#the vestiges + tomura: i support all for one's rights. all for one's rights to shut the fuck up!!

[mettywiththenotes]

Talking about an au

This is one that has been on my mind since 419 and tbh I thought for sure it could happen

Remember when Tomura shed his skin during the Floating UA battle? Well I wondered if a similar thing would happen again in Mount Fuji

Picture it. In the void, AFO eats Tomura. He's dying as he's told everything about AFO's involvement in his life. AFO takes over his body, hand formed over mouth and all. It looks pretty bad. All the stuff happens with Izuku getting his arms back, the heroes coming to his aid etc. Izuku punches AFO (end of 422, beginning of 423). Here's where it diverges from canon:

Izuku punches AFO and he starts crumbling slowly, from his gut (where the impact was) to the rest of him. Except before it even reaches his chest, his face starts to crack open. Visually we can see this crack isn't the same as the crumbling of his body. It's one we've seen before, across his face in the middle of a battle. A parallel back to this

Except within the crack is Tomura's face. Tomura inside Tomura's body. Tomuraception

What happened? Well, the power of Izuku's will to stop AFO (the punch) allowed the vestiges that got thrown into the body to reawaken and bring Tomura's soul back. At the same time, minutes before, Tomura, slowly dying in the void, began to think. About everything AFO told him, how he was doomed before he was even born. How much that angered him, the rage coursing through his soul. He already had a strong will before, but now he really can't accept what has happened and he can't accept AFO getting away with it. Even if AFO's fate is to die, he'd rather be the one on the other end of it, alive and watching him. Better yet, being the hand that ultimately brings about his end

As a visual representation, it's like Tomura reaches out, desperate to climb out of the abyss he is slowly dying in, and he is met with several hands reaching back, taking his hand and pulling him out and back to the world. The vestiges, who have been reawakened by Izuku

Before, Tomura has not been able to die or stay dead. So why should this not be the same? With the power of rage, spite, his hero and some ghostly relatives, he lives on. He twists his own fate by accepting the hands that reach out and climbing out of the hole AFO threw him in

AFO's Tomura face cracks open. Tomura forces AFO's vessel apart from the head, almost like a butterfly climbing out of its cocoon, almost like he is actively prying his own cage open and escaping for good

AFO had been crumbling and was ripped open, but in a desperate attempt to stay together and stay alive (also fueled by anger at being pushed to the edge like this + Tomura somehow coming back from the dead), he uses his quirks (mostly drills) to keep his body intact for now (this is already shown in 423)

Also, I guess it depends on what you would like to believe, but the way I see it, Tomura could come back either with just his decay OR with the vestiges choosing another vessel for what little power they can give left and so backing Tomura up with the last of OFA. Aka 10th user Tomura. It's not as powerful as it was with Izuku but it still adds a lot, just enough to pack a real punch. Personally I think if we're already throwing away "what is realistic" then I might as well go big or go home and go with 10th user Tomura my beloved

It's from this point that he and Izuku begin to work together to kill the old body. As you can imagine, it's probably not an immediate bonding of friendship or whatever, but it's more or less teamwork formed with the general statement of "we still have things to work out, hero, but I don't care about that right now. I hate him more than anyone else on this damn mountain and I can't stand the thought of letting anyone else kill him but me" etc but then progresses as they fight

[villainsandvictimsalliance]

My thing with Shigaraki Tomura is that he is, without discussion, one of the best written characters of Horikoshi.

1. He is the main antagonist, but not the main villain; that's AFO.

In other words, Tomura's goals are directly opposite to Deku's goals, which makes Tomura the antagonist. However, the big villain is AFO because he's the one holding the threads and manipulating Tomura.

2. Try and compare AFO and Tomura in terms of narrative complexity, for example.

AFO as a character is rather simple. So far he doesn't have a backstory to explain why he wants to dominate the world, outside of the whole thing with him wanting to make fictional stories come true. He is always evil and manipulative. He doesn't truly care about anyone if they don't represent some advantage to him. He's been alive for many many years now, but he hasn't truly change or grow inside the narrative of bnha.

On the other hand (pfff sorry), Tomura is quiet complex. He's the product of the hero society and he has a whole story supporting the narrative of how much he has changed and grown in the course of the manga. His intentions aren't always clear because what he wants is not always clear either. He has shown genuine affection and hatreds, has shown real concern for the people around him in contexts where they were not giving him any advantage and his reason for doing things is big enough to be the main subject of the manga.

3. AFO is the greatest evil, OFA is the greatest good. Tomura is related to both sides.

He is in the middle of a war where he represents who would win. He is a symbol just as powerful as All Might, a symbol that lives in a reversed world where the heroes are the villains and the villains are the heroes (at some extent, not completely).

There's no easy way out of his situation. Unlike other villains, he had no support and the heroes felt no sympathy towards him until later, after AFO admitted Tomura's being Nana Shimura's grandson. I think Deku is the only hero who has shown to be interested in Tomura for who he is and what he's suffering, or at least he wants to know more about him before making his final judgment.

4. Actually, we as the readers forget how little the inside world of bnha knows about him.

Tomura is for us an open book. We have heard him narrating his story, we've been in his mind, we've seen his feelings raw and bare. Not even AFO knows him as we do, neither does Deku. All the people who really "knew" him are dead.

We can even say Deku has the privilege of knowing Tomura the most. It's true that Tomura doesn't go around talking about his family and what happened to him, but let's not forget:

He didn't remember well enough what happened to him until My Villain Academia.

Since his first apparition, he had been highly communicative with the heroes, despite them rejecting him and his words multiple times.

He was willing to tell his story to the League of Villains at the beginning of the MVA arc.

Hawks couldn't find much about Tomura, which says a lot when it comes to how little the inside world of bnha knows about what happened to the Shimuras.

We don't know if All Might knows about how exactly the Shimuras died. We don't know if Gran Torino knows either, because for their reactions they didn't know about Kotaro being dead, many years after the Tenko incident.

We only know that Deku knows about Tenko because he has the vestige connection with Nana Shimura, but we don't know how much Deku is aware of when it comes to Tomura's past. How much Nana even knows?

Tomura has always been manipulated by AFO. He raised Tomura to act like he does and is constantly there to shape Tomura's path.

AFO now went as far as to possess him, restricting his actions, words and even his mental space.

Kurogiri is the only other character who knows Tomura well enough, and right now he's out of the narrative.

Deku does know Tomura better than any other hero, but he doesn't know him at all like we do. For the heroes, there's no reason to save Tomura or consider him something more than a criminal. They probably don't even know about Tomura being Tenko, or how he relates to All Might through Nana Shimura.

Horikoshi has showed us not only the story of Tenko and Tomura, but also his thoughts and feelings, his point of view, how AFO took advantage of everything. He haves us info enough for us to know that Tomura is an unreliable narrator. In complete honesty, every villain is an unreliable narrator in bnha.

5. Wherever you hate him or love him, it's easy to get invested in his story.

If he started off as someone who you couldn't understand or tolerate (not my case <3), that could have changed through the story. From his first apparition to the current arc, Tomura went from a complete stranger who wanted to bring violence and chaos to the hero society, to a character we deeply know (better than many other characters) and who is being manipulated and abused to a level that has no comparison on the manga.

We know at least three generations related to Tomura. We know his childhood and have an idea of how his teenage years went. His team (the League of Villains) have deeper backgrounds stories than many other hero students or pro-heroes. We've been on his mind and heart, enough to see through his eyes while he was killing his family and while he was getting possessed by AFO. We know almost everything about his quirk, about his behavior, to the point we don't know more because Tomura himself doesn't know more.

And Horikoshi had extensively showed us with many parallels and explicit actions how he is a victim. He presented Tomura as a victim of the violence in the current system. A young man with a great hatred capable of harming children and harming himself if that meant teaching a lesson to society. The desire of destruction went from a the typical speech of the villain, to a very saddening cry for help from a person that has been abused all his life.

Meanwhile, he is also dangerous and terrible, a cold blooded killer and a global threat. He has the biggest body count on bnha (after AFO, of course), showed no remorse or morals while facing multiple enemies and there's no guarantee Deku would be able to help him or save him.

6. In conslusion, if you want to know how complex of a character he is, just take a look.

From his character design to his voice, including his many names and the changes in his behavior, Horikoshi must have spend a great deal of time thinking about Shigaraki Tomura.

He even made the whole motive of Tomura the hands, a symbol Horikoshi likes a lot.

It's all written in the many details surrounding the character. Horikoshi probably adores showing off by giving horror elements to Tomura. You can see how Tomura is a mixture of many subjects and inspirations, which reflects on the elements of gid narrative.

That's why Tomura is also my favorite character in the whole story. At least for me, there are just a few other bnha characters that in matter of narrative can compare to him.

[fedzkun]

Villain Hunt Arc Meta: All For One’s Horrific Guide to Methodically Breaking Down Your Local OFA Holder

Ft. Turning the ‘Overpoweredness’ of OFA into a Setback, and AFO’s Successful Manipulations Of Midoriya Izuku

In which I also give AFO too much credit for all the pain he’s probably caused, and theorize that his plans to break Izuku actually started getting enacted even before he’d escaped Tartarus.

(A.k.a. me loving the angst because this is really good angst writing, but also hating it because the manga doesn’t come with a Angst with A Happy Ending tag unless you count Izuku’s ‘this is the story of how I became the greatest hero’ which isn’t really a guarantee of happiness )

So. What an arc! In the span of ten chapters (starting from the end of the War arc) Hori delivered a full-on Villain-looking, Vigilante Midoriya Izuku. Congratulations, Horikoshi, for finally introducing Akatani Mikumo!

The fast pacing and lack of breather panels are so fitting for this arc truly. AFO never gave them a moment’s rest. Yes, from henceforth as he’d promised... It’s always going to be his turn.

Izuku is making amazing progress with unlocking the full power of One For All. In his words, his abilities might as well already be on par with what a healthier All Might could do, and with no recoil to boot. Plus, there’s only one last quirk to unlock. For villain fights, I don’t think we need to worry about him losing, or him breaking anymore bones at this time.

Which, some might argue, makes Izuku too ‘OP.’

To start with, I want to talk first about the ‘overpoweredness’ of the One For All quirk. It’s a wonderful quirk truly, having inspired and amazed so many because of its sheer power. Used well, it could grant instant victories and restore the people’s wavering faith to the heroes. Because with a quirk like that on your side, everything’s going to be alright, right? There’s always gonna be that bit of hope that something is still strong enough to stand against the looming evil...right?

Yeah. That’s what the people who’d lived under All Might’s Era of Peace thought so too. History repeats.

OFA’s ‘OP-ness’ is both a great blessing and a great burden.

Here are some points on how the narrative has made OFA's 'overpoweredness' a setback:

1. All For One—that bastard—exploits the urge that comes with OFA. Just as ‘AFO the quirk’s’ goal is to steal OFA, OFA’s job is to defeat AFO, and Izuku is sacrificing himself to its cause.

Here’s another thing I want to point out: The conclusion that the heroes drew about AFO planning to capture Midoriya Izuku alive? In rereading, I’m starting to believe it’s nothing but a mere assumption of his plans. Aside from the deal made with Lady Nagant—of which I think AFO didn’t take seriously anyway and set her up for failure— (and while we as readers are already aware of his true intentions to wear Izuku down) it’s weird that nowhere had AFO directly mentioned to Izuku that he’s going to kidnap him and take his quirk from him.

2. OFA made Izuku so brilliant (e.g. Pros and former Pros alike going “This kid...”) that they really can't help but place all their hopes on him. Sighs. In an ideal world, this would be a dream come true of Izuku getting his due credit for all his heroic achievements Pro heroes have started to do to Izuku what they’ve done all their lives to All Might--which is to put him on the pedestal, while they fall back to cover him like guards/safety net. Hence, falling back to the One Pillar Model mindset.

3. OFA makes Izuku untouchable, not only to the villains, but also to his allies. Prime material to reinforce isolation. And if Izuku doesn't want to be caught, he won't make it easy for either side.

4. OFA IS SUS AF, OKAY? What are the Holders doing?! While gaining access to them makes it easier and convenient to have personal trainers in handling OFA, the vestiges prove to add a lot to Izuku’s mental load. If they’d allowed Izuku to come to the point of being caked with blood and filth, they’re not doing very well at guiding him. Realize that most of their arc interactions with Izuku is Quirk Talk. They, of all people, should know how AFO’s machinations work! Hey First, for the love of god, warn Izuku! He’s showing so many signs of being manipulated that you should be picking up on. please /sobs ;;

Tbf, like, I’m pretty sure that the Holders haven’t been as mentally okay either, which would feed into Izuku’s current mindset.

Now that the setbacks have been listed, let’s dive in to AFO’s plans to toy with Midoriya Izuku.

PHASE 1: Pre-Tartarus Breakout

Speaking of OFA being sus, there’s something that has been niggling at the back of my mind.

All For One basically tells Izuku: “You were my main interest that entire time I was in prison”. So, to pass the time in Tartarus (since he can’t use any(?) of his quirks), AFO has been doing nothing but apparently daydreaming and designing a personal hell for the Ninth Holder during that entire period. HOWEVER, it also made me wonder…

…Even before he’d broken out, had AFO made any moves at all in enacting his plans to break Izuku?

Yeah?

And here’s the kicker: he says that before Blackwhip bursted out.

AFO is a master manipulator. Assuming that Izuku doesn’t have any latent AFO quirk (for whatever reason *coughs* maybe dfo if you're a believer) or that Quirk Singularity has anything to do with it, what is the trigger to Izuku suddenly having access to Blackwhip?

I’d argue that it is All For One himself.

Why? What’s his goal? If you notice during the Joint Training arc, Izuku is feeling pretty confident about his progress. He’s rather happy and feeling blessed, and he is making leaps and bounds with base power OFA.

AFO can’t have that. He can’t allow the Ninth Holder to become too emotionally stable, or else he’d have a stronger will. So by somehow activating Blackwhip, AFO makes Izuku feel like he hasn’t made any progress with his quirk at all. During the evaluations, Izuku mentions that he still needs a lot to work on, and while not all of it is visible, with the way he behaves, it’s pretty evident that his self-confidence has taken a rather large hit.

But, wait! If AFO had tampered with OFA during the JT arc, paving the way to unlocking the rest (like he’d also done during the War arc when he tried to ‘steal’ it then), then wouldn’t AFO be sabotaging himself since he’d be making Izuku a more formidable opponent?

Sure. Except that the quirks inside OFA are mostly useless when it comes to the mental part of the fighting. The only thing they’re useful for is for the current Holder to be able to play keep-away in the physical realm. And AFO could easily just find counters for those through his work on Tomura.

You know how else the situation becomes advantageous for AFO? With every quirk unlocked, Izuku’s goalposts keep on getting away from him, and Izuku will always feel like he isn’t ready or prepared enough. Izuku will push and push himself to master OFA to its fullest, to become more powerful, at the cost of his mental/emotional stability and physical wellbeing as he wears himself down.

And every time Izuku grew more powerful, and became more ‘OP,’ he is burdened with all the aforementioned setbacks that came with it. He could be the most powerful person in the world, but it’s all for naught if he doesn’t take care of himself. This plan is both a high risk and high reward on AFO’s part, and as of the moment, with a bloody Izuku staggering all over, AFO is visibly reaping these high rewards.

PHASE 2: Post-Tartarus Breakout

He’s going to toy with Izuku until Izuku fucking breaks. What follows is his series of actions that instills the desired responses from Midoriya Izuku. Let’s see how the master manipulator plays this game of chess, shall we?

Izuku’s plan: Reach out to villains and try to save them.

AFO’s counter: Kill off those who turn their back against villainy and/or acknowledge Izuku as a true hero.

Izuku’s resulting response: Stop reaching out to villains. Gain an instant victory and move on.

After all, what do you get when you block a hero from showing sympathy? You get an unfeeling living weapon.

---

Izuku’s plan: Work with the top pro heroes to bring down AFO.

AFO’s counter: Make plans that will serve to highlight how the top pros are just slowing Izuku down. (e.g. Making moves while it’s raining, so as to divide them, but also to bring out No. 1 Hero Endeavor’s "slowness" in the rain. Nope, I don’t think that’s a throwaway line at all.)

Izuku’s resulting response: Grows more reckless, often leading the charge.

---

Izuku’s plan: Track AFO down.

AFO’s counter: Lead them to dead-ends. Or when they do supposedly reach something, endanger them.

Izuku’s resulting response: His tunnel vision worsens, as he grows more desperate.

---

Izuku’s plan: All Might following him around is okay since it would help All Might from worrying so much, and Izuku could simultaneously keep an eye on and protect All Might.

AFO’s counters: There are a lot to really fuck with this bond, damn you AFO.

Taint that passing the torch memory of ‘You’re Next.’

Declare that All Might no longer interests him. Liar. He outright stated before that he’s one for keeping a grudge

Send another assassin to Izuku [Underlying Message: You yourself are a walking danger zone to those whom you dearly care for.]

Izuku’s resulting response:

Interpret that memory of ‘You’re Next’ as taking up the position of being AFO’s shiny new plaything, and therefore supposedly sparing All Might from the torment (Unfortunately, making Izuku push AM away is just part of the torment ;A;)

Think that AM is no longer in the direct line of fire as long as AFO focuses on Izuku

Finally, push his last line of morale support away, and completely isolate himself.

Btw, I wonder how All Might feels about Izuku using Nana's quirk to get away from him.

---

The suffering doesn’t end.

Izuku’s plan: Save people.

AFO’s counters: (possibly offscreen) Send more villains and assassins to torment Izuku some more with the knowledge that he can’t save them. Sending villains out also puts innocents in danger.

Izuku’s resulting response: He won’t stop for anything. He won’t sleep, won’t eat, won’t slow down. He will always do his best to save as long as someone is in danger.

His body will keep on moving and moving and MOVING on its own.

--- All For One is very effective as a supervillain. He has managed to make the heroes think that his only goal is to capture Izuku alive for his quirk. He has Izuku right where he wants him: dancing to his tune at the palm of his hand, utterly toyed with, left with no escape in sight.

Psychologically vaulted.

.

.

.

PHASE 3

And so, if Izuku is being manipulated to drive himself further and further into self-destruction, what then is there left for All For One to do?

So much more. Because, my god, I think AFO has mastered the art of traumatizing the OFA Holders.

All For One once told All Might, “I will destroy all that you’ve protected.” And boy, is he delivering. He's definitely not done with AM btw.

First, he destroys All Might's image. And he is manipulating Izuku to drive himself to that point. To looking into his absolute worst.

And when that point arrives, AFO will hammer the final nail home.

Something like...

BEHOLD

JAPAN’S SYMBOL OF PEACE.

And oh, how it'll hurt. To see All Might's pride and joy be flaunted about as looking nothing like a hero to the masses, for him to be so utterly humiliated.

"See what I did to All Might's successor."

AFO will be banking upon the possibility that the angry masses will not want to be saved by whom they're tricked into viewing as someone that's the cause of all the pain. Izuku might have the willpower to stay true to his resolve, but with him on the verge of total breakdown, what would happen when he is shunned by the very people he is trying to help?

I once wrote a post about how the current events seem to be a bastardization of Izuku's wildest fantasies: he's working with the top pros, he has the most powerful quirk, and he's working with All Might (whom technically acts as a sidekick to him rn).

AFO has warped all that into a never-ending nightmare. And Izuku...

Izuku is really in need of saving.

Last thoughts:

Let me just say that it shouldn't be a competition about who gets to get through to Izuku. Right now, he’s gonna need all the help he can get, and it can’t be delivered by only one or two people. Saving Izuku is going to be a team effort, a solid support system that sees Izuku as their classmate/friend/student/actual person that they care about. And there’s sufficient space for that.

More hands reaching out means more chances to catch him if he falls.

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 311: Hand Gun

Previously on BnHA: Horikoshi was all “thinkin’ about dropping in some woke analogies of the very real and very presently relevant issue of racial profiling idk what do you guys think” and then shrugged and did it without waiting for an answer, and ngl it was a bit sudden, but I’m here for it. All Might was all “DEKU YOU NEED TO EAT” and Deku was all “OKAY” and took his hero bento and went to go stand dramatically on a tower in the rain whilst having some highly anticipated Vestige flashbacks. OFA II was all, “sup, I guess I’m not Kacchan... OR AM I,” and ngl I think he is?? Alternate universes anybody?? Hello??? But anyway, so OFA the First a.k.a. Yoichi was all “remember that time you guys rescued me from my evil brother and Two took my hand and we Had A Moment?”, and Two and Three were all “ahh yeah good times”, and it was very nice and very, very gay. The chapter ended with it being very unclear if Two and Three have actually lent their power to Deku yet or not lmao. Y’all need to get your shit together dudes.

Today on BnHA: Horikoshi is all “what if I gave a random bad guy a fucking tommy gun that shoots nails” and jesus christ calm down son. The Hawksquad, a.k.a. SQUAWK as per @hotchocolatier​, are all “time to drive aimlessly around town acting like Deku has a restraining order on us because that’s literally the best plan to combat the League we could come up with,” and I have no further comment. Hawks is all “idk about you guys but I want to know more about AFO and Tomura’s whole deal” and I can’t remember the last time I identified so strongly with one of these characters. All Might is all, “[EXPLODES???]”, and the chapter ends with that mysterious hot girl from the Tartarus breakout being all “HELLO I CAN TURN INTO A GUN AND I LITERALLY DON’T GIVE A FUCK” and (1) WOW, and (2) IT’S TRUE, SHE CAN, AND SHE REALLY DOESN’T. GODDAMN.

(ETA: so this wholly escaped my notice on the first go, and also has nothing to do with the chapter itself, but I only just realized that this chapter was scanlated by a new group, TCB Scans. they actually did a very good job, and I’m curious if they’ve found a new RAW provider, because the quality this week is actually crazy good in comparison to what we’ve been dealing with for the past few months. I’m gonna have to get caught up on what exactly happened here lol.)

so what will it be this week? more Vestige antics? more of Sad Nomad Deku standing on buildings and pretending like he’s some cool aloof antihero, as if he could fool us when we all know his hero backpack is secretly stuffed full with his nerd diaries and the remnants of all the hero bentos that All Might keeps giving him?? or, just putting it out there, just a crazy thought, but you don’t suppose we might actually cut back to U.A.? mmm. side-eyes emoji

maaaaaan I’m starting to get tired of this trend of beginning chapters by dropping in on random power-tripping civilians and/or Shindou lol. just once can we get a chapter that opens with someone I actually give a fuck about

oh at least Endeavor is here

A WHAT SUPPORT ITEM!??! HOLY SHIT DDLKJSLFKJL

lol somehow that’s more terrifying than bullets for me?? like I’m fully aware that bullets will fuck you up way worse and that in real life nail guns probably don’t work like this AT ALL and only have a range of like... hold up let me just google... up to 100 to 150 m/s and distances of up to 500m wait WHAT

okay wait. hold up. like I was expecting google to tell me nail guns only shoot a few feet at most, and instead the first search result is some CDC blog article that’s “dispelling” the “””myth””” -- please note my repeated sarcastic quotation marks -- that nail guns can fire 1400 feet per second, by explaining that actually they can fire anywhere from 315 ft/sec to 1,295 ft/sec, and that “it is in the pneumatic nail gun user’s best interest to handle these tools as if they were a firearm despite having a lower velocity” dlkjdslkjflkl

SO THAT SCENE IN IRON MAN 3 WHERE TONY RAIDS A HOME DEPOT AND BUYS A BUNCH OF RANDOM TOOLS AND SHIT AND GOES ON TO STAGE A ONE-MAN INVASION OF AN INTERNATIONAL TERRORIST’S FLORIDA MANSION HQ IS ACTUALLY TRUE. YOU’RE TELLING ME THAT THE FILM “HOME ALONE” IS ACTUALLY A DOCUMENTARY. “the Discovery Channel television program “Mythbusters” compared the penetration capacity of an airborne projectile shot from a pneumatic framing nail gun to that of a 9mm hand gun” HELLO YES AND A MERRY “WHAT THE FUCK” TO YOU AS WELL

anyway, so. there’s apparently a reason why the Number One hero, who can burn people with the intensity of a sun going supernova, is hiding here behind this concrete support column making frowny faces. nope. nuh uh. he ain’t about that. I don’t blame you buddy

so now he’s barrel rolling out of his hiding place and setting this dude THE FUCK ON FIRE because HELL NO. BAD ENOUGH I HAD TO WATCH THAT FUCKING MUSHROOM EPISODE LAST WEEK! YOU TAKE THAT SHIT SOMEWHERE ELSE

LOL look at his face

I know the context is actually him being all “I know I’m responsible for basically everything that happened and so that’s why I’m so grim and serious about this mission to set things right piece by piece,” but in my mind this pissed-off face is 100% all because this dude tried to shoot his eye out with a nail gun. look at that. you made him go full flame face again. beard and all. protecting his face so that it can hopefully melt any stray nails that get too close. nope nope nope

good lord. so what’s up next. let me guess the guy fighting Best Jeanist has like an atomic chainsaw or some shit

lol nope we’re just cutting back to Hawks and Jeanist chilling in the Jesla after they’ve wrapped things up

Jeanist has got some serious Groot energy you guys jesus christ he’s like 12 feet tall

oh snap someone threw a pipe at him now

today is just the chapter of Endeavor being assaulted by random DIY tools I guess

I mean, I get why they’re pissed at him obviously; I would be too lol. but tbh I also don’t really understand the “get out of here we don’t want your help” attitude that all of these people suddenly seem to have?? like it if were me, I would be fucking DEMANDING for him and the other heroes to be working round the clock to fix their stupid mess. I mean who else is gonna do it?? it’s their mess, I sure don’t want to be the one to clean it up instead. anyways but whatever lol

oh shit?

so they haven’t dropped the whole “OFA secret potentially gets revealed to the world” thing yet after all. that makes sense I suppose, it did seem like that whole thing wound up playing out a bit too easily

anyway so yeah

the locals are definitely none too happy. well at least Dabi’s got something to be cheerful about I guess

so now we’re cutting to the interior of the Jesla and they’re chitchatting about the current investigation

oh wow this actually makes a bit of sense now. so there was a reason they were keeping their distance from Deku

please note that even in this abstract Endeavor’s-Mental-Image-Of-Him panel, Deku’s eyes still don’t have the light in them anymore :( my poor son

also ftr I still think using Deku as bait in this particular sense is the shittiest idea ever ngl. like sure, let’s let the sixteen-year-old run around battling miscellaneous escaped prison convicts while we stay several kilometers away ON PURPOSE despite the fact that you’re using him as bait to draw out the Big Bad, who just a reminder can destroy anything with a mere touch and who you were all basically helpless against. what exactly are you all planning to do if Tomura or one of the other League VIPs actually shows up to retrieve him?? are you even keeping tabs on him at all in real time?? jesus

(ETA: well that escalated quickly lol.)

Horikoshi is all of a sudden dropping whole pages of exposition here and I can’t be bothered to summarize this lol so just,

a big fat YES to what Jeanist said, though. that’s why imo they would have been better off laying a trap at U.A. rather than just wandering around out in the open. I assume they’re trying to cut their potential losses because U.A. is full of students (and civilians), but those students also happen to be more capable than pretty much anyone else in the manga at this point. and tbh they’re already in life-threatening danger regardless of how things play out from here on, so they might as well at least try to use the few advantages they have right now. U.A. is almost certainly going to come under siege at some point anyway, so they might as well prepare for it

lol I don’t think I’m explaining this very well because I don’t have the patience right now to break it down point by point like it really ought to be, so for now I’ll just say that imo “U.A. siege” stands a good chance of being the eventual endgame even now, and so this whole “Deku runs around being bait” arc is really just killing time until then lol. like and subscribe for more rambling nonsensical takes such as this. maybe next time I’ll even put it all into one single sentence for maximum meandering senior citizen rant value

well it’s nice that they’re finally talking about all of this I guess

we readers have known all of this for months now but this confirms the heroes are finally caught up. ALSO, Hawks is so fucking smart, as always. kinda wonder if things would have played out differently if All Might had let him in on the secret a bit earlier. probably that’s why Horikoshi made damn sure they didn’t find out until after the War arc lol

OH MY GOD YOOOOOO HAWKS OUT HERE ASKING THE REAL QUESTIONS

“anyone else wondering why AFO bothered to raise Tomura as his fake heir for fifteen years when he was secretly planning on taking over his body the whole time” YES, [raises hand] lmao Hawks where the hell were you when I was debating this “AFO is the final villain and Tomura is just his pawn” thing on multiple occasions over the past several years lol

lmao seeing them debate the metaphysics of OFA and all of its mystical bullshit is seriously surreal you guys

JEANIST HAVE YOU CHECKED OUT MY META TAG I HAVE WRITTEN SO MANY ESSAYS. I ACTUALLY WAS PLANNING ON WRITING ANOTHER ESSAY ABOUT THE THING THAT I’M PRETTY SURE HAWKS IS ABOUT TO BRING UP, BUT I NEVER GOT AROUND TO IT WHOOPS, BUT MAYBE I WILL NOW LOL LET’S SEE HOW IT GOES

yes!!

WHICH AFO FUCKING ENSURED HE WOULD BE BY LITERALLY PLANNING OUT EVERY LAST DETAIL OF HIS FAMILY TRAGEDY, FROM SECRETLY GIVING TENKO THE QUIRK TO MAKING SURE NO CIVILIANS OR HEROES WOULD HELP HIM UNTIL AFO FINALLY STEPPED IN. I’M 1000% CONVINCED THIS IS THE CASE YOU GUYS. NOT JUST BECAUSE I’M NOT A FAN OF “THE WORLD IS A FUNDAMENTALLY SHITTY PLACE, ACTUALLY” TAKES BECAUSE MISTER ROGERS TOLD ME TO ALWAYS LOOK FOR THE HELPERS, BUT ALSO BECAUSE IT LITERALLY JUST DOESN’T MAKE A LICK OF SENSE OTHERWISE. THEIR ENTIRE HOUSE CAVED IN FFS, YOU’RE TELLING ME NONE OF THE NEIGHBORS FUCKING OVERHEARD THAT SHIT AND WENT “UMMMMMMMMM” AND WENT TO SEE WHAT WAS GOING ON?? “DIDN’T THERE USED TO BE A HOUSE HERE, AND LIKE A WHOLE FAMILY, AND SHIT?”

LIKE I’M SORRY, BUT IT’S ONE THING TO SAY IT’S REALISTIC THAT NOT A SINGLE PERSON WOULD ATTEMPT TO HELP THE WANDERING TRAUMATIZED CHILD AFTERWARDS (WHICH I DISAGREE WITH AS WELL BUT AT LEAST THAT’S MORE SUBJECTIVE), AND IT’S A WHOLE OTHER THING TO ARGUE THAT IT’S REALISTIC THAT NO ONE WOULD BE FUCKING NOSY. LIKE THAT’S A WHOLE DIFFERENT LEVEL OF “THAT’S NOT HOW ANY OF THIS WORKS” ENTIRELY LOL. anyway tl;dr AFO is a piece of shit and Tomura’s entire worldview is based on a magnificently intricate and savagely cruel lie more at 11

anyway so after all that ranting it looks like that wasn’t even what Hawks was talking about after all lol. I just went off for absolutely no reason lol oh well. instead it seems that Hawks is suggesting that Tomura’s carefully cultivated hatred might not yet have actually reached “can defeat OFA” levels even after all of that trauma. interesting!

don’t mind me, I’m just sitting here while my brain furiously scrambles to put together all the parallels between Hawks and Tomura that it never noticed before until exactly this second. like I’m not even sure that was the intent here at all (I need to check out another translation or two lol), but regardless my mind decided that now would be the perfect time to make the connection between these two twenty-somethings who both had horrific childhoods and spent years being molded by their respective manipulative guardians, and developed eerily similar “laugh at everything because what else can you do” coping mechanisms to deal with it all hmmmmm

anyway so they were talking more about their strategy, but now all of a sudden Jeanist’s phone is beeping??

AND NOW WE’RE CUTTING AWAY TO ALL MIGHT AND HIS MIGHTMOBILE DAMMIT so that means the call to Jeanist was actually something important then!! WAS IT BAKUGOU OMG. DOES YOUR INTERN WANT A WORD FFFKLFSJK please it’s been so long I just need a little crumb or two to tide me over lmao have mercy

anyway so All Might’s following the GPS tracking device he’s apparently got planted on Deku (which in my conspiracy headcanons he’s actually had for a long time now, like since before DvK2 lol because HOW ELSE WOULD HAVE HAVE KNOWN THAT THEY WERE FIGHTING EACH OTHER IN GROUND BETA, PEOPLE) and thinking angsty thoughts about Deku’s sucky life

AND NOW ALL MIGHT’S PHONE IS RINGING TOO?? BAKUGOU HOW MANY PEOPLE ARE YOU CALLING. “WHERE ARE YOU HIDING THE NERD GODDAMMIT”

OMG

lol is he under attack or is he just finally giving All Might the slip like we all know he SECRETLY PLANNED TO ALL ALONG oh my poor dumb angstmuffin

OMG AHHHHHHH WHAT

DID ALL MIGHT JUST FUCKING DIE LMAO NO OF COURSE NOT, BUT WHAT

WHAT IS HAPPENING OMG

THE FUCK IS THAT. AT LEAST IT’S NOT A NAIL

OH IT’S A SPEAKER!! OMG DID THEY TAKE ALL MIGHT HOSTAGE

“THEY’RE HERE” WELP, TIME TO SEE JUST HOW SHITTY THIS SHITTY PLAN REALLY IS LOL

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

SHE!!!!

omg. AND OVERHAUL JUST CHILLING THERE IN THE BACKGROUND ALL “WHAT DO YOU EVEN WANT ME TO DO I’VE GOT NO FUCKING ARMS” YEAH GOOD RIDDANCE LOL

DOES THIS GIRL HAVE ONE GIANT LEG OR WHAT, LIKE WHAT’S THE DEAL HERE

-- HOLD UP WAIT, THE GUN IS HER ARM, HOLY SHIT SHE CAN TURN INTO A GUN -- OKAY HOLD UP BECAUSE I NEED TO SAY THAT IN BIGGER TEXT BECAUSE !!!!

YOU GUYS, THE COOL TARTARUS GIRL IS BACK AND HER QUIRK IS “CAN TURN INTO A FUCKING GUN.” THIS IS NOT A DRILL!! MY BEST GIRL MT. GUN IS FINALLY BACK ON THE SCENE WITH HER QUIRK “CAN DO ANYTHING A GUN CAN DO.” “I HEARD Y’ALL WENT AND NAMED ONE OF YOUR HEROES ‘GUNHEAD’ EVEN THOUGH HIS HEAD ISN’T EVEN A GUN, LIKE WTF IS UP WITH THAT LET ME SHOW YOU HOW IT’S DONE” DANG OKAY

lmao only fifteen pages this week, and STILL NO KACCHAN (THEN WHO WAS PHONE!!!), but man I don’t even care because finally we’ve got a cliffhanger that’s actually deserving of being a cliffhanger! hot dog. okay then

[stillness-in-green]

Chapter 355 Thoughts

Herein: Endeavor, Jirou's big moment, and me lamenting the long-lost AFO With Nuance.

On Endeavor

 •   The discrepancy in Enji’s recollections of his sons is, in fact, completely great.  Shouto with the glare but the small sweatdrop of awkwardness, and Touya with the big happy deranged grin.  One of your sons is so happy to see you, Enji!  It’s also notable—as others have talked about at more length than I will—that Endeavor’s thinking directly about Touya for the first time since the reveal.  He’s previously shied away from it somewhat, using kanji/furigana mismatches to conflate "my son" with “a villain,” and being extremely vague every time Shouto tried to pin him down on the matter of going and doing something about Touya, but here his thoughts are aimed directly at both of them, "facing" them even if only in his mind.  A positive sign, I feel.

 •   I think it’s interesting that he lists “this fight” among the things he brought on himself.  The wound, sure; he slipped up and let AFO get that attack in.  But the fight itself?  Hawks and All Might planned those match-ups; the most Endeavor did was go along with it against his own misgivings and guilty conscience.  Should we take this to mean he’s now thinking he should have put his foot down and gone to face Touya instead?

 •   People (both in the fandom and in the chapter itself) seem very confident that Endeavor will be right back up, and they’re probably right?  But I wonder.  Endeavor tries to get back up, but he falls, and then there’s that close-up of all the blood in the grass, spreading ever farther.  It feels ominous. I don’t think Endeavor’s going to die, and frankly after all the hurt he’s taken in previous fights, it would feel a bit odd for one wound in his side to take him down.  The manga has ever been inconsistent when it comes to how much lasting effect any given injury is going to have, but since that inconsistency typically resolves in favor of “whatever’s going to make things more convenient for heroes,” Enji staying down because of this would be a swerve, and a welcome one.  I guess we’ll see.    

On AFO and “Extras”

I kind of hate this.  I’ve complained about it periodically before, and maybe it’s just sour grapes from having read him wrong, but late series AFO really is such a disappointment  This is a man who built an empire out of little people, one power exchange, one favor at a time.  At Kamino, he said he hated All Might for taking out his support network, for standing atop a pile of bodies of AFO’s allies.  He always recognized Tomura’s choices in allies.  His nemesis is One For All, a power built up through the lives of “small” people.  Hell, if you take Vigilantes as canon, it’s only been a few years since Koichi’s big finale, in which AFO explicitly recognizes the power of ordinary people to rise to the occasion in extraordinary circumstances and calls that a specific danger to him in modern times.  So why on earth is he so dismissive of “extras” now?

From a Watsonian perspective, I favor the explanation that he went kind of crazy in Tartarus; it’s also about the only explanation I don’t find exceptionally tiresome, but sadly one that is almost certainly not the intended read.  It’s just so easy, so unchallenging, so plodding.  And frankly, it makes AFO act stupid.  If he can’t imagine that little people could pose a threat to him, it leaves him completely flat-footed when they do, and that’s just the deadliest fuckin’ thing for his believability as a “mastermind”-type villain who can’t shut up about all the different paths and plans he has available to reach his ultimate goals.

He and his vestige have been trending this way for some time now—certainly since Jakku!—but it’s reaching new heights since the beginning of this arc.  It’s like I’m watching Horikoshi flanderize this man in real-time.     

Jirou and Friends (and AFO and Bakugou)

Man, I wish BNHA actually had the ensemble chops to land this moment.  But like, if we were really supposed to buy Jirou getting angry about her friends crying, maybe we could have had a) any more significant relationship between Jirou and Midoriya than him helping her organize her notes that one time and b) any relationship between Jirou and Aoyama at all.  

The most generous read I’ve got is that Midoriya and Aoyama were on Jirou’s mind because she’d been thinking mere seconds prior about how those two have been living with the terror of AFO’s looming threat,(1) but it would have hit so much harder if Jirou had had any significant presence in Deku or Aoyama’s arcs before, or had been shown as the type of character who’s overtly friendly with everyone.  Hell, what would be so wrong with letting her get up in arms for her own sake, wanting to prove she’s no extra, or that AFO is wrong to spit on the efforts of people like her just because he doesn’t think her quirk is duly impressive?

When you put it together with the A Band reunion back in Chapter 327 and the total lack of pay-off on that thread, it’s enough to make a blogger wonder if there was something else originally planned for Jirou and this is a hurried sub-in moment after that idea was scrapped.

You know who feels like he ought to be having this plot?  Mr. “Extras Should Just Get Out of the Way” himself, Bakugou Katsuki.  Honestly, with as over-the-top as AFO is getting with the extras talk, I very much wonder if Bakugou will end up having to fight him after all—maybe if Kurogiri gets sprung and shuffles the fights again?  AFO having nothing but derision for weak quirks and thinking that extras serve no purpose but to make him look cooler in their defeat feels so precisely calibrated to mirror early Bakugou that’s it’s hard to imagine it’s a coincidence.

This is not to say that I don't enjoy AFO getting ganged up on by relative randos! And that, too, is thematic in its way. Jirou (and maybe Tokoyami next chapter?) getting something like this is very cool. But I wish it could come in a context where I was more convinced by BNHA as an ensemble piece. With any luck, this will be a first step of the series finally properly turning away from the mentality the heroes still have, of using big "important" people to fight important fights.     

AFO and Vestiges (What’s New, Pussycat?)

Once again, AFO gets all the good vestige drama.  I ask you, gentle readers, why didn’t we ever get to see Deku have to struggle with vestige interference?  Why can’t Shigaraki get some assists from vestiges who hate AFO more than they have any opinion about this new kid?  When will we get to see Vestige!Ujiko?

This is another case, though, where it’s difficult to credit that this should be such a surprise to AFO.  Has he really never had a (non-New Order) vestige try to fight him before?  Would they not have contributed their efforts when All Might drove him into a corner in their backstory fight?  I largely like the idea of them banding together only when it seems that their efforts could make a crucial difference, but it would carry more weight if we had ever gotten to see their perspective before.

And there’s even an easy prospect for that!  AFO has Search, Ragdoll’s quirk, so why haven’t we ever once seen her in any of these vestige scenes?  Hell, she could even have gotten a line or two explaining why this is only happening now, maybe a flashback to what it's actually like to be a psuedo-sentient quirk ghost trapped inside AFO. She could be the one leading (or maybe coordinating, given the nature of Search) the charge, because that's one of the things heroes do: inspire others to take up the mantle themselves.     

Jirou’s Injury: Is It Sexist?

Here’s my opinion: The talk getting around about Horikoshi being a big gross sexist, possibly one with a fetish for brutalizing women, because of Jirou getting one ear jack blown off is not entirely without merit, but it is pretty oversimplified.(2)  Only two women have been irreversably maimed beyond simple scarring thus far: Mirko losing two limbs, and Jirou losing half her quirk.  Compare Aizawa losing an eye and the lower part of one leg, Mr. Compress an arm, Re-Destro both his legs, and Overhaul both his arms and his access to his quirk, and you’ve actually got twice as many men as women taking those lifelong, irrecoverable injuries!

Also too, that’s only talking about people who were significantly and, thus far, permanently impacted by their wounds.  If you expand the scope somewhat to people who were maimed with less severe impact on their combat effectiveness, you get people like Jeanist and his lost lung, and Hawks and all his lost feathers.  You also have to talk about people like Mirio or Shigaraki, whose maimings were severe but temporary, or Gran Torino, who didn’t lose an obvious limb, but who still doesn’t seem to be back in fighting shape, given that we still haven’t seen him out of a hospital bed.  

Virtually all the characters in these latter categories are men; the only female character I can think of that fits any of those particular bills is Lady Nagant, who at present seems to be in the Gran Torino tier.  Two women compared to four men, or three women compared to nine men: it’s not exactly the clear-cut damnation a lot of people talk like it is!  And Mirko bounced back like a damn jai alai ball, while Jirou still has enough oomph for supermoves, whereas Aizawa’s big contribution at the moment is holding hands with Monoma, and Overhaul can’t access his quirk at all!

That said, the numbers absolutely do get much worse when you start folding in deaths.  I would say that twice as many prominent/significant women have died in this series than similarly placed men—Nighteye and Twice compared to Magne, Curious, Star & Stripe, and Midnight.(3)  It looks even worse when you consider the percentages of women overall in the groups that lose them: three women versus eleven men in the UA staff; one woman and four men in the MLA; two women and six men in the League circa meeting Overhaul.  And so on; in all cases, men drastically outnumber women, but women die at exorbitantly outsized rates.

That ties into a further disparity, which is the gender balance on which characters are allowed to keep contributing to the plot after their injuries, versus which ones die or get booted off-camera.  

For the men, you once again have Twice and Nighteye, and I would add Overhaul as well—his brief return doesn’t see him doing anything remotely significant save giving Deku a quick moral trial.  You could possibly count Gran Torino as well, though he at least got to give Deku some words of advice for the road, and it remains to be seen whether he might make an appearance at e.g. the hospital Spinner’s currently attacking.  That’s four men significantly removed from prominence out of a list that I would probably say constitutes eleven men overall—add on Aizawa, Mr. Compress, Re-Destro, Best Jeanist, Hawks, Mirio and Shigaraki.

For the women, conversely, Jirou and Mirko are the only two who have bounced back, from a list that would in full include Lady Nagant, Curious, Star & Stripe, Magne and Midnight.  Fewer women on the overall list than men, but the men have much better rates of recovery.  There’s no getting around the fact that Aizawa wakes up in a hospital after chopping off his own leg like a badass while Midnight dies on her hands and knees.

Which also brings up the topic of how sexualized women’s injuries are compared to men’s.  Off the cuff, and without going back over all the relevant scenes in detail, I feel like there’s at least some measure of reflexive sexualization of women’s bodies going on there, stuff that is being read in a worse light than Horikoshi intended it.  I would call it a factor with Midnight and Mirko for sure, though, and I might think more with some research.  The only male counter-examples I’d even consider broaching would be Mr. Compress (shirtless, posing, dramatic reveal of his hair and unmasked face; it’s all very intentional and agency-having compared to the women) and Shigaraki, who we really do have to watch get brutalized, shirtless, at profoundly uncomfortable lengths and extremes; he does far more agonized floorbound writhing, for example, than Mirko, though their respective outfits mean you see a lot less of his thighs when he's doing it.

So, yeah.  The trouble isn’t the simple number of women taking bad injuries, nor even the extent of those injuries.  The trouble is how impactful those injuries are on the whole, and what percentage of women are taking them compared to the men.

That said, Jirou’s not out of the fight yet—again, she still had the oomph for that big supermove—and as a 1-A student, I don’t expect her to be bowed out of what remains of the plot entirely, at least not more gallingly than any number of the second string 1-A kids.  Her injury was not sexualized at all, and while it was somewhat graphic—that panel of her severed jack!—I wouldn’t say it was more graphic than, say, Shigaraki getting his fingers pinched off by RD, or pretty much anything going on with the remnants of Dabi’s face.  We’re also very early in this fight still; there’s lots of time for more students to take more injuries, so the full scope of how 1-A’s girls fare in this fight compared to the boys will not be apparent for some time yet.  

That all said, while I would call Jirou’s injury part of a larger pattern, I’m not prepared to jump to “Horikoshi was just sitting at his desk slavering at the chance to brutalize this teenage girl.”  Frankly, I’d far rather see girls out there taking an active role in fights against major threats like AFO and Near High Ends and taking their licks for it, like Mirko and Jirou, than girls sequestered in support roles on the sidelines and never getting anything interesting to do, like poor Momo.  And I will feel even happier about it if some boys—any boys—take some comparable licks too.

Stray Thoughts

 •   “I could tell from the sound of his breathing, which my feathers picked up on.”  Lawd, this is stilted.  Why would Hawks need to tell himself the bit about his feathers?  Surely he himself knows the method by which he detects Endeavor’s breathing?  Some of his lines here I could chalk up to him being a very methodical thinker in combat—as is the case with, “We go forward with that assumption!”—but some of it just feels like a combination of Horikoshi holding the audience’s hand(4) and C.Cook’s translation being awkwardly phrased.

 •   Dark Shadow asking after Jirou: what a cutie.  I like it when he interacts with other people—Tokoyami, of course, but the rest of the class as well.

 •   I’ve really enjoyed the dynamism of this fight.  I’m deeply tired of the BNHA fight scenes all boiling down to Deku punching and/or kicking something really hard, or people like Bakugou, Shouto and Endeavor all having these huge elemental-based attacks that might be distinguishable in color, but just aren’t very interesting in black and white.  Also, like, none of those people can truly fly; they can only propel themselves violently in a certain direction.  So the high maneuverability of a true aerial combat between AFO, Hawks, and Tokoyami-carrying-Jirou, with Hawks in particular zipping around with a pair of swords, and Jirou and AFO’s attacks tending towards more serpentine visuals, has been a welcome corrective.

-----

1:  Which is a fair cop for Aoyama, but is on thinner ice where Deku is concerned, seeing as he and AFO never had a direct encounter at Kamino, the Jakku encounter was AFO’s vestige rather than the man himself, and the post-Nagant material was spurred on entirely by a prerecorded video.  Deku had never met AFO face to face until literally the beginning of this combat.

2:  And, tumblr being tumblr, wildly over-accusatory.

3:  Counting all named deaths evens the raw numbers somewhat, but I categorically refuse to grant side characters and one-offs like Native, Majestic and Snatch the same prominence as arc-starring characters like Star & Stripe and prominent arc villains like Curious.  Crust comes the closest to making my cut, but he’s just such a one-joke character, completely lacking the slightest hint of interiority, that even though he’s in twice as many chapters as, say, Curious, he doesn’t have half of Curious’s motivation, personality and clear sense of history with her compatriots.

4: 1:  I wonder, sometimes, if Horikoshi was a little traumatized by that whole thing where he had everyone writing in to ask him about Deku using OFA One Million Percent against Muscular and having to explain that that was just Deku thinking 1,000,000% to get himself hyped up, not a literal representation of his power output.  The BNHA fandom is full of pedants, East and West alike, it seems.  (I say this as an unbelievable pedant myself, of course.)

[ignitification]

if deku’s inner child saw tenko crying in the shared subconscious realm within afo/ofa even when tomura envisioned his inner child differently (i.e when he reassured his mum he is okay now), is it possible that tomura saw deku’s inner child hurt, crying, and alone in his pov?

even with him growing more confident and self-assured and reclaiming deku, there is absolutely no way deku’s inner child is fully healed - not when there is so much that hasn’t been acknowledged, addressed, and challenged by deku himself

This is an interesting insight into Izuku/Shigaraki’s relationship and connection. I think that it is technically possible that the Izuku Shigaraki saw - is different from the pictured or present Izuku (or better, the kid Izuku pictures himself to have been). I also think that possibly the resemblance between the two of them and the vision Shigaraki had inside the Vestiges might be one of the breaking points, or things which he can recall before being taken over, which convince Shigaraki to trust Izuku and let himself be saved - as he knows that while Izuku grew up and got to pursue his dream as a hero, is not all gold what shines; and the crying and struggling Izuku inside of him - which has never moved on from himself being Quirkless and being therefore denied entry into society - is how Izuku is actually like, and their souls can connect over this simple, and yet powerful shared characteristic. It would also be presumable that it might happen right before ShigarAfO takes over OfA - as if waking from a dream, in a way where Izuku’s hand represents the cold, and yet daring, reality and the fog which instead surrounds Tomura in that moment and is hot, and peaceful, is him letting go and giving full control of his body and persona to AfO.

On another note, I think that if you are right - it also cements into place the possibility that Izuku himself might need to be saved, and that Shigaraki will be the done that instead of destroying with his hands (which, as he has learned, is the only things he is good at or that he can possibly do, at all especially since the LoV got disbanded by AfO, therefore making Shigaraki lose his safety net as well as his moral support), is the one to try and extend his own toward Izuku, because of the fact that Izuku did offer him a hand, not maybe while he needed most, but right in the moment where he could finally reach (out to) him. It would be interesting however to see, whether as Izuku sees a different Shigaraki, the latter could see an Izuku which is different from how other people see Izuku himself (and therefore, not as a hero - but rather as someone in dire need of a helping hand, which instead of being given Izuku has ever only extended). 

[sarahjtv]

BNHA 304 Spoilers Some Thoughts: Vestiges

This was a meaty chapter with a lot of One For All lore and theories, so I’m going to put in a some thoughts down because I’d be writing an entire essay if I did a deep-dive into this chapter otherwise.  Also, I’m using the ReadHeroAcademia Fan Translations, but I think they were kind of wonky this week for some reason, so apologies if I get some stuff wrong, especially when the official translations come out:

We now see all the OFA users in their real forms except for All Might of course.  The 2nd and 3rd users aren’t in the shadows anymore, but they’re facing the wall because of course they are.  One of them has been speculated by many fans to be Bakugo or one of Bakugo’s decedents mainly because of his hair.  I’m not entirely bought on that yet, but I can see it.  I don’t think it’s Bakugo himself, so I’m leaning more towards the ancestor thing.

The 4th user’s name is Hakage Shinomori.  He lived in the woods (it’s implied that he did it to stay away from society), had OFA for about 18 years, and trained it enough to pass it down to the next user being Banjo.  Oh, and he’s pretty 😳!  And he died of old age at only 40 yrs old 😰

Edit: The official translations say that his first name was Higake.  Also, he didn’t know exactly how he died until All Might dug up his medical records and autopsy from present day.  OFA did cause that crack on his face and Shinormori thought it was a disease that killed him initially, but that was not the case.

I actually did look back at Chapter 257(?) where All Might was talking to Deku and Bakugo about the previous OFA users to make sure Shinomori really did die of old age and looks like he did!  The panel that shows all the previous holder’s deaths shows the 4th user looking old and tired.  I didn’t see any blood or injuries on him.  Good consistency, Horikoshi!

It definitely looks like Banjo (the 5th user) likes messing around with Shinomori as he’s messing with Shinormori with his Black Whip and Shinomori is just avoiding him with his Danger Sense LOL!  I wonder if the two had this dynamic when they were alive since Sinomori would’ve probably trained Banjo at some point being the 4th and 5th users.  

Quick tangent, but I really want to know the 6th user’s deal (the black haired Tobio Kageyama look-alike with the Best Jeanist collar).  He’s been on full display since we’ve first saw the vestiges, but we don’t know his Quirk yet (Is it VOLLEYBALL??) or how he trained Nana Shimura.  I’m thinking his Quirk is next on Deku’s Awakening list.  I want answers, Horikoshi!

Also, Deku can talk in the Vestige World now, but it’s broken speech.  Thankfully, it’s enough for the Vestiges to understand, so they’re able to answer his questions and comments fine.

Now to the big topic at hand: One For All is best possessed by Quirkless people and Deku is most likely the LAST user of OFA.  

Shinomori says that OFA can no longer be held by “Normal People”.  This interested me when he said it because my initial thought was that he was talking about “Quirkless” people.  But, then I remember that it was established in the VERY BEGINNING OF THE SERIES that 80+% of people in the BNHA world have Quirks.  So they are considered “Normal People” in this universe.  

The explanation they gave for why this is is A LOT!  But basically, OFA is just too much for people with Quirks.  Their glasses are full when they get their Quirks.  Adding OFA to that overflows that cup and cracks it (Horikoshi gives us a nice visual, so it’s easier to explain).  Because of that, OFA actually chips off a Quirk user’s life-span by a lot.  IT AGES THEM SIGNIFICANTLY!!!  That’s why 40 was considered “old age” to Shinomori.  That’s why he died so quickly.

Edit: I was worried that the fan translation for this explanation would be wrong when the official translations came out, but thankfully it isn’t that far off.  It’s basically the same explanation just worded differently.  Again, I think the visualization with the cups helps a lot.

But, because All Might was Quirkless, his glass was empty.  It wasn’t until he was given OFA that his glass was full.  All Might, in a way, made OFA is very own Quirk as if he was born with it.  Also, All Might seemingly has the power to summon the Vestiges willingly though he doesn’t know it yet.

Edit: Ok, the part where All Might can summon the Vestiges willingly was not in the official translations, but based on how his hand on Deku’s cast is drawn, I don’t think the fan translations were too far off.  All Might can at least feel them inside Deku at this point.

AND, based on what’s said, All Might’s has had OFA for 40 YEARS!  So, doing the math, if All Might got OFA at 14-15 yrs old + 40 yrs = All Might is at least 54-55 years old at this point.  I thought he’d be around this age, but now it’s pretty much confirmed.

A lot of info is still unknown though such as how and why OFA adapts with the User’s original Quirks.  Though it is clarified that Quirkless people do have the most potential to hold OFA.

The 1st User says that having All Might and Deku inherit OFA was a miracle (or might be fate) and then Horikoshi shows us a panel of Sir Nighteye.  This kinda guts me...  Nighteye was so bent on making sure that Mirio was the perfect candidate for OFA before he accepted Deku’s role.  And Mirio would’ve been a great hero with OFA, but he would not have been a great candidate.  If Mirio inherited OFA, he would’ve died an early age.  I hate to say it, but I’m glad Nighteye was wrong and All Might made the right choice.

Also, thinking about it, Shinormoi died at age 40 with 4 quirks in him (including his own).  So, I’d imagine Mirio with 8 quirks in him would chop off his life span significantly.  I’d say Mirio here wouldn’t have lasted through his 20s at least.  Thank god he didn’t inherit OFA 😨

And finally on this topic, because Quirkless people are becoming more and more scarce, Deku is most likely going to be last holder of OFA.  A lot of people including myself thought this might be the case, but not for this reason.  Thankfully, this means that Deku will (hopefully) live a long life, but he’ll have no successor to pass the Quirk down to.  The only other Qurikless person we know in this world besides Deku and All Might is Melissa Shield, but she want to build support items for heroes instead.  Deku’s kids will most likely have Quirks, so they’re out of the picture.  There aren’t a lot of options left in the BNHA world.  OFA will most likely live and die with Deku.

LASTLY, Nana Shimura speaks up and asks Deku a crucial question: “Are you able to kill Tomura Shigaraki?”  First off, WHAT???  Second off, WHAT?????  Nana is asking Deku if he can KILL her own GRANDSON!!!  I know Shigaraki is evil and killed a shitton of people, but KILL HIM???  Good god, Horikoshi...  Where are you going with this, my dude.  I don’t think Deku can bring it in himself to kill someone even if it is Shigaraki.  I doubt he will.  So I wonder what his response to Nana will be in the next chapter.

There, I did it.  I said my piece.  THIS CHAPTER WAS A LOT THOUGH HOLY SHIT!  I knew we were getting Vestige stuff this week, but goddamn.  I hope I did this chapter enough justice though.  I do recommend reading the chapter for yourself when it comes out though, because I think it explains things better.  I expect a lot from the next chapter too.

In conclusion; Me @ Me this entire chapter:

[meeko-mar]

Leak day is approaching, how we feeling? 

I’ve had this bouncing around my drafts for a little while, a little idea that hooked itself into my mind. Who’s up for some BKDK Healing/Recovery Arc fluff?? 

I'm still deeply hoping for some slower, softer chapters to follow this VERY INTENSE war arc. I know a lot of ideas out there are operating under the concept of the boys healing TOGETHER in a hospital room, but like hear me out... 

What if they start out at the hospital SEPERATELY and have to agonizingly wait until they’re better healed before they see each other? What if they can’t stand to wait any longer?

Spoilers for like...chapter 285 and beyond.

The nurses at the hospital had of course heard of Katsuki Bakugou, the boy who’d won the broadcasted UA Sports Festival. They had an inkling of the student’s more...aggressive tendencies. They steeled themselves for a potentially frustrating time managing and healing the reactive teenager.

The Doctors had done their best with his wounds in surgery as soon as he was admitted, got him stable with some much-needed blood transfusions, and sent him to rest and recover under the watch of a handful of night shift nurses. He was expected to wake sometime in the morning. 

And yet, it was still the deep dark of night, when a tell-tale yell erupted from within the room with his name scribbled hastily onto the nameplate. 

By the time the closest nurse turned the corner into the room, Katsuki was already pushing himself up with his good arm. Gritting his teeth, he swore aloud as stars popped in his blurry vision...but persisted in trying to lever himself out of bed. IV lines swung and tugged dangerously as he struggled.

The nurse rushed to the bedside as he tried to lean out the bed, but swayed from the vertigo. Pain exploded in his wounds, it felt like white hot coals had been dumped right into his gut and his left side.

“Young man, you need to lay down for now, your wounds..!” 

“D-don’t tell me what to do!” Katsuki growled, in almost a feral state. Despite the drugs in his system, he was still in survival mode. His crimson eyes landed on her, still unfocused, delirious. 

“Deku--Where...” He demanded again, voice cracking in desperation, still supported on one violently shaking arm. He squinted and blinked frantically; Why couldn’t he see straight?? 

The nurse grasped his good shoulder and eased the student back down into bed. Katsuki’s strong frame was resistant, but weakened by his injuries and lack of stamina. Even his willpower wavered with his consciousness.

“We can talk in the morning,” She assured in a calming voice. “But you need to sleep now, and stay put.”

Katsuki’s back connected again with the hospital bed, and it felt to him like it was grabbing him, keeping him there, and pulling him down into some dense fog. As his mind quickly began to drift, he wondered if the woman above him had some sort of sleep-aid Quirk. He blinked at the ceiling tiles and dimmed lights above, as the nurse adjusted his dosage, checked his IV, and logged notes on his condition. Another nurse hurried in, and they spoke quietly.

“What the hell...” Katsuki trailed off. 

Both nurses flitted from the room, and Katsuki was alone in the darkness as it swallowed him.

“...De...ku...”

---

Katsuki didn’t have any idea how long it was that he was asleep. But as his eyes tried to flutter open again, they were met with soft light. And a silence that was almost jarring, after the battle, and after the frantic nightmares. 

Nightmares...Aerial battles, explosions of green light...bursts of red....Black obsidian tendrils tearing through the air...

With a turn of his stomach, his eyes suddenly shot open, once again looking at a hospital room ceiling. Daylight was filtered out by thick curtains, and not far away, his parents seemed to have been keeping a vigil, each occupying a chair, leaning against each other in slumber. 

His sight became a bit more focused and adjusted to the light, but his breathing intensified. He looked to his other side, and found he was in a private room. The door was shut at the moment; he was boxed in. 

A flash of green energy played across his mind again....And a sick, charred hand that had reached out...

He felt a pain blossom in his abdomen as his breathing continued to spike.

He heard Deku’s yells in his mind again, and he once more felt the intense need to get up. His unrestricted hand clamped around the guards on the side of the bed, hoping for an anchor. Gritting his teeth against the fire in his gut, he tried to pull himself forward  

“Hey...Hey!” He tried to yell, but it came out so hoarse, he growled and forced more of his pained breath into it. “Old hag!” 

Mitsuki blinked awake, and jumped to see Katsuki staring back at her. Masaru awoke as well. and breathed a sigh of relief. Something twinkled in his son’s eyes that he was certain he’d never seen there before.

“Katsuki! Sit back down!! You’ll reopen your wounds!!” Mitsuki yells, surging to her feet.

“Don’t give a shit! Where the Hell is he?” Katsuki raged, once again pushing up with his good arm. His chest shuddered with hyperventilating breaths, and he felt as if it was threatening to tear him back apart. “Deku...Where’s Deku!” 

“Deku?” His father asked, a bit confused. 

“...Inko’s boy?” Mitsuki supplied, looking at Masaru as well. “Inko came to the hospital too, but...We haven’t seen her.” 

“Dammit!!” Katsuki practically yelled, and tossed a venomous look towards the door. His fingers flexed with an overwhelming urge to blow the damn thing off its hinges. “What about All Might?? Or Half and Half, or fucking anyone who knows what the fuck’s going on?!” 

“You settle the Hell down, brat, or I’ll make you!” Mitsuki loomed over him, a hand clamped tightly on the top of his head and forcing him back against his pillows. Katsuki glared at her, teeth bared and nostrils flaring, absolutely hating how weak he was to resist. “You’re damn lucky that whatever it was didn’t hit anything vital, but you almost bled out on the battlefield! You’re not going anywhere!! Don’t be a damn idiot!”

Katsuki tuned the rest of her words out. He was pretty sure she was turning to his father and going off on just how fucked this entire mission was, the insanity of putting teenagers who were clearly unprepared for the level of destruction that was involved...How none of them seemed to be properly informed of what the kids had been getting into. 

They might have been discussing the prospect of Katsuki even going back to U.A. at this point, but he didn’t care. He couldn’t muster up a single iota of a crap to give over that right now. 

He stared past his parents, at that damned door, waiting. Waiting with clenched fists, once again confined to laying against his uncomfortable pillows. His wounds were still too painful to move even if he wanted to. While somewhere out there...

Deku was somewhere out in that hospital, condition unknown. Red eyes glinted with moisture. 

Come on. 

Someone. Anyone. Come through that damn door...

He couldn’t believe how damn desperate he felt.

Tell me he’s safe. 

---

Katsuki was loathe to comply with any procedures and check ups the nurses had to run on him for the days to follow. He grew more and more aggravated the longer it went on, the more they told him to wait. It was a developing situation, and there were so, so many civilians and Heroes in the hospital from that battle, the nurses didn’t have any time to prioritize seeking out any information on Izuku’s condition for him.

He crossed in and out of sleep all day and night. He couldn’t control it, between the pain and the meds, and even the sheer boredom of not having anything to do but agonize. He could only logically badger his parents so much concerning information he knew they didn’t have. 

Sometimes sleep was a relief. A chance to pass time without thinking so deeply about everything. 

Sometimes, it just gave him more nightmares and stress, and woke him with another hit of desperation to find closure for the battle he’d survived, confirmation that his best friends had made it out alive too. 

News finally came when he woke up early in the next morning.

All Might appeared in the door way with eyes that seemed more cast in shadow than usual. Katsuki’s crimson eyes locked him and he immediately tried once more to pull himself up and forward. After the initial establishing conversation, All Might pleaded for privacy from his parents with a deep bow, and as they left the room, All Might drew himself back up. Blue eyes couldn’t quite meet Katuski’s. 

“Start talking.” Katsuki grunted, and All Might pulled up a chair. 

---

Izuku was lost in a long dream. 

He was trying desperately to find the Vestiges again... He either couldn’t reach them, or...they were gone for good. He couldn’t quite remember, and the answer was so slippery it kept evading him. 

Sometimes he would be minutely aware of what was going on around him in the physical world. Doctors. Nurses. Probes, needles, foreign hands.  

Recovery Girl’s voice...Mom’s voice. 

On the other hand, Nana’s voice. The First. Tomura Shigaraki. All For One.

He couldn’t quite grasp either side, and would be pulled once again into the dreams. It was as if he were stuck on a dizzying pendulum. 

He gave in and floated for a while. 

--- 

Hours passed, and little changed for Izuku. But as he seemed to surface back into the world, bits and pieces came back and fell into place in his mind. All of the things that had transpired. His slumbering mind could begin to process it, and make sense of it. Little by little. 

By the time emerald eyes cracked open, Izuku had realized, he must have been asleep for quite some time. He had enough experience to recognize that he’d landed in the hospital, but felt powerless to assess how bad it was. He still felt hauntingly unattached to any of his limbs for the time being, no strength left to attempt to move them. He must have been heavily drugged by this point.

He wondered about Shigaraki, if he was also reduced to a quasi-sense of being, forced to lay low, let his mangled body regenerate. He prayed that the villain would be in such a phase for a while. Izuku knew there was no way he, or any of the heroes, could handle a rematch. Maybe not for quite a while, even.

A fleeting thought, however, as it was quickly overtaken by an urgent need to know the outcomes of so many....too many, of his friends, teachers and allies. Civilians, even. Aizawa, Gran Torino, Endeavour, all injured in battle. Shoto, his dear friend, and....

Kacchan.

The realization made a spike of anxiety lance through his chest like a knife.

Dear god, Kacchan. Was he...

“Ka...cchan--” Deku murmured, suddenly, feeling the tears pooling in his eyes. His poor mother, keeping a vigil by his side, leapt up and pressed a soft hand to his forehead, quivering voice crying with encouragement for her son. 

“Mom, he...” Izuku whimpered, finally focusing on something for the first time, in his mother’s eyes. “Kacchan...The others...I couldn’t...” 

As quickly as it had come, his resolve was gone, and his broken body wracked with sobs. His determination that had held him through the battle before losing consciousness, the rage, the adrenaline, was gone, and all that remained was the heartache that came from such destruction, from seeing his mentors and friends torn down one by one.

The image of blood suspended in air, and a shadow of a figure falling towards the Earth, stained his vision. 

---

Days into Katsuki’s stay at the hospital, All Might visited again. The man still had so many new lines on his face, though he was heartened to see Katsuki, determined as he was, recovering and gaining focus quickly. Though with the focus, came that trademark, Bakugou impatience.

“He’s still in surgery!?” Katsuki yelled.

“More like, in and out of Surgery. They can only do so much at one time, even Recovery Girl could barely work with him, his stamina is almost non-existent right now...” All Might sighed. “And, there’s no shortage of other patients for her, unfortunately.” He said sadly, sipping a cup of tea with a white knuckled grip. 

“That bad, huh.” Katsuki sneered, looking away from the man. Softly, he muttered, “Fuckin’ Deku.” 

All Might smiled a deeply sad smile. 

It had sounded spiteful, to the untrained ear, but by now, he could recognize how deep Katsuki’s concern really went.

---

One week after the incident at Jakku found Katsuki well enough to finally feel the cold tile beneath his bare feet again. Short walks were in order, as he was allowed to pace in his room every once in a while. The taste of regained autonomy was amazing, but he still felt the need to rest after very short walks, the wounds in his core still on the mend. Steps were small, and few, but Katsuki was feeling better for the improvement. 

He leaned against the edge of his bed, muscles still stiff. Left arm in a sling, and right hand gently set on his stomach, he breathed deeply as he was able, assessing what his body was telling him.

He was gradually getting better, and the next goal was finally heading out that door. Fierce red eyes could have shattered the wood of the door, now left open just a crack. They couldn’t keep him in here forever.

---

“Good news,” All Might had told him, looking a little brighter. “They’ve moved Young Midoriya to the recovery ward. They’ve done everything they can for the boy, now all that’s left is to see how his limbs heal.” 

Finally, Katsuki had thought. He was getting tired of waiting for the nerd to recover.

He scowled as he stalked out that door, and into the hospital hallway. His mended wounds still throbbed with each tender step, but the pain was becoming more and more dull everyday. He was itching to be able to get into physical therapy, and recuperate his body back into peak condition. 

The ache in his shoulder gave him the most unease...His arms and shoulders needed to be up to taking the brunt of his Quirk. There was no time to lose in recovering those tissues, and he locked away any fears of never living up to his previous output, never being able to surpass it...He just couldn’t think of that right now.

Slippers scuffed against clean linoleum. Around the corner and nine doors down, All Might had said. He rounded the corner, and came, abruptly, to a stop, all inner thoughts ceasing. Crimson eyes had fallen on a figure ahead of him, and locked, his jaw dropping just slightly. 

There before him, clearly in a state of dizziness, was Izuku himself. Of course, he seemed to be muttering to himself, staring intently at the name plates of each room he was passing.

Their eyes met.  

His arms were bound up in thick casts once again, and in slings over his stomach, and bandages covered almost his entire torso in lieu of any shirt. Izuku stared back, large emerald eyes tired and glistening. He seemed to tremble at the sight of Katsuki, and the moisture in his eyes threatened to over flow. 

“K-Kacchan,” He whimpered, blinking back the sudden tears, unable to wipe them away. 

Katsuki's body suddenly unlocked, and he marched up on the other boy, as hard and as fast as his body would permit. 

“What the fuck, Deku?!” Katsuki scolded. He planted a palm on the top of Izuku’s green head of hair, tilting his tear-stained face up to look at him. “Damn nerd, What the Hell are you doing out of bed?!” 

“Kacchan,” Izuku sniffed, staring up into crimson eyes without an ounce of restraint on his emotions. “Y-you’re out of bed too...Are you okay?” 

Katsuki twitched at the question, a reflex reaction now due to long years of rejection to the nerd’s selfless worries. 

“Don’t you switch this around! I’m not the one who just got out of surgery!” Katsuki barked, ignorant to any stares from passersby they were drawing. “You shouldn’t be able to move, dammit!!”

“It’s okay, I mean, my legs feel totally fine!” Izuku argued weakly, even as his legs seemed to quiver just slightly beneath him. For the first time in the exchange, a hint of a dismissive, but pained grin tugged at his lips. There was still a very visible split on his bottom lip. 

“That’s not the point, you--!!” Bakugou growled behind gritted teeth, fingers twitching impulsively under the messy nest of hair. How was he ever going to get through that thick skull of Deku’s??

“Please, Kacchan,” Izuku urged, “I know, I shouldn’t be out here yet, but I had to know for sure....that you were ok...I thought I’d really lost you...” He was beginning to choke on his words. 

“They told you I was fine, so why go out of your damn way?! Why get outta bed when you can barely stand up straight, huh??” Katsuki retorted.

“I’m not explaining how much more it’d hurt if you were gone!” Izuku cried, and raised his head against Katsuki’s hand, cheeks flushed. He shook his head just gently, feeling a headache blossoming. “It’s not logical, I was...I was afraid, okay?! I have nightmares every time I close my eyes, telling me that Shigaraki kill-... took you away, or Todoroki wasn’t able to help you in time. It keeps replaying in my mind, and...And if it hadn’t been for me...” 

He was gulping in air at this point, the words themselves seeming to scar him as he acknowledged their effect on him. Katsuki was unsurprised by the tears flowing anew, but something about the tremor in Izuku’s voice, shook him.

“I had to see you. And if my legs would work, then...There’s no way I could stop myself.” Although tired, his eyes glinted with that stubborn edge. It was the same, almost scared look of determination that had looked at him in the dark hallways of their first training exercise all those months ago...The first time they’d fought.

Wide crimson eyes held steady, and he noticed the shadows under the boy’s eyes, shadows of bruises that lingered against his freckles. 

The hand that was on Izuku’s head suddenly shifted to the back of his head and he pulled gently, until Izuku’s forehead connected with Katsuki’s uninjured shoulder. Katsuki’s strong arm almost cradled him there in a half-embrace. A moment’s hesitation, and then his fingers curled around the deep, unruly green locks. Not to hurt, or threaten, never again... 

“Idiot... Idiot. How the fuck do you think I feel?!” Katsuki muttered shakily against Izuku’s bowed head, his features furrowing. “Don’t you ever...fight like that again.” He bit his lip ferociously as it quivered, before any more words could spill out. 

Izuku felt tense for a moment, adjusting to this strange new reality. In time, he eased, leaning into Katsuki’s offered shoulder, feeling the warmth of the arm curled around him. He felt a pang of guilt for being so overjoyed that Katsuki was here with him when so much had been lost...And another wave of surprise and contemplation as Katsuki’s words pinged around in his head. Even so, he dared to smile a broken smile into Katsuki’s shoulder, where no one in the world could see.

He only wished that his own hands were free so he could reciprocate the gentle gesture that was so exceedingly rare from the blonde, but so comforting. 

Katsuki grimaced, but made no objection when tears began to soak the fabric of his shirt. The weight and the warmth of Izuku’s head against him was oddly comforting to him. A quivering sigh of relief escaped him, his cheek buried in green curls. 

Reluctantly, the thought dawned on him; This is okay. Whatever this is...was worth the damn wait. 

Turns out the wait was actually much, much longer than the time spent in the hospital. 

---

*BONUS* owo

I DID happen to doodle the moment that really locked this into my mind and made me have to write this; I literally drew these at slow moments at work on receipt paper. (scanned a tad bit out of chrono. order though)

ALSO A NOTE: 

I happened to fixate on this idea of Kacchan always grabbing Deku by the head(there was a post with a lot of this floating around not too long ago) and I’m convinced it’s part of his own unique language. You may have noticed, I threw in the little detail of contrast with how his mother in fact does the same thing, but forcefully, and exerting dominance over her son. Kacchan uses it this time to communicate with Deku, but it ends up being more gentle and as a comfort. 

YES PARELELLS. 

If I ever have time and inclination, I would love to redo these little doodles, honestly = u =  

ANYWAY thank  you if you’ve made it this far, I hope you liked :D

[echodrops]

BNHA, some thoughts on Toga after reading both your recent metas, the representation and female characters ones. Toga getting reduced to fetish fuel by fandom is pretty irritating. It really shortchanges her character, she's interesting. Despite all the murder, she's not written as a true psychopath/sociopath - her emotions are written as genuine, her empathy is written as being real. Her most depraved and her most empathetic moments both occur in the same arc, too (Overhaul's Hideout).

I actually think we can make a pretty good case for Toga being the best written female character in all of Boku no Hero Academia.

There are two other contenders–Inko and Nana–who could probably easily take the spot if not for their extenuating circumstances: Inko simply isn’t in the story enough to be a consistent source of emotional engagement, and we haven’t seen enough of Nana yet to get a real sense of the depth of her character. If Nana gets to be part of an extended series of flashbacks or becomes a vestige that Izuku can talk to, we might get enough of her to bump her to the top.

But right now, I can make a pretty convincing case for Toga.

1) She is the only female character whose actions are absolutely central to the main plot/conflict as it is unfolding right now. In the last 100 chapters, the only female to single-handedly accomplish anything for her side of the conflict has been Toga. You could not remove Toga from the plot and replace her with any of the male characters around her because her quirk and involvement in the story line are actively integrated in a way that none of the other female characters’ are (again, barring Nana). Mina? Jirou? Kendou? Uraraka? Tsuyu? Even Momo? In the last half of the manga’s plot, none of the class 1-A or 1-B girls have played any major part in the series’ overall conflict, had any stand-out moments of emotional depth that wasn’t narrated for them by a male character, or even been allowed to meaningfully contribute to the battles except during training against classmates, the outcomes of which have no lasting impact on the main heroes vs. villains conflict.

That’s because Toga doesn’t suffer from the one thing holding back all the heroines and heroines-in-training: good girls aren’t violent. Good girls are lovable, attractive, and supportive. They’re not ambitious or obsessive about strength and overcoming their rivals like boys are. Good girls behave well. And unfortunately, Horikoshi is pretty progressive in some ways and really, really unprogressive in others. His definition of “good girls” and the ways good girls act seems to be pretty rooted in conservative Japanese standards, which traditionally have undervalued women. (This is not to say that everyone in Japan discriminates against women, far from it; in general, however, societal standards for women in Japan have lagged behind other major developed nations.)

Uraraka and the other girls in 1-A and 1-B can and will become heroes, surely. They can even prove themselves to be very strong and skilled individuals. But they will only rarely–if ever–be allowed to outshine their male compatriots in terms of strength, aggression, impact on the main plot, and even emotional depth. The tension and depth of this story has, so far, been given almost entirely to male characters–Deku, Iida, Bakugou, Todoroki, Shigaraki, Kirishima, even Shinsou… Readers get more glimpses into the mindsets, emotional struggles, and backstories of these characters than any of the girls. Bakugou can literally cry and scream on screen from how angry he is that he doesn’t measure up to his classmates; but Momo, who feels similarly, will demurely have her confidence issues discussed by Todoroki and Aizawa for her.

Toga, however, doesn’t get hit by this stuff quite as bad because she isn’t a “good girl.” Toga can be violent. Toga can be out on the frontlines throwing down directly with the male heroes and can come out on top because she’s a villain and sometimes the villains have to win for the story to be exciting. Toga got away with threatening Shigaraki.Whether Tomura is just telling lies to keep her on his side or not, Toga is canonically referred to as one of the League’s “linchpins.” She’s tangled with the heroes two more times than Dabi, Mr. Compress, Magne, or Spinner, and once more than Twice, making her literally the League’s most active member. Because of her role as a villain, Toga is free from the limitations that prevent the heroines from making any lasting impacts on the plot.

2) Toga’s personal motivations/mindset have direct impacts on the plot. Sure, being a “love obsessed” girl who develops crushes at the drop of the hat isn’t exactly the most fantastic basis for a female character ever–it’s cripplingly stereotypical and a gross excuse to draw faces bordering on ahegao, actually–but at least Toga’s crushes are plot relevant. Her “love” for Izuku and collecting his blood led to her utilizing that blood in combat to directly change the course of what is probably the series’ most important and dramatic battle to date. Unlike Uraraka, whose crush is essentially mandatory due to her role as the love interest and really has no bearing on the major plot, Toga’s “love” for Izuku shapes not only her actions but also the actions of others because she is a mover-and-shaker in the main conflict, unlike other female characters.

Toga’s crush on Stain was what drove her to join the League, despite the fact that Stain is no longer part of it in any way–and she’s remained loyal to the League. Her crush motivated her to take direct action and change the course of her life. Unlike other crush plot lines given to female characters, which are often used only in two contexts: 1) Oh no, I can’t let these feelings affect my friendship with [shounen protagonist]! 2) Ha ha, look how adorable I am trying to hide my crush from everyone!, Toga’s crushes are driving factors in her story and the plot overall.

3) Toga has demonstrated more meaningful emotional depth than half the female students. You’re right–reducing Toga to fanservice badly degrades a character who’s actually been painted with more depth than virtually any other female character (except Inko) in the series so far. In her response to Magne’s death, her comments that she wants to continue enjoying life with the League, her willingness to threaten Shigaraki for making choices for her, and her delicate treatment of Twice, Toga’s feelings–even those beyond her love and friendship obsession–are portrayed seriously and with a degree of attention and agency that few other females in this series get. Toga is loyal, intelligent, dedicated to pursuing her personal goals, empathetic, brave, and strong-willed, and most importantly–these aren’t informed traits. We don’t hear about how smart she is or how nice or how brave she is from other people–we see it in direct action throughout the course of the story. You don’t hold a knife to Shigaraki Tomura’s neck without being both staggeringly courageous and dead-set in your beliefs–Toga has a backbone of steel and a good head on her shoulders. She’s in far more control of herself than anyone is giving her credit for; she knows exactly what she wants and she’s going for that without hesitating. Her response to Twice after Magne’s death not only demonstrates a clear understanding of other people’s feelings, but also signals to the readers how far the League has come in supporting and valuing each other, an important turning point for readers, making her feelings and dialogue more meaningful than many of the other female characters’.

4) Toga’s obsession with identity–and its ties to her quirk–implies a significantly more interesting backstory than most other girls in the series. In a way that doesn’t happen for many other characters outside the villains, Toga’s quirk is directly tied her to mindset and behavior. She is obsessed with seizing the identities of the people she “loves” to actively become those people. It should be obvious that this obsession is a direct off-shoot of her powers. Imagine what life would be like for a child who could literally change identities any time she became dissatisfied with herself. Forming a personal identity is a complex process for human beings (google Erik Erikson’s Eight Stages for a more in-depth look), and it is also a process fraught with peril. Children and young adults who fail to develop healthy, complete self-identities struggle in a variety of ways, not the least of which is mental illness. How would a tiny young girl who was capable of completely altering her physical appearance and attitude, enough so to be easily mistaken for others, define her own personal identity? This is literally a nightmare scenario, ripe for the development of psychological issues. It wouldn’t surprise me to find out the start of Toga’s descent into madness was realizing that, by hurting others, she could become someone better, more popular, with more friends–someone happy. It makes perfect sense that Toga is the way she is now, with the quirk she has. Toga’s desperate love–her desperate desire to be someone else–is almost inevitably going to be tied to a shattered sense of self. This is why the issue of “villain quirks” is so interesting–did Toga ever have a chance to be “normal,” with a quirk that would have devastated the psyche of a growing child?

I don’t know when or if we’ll ever see Toga’s backstory, but just the hints we’ve been given are already enough to make it richer and more interesting to think about that almost any of the other female characters in the series.

Toga is great, and seeing what she gets reduces to by the fans (hell, and her own creator sometimes) seriously bums me out.

[interstellar-elf]

BNHA theory: All for One is both Deku's Dad and Shigaraki's Grandfather, The All for One Gambit

Okay, this sounds weird as hell, but hear me out.

Given the obvious Darth Vader and Star Wars references, this got me thinking about a few unknown things that the BNHA community hasn't really thought about.

First a few facts:

1) we know Nana Shimura had a husband, one who "died in the line of duty" and she had a child who she gave up for adoption.

2) we know that Deku has a father who has been teased about by the author, but has never actually shown up on the "screen" so far.

3) All for One's face has been shrouded in shadows or hidden away under scar tissue/a helmet for the most part. Not only that, he's speculated to be between 100-200 years old.

4) All Might states that Inko Midoriya reminds him a lot of Nana Shimura.

5) Tomura Shigaraki is actually Tenko Shimura, Nana Shimura's grandson.

Now with those facts stated, let's posit something that the fandom has noticed that both Deku and Shigaraki both look similar to the two brothers that make up All for One and his brother, the first user of One for All. In fact, this has lead to speculation that Shigaraki/Nana where descendants of All for One's brother, or that Deku is in fact, All for One's son. But I want to focus on the idea that Shigaraki is All for One's grandson, because, along with the various Star Wars references, this would fit too well in My Hero Academia.

Now, if anyone going to ask, why do you speculated this? Well, it deals with Nana's unnamed husband. We don't know much, except that he had a child with her and died before she met All Might. We also know this child was placed into adoption. We're lead to believe that this was for safety reasons, but I feel it was much more. Given we were also told that All Might nor Gran Torino were allowed to contact this child, which to me raises more interest. Adding on, it really doesn't seem like Nana, despite being a user of One for All, was either not particularly well known or a big figure. Not even "hero fan boy" Deku knew who she was. Unless hero history has been edited heavily in the MHA universe (which I'm sure it has) or Nana wasn't a big name to begin with. This has me suspicious as hell dealing with the identity of Nana's husband. Nevermind AFO seemingly discovering Shigaraki, aka Tenko Shimura hidden away from the world.

The second point would be the Star Wars connection. Now you ask who in the Star Wars universe would Tenko/Shigaraki fit? The answer is shockingly simple.

Kylo Ren.

Like Kylo Ren, Shigaraki has an alias, wears a mask, and is devoted to and idealize someone who wears a black, life support helmet. Nevermind that whole ashes of my enemy thing they both have.

And also like Kylo Ren, they have:

1) Killed their father ( though this is implied with Shigaraki's case)

2) And hate a character associated with a force for good and want to kill them

And if we also want to add another wrinkle to this, if it is true, then if Shigaraki is related to All for One, then it's a another connection as Kylo Ren is related to Darth Vader and emulates him.

There's also another piece of the puzzle. We know Nana Shimura had visions of the vestiges of One for All, but something really concerns me considering that All Might never had these. What also concerns me is how we get the man shrouded in black. I know for Deku he saw All for One a lot more than his brother, and he was shrouded in black as well, though this is large leap to make but I kind of feel that the person in black for both Nana and Deku is in fact, All for One. This leads me to the theory that I like to call All for One's Gambit.

I firmly believe that All for One has been formulating a plan to take out One for All and bring it back under his control. In order to do this, I believe he's been trying to shire a child that could carry One for All from another One for All user. I think he nearly had this with Nana, though I think she caught wind of who he was and his plans and sent the child away and disclosed her husband as dead, trying to hide the secret that All for One was his father. All for One kills Nana in retailiation for her actions. Later on, All for One eventually meets Inko and marries her, and has Deku. The reasoning why Deku's right arm is going berserk is halfly due to All for One gaining control of One for All and because Deku's connection to the first user of One for All is there, and the "singularity" is basically the awakening of all of the accumulated powers of One for All waking up.

I feel like the reasoning why All for One is "hearing" his little brother's voice again is partially because he might have not just a connection to One for All, but also because he is Deku's father. And the reason he's got a huge smile on his face isn't just because he's hearing his little brother's voice, it's because he realizes that his son is the who's the one who has the One for All Quirk. And everything is going to plan.

Sorry for the rambling, but between the last chapter and the next, I just had this thought and I feel it needs to be brought out.

[thedarkivist]

How the Plus Ultras

READ ON AO3

With every shallow, shuddering breath Aizawa felt as if someone stuck another needle through his lungs.

He forced his eyes open, blinking away the white sparks that clouded his vision. His body wouldn’t move. Just keeping his eyes open drained him of energy he didn’t really have. His entire being felt brittle, a few seconds away from shattering. He knew that feeling. He knew that Quirk. He-

“You’ve gotten slow, Eraserhead.”

- knew that voice.

“Shigaraki Tomura,” a raspy, foreign voice whispered. With a start, Aizawa realised it was his own.

Shigaraki was standing above him, arms crossed over his chest. He had the curious, yet absent look of a child poking a writhing earthworm with a stick only a moment after stomping on the poor creature. “I always thought you were cool. Too bad, I don’t have much time today.”

Aizawa’s eyes widened. The students. They had gotten separated - he stayed behind. Did they make it to the exit? Was there an exit? A droplet of sweat ran down his neck, leaving behind an icy trail. He needed to get up and fight, or else…

Shigaraki squatted down. Aizawa activated Erasure. One, only one paper-dry finger traced the jagged line under his eye. “These scars have never diminished your worth, they are the stories that make you whole. Really, thank you. Without you, we’d never be able to track them down.”

Again, Aizawa tried to get up, in vain. This couldn’t be the end. This couldn’t be the end. This couldn’t be the end.

“How?”

“All thanks to you. You let your guard down, Eraserhead. Has it never occurred to you we could plant a tracking device on you? Somewhere where you’d never find it…” Shigaraki’s eyes turned upwards as he contemplated his own words for a second. “Then again, that was the point. Again, thanks. But you’ve outlived your usefulness.”

The villain’s hand - unexpectedly warm - wrapped around his throat while he struggled to keep Erasure active. His vision grew foggy. Black mould was devouring the little of his surroundings he could see. His eyes burned.

He had to blink.

Aizawa woke up, gasping for breath. The warmth of his blanket seemed too much. Too hot. Too tight. Too everything.

He kicked it off, reached for his phone and winced when the light coming from the screen nearly blinded him. 4:27. Too fucking early to be awake, too fucking late to go back to sleep.

Still half-asleep, he got up and commenced his morning routine. One step at a time. Going through the motions.

It had to be enough.

After a while, he dragged himself to the shared kitchen to get a mug of coffee that would probably resemble mud both in colour and taste. Bad nights were never followed by good coffee.

The first sip burned his tongue. Of fucking course.

He put the mug down and, hands stuck in his pockets, wandered over to the window, lazily scanning the school grounds. A flicker of light coming from the dorm building of his class caught his eye.

He grabbed the capture weapon that was hanging over one of the chairs and headed out towards the light. He doubted there was any need to, but with 1-A one could never be too sure.

To his surprise, the one he found wide awake in the common room wasn't one of the usual suspects, but Yaoyorozu Momo.

Other than that, everything seemed normal - peaceful even - wasn't it for the fact it was roughly five in the morning and he didn't know for how long Yaoyorozu had been awake. The only hint was her teacup on the table, half empty. She was squished into the corner of the sofa, one hand supporting her head, the other one idly toying with a bookmark belonging to the textbook she had been reading before Aizawa showed up.

She raised her head, calm and composed as ever, even though Aizawa didn't miss the way her grip on the book tightened.

"Why aren't you in bed?"

Brief silence.

"Bed," the pro hero repeated. He was relieved when the student stood up and started gathering her things without a word of protest.

Almost relieved.

He leaned against the wall, arms crossed over his chest. "Is there anything someone should know about?"

Momo hugged the textbook to herself like a shield. "I... no, sir. My apologies."

Slowly, he uncrossed his arms. It could be a simple case of sleeplessness. "... all right."

She nodded, looking down at her feet. "I didn't mean to cause any trouble, it's just that it's finally quiet. It's never..." She reached up and tucked a wayward strand of hair behind her ear. "I'm glad to be here with everyone, but you're never really on your own. I suppose I'm not used to it yet."

Aizawa ran a hand through his hair. It all sounded all too familiar and he couldn't say he didn't empathise with her, but at the same time. he couldn't allow a student to wander around at night. The daily schedule of the heroes-in-training was demanding enough, not to mention all the safety concerns. And yet...

"Some people need more alone time than others."

Momo nodded. "It just gets too much sometimes, and I can't tell anyone, because I don't want them to think I don't enjoy their company."

"You can be a good friend and still have boundaries. You can't have one without the other."

"I know," Momo sighed, heading out of the common room.

"Wait."

"Yes, sir?"

"I'll try to figure something out. Now go to your room."

Her face lit up with a smile. "Thank you! Good night."

Aizawa huffed. "Don't make a habit out of this."

On the way back to the teachers' dorms he realised that the vestiges of panic left by the nightmare eased off somewhat. Excellent. Now if only he could squeeze thirty years' worth of rest into a twenty-minute nap.

If nothing, he thought to himself, I probably won't have to deal with anything worse today.

As the thought crossed his mind, Present Mic woke up in his room.

"I don't know why, but I feel like I'm going to really disappoint someone today," he mumbled to himself before drifting off to sleep once more.

[bnha-l0ver]

Narration #10

***DISCLAIMER: This is just going to serve as a compilation of the narration that has been done in the story so far (Chapter 1-216). Keep in mind, the story is pretty long now, so I’ll keep adding on. In other words, it’s a work in progress. Either way, enjoy!!!***

• [Gran Torino and Tsukauchi fight with Kurogiri]

> “In a certain mountain range, while Deku and co. were fighting...”

> “[Gran Torino] We were able to pinpoint your location. If we can just capture you, the most troublesome member of the League, the rest will surely follow.”

> “[Kurogiri] There have been rumors that a “ruffian” has been appearing here as of late...It seems I was standing out a tad too much, but I had no choice. I have some business with that ruffian you see.”

> “[AFO to Kurogiri] If by chance, something were to happen to me in the near future, you’ll be the only one left who can protect Tomura...You can rely on him.”

> “He [the ruffian] is one of AFO’s faithful servants, Giganto-machia.”

• [The following day of the infiltration and Nighteye’s death]

> “Senpai took a temporary leave of absence from school. And for us, we returned to school...”

> “When we returned, they had us go through a bunch of inquiries and processes. But we were eventually able to make it back to the dorms that night. Uraraka and the others had also been occupied in Ryukyu’s office.”

> “A few days later. Before we knew it, September came to a close and October began. The last vestiges of summer faded away and the temperature difference became more drastic. Our intern group, accompanied by All Might and Aizawa-senpai went to Nighteye’s funeral.”

> “At the end of the conversation between the school and the hero office, the internship was postponed for the time being. Nighteye’s office was taken over by his sidekick, Centipede, while awaiting Toogata-senpai’s return.”

> “And Eri-chan, finally regained consciousness though her psychological state is still unstable. Since it’s still unclear whether she might lose control again, Aizawa-sensei told me we weren’t allowed to have a face-to-face. Moreover, Eri-chan’s Quirk was found to originate from the horn on her forehead. That horn seemed to shrink along with her fever. Now, it has shrunk to just about the size of a lump.”

> “And as for me, ever since that day...something strange has been happening.”

• [Aoyama shoves a piece of cheese in Midoriya’s mouth xD]

> “Something strange, yes.”

> “His behavior left a strong impact, but, Aoyama-kun was a man whom I could never read. Until he finally started to reveal his true nature.”

(N/ To be completely honest...I don’t think anyone can read or even know what Aoyama will do/is capable of xD)

> “I haven’t really talked with Aoyama-kun before. He’s not the type of person who actively gets involved with people. He gives off the impression...of a free spirit who speaks what he wants, when he wants. But, his behavior at the training camp and at the provisional license exam (Iida-kun said, overflowing with emotion)...is certainly that of a hero’s. What does that guy want with me...?”

> “Is there some kind of situation...? If that’s the case...maybe it’s something he can’t have with the rest of the class, and doesn’t want to risk making a big fuss about.”

> “Since then, Aoyama-kun and I became good friends.”

• [It’s finally been announced that the cultural festival will be taking place in a month, so all the students better prepare. Briefly introduced to Gentle and La Brava]

> “All Might.”

> “Brave.”

> “Crimison Riot.”

> “Between the Age of Vigilantes and the present day, individuals known as “heroes” have shined brightly in our history.”

> “The ruler of the legends, All for One, the leader of the “Special Abilities Liberation Army,” Destro, and the uncanny thief, Oji Harima. Likewise, others known as “villains” have also carved their names into history.”

• [Class 1-A has decided what to do for the festival. They are practicing hard every day, and during the middle of practice, Eri and Mirio drop by]

> “Today is Saturday.”

> “Yup! In other words, it’s our day off!! Kacchan and his group’s temporary license course is also on break this week...”

> “This afternoon, each team is in the midst of practice!”

• [After walking around with Mirio and Eri, Midoriya returns to the dorms to find out he has been “fired”]

> “This was the way practice and meetings were held after class. Until the actual event, I couldn’t find any free time. Hence, my training was—...”

(N/ In case anyone forgot, Midoriya being “fired” just meant he wouldn’t be dancing the whole set with the group. Instead he would be dancing part of the routine, and then help out the staging team. On top of that, he went to training at 6AM)

• [Introduced more in depth to Gentle and La Brava. Some backstory as to how they met is provided, along with details of their plan to infiltrate U.A.]

> “At last, tomorrow is the cultural festival! The real deal! And all that’s left is—a good night’s rest...before the cultural festival begins at 9 o’clock in the morning.”

> “And then...on the day of the cultural festival.”

• [Hatsume comes during Midoriya’s training to deliver the support item he asked for. With that break, Midoriya, having hours until the festival begins, takes the chance to leave to buy a new rope and other supplies. As he is running back to U.A., he meets Gentle and La Brava]

> “Please...Please stop this!”

> “Don’t you lay a hand on U.A.!”

• [In an attempt to stop their plan, Midoriya fights with Gentle, leaving him with 15 minutes before the start of the festival. La Brava narrates as she watches, reminiscing the past]

> “[La Brava] His [Gentle] hopes have been dashed...!!”

> “Gentle...!!!”

> “In the first year of junior high, right after summer break...I was made fun of by the person who I just built up the courage to write a love letter to.”

> “After that, I became someone who couldn’t believe in anything. I had no purpose, and would simply whittle away my days in front of my computer. I kept wondering if I should just say goodbye to this life...”

> “That was when we met. The light that is you...”

> “Gentle Criminal...you accepted me without any hesitation.”

> “Gentle!! My Gentle!”

(N/ Before I mentioned I’d use pink for the parent’s narration only, and purple who be for villains. However, Gentle and La Brava are not hardcore villains like the League of Villains, so I decided to make them pink instead....Such tough decisions -~-‘’)

• [Their fight has concluded, with Midoriya the victor. In a last attempt to save La Brava, Gentle makes Midoriya fly away and surrenders to Hound Dog and Ectoplasm. Thanks to this, the festival is able to continue]

> “What Gentle Criminal wanted to do...I somehow understand now.”

> “Gentle Criminal, you were a tough opponent. “Born out of the despair of hero dropouts.” I finally understand why our fight was so tough. Because I, too, was probably the same.”

> “Beacuse Gentle and I held similar sentiments. He fough for La Brava’s sake. And I...I fought...to see your smile.”

[makeste]

Do you think Deku will ever get mad at All-Might for keeping so many secrets from him? Deku has been giving All-Might free passes on things he should have known about like AFO, previous holders of OFA and now that Tomura is Nana's grandson. It feels like AM needs to be held accountable at some point.

I think it’s likely; he’s gotten fairly mad at him about this before, back when All Might hid the truth about his falling-out with Nighteye.

and he’s probably going to feel a bit betrayed at the realization that All Might is still keeping things from him even after this conversation. and it’s not like it’s just small things, either; these are some pretty major things that Deku is still getting blindsided by as a result of All Might’s secrecy. it feels like AM hasn’t really learned his lesson at all and is still Dumbledoring his way through this mentorship.

but the thing is, I can understand All Might’s point of view here as well, and I get why he keeps doing it, even if I don’t agree with it. I’ve been meaning to write a post about this anyway, especially since it ties into the matter of the Fourth OFA User and his quirk, so let’s take a look at All Might’s ever-growing List of Secrets, because there’s a pattern there.

1. OFA

starting with the big one. now obviously Deku is very much in on this particular secret. however it is still a secret from just about everyone else, and it’s probably the one secret that All Might has been the most adamant about keeping, going to increasingly elaborate lengths even as it becomes more and more obvious that all of these efforts are eventually going to prove futile.

the thing is, it’s pretty obvious why he’s been trying so hard to keep the truth of Deku’s quirk hidden. OFA paints a huge target onto Deku’s back, one that would attract notice not just from the villain side, but from the hero side as well. OFA is basically the ultimate prize. it’s probably the most powerful quirk in existence, aside from AFO. and once word gets out that this power can be passed on to literally anyone simply at will, things could start getting very ugly.

Deku would suddenly come under pressure from all sides, with people trying to use and control him (well, I say “people”, but mainly I mean the HPSC sob). that’s if they see him as a useful tool and a weapon in the battle against the League, mind you. but if they decide that he’s not, or that he’s not ready, there would instead be pressure for him to give up OFA to a “worthier” candidate. either way, Deku himself isn’t going to be taken into account. his thoughts, his feelings, what he wants, what he deserves; none of that is going to matter to these people.

and these are the good guys, mind! that’s not even mentioning the villains, who have already destroyed an entire city in pursuit of him. Deku is in a lot of danger now. and so far, Tomura/AFO have been surprisingly honorable in their attempts to get ahold of OFA, in that they’ve been targeting Deku directly. but AFO is a notoriously underhanded guy, and it concerns me that there are a ton of more underhanded methods still on the table for him to try out. because we’ve already established that Deku is notoriously self-sacrificing. I mean literally notorious, as in both his friends and enemies alike have all picked up on this trait and made a note of it. so imagine if Tomura ever decides to take hostages, for instance. “give me OFA or I’ll kill so and so.” then what?? jesus.

so yeah, all in all it’s pretty clear why All Might has been exceedingly careful about keeping OFA a secret even from most of Deku’s allies. this isn’t even getting into the whole U.A. traitor thing as well, but I mean, you get the idea, right? the reason All Might has gone to such lengths to keep OFA a secret is to protect Deku.

2. AFO

and now we get to the first of many things that All Might kept hidden from Deku himself! and these are generally going to be a lot harder to defend. like yeah, you probably should have told this barely-pubescent child that that the quirk you were giving him came prepackaged with a built-in mortal enemy, All Might. might want to actually lead with that part next time.

so why didn’t he tell Deku about AFO? well first of all please understand that I’m not trying to justify this decision, lol; I’m just trying to rationalize it from All Might’s point of view. he was less than six years removed from his fateful battle with AFO in which the both of them were gravely injured. and yes, he said that he believed AFO had died from his wounds; but if he really thought that was true, why didn’t he listen to Nighteye and pass OFA on to someone else back then? why did he stubbornly stay in the field for as long as he could? his actions just don’t line up. if he really thought AFO was dead, you’d think he would have been able to retire in peace, as there wouldn’t have been such a great need for the Symbol anymore.

so honestly, what I’m learning towards here is that he didn’t really believe it, deep down. but once his powers really started to wane, he felt like he had no choice but to pass the quirk on to someone else and just hope for the best. and then, once he met Deku, I think he really started to want to believe it was true. because he empathized with Deku and he saw himself in him, and he wanted to give him that chance. Deku wanted so badly to be a hero, and All Might saw that he had the heart and the spirit of one, and only lacked the physical ability. and there All Might was, with a quirk he could bestow on him that could potentially make his dream come true. he wanted to believe he could do that. he convinced himself that the threat of AFO really was nonexistent -- after all, it had been six years! -- and that it wasn’t a burden he was passing down onto this child anymore, but a gift.

and so he didn’t tell Deku about AFO because he wanted to believe it wasn’t something Deku needed to know. so in this case it wasn’t just Deku he was essentially lying to, but himself as well. so yeah, not the best rationale in the world, but a very human mistake for him to make, and one that once again has its roots in wanting to protect Deku. or more precisely in this case, wanting to protect Deku’s dream. he wanted to believe it was all right for him to hand down this power which he so strongly believed that Deku deserved.

3. the Vestiges

honestly it’s a bit up in the air whether or not this one was really a secret, because All Might genuinely didn’t seem to realize that the Vestiges were conscious inside of OFA. or so he says at any rate. regardless, I’m going to include it in the list because he was definitely acting pretty cagey about the subject back during the sports festival, and I’ve never been fully satisfied with his explanation.

if you ask me? I think one of the reasons why he didn’t want to discuss this more in depth with Deku back then was because he was afraid it might inadvertently lead to some other topics that he wasn’t yet ready to discuss.

the idea of the previous OFA users living on inside the quirk is comforting in some ways, but that’s also a conversation that inevitably leads to the subject of AFO and AFO’s brother just for starters. not to mention Nana, whose death was deeply traumatizing for him and which I don’t think he was emotionally prepared to bring up just yet.

but I think the biggest factor that led to All Might being mum about this was the fact that he himself was included among the Vestiges. because I’m thinking he might have been a bit paranoid about avoiding a conversation like this:

All Might: “hey Midoriya-shounen, I just wanted to let you know that those weird little shadow figures you saw during your fight were the ghosts of the previous users of OFA, who are all living on inside of the quirk. my master once told me, 'even if I die one of these days, we can always meet again inside One for All.' so you know, that’s nice.”

Deku: “huh okay, so you’re telling me I have the souls of eight other people trapped inside my quirk, well that’s pretty trippy but I’m a weird little boy who lives for this kind of wild quirk shit so I’m okay with it! but it’s not like it matters though anyway since you’re still here to guide me haha! it’s not like you have any reason to suspect that might not be the case in the very near future, right?”

All Might: “...right.”

so yeah. once again, the reason for All Might keeping this a secret is because he doesn’t want to burden Deku. spoiler alert, the next two secrets also have the exact same reasoning behind them. in fact I’m just going to go and lump them both together.

4. Sir Nighteye, and 5. Sir Nighteye’s prophecy

so #4 is the one that actually finally set Deku off in the scene I posted earlier lol. and yeah, All Might should have told Deku, especially since it was inevitable that Deku was going to find out anyway. once he learned about Nighteye and All Might’s falling-out, him finding out about the prophecy was a given. and so once again I want to stress that I’m not actually trying to defend All Might’s decision here lol. just trying to relate to it.

anyway but that said, the reason why he didn’t tell Deku is pretty straightforward: he didn’t want to burden Deku with that knowledge. he knows Deku looks up to him. he knows that Deku looks to him for support. and All Might has spent his entire career doing everything he could to be that strong support for everybody, for the entire nation. he wants everyone to feel secure and safe. he wants nothing more than to be able to keep them safe. and it’s so hard, when you have that mindset, to let yourself show weakness and allow the cracks to show and to admit and accept that you can’t protect people from everything, no matter how bad you want to.

how do you tell the kid you’re mentoring, the kid who’s come to depend on you for so much, that there’s a good chance you might not be around much longer? that there’s a good chance he’ll be left to deal with everything all on his own, the same way that you were? how the hell do you even begin to approach that conversation? especially knowing what kind of person Deku is, on top of everything else. for a hero, someone who’s dedicated their whole life to helping and protecting others, nothing is more devastating than being told that something terrible is going to happen, and that no matter what, there is nothing you can do to change that fate. that alone would have been reason enough to not want Deku to know. he didn’t want him to experience that kind of helplessness.

and Deku is still just a kid!! Nighteye, a fully grown man and a hero with years of experience, completely fell apart after that prophecy. meanwhile Deku just started hero school less than a year ago. he’s only sixteen. he is far, far too young to have to deal with all of this. yes, he needed to know, both as a matter of trust and as a matter of practicality. but the fact that he needed to know is pretty fucking cruel on the universe’s part, and I get why All Might was so reluctant to tell him. I get it.

side note!! I feel like it’s worth mentioning that this one is still a secret as far as a certain other person goes. like, I feel that’s pretty noteworthy. pretty much every other person who knows about OFA also knew about Nighteye’s prophecy, including Rat Principal, Recovery Girl, Gran Torino, and Nighteye himself. (although it’s not clear whether or not Naomasa knows, come to think of it. but it’s likely, since All Might probably physically can’t lie to him lol.) and of course, Deku now knows as well.

but aside from Naomasa, there is one other person who’s notably missing from that list.

Kacchan knows about OFA and AFO, but neither All Might nor Deku have told him about the prophecy. even though Katsuki has firmly elbowed his way into the OFA Scooby Squad and knows about all sorts of other things including SIXQUIRKS and the Vestiges and all that jazz, and he’s been helping Deku train and has been included in pretty much everything for months now, he still doesn’t know about this.

and honestly, this might be the one time where I actually agree with All Might’s decision. I say that as someone who loves Katsuki to pieces and very much wants him to find out about this, because I’m mean and because I love angst. but once again, I get it, though. because you probably don’t want to tell the kid who was thinking this...

...that at the time, when you came to save him back at Kamino, you were thinking something like this:

yeah. I’m just saying. I don’t think it does Katsuki much benefit to know that All Might originally went out to Kamino fully expecting that it would be his last battle, and fully prepared to die the horrible death that Nighteye foretold. like, on the one hand there’s definitely an argument to be made that Katsuki should know about the prophecy just so that he’s prepared in case anything does happen, because he would then be the one to have to step up and replace All Might as Deku’s primary support. (and this is something All Might already seems to have been grooming him for in recent months, which is a bit of a red flag as far as All Might’s mortality prospects are concerned, but that’s another discussion for another day.)

but on the other hand, Katsuki is a pretty smart kid. and if and when he does find out about this, there’s a good chance he’s going to connect the dots and realize that Kamino was actually a hell of a lot riskier than All Might ever let on. and there’s close to a 100% chance that he starts blaming himself all over again if he ever learns that. I don’t think it would set him back too much, because he’s made a lot of progress, but I do think that even now it’s still something that he feels a lot of responsibility for. and so really this is just an additional burden that he doesn’t need to be carrying on his shoulders. Deku’s not the only one who’s still just a kid.

anyway! so tl;dr this is yet another case where All Might was keeping something a secret because he didn’t want to burden Deku. and is, in fact, STILL keeping it secret from Katsuki because he doesn’t want to burden him, either. basically just trying to protect both of these kids here.

6. Nana’s relation to Tomura

almost done with the list now! for real though, it’s crazy how many of these there are. how can one man have so many secrets. like seriously, calm the fuck down, All Might.

so! again, Deku should arguably have been told this as soon as it became clear that the responsibility of dealing with AFO and Tomura was going to fall to him. except, I guess, the thing is they didn’t think it was going to fall to him. or at least they hoped it wouldn’t. AFO was in Tartarus, and Naomasa and Gran were planning on hunting down Tomura and the League themselves. and Deku is just a high school kid with an internship. so in an ideal world, he would have never gotten near Tomura, and vice-versa. the adult heroes in BnHA may be inept as fuck, but I’ll give them credit where due: none of them wanted this kind of responsibility to ever fall on any of the kids until they were ready. even during this arc, the kids were all originally assigned to the evacuation teams, and the handful who were on the front lines were there because it was essential to the mission. and even then they pretty much had assigned babysitters (Midnight, Fatgum, etc.) shadowing them the whole time and ready to haul them back out as soon as their tasks were accomplished. like, don’t get me wrong, the child soldiers thing was and is still very fucked up, lol. but they were clearly trying to keep them out of harm’s way.

anyway! and so of course this applies to Deku as well. never mind that he’s All Might’s heir and well on his way to becoming more powerful than anyone could have ever dreamed. he’s still just a teenager. and we don’t send teenagers out to hunt the bad guys. we leave that to the adults, supposedly. and so in these guys’ minds, there really wasn’t any reason to tell Deku about the whole Nana/Tomura connection, because even if it was true, in their minds it’s not really relevant to Deku. they weren’t planning on him and Tomura becoming arch-nemeses. and so it was really just another thing that All Might presumably didn’t want to burden him with at the end of the day. “by the way, Midoriya-shounen, you should know there’s a possibility that Shigaraki Tomura is actually the grandson of my late mentor whom All for One killed.” that’s basically just a very unfun fact that Deku can do absolutely nothing about, except feel bad about it. it doesn’t change the fact that Tomura is still a mass murderer who’s eventually going to have to be captured or killed. so in All Might’s mind there’s really no benefit to telling Deku about any of this.

anyway! and so now finally, last but not least,

7. the Fourth OFA User

so now we finally get to the one secret we don’t actually know yet! OFA IV, and his whole mysterious deal.

All Might, after doing all that research on the previous OFA users and their quirks, suddenly changed his mind at the last second and decided not to tell Deku about this one specific user and his quirk (and notably, his cause of death). why is that?? “I don’t want to speculate and talk about things I’m not sure of...” really?? so you think the better option is for him to be unprepared and to not have any idea of what’s coming, then??

no, seriously. I’m seriously asking that. does All Might, in fact, think that it’s actually a better option for Deku to not know anything about the fourth user than for him to be aware of it. I am genuinely asking that question, because I truly suspect that this might actually be the case.

because, you see, that’s the pattern. if you look at all the other things he’s kept hidden either from Deku, or from others on Deku’s behalf, that’s the one thing they all have in common. he kept them secret in order to protect Deku. either to shelter him from the burden, or to keep him safe from people who might try to do him harm.

so I think it’s safe to say that even though we know absolutely nothing about this particular secret yet, it’s still going to follow that same pattern. All Might isn’t telling Deku about the Fourth yet either because he doesn’t want to burden him with something, or because he thinks there’s some other reason why Deku is better off not knowing.

here are a few other things we can extrapolate here:

All Might’s next line after this is “because I’m worried for him”, so yeah. whatever the reason, he’s trying to protect Deku somehow.

All Might has a history of avoiding truths he’s not ready to face yet, such as AFO still being alive. so even though he says here that he’s “not sure of” whatever it is he found, it’s very possible that he is in fact pretty sure of it, but just doesn’t want to believe it.

the fact that he wrote something down but then crossed it out would seem to support that as well. he says “not yet”, but I’m definitely not convinced that’s actually the case.

whatever this secret about the fourth user is, it’s something All Might isn’t willing to tell Katsuki either, even though Katsuki specifically presses him about it. this makes me think that it’s not just something shady or unpleasant about the fourth user’s past (like him being a villain for instance), because if it was just something like that, I don’t think he’d be so insistent on hiding it from Katsuki as well. and also that wouldn’t explain why he’s keeping the quirk a secret, especially since he knows Deku is going to manifest it at some point.

so my thinking is that it’s not something about the Fourth’s history, but rather something about his quirk. and after all, the Vestige storyline is mainly about the SIXQUIRKS anyway, so that tracks. and so if it is something related to the Fourth’s quirk, and this something also convinced All Might to hide the Fourth’s cause of death, I think the most likely explanation is that something about the Fourth’s quirk ended up killing him, and All Might fears that this quirk could potentially harm or kill Deku as well.

“but if the Fourth’s quirk is potentially dangerous, then wouldn’t it make more sense to tell Deku about it so that he can be prepared?” well, yeah. definitely it would. unless, of course, All Might has somehow concluded that the danger to Deku is actually GREATER if he knows than if he doesn’t know. in other words, the risk of the quirk manifesting with Deku unaware of what it is, is outweighed by the risk of Deku knowing and manifesting it on purpose.

and this, I think, is where the rest of Katsuki’s conversation with All Might in ch 284 comes into play:

All Might has no doubt observed the same thing himself. and so what I’m thinking is that this must be some kind of super high-risk, high-reward quirk that Deku, if he knew about it, would be tempted to use while battling someone like Tomura, even knowing there was a risk of it hurting or even killing him as well. this is Deku, after all. Deku, who takes himself out of the equation. Deku, who is ALREADY pushing himself to extremes with OFA and has been doing so from the start. Deku, who barring a miracle will be lucky to have even 1/10th of the normal function in his arms when this arc is said and done. and that’s just with normal, everyday OFA and Blackwhip and Float. if you were to go and add some sort of super-self-destruct quirk on top of all that?? jesus christ. they’d be picking up the pieces of what was left of him, probably.

so yeah. if this really does turn out to be the case, and the Fourth’s quirk really is a potential suicide quirk? I could absolutely understand why All Might would keep that hidden from him. once again, it’s all about protecting him and keeping him safe.

and it’s problematic though, for sure! and most likely futile just like all of his other secret-keeping efforts have been. at some point he’s just going to have to start trusting Deku to handle this stuff, and letting him know these things. like it or not, he’s not going to be a kid forever, and Destiny is currently being Thrust Upon Him at a fairly alarming rate! pretending like all of these threats will just magically go away all on their own is not it. if you didn’t want peril lusting over him at every corner then you shouldn’t have chosen a motherfucking Shounen Protag as your motherfucking heir, my dude.

anyway! so those are all of my thoughts about All Might and his secrets. I do think Deku is gonna call him out on it again soon, and I think All Might will be apologetic for not telling him about Tomura and Nana, but I don’t know if it will be enough to finally get him to change his ways and reveal everything else. he is an overprotective dad filled with anxiety over his trouble magnet son and his arm-exploding ways, and it’s a tough position for him to be in, knowing that either way there will be pain that Deku can’t avoid. it’s rough. anyways, maybe I’m too soft, but while I don’t necessarily want him to just keep getting free passes on everything, I kind of hope they don’t rake him over the coals too badly for it either. he means well!! he is doing his best. hopefully they can manage to talk it out, sob.

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 303: And What, Pray Tell, Is a “One For All”

Previously on BnHA: The Todorokis (really just Enji) looked at their children and went “how can we screw up all four of them in uniquely different ways” and proceeded to do just that. Touya was all “just because practicing how to set myself on fire better hasn’t worked to win my dad’s affections YET doesn’t mean it will NEVER work”, because child logic. Turns out setting oneself on fire real hard isn’t so effective at winning affections, but is actually incredibly effective when it comes to burning oneself to death, so there’s that. Back in the present day, the Todorokis basked in their various misplaced (again, except for Enji) feelings of guilt, and were all “anyway but get over yourself already Enji, you still have to do something to stop this kid”, and Shouto was all “I’ll help too”, and Enji was all “(╥_╥)”, and Hawks and Jeanist were all “[surreptitiously listening in from outside the door]”, and that’s basically where we left off.

Today on BnHA: Hawks and Jeanist are all “mind if we join you on this family journey?” and proceed to stroll in uninvited with their puns and their perceptive insights. Hawks is all “so to sum everything up, we’re fucked, but at least you have us here to help you out! by the way, no clue why I’m the first person to ask this in three hundred chapters, but wtf is One For All.” We then cut to Deku, who’s still all “[(－－)]z”, and All Might, who is all “I’m just going to ignore the extremely loud racket going on right outside this room.” Which, btw, is happening on account of Bakugou, who is all “(╬◣Д◢)” as Satou, Tsuyu, and Mineta cart him away. Anyway so that’s a lot of antics, and also it looks like Hawks has gotten tired of the Todorokis refusing to put the pieces together on their own about OFA and so he is fast-tracking that shit. And meanwhile Deku is chatting it up with the Vestiges exactly like we all thought. And now we have to wait another whole week for updates on all of this. This really is not fair.

omfg lol

“our bad, we were kind of accidentally listening in on purpose.” like I said last week guys, no fuss. it’s a tradition

OMG

I am absolutely fucking floored. Hawks literally said that so casually that it’s impossible for me to rewrite it so as to be even more casual. that’s literally what I would write in the “today on bnha” section. in fact I probably will write that

(ETA: just for laughs I tried it and it really worked.)

a couple more things to point out about this panel: 

“TOP 3” omg yes. more like “top only” at this point, honestly. interested to see how that goes

Hawks’s phone is freaking the fuck out about something, calm down there

I know this is a standard Jeanist hair-fixing gesture that he does all the time, but I can’t help but form hypotheses about this being a stress reaction because Hawks’s hair is making him internally freak out. Hawks, if this man tries to get you alone with him and some hairspray and a comb, please for the love of god do not listen to him. get out of there and call the authorities

omg Shouto’s face

okay confession, I wasn’t really sold on the whole “Shouto has a schoolboy crush on Hawks” thing until exactly now, when I became 100% sold on it. that is adorable

and heck with it, gotta show Enji and Rei’s reactions here as well because lol

“omg my son who’s not my son, and he just overheard everything about me being a terrible shitty father and person overall, oh and plus my actual-son set him on fire and called him out on a national broadcast. I’m just gonna stare at him baffledly.” versus Rei, who is all “hmm, who are these people”

so Hawks is all “I got released from the hospital after one day for some reason so I made Jeanist drive me around places while we talked about life” but uh, heyyyyy, what’s Rei doing

okay, uh

SO FUCKING FORMAL OMFG. “SORRY MY KID TRIED TO BURN YOU TO DEATH, APPARENTLY HE DOES THAT” REI NO IT’S NOT YOUR FAULT

HAWKS IS ALL “I’M JUST GONNA LAUGH SINCE THAT’S MY DEFAULT RESPONSE TO BEING PROFOUNDLY UNCOMFORTABLE”

let me tell you a secret Hawks, it’s my default response too. ahahahahahahaha oh thank god Jeanist is helping her up -- AND MAKING A JEANS PUN, OF COURSE. IT’S BEEN ALMOST THIRTY SECONDS. MY MAN WAS DYING

“WTF IS ILLEGAL DENIM” he’s talking ‘bout them counterfeit jeans, Rei. Antoine Bugleboy knows

THANK YOU JEANIST!! OUT HERE ASKING THE RELEVANT QUESTIONS

damn straight. we’re not gonna sit around waiting another 300 chapters for this information on this man’s watch

now Hawks is telling Endeavor he used to watch videos of him all the time, and calling him his “childhood obsession” I can’t

OH MY SWEET STARS AND MOONS

1000% CANON. “SO CLOSE...” ARE YOU SERIOUS. YOU REALLY PUT THAT THOUGHT BUBBLE THERE AND EVERYTHING. “GOOD MORNING EVERYONE, SO JUST IN CASE YOU WEREN’T ALREADY AWARE, TODOROKI SHOUTO IS NOT ACTUALLY STRAIGHT.” HORIKOSHI KOUHEI I AM LITERALLY DUMBFOUNDED. THIS IS AMAZING

and meanwhile that look on Hawks’s face while he casually-but-not-really-casually-at-all asks this question. that phone app better be using his actual voice. I’m not sure I could take this scene in the anime at this point if it was like Alexa talking or something

that look in his eyes is basically saying that so far, based on the information he has absorbed up until this point, Hawks is prepared to view his former childhood obsession as a flawed but changed man. however I get the distinct feeling that depending on Endeavor’s answer now, he would be willing to drastically shift some of his opinions on him

(ETA: this is maybe my favorite panel in the entire chapter. the fact that his question isn’t addressed to anyone in particular, but his eyes are zeroing on on Endeavor. and the way his leaning-on-Shouto pose manages to be simultaneously nonchalant and yet ever-so-slightly protective. there’s so much going on in this one question and gesture and I’m mildly obsessed with it.)

however, Rei is all “that was me” and ONCE AGAIN WITH THE FACES IN THIS CHAPTER holy shit

Hawks definitely did not see that one coming sob. it’s so fun watching him frantically recalculate his ideas about this family every two seconds

DAMN IT HORIKOSHI I UNDERSTOOD THE PARALLELS ALREADY, YOU REALLY DIDN’T HAVE TO DO THIS

yes, Hawks, you get it. it’s not exactly the same, but it’s close enough. though unlike your shitty parents, Rei and Enji are at least trying

OKAY I SERIOUSLY CANNOT WITH ALL OF THIS

fljkdlaskfjlwkjl okay we’re doing the bullet-points breakdown here

first of all, the fact that poor little Shouto’s heart is still thumping away at this proximity and all he can think is “CLOSE” all intelligently as he stares at him with that face omg

and meanwhile Horikoshi has these STRATEGIC BANDAGES WRAPPED AROUND HIS CHEEKS TO HIDE ALL OF HIS SHOUJO BLUSHING omfg. SENPAI NOTICED YOU SWEETIE!!!

HAWKS YOU HAVE ABSOLUTELY ZERO OBLIGATION TO WASTE ANOTHER SECOND OF YOUR LIFE WORRYING ABOUT THESE TWO ASSHOLES WHO NEVER SPARED YOU THE SLIGHTEST BIT OF REGARD OR CONCERN IN THEIR ENTIRE LIVES. THE NICEST THING YOUR MOM EVER DID FOR YOU WAS BUY YOU A $2 ENDEAVOR PLUSH FROM THE DISCOUNT BIN TO KEEP YOU QUIET, AND YOU WERE SO AWED BY THAT ONE ACT OF SORTA KINDA APPROXIMATE KINDNESS THAT YOU SHAPED YOUR ENTIRE WORLDVIEW AROUND IT. PLEASE LET ME PICK YOU UP IN A BIG HUG FOR JUST A SEC, YOU DESERVE THE WORLD AND YOU WERE ONE THOUSAND PERCENT JUSTIFIED IN LEAVING THEM IN THE DUST THE SECOND THAT YOU COULD

but all that said, he immediately recognizes that Shouto would also have had cause to do the same in his situation, and yet hasn’t. and so he has that much more admiration for him all of a sudden, which is just super sweet, and fully appropriate. Shouto does deserve props. I’m choosing to take this as an “it takes a lot of strength to be able to forgive, and people who choose to do that even though they’re not obligated to are really amazing" type of thing, as opposed to “people who don’t forgive other people who severely wronged them are bad.” and if I’m wrong and Hawks’s line here is meant to be seen as actual failing on his part, well then fuck that, but we’ll move on

SO NOW, DOWN TO BUSINESS!

I am so, so curious as to what kind of strategy Hawks has for this (if he even has any), so I’ll just be quiet now and read

so Hawks is summing up basically what we already knew -- that Tomura and his inner circle (curious that there’s no mention of AFO, because if Hawks doesn’t know about him, that implies almost no one does) are still on the lam with a few PLF stragglers and some High Ends; that a bunch of prisons have been “liberated” (I assume this means all of the inmates escaped, so if that’s the case then where’s Kurogiri??); that the HPSC is fucked; and that heroes are resigning all over the place, and so civilians are taking matters into their own hands

OH DAMN!?

does this mean we’ll actually see some international heroes?? I will LOSE MY DAMN SHIT omg

(ETA: apparently people who paid more attention to the first BnHA movie than I did recognized the silhouettes as belonging to some background characters from Two Heroes. so maybe they were just cameos and they’re not actually new characters who are soon to join us lol. oh well.)

anyway so Hawks agrees with the other Todorokis that Endeavor has no choice but to fight

awww

DON’T WORRY ENJI THEY’VE GOT YOUR BACK. WITH YOUR FLAMES, AND JEANIST’S PUNS, AND HAWKS’S BOYISHLY GOOD LOOKS, THE THREE OF YOU CAN DO ANYTHING YOU SET YOUR MINDS TO

so Enji is very pertinently asking why they’re standing by him in spite of the... [gestures vaguely to everything]

oh my lordy lord

Shouto you had better do something to combat this soon, or this man will sneak past you on my favorite character ranking after all. his face. his cheeky lil finger gun. the fact that he sums it up so fucking simply. “if someone is trying to do the right thing, I want to support them.” exactly. exactly

(ETA: and one last thing I love but forgot to mention, which is the fact that Hawks calls it a team-up despite the fact that he is clearly in charge.)

meanwhile Jeanist is all “as for me, at this point I just straight up don’t give a fuck”

I can’t handle how fucking cool this chapter is you guys

so Hawks is all “you good?” at Enji. and Enji...

if anyone needs me, I will be building myself a discourse-proof fort made entirely out of problematic characters. I don’t even care. I will go on living my life very happily in here

lol at Natsu being all “BUT DON’T THINK THIS MAKES US FRIENDS”

I’m living for this weird and no-doubt entirely unintended implication that Natsu and them all are gonna join in the fight with the rest of them. I mean, they do presumably all have very powerful ice quirks. and Natsu has medical training on top of that, and Fuyu is skilled at getting eight-year-olds to behave which could be a useful talent for dealing with Tomura hahaha I kid, but I’M JUST SAYING. who needs hero licenses anyway

OH SHIT FINALLY SOME DISCUSSION OF AN ACTUAL STRATEGY. even if it’s just a PR strategy

WHAKLHL

and now for some reason we’re flashing back to Natsu and Fuyu’s attempts to navigate through the media crowd outside the hospital

well I guess this is why I’m not the mangaka. if I were writing this I would have done something trite and predictable like using that “One for All” line as an excuse to cut to Deku!! as opposed to this entirely unrelated scene!!

seriously though why do we need to see this lol

no one in this crowd has ever heard of Alexander Dumas huh. or even the popular 2007 Disney Channel original movie, High School Musical 2

so now there’s an entire page of Hawks saying they need to know what One for All is, and Endeavor having one of those patented Todoroki WHOOSH realizations lmao look at this

just wait until this man figures out that one of the scrappy new interns he took on three months ago was actually the main character all along

SKDFIOHWIERLKSJGLWLK!!

NOW IS PROBABLY A GOOD TIME TO ASK MYSELF WHY I CHOSE THIS CHARACTER WHO KEEPS DISAPPEARING FOR SIX OR TWELVE OR FORTY CHAPTERS AT A TIME TO BE MY FUCKING FAVORITE. WELCOME BACK SON PLEASE DON’T SCREAM YOURSELF TO DEATH YOU STILL HAVE A HOLE IN YOUR TORSO

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

(ETA: can we just take a moment to appreciate how Bakugou even got so close to Deku’s room in the first place though. in this giant hospital with no idea of where to even go. does he have Deku Radar or something.)

YOU SIX ARE OFFICIALLY ON MY HIT LIST!! SPARE ME YOUR GOOD INTENTIONS!! MY BAKUDEKU REUNION KEEPS GETTING POSTPONED WEEK AFTER WEEK!! YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO BE HEROES WHERE IS YOUR CONCEPT OF MERCY

(ETA: btw just to be clear, I’m not actually angry lol; it makes total sense that they don’t want this rampaging feral toddler who was still in his own coma all of fifteen minutes ago to come and start screaming at the other coma child until he tears all his stitches out. if there’s anything we Bakugou fans should be familiar with by now, it’s being patient.)

also, Tsuyu wrapping her tongue around Bakugou’s still-healing torso wound absolutely can’t be hygienic at all. also wait is that Inko??

(ETA: pretty sure it is her. she got all of one line smdh.)

Iida is all “thank god Great Explosion Murder God Dynamight pulled through, I thought for sure he was a goner back there”

for the record this is actually really sweet to see how relieved he is. he’s one of the few people who saw the original injury close up, back when he was still at the battlefield and unconscious, so I imagine it really did freak him out quite a bit

JIROUUUUUU

“sometimes I just like to stand here and tug on my imaginary suspenders, what of it”

how come you guys get to loiter around Deku’s room but Kacchan doesn’t. god fucking dammit. AND WHAT DOES THIS EVEN MEAN

I BET KACCHAN COULD WAKE HIM UP FROM HIS COMA WITH THE POWER OF RIVAL INTENSITY!! BUT NOOOOOOOO, [is dragged away back to my fort]

OH MY GOD!?!

"this seems to be an entirely normal and above-board situation that we have just stumbled onto”

I see Jeanist comes from the Iida Tenya school of respectfully using people’s full names

Jeanist becoming one of the main characters is the best thing to ever happen to this series

EXCUSE YOU, IIDA

BUT I’M SURE HE’D MAKE AN EXCEPTION FOR KACCHAN THOUGH!! [elbowing my way back out of the fort] HAWKS, PLEASE --

DON’T GO ALL OMINIOUSLY PUTTING THE PIECES TOGETHER ALL ON YOUR OWN GODDAMMIT

“there’s absolutely no way this angry wriggling shoulder burrito kid here could answer literally all of my questions, so I’ll just ignore him”

OH MY GOD WE’RE FINALLY CUTTING BACK TO HIM BUT THE CHAPTER IS ENDING

[jumps up, throws a folding chair at Iida and the rest of the gang, and then runs]

oh my god. actually this chapter was awesome. but I’m so fucking mad at this cliffhanger though lol

at least we got a couple of answers! and some hints and teases! poor Deku looks so worn out even though he’s asleep dlwkjl my little green baby. and is it just me or is his quirk activated?? All Might’s all “I can feel it” as if it isn’t obvious just looking at him, why are you trying to be all mysterious dude

anyway! so at least we finally have confirmation and a date for those vestige antics at long last. looking forward to meeting Mister The Fourth next week so we can finally ask him “hey dude, what the fuck”

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 286: VESTIGE ANTICS ARE A GO

Previously on BnHA: Deku was all “what’s the record for most consecutive bone breaks within the span of a single minute” and, without waiting for an answer, proceeded to unleash roughly 17 Smashes onto Tomura. Kacchan was all “THAT DOES IT, I’M TAKING THE REINS OF THIS SHITSHOW” and carried Endeavor and Shouto up to where the action was so Endeavor could hit Tomura with a Prominence Burn. AFO was all “Tomura would you rather burn to death or let me take over your body” and Tomura was all “...” and so AFO TOOK OVER and was all “STABBITY STABBITY” and used his Stabbing Quirk to do some Good Old Fashioned STABBIN’. First he stabbed Endeavor, and then he was all “hee and now I’m gonna stab Deku”, but Kacchan was all “SIR THAT’S MY EMOTIONAL SUPPORT RIVAL” and so he rushed on in AND GOT HIMSELF STABBED INSTEAD. And so basically THIS PAST WHOLE WEEK HAS BEEN A RIDE, LET ME TELL YOU.

Today on BnHA: Kacchan is all “sup Deku lemme just downplay how I totally took this fatal blow for you just now” before he dramatically passes out and is caught by Todoroki “BTDUBS I CAN FLY NOW” Shouto, who is also carrying his dad because the kids really are just doing it all, here. AllForRaki Tomura For One is all “HAHA BAKUGOU IS PRETTY DUMB”, at which point Deku just LOSES IT ENTIRELY and ASCENDS INTO A NEW PLANE OF FURY LIKE A LITTLE GREEN RAGE BUDDHA. But then like two seconds later Tomura is all “ANYWAY, SO” and FUCKING TOUCHES DEKU’S FACE, CAUSING THE TWO OF THEM TO ASTROPROJECT INTO THE FREAKY OFA/AFO MINDSCAPE BECAUSE THIS CHAPTER IS BANANAS. Vestige!AFO is all “reports of my demise were greatly exaggerated but aren’t you glad I saved your life though, Tomura”, while Tomura is all “!!” because he’s hopefully starting to get A Clue, and meanwhile Deku just stands there watching all “what the fuck.” The chapter ends with SHIMURA MCFUCKING NANA showing up all, “HI, I HEARD SOME BITCHES WERE TRYING TO HAVE A GIRL POWER ARC, AND THEY DIDN’T INVITE ME.” Go on, Nana. Give ‘em hell.

you guys. I’m not normally one to take pleasure in another human being’s misfortune. BUT THAT SAID, there are exceptions to every rule, and so let’s just say certain events have transpired early this morning which have PUT ME IN A VERY, LET’S JUST SAY, NOT-TERRIBLE MOOD which this chapter will hopefully improve upon!!

oh my god Deku’s one non-fucked-up eye that he still has control over is SO WIDE YOU GUYS

hmm I know I shouldn’t be all (゜▽゜) while the two of them are all (； ▼ Д ▼) (⁰ Д゜;) ... and yet here we are. btw I’m worried tumblr’s formatting will ruin those two emojis which I worked so hard to get just right so I’m gonna repost them on another line here just in case

(； ▼ Д ▼) (⁰ Д゜;) that’s them. Kacchan and Deku. my boys 

HERE COMES THE CHEESY “JUST GOT STABBED BETTER PLAY IT OFF ALL COOL!!!” ONE LINER OH MY GOD

(ETA: really love how my son, with what for all he knows could be his dying breaths, decides that the absolute most important thing is to preserve his selfish asshole facade so as not to fuck up his status quo with his rival. “LOOKEE HERE I GOT MYSELF ALL STABBED AND SHIT FOR YOU, BUT I TOTALLY JUST DID IT BECAUSE I WAS TIRED OF YOU GETTING ALL THE COOL HERO MOMENTS” yeah, that’s right! SELFLESS MOTIVATIONS, WHAT ARE THOSE sob.

also tbh I’m glad they didn’t delve any further into their feelings right here and now because this really isn’t the place or time for it sadly. WE WILL JUST PUT THOSE ON HOLD UNTIL AFTER THE ARC ENDS, when they are all recovering from their various wounds and traumas and have time to catch up and have some long-overdue heart-to-hearts. it deserves its own chapter or two or three. maybe time to head back to Ground Beta once they’re healthy? “healthy” perhaps being a relative term given their current condition fjsdjkf.)

by the way it looks from here like only the ones through his torso and shoulder actually hit, so that’s something at least. WE’VE LOST ENOUGH LEGS TODAY. I need to conserve my remaining puns

MEANWHILE TOMURA IS HAVING A CRISIS

ARE YOU MAD AT YOUR EVIL DAD TOMURA. HE JUST WON’T TAKE NO FOR AN ANSWER WILL HE, THAT GUY

anyway so it looks like Kacchan might have caught a break here because AFO/Tomura is pulling the stabby quirk activation tendril things back out! rip, “Kacchan vs. Deku part 3″ theories

p.s. I got ALL CAUGHT UP IN THE DRAMA and thus glossed over the chapter title which is “one among us”! hmmm this is definitely AFO/OFA related, calling it now. ooh lord I am excited

NOW MY SON IS DRAMATICALLY FALLING

THE BLOOD FROM THE MOUTH OOF NOT GOOD AHHHH. DEKU’S FACE AHHHH. HIS BODY JUST WENT TOTALLY LIMP DID HE PASS OUT AHHHH. SOMEONE CATCH HIM!!

BY HIS FOOT, SHOUTO?!

well NOT EXACTLY THE MOST GRACEFUL THING I’VE EVER SEEN, but we’ll allow it because HOLY SHIT BOY. ARE YOU ALREADY CARRYING YOUR DAD ON TOP OF THAT?? HORIKOSHI PLEASE CONFIRM, IS TODOROKI MOTHERFUCKING SHOUTO FUCKING FLYING AROUND UNBALANCED AF ON HIS ONE FLAMEY LEG, CARRYING HIS 500 LB POP AND NOW HIS FLOPPY PASSED OUT BEST FRIEND AS WELL?!? HOLY SHIT TODO?!?!

LADIES AND GENTLEFRIENDS OF THE VILLAIN STANDOM, FEAR NOT, TOMURA’S HAIR IS THE FIRST THING THAT GREW BACK LOL

even before his eyeballs kfldkakjk. which, btw, how does he even know what’s going on right now? “this fight has shed a lot of useless blood” sdkmkjl okay well (1) WHOSE FAULT WAS THAT, AGAIN??, (2) SERIOUSLY THOUGH, HOW DOES HE EVEN KNOW WHAT’S HAPPENING. DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHO YOU STABBED?? ARE YOU EFFECTIVELY BLIND FOR THE NEXT FEW SECONDS HERE, WHAT’S GOING ON, and lastly (3) I seriously can’t tell if this is AFO or Tomura talking right now. or are they going back and forth?? help this is so confusing

HEY

THE DISRESPECT. I’LL HAVE YOU KNOW KACCHAN ANGST IS NEVER USELESS!!

AND NOW HE’S BACK TO THE STABBING JFKJLKJLF I AM NOT TOO HAPPY WITH YOU RIGHT NOW MISTER

okay and now we’re cutting to some quick panels of the unconscious Aizawa, Gran, and Ryuukyuu, along with the “still conscious but in a very real sense might as well not be counted” Manual who is really having a day, that poor guy

anyway but then there’s also some dialogue boxes being all “if you act out of rage your power will respond accordingly, the most important part is to keep your head clear.” which I’m like 90% sure is Deku/OFA related, but honestly NOTHING ABOUT THIS CHAPTER IS CLEAR SO FAR YOU GUYS. except for the Shouto-is-a-badass part anyway

HMM YEP I’M GONNA GO WITH DEKU-RELATED

it must be a callback to some line I’m forgetting. maybe Lariat explaining Blackwhip to him that one time. probably should have been in italics if it was a flashback quote, but hey. anyways the point is Deku is absolutely, 100% following this advice to the letter (/s)

(ETA: yep I’m almost positive this is the same quote from chapter 213. “listen, when you use this power out of anger, it’ll really start working for you. what really matters is controlling your heart.” which is still one of the weirdest pieces of advice in the entire series, but basically I think he was just trying to tell him it’s okay to get mad, so long as it’s calmly mad. like, controlled fury, as opposed to this white-hot berserker nonsense he’s been running on as of late. anyways I do still love me some shounen rage all the same but Lariat has a point.)

...

it took me a minute to realize THOSE WERE DEKU’S EYES. holy --

AND ANOTHER MINUTE TO REALIZE THAT DEKU FUCKING GRABBED THE ACTIVATION TENDRIL WITH HIS BUSTED UP OFA HANDS AND BIT INTO IT WITH HIS RABID OFA JAWS AND SNAPPED THAT SHIT LIKE A FUCKING KITKAT KLJLKSJDLKJFLK WOOOOOOOO I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT’S HAPPENING BUT GODDAMN. POWER MOVE

(ETA: this is a two-page spread omg. I didn’t even realize at first. this scan ABSOLUTELY DOES NOT DO THIS BADASS PAGE ANY KIND OF JUSTICE but I can’t wait to see the real deal on Sunday holy shit.)

LMAO

DEKU RAGED SO HARD HE TURNED INTO AN ANGRY GHOST SONIC THE HEDGEHOG FKLSKG

(ETA: he actually looks a bit like the Vestiges/Kurogiri tbh.)

meanwhile Tomura basically has the exact same face I would have had in his position. yeah for real man. I don’t even know

p.s. WHEN will people learn to STOP INSULTING KACCHAN IN DEKU’S PRESENCE. WHEN, I ASK!!

WHAT IN THE CINNAMON TOAST FUCK

if this was a physical page I was holding I would have FLUNG THAT SHIT AWAY LIKE THERE WAS A SPIDER CRAWLING ON IT. WHAT THE FUCK

HOT DAMN. well uh. so that’s SUPER DISTURBING, what a lovely panel of Tomura’s melted face slowly growing back while his ears lag behind, and meanwhile that little scar that had been growing and growing and which at one point certain people (ME) thought might turn him into a BEAUTIFUL BUTTERLY instead RIPS HIS FACE IN HALF to reveal the KINDER EGG AFO SURPRISE UNDERNEATH AHHHHH TAKE IT BACK

THIS IS WHY YOU DON’T LET MAD SCIENTISTS PERFORM EXPERIMENTS ON YOU, KIDS. PSA. JUST SAY NO

-- NO!!!

HORIKOSHI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

fuck

oh my god. I almost would have rather cut away right after the Kacchan incident than freaking cut away NOW of all times, jesus. THAT’S JUST A BITCH MOVE, IS WHAT THAT IS. if we don’t cut back within the next three pages I SWEAR TO GOD

anyway so GUESS WHAT GIGANTOMACHIA’S DOING YOU GUYS. if you guessed “the exact same thing he was doing last time we saw him” then you are absolutely right, because it was actually PRETTY EASY TO GUESS

anyway but he says he detects “master’s scent”, except that there’s apparently two of them. interesting! one in Tartarus and one in Jakku, right? lol Horikoshi has burned me so many times already with his excruciatingly slow reveal of this that I’m not gonna hold my breath just yet, but I’ll get the hype train warmed up JUST IN CASE

okay so meanwhile in downtown Jakku, the heroes are handing off the civilians over to the police and rescue forces while they prepare to engage with “the villain”, by which I assume they mean Gigantomachia. does this mean Iida and Ochako are gonna fight Machia you guys omg

OOH!!!

“PLEASE INFORM THEM ON FOOT” well I know a certain SPEEDY BOI who would be PERFECT for that job oh my. make haste, Tenyar FastmLeggy

WAIT WHICH WAY ARE THEY HEADING

ARE THEY HEADING TOWARDS MACHIA OR TOWARDS DEKU AND AFO

so rather than answering my VERY PERTINENT question, Ochako is instead spending an entire page thinking about how their complete clusterfuck of a life keeps getting exponentially worse all the time! well but she’s not wrong though

NOW SHE’S ALL “GUYS...!” and, rather than explaining ANYTHING AT ALL, Horikoshi is again cutting back to THIS, OMG AHHHHHHHHHHHHH

(ETA: good thing Kacchan wasn’t awake to see his dramatic “I’ll just get myself impaled for Deku’s sake” plan result in this outcome ALL OF TWENTY SECONDS LATER smdh.)

I ACTUALLY PREFER MY DEKUS NON-CRUMBLED, THANKS. ALSO JUST ON A SIDE NOTE, POOR SHOUTO THOUGH. THE LAST NINETY SECONDS OR SO HAVE BEEN ENOUGH NIGHTMARE FUEL FOR A LIFETIME HAVEN’T THEY

so now he’s all “MIDORIYA!!!” because OF COURSE HE IS. his best friend just got impaled, and his dad too, and now he fully expects to see his other best friend crumble to dust right before his eyes holy shit. T R A U M A ™

-- !!!

somehow in the excitement of the moment I forgot his actual goal for a sec lol. meaning I instantaneously switched from HORRIFIED to GRINNING LIKE A MANIAC :D :D :D come on OFA time to show him what’s what

AND NOW WE’RE SWITCHING OVER TO EVERYONE’S FAVORITE TRIPPY DREAM LANDSCAPE FOR ADDITIONAL DRAMA, WELL OKAY

I’M ON BOARD WITH THIS, WHATEVER. also it’s becoming increasingly apparent that Deku is in fact nekkid underneath that mystical cloud bs, so let’s hope one of his remaining yet-to-be-unlocked quirks is a pants-conjuring quirk lulz

“this place...” yeah we all fucking know what this place is son, let’s get on with this. by my count we’ve only got four pages left so PLEASE BUDGET THEM WISELY

OH MY

holy shit. I have so many screaming thoughts about this lol but I just want to keep on reading lkjlkjlkjl okay I’ll come back later and edit them in, how’s that

OR MAYBE I’LL JUST RANT ABOUT THEM NOW GODDAMMIT

shit. okay let me just try and sum this up as quick as I can

so just in case it wasn’t already crystal clear, AFO’s soul being roommates with Tomura’s seems to be just about 100% confirmed now. good for you, All For One For All theory!! the “Kacchan loses his quirk” theory died so that you might live on in glory

AFO does seem to have almost fully taken control now. it looks like Tomura’s still fighting back, but AFO clearly has the upper hand now if their body language is any indication. Tomura on his knees with AFO calmly holding him down and ignoring his struggles... not looking too good for him at the moment

people seem to have somewhat lost sight of this in the midst of the great “heroes vs. villains Who Is Right Who Is Wrong What Are Morals” debate of 2020, but just a friendly reminder that AFO is in fact responsible for 100% of all of Tomura’s suffering from pretty much the moment he was born up till this very moment we’re now witnessing!! like, you can go ahead and blame Nana and Gran and The Complacent Apathy Of Hero Society and whatever the fuck else from here till Sunday, but All for One is the reason Kotarou was orphaned. All for One is almost certainly the reason why the seemingly quirkless Tenko suddenly just magically developed THE MOST FUCKED UP QUIRK OF ALL TIME at the worst possible moment. All for One is probably the reason why no one helped Traumatized Baby Tenko in the immediate aftermath (I can and likely will write a separate post about this in the near future). All for One is definitely the reason why no one helped Tenko at any point after that. All for One is the reason why Tenko grew up all fucked in the head (“HERE’S YOUR DEAD FAMILY’S HANDS, MERRY CHRISTMAS”), and the reason why he grew up blaming Heroes and Society rather than the sole person who was actually responsible who was literally standing right in front of him the entire time. and lastly, All for One is the reason why Tomura has now been manipulated into unknowingly sacrificing his own body and possibly even his mind. so THANKS A LOT FOR THAT. more like jerk for one amiright

basically what I’m trying to say is that Deku and Tomura are not actually enemies here, and they never have been. the two of them have a common enemy, and I’m convinced Tomura’s story is about him eventually coming to realize this. and this looks to be the first step towards that, for two reasons. one, because AFO is finally starting to out himself to Tomura as the rat bastard he has always been. and two, because Deku is catching a glimpse of this now for the very first time. up until now he didn’t have a damn clue lol. but this is now something for him to file away in the back of his mind, and perhaps follow up on at a later date, once all of this craziness finally subsides and he has some time to process

anyway, so that’s basically it! tl;dr AFO is the final villain and unless I’m very much mistaken, this scene is going to finally start to set that up. let’s read on!

OMG

NANA?!?

lKDSJFLKSHGLISHDOGIHOLRKL

NOOOOOO I can’t believe it fucking ended there I can’t fucking believe it, fuck everything

smdh. what a place to end it. didn’t confirm a damn thing. not even whose mental landscape all of this is actually taking place in! like, don’t mind me though Horikoshi, it’s not like THE FATE OF THE WORLD HINGES ON THIS QUESTION OR ANYTHING except oh wait it really kind of does. kljkj

but seriously. because if it’s Deku’s mind, it means that Tomura’s attempt to take his quirk wasn’t successful. but if it’s Tomura’s mind, though... well... hhhhhhkhfff

or it could be both, I guess. more of that “AFO and OFA are the same quirk and thus linked” goodness. oh man. anyways stay tuned for next week when Nana presumably helps Deku out with the rest of that black fog and also hopefully finds him some pants. or maybe Nana can just go fight AFO herself. a little payback for everything he’s done to her protege and to her grandson. either way I CAN’T WAIT omg. VESTIGE ANTICS ARE A GO

[makeste]

more about bak-u-go (sorry!) the only other thing i heavily dislike is that if bakugou is the 2nd, then deku will be unlocking his explosion, except much stronger because OFA boots the quirks. and i really don't want to see bakugou facing deku with OFA, multiple quirks and his own but amplified. i'm not sure how it'd fit thematically but just thinking about it leaves bitter aftertaste in my mouth. he'd essentially be teaching deku to use what he has but more powerful.

honestly if the Second Vestige is Kacchan (or any version of him), I half expect them to get into a huge argument over whether or not Deku is allowed to use his quirk before they’ve said more than twenty words to each other sob.

truthfully, the idea of Deku getting Explosion as one of his SIXQUIRKS doesn’t bother me as much as I know it does some others. not to say I don’t understand the concerns, but imo it wouldn’t be the devastating blow to Bakugou’s dignity/relevance/projected character arc that some worry it might be.

first of all, Deku basically looks like this right now.

dude’s got no arms. he lost his arms in the war. everyone told him, “Deku, promise us you won’t use your quirk in your arms anymore, or else you will have no arms,” and he was all, “I promise,” and then he fucking used his arms anyway because DEKU IS A GREAT BIG LIAR. I lost track of how many times he used 100% OFA on both of his arms during the fight with Tomura. but I’m pretty sure it was multiple times. and so he has definitely undoubtedly fucked them up in some spectacular way, the full extent of which has yet to be revealed.

meanwhile, getting back to Explosion. just a normal, non-powered-up version of Kacchan’s quirk did this to Deku’s arm on a good day.

pretty sure that “pop” indicates he dislocated it just from firing one blast. and this was (1) while using Kacchan’s gauntlet (which is supposed to make it easier to use the quirk), (2) back in the good old days before Deku had fucked up his arms in any way, and (3) the regular version of Explosion and not a supercharged version that’s been powered up with eight generations of OFA Quirk Singularity.

what I’m saying is that even if Deku does have Explosion, I’m not at all convinced he’s even going to be able to use it. Kacchan has had years to train his body to handle the specific recoil. and his arms are fine, and he’s not using the Nuclear Version that Deku most likely would have. as far as I can see, there is no way Deku would be able to handle the quirk at all. it would wind up being a last resort kind of thing that he can maybe handle one time before it puts him totally out of commission.

so that’s the main reason I’m not too concerned. the rest can be summed up as bullet points (I was originally going to say “summed up more briefly”, but as it turns out that was a fucking lie, sob).

I think Deku would probably hesitate to use the quirk even if he was capable, because it would feel like stealing from Kacchan, or something. Deku knows how much pride Kacchan takes in his quirk. and he values their friendship too much to risk making Kacchan upset over this. he might feel like it’s unfair, the same way a lot of fans do (because let’s not forget that Deku is one of the biggest Kacchan stans of all).

I also think Kacchan wouldn’t be as offended or emotionally distraught over his development as people might expect. once he gets over the shock, he might be a little indignant at first, but if Deku hinted that he wasn’t going to use the quirk out of respect for Kacchan’s feelings, I think Kacchan’s first reaction would be to get angry, lol. huh?! what do you mean you’re not going to use it?? what’s wrong with it?! you think you’re so high and mighty that you’re above my quirk?! and we also know he wants Deku to be as strong as possible. I honestly think he would be one of the biggest supporters of Deku using it. his ego isn’t as fragile these days as people think. plus, as far as he’s concerned, there’s nothing that can stop him from reaching his goal of number one. if Deku can use his quirk now, then Kacchan is simply going to have to use it even better.

I generally don’t interpret characters as being pointless or redundant just because someone else has a similar quirk as them. Shouto’s existence hasn’t made Endeavor redundant in any kind of way, or vice-versa. Kirishima and Tetsutetsu are so similar that it’s a running joke, and yet both of them have received plenty of screentime and development (which is especially impressive for poor Tetsu given that he’s not even in 1-A). and Kacchan in particular is one of the most richly developed characters in the entire series, with narrative importance that goes WAY beyond him happening to have a powerful quirk. which btw doesn’t suddenly get any less powerful or versatile just because someone else has it too. and even if Deku was somehow able to use Explosion without blowing his arms to kingdom come, I doubt he’d ever come halfway close to matching the natural, instinctive control that Kacchan has from having had the quirk his entire life. multiple characters have remarked on Kacchan having masterful, exceptional control of his quirk. I think you could make the argument that he’s similar to Best Jeanist in that his quirk, while powerful, wouldn’t be half as impressive in anyone else’s hands. he’s basically a prodigy, and I don’t think even Deku could ever beat him in that regard.

and last but not least, there’s a school of thought that the series will end with Deku losing his quirk, which I think is very possible. having the series end with both AFO and OFA being destroyed forever feels like a fitting end to the story for me, and of course would tie in with Deku being the last user of OFA, one way or the other. and if this does happen, it would obviously render moot the whole matter of him having Kacchan’s quirk.

so yeah, all in all I’m not worried about this at all. my best guess would be Deku using it in the final battle (which Kacchan will no doubt also play a pivotal role in, so that doesn’t bother me), but not really beyond that. as far as I can see, Horikoshi has already done an excellent job of nerfing this in advance. speaking of which, I really am curious about what the heck is going to happen to Deku’s poor arms. all of his doctors deserve a raise.