#plf arrests

[stillness-in-green]

More and More on Mina, Machia and the MLA

For my readers other than @randomvongenerico, please have this peremptory list of this very lengthy post's contents to help gauge your interest:

Some more discussion on what is or isn’t, would or wouldn’t be blameworthy about various characters’ actions (or hypothetical actions) during the war arcs.   

More discussion about Mina, chiefly about how (and why) her acid powers are handled compared to all the male characters with fire powers, and the way her plot points are poorly set up by the narrative, with the result of shortchanging her development.   

Yet More Complaining About How The Story Is Handling Heteromorphobia, this time featuring a compare and contrast on quirk-based bias as it might affect Mina, Bakugou and Tokoyami, as well as a dissection of Shouji’s contention that the only possible way to know about the violent bigotry in the rural areas of the country is to be from them.   

Some fairly extensive spitballing in response to questions about how I would have handled the scene at Machia’s prison compound if I were writing it, as well as why I have trouble conceiving of anything Hero Society could do to Hose Face for killing Midnight that would actually feel like justice.   

A little bit of basic talk about Tumblr, its functionality and some relevant slang.   

Buried at the very bottom, I stand up in front of God and everyone and explain in brief why Kaminari is a worse character than Mineta, with some particular focus on Kaminari as emblematic of the conflict between what the series tells us versus what it shows us about the legality of quirk use in careers other than heroism.

Hi again, rvg.  Because it's been forever since our last post exchange, let me say again that I appreciate the apology and want to thank you for being such a good sport about it.  Last time I had something like your initial response, that person told me straight out that they’d been condescending and antagonistic on purpose, though they regretted having done so after my reply.  I appreciated the regret, but would have preferred they take a day or two to cool off in the first place!  That’s the experience I was bringing to your comments, but I’ll keep in mind what you said about lack of experience with initiating chats and Tumblr in general.

For what it’s worth, yeah, there is a character limit on both asks and replies, so that’s the trouble you were running into there!  You might also consider using a cut next time before a really long post, though if you’re on mobile, I recall that being a difficult-if-not-impossible feature to find, and it’s not as important as it used to be ever since Tumblr’s started adding default Expand drop-downs on long posts.  That aside, welcome (belatedly) to Tumblr!  I hope you find some good people to chat fandom with; I’m always open to some back and forth about things I know well enough to talk about, though I’m, er, decidedly unprompt with replies.  And, as noted, definitely more of a villain fan, so probably not the most fun person for discussions on the kids.

That said, to your replies!  Other readers should note that, while I wrote all this roughly in response-order to rvg’s points, I reorganized everything after the fact to group together the broad topics.  I’ve tried to provide some bare minimum context for anything that would otherwise be too much of a zero-context non-sequitur, but if anyone wants to see rvg’s comments in their intended order and context, their reblog can be found here.  Otherwise, hit the jump!

  

Would You Have Held It Against ___?

But would you hold it against Mina if she had actually done more substancial damage to Machia? Let’s say, not the face, but Machia’s fingers instead of his claws. Machia still doens’t feel any pain. Would you chastise Mina for it? Even though she’s actively saving Mt Lady by doing that?

It’s hard to say for sure, since I imagine that if Mina’s acid had hit Machia’s fingers instead of his claws, we probably would just have seen them abraded and singed, like how Dabi’s fire damage was drawn on Hawks, not with chunks of skin melting off and exposing naked bone.  Physical damage in BNHA just doesn’t work like that, at least not against named characters.  If Mina were doing realistic damage, I imagine everyone else would be too, and then I’d be criticizing all of them, because, holy shit, that is not okay to do to people, any people, and especially not when you’re acting as an agent of the state.

But hypothetically, no, I think I would be more lenient even if she did do concrete and permanent damage to Machia’s hands, and it’s because she’d be doing it to save Mount Lady.  Shinsou could have taken control of Machia and then just had him lie still while whoever was in charge of this facility redrugged him,[1] and that would have been fine by me—disappointing, sure, but only because Machia’s interesting and I’d like to get more on him than we do, not because I’d be critiquing Shinsou’s actions.

It’s specifically Shinsou and the rest choosing to weaponize Machia against AFO that I object to.  Mina harming Machia would be taking that action herself, to protect someone that’s right in front of her, risking no one’s life but her own in doing so.  Shinsou throwing Machia up against AFO—which he’d made the decision to do before hearing Machia’s angry grumbling—is risking Machia’s life, without Machia’s consent.  And it’s not even for the sake of saving anyone, at least not anyone that’s right there in that moment—AFO is fleeing.

Sure, he still presents a huge threat to lots of people, but given that we’d just seen proof that AFO did not know about Shinsou’s power,[2] they could also have used Machia to, for example, rapidly transport the heroes to some place they could set up a second ambush to trick AFO into responding to Shinsou.  I mean, good god, AFO’s the chattiest villain in the comic; Hawks lured him into at least two extended conversations even after he’d resolved that he needed to leave.  He’s a Demon Lord and thus categorically incapable of shutting up.  And that would have been that, really.  Take control and let the clock run out; end of problem.

It would have been anticlimactic as hell, so obviously that was never going to happen, but there’s no reason the heroes couldn’t try for it, you know?  Instead of the bone-headed decision to just hand AFO his most loyal soldier on a silver platter on the thin chances that they could either prevent the brainwashing from being broken at all or that Machia’s upset would translate to both the capability and willingness to attack his master.

I’ve observed this problem in a few different areas, that Horikoshi sometimes writes the heroes, particularly Hawks, as not taking actions or drawing conclusions that, from their perspective, should seem sensible, well-reasoned, and with solid chances of success; instead, they simply disregard possibilities they should logically be considering but which the reader knows are dead ends, or they benefit from things they could not have known at the time they acted.  That hurts immersion because it gives the heroes victories, both tactical and moral, that they simply haven’t earned.  Shinsou’s control of Machia is a particularly egregious example.

  

Speaking of Monoma. Since we were talking about the morality of Shinso’s Quirk. Would you say Monoma using his Quirk to copy a villain’s Quirk and use it on him and his allies, would also qualify as something that should be criticized? I’m curious.

Nah, I don’t think so.  Taking an opponent’s weapon and using it to subdue him is a perfectly valid tactic, especially since Monoma’s method doesn’t actually deprive his opponent of their weapon, just replicates it for his own use.  It really all does boil down to Shinsou’s method forcing people to fight and hurt their own allies.  Mina causing Machia physical harm, Monoma using a villain’s own weapon against them, even the heroes’ surprise attack: none of those are remotely on the same “holy shit that is a literal war crime” level as what the heroes planned in advance to have Shinsou do to Machia, and what he willingly agreed to do well before he found out that Machia was not as opposed as the heroes thought.

  

I mean, I get what you’re getting at. I’m just wondering. If the heroes hadn’t launched a suprise attack, and had left the villains do the first move and come to them, would you then be criticizing them for being irresponsible and incompetent instead? Sorry for going on a tangent, it’s just something I’ve noticed when it comes to readers criticizing the heroes. It’s either people complaining that the heroes are too ruthless, or that they’re too nice, naive or not pragmatic enough.

(This is in response to some discussion of the heroes' actions in the first war arc's raid on the villa+hospital lab, not the second war's divide and conquer plan.)

I actually don’t really have a huge problem with the surprise attack in principle—I might criticize Cementoss ripping the building in half when there could well have been people on those upper floors, but otherwise, it’s hard to imagine what else the heroes could generally have done to deal with the numbers they were dealing with.  I mean, it’s basically just a scaled-up version of the attack on the Hassaikai base, and I don’t have any moral quibbles with the way the heroes and police handled that.

Rather, my problem with the raid is that I thought the heroes were too effective given the way their forces and those of the PLF had been set up.  It’s not the tactic itself that’s the problem (though individual acts of worse violence within the attack, like Hawks killing Twice or the attempts to outright murder Shigaraki in the tube, are still an issue), it’s the finality, the totality, of how effective the attack was.

To be brief about it (because I’ve talked about this at length elsewhere), I don’t think the heroes should have known where all the PLF bases were, I don’t think they should have been as effective in disordered mass combat as the PLF, I think the advisors should have put up a better fight in all cases, and I think there should have been enough members of the PLF in significant positions of influence or power that the HPSC couldn’t uncover them all, leading to complications when those members realized their organization was under attack.

As it is, the heroes handily win every fight they have with the sole exception of Gigantomachia and Shigaraki.  The PLF is neatly swept off the table save for a few “remnants,” with no attention given to the practical difficulties of detaining tens of thousands of combatants with no motivation to let themselves be quietly arrested, much less how the justice system is going to handle trying and sentencing them all.  That has repercussions going forward, as well: heroes clearing the board of all the (named) PLF members save Skeptic leaves the bulk of villain forces in the subsequent arcs to be prison escapees, and man, if the PLF’s moral nuance has been squandered, the depiction of the prison escapees is even worse.

The raid is, of course, only the first of two big surprise attacks the heroes manage.  I have significantly more issues with the second one, but most of that boils down to the fact that the divide and conquer/Tempt and Trap plan feels crueler, meaner, and much more openly aimed at extrajudicial murder.  And like, that would all be fine and in-character for Hero Society in general and Hawks, the main planner, specifically, but with Deku, Shouto and Uraraka all starting to think Save Villains thoughts, and fresh off the traitor reveal, the kids should never have been as collectively okay with the second war’s tactics as the story has presented them as being.  To echo an older complaint, good god, what universe is Horikoshi living in that he thinks the people that converted a place of learning into an arena they call a “coffin in the sky” are the heroes?

  

I was under the impression Midnight was off to the side from where the MLA minions were passing by, and the Skull Mask guy took a detour to kill her.

I’m not sure from this if you’re explaining how you read Hose Face’s attack on Midnight at the time, or if you’re maintaining that that’s an accurate read, so just to clarify, here are the panels in question:

As you can see, the PLF guys’ path through the woods has them coming in from directly behind Midnight.  Hose Face calls out that he’ll take care of her once they get close enough for the reader to make out who they are, at which point he gets out in front of Scarecrow and hits Midnight from the same direction as their initial approach: directly behind.  He most certainly doesn’t take a detour of any kind, but rather chooses the action that is going to get his group through the obstacle with the least amount of time and effort possible—entirely his prerogative as the highest-ranked member of the Guerilla Warfare regiment on-scene.

  

But if we classify this entire conflict as a war, wouldn’t that mean that both sides are free to use whatever tacticts and methods they feel like as long as it’s not a war crime?

If we classify it as war is irrelevant if the side aligned with the current ruling authority hasn’t done so themselves.  I imagine the Japanese government is in no hurry to validate the terrorists on an international stage by acknowledging that they’re numerous and dangerous enough to declare actual, formal war against!  Calling it a war drags in a whole pile of wartime conventions Japan has signed numerous treaties about; it grants the opposing side some legitimacy as a cohesive, organized force that will need to be negotiated with down the line.  As long as you’re calling it a police action, you don’t have to negotiate shit until you get to the plea deals!  Team Hero never declared war here, so yeah, I still expect them to carry out their plans and actions accordingly.

Also, in the thematic/meta sense, I expect the heroes to either conduct themselves as heroes—admirable, upright, heroic—or face the narrative consequences when they fail to live up to that ideal.  The hyper-encapsulated version of this conundrum is the recurring idea that attacking Shigaraki never actually prevents Shigaraki from coming back worse and more dangerous next time; the heroes are never going to achieve a different result by attacking him again but harder this time, and that’s why Deku is set up to finally try something different.[3]  I would just like it if what’s true on the micro-level could even be attempted on the macro-level.  Or, in other words, if the narrative is going to tell us that saving villains is the correct path, it can’t only demonstrate that for the villains with known-to-the-heroes sympathetic backstories.

  

General Mina Points

Regarding your analysis about Mina’s acid being underpowered because it’s harder/less believable to downplay the effects of acid than fire/explosions/etc. in Shounen Damage Logic, I think we’ll have to agree to disagree.  I don’t see anything wrong with just showing the Nebulous Abrasion Damage that’s the ubiquitous, default mode of illustrating nonspecific injury in this comic for Mina’s acid the same way we get it for the boys.

I can see your argument, but like, just for example, when Endeavor first encounters a Noumu, he bathes it in fire under the assumption that it’s a normal villain and then says he’s surprised it’s still up because he’s never seen anyone stay conscious after that attack.  Bathing someone in flames in real life is not a “knock them out” kind of attack; it’s a “severe burn ward for months” kind of attack.  If Endeavor’s been throwing that around at random criminals for thirty years, we are plainly very far away from realistic damage, and I’d be perfectly satisfied with treating Mina’s acid the same way.

If I had to take a guess as to why Horikoshi’s so staunchly avoided letting Mina cut loose—other than regressive gender politics—I’d say it’s that acid simply feels nastier or more morally dubious than fire.  Fire has positive as well as negative connotations; acid’s a lot more, shall we say, unilateral in the collective imagination, especially given what’s going to turn up if you run a web search for “acid attacks.”

To look at it in JRPG logic (and I don’t care if AFO’s admiration stems from a comic; that comic was clearly playing with Dragon Quest tropes), acid is pretty much the same thing as poison, and poison effects are chiefly the realm of enemy characters.  It smacks of underhandedness or cowardice in anything more cognizant than roving toxic plants or venomous beasts.  Certainly you see the occasional party member specialized for status effects who can inflict poison damage on enemies, but I can’t readily think of a main character that does.[4]

Perhaps, then, because readers are somewhat conditioned to think of acid as particularly dangerous and nasty compared to fire, and because there’s a limit to how morally dubious Horikoshi is willing to (consciously) write the students, especially the girls, Mina’s sharply limited in how she’s allowed to use her acid.

That said, I got a very hearty laugh from, “Just look at Dabi.  He can’t even kill himself with fire,” so thank you very much for that.

  

It’s as if Horikoshi only ever figures out what to do with Mina retroactively instead of in the moment (e.g. there were no interactions between Kirishima and Mina until AFTER Kirishima’s backstory, we never got any hint that would connect Mina’s and Midnight’s characters until AFTER Midnight died, when Mina speaks about not giving in to vengeance she references SHOJI’S WORDS which happened in HIS FLASHBACK, and then this whole chapter is technically a flashback too when you think about it).

That’s a big oof, all right.  I know about the Midnight non-connection and the issue of Mina’s anti-vengeance words having first been delivered by Shouji and relayed to the audience by Koda (it being his flashback, rather than Shouji’s), but I didn’t know there was no indication of Kiri-Mina connection until after his flashback.  Wowzers.

  

But also, in one of my comments I had left a link to a post analizing Kirishima’s and Mina’s characters and their dynamic. I don’t know if you checked it out or not, but it was a pretty interesting read. If you did read it, let me know your thoughts on it.

Apologies for not responding to that; I hadn't clicked it because I just wasn't terribly interested in the topic. Having checked it now, I can say that I'm unlikely to read it because I've encountered this person's meta before and, even at a glance, found it to be flawed for reasons I am not comfortable gabbing about in a public space. I'm sure they make some valid points, but I will have to respectfully bow out of reading and commenting on it here.

  

But what about Mina telling Kirishima that “now they’re even” though?

(This is re: my contention that Mina saves Shinsou, not Kirishima, from the Sludge Villain, and that Kirishima was never in any danger from the Sludge Villain.)

I mean, she can say it, but that doesn’t mean I have to believe that she/Horikoshi are accurately portraying the stakes involved.

  

Just for the record, you’re not saying that Mina not giving in to revenge isn’t noble in and of itself. What she does is indeed good.  You’re saying it doesn’t have any emotional weight because Mina has always been a morally good character, so you never thought she would ever give in to revenge in the first place. Correct?

Correct!  As I’ve said, Mina has perfectly healthy emotional regulation: when she experiences negative emotions like anger, guilt, or grief, she doesn’t dwell on them; she vents them to friends and finds healthy ways to channel them into bettering herself and the world and people around her.  She’s got a great head on her shoulders!  But all of that means that her giving into anger about Midnight’s death was never a remotely convincing threat to me.  Of course she wouldn’t; there’s never been a moment that foreshadowed that she was in the slightest danger of harboring that kind of obsessive, vindictive grudge.

That being the case, it feels unfair of Horikoshi to pin a big dramatic monologue on a desire for revenge which Mina was never shown to possess to any greater degree than any of her classmates.  She’s one of the last hero-aligned characters I’d have guessed if you’d asked me who was going to get a beat like that in the endgame.

(To anticipate the obvious question, Aizawa would have been my first guess; he’s even been written for it properly in the way he and Mic have responded to Shigaraki—clearly holding a grudge for something that would have happened to their classmate when Shigaraki was all of six years old.  Conversely, while plenty of the 1-A kids could have believably carried a “struggling with vengefulness” plot if they’d been written with it from earlier on, I don’t think there’s a single one of them who feels like a good match for it in their current incarnations.  Iida’s moved on from his Stain days too smoothly to buy it from him, Bakugou’s only real obsession is Deku, and Deku already had a whole arc of being obsessively negative and driven by dark desires to find and deal with a villain.  If any student was going to show up to the fight with bloody-minded revenge on the brain, it should have been Shishikura.)

  

But What About the Heteromorphobia, Tho’?

(Warning: Incoming off-topic harping about Shouji and the inane resolution of the hospital attack.)

I have even seen someone make a post on Reddit arguing that Shinso being discriminated for his Quirk makes no sense because it’s not villanous, and that it makes more sense for characters like Bakugo, Mina and Tokoyami to be discriminated because they have more villanous looking Quirks. I don’t really agree with everything that guy said. But he did bring up a good point. How come Mina doesn’t get side eyes from people due to her Quirk like Shinso does?

I will have to disagree with Reddit User That Guy that Shinsou’s quirk should be viewed as less villainous than Bakugou’s.  It sounds like he was conflating heteromorphobia with the bias against villains/"villainous" quirks, and while there is overlap, they’re still distinct categories.  Shinsou’s quirk inherently subordinates one’s physical body, allowing him to force his targets to act against their will, or potentially take the fall for things they didn’t willingly do.  Of course people are nervous about it or think it’s more villainous than heroic!

Conversely, the Number 2 Hero has been attacking criminals with fire for decades now, so I think the BNHA general public is more than ready to accept a hero whose quirk lets him fire off explosions.  The commonly accepted idea in the fandom is that “flashy and offensive quirks” are the ones most valued in heroes.  I think that’s a bit oversimplified—Crust was the Number 6 Hero and his quirk was neither—but it’s certainly true that purely elemental quirks (fire, lightning, wind, earth-shaping), no matter how damage-dealing they are, don’t tend to get treated as villainous in nature.  The real “villainous quirks” in the series tend to be the ones that are more creepy, dark, invasive, or impure.  Even Dabi’s fire is that ethereal blue, like spirit fires, instead of everyday orange-red!

Bakugou’s quirk is much closer to the “pure elemental” category than anything very villainous and, indeed, when he got kidnapped from the training camp and that one journalist was suggesting that he might have turned to villainy already, he based that suggestion on Bakugou’s behavior, his conduct during the Sports Festival.  Nothing was said about his quirk at all, but rather his recent public demonstrations of violence and “mental instability.”  That’s perfectly consistent, I think, with the biases we see elsewhere.[5]

Tokoyami has the potential to get hit by both the villainous quirk bias and the heteromorphobia, but I think Japan seeing ravens as emblematic of wisdom rather than death and rot would mean his bird head is less ill-seen there than it would be in the West.  I don’t think it would take much more than the proverbial One Bad Day to get him to a very bad place indeed, though—there’s a reason Mr. Compress judged him a good potential recruit!  Tokoyami was rescued before it became an issue, but if he hadn’t been, I’m sure we would have seen the same journalist mentioned above making similar statements about Tokoyami and his dark quirk/mien.

Mina’s an interesting case study in not experiencing a lot of the same sorts of discrimination others in similar situations do.  She has three distinct heteromorphic traits—her skin, her eyes, her horns—as well as having a potentially extremely deadly quirk which, as I discussed above, could easily attract judgmental side-eye because of the cultural view of acid.  So why doesn’t she seem to face discrimination?

As I said in the post you’re replying to—and as you mentioned is a common headcanon—I think a lot of it boils down to her relentlessly chipper attitude.  If she had, for example, Mustard’s personality, or Muscular’s drive to violence, would people be quicker to say that her Acid is a “villain quirk”?  If she glared more, would people be more creeped out by her eyes?  It’s possible, I think, that we would actually see her facing some of this if we spent more time with her, but the narrative doesn’t make that time, at least not anywhere Kirishima can see it.

  

Well, if I had to guess, I’m sure you would say that would make her a more interesting character. You might get to be interested in her character, which then would probably mean you would be even more upset and disappointed with this chapter.

Ahaha, very fair.  Honestly, Class A would have benefited tremendously from more kids with bite to them.  A Mina whose competitiveness had some real fervor to it, or a Mina who had some heaviness in her backstory she was faking her way through dealing with, would have been a good contribution to that.

  

It really sucks that Horikoshi had to justify Shoji being the only one to experience prejudice by clarifying that heteromorph discrimination is only still prevalent in small villages. I feel like it robbed characters like Tsuyu, Mina, Tokoyami and Koda of being part of an actual narrative and get more depth and development.

Before I talk about this, let me clarify something: Shouji’s line about what his classmates know about heteromorphic discrimination is an example of very crucial nuance being wildly different between translations.

The fan scanlation suggested that Tokoyami and Koda, who grew up in cities, must feel like such violent heteromorphobia resembles something out of a textbook, with the implication that the textbook in question is a history book.  They’re presumed to think that blood-cleansing rituals and children with scars like Shouji are artifacts of a terrible past, not a modern-day concern.

The official Via release suggested that Tokoyami and Koda could know that stuff like this still happens in rural areas because they might have read about it in textbooks.  They’re presumed to know that such rituals and scarred children do exist as modern concerns, but only out in the boonies.

Those are completely different propositions!  Which one was accurate was far beyond my capability to judge, but the official translation did feel a little off to me, so, as I usually do in such situations, I brought it to my trusty Translator Sis.  For possibly the first time ever,[6] she told me that Viz had this one wrong—that Shouji’s implication, to her eye, was indeed that T&K would think such violence was limited to the past, not that it was limited to rural areas.

That established, I was actually talking about that line from Shouji with a friend the other day!  I was aggravated that the writing would portray city-born heteromorphs as so oblivious to the problems facing them in other parts of the country when that seems so counter to my (American) perception of the ways members of threatened groups communicate danger to one another.

My friend reminded me that silence is a much more common Japanese way of addressing (or attempting to address) minority discrimination: trying to make a problem go away by starving it of conversational oxygen, treating oppression like an infection that needs to be quarantined until it dies out on its own.  In that light, it’s entirely possible that Tokoyami and Koda might not know this stuff because no one around them thinks it would be helpful to tell them if it’s not a problem they’re directly dealing with.  A lot of people propose the same approach to burakumin issues in real life, for example.

Also, technically Shouji doesn’t say that Koda and Tokoyami don’t experience heteromorphobia at all, just that the idea of fear and hatred that extreme, that violent, must seem like something out of a textbook, rather than something that happens here and now in certain parts of the country.  Also too, Tokoyami and Koda are teenagers; I can forgive them not having much understanding of life outside their own circle of experience.

That all said, it still feels more than a little telling that Horikoshi thinks everyone in Shouji’s whole class, including and especially all the other heteromorphs, could never have heard in their entire lives about acts of bigotry-driven violence against heteromorphs being carried out in the here and now.

While it’s true that silence is a widely accepted way to address these sorts of issues in Japan, they’re hardly universal!  Activist groups are out there trying to raise awareness, trying to get their issues on the floor of the Diet in hopes of getting laws passed about them.  There’s not some kind of media blackout on talking about it, and, indeed, I’ve read any number of articles from Japanese publications online covering such topics.

In BNHA, however, silence does seem to be universal.[7]

No one but Shouji is from a remote enough place that they knew about violent heteromorphobia.  No one recognized it as a thing that e.g. disadvantages heteromorphic heroes in the public approval ratings.  No one tripped over a magazine article about it and got curious enough to look the topic up online.  No one’s heroic mentors or family members have talked to them about it (particularly egregious with Koda, given the fairly strong implication that his own mother suffered it).  No one had a patch of morbid interests (Tokoyami) that led them to dabble in reading about real-life horror stories of human hatred, or an interest in how their society came to be that might have led them to reading about the CRC and realizing it still exists in the modern day.

They attend a hero school, and yet Shouji seems to be the only one with an inkling that there are heteromorphs out there who need, and have been needing, heroes.

That’s all a lot to ask of the reader, but what really pushes it past plausibility to me is what happened with the Ordinary Woman.  How close to the surface must violent heteromorphobia be even in the cities if the current state of Japan brings it all right back into the open in a matter of weeks?  That none of the students other than Shouji have ever even imagined that heteromorphs can still be victimized in this way represents an over-the-top ignorance that I have to read as either a bleak condemnation of the shallow focuses of heroes or reflective of Horikoshi’s own beliefs about discrimination and the understanding of it possessed by those who aren’t immediately threatened by it.

Whichever is the case, and with Spinner’s higher brain functions out of commission, it leaves Shouji carrying the whole plot on his back and he just can’t do it, both because the audience hasn’t had enough time with him to buy it and because the answers the series uses him as a vehicle to deliver are facile, victim-blaming nonsense.

...And here’s where I admit that even if the hospital attack had climaxed with a whole bunch of heteromorphs from Class A and B and the Pro Hero ranks acknowledging the mob’s feelings while pleading with them to not give into hatred and to stand down, I would still have issues if the resolution didn’t involve concrete suggestions and promises about how the heroes would address the mob’s grievances going forward.  Which canon very much did not, and just adding more voices to Shouji’s wouldn’t have changed that.  But my whole rant about that can be found in the relevant chapter posts, so I’ll not repeat it further here.

  

How Would I Have Done It Instead?

Let’s be real here for a second. Even if Mina had been the one to stop Machia. How would she even do that? I remember back when people were talking about when Mina would get her moment to shine, and that it would involve Machia again, I had serious doubts about that idea ever becoming true because I couldn’t think of a single thing she could do against him. I thought for sure Mina’s moment was going to be relegated to fighting Midnight’s killer, since that seemed more within her capabilities. In the end her shinning moment did indeed involve Machia, and no one really had a confrontation with Midnight’s killer. I actually want to hear your thoughts, if you happen have a thing in mind that you think Mina could’ve done to be the one to stop Machia. I’d love to hear it.+ Btw, since you brought it up, in what way could she have defeated the Sludge villain that would’ve been witty, or skillful? If you don’t have any ideas you don’t need to answer. It’s not that important. I’m just curious of the posibility.

Okay, so, this is the part that hung me up for the longest, because there are a few wildly different possible answers here.

The real truth is, if I had been writing this whole shebang from the start, this confrontation would never have happened this way at all.  Just off the top of my head, I think there’s no compelling reason AFO couldn’t have sent Toga into the hospital to activate and retrieve Kurogiri weeks ago, and with Kurogiri back in play, getting Machia would obviously have gone differently.  I would also never have disposed of the MLA as comprehensively as Horikoshi did; I would have had at least one or two instances where an MLA member who didn’t get uncovered by the HPSC in time was in a position to shift the balance in the villains’ favor—maybe one would have been with the police somewhere.

Barring a top-to-bottom rewrite of the whole arc, however? Well, I'd still say that, feeling as strongly as I do about how morally dubious this whole second war has been, even if I were telling this scene with the same components, I probably wouldn’t be writing towards a hero success because I don’t think the heroes have earned it.  The baby steps the kids have taken towards Saving Villains don’t go far enough for me to want to see the villains defeated here.  The biggest changes there would have been twofold:

1) Shinsou’s voice changer play shouldn’t have worked on Machia.

Machia has a sense of smell so incredibly acute that, if I were trying to logically explain how it worked, I’d make it a psychic ability that just happened to manifest as scent-based.  We’re talking about a guy who could track down Shigaraki after a teleport of over 270 miles, who could smell AFO’s vestige stirring from almost fifty miles away.  There’s absolutely no reason he should think for even a second that AFO is standing right outside his prison.

Now, we do know replications of AFO’s voice has an effect on Machia—we saw as much as the beginning of MVA!  But I would contend that back then, he didn’t have a big loud response to the recording, just curled up around his radio and started loudly purring.  In the scene with Shinsou, he actually responds as though he thinks AFO is there, but again, I don’t buy that Machia should have fallen for that, especially since he was woken by Hose Face’s device emulating AFO’s voice, which would have given his unbelievably keen senses enough time to register that it’s only the voice, not the man, that he's hearing.

But, with Machia up and not immediately prey to Shinsou’s ploy, the other big change I’d make with him becomes apparent.  The series has proved willing and eager to shitcan everything Shigaraki gained in MVA, but not me.  Shigaraki won Machia’s loyalty at the end of MVA, and if Machia’s cranky with AFO for leaving him behind again,[8] that doesn’t mean he couldn’t still have loyalty to AFO’s successor.

Given that his loyalty to Shigs is predicated on his loyalty to AFO, it might seem logical that AFO squandering the latter would free Machia of obligation to the former.  That’s a fair take.  But if it were me, I’d capitalize on Machia’s keen senses and what he was present for in MVA—Shigaraki saying that his followers should do whatever they want.  Hell, if the endgame likes flashbacks so much, let’s have a flashback of Shigaraki and Machia actually talking in ways that would let Machia distinguish Shigaraki and AFO.

In other words, I think Machia’s loyalty should supersede his anger.  If he gets free, his first reaction should be to go to Shigaraki, not to focus on his anger.  That way, it’s not a hero win rewarding their gross sky coffin tactics, but AFO doesn’t get quite what he wanted out of it, either.  This would be one part of focusing the narrative back on Shigaraki and his allies, rather than ruining Shigaraki’s hard work by letting AFO take over and piss it all away.

Incidentally, I will concede that, just because Machia shouldn’t have responded like a dupe to Shinsou mimicking AFO’s voice, that doesn’t mean Machia might not have responded at all—he could have rebuked Shinsou for trying to emulate Master, and that would have worked for Shinsou’s purposes just as well!  So to avoid that, I would add one more element to a flashback showcasing Shigaraki and Machia’s relationship post-Deika: have Shigaraki showing Machia a picture of Shinsou and warning him to be on the lookout for this kid, and to not respond to anything he says.

Horikoshi loves to tie back plot beats to pre-established elements, and one such element is, as I footnoted earlier, that AFO and Shigaraki watched the U.A. Sports Festival together, so they should both know good and well who Shinsou is and what he can do.  Knowing Shinsou’s SF-era capabilities doesn’t predict the voice changer, of course, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that, if the heroes are pushed to a point of desperation and they have access to a brainwasher, even a non-licensed one, they will try to use that brainwasher on whoever they think is their highest priority target.  Quite frankly, all of the higher-ups and key players should have known about Shinsou.

2) The kids shouldn’t have been tipped off that they were facing Midnight’s killer, or it should have come up in a different context.

Nothing interesting comes of the way the canon deploys it, thanks to Mina’s vengeful feelings having no grounding in the story, and the blunt way it’s brought up serves only to make Hose Face easy for the reader to write off.  As I said in the chapter post where he brought up “that U.A. teacher,” there’s no real reason for him to be focusing on Midnight specifically unless he has a personal reason to think she’s emblematic of the things about Hero Society he hates, or unless he was tuned in enough to U.A. personalities (knew who was teaching there, watched the Sports Festival to get a handle on its students, etc.) to realize that he was facing students he could potentially rattle by bringing up their teacher’s death.

The latter would offer a less awful read on Hose Face’s personality: He’s not bringing up the death out of pure sadism, but as a psychological tactic.  The former would give him some real characterization and motives while also giving the kids something to argue against, rather than the easiest possible reaction of, “Hay did u kno Might Makes Right iz bad?”

Alternatively, if Hose Face has nothing personal against Midnight at all, and doesn’t have an encyclopedic memory of hero wannabe high schoolers, he has no reason to specifically mention Midnight.  Even if the narrative must see her death “answered” in some fashion, it still doesn’t follow that the kids must get emotional closure for someone they lost to the undeclared war they were drafted into.  The audience can take some solace in perceived karma, but lacking a naturalistic way for Mina and the rest to connect those dots, the kids should just have to deal with him as they would any other opponent they come up against, because, surprise surprise, when you’re fighting in a war, you’re not guaranteed to see and know who’s on the opposite side of the gun that just shot down your best friend.

As another alternative, if we go with the idea that Mina was struggling with dark desires for revenge, maybe she should have brought it up!  Not as an accusation—again, she has no way of knowing she’s facing Midnight’s killer without him saying it—but just out of generalized fury with her opponents as a group, the same way Aizawa and Gran Torino hold the pain of their loved ones against Shigaraki when Shigaraki is not the one responsible for causing that pain.[9]  Maybe a more openly vengeful Mina could just freely state that her aim is to take down the PLF to avenge Midnight, only for the enemy in front of her to answer, “Midnight?  You mean that woman I killed in the woods on the day of Liberation?  Here’s your chance, then, girl.”  (Or whatever.)

Of course, Shonen Jump is not in the habit of validating heroes craving revenge, so Mina in that scenario would fail because rage would make her sloppy, same as with Deku, Iida, and so on.

So, in a scenario where Machia is up and not falling prey to Shinsou, but rather prioritizing getting to New Master Shigaraki, and the PLF is likewise loyal to Shigaraki and not AFO, I’d just let it work, because I’d be slanting this whole combat towards an overall heroic loss.  Give Mina a face to obsess over until next time but also let Kirishima get a good eyeful of it so he at least knows there’s a serious problem with his best friend and one of his hero inspirations.

Mineta would have a chance to weigh in, too, as he's a good middle ground: he's got his own anger about Midnight, who he adored, but he's also worried about how that anger looks on Mina. Mineta always worries about his classmates, but he's shared a pretty fair amount of incidental screentime with Mina specifically over the course of the series, ranging from her sweetly offering to put a harem moment into the band performance just for him to stuff like the Clockwork Orange gag, as well as more serious stuff like Mineta being the first one to ask aloud if Midnight's dead, with Mina warmly, and with a confidence it turns out she doesn't truly feel, reassuring him that Midnight's fine.

(I've said before that Mineta should have had more to do in the confrontation with Midnight's killer, but that's not just about his fondness for her. It's also about him being the first to question if the heroes didn't just make the whole situation worse, and, if Mina really took Midnight's death so hard it had her thinking about revenge, it should also have been about Mina and Mineta's shared experience surrounding that death.)

That all said, I suspect that what you really meant is, how would I have handled this scene if I had to use all the same pieces and be writing towards a heroic victory?  So let me at least touch on that.

As far as Hose Face goes, I actually think Kirishima might have been better suited to talking to him?  Like, Mina’s been friendly with people, sure, but I don’t really buy her most pivotal, “shining moment” scene being a bunch of talk about the strength of the weak coming together.  As best I recall—though do correct me if I’m wrong—it's never been shown that Mina regularly struggles with feelings of weakness or inadequacy.  It would be perfectly natural for her to do so after flubbing against Gigantomachia, to be sure, but the series doesn’t make the time to show it, so her lines about forming packs with others does not feel like a natural evolution for her arc.

Likewise, while she’s obviously been depicted as friendly and sociable from the beginning, her lines in 383 suggest that her sociableness has, and always has had, an ulterior motive: covering for her perceived weakness.  The lack of focus on her relationships from her own perspective makes that impossible to verify or even predict, so it just feels like it comes out of thin air, grabbed almost at random by the author in his attempt to find something, anything, Mina could say that would give Hose Face even a moment's pause.

Kirishima, on the other hand, has had a focus on his relationships, places where they’ve been pivotal to his own arc and the greater plot.  (I’m sure I don’t need to harp on this to you, rvg, but I’ll go over it to lay out my perception of these things.)  His relationship with Mina—the ways he’s trying to live up to her example, as well as his desire to support her when she falters—is a profound motivator for him, something we see much more explicitly and from his own perspective than we do Mina's feelings about him.  Meanwhile, while his relationship with Bakugou isn’t given that level of psychological exploration, it’s a critical factor in Bakugou’s rescue at Kamino, and we also get that bit of Bakugou specifically giving Kirishima some advice that leads to the latter’s Unbreakable mode.[10]

So like, we do get an angle on Kirishima and his sense of his own relationships with others.  That awareness allows him to demonstrate what is, I believe, the first unabashed moment of empathy for villains that a hero demonstrates in the entire series!  Specifically, I’m talking about that low-level gang mook he comes up against during his internship with Fat Gum.  That guy does a bunch of yelling about things that speak to Kirishima—fears of weakness, desire to be stronger, a need to help his “bros”—and Kirishima tries multiple times, even after being attacked, to express his understanding and sympathy for the man.

That being the case, if anyone were going to be able to make an impression on Hose Face via appealing to his sense of camaraderie and desire for strength, it seems to me that Kirishima has the better groundwork in place to sell the moment, regardless of whether he could successfully “reach” Hose Face in the way that’s being attempted with Shigaraki/Toga/Dabi.

As to the Sludge Villain, I’d probably either not have him there at all, given how much he claims he just wants to pretend to fight for a minute before getting the hell out of there.  He very much seems like he didn’t want to be here to begin with, so I can only assume that, despite AFO claiming the jailbreakers didn’t need to do anything for him but rampage, he very much did summon a bunch of them back anyway[11] for his final dramatic attack on Deku and Hero Society.

Assuming we’re stuck dealing with him, I’d probably let the Class B kids do it.   Have Mount Lady—who was there for the Sludge Villain’s rampage using Bakugou, and therefore knows what Sludgey looks like and that he can possess people—yell for people to stay away from him.  Let there be a moment of panic and confusion, where it looks for a moment like a repeat of the mess in Chapter 1 where no one had the exact right answer to deal with him, so no one’s willing to step up.

Then, in a 1-2-3 combo move that reminds everyone why Class B is said to have advanced more quickly than Class A, and just as Sludgey lunges for someone, have Yamagi use Poltergeist to manipulate him into a steel drum barrel being held by Yui, let her shrink it down to a good tight fit before dropping it, then have Juuzo soften the ground to half-sink it, top down, then resolidify the earth, trapping Sludgey for later removal.  Ta da, a neat demonstration of the next generation outperforming the old generation when it comes to on-the-fly teamwork and decisive action even when no one individual has the perfect quirk for solving a problem.

…This, of course, is assuming there’s no good way to actually get the Sludge Villain to talk in more depth about why he didn’t want to be here from the beginning and had to be threatened into doing it at all.  It would be nice if someone could broach that topic!  Maybe a quick not-too-serious handful of lines from Mineta, who has his own history of running in terror from fights he doesn’t think he can win.  But even with some sympathy, I imagine Sludge Villain would try to run away regardless, on the (well-grounded) suspicion that heroes are going to want him to go back to prison and finish his sentence, and that’s when B-tachi could step in.

So that just leaves Machia, Mina, and Shinsou.  And honestly, rather than having to power through it, I’d rather see Mina, in particular, talk her way out of it.  This draws on two things.  First, there’s the fact that she’s one of the kids who failed her Final Exams, with her and Kaminari being unable to figure out how to utilize their strengths to get out of Nedzu’s rat maze.   I’d love to see her demonstrate that she’s grown from having no plans but to brute force her way through obstacles!  Second, there’s this sequence:

This is a bit exaggerated, obviously, but the quick demonstration of how quickly and smoothly Mina is able to approach, scold, bond with, then deescalate people in tense situations is rightly portrayed as remarkable.  But where is that facility in real confrontations with villains?  Nowhere, really, save that airless stab at remarking on common ground with Hose Face and the PLF.

I obviously don’t expect her and Machia to wind up breakdancing together when the stakes are as high as they are, but Mina would have at least a bit of an opening—her encounter with Machia in middle school wherein she lied to him about where the Springer Agency is.  I don’t for a moment think that Machia’s forgotten her smell—I doubt he forgets anyone’s, though he may or may not care about them otherwise.

For this version of the scene, I’d probably play Machia as more ambivalent—tired of being abandoned over and over again by the people he’s tried so hard to be loyal for, so not immediately inclined to run off after them, open to a bit more dialogue.  He doesn’t fall for Shinsou for the same reasons I outlined above, so Shinsou and Mina have to talk Machia into acting—or at least stop him from just rumbling off to bury himself under a mountain for the next decade or two.

I don’t know how they’d go about making that argument.  Honestly, I don’t really think there’s anything in the story for Mina or Shinsou to fall back on (by which I mean earlier panels Horikoshi’s assistants can look up and copy/paste into the storyboard to accent a dramatic speech).  Maybe they could ask him why he’s so loyal to All For One and find some commonality, either through heteromorph discrimination or bias against villains.

Maybe Machia is torn on his loyalty, betrayed by AFO one too many times to want to help him but not sure where that leaves him on supporting Shigaraki.  Hearing this, Mina brings up that AFO is threatening Shigaraki right now, but also that a friend of Mina’s is trying to stop AFO/help Shigaraki,[12] so maybe Machia could help them with that and then decide?  Machia doesn’t trust her due to the Springer Agency thing, but that same experience does lead him to believe her when she says she just wants to help people, not hurt them.

That last bit has the benefit of providing an explicit reason for why Mina uses her quirk nigh-exclusively as a watery defense barrier or to take out inanimate objects: She long ago made an active choice not to use her acid against sentient people.  This would give her some room for a little motivation-establishing flashback of her own—maybe canonize that theory about her chipperness being at least in part a front!—and provide a nice alternative to the current state of Mina’s narrative, which has spent nearly 400 chapters refusing to allow her the same free hand people like Bakugou and Kaminari take with their quirks for no established reason.

This doesn’t give Shinsou much to do, but that’s okay: his moment comes against AFO instead.

I realize that Mina's fans want her to have a big badass moment, and simply talking down a confrontation is not the kind of thing that tends to get viewed as "badass" in a shounen battle manga. Sorry about that. She can still jump around and dodge a lot while giving her pitch? Maybe she could get a big badass moment later on? I dunno; that's just what I would do, and obviously my priorities for what it would be cool for the kids to do are not the same as the broader readership's.

I'm also not sure where that leaves the confrontation with Midnight's killer; I suppose that depends on how things go between him and Kirishima in this scenario. Maybe they leave without him when he tries to protest Machia accepting the temporary alliance, or maybe he's soldier enough to take the help where he can get it and worry about later conflict later. Obviously, at any rate, this is happening in a scenario where he hasn't immediately blabbed that he killed Midnight; that can come up as a nasty surprise later on.

  

But does that mean you think Midnight’s killer should totally get away with it scott free and suffer no consequences?

Hnnnngghh that’s a tricky one because I am an unabashed MLA stan and villain supporter and therefore deeply biased about this.  Like, I don’t think soldiers should be put on trial for killing enemy soldiers, no, even high-ranking officer-types.  Obviously it’s different if they attack civilians or are otherwise breaking the codes surrounding conduct during warfare, but I do think Hose Face killing Midnight was basically a soldier killing someone he perceived as another soldier, with no undue cruelty or misconduct.

However, obviously the series itself—and the state authority the PLF is openly trying to tear down in-universe—would disagree with me!  In that context, I can’t even really call the guy “a high-ranking officer” because that would, as mentioned earlier, convey more authenticity to his position than his government wants to grant him.  As far as they’re concerned, he’s probably more like “a key figure in the recent anti-government actions carried out by the terrorist group calling themselves The Paranormal Liberation Front.”  People like that tend to get executed in prison a few years after their short, perfunctory trials.

I suppose the problem for me is that the series wants me to believe that the MLA is Very Bad and they all deserve to be Locked Up Forever, whereas I want more nuance from them than that?  Even setting aside the probable cult upbringing, I have significant trouble unabashedly blaming the PLF for their actions because the series has done nothing to convince me that less drastic avenues for change are available or even survivable for them.

This was a huge issue with the hospital attack sequence, but it applies to all sorts of the setting’s problems: Other than, “Insist that victims of oppression should focus on providing a good example to future generations,” what methods for addressing inequality does Hero Society have?  I want to know what the villains should have done, what they could have done, about systemic inequalities and repression that would have been effective against a government that employs agents like Lady Nagant and Hawks.

The picture Nagant paints is of a society waging a war against anyone who sought to change the Hero System, a war that many people who sought change never even knew they were already in.  The examples she provides of her targets are, of course, corrupt heroes and would-be terrorists, but what her HPSC President said was even farther reaching: that the purpose of her killing was to “preserve hope and faith” in heroes.

The HPSC legitimately does not seem to believe that any system other than the current one is feasible for maintaining stability, and that any attempt to shake or besmirch that system is no different than throwing the country back into the chaos of the advent of quirks.  What’s a few missing activists or tragic accidents compared to that?

Horikoshi seems desperate to have us pretend he never told us that the government his protagonists are defending actively grooms assassins to enforce the status quo, but that’s not a genie he can put back in the bottle.  I see the current events of the series as, in some form or another, basically inevitable because of Hero Society’s active, even violent resistance to change.  Midnight’s death for that cause is thus something I have tremendous difficulty thinking of as a crime that needs to be punished.

Does that mean I think Hose Face should get off scot-free?  Eeehhhhhhhhnnnngh I hate to say it this plainly, but…

Maybe it does?

The thing is, I know that Hose Face is, canonically, a quirk supremacist trying to violently overthrow the rule of law.  In real life, I have no sympathy for people trying to institute fascism, regardless of whether they’re using legal mechanisms or armed force.  But in the fictional world of BNHA, I have nothing but disdain for the way the MLA has been turned into a caricature of themselves in this final arc.  In that sense, my dissatisfaction with Hose Face’s treatment is really based on the ideal version of him and all the rest of the MLA I have in my head—the MLA that’s allowed to have nuance behind their extremism, the one overflowing with members motivated by their lived experience with the flaws in Hero Society, with a generous helping of radicalization from the fact that they’re a cult as much as they are an army.

BNHA has scrapped all that potential and left us with nothing but naked quirk supremacy to fill the void.  In an endgame that’s trying so, so hard to sell the readers on Saving Villains, that’s just poison to the story’s themes, and my villain stanning comes directly from that issue: demanding consistent treatment for the characters whose tragic backstories we haven’t been permitted to see.

Hose Face is clearly a bad person—heck, I was headcanoning him as a hard-edged, ruthless killer even when all we had to go on was him killing Midnight, long before he showed up to espouse open quirk supremacy and gloat about killing a schoolteacher, so it’s not like I ever thought he was a super nice dude or anything!  But I guess I just have trouble with the idea that the current system deserves to be the one to decide his fate, when it has, to all appearances, gone to extreme lengths to stamp out any perceived threats to itself, to the point that the narrative itself is now openly delegitimizing everyone who might otherwise offer cogent critique.

It would be different if we had never seen the dark side of the status quo and the villains really were all just shallow, two-dimensional monsters.  It would be different if the narrative had shown us legal, nonviolent and effective avenues for protest and change.[13]  It would be different if Hose Face had killed some rando uninvolved civilian.

As it is, though, Midnight was a combatant for a terrible, terrible status quo.  She might not have been using lethal means herself, but she was defending a demonstrably lethal, openly acknowledged as repressive, system.  I just can’t find it in myself to demand justice for the fact that she died for it.

But with all that being said, I also don’t think Midnight is a bad person.  She never knew about the government assassins, after all; she’s a member of the system she grew up in, the same way the kids are.  She presumably never saw the extent of the system’s flaws because she was never victimized by them.  At the end of the day, she still deserved to be properly mourned and remembered and it is a crock and a crime that we never got to see her funeral.

If anything, I think Midnight’s funeral would have been an excellent setting for a scene where the protagonists start asking questions about how things came to this, what went wrong and where, that their teacher had to die.  What is it about Hero Society that’s led to tens of thousands of dissidents, and why haven’t they ever heard of this discontent before now That would have given us considerably better set-up for a nuanced PLF, an opening to talk about Shouji’s experience of heteromorphobia, foreshadowing for Lady Nagant, and, to bring this back on-topic, the opportunity to really show Mina struggling with everything that happened as set-up for her later confrontation with Midnight’s killer.

  

Tumblr, How Does That Work?

Honestly I was expecting some sort of notification about your answers if and when you replied to me. Is that not a thing?

Making my reply a fresh post, or just posting replies in the comments section of the post you originally commented on, would not have notified you without me specifically tagging you, which at the time Tumblr wasn’t letting me do.  This problem seems to have cleared up, so you should have gotten a notification about this post going up because of your name being tagged at the very beginning!

What you see for people answering asks depends on a few things. If you send asks anonymously, you won't get a notification if/when the person answers them; you'll just have to keep an eye on their blog. If you send them with your name attached, as you did originally for me, I could choose to answer those asks privately, sending my replies back to your Inbox, or answer publically, posting my replies to my blog. Either way, you'd be notified!

For this round of responses, if I'd just replied to your reblog in comments as you did with my original post, or reblogged your reply with a reply of own instead of staring a new post, you’d have gotten notifications about either!  But I don’t want to put this much wall ‘o text on my followers’ dashboards without a cut, so I haven’t been responding directly, for which I apologize.

(Disclaimer: Notifications can be configured in your Settings menu; you can toggle them on and off for loads of stuff! You might wish to check what you currently have them set for rather than just taking my word for it.)

On the topic of cuts, I mentioned at the beginning that the cut option is hard to find on mobile, but just for reference, it looks like this in the post editor on desktop:

It's the same icon on the mobile post editor, it's just on the far right of the bar of icons along the bottom of the app. My screen cuts it off, so I have to scroll the bar over to find it.

Like I said, the Expand dropdown button Tumblr instituted a little while back has reduced the need for this somewhat, and you can certainly do whatever you prefer, but as I believe having the Expand dropdown automatically clip long posts is still an optional configuration in Settings, I'd feel better about reblogging from you directly if you put the bulk of your reply under a cut.

  

Don’t know what “blorbo” means. Kinda sounds like a demeaning term, but I’m going to assume it’s not.

Sorry, it’s not intended to be demeaning!  It’s just a slangy affectionate term for “character you really like.”  In my experience, I’d say it also has a connotation of protectiveness or self-identification, though I can’t speak for the whole of the internet.  I like plenty of characters, but I wouldn’t call them all my blorbos, just the ones that I really and truly love and want to explore/share/defend their honor to the death.

  

Thanks...? Is, is that a compliment?

(Re: my telling rvg that we seemed to have similar issues with the way Mina was being handled, but they were more willing to do the mental legwork on her than me.)

It’s mostly just an observation, but not a critical one!  As someone who’s very ready to read into the canon every little drip of information the canon will give me And So Much More, I have a tremendous amount of fellow-feeling for people of like minds, even if our taste in characters is different.

    

Buried At The Bottom, Why Kaminari Is A Worse Character Than Mineta, Yes I Said It And I’ll Say It Again

>>I have observably positive feelings for about a third of Class 1-A and only particularly negative feelings about Deku and Kaminari. What’s up with Kaminari?

My irritation with Kaminari boils down to two main things—and forgive me, I know you didn’t ask about Mineta, but Mineta’s pretty important to my feelings on Kaminari being what they are, so he’s a part of this answer.  This is all going to be pretty openly dismissive of Kaminari, as a fair warning, on top of being based on not-exactly-rigorous familiarity with the student material, so apologies to anyone who likes him and finds him an enriching, valuable character. But man alive, that is not me.  And but so:

1) Kaminari is a watered-down Mineta, with watered-down versions of all of Mineta’s flaws, but because he’s watered down, the growth he experiences stands out less than Mineta’s.  More on this in a second.

2) Despite Kaminari being a redundant character who brings virtually nothing to the table that other characters don’t do better—with the only things that are unique to him going underdeveloped in canon—fandom loves Kaminari.  (Disclaimer: I obviously don’t spend much time in the hero-fan circles of the fandom, so this is just my perception.  I’d be curious to get your perspective of Kaminari’s relative popularity, rvg!)

To hit the second point first, Kaminari has a more conventionally attractive cute anime boy face than Mineta, so Kaminari’s pushing of his female classmates’ boundaries gets mostly ignored, while Mineta gets so many fics written about him dying that there’s a dedicated Dead Mineta Minoru tag on AO3 with almost 350 hits. 

Fandom built a whole tottering edifice of fanon about Traitor Kaminari despite the howling absence of compelling evidence in the manga[14] for, so far as I can tell, the sole reason that people wanted the cute anime boy to have crunchy angst.  Then, when the actual traitor reveals landed (first the fake-out and then the real one), fandom deemed Hagakure an ungrateful bitch and Aoyama a whining coward.

So like, the fandom discrepancy is what pushes me over the edge from the bottom end of neutral into active dislike.  But I would be awfully close to it anyway for the whole “redundant-ass character who contributes nothing to this story we couldn’t get better from someone else” thing.

Kaminari being kind of leery and unpleasant about his female classmates would be a lot more glaring if it weren’t stacked up against Mineta’s actual sexual harassment, even though Kaminari is a frequent co-conspirator!   

Kaminari has a brief tussle with fear at the beginning of the war arc, but it’s neither as sustained nor as convincing as Mineta’s frequent wrestling with cowardice, present from USJ all the way up through his terrified confrontation with All For One.   

Mineta is frequently, openly envious of his classmates, a whole extra flaw that Kaminari never demonstrates in more than fleeting glimpses.   

Kaminari’s quirk is redundant next to the other high offense types in the class.   

Kaminari’s personality is not distinct enough to add anything irreplaceable to the classroom dynamic.  That’s not to say he brings nothing to the web of relationships amongst the students or the ways the class as a whole reacts to the events of the series, just that what comes to mind for me is mostly extra layering to existing dynamics, not anything truly original and unique to him.  Which would be fine—I love extra layers!—if he were contributing more as a character on literally any other fronts.

I can think of only two things that Kaminari uniquely brings to the table, but both of them are mentioned once and then never come up again.  Firstly, he’s the only one in the class to voice open admiration for Stain, a willingness to admire cool traits in Villains that never leads him to any interesting conflicts with people (classmates or otherwise) who hew to the more standard flat refusal to consider that a Villain might have or express positive aspects.

The other thing is less about Kaminari himself and more about how he’s one of three places where the story brings up the idea of people using their quirks for non-hero jobs and then refuses to develop that premise.[15]  It’s interesting worldbuilding, but as far as I’m aware, it’s never directly shown—everyone we see using their quirks (legally) in the series is doing it as a hero.  We never get much sense of what other options there are for quirk use because heroism and villainy are the only contexts we ever see it in!  This would be a little annoying on its own, but I also find it undermines a lot of other established facts and characterizations.

(Bear with me and I promise I’ll loop this back around to Kaminari.)

My interests being where they are, the biggest problem for me with the fuzziness about the legality of quirk use is that it leaves Destro and the MLA with no coherent cause.  They want free quirk use, but are they really so incredibly averse to just getting a license that they’re willing to become terrorists over it??

You could argue that naked quirk supremacy is what the MLA is currently after, and that’s obviously incompatible with the laws as they stand, but Destro Classic is never really framed as a quirk supremacist, so why did he so virulently despise the quirk use prohibitions if all they really did was require people to get a license to use quirks in public, no different than a driver’s license or a permit to serve alcohol?  Sure, you get small clutches of people sometimes with that kind of “any government oversight is bad government oversight” black-and-white thinking, but the original MLA was a powerful enough force to stand against the government for years, which doesn’t exactly scream “a handful of malcontents” to me.

Rendering the MLA’s cause mindbogglingly asinine is my biggest problem with the “other jobs can get quirk-use licenses too” tidbit, but there are also things like how totally invisible the entertainment or sports industry is.  That would make perfect sense if quirk use is illegal in those fields—people want to see cool superpowers getting used, so industries that bank on public attention dollars but can’t have their celebrities use their quirks are going to decline when they can’t compete with industries/celebrities that can.

If quirk licenses can be gotten for all sorts of jobs, though, then why have sports and entertainment become so invisible?  If “frivolous” fields like those are not aren’t seen as “contributing to society” enough for quirk use permits, then which fields do?  Why does HeroAca!Japan still mostly look and behave like IRL!Japan if quirks are in use in “all manner” of industries?  And if it isn’t the case that heroism—a dangerous job which sometimes gets people killed and which generally requires cultivating a socially demanding public brand/identity—is the only path to being able to use the special power you were born with to earn a livelihood, why does every single middle-schooler in Deku’s class and countless other classes across the country want to become a hero?

I just feel like the way the world looks and operates, the kinds of repressiveness described by even the heroes, the structures that drive people into heroism and villainy alike—the former because they don’t see any other viable way to achieve the happiness they’re looking for, the latter because they can’t become heroes but still have desires that their quirks could help them achieve—all of that makes much more sense in a world that has super powers but has tightly restricted their use to a single job class of person.

So, tying back, obviously that’s not a fault of Kaminari’s, but he is the character where that gap is most apparent.  If there aren’t many lightning heroes because lightning is in high demand in other industries, it would shed significant light on who Kaminari is as a person if the manga would tell us what those other industries are. 

What other paths could Kaminari have chosen?  What’s so much better about those other industries that people with quirks tailor-made for heroism,[16] in a society that worships popular and powerful heroes, are so willing to choose those other industries instead?  Why did Kaminari not make that same decision?  What does heroism mean to him personally that he chose it when so many others in his situation did not?

Kaminari could present a huge in on that angle of the worldbuilding, but instead he’s a complete dead-end.  Mineta’s motivations are base as hell, but at least we know what they are!  Further, it tells us interesting (uncomplimentary, but interesting!) things that people like Recovery Girl and Deku hear said motivations from Mineta’s own mouth, and shrug and accept them as perfectly valid.

And that’s just his professed motivations!  His final exam scene actually drops an early hint about the admiration for Deku he’ll later wholeheartedly declare in the 1-A vs Deku fight!  I don’t remember Kaminari ever getting anything a fraction so revealing; he just coasts through the story contributing nothing unique or meaningful.  He’s hardly the only 1-A character with that particular lack of depth—Sato, Sero, Hagakure and Ojiro are all similar blank slates in terms of their motivations or histories—but then, none of them are a fraction as popular as Kaminari is in the fandom as I experience it, either.

So to sum up, I dislike Kaminari because he’s a wishy-washy nothing of a character, a generically Inoffensive Anime Cutie Boy adored out of all reasonable proportion compared to more compelling and equally underdeveloped classmates alike.  Mineta is, by any measure, more problematic, and it's even worse that U.A./Aizawa are so blasé about him, but, at least from where I’m standing, he’s still more layered, more compelling, more dynamic, and speaks in more interesting ways to the world around him than Kaminari ever comes close to matching.

(…Kaminari’s thing with Jirou is fine.  Perfectly reasonable character relationship building material.  I just don’t count it one way or the other because it’s a self-contained relationship dynamic that has no bearing on the way either character engages with the broader world/system the series’ overarching narrative is challenging.  They motivate each other in small ways, but that motivation doesn’t lead them to truly grow or change as people, only to overcome modest internal confidence hurdles blocking them from things they already wanted to do anyway.)

--

And that's it! Thanks for forging through, good lord, over twenty pages of this, rvg and anyone else who did! I hope you were at least moderately entertained, give or take my blatant Kaminari slander. See you next time, and enjoy the Footnotes.

---------------- FOOTNOTES ----------------

[1] We’re not shown any personnel or drugs or anything, but I assume they’ve been keeping Machia drugged since Jakku, same as Kurogiri in between interviews.  It’s the only thing that worked on Machia before, so why wouldn’t they have more on-hand?

[2] Despite watching the Sports Festival with Shigaraki, natch.

[3] I would like it if he would do that with a lot less insufferable power scaling bullshit, you understand, but I’m spotting the comic its plot arc here.

[4] Outside of, say, the Persona games, where the MCs can change ability sets by swapping out what companion spirit they’re packing, but even that doesn’t make them specialized for status effects, merely capable of using them.

[5] Interestingly, while Bakugou fought off the villainous sales pitch with as much verve as he brings to all his fights, if he had fallen off the righteous path there, we might have observed that his pridefulness was explicitly fostered by the people around him giving him excessive praise for his powerful quirk and ignoring his resulting violent arrogance.  That is to say, Bakugou would have fallen under the same, “Villains are created by the failures in their society,” pattern that BNHA applies to all of its sympathetic villains.

[6] There was one other instance, but iirc it was an error in the translation C.Cook had done for the BNHA databook.  It would not surprise me that he was being less careful or was more pressed for time when translating the reams upon reams of text in one of those.

[7] At least until the fifteen-thousand-strong mob shows up.

[8] Which frankly should be all he’s sore about.  As others have pointed out, Machia’s anger about being abandoned is kind of incoherent.  Yes, AFO left him on the battlefield, but he didn’t exactly leave him to rot in prison forever.  The moment AFO made his big push, he sent people to spring Machia, so in what sense exactly does Machia think AFO abandoned him?  If it was just the last straw after a string of abandonments from both AFO and Shigaraki, the manga could have stood to make that much clearer.

[9] AFO and Ujiko created Kurogiri out of Shirakumo—as a babysitter for Tomura, yes, but Tomura didn’t choose that.  And as to Shigaraki’s very existence trampling on Nana’s memory and causing All Might pain, well, Shigaraki didn’t ask to be brought into the world, abused by his father, neglected by his family, and then raised by a supervillain, did he?

[10] And speaking of Unbreakable, compare how explicitly we’re shown Kirishima’s growth and the foundations of it with how the inspirations for Mina’s attacks are relegated to passing mentions, not direct depictions.  She just casually tells Kirishima that his Unbreakable inspired her Acidman, and likewise only internally reflects on asking Bakugou and Todoroki to teach her their training method, which let her develop her Max Power Acidman Alma move, without so much as a single scrubbed in doodle depicting said training assistance.

[11] Somehow.  The story is unclear on whether he disseminated threats, contacted them directly, or just used the combination of Search+Warping to drag them all back into his presence, and that last option in particular runs into complications given the limitations of both quirks.

[12] In this AU, we would have gotten to see the class have an actual discussion about Saving Villains, prompted by the way the reveal about Aoyama solidified Deku, Shouto and Uraraka’s desires to help their respective villain foils.  The class would carry that resolve forward not only for those three villains alone, but also Shouji for Spinner, Kirishima when talking to Hose Face, Mina, here, with Gigantomachia, etc.

[13] None of the things I can think of that might be considered evidence of protest meet all the criteria.  The original MLA became violent, Harima Oji was a lawbreaker and also ineffective in the long term, the small group that yells at Endeavor and the rest in Chapter 311 is not portrayed as linked to any broader efforts to unseat “fake heroes,” and the group that “condemned” the newscaster Miyagi Daikaku was ineffective and didn’t even seem to rise to the level of open protest.

[14] "His grades are poor but he namedrops a Hemingway novel! He must be concealing the fact that he's actually super-smart!" "He's doing a Liberation salute! He must be the traitor, even though the Liberation salute uses the other hand, and Kaminari has been using finger-gun gestures to fire off his lightning attacks since at least the License Exam if not earlier, and the League had no connection to the MLA at the time when the traitor was most active!"

[15] A blurb about Kaminari in, iirc, one of the volume extras, Suneater’s flashback to a teacher telling his class that they can “make fine use of their quirks at any number of jobs,” and Uraraka’s early mention that she’d considered “getting permission” to use her quirk to help with her parents’ construction business.

[16] See the previous discussion about the kinds of quirks that are popularly accepted as “good hero quirks.”

[codenamesazanka]

Saw some Spinaraki kid OCs so I decided to try my hand at it too. Though it's less happy family kidfic and more resentfully making Heroes and Deku face consequences post-canon. Sorry.

the Spinaraki lovechild:

Shirakata Masanori | 白方正憲

Age: 15

Appearance: Lizard heteromorph. Black hair, pink eyes, white scales.

Quirk: Adhesion. Decay's spreading effect + Gecko's sticking trait. Anything object Masanori touches and remain in contact with will adhere with anything the object is also touching. If he touches a sidewalk, everyone on it will be stuck and trapped, unable to move their feet.

result of Spinner and Shigaraki getting together post-Deika/pre-surgery. super unexpected.

three months after Shigaraki went in for surgery, Spinner pops out an egg (please go with it)

During Heroes' raid on the PLF Villa, Spinner entrusts egg to ReDestro. Unfortunately, when everyone got arrested, egg gets swept up in custody capture of MLA kids.

With no one to claim the egg, it is placed in orphanage; all contact is then lost.

Egg hatches after war, at end of August.

Spinner was never able to tell Shigaraki about their kid due to the possession.

He decides not to say anything to the Heroes either. Doesn't trust them after Shigaraki got killed, and better that the kid doesn't grow up stigmatized for having terrorists as parents.

But Spinner does leave a letter with his court-appointed lawyer, hoping that one day it will reach the kid, when they come of age.

Spinner dies early due to effects of having multiple quirks; dies ten years after war

The lawyer, deciding to just finish up this assignment cleanly, finds the kid 4 years later and delivers the letter despite the kid not reaching age of majority.

Despite half-assed mild societal change efforts, Masanori grows up an orphan in the system, with the additional stigma of being an PLF raid kid (and therefore very likely the child of dead/arrested Villains/criminals)

Abandoned, unnamed babies in Japan are named by the city/town's mayor. Masanori was named with the kanji "white-direction correct-law" in hopes that he would become a law-abiding citizen (unlike his unknown parents). The Mayor is an asshole.

(Though Shirakata is a real surname, and chosen because kid has white scales)

Early on, Masanori looked out into the world and realized it doesn't want him, made it clear he doesn't belong. So he accepted it.

However, he knows the path of Villainy only leads to doom.

His caretakers drilled that into the PLF raid kids. Quirk counseling emphasized it a lot. So did teachers. Everyone.

He’s (reluctantly) played the ‘Villain’ in enough playground games that ends with the ‘Heroes’ pretending to smash him to pieces or explode him to nothing, because everyone has seen the war footage.

And he’s known too many people who salivate over the satisfaction of proving his blood is irreparably criminal.

So he won't be a Villain.

He just wants to leave - leave the orphanage, leave the city, leave Japan. Maybe travel the world alone forever.

Masanori is: very solitary, utterly disinterested in people, self-reliant, pragmatic, opportunistic, clever enough but can bite off more than he can chew

Masanori doesn't really have any sentimental feelings about his parents; or rather, he feels there's no point to dwell on it

He always knew he was the son of criminals. Discovering that he's the son of the most notorious criminals is somewhat cool, but Spinner and Shigaraki are long dead and gone.

When Masanori first received the letter, there was a satisfaction to finally knowing, nearly a sense of destiny. So he read the League of Villains memoir. He read the manuscript drafts that he inherited from Spinner. He did a lot of research.

(In the letter, Spinner admits that the kid was a surprise, that Shigaraki never knew, and Spinner himself doesn't know anything about the kid and will likely go to his grave not knowing.

They dealt the kid a shit hand.

Saying something cliche like they loved the kid they never knew would be hollow; and besides, Spinner and Shigaraki were twisted and distorted people. Villains. So the truth is, the kid is likely better off without them.

But.

Spinner wishes he and Shigaraki could've known the kid, and he regrets that neither of them were able to stay alive and free.

Spinner also writes that if Shigaraki knew about the kid, he knows Shigaraki would've tried to give them the world.)

But eventually, for Masanori, the end result of all that is realizing that there's nothing to be done with this information. Spinner and Shigaraki don't know him, and he doesn't know them; never will. They were criminals, they were young and stupid, they picked a fight and lost, and they left him behind.

All he has is still just himself.

...and this new knowledge he might be able to use to his advantage.

Which is why Masanori decides to confront the Hero Deku and demand compensation for the death of his parents and other hardships

Age 15, Masanori arrives at Deku's agency, carrying Spinner's letter that is his only proof

But just looking at Masanori convinces Deku. Kid's appearance is basically Tenko in lizard heteromorph form, but even his demeanor reminds Deku of Shigaraki - aloof but intense, determined. (tho he is still younger, less hostile, a bit stiff in nervousness)

Deku is shocked, guilty, suspicious, already wants to help, appalled at the extortion attempt. Ready for a conflict.

At least until he hears Masanori's demands:

Guaranteed admission to UA's General Studies Program, a recommendation letter, as well as a stipend all three years that Masanori is in high school.

And that's it.

Masanori has only an okay school record.

He did not have an enriching school life.

He's been accused of delinquent behavior - mostly suspected small theft and 'incidents' with other students

(They could never actually prove he stole anything; and the incidents he get into are always with the more aggressive classmates. They're not so much fights as pranks, and the bullying usually ceases immediately afterwards.)

High school is not mandatory in Japan, and minors legally can start work at age 15, so Masanori has been "asked"/expected to leave the orphanage after middle school. Jin Scenario

Not a very bright future. But he was ready for it... until he received Spinner's letter.

Suddenly.

If Masanori gets into UA High School, an elite national school, with recommendation from a world-renowned and beloved Hero, it's leaving the orphanage, leaving his hometown, starting a new life.

(General Studies program because he has zero interest in being a Hero.)

Graduate and better prepared to leave everything behind and travel the world alone forever.

Opportunity of a lifetime. He will shamelessly seize it.

Masanori's not blackmailing Deku or anything - nothing to blackmail, since no one cares Deku killed Shigaraki, and admitting he's the son of terrorists is social death. He's relying entirely on Deku's heroism.

Even if his Shigaraki was a Villain that Deku had to kill for the good of the world, that was still his father. Deku will feel compassion and guilt for Masanori.

Because Deku is a hero.

Manipulative? Yes. Is he unqualified for UA? Yes. But Masanori wants a chance at having more to life.

And Deku has to face what he (and All Might, and OFA) never actually did: resolve the continued rejection and ostracization problem in quirk society, and the cycle of Shimura tragedy

Because it's quickly obvious Masanori is just like his parents: given up on the world, given up on people. He's just not dangerous about it.

But his heart is empty. He has never been saved. And he no longer wants to be.

In other words: this time, Deku has to truly save someone that's been failed and rejected by this society he upholds. even if easy mode too because Masanori is not a villain. but is less receptive than a seven-year-old. or someone already having Pro-Hero aspirations

[kelin-is-writing]

Since we hate hawks, imagine after he killed twice, he’s fighting Dabi but it goes differently from canon. He’s telling Dabi how the league will be arrested, he and the heroes will put a stop to the plf, and THEN has the audacity to say, “and I’ll be taking your girl too ‘cause she deserves better than a lowlife villain”

That’s when the kill bill sirens go off in Dabi’s head

OHMYFUCKINGGOD YES!!!!!! anon you a real one lemme tell you 😌🤌🏻

dabi was already pissed to his limits even before that garbage opens his annoying and hypocritical mouth, but he’s holding back for the sake of his plan, it doesn’t help that fact that he hates him to the core like– he can’t even see the heroe’s ugly face from how much it makes him hurl.

what makes him snap completely though is when that piece of trash dares to spit out from his filthy and shitty mouth that he’s gonna take you, make you his and even going as far as to say that he’s gonna satisfy you more than a lowlife like him would, dabi is seeing red.

ohh this m*therf*cker doesn’t values his life at all, he thinks scoffing a breathless laugh letting his head tilt down.

suddenly dabi is glaring up at him with the darkest glint he has ever had, mouth curled into a spiteful grimace as the villain’s voice dropped low “a piece of filthy trash like you? with her? don’t make me laugh.”, and in a second the whole room has already went ablaze, blue flames roaring inside those four walls hotter than usual, as he walks closer to the wounded ‘hero’ and stomps mercilessly with his boots onto his face, smashing the sole of it against his cheek until he didn’t start to bleed “ohh you did your numbers so wrong, hero, after that crap the only way you gonna get out of here is in ash, bastard.”, and dabi is a man of word.

because his princess deserves way better than garbage such as that.

[satancopilotsmytardis]

If either Dabi or Shigaraki got sick, how would the other care for him?

Shigaraki taking care of Dabi (pre-relationship):

Dabi hasn't been sick in years. It's taken a considerable effort, but given how fucked up his body already is, the terror of getting any kind of infection usually kept him meticulously checking and trying to maintain his health. He did not want his skin to fall off again.

So getting a cold a week and a half after taking over the PLF is not an option.

"Dabi, you are literally sneezing sparks, please go lay down." Shigaraki sounds less annoyed than he expected, but he doesn't have any room to fucking talk given that he literally had three fingers amputated yesterday and his other arm is still completely bandaged, and he's got a broken foot, but he's still at this meeting.

"Fuck you, I'm fi--" he interrupts himself having to pull down his mask to sneeze into a tissue, his quirk flaring higher like it's going to somehow turn the sickness into ash in some fresh way his low fever can't.

Duster sighs, "Compress,"

"Don't you--!"

"Sorry, friend, but this is for your own good." And he's gone before he can get his flames ignited.

He's not sure how long passes before he's let out, but he does find himself on his bed, in his room. There's a box of cold medicine on his nightstand, a large water bottle, and two thermoses. He ignores those and goes over to the door to give his cohorts a piece of his mind and finds it locked from the outside. As soon as the handle rattles, Shigaraki's voice comes from the other side.

"Go lay down and rest. I need you at your best. If you can't do that here, then I'll send you to stay with Ujiko."

"I'm fine, let me out!"

"Dabi, you have a 42° fever."

"I have a fire quirk. I run hot."

"Not above 38°, normally. The doctor said if you go up to 44° you have to go see him. Compress made you tea, Spinner made you soup, Toga left you some shower and bath melts that are supposed to help with congestion, and the rest of us and the organization can handle anything else. If you try to leave through the window Gigantomachia has been instructed to eat you. If you set the villa on fire Geten has been instructed to freeze you solid. Rest. If you get bored I left you an e-reader."

Dabi gapes at the door. He cannot believe he is being put on--on house arrest because of a stupid cold!

"I'll come check on you in a few hours, and if you need anything-- other than being let out-- before then, just text me." There's a very slight pause, and then Shigaraki's voice comes again, a little softer than before. "You've done more than enough in helping prep for the merge. Take as much time as you need to rest and feel better. We don't want you to burn yourself out, Dabi."

Can't find his words at all around how tight his throat has gone.

"I'll see you in a little while, Firefly."

And he does move away from the door, he can hear him moving back down the hall. Dabi could probably melt the lock and get out, but after another second he goes over to his closet instead and puts his pajamas back on. He takes some medicine, has a drink, and curls up on his bed with a huff. The e-reader is plugged in on the other side of his bed and he reaches for that. Fine. A day of rest to get his fever down, and then he can get back to work.

He picks a book at random and is about twenty pages in before he has to start over as he realizes he has no idea what's going on, his soupy over-heated brain just constantly getting tripped up on how Shigaraki's voice had sounded calling him 'Firefly'.

[jp---v]

Speaking of the Meta Army.

They did quite poorly in the 1st War.

I know they were included just to make the League look good. But you would think they could have contributed more in the battle.

Right? Like, they were somewhat introduced as the League's way of getting funding after AfO got imprisoned. At least three massive corporations were pouring funding into them, including Detnerat, which was a support item company.

After merging the League of Villains and Meta Liberation Army into the Paranormal Liberation Front, the members of the League should've been decked out.

The "warriors" that had allegedly trained beyond heroes were all useless in the fight when it came down to it. Thousands were arrested and Twice died. Sure, there were heroes that died too, but those were from mostly from Shigaraki. Hell, even the location they were using was separate from the MLA/PLF. It was Ujiko's lab.

They provided practically nothing but some new outfits, a bit of medical care(from the injuries they gave the League), and some stable food and shelter.

[ladycry19]

Villain AU ramble.

Im not fully caught up with mango yet but based on what I've seen ima write my thoughts on where Morgan is through the final fight.

I think she ends up getting pushed with Toga. This may be subject to change the more I catch up with the mango. Either way, she's separated from Tomura but that's fine, they've got important matters to tend to.

Background: Oboro and Morgan are childhood friends. That stays the same in both villain AU and Canon. Shes dropped out of UA after their first year, so she isn't around when he actually dies, but she does hear about it, and it tore her apart. She goes to his funeral and everything, and it all just Makes her hate the hero system more now that it has rejected her and killed her best friend.

But she has NO idea about Kurogiri. After the PLF attack, Morgan gets arrested. since her, Aizawa, and Mic all were in the same class together in their first year, the police ask them to help interrogate her, hoping they can get her to talk. But she refuses, and if anything she says spiteful and mean things at them.

After some time, Aizawa tells her about Kurogiri. About how he's a Nomu, with Oboro, their friend, her childhood friend, is the base for the the Nomu, created by Garaki and AFO

And Morgan is distraught and disgusted and horrified. Horrified that her dear friend couldn't rest properly, horrified that she's been WITH him this whole time, and she never knew...

It tears her apart, and she spirals. But eventually Tomura saves her from police custody, and she focuses on the matter at hand, Helping and support Tomura.

So back the current fight, when Kurogiri suddenly appears, he asks Toga what she wants, and he asks Morgan what she wants.

As soon as she sees him, she feels that disgust and horrid feeling come back, and she remembers everything Aizawa told her.

She KNOWS she should ask to be taken to Tomura. She should be supporting him, by his side and helping him in the fight... She should be helping her friends in their fights, helping Toga.

But instead, she let's her anguish and despair and desire for revenge choose for her.

"Take me to Garaki." She says instead. To everyone it seems like she plans on rescuing the good doctor. Even Kurogiri doesn't question it.

And when she appears, the doctor is all smiles and joy and he's like "Morgan, my dear! Come to save me? Did AFO send you? How kind of you guys to think of me during your big fight."

And she doesn't say anything to him, but she has this look of utter malice in her eyes. As soon as she sees the good doctor, she attacks him and just starts stabbing him, multiple times, harshly, practically torturing the man and k!lling him slow and in the most painful way possible.

For Kurogiri. For Oboro. Her dear best friend who couldn't rest properly because of Garaki.

[cuspidgoddess]

😇 about Usagi? 🤗

After further discussion Chronic asked about what led to Usagi taking Keigo up on his offer to join the PLF. So I give you a short blurb (674 words).

The First Virtue

Content warning: nongraphic mention of sexual assault, quirk discrimination, de-humanization and sexualization. Viewer discretion advised.

Being a hare is hard. Being prey isn’t even the hard part, he’s used to that. What he isn’t used to is the attention he’s started receiving since he turned 16. By the time he's 18 hands constantly trying to grab his tail, people trying to touch his ears have become his normal. A polite step away and a "please stop" usually earn an irritable scoff but the hands will fall away.

Rabbits- bunnies- hares- they're all the same to the world around him- have been a sex symbol for so long that people have stopped seeing him as a person. As soon as he started running for fun- for training the last of his baby fat fell away making way for toned calves, muscled thighs and a round ass- he became just another dumb bunny. They’re pests, and it shows when they try to poison produce at farmers markets, when he passes the prostitutes that look so much like him, when men leer at him from darkened alley’s.

Laying in the gutter, staring at the filthy bricks in front of him he can’t help but wonder dully how he got here. How can I be Usagi, the red light rabbit, the vigilante with the most sexual assault saves and serial rapist arrests and still become a statistic. I didn’t even scream… I didn’t fight- I just froze. How could I have frozen like that? His eyes burn almost as bad as the scrapes on his palms and knees. His cheek feels bruised from where his face was shoved against the cement and there’s an ache at the base of his spine that he will never ever forget the feeling of, a burning shooting pain that radiates through his tail and makes his eyes burn worse, but he can’t move, he’s still frozen, heart beating way too fast. His heart is going to give out, he’s going to die alone in the gutter, just like so many others, too frightened by the terrible world they’ve been born into, too afraid to live. He tries to keep his sobs quiet, terrified of being found so vulnerable. It doesn’t matter that he’s been used, that he’s dirty and bleeding, he’s seen enough of the evils of life to know that to some those things don’t matter. 

It takes every bit of strength he has to crawl out of site, to wedge himself beneath the nearest stinking dumpster, out of sight, out of danger, his instincts promise. Hinata wishes he was a rabbit, wishes more than anything that he had a fluffle to go home to. The thing about hares is they aren’t rabbits. Rabbits are social creatures that live in groups. Hares are not, and leverets don’t get to stick around once they reach maturity. He’s been on his own since he was 17, hasn’t been able to hold a job because when management or the owner finds out he’s uncooperative they turn him loose. He lost his apartment last week and now more than ever he wishes there was someone that would notice he hadn’t made it home. 

He closes his eyes trying to block out the horrible, angry scent that clings to his skin, tries to conjure up anything else to think about then how fast his heart is beating, how all he can smell is blood and cum and around hear how life around him keeps moving as if his whole world hasn’t shattered around him. 

His mind brings him to red wings. Red wings and a lop sided, sharp toothed smile and the most faultless predatory eyes he had ever seen. 

“If you change your mind, need a place to go, or you need help,” Keigo sends one of his smallest feathers to the hare. “Talk to the feather... I know it’s hard being a mutant in this world, my old image didn’t really support that fact, but we have to stick together. There aren’t nearly enough mutant heroes out there, and we all need a flock... or a colony. Give me a whisper if you want to fight for change.” 

With a shaky hand he pats at his pocket and promises himself he’ll find a place where he belongs. 

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 340: Now Where Were We

Previously on BnHA: Deku and Iida were all “hey Mei, I know you don’t have a lot of spare time in between constantly launching yourself at people boob-first, and singlehandedly MacGuyvering U.A. into the fucking Death Star, but we were wondering if you could lend us a hand in fixing our costumes.” Mei was all, “sure thing, here’s an upgraded pair of Movie 1 Gloves for you, anyways off you go and have fun saving the world!” Mt. Lady was all, “can you kids keep a secret?? so uh, just between you and me, I’m not a real teacher, and I’m not actually sure what I’m doing here hanging out with you guys right now.” Class 1-A was all, “don’t worry, your secret is safe with us Mt. Lady, well anyways time to assemble our CLASS 1-A SEARCH SQUAD!” The chapter ended with A BUNCH OF DIFFERENT PEOPLE getting ready to DO and/or TALK about A BUNCH OF DIFFERENT THINGS. Classic cliffhanger ending. lol this chapter really did not hold up on a re-read. I’m so sorry BnHA 339. You meandered so that future chapters could hopefully get to the damn point already.

Today on BnHA: All Might is all “time to reveal our shocking and completely unpredictable battle plan of splitting up all the villains for more easily digestible mini-boss battles, using our newly acquired trump card, the handy dandy U.A. traitor!” Aizawa is all, “[cracks knuckles] time to drop some motherfucking love and compassion onto my traumatized student in order to talk him into doing this INSANELY DANGEROUS TASK for us, except that somehow I manage to do it in a way that’s genuinely moving and heartfelt and somehow not manipulative at all lol.” Shinsou is all, “hello, it’s me, making my miraculous return after three whole years of plot inactivity, so anyway what have I missed.” Well shit. Glad I’m not the only one, Shinsou.

---

(just a handful of quick notes here since it’s been a while! (1) as always, these are my completely blind first-time-reading reactions to the chapter. (2) as of today, I am very much NOT caught up with the manga, but will keep you posted on my progress. currently I have read up to chapter 340, a.k.a. this chapter right here lol. and (3), I have been spoiled about one major thing (explained more in depth here) which will happen later in the series, and while there are no detailed references to said spoiler in this post, there ARE a couple of vague throwaway lines because I have absolutely no self-control. so just giving you guys a heads up for that! if you absolutely don’t want to risk getting spoiled, I would highly recommend catching up with the manga first before reading any further.

anyways, onward!)

OH MY GOSH IT’S SOME BUILDINGS!!!

WHAT A THRILLING WAY TO KICK OFF MY FIRST NEW CHAPTER OF BNHA IN ELEVEN MONTHS. TRULY HIT THE GROUND RUNNING

lol they literally just thumbtacked a handwritten “LOV/PLF COUNTER-FORCE HQ” sign on a wrinkled piece of paper next to the door. how far we have fallen from the days where the heroes were holding their war councils in huge NASA ground control rooms filled with hundreds of TV screens

okay good, at least they went out and recruited Hawks to be one of the people presumably planning this whole thing

one of only two people (the other being Momo) whom I actually trust to be able to come up with a reliably smart plan. fingers crossed this turns out better than his last big Ultimate Hero Final Battle Plan, though!

interesting! I assume they do still know about the whole Aoyama situation though, seeing as they even told Mt. flippin’ Lady lol

OH MY GOSH, RAGDOLL? heck yeah. great to see her finally back in the thick of things again. even if she can’t participate in the actual battle, she’s still a fucking hero goddammit

wow this entire next page sure is something

“every pre-cat-ion” breaking news, we’ve just been informed that there is a warrant out for Caleb Cook’s arrest

MEOW

MYEAH?

NOT YOU TOO, HAWKS

EVIL MEOW

I know that last part is just her randomly tacking her cute dattebayoisms onto the end of this entirely unrelated sentence, but unfortunately the damage has already been done. now all I can think about is the League of Villains out there rampaging in the streets and meowing menacingly at people

anyway, so on to the planning and stuff

lmao wait, what

DID YOU PAINT THESE BY HAND, ALL MIGHT?? DID YOU BUY THEM LAST MINUTE ON ETSY AND PAY A FORTUNE IN EXPEDITED SHIPPING. surely it must be the latter. but can you just imagine All Might sitting at his kitchen table at 3am, hand-painting a refrigerator magnet to look like an adorable chibified version of HIS MOST HATED ENEMY

hmmmmmmmmmmmm

I’m actually on the fence about this lol. I mean, it makes sense on paper. lord knows they had enough trouble taking on just one massively overpowered final villain, so who even knows what would happen if they added a second one to the mix

but the problem with the “just take them down separately” plan is that it means they’ll also have to split up their OWN forces, which are already heavily depleted. not to mention that the BnHA heroes are always at their best when they’re all fighting together. so anyways, yeah, I’m not too sure about this

so blah blah blah, Tomura is now stronger than crusty!potato!AFO, big surprise. and they’ve also figured out that the two AFOs can communicate with each other via radio waves or whatever. okay yeah, but doesn’t that mean that even if you do split them up, they’ll still have a big advantage? unless you figured out some way of jamming their telepathy somehow

“should they attack together, we have no hope of victory” lol if you say so. I’m pretty sure all of the U.A. kids combined with all of the remaining A-list heroes could hold their ground fairly well, but clearly I’m not supposed to be questioning the authority of this statement so ALL RIGHT THEN

OKAY BUT DOESN’T THIS JUST PROVE MY POINT THOUGH

“if they’re so powerful together then why didn’t they team up against S&S?” “because they definitely would have definitely lost.” ????????

anyway so now All Might is saying that they need to separate TomurAFO and Potato AFO (PotAFO, if you will) by at least 10km. so is that the max range of their telepathy or something then? that’s so oddly specific though

“oh and we also need to split up Dabi from them as well” ah okay lol, I see where this is going. it’s finally time for the final battle, meaning we need to assign each of the main characters to their personal final villain, yeah? great. awesome. except that they only JUST got reunited all together as a class again sob. you’re really going to do this to me again now?? just like that?? goddammit

LMAO I completely forgot that Nao’s right hand man is an actual literal fucking cat

oh my god. what I wouldn’t give to have seen his reaction to all of those puns and MEOW shenanigans from a few minutes earlier. just standing there in the corner with a disapproving frown. “I’ll have you know I find this all very demeaning and culturally insensitive” sorry about that Sansa

anyway so now All Might is all “YEAH EXACTLY, WE HAVE TO DIVIDE AND CONQUER ALL OF THE VILLAINS ONE ON ONE! WHAT DO YOU THINK WE SPENT ALL THAT TIME PAINSTAKINGLY BUILDING THEM UP FOR?? IT’S THE FINAL BATTLE FOR FUCK’S SAKE, WHAT ELSE WOULD YOU HAVE US DO, MAKESTE” okay okay fine I’ll shut up now, geez

oh shit lol

somehow I momentarily forgot all about Aoyama. possibly because I haven’t seen him in eleven months!! so this is where we’re finally going to get into the nitty gritty of that “let’s use Aoyama to set a trap” plan that Aizawa shamelessly stole from Kaminari all those moons ago

All Might is all “it’s actually pretty messed up of us to be using this poor boy when he’s already basically spent his entire life being exploited and manipulated by people” and he’s not wrong though, damn

but Nao is all “very true, but to be fair this is the literal apocalypse, and he did technically make his own bed, and also our backs are REALLY against the goddamn wall here,” which is also true. still leaning more toward All Might’s side in spite of that, though. poor Yuuga

OH SHIT, SPEAKING OF???

OH DANG

do they really have to keep him tied up like that?? he’s just a kid for fuck’s sake. and it’s not like they aren’t capable of handling things if he does try to escape, I mean this is Aoyama we’re talking about here, he’s not exactly an all-powerful criminal mastermind

man they both look so fucking sad. Yuuga looks so ashamed. this is every 1-A child’s worst fear. they can go toe to toe with the scariest villains out there and not be fazed. but a disappointed dad??? have mercy, sweet jesus

“so after going back and forth on it a bunch, we finally decided that he’s probably not going to blow up.” thanks for the update, doc. meanwhile I just had a completely unrelated thought about certain spoiler related things, oh fuck. but now is not the time to start speculating about that! not when we have the world’s saddest detention session unfolding right before our eyes

Aizawa Shouta is sitting here wearing an eyepatch and a hospital gown and probably hasn’t showered in like three days, and despite all this he is STILL somehow the hottest character in BnHA and it’s not even close

okay but there are like a thousand reasons why the threat of imminent murder would be infinitely more useful than an actual murder, though. like this doesn’t really make any sense. “why would AFO bother to threaten Aoyama if he could simply blow him up if and when he betrayed him?” uh, gee, maybe because he would much prefer if Aoyama didn’t actually betray him in the first place?? what, do you think U.A. traitors are so fucking easy to come by? in this economy??

awwww

I mean, of course he is? :( man, and now I’m wondering if there’s been a single day since his enrollment at U.A. that Aoyama has not spent being constantly terrified about a whole damn slew of things. this poor fucking kid. Horikoshi please be kind to him oh my god

oh my god, yes, exactly

he’s afraid that deep down he’s a bad person. he’s afraid that AFO will kill him. but interestingly, what he’s most afraid of, is BEING afraid. he’s afraid that if the others put their trust in him again, that when push comes to shove he’ll still be too cowardly to do what’s right

talk about ironic though. because to me, that’s a sentiment that basically confirms that he does have the heart of a hero deep down. I’m telling you guys, every single time you show me a character who is flawed and afraid, but is trying so hard to overcome their fears, and trying with all their might to become better, you will reel me in hook, line, and sinker every. single. time. seriously, how could you possibly not root for this kid now

OH MY GOD YUUGA NO

holy shit. hey Horikoshi, this is me, a certified angst-lover, asking you to tone it down just a little here, goddamn. yes we get it, he is tormented by years’ worth of accumulated fears and regrets and feelings of worthlessness and he doesn’t see any way that things can possibly get better, holy shit, we get it okay??? THIS IS MY FIRST CHAPTER IN ELEVEN MONTHS! THIS SHOULD BE AN OCCASION OF TRIUMPH, SO WHY THE HELL ARE YOU OUT HERE MAKING ME CRY

HOLY SHIT

somehow I forgot just how utterly ruthless this man is capable of being for the sake of his students. this is a dude who literally expels kids on a regular basis just to put the fear of god into them. also he is seriously so goddamn hot. it’s straight up ridiculous

oh wow this whole page just came straight for my heart

Yuuga’s fear as he tries to talk himself into what he fully believes is a suicide mission. Aizawa’s blunt assessment of the heroes being no less ruthless than the villains when their backs are to the wall. but then the way he just HITS him with that “you’re still my student and I’m still your teacher” line, and how he says it with such finality. and then the face Aoyama makes in response!!

OKAY, WOW

ABSOLUTELY NONE OF THIS IS FAIR YOU KNOW!! YOU CAN’T JUST HIT ME WITH THIS BRUTALLY SIMPLE PANEL OF THE TWO OF THEM JUST SITTING THERE WITH ALL OF THE OTHER VISUALS STRIPPED AWAY SO THE FOCUS IS ENTIRELY JUST ON THEM, AND WITH THE WALL BETWEEN THEM ALSO SYMBOLICALLY REMOVED JUST LIKE THAT

AND YUUGA BEING SO SMALL. AND AIZAWA BEING SO STRONG AND SAFE AND STABLE AND FIRM, AND HIM HAVING SUCH UNCONDITIONAL LOVE AND COMPASSION FOR HIS STUDENT DESPITE EVERYTHING. “FUCK THAT, YOU’RE GONNA HAVE A HAPPY ENDING BECAUSE I FUCKING SAID SO AND I’M YOUR SENSEI AND THAT’S FINAL.” okay yep. tears coming now. thanks a lot, Horikoshi. wow. just wow

lol I truly believe that if Horikoshi ever did truly try to kill off one of the 1-A kids, Aizawa would literally come to life and emerge from the pages and straight up murder him

welp. there you have it. absolutely no room for argument there. SENSEI SAID YOU’RE GONNA LIVE, YUUGA, SO I GUESS YOU’LL JUST HAVE TO DEAL WITH IT!

fsdljkf

yep. that’s right. deal with it. dlfkj don’t mind me I’m just gonna sit here dissolving into sobs again

WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS WARM FOND EXPRESSION GODDAMMIT

I AM ALREADY A PILE OF MUSH, HOLY HECK!! CAN I LIVE. CAN YOU JUST LEAVE ME BE HERE ALREADY HOLY SHIT

wait what

uh. the path of “none of you problem children are allowed to die on my watch, are we fucking clear on that”? that path?? or the path of marching headfirst into very real danger because they have no other choice, because they’re one of the lynchpins in the heroes’ desperate plan? because that latter path is one that I’d prefer to have as few children walk as possible, ngl

-- OH MY GOD

“HELLO, SHINSOU HERE” UH, EXCUSE ME, MISTER, DON’T YOU HAVE ANYTHING TO SAY TO ME? AFTER BEING MIA FOR LIKE A HUNDRED AND TWENTY CHAPTERS AND FOUR AND A HALF ARCS?? YOU’RE JUST GONNA HANG HERE FROM THIS FUCKING TREE ALL NONCHALANT, WITH YOUR FANCY NEW HERO COSTUME AND YOUR SPIDER-MAN POSE THAT YOU STRAIGHT UP RIPPED OFF FROM YOUR DAD?? WHILE SAID DAD SITS THERE CHUCKLING OVER HIS “NEVER FEAR, WE’RE TOTALLY PUTTING SHINSOU IN AMPLE DANGER AS WELL” REVEAL? “DON’T WORRY AOYAMA, WE’RE NOT JUST RISKING YOUR LIFE, WE’RE RISKING MULTIPLE CHILDREN’S LIVES, BUT WE’RE DOING IT ALL TOGETHER AS A FAMILY” truly the most heartwarming of sentiments lmao

well damn. that hype and anticipation is definitely starting to build now. I am so damn fearful for all of these fictional kids’ safety, especially now that I’m watching the War arc play out again in the anime and remembering just how brutal it was. but at the same time I can’t deny that I’m super excited to see the culmination of everything. like, this is IT, though. this is THE moment, THE battle. no more safety arcs. no more training. we are done holding back, and that is as terrifying as it is exhilarating. I am so not ready for any of this, but IT IS HAPPENING WHETHER I LIKE IT OR NOT, so I guess I’ll just do my best to enjoy the ride

-- oh and lastly, I almost forgot. before we wrap up, there’s just one last thing I wanted to add here...

so it begins.

[transhawks]

I've been wondering about this for some time now, but how did Dabi figure out who Hawks' mother was? I'll admit i don't remember the details of the manga very well, but when i watched the new season that came out, it seemed to me the plan Re-Destro came up with to plant spies into the Comission failed after the HPSC lured him out and he killed its president. Is that explained in the manga at all? Or perhaps i misunderstood it?🤔🤔🤔

Please take this with a grain of salt. I have a feeling we'll be actually told why eventually, because Hawks remarks on it manga-wise.

For now, here's my best guess:

Dabi was obsessed with his own father. I have no doubt that he was incredibly obsessed with watching his father's fights and likely did so after his death, though this would have been when he was still young, likely when Natsuo was a very young baby.

It seems that the Thief Takami fight was like...memorable somehow. And given he was a murderer, not just a thief, it's clear that Keigo's dad had notoriety.

I think Dabi might have recognized the red feathers as similar to the feathers on Takami's arms and just decided to go on a hunch because Hawks's lack of biographical info is weird, actually. The thing about investigation and any avenue of trying to gather info about a person's motives, it's important to leave no unturned stones.

Anyway, so, when you have a hunch, you look into it, right?

Let's be a bit clear on some stuff:

Thief Takami was a two-man team. Tomie was clearly helping him in certain ways. It's implied that he relies on her for finding jobs and this might be linked to her quirk. There's other strange wording around that whole chapter that make me suspect she had absolutely fascinating propensity for tracking people.

We're also not sure what he did prior to having to hide with her. Perhaps he had a team, etc. Dude wasn't like a one off criminal, clearly, and that means he had connections.

So, uh, what does this mean? Well, let's think about it this way: Dabi has a lot of reach now. Giran, the many PLF members, etc. Imagine he starts asking about Thief Takami, seeing if Giran has any contacts who knew the man prior to his arrest and maybe even after, in jail. Maybe Takami mentioned in trial documents or something that he had help though never elaborated, etc.

There's just a lot of possibilities and areas where someone might have found out he had a criminal partner and possibly a first name.

The thing is, and the HPSC were kind of dumb for this, it doesn't seem like they changed her first name. There are quirk databases. I doubt the tech skills of the PLF wouldn't able to get into one of these. Then you look for anyone who matches - eye quirk, surveilence, age range, etc. Of course if you have a name, you put it in even if it seems it's a long shot that she'd still be using it.

(she was)

My view is the HPSC simply didn't cover their tracks well-enough when it came to Keigo's background. Likely it was just a bit less important than the other shit they do cover up. Tomie's quirk was in a quirk database, her first name likely the same, if you knew what you were looking for, cross enough names in your list to check them out. It's possible she wasn't the only woman approached by Dabi and Dabi's people, by the way, but he eventually found her.

Until we get confirmation otherwise, that's been what I think might be the most understandable explanation. When you are able to have a wide reference point of info and willing to dig deeper, you can find out a lot. I'm fairly good at social media stalking stuff myself through this sort of method myself.

[decayingflames]

Gonna kinda be alil organized rambling about my MHA oc Nozomi Hoshino...

◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇

I've figured out that I could split Nozomi's timeline from canon at the Overhaul arc

This is because instead of letting Big Sis Mag stay dead (aka figuring out how the LOV healer would be unable to revive a teammate within a day) Nozomi can just be there for the meeting and revive Mag then get carried off

You may ask how that may impact the rest of canon, but you see, I feel Mags might just take a lil break after glimpsing the afterlife

And everyone would still want revenge for their harmed allies

Also the League is packed into Nozomi's apartment while they find a new hideout. Which they very much don't enjoy because it's a tiny one bedroom.

and by don't enjoy, I should specify that they don't like sleeping in a chaotic pile in the tiny living room while Nozomi sleeps in their bed XD

I've also thought about the time before MVA would be easier on the League because they can just crash in the apartment and Nozomi would fund food/ new clothes with whatever savings they have.

I've also considered how to get Nozomi to Twice during the PLF/ War arc; One way being they're on the way out of the villa to visit Tomura and they happen upon Hawks and Twice. Another way is that Nozomi gets Hawks on the league's side because hearing someone else's pov on being a commission hero might help him break from their bs.

I'm leaning to the second scenario because I want to let Nozomi burn down the Commission as a treat. So instead of Redestro fucking their shit, it's Nozomi backed by Dabi and Hawks completely demolishing the disgusting establishment.

It's the villian hunt/ final arc canon that fucks me over in the long run because yes, I can succeed in keeping the League alive, but coming up with reason why the League would still end up in that situation is hard.

I could get Twice arrested with Compress, but would that mess with our sweet Toga's mindset? Would she be as vengeful with Twice's blood? Or would she be more dangerous with it because hatred doesnt seep into her quirk and thus allows her league doubles to have their quirks? Would Toga go confront Ochako after the raid?

Tomura's still fucked, but I feel like he'd fight against AFO harder because Nozomi is insufferably clung to his side trying to keep him comfortable.

Dabi is still Dabi, but he probably doesn't see Shoto's silhouette as Twice???

Also, as I said about Nozomi's quirk evolution during war arc being probably an AOE healing field, I like imagining the cave stay with AFO being funny as hell because Nozomi's just putting up the field and because they fucking HATE AFO, he gets none of the effect while everyone else is just *refreshed*. I'm sure he'd be amused by it...

But yea, I'm alil stumped by the final arc also because my sweet healer can't be in each area, and they'd rather be by Tomura's side as much as he doesn't need them by that point.

Though I feel like Tomura would be reassuring Nozomi alot during the time in the cave, like sitting outside looking at the stars with them or just squishing them in his little hiding hole

Also during that mutation scene after stars and stripes and Spinner is alil freaked, but considering going to Tomura. Yea, I know Nozomi would go running in there, unconcerned about getting hurt because Tomura's comfort is more important. I think Spinner would try to stop them at first but they'd yank away.

Also Spinner, Nozomi, and Tomura are all gaming buddies. Spinner and Nozomi would bond more at the PLF villa while Tomura's tubed. Everything after is alot of them comforting eachother because they are the two most loyal to Tomura (who also owns their hearts).

Also I really want Nozomi to fight AFO!Tomura, trying to get Tomura back in the driver's seat, but that may be alil impractical .3.

I have thought about splitting from canon later in plot, but I'm going for more of a 'the league lives' ending. Not that I'm not tempted to make a 'bad end' alt fic that's more canon compliant. If only because I would love to torture every single hero with Nozomi's vengeance. But thinking of how to get around canon is hard but fun at the same time. Especially when I think of the angst and fluff XD

[stillness-in-green]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hit the jump!

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

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

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

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

Let's get started.

FIRST WAR ARC

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                   Heroes 5 | Villains 1 | Neither 3 | Total 9     

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

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

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

271: Villain.  Gigantomachia stands up.

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

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

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

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

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

                   Heroes 3 | Villains 2 | Neither 4 | Total 9     

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                   Heroes 3 | Villains 3 | Neither 3 | Total 9     

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

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

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

289: Villain.  Machia and his passengers arrive.

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

291: Hero.  Best Jeanist arrives.

292: Hero.  Mirio arrives with his quirk restored.

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

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

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

                   Heroes 4 | Villains 3 | Neither 3 | Total 10

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

                       

SECOND WAR ARC

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

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

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

346: Villain.  The beginning of Fingervetr.

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

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

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

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

                   Heroes 2 | Villains 2 | Neither 4 | Total 8                    

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

352: Hero.  Shouto appears to beat Dabi.

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

354: Neither.  AFO and Jirou exchange smacktalk.

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

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

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

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

359: Hero.  Return of the Big Three.

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

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

362: Villain.  Bakugou’s “death.”

                   Heroes 6 | Villains 2 | Neither 4 | Total 12                    

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

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

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

366: Hero.  Deku arrives at the Sky Coffin.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                   Heroes 3 | Villains 5 | Neither 4 | Total 12                    

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

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

377: Hero.  Return of La Brava.

378: Hero.  Return of Lady Nagant.

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

380: Hero.  Arrival of Shiketsu.

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

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

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

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

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

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

                   Heroes 8 | Villains 0 | Neither 4 | Total 12                    

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

398: Neither.  As above.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                   Heroes 6 | Villains 1 | Neither 5 | Total 12                    

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                   Heroes 8 | Villains 1 | Neither 4 | Total 13

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

                   

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[soul-dwelling]

Also for a more broad point about MHA - to me it seems weird to set up a situation where everyone has super powers, yet they are so restricted, with basically, as the paranormall faction points out in story, only a small part of the population can use all of their physicality, while also setting up a society of with bystander sydrome and one that has turned heroism into a product.

It seems, maybe do to my own stupidity, I'll admit that, that this was a set up for a new society, where instead of a strict hiearchy that only uplifts those who are already strong, it would into one where everyone can reach their potential, using quirks in all walks of life not just in law enforcment...

Hell this would also be a society where even the quirkless or differently abled could reach their dreams and add in their own way.

So its weird that the only change that happened is that civilians became vaguely more altruistic.

Like wouldnt it be better if the granny that helped the tenko expy, didnt just give her hand but use her unique quirk to help him in a way not even pro heros could, showing that quirks arent a disease like Overhaul claimed, but something that helps us connect and support each other in new ways?

anyways, sorry for rambling, but to me the story did so little with the "almost everyone has quirks" thing, that it may as well have said "every 10th person has one" and not a lot would change

Question received August 3, 2024, answered August 4, 2024--the official publication date of the last My Hero Academia chapter. 

Yeah, I was in the middle of responses and wanted to make that point, that this ending would have been better if a drastic change to Quirk regulation focused on permitting greater use of Quirks outside of Pro Hero work. I understand and appreciate how much of this story, as with a lot of “regulate the superpowers” stories, is an allegory for regulating weapons; however, as with X-Men and the Marvel Civil War adaptations, this is also about individual rights and, all the more importantly after the United States Supreme Court fucked over people who can get pregnant and bodily autonomy, individual rights to our bodies. It’s a thorny story, and MHA coming down on, “Keep the bodily regulations,” is sour. Unfortunately this was as much a problem in the Vigilantes spinoff and its only solution in its final chapter was, “Avoid getting arrested for property damage, go to the United States.”

You bring up how the MLA/PLF points out how restricted society makes Quirk users. The story then never gives any closure to that idea. 

I have read Horikoshi had more plans for the League of Villains, only for the Pussycat Compound Attack story and the League of Villains vs MLA arc getting such bad responses by readers that he decided to avoid any more significant focus on the League…which, even if he said that or thought it, that’s not what ended up happening, as at least there was closure, however much I don’t like it, for Shigaraki, Toga, Spinner, and Dabi, so his commitment to wrapping up their stories was always there. 

But the refusal to do more with the MLA/PLF will continue to bother me: I think the story deserved to have someone, anyone, from Class A to be the one to give a summary thesis statement as to what the MLA/PLF got correct and got wrong, and how their ideas could change society for the better. At best that idea is sort of carried forward with Spinner doing what Destro did and writing a book--but we saw, first, how Destro’s book endangered society, second, how the MLA/PLF and the League were in the wrong and were dangerous to any sort of progress, and finally, we never see Spinner’s book effecting meaningful change because we just end the story there with his book published but no follow-up. Again, I invoke the ending to Wakko’s Wish: take us by the hand through each step on how society meaningfully changes. I would even take Izuku, Ochaco, or someone else straight-up just narrating what changes. 

And the MLA/PLF lacking any closure becomes even more off-putting because of especially weird moments that came across as too fanfic-y for me: did Geten really have to be related to the Todoroki family?

And I’m going to end up stealing your idea of Granny using her own Quirk to help Stitches when re-writing Chapter 429--you had that idea first, I had not ever considered that until reading your idea. 

It really doesn’t help that your Granny idea is so good--and then the final chapter of My Hero Academia discounts it by insisting that only the strongest Quirks now matter. The final chapter of My Hero Academia has someone tell the kid Dai that only those with the strongest Quirks now get to be Pro Heroes. Yes, that is all corrected by Izuku’s advice to Dai and the fact that a Quirkless hero like Izuku still is recognized by his face alone. But it is bothersome that it takes Izuku to impart that lesson, while everyone else, and seemingly even Hawks running the new Hero Commission, is fixated on strong Quirks. Again, hero work should not just be policing or militarized--where are the Grannies with less powerful Quirks that would be suited for outreach, de-escalation, societal improvement, economic improvement, and responses to mental health and physical health treatment. 

[kukishoku]

name: saskia gomez shego age/height: 25, 5'10" pronouns/gender/sexuality: she/her, cis woman, bisexual affiliation: pro heroes (formally), lov (formally), and plf quirk: energy blasts quirk description: she can shoot green energy from any part of her body. the energy's destructive nature is linked to her emotions. the angrier she is the more damage it will do. she also can manipulate her own and others energy levels, but it takes a lot out of her and requires a lot of recovery time. it is only used in dire situations (ie. she needs an adrenaline spike or to knock someone out fast). short bio: coming from a long line of superheroes operating under the name team go and running their own hero agency called the go agency, shego inherited the title and position from her mother. her family specialized in scientific body augmentations and quirk expansion studies. at the age of 12 she, along with her 4 brothers, was put under intense physical trials and experiments where she ended up with her green skin and glow as well as enhanced strength and an advanced healing ability. she attended ua high and did all her work studies at her family's agency where she worked upon graduating and was thrusted into the hero world. she made it to the top 5 hero at the age of 21, but couldn't break past 5th. at some time in her hero life she met hawks and the two sparked up a romance of sorts, catching the public's eye and dooming whatever could have been. not long after breaking up with her fellow hero did she fake her death only to appear a year later on national television where she murdered her former mentor and introduced herself as the villain shego under the bumbling mad genius dr. drakken. he was arrested months later and shego was a free agent until she was contacted by giran to join the league of villains.

[satancopilotsmytardis]

Fuck yeah, demon Dabi!

I really like that he got adopted by a community willing to take care of him. I believe that people will always seek out community and I just adore this detail here. The fact that they find a starving child and take him in.

On another note, seeing a feral Dabi would be pretty hot, actually.

Oh, Dabi. He's starving himself for other's approval. He's hurting himself again. And sure, it's different, but is it really? He's hurting himself to prove that he is strong, that he should be taken seriously. My boy :(

"There's [describes how all of the LoV are very unhinged] and Magne" I love this line.

And the found family starts! Shigaraki doesn't want any of his crew to be in less than the best shape they could be in. I really like how you write him as a good boss.

He booked a room at La Venus. Yeah, I'm sure that won't lead to him running into Shigaraki at all. Totally.

And the lingerie shows up! Also, Dabi keeping money tucked away in all of your stories for worst-case scenarios is really nice. Especially since he uses them to help the League after AfO is arrested. It just adds to his character nicely, I think.

Ooooh, flustered Shig! We don't get to see that often. Also, uncomfortable conversation for the win when Shigaraki is very much attracted to Dabi and knows that Dabi can smell it. Lol.

"He isn't supposed to be nice, or god forbid, understanding." Dabi. Dabi, have you ever thought about the fact that you had to deal with the literal scum of society for so long that you have gotten used to being treated as less than human? Because Shig is treating you like a human (well, demon) right now and that is actually the bare minimum. Oh boy.

Dabi is jealous~

That other succubus obviously noticed how interested Shig is in Dabi and felt threatened because they have slept with him before (probably more than once?). Also, the fact that Shig is not at all interested in them while being very much interested in Dabi is amusing.

Shigaraki: "I am going to be professional about this and give Dabi some space so my presence won't make him uncomfortable." Dabi: "You want to fuck me so bad it makes you look stupid."

I wonder if Shig had the scent blockers installed before or after he met Dabi for the first time? Was it just a general idea to use scent blockers in his villain costume as to not get tracked down or did Giran tell him one of the people who want to get in contact is a Succubus and Shig tried to make sure Dabi won't be uncomfortable?

"What if I want to eat you tonight?" "What are your rates?" Shigaraki you are such a simp. "More than worth triple." Oh, do you also want to offer him your still-beating heart on a golden plate? Simp.

Of course Shigaraki would find a way to be sweet even high on venom. He would never want to hurt Dabi by accident.

I really enjoy how you write oral. I think those are some of my favourite fics from you.

Last third of the fic and things are going downhill fast. I'm guessing Dabi only managed to last two months because he was eating so regularly before. Oh, I wonder if the fact that he can't get his fill from anyone else has to do woth the fact that he called Shigaraki his mate? Nah, couldn't be it. Haha, immediately got confirmation for that one.

Okay, but that venom-turned-to-gas attack is cool as fuck. Also, Compress immediately asking to turn taht into marbles just shows how the League is used to having Dabi around. Compress is practical when it comes to stuff like this, he won't judge Dabi when this can be used to give them an advantage (not that he would judge Dabi otherwise, either).

The fact that Dabi has managed to go hungry for this long without going feral really speaks for his self control. I don't remember if you ever answered this, but do demons typically have quirks in this universe? What is the PLFs stance on succubi?

Oh, oh poor Dabi. He was hungry for so long and he tried so hard and he held on for so long. It's no surprise he's slipping. Though taking a chunk out of an already injured Shigaraki does seem counterproductive. Also, that injury is going to be difficult to explain. Especially if there are succubi around, or people who know enough about succubi to know about them going feral.

The abandonment issues are hitting hard again, aren't they? And Shigaraki is such a simp. He had Dabi take a bite out of him and all he can focus on is that Dabi was hurting.

Well, that's a twist. Interesting though! Also, the fact that Shigaraki just immediately ignores everything else to make Dabi feel good. My guy, you are missing part of your shoulder.

Ah, that was a sweet ending. Well, as sweet as you can get with these two. I wonder how the rest of the League reacted? They definitely noticed that Dabi was oit of it for a long time. And I imagine they took the time to read up on succubi, at least on the basics. Did they know he was starving?

Also, an immortal Shigaraki is terrifying, actually. Once heroes find out how he did that, I'm pretty sure they will use the fact that he "owns" Dabi to turn the public even more against him.

Thank you for the story!

Fuck yeah! A long comment!!

Dabi's daddy issues really take a backseat in this one, but they are absolutely still here being a driving force behind his actions in a way I don't even think he's capable of recognizing.

I truly believe that Magne is the most normal member of the League. Oh, she has 47 attempted murders and a temper? Yeah? So what? I would too if i had to deal with transphobia that far into the future while an anthropomorphic washing machine got to run around being one of the top heroes!

Shigaraki has definitely slept with Reo at least twice, however, even if he hadn't slept with Dabi that night, he never would have taken them to bed again. He does not like that Reo tried to stake their claim over him when as far as he was concerned, anything that happened before was just a transaction.

The scent blockers were a part of his costume since his debut! When there are heroes like Hound Dog, it's important to keep things like that covered. But Shigaraki didn't know they were just as effective on demons which is why he said he would be reporting that back to the doctor.

READ HIM FOR FILTH! Look, Shigaraki is so blunt already that I just think if he ever cared enough about something other than his goals, be that another person or just sex flat out, he would be incredibly blunt, earnest, and cringe about pursuing that as well. He does not have a subtle bone in his body.

So in this universe, full-blooded demons do not have quirks, but they do have innate magics and abilities that can sometimes mimic what humans think of as quirks and that can help them stand toe-to-toe with humans even after their evolution. I never had a good chance to bring this up in the Incubus!Shigaraki story, but in the first installment Dabi mentions that he told the rest of the League Decay was a mutation of his ability to eat lifeforce, however Shigaraki was not aware at that time, that was a lie. In actuality, he was born human with demonic blood in his ancestry, and when Decay activated as a child, he was scooped up by AFO who then had Ujiko do a lot of medical experimentation on him until the demon genes activated. From there they waited for him to hit puberty, knowing his memories would be fucked up and gaslighting him the entire time to make sure he thought he was a born demon, to see what kind he would end up being. The fact he ended up being something as weak and low-born as an incubus is why AFO treated him so poorly and encouraged him to starve/feed only on nightmares, since he had already put so much effort into Shigaraki and didn't want to waste him. The fact that Dabi very openly and blatantly has a quirk signals to the world he was human first.

The PLF is a very large organization so it would range from "not racist at all" to "extremely racist" concerning Dabi's and (to a lesser degree) Toga's heritage. In general, given his position in the organization, Dabi would not have to deal with the particularly racist members-- except Geten who, after the incident in Deika, and with his own family's obsession with 'blood purity' would be thoroughly disgusted by Dabi. He would still ask to be put on a squad with the popsicle though, because Dabi is used to that kind of treatment and he wants to keep a close eye on him to make sure he doesn't' ever try to start something.

Shigaraki continues to be a simp, but the fact that he ignored the bite and just kept fucking Dabi is 100% down to the venom. He couldn't have stopped even if he wanted to at that point, and he was just glad that Dabi didn't tear out a vein or artery.

The rest of the League would know they're dating, and kind of had their big reaction to that before the group headed to Deika, but no one else would be able to tell that Shigaraki owns Dabi now unless they tell them, or until it becomes very obvious that Shigaraki is not aging anymore, which he might actually continue to do until he's around 25 or so if the bond determines that's when he would be at his most physically healthy. Overall, I think that they would be happy for them, but be very confused about how in the fuck that works, because the succubi-granted immortality is a very well-kept secret in demon circles to avoid succubi being enslaved again.

So on that same note, the heroes would have no way of knowing what was going on between the two of them for a very, very long time. Especially if Shigaraki does naturally unlock the regeneration quirk of All For One, which would make the longevity Dabi is giving him and his healing look like one and the same. They would also have a theoretical eternity to do what they need to, even if Dabi has already decided he's not going to kill himself to kill Endeavor anymore. Now he gets to take the time and plan for a new revenge. (I'm thinking fighting Shoto and forcing him to use his flames until he accidentally turns into a demon too and forcing Enji to see his perfect prodigy is now a demonic race the whole world looks down on)

Thank you for the comment!

[itsnothingofinterest]

So I know that the heroes still likely have this war in the bag unless something drastic happens but I must ask, have they all just collectively forgotten the phrase “Don’t corner a Rat”? They keep being surprised the villains keep coming back and I’m just thinking to myself how silly of an idea that is. Of course they wouldn’t, especially since they’ve got nothing to lose and everything to gain. But I guess they never expected to face much resistance so it must be hard to conceive the shoe being on the other foot for once. After all, there’s a reason the trope Villainous Valor exist.

I mean this arc's been relying a lot on "fake tension"; where (outside the hospital attack) the heroes have had every fight in this war in the bag at every step of the way, but keep acting like any setback, any secret move that Tomura, Toga, or Dabi has, is the thing that could spell their doom when it never, ever has a chance of doing that. (Until Spinner woke up Kurogiri anyway. We’ll have to see how much that’ll shift things, but it could shift a lot. But everything else they’ve kinda been overreacting too.)

The reason for this is 1) if anyone ever acknowledged that the heroes have the forces needed to crush the villain army and all it’s heavy hitters 250+ times over, the tension (artificial as it is) would evaporate, but in fairness there’s also 2) the heroes aren’t working hard just for “victory”, but a total 100% 0 casualties victory to restore faith in heroes to get things back to normal. Like, the heroes won the last raid decisively; 99.88% of the villains captured with minimal casualties. Pretty good for what we keep calling a war. But that’s not 100% captured with 0 casualties and we all saw the consequences of that.

So AFO pretends like he’s got this whole war in the bag, and the heroes just kinda humor him because the actual worst damage he could do (killing just 1 hero before his army’s inevitable arrest) is actually pretty devastating in the short term for them.

But the fake tension is still a problem. It really takes me out of it when AFO acts like he’s got this, and we see world leaders talking about kowtowing to him and I just want to say to them “Idiots, this guy and every threatening villain he’s got on payroll are each surrounded by a tenth of a country’s hero population, probably at least 100 each, including several main characters. From what possible angles does it look like he’ll still be a threat this time tomorrow?”

Which is why I’m really hoping for that ‘something drastic’ to actually occur. Like I keep asking for Kurogiri to breakout the captured PLF army to bolster the villain forces by several hundred times. Now the heroes have already beaten the full PLF army in the 1st war, but they’re also at half-power from then. It’s still a fight they could win, but they could also lose, and they could lose the war with it. And the sense that the heroes could lose this war has been missing from this arc.

[ladycry19]

After the attack on the PLF main headquarters I think Morgan would get captured.

Shed be one of Tomura's main people of course, so she'd have a team, but in the chaos and her quirk not being fit for fighting, Morgan would get arrested and detained. I don't really know how or when, since gigantomachia would most likely grab her too, but she wouldn't see Tomura at all I think.

When she's arrested, I think she'd be interrogated by UA, since she's a former student. And since she's one of Tomura's closest allys, they'd try to get info out of her. I think even Aizawa - her old HS friend and crush - would try to talk to her but she would be distressed. Screaming and crying and yelling about how she needs to get back to Tomura.

M: you think I'm just some damsel in distress who's being manipulated?! You're WRONG!!

A: you're on the wrong side, Morgan...

M: shut up!!

She's usually so composed and calm and stoic, but being captured, and not being able to be there for Tomura after she confessed, would mess her up badly. She also feels like a failure after getting caught. I think Morgan has always had an insecurity about not having an offensive quirk, so this would only make everything worse.

And Tomura too... I don't think he'd realize she's missing right away since he's fighting, but afterwards, when he's recovering and he gets a tiny bit of control of his body, he'll ask where she is.

T: where's Morgan...

Dabi: she's gone, boss.

T: what...?

Dabi: captured and detained by the Heroes. She didn't make it back.

And I think Tomura would absolutely lose it. He'd go crazy and feral and probably yell and attack Dabi and Spinner for not protecting her. he'd demand they find her, even yelling at AFO that they need her.

I think he would find her, too. UA knows that Tomura would probably come for Morgan, so they don't keep her there. They try to hide her as best as they can, but with his Search quirk, he'd be able to pin point her and go to her.

And the reunion would be intense and emotional.

Hnnbg sorry for rambling I love them...

TomuMorg is their ship name? ToMorg? MorgTomu?