heat abnormal
i’m so glad i read mha:vigilantes ages ago bc my horrible memory is stopping me from saying “uhm actually in the manga☝️🤓” every damn second
soulmate au where your mark is your soulmate's name, but as they write it. it changes as you grow older; goes from shaky hirigana to kanji, the characters flowing like ink across your skin. it settles eventually, with only tiny deviations, and you pay it little mind.
until it goes from todoroki touya to dabi.
Mr. Compress, defending the league: “Never speak to me or my mentally ill children ever again.”
i’m writing this from memory so please correct me if i’m wrong
i may have made a bit of a stretch in my first post so im correcting myself here
not everyone in the lov is fighting for a better world (like i don’t remember twice ever mentioning having goals)
shigaraki started as just someone who wanted to destroy everything but later started caring about his teammates (and in the lasts chapters before he gets detroit smashed into the sun, he says he wants to be a hero for the villains)
then we have spinner who wants to follow stain’s ideology. of course said ideology has a lot of problems but you get this idea of fighting corruption and everything
and finally you have mr compress who’s the descendants of Oji Harima (basically a Robin Hood) who’s been taught by his family to fight injustice.
(i’m not including dabi in that list because i feel like his whole ‘exposing endeavor as an abuser and hawks as a killer’ was more for selfish reasons than fighting for justice but i might be wrong)
this is just me ranting after reading many people say that the lov deserved a better ending (i agree with them don't worry). most of that stuff has already been said but i'm bored and need something to write
so why is everyone disappointed?
by definition, an antagonist is someone that goes against the main character(s) and a villain is someone who does immoral and/or illegal things (wow, shocking)
so by definition, the league of villains is aptly named. shigaraki and dabi are mass murderers, toga is a killer too, and even if the others are 'less dangerous' they're all guilty of terorism and kidnapping a teenager.
not nice, right? then why would anyone would want them to have a good ending?
long story short: horikoshi made the league too sympathetic and relatable
when horikoshi has decided to make them funny, he's decided to make them likeable. that's not enough though. you can find a fictional villain funny and not root for them (for some reason the examples that comes to my mind are the disney villains. captain hook is hilarious but no one wants him to win)
the cause of everyone's disappointment is the relatable part. everyone in the league has gone through stuff viewers can relate. touya, shigaraki and toga have been abused; twice has mental health issues (and stuggling to get a job is relatable too lmao); spinner has been discriminated against... you get the idea
and even without knowing their backstory, most of the league's fights can be considered noble: they want to change society and make the world a better place. to take a more precise example, the league kidnapped bakugou because they thought he had gone through similar struggle as them
(this is mr compress talking in chapter 85) as far as i've seen, most of the fandom either think bakugou being chained and muzzled at the end of the sport festival was just comic relief or agree that it was fucked up
so yeah, you can't put a group of people rejected by society, who just want a better world and expect people to not like them
and that's why their ending is disappointing (the rest contains heavy spoilers of the last few chapters of mha)
they're all either in jail or six feet underground. we rationally could understand it, they're all criminals/villains so of course they wouldn't get a happy ending and face consequences for their actions. the only one who could have gotten away with it is shigaraki because of all the grooming/brainwashing he's gone through and maybe toga because she's a child
but if you relate to a character, you want them to get a happy ending. of course fans would want dabi to be at peace, but instead he's forced to spend his last moments being stared at by his abuser). of course fans would want shigaraki to be free from afo (but instead his only freedom was death). of course fans would want toga to be understood and cared for (but she never had that opportunity)
that's not very 'save to win' out of you horikoshi
maybe it's just a shortcut made by the fandom, but the league are seen more as victims of abuse than actual criminals. i mean, what's more important in dabi's story? the fact that he burned himself alive after overworking himself to get his abusive father's attention, or the fact that he's burned people alive? probably both, but there's more focus on the first element.
and obviously we would want abuse victims to get a happy ending
basically, their ending isn't coherent with what we've seen of them, and that's why people are disappointed
btw, the same logic applies to stain. some fans agree with stain's reasoning bc he's fighting against corruption. of course, his logic is stupid and he's delusional but he's introduced not long after we've discovered shouto's past. you can't say "one of the most popular heroes is abusing + all he wants is to get n°1 to satisfy his own ego" and then follow with "see that guy fighting against corruption? he's bad, don't do that"
the clever way to make sure no one would agree with stain would have been to make the heroes fight against injustice with good methods. i live for the fanfics in which izuku takes down the hpsc
okay i'm done ranting thanks for reading
Cowboy gojo keeps me alive pls lemme ride it cowgirl style
Artist: thatsallitchief on Instagram
All visuals from the MHA manga // Sue Zhao // Mikko Harvey // Lidia Yuknavitch - The Chronology of Water // David Mitchell - Cloud Atlas // Trista Mateer
drew this helpful diagram for mha fans who don't understand what a character arc is
i think it's the first time i draw him with a happy smile
Another back
my favorite tropes in mha fanfics is when nedzu tells the teachers that he wants to personally teach izuku
and then everyone is like “no no no nononononono-“
(+ bonus point if one of them [usually aizawa] used to be nedzu’s personal student)