#saw a post saying that rei was the true villain and endeavor was what was putting them back together and i nearly tore out my hair

[todorokistheories]

If I see one more goddamn rei hating and endeavor loving post I'm going to lose it, like LOSE IT. I need this fandom to have better takes, please please please I am begging you for some ounce of media literacy ;-:

[villainsandvictimsalliance]

You all knew how much I want Endeavor to stay alive in order to pay for all he's done. I've been very vocal about it, in fact.

For me Horikoshi did something amazing with the Endeavor storyline. First of all because the sequence of Endeavor fighting AFO has little to do with action and a lot to do with self-realization.

Enji not only exposed himself. Keep in mind all I have explained about younger versions of a character appearing as a why to symbolize the character core or soul or true self. Done? Well, we saw Enji facing a younger version of himself as a graphic description of the internal turmoil he was going through. This is Enji at his absolute limit, on the verge of dying, finally admitting all the wrong he has done, how awful he has been, how much damage he had caused. Even more, he's accepting he's not truly good. Hell never be what he wishes he could be, he can't reach the 1# spot as a hero. He even recognizes that the future heroes shouldn't be like him, that the future generations shouldn't have to carry the issues and mistakes of the past generations.

And I can't say this enough: this is huge.

I don't know if you hate or love Endeavor, but that doesn't matter here. We all know he was getting a redemption arc and it starts here. Not before. Here. Redemption starts with the person recognizing they have done something wrong or been someone bad. There's no getting better without the recognition phase, because you can't fix a mistake if you don't know it exists (not in this case). Yes, Endeavor must hate the person he is right now ane that's good for him. I'm not saying he's getting forgiven and all his sins had been forgotten. What I'm saying it's that it took a fight to death with the biggest villain on the bnha universe for Endeavor to recognize he's a major bastard, that he's responsible for what happened to Touya (hey, Touya is also responsible for his decisions but that's another post), that he's an obstacle for the future generations and that he needs to be a grown ass men, do his job right, deal with his issues and stop messing with people's lives.

For me, this is perfect. Endeavor dying would solve absolutely nothing. In terms of storyline, it'd be only a wound that's there to bleed, but it doesn't furthers anyone plot, it doesn't serve an option aside being dramatic, it is useless.

Endeavor LIVING? That's the move. There's a reason why he had that vision of Shouto walking towards the future, his back to his dad, facing the light. Enji owns the Todorokis for all he has done. He needs to take responsibility for the Touya thing (Shouto had to go stop his brother, something Enji should have done before), he needs to support Shouto in his career after all the trauma he inflicted, he has to answer Rei and be there for Fuyumi, he even has to endure whatever cold treatment Natsuo give him.

And if we talk about Hawks, I guess Endeavor's redemption is the path that opens up Hawks' redemption. Hawks is still young and he projects his issues a lot in Endeavor, his idol. If anything, Hawks depends way more on Endeavor that any of the Todoroki kids.

The graphic components of the chapter (357), like Endeavor basically murdering his past self in order to fully embrace how bad he has been it's a major step. Someone probably would give an explanation based on Freud about this, but I refuse to do so. You have Hawks making wrong guesses about Endeavor, which speaks a lot about how idolized is Endeavor in Hawks' mind and how Endeavor is not exactly feeding such narrative in the middle of the fight.

And because this is an Endeavor centered post, I won't even talk about how cool it was to see AFO's popping just one eye and one ear, and amazing way of showing how he only sees and listens to one side of the story.

All you have to know if that I'm fascinated on how things turned out ane I'm ready for more to come my way.

[haleigh-sloth]

Those extra panels just kinda confirm what I believed from the start.

Retconning Endeavor, in my opinion based off of these extra panels, was not to take the blame off of him.

This isn’t shifting blame here. I understand why that was believed to be the case at first, but you really can’t say that anymore when Hori went out of his way to draw this:

The retcon was to give Endeavor a redeemable core.

See, the difference between redeeming Endeavor and redeeming the villains is that all of the LOV were shown to have redeemable cores.

The villains are all child coded. Throughout the whole story they are child coded, but not only that. We get to see their origins and see exactly how they ended up the way they did. We see that everything started when they were children. For them, their downfalls started at a point in their lives when anything inflicted upon them was not of their own doing and they were entirely innocent, due to being children. Children who have zero control over their surroundings or their environment.

And growing out of that innocence they became villains, being held 100% responsible for their crimes while people overlook the crying children inside them all. That is, until:

It’s important to note the difference between redeeming Endeavor and redeeming the villains. The villains were given a redeemable core from the start. Granted, we didn’t see those redeemable parts of them until a little bit later into the story. But those redeemable parts of them were always there. Because their origins started when they were children, unlike Endeavor.

Endeavor is not child coded, and he doesn’t have an origin. Endeavor’s character is pretty simple. I mean, he’s complicated because abusive family dynamics are always complicated and messy and not linear at all, but his character is simple.

He’s a petty, jealous, selfish adult. And a lot of people are petty, jealous, and selfish—but they don’t always turn out like Endeavor. That’s where his complexity comes in. But anyway that’s not the point of this post.

The point I’m trying to make is—don’t let Hori’s retconning fool you into thinking Endeavor isn’t as responsible as he appeared to be during his introduction during the sports festival arc. He is, was, still that horrible human being we saw during that time.

Is he changing now? Well, kind of. I don’t think Shouto thinks he is. I don’t think we’re supposed to think he is. Is he trying? Maybe in his mind. Is he going to show some sort of positive change by the end of the story? Absolutely. That’s his arc, that’s the purpose of his story.

The retconning of Endeavor’s M.O.—while annoying, messy writing, and not-great story-telling—did not erase the blame, nor did it shift it.

Rei’s responsibility to her children still holds true. She played a role in Touya’s fall, but that was going to reign true with or without the retcon. Whether people like hearing that or not, that’s what being a parent is.

But Endeavor is the blame. He’s the root cause. Never forget:

[arkus-rhapsode]

Bnha chap 302 was crazy! So many stuff have been revealed! What did u think of it?

(So before I start, I just want to say, sorry it took me a few days to answer this. when discussion recent chapters of MHA, I’m trying now to wait for the official release before posting anything. I know I haven’t always been the best when using scans vs official releases, but I’m going to try and make this more a  thing. Given some flack I’ve received in the past, as well as recent crack downs by shueisha. So you can send me asks like this, please I’m not discouraging it. but you’re just going to have to wait till after the official releases.)

With the preamble out of the way OH MY GOD! This flashback chapters are amazing! Like this has been the kind of stuff I’ve been waiting for in MHA after the metric crap ton of build up by Horikoshi. And its not disappointed.

First, I do likeEndeavor’s gradual decline into is asshole self from Shoto’s memory. It’s vocally recognized that Endeavor is breaking societal taboos with his Quirk Marriage. Not only his selfish wishes to have an ultimate child to surpass All Might, but Toya is basically one of the worst combinations of this selective breeding. Being that he has stronger fire than Endeavor, but he has resistance to cold temperature so he’s just burning his body.

Yet Endeavor still is more focused on surpassing All Might. And when he comes to the realization that Toya will never surpass All Might, he decides to make a his real ultimate child. Now the reason I like this is because this isn’t Endeavor just being like “I need to surpass All Might with the perfect child”, its also, “I need to create my ideal child which will surpass All Might and act as a deterrent to Toya wanting to be a hero.”

Now, I love this scene, not just because no matter how Endeavor tries to justify his actions, he is still ultimately breaking societal conventions just to selfishly surpass his rival. But it also shows, Endeavor is aware of Toya’s feelings. He KNOWS Toya won’t stop trying to be a hero. He’s not some ignorant to his son wanting to live up to his dream of the ultimate hero. But his plan to stop Toya is not altruistic. It’s still selfish. His plan is literally to make an actually superior child, just to get his son to give e up. Its probably the worst thing you can do.

And most recently in 302, when that doesn’t work and Toya still burns himself and tries to attack Shoto. Endeavor finally just decides to no longer deal with this. personally. He is leaving Toya to Rei and is just going to focus on Shoto. He’s pushing a problem onto someone else and NOW he’s just ignoring it.

And then he just doubles down worse from there. Actually becoming more of the abuser that Shoto and Natsuo remember. All because Rei couldn’t keep Toya in line. Even though Toya was his son too.

It’s been awhile since we have seen Endeavor as the antagonistic figure. And I know the story of Endeavor will always be a tough one because its ultimately one trying to redeem an abuser. And I like that in this flashback, we are really reminded of why Endeavor wants atonement, because what he did to his family was wrong. And now we’re actually seeing it. Hell, some of it is more uncomfortable because we now see, its not like Endeavor was so pure evil psychopath, he gradually slipped from some wrong-headed jerk who was breaking taboos who is aware he’s doing bad things but pushing forward to ignoring his problems he’s caused to finally lashing out at his family as if it’s not also his responsibility. 

And we see a man who is regretful. But he still made mistakes. And I like that this hasn’t just been for the audience, this has been for Endeavor. Because he can no longer keep those skeletons in his closet nor is he in a position to throw himself a pity party. Again, we still have to wait a few chapters before we see like how this pays off. But Rei is reminding him that if he really wants to make things better and prove he’s a better person, then let’s start by getting his house in order.

Speaking of Rei, this has been a pretty interesting character study for her as well. We see Rei as pretty much a passive player both in the series up to this point being in a hospital, but also in this flashback. She agrees to be Enji’s wife and while she’ll speak up, she doesn’t stop Endeavor from having more kids. Nor does she stop him from really separating the kids. She also brings it up that like Endeavor, she didn’t really “see” what was really going on with Toya.

While Endeavor may have thought a deterrent of making him Toya give up would work, Rei try to just talk to Toya about looking beyond his father, but its not just wanting his father’s attention that is driving Toya mad. Its the fact that his birth was solely to make an ultimate Quirk users and if he’s not then his whole creation is pointless.

Because at he core, she is still complacent with this arrangement. From her family to the fact that when she can’t actually stand up to Enji, she then starts lashing out at the children who remind her of them. She has hurt her children too and its wrong. But unlike Endeavor who is really now just trying to come to grips with that, Rei has clearly stewed in that self loathing for a while. And now, she’s not being passive, she’s now taking a stand and being the one who needs to pull Endeavor out of his own self-pity.

Its very nice to see this character who, like Endeavor, has transformed over the course of this union.  

Now what does this mean for their marriage? As this seems to be the root cause of here passivity. I’m not sure. But Hori has given me no reason to think he’ll do something crazy with it. So I’m going to wait and see.

Now onto the man himself, Toya. Man finding out about Dabi has been a trip. Because at first it seems like he just wants his dad’s attention. To be proud of him. But its more than just that. Toya has a fire in him that won’t go out.

Toya’s “fire” isn’t this drive to be number 1 hero and get the glory. Its literally the validation of his existence. Because he was made to surpass All Might. If Toya can’t do that, then he failed at his existence. 

It really pulls back that Dabi doesn’t hate Endeavor because of abuse like Rei, Shoto and Natsuo. Dabi hates Endeavor because he was born solely to fulfill his mission, and when he was physically incapable of doing so, he replaced him with a child who could. It hurts to watch.

Because Dabi will never get over the fact of why he’s here in the first place, I think a lot of kids when they get older have that realization about why they’re here is because of their parents. And Toya can literally trace why his father made him. As he recalled with Snatch.

Just contemplating his family and why he’s here. He lost it.

We also get some cool details on Dabi’s powers. With his flames growing even stronger from red to blue, but also that the burns around his chest that we first saw in his video is intentionally so he could both hide the burns but also avoid hurting him.

There’s also the fact that his flames are tied to his emotions. Probably why whenever we see Dabi he’s mostly irate and disinterested. But when he finally had to get infront of Endeavor and the world, Dabi lets all his emotions come out. Letting him use flash fire and be wary more gleeful in his destruction. Yet we see that any times he cranks up his emotions, he always starts crying. Like he did with Snatch and Hawks. Which is such a subtle touch that I love.

There’s also his unique resentment towards the women in his family more than Natsuo. Now Endeavor we know he clearly hates, but when it came to Natsuo, he ignored him. But he knew Rei and Fuyumi the longest, and they did nothing for the longest time.

We also see the beginning of Dabi’s use of faux concern about society and using it as a way to turn people on Endeavor. 

Dabi has stated he doesn’t care about the League of Villains. Even in his big speech about how its Endeavor’s fire that let him kill people, he knows that’s a lie too. He would talk about confiding in his beloved brother, but if it meant making his dad suffer, he would’ve killed him.

Dabi’s hate is for one man, and if he can use anything to make Endeavor’s existence a living hell, he’ll use it. And we see that his hate is justified, but he will wrap that hate in a way to get others to feel like him. Its very effective.

Its just nice to see a villain who gets a bunch of build up LIVE up to all his hype. Its not like a let down, its just opening more doors to explore.

And now we get to the Todoroki family. Where do we go from here? Well Dabi isn’t just an Endeavor problem or a Rei problem, its a family problem. They all share the burden and Dabi will be their goal.

And I like this because, for the most part, Shoto completed his arc in the Sports Festival of hating his dad, but then accepting this is his power and looking beyond Enji. And while that wasn’t the end as he still has to make his choice on wether to accept his dad as a changed man or not, that’s more part of Endeavor’s goal. Shoto has been sorta like Deku and Bakugo with a focus on being number 1.

But now he has real and true personal motivation that no one but this family can really address and I am excited. I’m glad that the prominent characters of this series like Shoto has something to do. I get that all the kids in UA will never truly get this treatment. They have focus, but they are still mainly supporting cast. But having a main character really be able to justify why they’re up in front is great. I’m eager to see what awaits the Todoroki family in the future.

[thumb3l1n4]

After reading the official translation of chapter #292, I'm cackling at all those angry posts against Best Jeanist. I don't know what translation the people have read, to make them think he was an abuse apologist. I only saw furious comments about it all over the socials.

I understand that some people care a great deal for Dabi, I like him a lot, too, actually. The League of Villains' characters are all pretty interesting, to me, but that doesn't mean that I agree with everything they've done till now. They're villains.

Since the very first volume, Bnha made it clear that its society is not ideal. Years of evolution and Quirks, and the human being is still the same as ever: some people only care about power, and want civilians to believe the world they live in is doing alright thanks to the Heroes. Some civilians are actually willing to believe it, because that makes their lives much, much easier to live with. They don't need to worry about anyone but themselves, because it's the Heroes' job to take care of a terrified orphan kid living on the streets. Bnha's society is a society where people mind their own businesses. The only exception to that rule are the Heroes, but even then, only when it's convenient (generally speaking). When a teen almost chocked to his death in front of them while they did nothing to stop it, the Heroes thought it was right to chastise a Quirkless teen that proved, after assessing the situation, that they didn't really need a Quirk in the first place, to help the victim out and buy him time for another Hero to come and save him from the Villain. That's the first thing that the 1-A class learned from Thirteen: your Quirk might not always be the most useful, depending on the situation at hand, but that doesn't mean that you can't move your ass and do some helping, when you have no other alternatives. People in this society revere powerful Quirks: with them, one can do no wrong. It's a given that the lucky user is bound to become a Hero, even though their attitude or motives to become one are total crap. But is the user clumsy or the Quirk not as flashy? The person's motives won't matter at all. They will be better off as civilians... If they don't become a Villain. You never know, with some Quirks. Still, it's definitely better than having no Quirk at all, since that's just an useless existence, in a world like Bnha's.

When Stain, the League or the Liberation Army say that their society is full of holes... They're not wrong. A change is indeed needed. What is wrong, though, it's their solution to the problem, the way they go about it executing it. They all have their own reasons to feel wronged by the system and we all sympathize with them to some extent. I say "some", because they're still villains. After whatever pain they've gone through, they choose to hurt others just the same. I hope I don't have to explain how that is so not right. There are ways to change the world for the better (theirs and ours): murder, torture and terror aren't them. They're wrong, no matter how much we feel bad for a certain character and we wish they had a better childhood.

Best Jeanist is not an abuse apologist, he simply saw through Dabi's plan. A perfect, villainous plan. Does Tōya have the right to hate his own father? Yes. Does the world need to know what Endeavor, the now #1 Hero, did to his own wife and children? Yes. Is that battleground the best place to spill out all the abuse the Todoroki's family has gone through because of Enji's goal? From a Villain's point of view: yes. As that character said in previous chapters, it doesn't matter if it's true or not. Now that they heard it, everyone is thinking about it, and their hope in a system that has kept them safe all their lives, is put on jeopardy. That's exactly what villains want: utter despair. From everyone. Destroying Endeavor's life and reputation, at this precise moment, is a mean to an end and surely a nice bonus. Tōya isn't the kid that cried to his little brother, anymore.

Personally, I wish to see Endeavor behind bars, for what he's done to Rei and the four siblings. I truly wish that at the end of this arc, Tōya's accusation don't get swept under a rug and the police and the other Heroes do their job. Better yet, I wish Endeavor would finally turn himself in. And if they manage to make Dabi surrender, I hope he would end up in therapy, like his mother. You see, I got attached to all those fanarts where he still cares for his siblings. It breaks my heart that he's so far gone in his hate, that hurting his brothers, sister and mom doesn't faze him at all. As much as I hope for his recovery, I won't condone what he's doing.

[flushed-for-the-trolls]

Why I, a MHA fan, dislike the show

I’m posting this here because when I posted this on the MHA sub, I got eaten alive and every syllable scrutinized more harshly than a piece of legal documentation. You just can’t criticize this show. At. All. So here I am, on here, trying to do the same thing. I’m gonna condense my issues and only mention a few of them.

My first issues is character development. There ain’t any. There’s Bakugou and Endeavor... And that’s it? In terms of meaningful change, that’s it. I know some class 1a kids have a mini arc, but they don’t ultimately impact the story at all, so I don’t count them, they’re footnotes in the broad story, they’re just light adjustments to these characters, Yaoyorozu’s loss of confidence, Uraraka feeling like she failed and her motivations of becoming a hero, they all are set-ups for the B plot of the episodes, and are never brought up again, for this reason, I only consider those two to have any proper character development, as they span multiple episodes and seasons, and have an impact on the story itself

My second issue is Midoriya: He’s just not that interesting, is he? He had his character development in the first episode, and by the third episode, he immediately forgot what made him interesting, it was that he was an underdog, that he had a unique position in society as a formerly quirkless person given one of the best powers. In my eyes, the show would have been much more interesting if Midoriya became a vigilante superhero, reforming the broken system, and being a supporter of the quirkless, instead he became a one note character that just... Saves the day, need to put on a show? Deku to the rescue! Need to beat an A* villain? Deku can do it! Midoriya can do literally anything and everything, he’s overpowered to the peak and it makes for a boring show and protagonist when there are no actual stakes in any given battle, the final line is “and this is the story of how I became the number 1 hero”. Great way to shoot yourselves in the foot guys, now I know Midoriya will basically never die, never be incapacitated, and there is no threat to him that will yield serious, life changing consequences. Even when I was enamored by the show I never once considered Midoriya to be in any danger.

My third issue is poorly handled sensitive topics: Bullying in MHA is handled with such abysmal care I question if the writers even knew what the word meant. The world through the eyes of Midoriya, he’s been bullied ever since he was quirkless, called ‘Deku’ and tormented relentlessly. He’s been miserable, his dreams have been shattered, and no one cares, no one listens- Oh, way, what’s that? A girl said “it sound’s like ‘you can do it’?” Forget all the immense trauma and feelings of self doubt and inadequacy, it’s all good babeh! There’s no development, it’s all shoved to the side and without the slightest bit of care, they didn’t even give us 5 minutes to soak it in, nope, tactfulness? Who’s she? As you may imagine, I do have a bit of a bias against IzuOcha, BUT, just to be clear, I’d hate ANY canon (or likely canon) ship that  uses bullying in such a scummy way. And make no mistake, that’s what this is, a scummy, crude, and shameless use of bullying as fuel for a pairing.

This felt weird to include in the same paragraph, so I made a new one. The other form of abuse that’s been approved is Rei throwing scalding water on her sons face. All I will say is, If Dabi’s actions aren’t excused through abuse, neither are Rei’s. Rei abused her son, if we saw that case in the real world, we’d be outraged and demanding the harshest penalty. Rei hurt her kid, no matter what the reason is, she hurt a child that looked up to her, she’s a bad person and a bad mother, and Shoto shouldn’t have been apologizing to her, or seeking forgiveness. Rei was the victim of a monster, but she also became a monster and hurt her own child, nothing excuses this behavior. Nothing.

My final issue? The Fandom. Dear god can this fandom not accept criticism, people seem to be of the mindset that to like something is to defend it with your life. My first paragraph wasn’t a joke, people scrutinize the shit out of anything negative and will pull things out of their ass to dispel criticism, people can’t take a critical look at the series and say “yeah, it flopped in some areas, but I still like it in spite of its flaws”. Almost everyone on my post refused to acknowledge ANY faults and often got real damn combative when I was nothing of the sort, people claimed I wasn’t a true fan because I said the show was bad, as if being a fan of a show means that you must never have an issue with the show you like... Ridiculous. I used to scoff at the idea that a toxic fandom could drive you out of loving a show, oh how wrong I was

Don’t get me wrong, I still have a love for aspects of the show, but my love for it has severely diminished because of the antics of the fandom. If this post gave off vibes of incredible agitation, first, I apologize, that wasn’t my intent, and second, that’s the result of not being able to talk with others about issues with mutual interests. I understand some people may disagree, and that’s fine, but could we, like, be civil about disagreement, jk, jk, unless...

[tonya-the-chicken]

Hi I read your post about Shouto being beaten black and blue 🤦‍♀️ now like honestly I don’t think Enji beat him black and blue, but I think he did get physical(I do think it was mostly him forcing Shouto to go beyond his limit but do feel he got a little physical) but maybe that’s because of the translation I read given that in Shouto flashback when he’s clutching his stomach Enji says “get up you won’t be able to be third rate villains let alone all Might if you get knocked down by a hit like that” to me that sounds physical, and then during the endeavor agency arc once again in the translation I read Shouto tells us he had his quirk beaten into him, which to me interpret as physical touch in my mind! Plus he had that wooden train sword in his hand, not saying he used that to wack Shouto but maybe used it to tap him definitely wasn’t holding it for fun. And honestly just because he sent Rei away for hurting Shouto doesn’t mean he didn’t get physical in training, however I do agree I do think that it was mostly him just pushing Shouto to go over his limit, and pushing him to exhaustion. Oh and may I add that yes we never saw him hit Shouto on screen that is true, but do think Hori would have actually drew Enji physical hitting 5yr old Shouto? Do you think he would have actually shown us Enji punching his fist into his 5yr old son’s stomach? Because I think that would be a bit too brutal for a manga to show directed at a young audience, plus he doesn’t even show us him hitting Rei a full grown female and his wife, it’s led down to interpretation. Like he’s going to show him actually hitting his son to the audience, it’s left down to interpretation however I do actually think it was more overuse and exhaustion!

To be honest, I wouldn't deny that Enji was never physically abusive with any of his children or that he never hit them. It might have happened. Also, since he was training Shouto in combat it's easy to imagine that Shouto would get hurt here and there. Yet "beaten black and blue" would mean some sort of heavy injury to the point that it's painful to move (at least in my understanding) and it stays for at least a couple of days. It is unlikely that Endeavor ever hurt him like that is what I am saying, not that he never hurt him at all. It would be ineffective for the training, damaging to Shouto's health and way too visible for no one to not notice it. It's unlikely that whatever abuse Shouto went through can be described as beat "black and blue"

I also googled what exactly this phrase means. "If you say that someone is black and blue, you mean they are badly bruised" and, as an example, "the next day I was black and blue and couldn't move my neck". I also saw it used in a milder context though. Yet, it sounds pretty extreme to me

You are right about Enji saying "if you get knocked out by a hit like that". So we can say that Enji hit him (maybe in the stomach) but it's just a fragment of the training. Looking at the manga panel Shouto doesn't look bruised at all. In the scene where he looks out the window at his siblings, his fingers are bandaged (has he burnt them?) "All the quirk training you beat into me as a kid" it's clear that Shouto didn't want to do the training, it was forced on him and maybe he was pressure with or with the threat of physical force

To be honest, it is stupid to imagine that harsh training in combat can go on without any injuries at all. It is also rather likely that when someone is forced they might be forced psychically

We never saw Enji hit Shouto, yes, but assuming that it's because Horikoshi doesn't want to show us child abuse is wrong. He has drawn Kotarou hit Tenko very clearly. Horikoshi clearly has no problem with showing it explicitly. Maybe he considers it not important in this case?

So, to be clear: Enji trained Shouto harshly enough to have him throw up on multiple occasions, yet he was never shown with bruises or injuries, leading me to think Enji wasn't beating him up recklessly. Since Shouto was forced to train, Enji might have been physical to make him do this. Enji was physically abusive with Shouto, yes, but I would say fandom takes it to extremes, making it seems like Enji beat him without regard for his health and that is probably not true

[popcorn-hero]

The Tales of the Todorokis

Acknowledging character development and writing character development is not and making excuses for ones crimes.

Disclaimer: I read, I interpret, I express. This is a long post filled with images. Also probably some horrible grammar

Apologizing: Apologizing is  acknowledging ones faults and vowing to never commit the same mistakes. What has happened has happened. Nothing can change the past or the effect it had. What you do now, does not change or erase the past, but it helps guide a path of healing for the future. It can be the start of change and morphing into a better person. BUT, only if that person truly means it.

Apologies is not making an excuse for yourself.

Forgiveness: Forgiveness can be rightfully given, or not. It can be a tricky thing to understand at times. Forgiveness doesn’t remove the pain. Forgiveness doesn’t erase the memories. But for some people, forgiveness is a key to freedom, for inner peace. For other people, forgiveness doesn’t offer them that, and that's fine too.

We are not monoliths, we are individual people, with individual brains, with individual emotions, with experiences that affects us as individuals. Our stories might overlap - they might even be identical, but how we process it may not be.

I don’t like this narrative I’ve been seeing recently in the fandom of Horikoshi being an abuse apologist. I think Horikoshi is challenging us and its working. 

The Tales of the Todoroki’s: Enji, Rei, Touya, Fuyumi, Natsuo, Shoto

6 people

6 perspectives

6 stories

1 truth

Each viewpoint and each experience from everyone is very important in putting the pieces together (yes, even Enji). In fact, I think it was important to have Enjis viewpoint to the situation because it was such a contrast to what we’ve heard and seen from everyone else. In Enjis mind, he truly thought everyone was complaisant. He saw nothing wrong with attempting to live vicariously through his kids. In the same breath he expresses contempt for this children, its also laced with disappointment

He speaks of Rei as though she was consensual, but we know he essentially used her a valuable Mare and hurt her as well.

His treatment of Rei cannot be erased, justified, or forgotten. It happened. We as the audience are suppose to carry that in our minds because we are reading a story about Heroes. This challenges us to understand that heroic actions is not what a hero makes.

There are cops who (most of them tbh) that become cops simply for the power dynamic, not because they desire to protect. A lot of cops abuse their spouse.

 Rei: We are only introduced to her through the lowest point of her life and we have no insight on how Enji acquired her (yeah that sound harsh, but isn’t that what happened) nor her domestic life with him. What we know of her are scenes of her pain, and I think thats relevant enough. She may have had some “good” moments out of her situation, but she was still a mouse trapped in a lions den. Good days do not erase her state. Thats why this panel, was so odd to me 

Because it implies that Rei was complicit in having kids even though we as the audience understand that he basically brought her for that single purpose. Now note, this is coming from Enjs mouth, not hers so I can’t sit her be like “oh yeah she was fine with everything”

To me, this is simply Enjis projection because what was Rei honestly going to do? Say no? But who’s to say that she didn’t want Touya to be lonely? Idk, that panel was too wishy washy for me.

Moving on

She replies to Natsuo by saying that's not true

Its not in his defense like how Natsuo claimed. Rei never states that she forgives him, and we can see she is still on her journey of healing when she mentions shes still a bit scared of him. However, she acknowledges his acts as stepping stone for his own path of atonement.

If she does come to forgive him later in the story, thats her decision (Horikoshi actually lol). If she doesn’t, that her decision. 

Natsuo: 

The only insight from Natsuo is his resentment towards his father with what happened to Touya and the hurt of their mother. It is revealed later that Natsuo was Touya confidant in the house (I’ll get into that when I talk about Touya).

But He doesn’t forgive him....or hes not at that stage yet

When endeavor saves him from the villain, we are able to see Natsuos raw thoughts:

He’s conflicted: He wants to maintain the peace, but he can’t deny how he feels.

Natsuo felt like he had to compromise his feelings, and that shouldn’t be fair. Even thought he is the middle child, I feel like he took on the presence of the big brother and wanted to protect his siblings. But when you have a man like Enji as your father and you know how he is.....standing up to him as a child is terrifying

So when Enji says this

I’m like: DUH! Of course he would feel like that

But I’m taking this scene has Enji recognizing how he made Natsuo feel as a child which showcases. he owns up to the fact that he pushed Touya to the edge.

Yet with all that said, hes not suppose to forget. Hes not suppose to suppress how he feels. And even at his age, that child inside him still hurt and was never offered a chance to properly heal. I know what that feels like.

Natsuo must figure out what he needs to do to find peace - however that may be.

Fuyumi :

We don’t have much insight to Fuyumi and I’m sure  her experience is completely different from her brothers. One, because she was a girl and Enji is misogynistic, I doubt he gave her any type of attention as a father figure especially since she only inherited her moms quirk. I don’t recall  signs of physically abuse on Fuyumi and (Natsuo), but there probably was demeaning behavior at some point. Just being in that environment and seeing their sibling subjected to that, negatively impact her however 

But with Fuyumi, she is trying to move on

I think Fuyumi is on her path of forgiving her father -  thats her choice to make to find peace for her experience.  After expressing her desire  to move on as a family, she ask Shoto how he feels....

Oh my sweet prince Shoto: 

Shoto has a lot of baggage and being one of the main protagonist, we get a more in depth experience on his relationship with is father. I’m not going to go into too much detail because we all know he detested his father. I’m mainly going to focus on this middle ground that I find him at.

In the panels above he mentions having grudges and how it clouds the mind. Thats a toxic feeling to carry with you, especially when you’re trying to be a hero. He recognized that, and he’s been working on fixing that. Even his mother had to forgive herself towards what she did to him.

Shoto is not here to forgive Enji, hes here to forgive himself

What I mean by that is the fact that Shoto experienced self-hate. He hated a part of who was, how he looked, where he came from.  He had no control of his childhood, but he now has control of his future. At the sports festival, that was Shotos first step towards finding his healing. It wasn’t about Enji apologizing to him. It was about him.

And now look at him, he’s more social, more expressive, more powerful once he began to love himself. He got there on his own and with the support of his friends.

It doesn’t change what happened to him, and it doesn’t erase his feelings However, it gave him control over himself.

This is almost the same position Natsuo is in. He hasn’t seen anything (yet) for himself that warrants him to forgive his father. Maybe we will see it in these later chapters... maybe we wont.

Thats his decision

And last: Touya

Touya, touya, touya touya......

I honestly don’t know how to tackle his situation, but shoot me

From this memory (by Enji), Touya appears...enthusiastic. He appeared that he wanted to train with his father. 

And I think this is where things went wrong in his rearing. He was GROOMED .

Enji, being who he was, probably placed the ideas in Touya head of great success, importance, power, fame, ect. These things sound good to a child, and being the only child at the time, he had all his fathers attention. But as he got older and his quirk became incompatible, things started change.

Even before his quirk no longer became compatible for him, Enji still didn't see Touya as his ideal child, but he accepted it. Touya looks to be about 6 here meaning Shoto wasnt born yet or an infant.

 Going by the ages given for Shoto, Fuyumi, and Natsuo I’m going to state that 

Touya was 13 when he staged his death

Fuyumi was 11, Natsuo was 8, and Shoto was 5 and thats when we are introduced into in abuse.

So there is a 8 year window between Touya shift in his relationship with his father and the start of Shoto gaining his quirk.

That is a missing puzzle piece, and I can only speculate what happened in that time period to drive Touya to his mental breaking point and what his father did or, didn’t do for him.

Here, there is more white in his hair and he looks to be maybe 10? And this is when he starts to question his existence.

I can’t say all that Touya went through from the time Shoto was born to his faked death. 

I think Touya suffered from feeling abandoned by his father father, the feelings of being a failure because of these ideals of greatness only to be sideline. That he was just a placeholder like the rest of his sibling and not worthy to work along his fathers side.

I don’t think he faced the same treatment from his father as Shoto did.  I think he became blinded by approval and pushed himself to his limits to compete for Enji attention, He probably developed depression, anxiety, and a lot stressors as he became more and more incompatible with his quirk

And I think thats why there is the hate for Shoto because he feels like he took away his purpose ( which has nothing to do with Shoto but everything to do with Enjis grooming)

We know Touya is absolutely not on the scale of ever forgiving his father for what he did. For him to sit there and watch his father on TV and proclaim to be a hero when he knew what went on behind closed doors, it can drive him towards wanting to retaliate. 

His story showcases damages of a broken child. Where Shouto found liberation, Touya remained bound to the ambers Enji left on his worth and lies on being a hero.

Not everything can be fixed, and once a crack forms, it will continue to spread until it shatters.

In conclusion

The Tale of The Todorokis is not to serve as excusing abuse. Its a showcase of how 1 man can affect the lives of many people in different ways. It is a tale of moving forward, finding peace, and gaining control over your own person. 

Enji knows he can’t snap his figures and all will be well.  Though I think some actions he could have done was to take it upon himself to address the country, come clean,  and maybe retire as a hero, but he’s not a perfect character.

But I’ll take what I can get. Enji knows his place, he knows what he has done.

Happiness to his family is absence

Its there space

And there nothing more better he can do than that.

[bluecryptic]

My Thoughts on Ch. 300 from My Hero Academia

(Warning: Spoilers and Opinions!)

The Hero Society is Crumbling- My dark side is satisfied. I’m not suprised that this is happening and I’m actually glad that it is. Although the idea of a society where almost everyone has superpowers and superheroes exist is cool, I’m glad that we got to see the flaws it has. The system has always been shallow and biased towards quirks, especially the hero community, well, most of them so I’m not suprised to see it crumbling down. Not when we have been showed how this kind of society that relies on heroes and quirks shaped the villains in the story.

I also like how a lot of heroes are resigning either because there are too many heroes for them to handle or how civilians that the heroes are supposed to protect are against them and the heroes can’t handle that or both. Needless to say, I like how this is going because this pretty much weeds out the “real” heroes amongst the the ones that were only in it for the fame and fortune.

Speaking of weeding out fake heroes...

Stain is Back- While I liked the ideals Stain introduced and the impact it had on the story, I never actually liked Stain as a character. I always saw his quest to “eliminate all the fake heroes” as an excessive “Notice Me Senpai!” towards All Might, given how Stain would claim that All Might is the one true hero and that All Might is the only one that can take him (Stain) down. Stain stans can come at me with the pitchforks or comments defending Stain but none of y’all are changing my mind of how I see Stain as a crazy All Might fanboy using his villainous actions as a way to meet his idol. 

Although, perhaps time in prison and the events that happened while Stain was in jail changed him and that we can expect him to suprise us. Like maybe, instead of being against heroes, Stain will be helping by being the “Villain Killer” instead. I’m a sucker for “villain turned good guy” stories done right and I see Stain’s return as the chance for one. 

Endeavor’s Breakdown- Everyone has mixed feelings about this scene and I’ve already read a few posts that talk about it and all I can say is that they’re both right and wrong. 

I think I’m one of the few people who didn’t outright Endeavor from the beginning or at least intrigued by idea of this type of character existing in this kind of story and was curious to see where Horikoshi would go with it. I like complex characters, especially those that go through some kind of development, like Zuko from Avatar of Scarlemagne/Hugo from Kipo. First off, I’m not defending Endeavor’s actions and behavior towards his family, he was an abusive piece of shit and I’m glad that karma is coming back to bite him in the ass. However, I can appreciate that Endeavor is the type of shitty father character archetype that is getting good (in terms of writing) development that is consistent to the character, the characters around him and the overall story. 

Endeavor’s breakdown and crying over how much he screwed up is just him finally not realizing how much he screwed up, but feeling how much he screwed up. I’ll also just say this in Endeavor’s defense, he can cry and should be crying. Not that he deserves to cry but rather, it’s fitting given the character and scenario. Endeavor has always been about strength and recognition along with a strong distaste for any sort of weakness. Thinking back on it, Endeavor has always tried to present himself as someone strong no matter what the situation and now, he’s at his lowest point, so naturally, of course he breaks down. 

In terms of development and storytelling, I see the breakdown a necessary plot device to push our characters and the narrative forward. As Aang said in Legend of Korra: “When we reach our lowest point, we are open the greatest change.”

Todoroki Family Reunion- Like many others, I’m glad that the reveal of Touya being alive and a villain didn’t setback Rei’s progress like most expected but rather, the opposite. I’m also curious to see what’s going to happen in the next chapter when it comes to the Todoroki’s

Now, I’d like to point out that aside from Shoto’s reaction to Endeavor’s breakdown (since it was more for comedic purposes), the rest of the Todoroki’s had reactions that pretty much sum up the reactions from the reader.

Fuyumi- Feeling sorry for Endeavor because despite everything he’s done, there are compassionate souls like Fuyumi that just want the best for everyone. It is okay to feel bad for someone even if that person wasn’t the model of a saint themselves. 

Natsuo- The understandable reaction most abuse victims would have towards seeing their abuser in pain. Like with Fuyumi, it’s okay to not feel sympathy towards the person who hurt you and your loved ones as well as believing that said abuser doesn’t deserve to feel sorry after all that’s happened since it is pretty much their fault.

Rei- So little time in the spotlight but so much development. Also, since she only showed up in the last few panels, I don’t think it’s fair to jump to conclusions on how she’s feeling about the current situation. As of now, the tables have flipped where Enji is the one having a breakdown whereas Rei who has her shit together and is still standing tall despite everything. Rei is right to tell Enji off and not giving him any pity. 

What I want to see next chapter, is Rei’s side of the story. Her, talking about her feelings, past and present. I want to see what she thinks about her dead son being alive and a villain. I read a post that talked about how Rei will want to save her Touya/Dabi but for all we know, it could be the opposite. For all we know, Rei would want Dabi to stopped. Sure, Dabi is her son and while his actions can be contributed to Endeavor’s abuse, Rei was hurt just as much if not, more than Dabi and you don’t see her going on about killing people. But that’s just speculation on my part and a part of me wanting to see Rei defending Endeavor for Dabi, not because she forgives him,no, but because she’s done letting the past weigh her down and just wants to move forward with her life. It’d be ironic that Dabi’s big plan to expose Endeavor would work against him but I digress.

The only person who knows where this is going is Horikoshi and I just want to see the drama further unfold so I can’t wait for the next chapter.

[edwardslostalchemy]

Explain the difference between endevour and Bakugou’s Behavior when it comes to treating others how they do. Thanks (:D)

This is tough because I’m so biased to believe they are both abusive. And I really just want to tell you with the Pam from the Office meme that they’re the same person. But I know that’s not entirely true. Both of these characters have inflicted damage to other characters. 

However, I acknowledge that Katsuki is still a teenager and I am holding out for hope that Horikoshi gives him proper development, that he can regret his actions, have a good redemption arc, apologize to Izuku, and be a better character. 

Endeavor is just. A monster. Because through more than 20 years, he never stopped to think that MAYBE just MAYBE he was hurting PEOPLE, and the people were his FAMILY, his WIFE, his CHILDREN. He hurt FIVE people. He didn’t even see them as people to begin with, just a means to an end. He didn’t even see Shouto as a child, he saw him as his ‘masterpiece’, an extension of himself, the perfect tool to use for his ambition. He saw his three older children as failures and neglected them, pushing them aside and separating Shouto from his siblings because he ‘lived in a different world from the one they lived in’. It is heavily implied and suggested that he has beat his wife and even on screen, the sounds that were made were obviously of him hitting her and she falls to the ground. And the way Shouto reacts, with a horrified expression while calling for his mother, is more than enough proof that that’s what happened in that one instant. He drove her to madness, so much so that she ended up maiming her youngest child, someone who had no fault in any of what was going on, but ended up on the receiving end of her meltdown, unfortunately. And what did Endeavor do? He put her in a mental hospital because she ‘hurt his masterpiece’. Not even ‘because she hurt my son/child’ or ‘because she needs help’. Because he hurt his masterpiece. His tool. We still don’t know what happened to Touya, but we do know that Endeavor had a hand in killing him, which is horrifying and so so terrible. How…how do you just. Move on from that? It’s no wonder Natsuo hates him so much. It’s no wonder Shouto has so many mixed feelings and doesn’t know what to feel. It’s no wonder Rei is so scared of him and doesn’t want to see him even if it’s been more than 10 years since she’s been there. Even Fuyumi has admitted that she feels the same way as Natsuo and Shouto. 

This is different from Katsuki. He didn’t do any of this and I really hope he never does. It would be unfortunate and sad. He has been compared to Endeavor, though, in terms of behavior, by All Might. However, he still hurt Izuku. He’s called him useless, he’s called him scum and has said he is like a pebble and like an insect he can crush if I remember correctly; he’s used his quirk on him to hurt him, and just by what we saw from the first episode, it says a lot about what he did. As little kids, he and his friends beat up Izuku. And then fast forward to middle school, he’s still bothering and hurting him. It’s quite exaggerated if I’m being honest, but still, Izuku is pushed against the wall and Katsuki stands over him threateningly. Their teacher doesn’t even do anything to stop it. After classes end, he burns Izuku’s notebook and tosses it out of the window and then tells him to kill himself. After the entrance exam for UA and they both get accepted, he pushes Izuku against a secluded wall and threatens him to not go to UA. He used so much of his quirk during the battle trial that All Might warned him not to use it or else he’d kill Izuku. And his response was that he wouldn’t get killed as long as he dodged. He still threatened him during their first semester and hit him in the face during their final exam. We don’t get to see throughout the years the extend of the bullying, just glimpses of how Katsuki tells Izuku his quirk will never be as good as his, he would leave him behind, he’d push him down; but we get to see the aftermath and Izuku does not think of himself as worthy. He has self-esteem issues, he flinches whenever he is approached by Katsuki, although this is improving because he hasn’t been stepping back recently. Katsuki can’t attack Izuku anymore because Aizawa can stop him. It’s not because he felt bad. It’s because a teacher with the means to do it finally stepped in and went ‘nope’. Aizawa doesn’t reprimand him, but he stops him. Izuku is getting better at fighting back. Katsuki can’t push him around anymore. But it doesn’t mean he’s stopped yelling at him or has stopped hurting him. He still stabs him on the head to shut him up. He’s very disrespectful when it comes to OFA meetings (and really he’s disrespectful all the time). But the thing is that now, currently in the manga, he doesn’t have that chance to attack Izuku anymore. Which is GOOD. I still see his behavior as abusive because bullies are abusive. They still hurt people mentally, physically, and/or emotionally. 

The difference is that nobody was there to stop Endeavor, but someone was there to stop Katsuki. Endeavor took a hell of a long time to realize that what he did was not right and evaluated that his reasons for doing what he did were not really….I guess enough. Or wrong. Perhaps I’m not interpreting that scene correctly, where he is fighting High End and he’s thinking “that’s the reason….the reason…” and it pans over Rei, Natsuo, Fuyumi, and Shouto. Endeavor is an ADULT who should have better judgement and better sense in treating people like people. He’s a certified Hero, but only acts heroically publicly. With his family? Not even close. He did it because he believed this was the best option for reaching his goal. But it was not an ethical option. Katsuki did what he did because his ego was inflated and people would tell him he was the best and his quirk was amazing, even by Izuku. Katsuki is a KID. And I really hope he gets better development. I really hope he stops hurting Izuku and starts treating him like a person and like a friend. (And I say this for Izuku’s sake, not his.) 

Now as far as how these two characters treat other people.

They’re both arrogant and proud, but they’re executed differently. Endeavor is arrogant in that he doesn’t want to join other heroes because he ‘is a very busy man’, as we saw when detective Tsukauchi requested his help to rescue Katsuki from the League of Villains. He also complained that All Might was getting the spotlight and not him. Why did he have to stay where he was when All Might was rushing into action? I am trying to translate this word to English, but what comes up is despot. He abuses power and oppresses others, most notably his family. However, because of his status, he is still rude and selfish with other people. His interactions with All Might are so tense. All Might goes to say hi and he’s like “is that it?” and walks away. And then he tells him how Shouto will beat him. It’s disgusting how he talks about Shouto as if he were a tool and not his son, and also he says ‘that’s why I made him’ as if Shouto is only worth being something to use instead of someone to cherish, i.e. a child. He’s beginning to atone, which is good. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth because I cannot stand abusers and I myself have dealt with someone who is awful. Not on this level of asshole, but he’s still an asshole. Anyway, back to him. He allows Natsuo to tell him what he’s thinking, which is GOOD. This is something I like because he didn’t shut Natsuo down and Natsuo was able to speak what was on his mind. Fuyumi is probably the person he has….I don’t want to use the word fondness….that implies that he cares about her, and honestly, I still want to believe that despite his abusive nature, he can at least spare some care for his daughter. I don’t know what word to use, but he lets her have dinners and convinces him to bring his interns over. He’s also trying to show Shouto that he can be a better hero, one he can be proud of. And I understand that this is part of his atonement, but it does not arouse sympathy out of me. His interaction with Hawks is interesting. He’s rude and impatient and wants for him to get to the point. However, he did not blow up when Hawks gave him a major burn on live television. Although, in later chapters, he lets Hawks give him information and it’s good he allowed this because it was so crucial. 

Katsuki is different from Endeavor in that he does blow up on people. His personality is, you guessed it, explosive. And I understand that goes with his character. Endeavor is fiery…he is fierce… Shouto is warm and cold. Izuku is full of energy he cannot contain, bouncing off walls verbally and physically. So it makes sense that Katsuki is explosive. However, he yells and threatens and tells people to die. I’ve read a post explaining that him telling people to die is a common thing to say in Japan amongst kids. Perhaps if handled differently for Katsuki, it would be funny when it’s meant to be funny. But anyway, let’s go with his explosive nature. He blows up. He loses his cool so easily and is provoked instantly. He treats people like dirt, not gonna lie. I want to believe he’s getting better. But I can’t see it. It’s so hard for me to see it. Blowing up on people that see him as a friend, blowing up on Izuku, blowing up on his classmates. Constantly telling Shouto they are NOT friends even though Shouto thinks they are. I see he has not yelled at Momo, which is good, because if he were to do it, I would be out for blood. He’s not horrible to Kirishima, and he’s getting better? Like that bit where Kirishima was insecure and he told him he was strong, that was nice. I wish he would be that way with other people, too. The way he wanted to fight all the kids during the provisional license remedial course was something. And that line he said to the leader of the kids felt hollow, but at least he stopped yelling at the kids. He’s also not 100% insensitive, because he at least listened to Shouto when he said there’s other ways of reaching out to children that DON’T involve violence, and he thought back to when Shouto told Izuku about how he was abused. He is learning to cooperate, which is something I appreciate, although he is not perfect, as we saw when he joined the 1A band (thanks Sero). I would like for him to realize, though, that his behavior needs improvement. Or at least he needs to stop yelling at everyone and should direct this anger towards villains. 

So really Katsuki doesn’t give a damn about public image, but Endeavor does. Still, both are rude and brash and flaunt their power in front of other people. Endeavor literally does this simply by having his fire mask, mustache, and beard all the time when he is out. 

I hope this is enough/satisfactory for you, anon. I tried to stay objective, but again that was difficult given how much I hate both characters. If anyone wants to add on, feel free because I’m sure I missed something, but this is what I was able to put together.

[bakedpieceofchicken]

5am long personal vent

dont interact with this

note: this post mentions endeavor a lot.

context (very important!): I pretty much binge-read an entire tumblr user’s meta posts and I found them interesting and very informative. 

I also read through their salt tag and now I’m compelled to gather my thoughts together considering the literal title I’ve held for months now is “Hawks is a lov member already”. I’m extremely socially awkward, even on this online platform, so I’m not going to mention the aforementioned tumblr user’s name because I’m too anxiety-ridden to try to contact them. This is in no way shape or form an attack on the person’s opinions nor their character. It’s me... rambling about my thoughts about their opinions at 4 am. 

Is it defending myself? Well, not really, because I don’t feel personally attacked. Just because we have a difference of opinion doesn’t mean we have to resort to attacking each other. I found their opinions thought-provoking and wanted to pick my own brain... I picked this time purposely so nobody would see this post :eyes: so like uhm yeah

note 2: “you” refers to unnamed tumblr user. sorry about weird point of view...

anyways let’s get into the meat 

villain hawks

yay or... nay...?

Well, in fanon it would be such a fun idea to play around with. Personally I think there’s potential for League of Villain interactions with Hawks. I would LOVE to see Hawks interacting with the other pro heroes, but the only pro-to-pro interaction we get with Hawks is between Hawks and Endeavor. Because the atmosphere between the pro-heroes feels... disconnected.

Now, hear me out.

Let’s contrast it with the idealized version of hero society provided in future fics. Or hell, comparing the top ten pro heroes to Class 1-A itself. We want to think all the heroes are friendly with each other and have some sort of camaraderie with each other

But Horikoshi doesn’t present it like that. 

The closest thing to that we get is Endeavor and Hawks. Other than that, the atmosphere between hawks and the other heroes seem more strained or tense (the whole miruko hawks thing is fanon). And even then, it’s... well... Endeavor and Hawks don’t truly know each other. Hawks only knows the public perception and image of Endeavor, which is the only thing he’s been given while Endeavor doesn’t truly knows Hawks either. I’m not saying the interactions are fake, but... would Hawks be acting the way he was if he knew about Endeavor’s past?

No. I don’t have any predictor to how differently Hawks would act, but I definitely sense there’d be a lot of disappointment and loss of respect for the man he was rooting for. To what extent? Would Hawks just be in complete disbelief? Or would he react with immediate anger? There are parallels to Hawks and Todoroki Rei--both were picked from the crowd and had their lives controlled because of their “value” determined by Endeavor/The Hero Commission respectively.

But honestly from an objective standpoint, I have nothing to go off of other than the fact that Hawks deeply respects and idolizes Endeavor the most out of anyone in the manga we’ve seen and the fallout of that would be of an equally shattering magnitude...

Ahh i went off on a tangent. the point is... do we really know Hawks? Does Hawks ever get a chance to just.. be himself? Maybe we see a bit of that shine when he’s alone with Endeavor, but as we saw clearly in chapter 186 he puts on a care-free facade for his fans. But in reality... he’s always working because he’s one of the hero commission’s greatest assets. 

and... here’s where our opinions clash. I truly, in the depths of my heart, believe that Hawks is building a reality where heroes have more free time comes from a more selfish desire for himself. Don’t get me wrong--I don’t want to disservice what Hawks has done for society. But also it feels like he’s the type who overworks himself because he feels moral obligation to society when... technically he doesn’t owe anything to society. 

Yes, in superhero shows and whatnot, it’s usually a positive trait that “hey this person’s been born with an amazing power and they’ve chosen to use it for the greater good! Look what they’re sacrificing!!!” But let’s say theoretically that person decides “hey i don’t want to be a hero i just want to be a writer!” Are they morally wrong for deciding not to be a hero even though they would theoretically be good at it? Even though it’s not something they want for themselves?

Because I don’t think Hawks wants to be a hero. But he also doesn’t want people to die. He’s tied himself with these moral obligations to the point where he can’t leave now because he feels it would be selfish of him to. And that is speculation, but Horikoshi isn’t exactly spelling it out for us! So, that’s how I interpret Hawks’ character. Yes, he is a true hero in that he wants to save as many people as he can, even at the cost of his pride his dignity his fucking freedom...

but also, he never wished for that. he never asked to be one who has to deal with all of this. But now that he is, what choice does he have? 

So, yes, we agree on that. But I also feel that his personal desire plays as big of a part. Because we, as humans, naturally want things for ourselves. Our personal desire for ourselves shouldn’t be downplayed at all! That’s why I believe his inner thoughts are worded “more free time” rather than “make society more safe”. Because he has his priorities! He wants the best of both worlds-- it’s a form of negotiation. He can still play the hero and less lives would be taken but he can also having some breathing room for himself like he’s always wanted.

To free himself just a little bit from the stressful life of being a hero. 

There is nothing wrong with being motivated by personal desires. Hawks is one of the most grounded heroes we’ve seen--I think he’s cynical enough that he’s self aware of this selfish desire for a freer life. And it’s selfish to him only because he knows that it would never happen without the expense of a few lives-- lives that he knew he would never forgive himself for letting slip.

I think it’s a toxic mindset.

Because as heroic as placing others above yourself... that attitude is completely unhealthy and I don’t think it should be celebrated. What I want to see from Hawks’ natural progression as a character is recognizing that it’s okay to prioritize yourself. Hell, Midoriya learned this during the summer training arc and failed to retain that lesson during the Overhaul arc! THESE HEROES DON’T TAKE CARE OF THEMSELVES!!! (ok i get midoriya’s trying). 

And if it’s selfish to desire more free time for yourself off from work, is it really that wrong of someone to do so? To want more control over your life? To want to do things you want to do rather than what others want you to do?

What does this have to do with villain Hawks? Well, I think a large desire for villain hawks is because it shows the departure of that mindset! Hawks doesn’t need to be confined to his hero persona anymore, he can finally do things he wants to do and be the free bird he’s always wanted to be.

But him becoming a complete villain is... far-fetched. This myself I recognize. I’ve only written villain!hawks once and that was because he snapped after the hero commission executed shigaraki and dabi as a show of power rather than going through the effort of trying to re-integrate the men back into hero society. I don’t want to go too deep because this isn’t the point I’m trying to make, but Hawks realizes how power-obsessed society is to the point where he doubts the legitimacy of the hero commission itself and what they do for society and its people.

But, again, that’s not going to ever happen in canon so I won’t bring it up another time. The point I was trying to make is yeah, you’re right that Hawks would never become a villain. He wouldn’t become a murderer- if he does, he definitely needs more incentive than what we can go off from canon.

And ohhh boy here we go, reaching the erm elephant in the room.

(These are the points made in the salt tag btw)

Is Villain!Hawks just an excuse to write hotwings? And what is the plausibility of Hawks turning to villainy? Would Endeavor being exposed as a child abuser be the trigger if Hawks were to turn villain at some point in the story?

Eh...

I don’t know if I even want to go into the whole “this is just an excuse to make hawks and dabi evil boyfriends” because I’ve never used villain!hawks as justification for that personally. And I’m actually not as attached to hotwings as I am to something like shigahawks... I don’t have any points to counteract this other than my desire to see Hawks interact with the entire league. Because it would be fun to see him interact in an environment he’s not wholly familiar with. With Endeavor or the other heroes or even the hero commission, he has some semblance of control or understanding so he thinks/acts like he knows what’s going on. 

Meanwhile, the League is a huge mess and they don’t have their shit together and wouldn’t it be funny to see Hawks as a part of their crew suffering with them!!! Well, that’s bias. My bias. For fanon. And for the jokes. So sad :(

So... I don’t just want to see more Dabi and Hawks interaction. I want to see more Hawks and League interaction. or just more hawks and anyone interactions overall. maybe thats all i crave

Actually going through the points one by one, let’s talk plausibility.

I already talked about villain!hawks being a... departure from Hawks’ faults in his own character. But it is pretty extreme, I’ll admit. If Hawks were ever to join the League of Villains, he’d probably never use killing as first resort. As we’ve seen in chapter 220, it’s not like the League targets only heroes... but i get the salt tag was made like 5 months ago so it’s not like new information hasn’t been released at the time of posting.

Reminds me of domestichobgoblins’ shigadabihawks fic where shigaraki even acknowledges “Whatever bullshit you’ve been telling Dabi, you aren’t a killer either, are you? So what, exactly, am I supposed to do with you?” And you know? The both are you are right. Hawks isn’t a killer and he wouldn’t become a killer willingly... unless he was pushed by some other greater force but I’m not here to address any of that. He could still provide support to the league in other ways, arguably, or just joining the league could be some kind of message to the heroes or supporters of hero society.

You are right to a degree. Hawks’ sole motivator to become a villain wouldn’t be because “OH ENDEAVOR IS AN ABUSER GUESS I GOTTA TURN EVIL NOW”.

Okay pushing past that, so why would Hawks be motivated to become a villain? In canon? I’ve already warped a lot of this post with my own fanon but I’m trying to keep within the realm of canon for this point specifically since you could take a second to push Hawks over the edge in fanon and be done with it. But why would Horikoshi specificially do it?

The fact is hero society sucks. A lot. And I think Hawks recognizes that fact being the most “grounded” and cynical of the bunch. His views and visions of hero society aren’t warped by fantasies and such (which is probably why he doesn’t like All Might...) so he understands what’s happening around him. He understands the mechanisms of hero society and how “valuable” quirks are viewed as in their capitalist society.

But also, he doesn’t  have that much of an option other than trying to lessen the burden placed upon him. Because he’s a single man, and even with his influence, he can’t change society. He’s powerless to do so, even considering who he is. He’s seen as a role model to those in society, but it’s because of his ranking that ironically fuels why people even look up to him: denouncing that would be kind of silly considering it’s the reason why people would listen in the first place.

And this is the point where I say... Shigaraki had a point. Hero society is flawed. It shouldn’t be so reliant on one person to carry it all.

But also hero society itself is bullshit. The ranking system? Horrible. The fact that the hero commission views them as tools for their own disposal? Horrible. The mere fact they basically bribe Hawks into becoming a hero? Like? “Hey kid you’re the best at being a hero so that’s what you should do. we’re only going to give you financial support if you become a hero so you might as well” like what is Hawks supposed to do in that sort of situation? Of course he’s going to succumb to the pressure.

I don’t believe in this whole “sacrifice for the greater good” bullshit. If Hawks wants to be a hero, that’s a whole another story, but if Hawks doesn’t, then he shouldn’t have been forced into that role. It’s about agency--it’s about letting him decide for himself if it’s what he wants to do. And it’s... a gray area for morality. “It’d be selfish for him to let people die!” Who is in the right to say whether or not he should use his “powers” for others’ sake? Me? You? The Hero commission?

So if Horikoshi goes down the path of “hey hero society is extremely bad and needs to change” and Hawks recognizes the League as a proponent for that change, then with a lot of development, it’s plausible in the future. I understand that Hawks, as of what we currently see, is too upheld by his own morals to ever even think about crossing that line, but people change. Hell, you recognized how the High End arc changed Endeavor and made miles of metas about it.

So, is it really far-fetched to say villain!Hawks is just a dream?

Maybe I’m a fool or an optimist, but I’d love to see Horikoshi take that path. Not because I’m horny for evil boyfriends, but it’d be a nice change of pace and we’d get to see a complete contrast of Hawks’ experiences. And it wouldn’t be easy-it’d had to be done right. Just like Endeavor’s redemption arc--if Horikoshi is still planning it. (Let’s be honest: High End Arc was not a formal redemption. I think it was Horikoshi letting the readers know “there might be something worth saving in Endeavor!” but i digress because i don’t care enough about endeavor (his character and redemption has 0 appeal to me and thats FINE. YOU DO YOU AND I DO ME, I only talk about him when it’s essential to talk about the influence he has on characters I DO care about).

As to why people like to characterize the moment Hawks decides to quit being a villain being attributed to Hawks learning Endeavor is an abuser...

The fallout, as mentioned earlier, could vary. A lot. Hawks really looked up to Endeavor when he was young. Again, shattering to find out something so nasty about the one you idolized.

To know that the one Hawks looked up used his wife just like how the hero commission used Hawks. Like an object or tool at their disposal. 

Would he be vengeful or spiteful towards Endeavor personally? To others, probably yes. To me? I’m kind of in the “eh” skeptical ballpark so I guess we somewhat agree on that. To me, Endeavor being exposed as an abuser would  crush that small slither of childish hope that hero society represents something bigger than themselves. Did Hawks ever get to have the childhood Deku had where he was still cheering on the heroes from behind the screen, or did it get crushed just as quickly when he realized how hero society truly works?

Because hero society isn’t bigger than themselves. It shouldn’t be idolized so heavily as it is presented in BNHA.

At least, not in its current state. And people who don’t fit in that group or agree with its ideals suffer the consequences. Like Shigaraki. Like Twice and Spinner. Like Gentle.

These are all villains that are products of society that promised to stamp out villains. And when Hawks realizes that it’s just a never ending cycle where the people left in between the cracks are the ones who perpetuate the system itself...

Like you said, Hawks sees the bigger picture. And his goal is to lessen the burden of the workload for heroes. There will never be a shortage of everyday criminals using their quirks for petty crimes but what about the bigger picture organizations? How are they going to be stopped? What about examining the root core of the problem and going from there? No more short-term solutions to problems... What can Hawks, mighty number two hero, do even at the expense of himself? Hmm... 

I don’t know, just some food for thought. Something I’ve seen done for villain!hawks is the hero commission throwing Hawks under the bus for some reason and Hawks either a) joins the league to gleam more information but finds himself willing to stay or b) has nowhere else to go and it’s more of a push for Hawks to orbit towards the League.

I am really thankful for your thoughts! Even though we don’t agree on things, I think discussion is still possible (whenever my anxiety stops bashing me in the head) and I’m always willing to accept I may be wrong about something. At this point in time (3/27/2019), we have less than 10 chapters released that centers around Hawks, but he’s certainly intrigued a lot of people considering he’s already #4 in popularity from so little chapters released! I think he and his introduction to BNHA represent the more cynical side of hero society that we haven’t been able to properly see from Deku’s perspective!

And I’m interested in what direction Horikoshi is going to take Hawks’ character in! The one thing I’m truly against is Hawks staying the “good little hero” in the end--whether he dies, becomes a villain, or hell even just stops being a hero is good enough for me. Free the bird or kill him off is what I’d want to see. That’d be enough of a character arc for me. Characters change, and it’d be silly to expect Hawks to stay the same especially since he has a lot of baggage on his shoulders and his current situation as a double agent for the League is precarious--despite him stating that he was willing to sacrifice his own reputation for the good of everyone, there’s no guarantee that he wouldn’t feel at least some degree of hurt over losing the respect of everyone and his colleagues. 

My thoughts are pretty clunky but maybe someone was able to gleam something from my stupid 5 am vent...

I love Dabihawks, even though I’m not as invested in it as say Shigahawks or ShigaDabiHawks (which I’m sure you’d definitely have objections to considering your other salt posts... but not something I want to address here), and I still think DabiHawks is a great ship more so because of the dynamic than the aesthetic. But hey, you ship what you ship, you are allowed to express your disdain for the ship--I’ve certainly expressed my own disdain for the your ship in the past--and your salt posts which probably took like 10 minutes to type out provoked me to type out my own thoughts which took like 2 hours to fully process. Like I said earlier: you do you, I do me.

And again-- I’m not trying to “defend” here nor am I trying to “attack”. I just had things I wanted to say and I hope I DON’T have the attitude of someone looking down on you, because I think you have very valid opinions and thoughts and sometimes discourse can just be healthy discussions about how we interpret different characters. We are literally squeezing everything we can out of one character we love and there’s enough room for different interpretations of the same character ^^ If anything, I actually look up to you, which is why I’m too much of a coward to send this to you because oh my god i am so embarrassed about a lot of the shit that comes out of my mouth and i constantly worry about if im saying wrong things even though im open to people telling me why  im wrong about said things. 

tdlr; villains hawks very good. has nothing to do with dabihawks. villain hawks very good on its own. I agree with tumblr user on a lot of things, yet we see differently on other things. The world keeps spinning--I think it’s more interesting to address differences in opinions rather than ignore them. 

(the person this post was meant for will probably never see this unless i send it to them to whcih im like oh my god what if they roast me to hell and back despite me claiming yes i amn ot trying to destroy them or their reputation i just want to talk about this because i had fun trying to think about why i love villain hawks so much aaaaa maybe i am just a delusional fangirl but im also a delusional fangirl who wrote multiple paragraphs about this so... /shrug)

end. again please dont interact. if you want to talk to me about it, inbox/dm me but i dont want this post to get notes. thank you. hides what have I done... 

this has been sorta meta but not really just chicken fucking around at 6 am and good night. maybe sometime in the next... month... ill have the courage to send this to the tumblr user. maybe when i have confidence... or maybe when i make mel look this over. that was a joke- she couldnt even finish my other meta piece which was shorter than this. :)

[tonya-the-chicken]

I wrote this post some time ago as a reply to someone and now I somehow want to post it again with some changes lol

TW: mentions of murder, referenced canon abuse and swearing

Let’s talk about redemption arcs and people’s overwhelming desire to punish fictional characters for what they did... Inspired by Endeavor hate ngl... I mostly speak about fictional charcters in this post so pllease, don’t go dumb and understand that fictional characters and irl people should be treated differently

I think sometimes people don`t understand why punishment exists in our society at all. Like, why couldn`t we just forgive? Why punishment is needed? Oh, I would like to talk about behavioural psychology, but it is kinda creepy so instead let`s remember what my teacher of LAWS said(idk what you call it in your bitchass America)

Punishment basically serves two functions:

Preventative (show others and a person that they can’t just get away with their deeds). Like, if you knew that there are no negative consequences, wouldn`t you do it? Wouldn`t you kill the old lady?

Correction and all work with a person in general (for example, you can be forced to go through some psychological help)

Also, I lied there’s one more: compensation. Like, if you stole something, then bring money back, you little shit. Or pay for therapy for your victim

So when we put it into stories and so popular nowadays redemption arcs (which I fucking adore if they are done correctly) we have 4 points out of this 3 cause the first one can be put into two

Character is punished to show others that this is not something you should do (it’s a kinda societal thing and has nothing to do with character in particular. This point in general is not interesting because it doesn’t drives changes in person by itself)

Character is punished so he himself would think twice before doing this shit again (we can’t know if person’s remorse is genuine so it’s better to simply scare them. But I can allow skipping this point if person’s remorse is clealy shown to be genuine and we as readers understand that. That’s probably the big distinction we, as readers, should see: while irl we never know persons true motives, work of fiction can provide them to us clearly)

Character changes and understands what is wrong in what he has done (the part of redemption we all love and enjoy)

Characters work hard to correct or atone for their mistakes

As we can see first two bullets has nothing to do with character development and serve for the purpose of maintaining order. The third one IS a character development and the last one is what makes people actually forgive horrible actions and not go ape shit I guess. But for some of us nothing is enough, isn`t it?

And there is one more shit that is often in redemption arcs and that shit is great and I fucking love it

Explanation of the character’s behaviour, their reasoning and motivation

I truly enjoy reading about WHY characters behave a certain way but people, remember, SAD BACKSTORY IS NEVER AN EXCUSE FOR YOUR ACTIONS. Same goes to your mental problems and hard life situation. The fact that behaviour can be explained doesn’t mean shit. Like, behaviour also follows certain laws and despite the fact that it’s sometimes hard to understand all the details we still theoretically can explain ANY BEHAVIOUR. Does this mean we can excuse any behaviour? HELL NO

So remember folks, “They had their reasons to do this” means nothing most of the time. “I wanted to try how it feels” is actually a valid reason to kill someone, you know. Of course, if crimes is not severe, reasoning suddenly can be very important like we won`t punish harshly someone who stole bread cause he is starving or cause he has kleptomania (I mean as a literal disorder). But even in that case you must pay back money cause like stealing is bad but eat the rich

let`s talk examples from bnha cause why not

Endeavour

We have Enji oh my baby you have done so much stupid shit you dumbass. Sad backstory even if will be brought up in the future, currently is not a focus of redemption at all. Like, he even doesn`t explain his behaviour too much. “He want to be the strongest, so he decided that even if his genes will make it to the top it will be enough. As a result,  blinded by his goal,   he abused his family”. Basically, it`s all the explanation we have right now. And if Hori stops at it I will be fine with it. Honestly, as much as I want to learn more about Enji’s past if Horikoshi leaves everything at this I would give him nothing but mad respect cause... This kind of shows that your reasoning doesn’t matter that much if you did horrifying things

So 3 points to redeem someone

Enji didn’t suffer any punishment for his actions (nightmares are considered punishment only if you believe in God. Also, too weak, God, try harder... And same goes for High-End). When I think about him being punished I actually worry about society’s reaction cause, like, he is number 1 hero and the fact that he’s an abuser will be, like, very shocking to simple people.Trust in hero will fall harder than my will to live during 2020. And honestly, media would just turn this into a drama possibly hurting other members of his family, like.... Enji being legally punished for his action would be an interesting plotline but in general I am not a fan

We see his genuine remorse and character growth. We all agree that he even is drawn differently now changed and trying to become a better person, yeah? Clumsily at first, but he genuinely works hard to be a better peron, hero and father. I can respecct that

Compensation… Well, you can exactly “correct” trauma so he should pay up for psychologists for each child he probably should follow the path of atonement and try to give them something he robbed them from. Like, go to family dinners with Fuyumi even though every last one of them is a disaster and nobody is happy to be there. Or make everything possible to provide Rei calm life with her children (like building a new house, yes, this is an amazing thing) or at least become *reducted cause I wanna this post to be serious and SFW*... Tbh I have nothing to say, he himself says multiple times that he seeks nothing but atonment, not even forgiveness

So like you better work bitch to make your family happy bastard... [And tbh they seem so much better then when I first wrote this post, I am so proud of you, my garbage fire man]

Overhaul

In no way is he redeemed but somehow people put Overhaul and Endeavor stans in the same category so here he goes

Kai has something Enji doesn’t: very good and detailed explanation, a plan, a smart reasoning. His wrong deeds were basically for a better good he believed in. But we all collectively hate him for what he done to Eri despite his actions having r E A S o n S. Dude has some MOTIVATION. So like yeah bros. It makes him an interesting character and he is an amazing villain but dude deserves to rot in prisons. He shows no remorse and I am gonna bet he won`t even think about somehow helping others. Dude is a shitty person. And I fucking love him

So let’s go for our 3 bullets again

Punishment. Yes, he is punished, he is in jail with both his hands cut off. Would it make people forgive him? Nah

Personal growth. I would like to see it but as far we saw barely no growth... Though maybe being in jail without quirk will make his brain work

Atonement... Dude has a Messiah complex, I ain’t waiting for that anytime soon

So I asked myself if I had two men: one who spent a sentence in jail for child abuse but is more or less the same person and another who wasn’t punished for his abuse but feel genuine remorse and actively try to make things better who will I choose? Of course, I will choose Pikachu

But is it possible to redeem Overhaul? I wonder if there`s a force in this world strong enough to make him become a better person. Welp... I am a sucker for redemptions, justt letting you know

All for One

Oh, he is irredeemable (and this is sexy). Why is he here? Cause, well

Even if he is punished there`s no punishment severe enough to describe how horrifying his deeds are

Even if he is to feel remorse… he has like 500 years or something??? And he didn`t feel anything killing people??? So why would he change today?

Even if he atone for what he’s done… I am to believe he started at least a civil war. You can`t atone for that bitch. You crossed all fucking lines, all fucking lines

AfO is literally the most evvil man in bnha... I don’t want to see him redeemed cause I love characters that are pure evil and I love the despair of realizing you can’t fix what you have done. Though you are free to have a different opinion! Who knows, maybe Horikoshi will make a classy redemption for him and I will scream out of excitement? Cause I am that kind of bitch??? Who knows! I just love to think Doctor Ujiko is gay for him

Anyway, why do people like to make this characters suffer? Like, Endeavor, Minoru, Overhaul, many others? Is this part of the “punishment” to feel like person paid for their deeds? Or do people just like fictional violence and punishing “bad” characters make them feel good about themselves? Who knows

I have no idea what this post is about I want to sleep and I like Enji though if you dislike him this is fine. I hope it was interesting reading this, love you all bye

Don’t kill me for my controversial takes, I am depressed