remember him being. Once he’s decided how something will be, it’s hard to shake him. “Come on. Let’s clear this level.”

It’s an easy level, or you think it’s supposed to be. You spend most of your time running backwards, keeping one eye on the map so you don’t lose track of Tenko and the other eye out for enemies of any kind. On reflection, you do think your accuracy with shooting is a little weird. Between this level and the next one, you rack up a decent number of kills. “You’re already getting better,” Tenko says, grinning. “I bet we can beat this thing if we keep playing.”

“I’d like that,” you say – but you’re still thinking about Tenko’s semi-crazy idea that you meet a bunch of villains for crowd control. “About the allies – you trust me, but they won’t have any reason to. I’m still a civilian.”

“You’ll need a disguise,” Tenko says, which wasn’t what you were hoping he’d say. “Something that hides your face. “If any of them have a problem with you, they can take it up with me.”

You don’t know what to say to that. The idea of Tenko getting into it with other villains over you makes you feel sick. “I don’t want you to get hurt because of me. I don’t want you to get hurt at all. You’re my best friend.”

“I’m not your boss,” Tenko says, which doesn’t make any sense. Your confusion must show on your face, because Tenko elaborates. “Earlier. You said sidekicks don’t run from their bosses, but I’m not your boss. I don’t want to be your boss. I want –”

He breaks off, clearly struggling with what to say. There’s a patchy flush coming up in his cheeks, and you see his hand rise, twitch toward his neck – then fall back. “I don’t want to be your boss,” he says again, looking everywhere but into your eyes. “I want – you should –”

“Shigaraki Tomura.” Kurogiri’s voice issues from behind you, and you and Tenko both jump. “Your master wishes to speak with you. You are overdue.”

“Shit,” Tenko mutters. His grip on the controller tightens, and you lift it out of his hands before all five fingers can touch it. “Where’s – I need –”

“Here.” You pick up the hand from the floor and pass it to him, feeling a chill go down your spine as you touch it. “Go talk to him. It’s okay.”

“I’m late. It isn’t.” Tenko settles the hand back over his face. His free hand rises again, clawing at the side of his neck, and something about the image, the situation, feels uncomfortably familiar to you. “I’ll send Kurogiri to get you again soon. For another date.”

“This was a date?”

“Of course it was.” Tenko gets up, heads for the door. “Remember. Find a disguise. I’ll see you soon.”

He’s gone, and a second later, so are you – Kurogiri drops you in an alley off the street you were walking on. He lingers for a moment, and the question explodes out of you. “It was a date?”

“I told him it’s not a date unless both people know it’s a date.” Kurogiri looks vaguely uncomfortable, and his voice is in the other register – the one that sounds more like an older brother than a servant. “Next time I’ll tell him I can’t find you.”

“Don’t do that,” you say at once. Even reeling like you are now, you’re sure that you want to see Tenko again. “Just – warn me, if you can. If it’s a date or something else.”

“I can do that.” Kurogiri vanishes, but his voice lingers for a moment more. “You protect him, too.”

What does that mean? Maybe it means that Kurogiri sees you like he sees himself – a protector of Shigaraki Tomura, although if there’s anyone you’re trying to protect, it’s Shimura Tenko, your best friend. Your best friend, who’s in a lot more trouble than you thought he was.

You’re standing in the middle of an alley. You need to get moving before someone peeks in here and starts asking questions. You slide your phone out of your pocket, raise it to your ear, and lower it as you step back out into the flow of traffic on the sidewalk, like you were taking a call that just ended. Your apartment’s not far away, so you’ll get there, and then you can think about all of this. The villains – the date – the scars on Tenko’s arm that look too much like yours – the scratching that didn’t start until after the hand covered his face. The hand he calls Father.

And that’s when you realize what it reminded you of, what happened when Kurogiri told Tenko his master was waiting for him. He was himself when you spoke to him, even after he put the hand back over his face – right down to how he reacted when his master called for him. Because his reaction looked the same as his reaction to his father calling for him when the two of you were kids.

You had a bad feeling about Tenko’s master, and now it’s worse. You have a bad feeling about what your involvement with Tenko means now, because he wants you to back him up when it comes to dealing with other villains, to take the de-escalation and conflict resolution skills you learned the hard way and put them to use keeping a band of villains together under Tenko’s control. You have a bad feeling because Tenko’s told you to find a disguise, to hide your identity like the villain you aren’t. You aren’t a villain. Are you?

Maybe you aren’t a villain – yet, a voice in your head whispers, you aren’t a villain yet – but there’s something wrong with you. There must be. Because knowing all that, knowing that you’re getting drawn further into Tenko’s plans, doesn’t do a thing to dampen your excitement at the thought that he wants to go on dates with you. That he likes you. That your best friend, who you always thought you’d have developed a crush on if the two of you had gotten to grow up together, might feel the same about you as you do about him.

[villainsandvictimsalliance]

Okay a bit of a sob time:

I think that Kurogiri's first words in the manga are " Have you seen this? He's become a teacher ".

Now, I could be wrong. Just saying that here.

The panel shows Tomura's hand in a newspaper, next to a drink at a bar. I know it's Kurogiri talking because Tomura has his own typography when he speaks to represent his shaky voice. The bubble in the panel is written normally and there's no one else at the bar, except a nomu. If it is Kurogiri, then he is talking about All Might. We know that from the context of the conversation.

His next appearance is when he shows up at UA along with Shigaraki Tomura and all those minor villains. The first to notice the weird mist is (as it could be anyone else) Aizawa. Then something even more curious happens. Of all the people in the room, Kurogiri addresses Aizawa first, calling him by his hero name (Eraser Head).

Here are the panels:

It just hit me that Kurogiri was written right from the beginning as having this weird sort of subtext connection with Aizawa.

When you know the story of Shirakumo Oboro, when you know what it all means, it's painful to look back at those moments.

" Have you seen this? He's becomes a teacher... " now sounds like he is talking about two different people at the same time. The way Aizawa and Kurogiri acknowledge each other first, without knowing. Look at the panel where the mist starts to form at the USJ:

Aizawa looks so young. So like the Shouta that Oboro was used to. The panel is almost nostalgic.

To be honest, it's only a sob time 'cause it makes me sad to think that after so many years, they are still drawn to each other like that. Unconsciously. I wonder if a part of them knew, back then. A tiny, hidden part. To die and come back, to see the one that gave you so much and made you who you are die and come back, to find each other in a sort of another lifetime yet the same one.

To be the first to turn to him. For his name to be the first thing you call when you arrive...

[bibibbon]

Characters with wasted potential: kurooboro

It's our favourite intelligent nomu kurooboro that deserves so much more attention and a better arc then what he got.

Personally the narrative does seem to treat oboro and kurogiri as two different characters which I like but I wish we got more exploration on that.

Kurogiri

Kurogiri is shigarakis caretaker he is also AFOs servant. However, that's all we know.

1) I would have it that kurogiri used to be a loyal AFO servant. He became a servant/puppet due to him falling through the cracks of the system and trying to escape poverty in anyway he could. Overtime kurogiri got physically sick and his body started to fail yet he still worked for AFO accepting what he did. Afo recognises kurogiri as a valuable asset when his plan of capturing eraser and his quirk goes to mess and starts plotting with the doctor to help kurogiri get a new body which happens to be oboros.

The doctor manages to successfully do this transfer or so he thinks. The doctor is weird and creepy and yes he manages to do implant kurogiri's mind and quirk into a vestige but this comes with some drawbacks like oboro and kurogiri both sharing a mind and body or oboro physically and spiritually rejecting kurogiri making it so that his body is tearing him from the inside out in some way.

Kurogiri is tasked with the job of taking care of Shigaraki and at first he is quite indifferent to the child and doesn't care for him. However, as time goes on he does slowly warm up to shigaraki and care for him ( I love dad kurogiri too much for this). This puts kurogiri in a rough position, he cares for shigaraki but he also hears the plans that AFO and the doctor have in mind for him and he indirectly tries to slow them down or hinder them. All of this is little to no prevail, as much as kurogiri cares he isn't equipped or certified to take care of a traumatised child or to stop afo and the doctors plan.

2)Kurogiri makes a little plan. The plan is one where he gets a bar (AFO allows him) and he basically runs the bar. From the money he gains in the bar he spends some on shigaraki but also hides some of the income to at least assure his and shigarakis own survival. Sadly, the plan is found by AFO himself and the doctor does some "modifications" to kurogiri (practically torture) to keep kurogiri complacent and become the perfect puppet, to play his role. Kurogiri glad that AFO didn't take the bar away from him , but now takes like 50% of the income he earns spends the money on various things. He still has a plan but the initial plan for him to escape with shigaraki is looking slimmer and slimmer. He has a moment where he starts to desire freedom to escape and burn everything he has to the ground to fully forget about shigaraki, AFO, the doctor and all. Yet he stays and finds way to passively retaliate and rebell against both AFO and the doctor.

During this time he and oboro/ oboro's spirit and remains bond over their experiences. Considering that they both want freedom one way or another they work together to enhance their quirk.

Oboro shirakumo

Oboro shirakumo is a former 17 year old hero student who is friends with midnight, present mic and Eraserhead. He was majorly injured during a work study that he did with his friends trying to help save some children.

1) Oboro doesn't actually die, he is just declared dead and taken away. Afo is pretty disappointed when the villain fail to kill/ bring to him Eraserhead and accidentally bring in a heavily injured oboro. The doctor takes oboro, thinking that his quirk has some potential and suggests the idea of making oboro and kurogiri a merger intelligent nomu. AFO agrees to this of course and oboro's body is basically healed/ fixed by the doctor to become a suitable vessel.

2) at this point oboro is in a coma. However, when the doctor tries to merge the two oboro does show signs of retaliation and rejecting kurogiri, yet kurogiri overpowers him. Oboro is scared and untrusting of anyone around him at the moment. Both he and kurogiri get into a lot of arguments over the body they share which proves for it to be difficult to live in the body.

3) due to their differences and background oboro and kurogiri do not get along at first. Oboro is still quite naive about the world but his counterpart kurogiri isn't . Due to their close forced proximity and the fact that both want the body they are in to function they try and cooperate. They get to know eachother and start to understand their respective sides. Kurogiri shares his story, how he had to live on the street and survived of barely anything, how he enjoyed being a bartender before his body started failing him and he had to quit and fully dedicate his life to being AFO's servant. That's when oboro shares his own experiences how he wanted to be a hero, own an agency with his friends and how he also wanted to help others. They continue to cooperate and both make the plan of saving up money and running away from AFO.

3) When that plan is found out and the doctor does his 'modification' oboro goes silent, taking the blunt force of it at the time. This happens for a long while and kurogiri feels alone, this is when he starts to think of just leaving and destroying everything. Oboro is silent, he is stuck in a limbo place. Kurogiri thinks he can see oboro's spirit when he is sleeping but that is neither here or there. However, when they meet Eraserhead in the USJ oboro makes a slow awakening. He physically makes kurogiri's body hesitate and that's what causes them to be stuck in Todorokis ice.

4) Kurogiri is shocked of course and after the battle both of them have a conversation. Oboro isn't aware of how it works and doesn't remember anything after the doctors modifications which is when Kurogiri fills him in about what happened. Both start to work harder than ever for a chance at escaping whether it be them escalating their passive rebellious behaviour to AFO or trying to guide shigaraki to a different path.

They try their best, they really do but looks helpless and their chance at freedom is long and far. That is when they choose to slowly collect information in journals and allow themselves to get captured some time after the overhaul arc revealing their identity.

All of oboro's friends (NOT JUST ERASERHEAD LIKE IN CANON) are conflicted, confused and upset. They comfort eachother and all come into different conclusions, scared but so hopeful for a restoration of normalcy in their lives. It is present mic and eraserhead that try to make the first move, trusting the information that kurogiri provides them and slowly help kurogiri. Present mic is the first to come around at first not believing that its oboro but wanting the information, wanting to know if there is a traitor. Secondly, it's eraserhead out of pure hope and denial, he knows it isn't logical but he misses oboro and hasn't moved on. He now needs to understand that oboro isn't oboro but he is much more complex and has went through things. Lastly, it's midnight with a combination of both factors and guilt. She tries to avoid kurogiri as she blames herself for what happend and also starts to rethink her actions as a hero.

Working with the heroes gets kurogiri out of prison and under UA's custody really but he still is quite ominous especially kurogiri who still wants to save/help shigaraki and ends up talking to izuku about it.

I feel like there are way too many ways we can take kurogiri and oboro's characters in, all with different ways and endings but canon managed to do such a horrendous disservice to him so I hope I have given him some justice

(ALSO HAVE OBORO'S FAMILY BE INVOLVED IN THIS)!! like when people find out that kurogiri is also oboro I don't wanna just see Eraserhead perspective but also midnights, present mic and oboro's relatives

[justheretoposttrash]

day 10, you know what it is!:

so i'd revisited chapter 245 and was tickled to see that endeavor locks himself away to read the book hawks gave him, like, immediately after receiving it.

(and he regards it so awkwardly after hawks leaves. "okay" what, my guy?)

yeah, he suspects something's off right away, but he only starts wondering if hawks couldn't communicate freely with him once he's already chillin in his office (there are doylist drawing/paneling-related explanations behind this, but the watsonian result is just so funny and good!). so, what, he hadn't even thought "this must be very urgent" or "hawks needs my help" when he beelined to his office, without explaining anything to anyone, and left his interns (and Very Important son) waiting for him? a guy he knew for maybe a cumulative day and fought beside once reappears acting weirder than before (but he's always weird, right?) and enji tunnel-visions on his book recommendation?

it's emphasized that he literally has more pressing things he has to do, but nope, hawks was out-of-sorts so now we have to be on the case for what, among the bajillion explanations, could possibly have been the cause. (since the last time they spoke, endeavor expressed his concern about hawks investigating the nomu, so he is primed to be a little extra worried. but that fact, believe it or not, still does not help beat the allegations.)

a shapeshifting villain attempting to impersonate hawks wouldn't have made it 10 seconds in front of this guy, istg. enji really stumbled head-over-ass into his first decent acquaintanceship with someone (who happens to be oppositely but equally as emotionally immature as him) and stumbled out of it lowkey obsessed and with an eternal soul-bond or something, i dunno.

[electricbathsalt]

No because I find it SO suspicious Chisaki went so off the rails insane after the Raid arc.

Yes, he had everything he worked for destroyed in a day, and he had his arms cut off, and he went to prison, where he spent the next six months. And that is exactly why I find it so suspicious.

Because out of everything that happened to him—he’s bonkers in the sense that all he can think about anymore is getting back to and apologizing to the boss/Pops. Even when he had active, almost-impossible-to-get-around opportunity to get revenge on the MAIN reason he was taken down and everything went to shit for him—he couldn’t be assed. He did not care about seeing that hero kid again, just take him back to his father, dammit.

It’s to the point I find it weird. It’s almost like being out of proximity to Pops for too long literally drove him insane with the overwhelming desire to get back to him.

…which could play directly into the theory that Pops/the Shie Hassaikai was in cahoots with AFO all along.

Or that Chisaki’s actually been a partial/unfinished nomu all along.

Or both.

[boundlessentity]

Everyone needs to go see You’re Next asap because it was incredible and I was grinning like a stupid little idiot the whole time. I immediately need to go watch it in Japanese with subtitles.

Anyways, here are some of my thoughts! My memory is terrible though so they’ll probably be a little out of order and I’ll probably miss a bit. That’s fine though, it’s not plot analysis.

Spoilers below the cut!

The intro sequence was pretty cool actually

Heehee screen time for Sero! And Ojiro gets to talk and show off that he can actually do stuff! Underrated character appreciation time🥰

Immediate Star Wars reference, I see…

Drinking tea with a picture of a pretty girl. OH WAIT HE WAS MAKING TEA FOR THE PICTURE BECAUSE THATS WHAT HE USED TO DO FOR HER AND NOT JUST BECAUSE HES FANCY I GET IT NOW

Iida using Bakugou’s entire hero name only for people to immediately shit on it for being so long is hilarious and everyone should do it more

This man is #notmyallmight and tbh pretty ugly? Like I didn’t think I would miss all of the deep creases and heavy shadows on All Might’s face but he looks weird without them.

The goth woman in the spider web dress is kinda pretty actually I vibe with it

Ooooo pretty lights! I don’t feel so good, Mr. Stark…

In the jungle, the mighty jungle, Izuku sleeps tonight…

He’s like “okay phew I’m good I’m stable like this” and immediately plummets to his doom. Like that whole sequence in the tube was so funny, and then you think it’s over but it’s snowball time! Plus Soggy Deku is adorable, he looks like a wet cat (affectionate)

“I’ve never been so insulted so politely?!”

They did my boy Kaminari SO dirty throughout this whole movie but I was especially disappointed at this part. Mineta I understand, even after they toned him down in the 6th season, he’s still a pervert. But Kaminari is so much deeper than that and has had so much character development, and they decided the perfect happy little daydream for him would be women in bikinis? No way. What little we did see of him in the movie was so shallow.

The other daydreams though? Hoo boy😮‍💨

Todoroki’s perfect daydream is him with his family, being happy. Him, scarless, playing with all of his siblings INCLUDING TOUYA while his happy parents sit together and watch them with a smile. I swear if that little scene was on screen any longer I might have teared up.

Shouji’s too, like oh my god. His is a world where he was accepted for who he is and he and the little girl are happy and he doesn’t feel like he has to hide his face behind a mask because he never got the scars in the first place😢

Idia’s being him and Tenya being heroes together. Because that was his dream. And he can’t have it anymore.

Momo you’re adorable, please never change

Deku’s being him with all of the All Might merch and a hero who believed in his dreams from the start🥲 and then OFA User 1 snapping him out of it? Vestiges for the win, again

Speaking of, I love how much they had him using all of the vestiges’ quirks throughout the movie. My boy has grown so much🥰

That whole scene though was really cool, the way it was set up like a doll house? I enjoyed that, I wish we had gotten to look at it a little longer. Looks like Hagakure’s was being visible and having all of the outfits, Uraraka’s was floating on a cloud, Jirou’s was rocking out with her guitar, and Sero’s was doing some kind of Spider-Man tape shit idk. Wish I remembered what Ojiro’s was

Dark Might using a rotary phone to make a video call and then immediately taking credit for the name Dark Might? Cringe

HAWKS OH MY GOD LOOK HES THERE TOO

Fr Hawks got a lot of screen time throughout the movie, most of which was really not necessary or particularly relevant (not that I’m complaining😜)

Are those off-brand Nomus in suits?

“I’m a walking cheat code” is such a killer line damn

Dark Might is so delulu oh my god.

Other stuff happens, I don’t remember having any super intense thoughts so I’ll jump ahead for now and come back to this if I feel like it later

Mirio! I’m glad they included him the guy is underutilized

More of the pros! Especially MIRKO and the combination of Edgeshot and Best Jeanist

I’m glad they’re giving Uraraka so much attention, she was kinda brushed over in the other movies if I recall correctly. Iida too, though not as much

Bakugou the strategist!

Tokoyami getting his moment in the proverbial spotlight. Not the literal one, that wouldn’t be helpful. “Those who can fly, should fly,” indeed

Bakugou and Todoroki out there working together with surprisingly little bickering. I’m impressed.

HAWKS. Descending from above like the stunning angel he is! I’m such a sucker for his dynamic with Tokoyami, the mentorship and genuine care there between them? The fact that he’s encouraging and pushing his bird protege to be better? Love love love

I know Julio just explained it but I still don’t really get Dark Might’s quirk. If someone could explain it to me that would be great thanks

Even Dark Might sees how much potential Midoriya has wow

Literally just naming states at this point. Detroit Smash who?

Big Three coming in hot! Kick some villainous ass! Speaking of, it seems that Bones Studio had indeed decided to return All Might (Dark Might technically)’s ass to him.

Thrown into a statue of himself and he popped like a balloon lol

Forgot that the city was empty and started freaking out when the ship was crashing. I thought people were getting squished🥲

Yes Julio! Go be with the one you love!

Shoutout to Mitsuki and Inko being best friends

A bit of a predictable ending but satisfying nonetheless!

Maybe a little bit unclear when in canon this takes place? Largely when you consider the little moment after the credits

The movie was intense but also had a lot of. Moments of comic relief which I really appreciated! It was super well balanced

I had a million and one thoughts but it’s the middle of the night and I don’t really remember what they were. Anyways, it was a very strong movie imo, 10/10 because I had a good time

[quirkwizard]

It’s kinda weird how we never end up seeing Midoriya fully mastering one for all before he looses it, while I know we see him Full Cowling at 100% with Rewind and using Gearshift and Fajin to hit at 120% we never see him able to use the quirk completely unrestricted without injuring himself. Though we don’t know how reliable of a narrator Midoriya was, but in the All Might vs USJ Nomu fight he describes all might hitting with more than 100% so fast in order to overcome Shock Absorption. Compared to that level of mastery All Might was capable of it just kinda feels wrong we never got to see what the power could have been if Midoriya was capable of using his full arsenal.

I kind of get where you're coming from with this. Considering we have the objective percentile of power and All Might as a comparison point, it can be disappointing to not see Izuku reach those same heights. And to me, I'd much rather have Izuku get the full power of "One For All" instead of having to get something like "Fa Jin" and "Gearshift" to supplement the actual power. However, it doesn't bother me. Izuku's goal was never to be the strongest. It was to be the greatest hero, and "One For All" was merely a tool to achieve that. On top of that, I don't think that would be that interesting to see. What would be the results? It'd just be what he was doing before, only much harder. With the other Quirks, it gives us something more distinct. It makes the fights more interesting by diversifying his options, adds more tension since he can't brute force his way through fights, and let's Izuku express his own strengths in the form of his immense creativity and understanding of Quirks.

[nishayuro]

Excuse me, ✨The Amazing Madam Nisha✨ but I would like to send in a request. I would like Tamaki, Tsuyu, and Eraserhead with a GN reader (platonic) that has a similar personality to Hu Tao because my girl deserves better. Also her is cake for your hard work 🎂

My Hero Academia with Hu Tao! Reader (Platonic)

A/N: Hallo! Thank you for the cake ^^ I hope u enjoy this!

Genre: Fluff

GN! Reader

Warning: Mention of dead people (nothing graphic)

Character building!! Your quirk lets you summon a sentient ghost buddy (It’s similar to Dark Shadow.)  that for some reason has fire powers, you speculate that its a demon, but who are you to judge really.

Another thing about your quirk is it lets you see the memories of dead people when you touch their corpse. Kinda creepy, I know. 

Your family runs a funeral parlour, so your whole life you’ve been exposed to the notion of life and death, and you’ve long ago removed that fear in you. Human lives are meant to end one way or another, But that doesn’t stop you from dreaming of being a hero, so that even for a few more years, those people can live their lives and die of natural causes and not of evil doings.

You’re a very cheerful person albeit your fascination with death, which drives some people crazy when you go up to offer them coupons for your family’s business. But hey, who can blame you? Business is business.

Tamaki Amajiki

You’re one of the Big 3, well, now known as the Big 4 along with Mirio and Nejire. Your quirk has been helpful with lots of murder investigations, and you’ve trained your ghost buddy with controlling its fire.

Tamaki at first was scared of you, I mean, you did offer him a coupon for a coffin one time when he was to be deployed on a mission. 

But he later realised that it's just a personality of yours, and got used to you. 

Whenever he has his panic attacks, you’d let your little ghost buddy out for Tamaki to play with as a form of calming himself. 

He sometimes gets scared when the Big 4 hangs out and Nejire asks about your missions, because most of the time, you’re deployed to help solve murder cases. And that’s not entirely a fun topic. 

But overall, Tamaki is glad to have a friend like you, who shows they case in even the weirdest ways. 

Tsuyu Asui

You’re one of class 1-A’s top fighters, along with Bakugo, Todoroki, and Midoriya. 

Tsuyu is a naturally friendly person, so she was able to befriend you right away, and you earned yourself a place with the Deku Squad.

She does get a bit creeped out when you offer up coupons and promos, but she’s there to pull you away from possibly angering or creeping out anyone else with your antics. 

She knows you’re a very dependable friend though, and goes to you for advice whenever she has a problem. 

You also come to her whenever missions get taxing, sure, you’re used to the face of death, but it’s still a whole new can of worms to be sent out to missions where you know you’ll see bodies, some more gory than others. 

When days like that come, she’ll be there to help you through them and get you back to your ever so energetically weird self. 

Aizawa Shouta

You’re his student, and with the rise of Nomu cases, your quirk has been in demand to help solve it.

Being able to see the memories of dead people helped with solving many murder cases, so naturally, they’d wanna see how your quirk works on the Nomus.

Aizawa at first was against this, I mean, this was emotionally draining even for someone like you. 

But you assured him that this was a way to properly give justice to the poor souls who suffered. 

So he’ll let you, but will be with you when you do it. 

He knows you’re dependable and strong, and he admires your resilience.

He’s also another one to wrangle you up before you cause trouble with your ways of promoting the funeral business. 

He’d do everything to protect your cheerful energy, he’d hate to see that light of yours grow dim. 

Masterlist

Navigation

[number-2-hero-hawks]

Pinterest has weird stuff

The nomu is funny lol

Lol, maybe should have asked the Nomu that Endeavour fought in the city

Also lol at Dabi

Did he meet someone that could take him down (and I don't mean down into bed)

Also my valentine is true 😌

I'd never betray my lover 💜

[ofmermaidstories]

Hii Merms, thank you so much for the kind response 💌🩷

It's been days and I honestly did not get the chance to read the official chapter yet. Which I believe I should do before responding even, because the issue with the leaks was the mistranslations here and there. And because so much of it was also open-ended many fans came up with stuff out of nowhere and pushed it into the ending and called it canon. So it was a mess.

It's weird to me, it felt like Horikoshi forced himself into an ending that would satisfy everyone else and not him, which ultimately resulted in him messing up a bit. Because he put such great great effort and thought into sympathising with the villains and what they story means for how hero society operates. And he kept on showing how flawed the society is until ch.429, the before last.

In the end, like u said, traditional hero rankings are still a thing. Some people have changed yes, like the old lady who ignored Tenko but reached out her hand to another version of him, that could have been like him. But the last chapter also shows that the majority, or at least a huge part of society, is still sticking to the old ways of thinking. (Like the guy mocking Dai for his quirk, how being a hero is somehow more of a thingfor "elte people").

And while Uravity began a project for quirk counselling that's now fundamental for society and Tentacole fought against racism. It seems everyone else continues on to be normal pros. And there is no shame in that, but idk, the fact you all took part in wars that occurred because of how society and hero society operates but continue to do the same thing your predecessors did is asking for another League of villains, another group of children and young who would be pushed to that. But maybe I'm jumping to conclusions since we barely got to see any of what the new pros (like Mirio) are doing.

Also goodness, the mistranslation that class A did not see Izuku after graduation and people so QUICKLY believed it and spread it around. I saw alot of post both on twitter and tiktok shaming class A for it.

My dear "we don't fact-check leaks even though it's a very common occurrence that mistranslations happen" people, are we really talking about the same class A? The same class A, that collectively as a class, decided to join Izuku back in his vigilante arc to help him? They were willing to go out and be vigilantes with him. But then Nezu assured them they can bring him back instead so he could rest and be protected all the same.

THAT SAME CLASS A? Who knew what OFA means and all it's connections, the way he was quirkless and got it. and the only thing they(Oijiro) asked was how does it feel like? They never made him feel weirded out about it. (It might not seem like a big deal, but when you look at the public reaction to it, like "isn't that AFO's ability tho" or "he's like a Nomu" u would see).

So also yeah, I'm so so happy about the fact they all contributed funds to his suit. But prior to that he was a teacher for what, 5 to 6 years? While I do think being a teacher suits him. Keeping him in the dark about getting a chance to be a hero again JUST as he seemed to accept he can be a hero by teaching and inspiring younger generations seemed a bit off to me. But then again, I wanted him to be able to grow and continue to be a hero so I guess I can't complain much about it.

Overall I'm actually happy and sad it ended, this show was with me for 6 years. And it's my most cherished so I don't want to say goodbye (we still have a movie and the anime, so exciting). Even if that small disappointment is still lingering.

Hii Liliii. 🌷 How are you feeling about it now that we’ve had a little bit more distance? Have you read the official chapter yet? I dunno if it makes that much of a difference, but it did for me LOL. I don’t read the scanlations (they’re UGLY 😡) but I do think that like, seeing the dialogue in action verses hearing a brief summary from a rushed translator does matter. And that was the case for me!! Whenever the fandom took the leaks and then like, ran wild with them, it always… idk! I won’t say it ruined things, really, but it definitely made things less fun, and for me personally it had a lot to do with how quickly the discussion goes from, “oh, the leaks are suggesting (thing happens)” to, “omg, this is cold hard fact and now 50k people agree”. For example: the other day I saw a post here, made in the wake of the leaks, that said something like, “oh i can’t believe kacchan singlehandedly funded deku’s suit” and like??? no the fuck he did not!!!! LOL. I guess it’s just a lethal combo of like, overzealous fans taking what they want from the leaks without taking the time to tell themselves hold up and wait, and then making it everyone else’s problem too. 💀 Overwhelmed by the siren song of instant gratification.

Having re-read the last couple of chapters, tho, I don’t think Hori wrote himself into a corner! There’s definitely a disconnect, though, between us as an audience, and Hori as the author—like we’re kinda on different wavelengths? Because he’s shown what kind of writer he is (with the way he’s answered questions in like, interviews and stuff, he kinda actually reminds me of that Ralph Waldo Emerson quote. “The most interesting writing is that which does not quite satisfy the reader. Try and leave a little thinking for him; that will be better for both […] A little guessing does him no harm, so I would assist him with no connections.” emphasis mine). For better or for worse, Horikoshi just does not care/think to dwell in the big moments/emotional beats he creates, and I think that throws most of us as readers off, LOL. Like… we want to be more in Deku’s head, we maybe wanna see more of the kids in their final years at UA, or starting out as Pros, or like, linger with Deku a bit more in a school day. But Hori doesn’t wanna give us that. And I think that’s where everyone is getting their wires crossed—we want one thing (or several lmao) and Hori… wants and does another, LOL.

(The middle part of that Emerson quote above says, “The trouble with most writers is, they spread too thin. The reader is as quick as they; has got there before, and is ready and waiting […] If you can see how the harness fits, he can. But make sure that you see it.” And to me that’s the problem, we as readers have jumped ahead of Hori and have landed at a place we expect him to arrive, and instead he zigs in the complete opposite direction LMAOOOO. whether or not it works issss. Up for debate lmaooo. Are we seeing where the harness would fit, where he’s seeing a collar? Some food for thought maybe.)

One opinion I’ve seen in the wake of these last few chapters is that Hori often gets his messaging confuddled; I’m not sure if I agree or not. I think it’s another case of harness vs. collar lmao, like maybe we as readers are taking away different conclusions to what he’s intended (he’s sticking to his message; we just don’t like how he’s telling it LMAO). But it is stark, when you lay it out. Anyone can be a hero—as long as they have pro hero friends funding an Iron Man suit for them lmaooo (anyone can be a hero, but they need a community of people willing to hold out a hand for them to get there). Society is fundamentally selfish and overlooks uncomfortable things, and that breeds resentment and hate (society is capable of change, it’s just a slow crawl to get there, and that maybe we can’t help everyone—but the point is that we should help the people right in front of us).

I guess the biggest example, though, is indeed the League; I’ve seen soooo many heartbroken people point out that Hori spent all that effort—an entire POV arc!—on showcasing the villains, and getting us to sympathise with them, and what-was-the-point-of-it-if-he-was-just-going-to-kill-most-of-them-off? But they were always doomed. Doomed by the narrative, doomed by their society. It’s what makes them a tragedy. The tragedy of their tragedy is that Hori’s preferences with his storytelling (or his weakspots, depending) doesn’t really stop to give people the catharsis of like, a big goodbye. 🥺

(This is off-topic, but every time time I see that phrase—doomed by the [whatever]—it makes me think of a quote from one of my favourite books, Picnic at Hanging Rock:

“Edith echoed, ‘Doomed? What’s that mean, Irma?’

‘Doomed to die, of course! Like the boy who “stood on the burning deck, whence all but he had fled, tra… la la…” I forget the rest of it.’”)

Hori’s ending really wants to leave us/let us believe that like, our Heroes have solved the biggest problems their predecessors faced, and now they’re like, a glorified search and rescue—but I think the fun of the ending is that it does leave room for new villains, new League-type deals, to pop up. 😈 People are good and bad. There’s always going to be someone who wants to lock a kid in a basement, lmao, the point is that someone will be there to help them out of it. And maybe it’s baby steps at the moment, but the takeaway I got from the story was less about fixing everything forever, and more like, putting systems in place so that you and others—heroes and civvies alike—can catch what you can, when you can. 🥺 Deku might miss League 2.0, but maybe Kota or Stitches at the end there won’t. Our Heroes have turned the tide. They’ve reminded people at large to do their best. 🥹 They’re actively teaching them to do their best.

Which is why it drives me bonkers when the fandom likes to like…. discount Class-A’s bond!!! At it’s worse though—throughout that awful gap where all we had were the leaks—I just had to keep telling myself that the, “Izuku was abandoned by his friends!” stuff was a product of this fandom being an average age of like, twelve. 💀 LOL. But also it’s just—idk! A result of shipping culture, maybe. The inability to understand that people can and do have meaningful relationships outside of people they have sex with. 💀 That it’s possible for a whole class of kids who went through a war together to care for each other and still be busy with saving the world, outside of school. 💀💀

I’m happy and sad it ended, too. 🥺 A lot of complaints I’ve seen are valid—and have made me realise that the thing that threw me, personally, was how passive an ending it is (like how things just happen to Izuku, aka him being given the suit as a surprise and not being apart of it). I’d like to reread the series, back to back, and see how it flows! Maybe when the anime comes along and fills in some of those gaps where Hori couldn’t/didn’t want to, it’ll feel more… apt. 🥹 And I hope that by the time the anime ends, Lili, you feel a little more fulfilled by it. 🥺🌷