Meeting Between Liars

it’s been half a year but sometimes I still can’t believe that bakugo is smiling so gently and being so at peace with himself and his friendship with deku like he’s so happy it’s so cute

shoto & his siblings like this <3

(request for a donation match) dabi showing his baby stain videos & hawks disapproving of it lol

BNHA manga end official countdown - 4 Days left

救けて勝つ 勝って救ける 最高のヒーローになれるんだ

You can save and win, you can win and save and become the greatest heroes.

"I like food"

I saw many posts people saying how random Shouto's line is about praying at Touya's altar and realizing that he likes food - and I wanted to point to how it helps wrapping up his arc.

Shouto is saying: "When I was praying at Touya's butsudan (Buddhist altar), I suddenly realized something, I liked eating food. I realized there's more to me than just the person I want to become."

Food was a "negative space in the Todoroki family, so liking food was not evident to Shoto growing up.

In Shouto's flashbacks with his family, we never see him eat food. His only memory tied to the kitchen is the kettle incident. We know from Natsuo that Shouto ate alone, a diet prescribed by Endeavor, no doubt all geared towards maximum performance, rather than enjoyment. Not even knowing your siblings favorite food is the ultimate symbol of how dysfunctional the household was.

2. Food was a positive space in Class A - tied to comfort, bonding, friendship

In class A, Shouto starts eating with Iida and Midoriya after the Stain incident. Food becomes comfort, connection, sharing, caring, teamwork, etc. He experiences things like using his fire to prepare food together, eating together, cleaning up.

Many memorable Shouto-scenes are tied to Class A eating together (e.g. heroes cry too) and he connects to Inasa over a discussion about favorite foods (udon vs soba) which is a theme that carries over to his endgame with Touya

3. As the Todoroki family tries to reconnect, food plays a central role

As the family changes, they attempt to reconnect around the family dinner table (the famous sluuurp scenes). But Todoroki dinners end in a disaster - still they are useful bringing to the surface important conflicts and trying to communicate about them (another important theme discussed in Shoto Rising).

There is more in the light novels: Shoto's and Rei's decade late reconnection as Rei offers him a little kid strawberry milk that she remembers he liked when he was 5, and their attempt to connect with Natsuo ending up in a mush of ruined soba - it's all out of sync.

4. Food as a symbol of lost time and broken futures

Food is also very central for the hopes of a happier future: Enji's dream of his family at the dinner table, Natsuo's regret about years of missed meals, Shoto wanting to share noodles with Toya, all culminating in the heartbreaking realization that they have the same favorite food they'll never get to share.

5. Food as a symbol of processing grief and healing

Praying at the butsudan (the Buddhist altar at home set up for a deceased loved one) involves the preparation of offerings of food and drinks, which then the family eats afterwards. We see this practice referenced in Ch 249 when Enji prays at Toya's altar.

So Shouto making a reference to it is a shorthand for telling us that Touya died at some point, Shouto is still grieving him and just like Deku and Ochako, he's trying to make sense for himself out of their short encounter. So wanting to learn how to make chopsticks and bowls (a traditional Japanese craft of woodwork and applying lacquer, often involving intricate patterns) implies that he wants to bring Touya the perfect offering, but also that he's finally stepping outside fully of the framework Endeavor created for the family, where children are cast into roles of heroes, villains and by-standers, masterpieces and failures but never human beings. He's thinking about what connects him and Touya together and who they would have been in a different story.

6. Shouto's personal arc

Shouto's character was always about balance. Balance between past and future, ice and fire, duty and family, etc. So crafting chopsticks and bowls to elevate good food connects the grief and survival guilt with healing and growth. It is both a tribute to Touya's memory and a new possible hobby to express still undiscovered sides of himself.

It fits the theme of the chapter "More" - as it focuses on what lies beyond being a hero, reaching a goal, working hard and how Izuku, Ochako and Shouto have been transformed by their experiences of trying to save their villains.

But it also fits Shouto's personal arc that was about discovering who Shouto really is. Earlier in the chapter, Shouto refers to being constrained into the framework of a bigger story, where his choices are bound to happen. As a hero of the sidestory of that manga, Shouto has no choice but decide what kind of a hero he wants to be (not-Endeavor, like All Might, reassuring, family hero). Encounters with his family helped crystallized this image of himself.

But now that he's being released from this story, he can look outside of the framework of a hero manga and discover those "more sides than just a hero". And Touya was the last encounter - the last piece of that puzzle. I think there is a parallel in how Tomura destroyed much of hero society - Touya also destroyed the foundations of the Todoroki family, so something different can maybe built.

Without Touya, I think the family would have kept at trying to piece themselves together in a tense, fake kind of peace to keep up appearances. If nothing else, Touya's actions tore through that need of saving face - leaving them all exposed and grappling with the harsh realities of their actions. But I think it also allowed the younger siblings to step outside the cage their parents created for them and build things better from scratch. It allows them to find more sides to themselves outside of the logic of the Todoroki household.

It's fall, the turning of the seasons from summer's heat, and Tomura Shigaraki is alive. He got away, able to break the monster's chains and live, free and whole and completely himself. That deadly, cruel summer couldn't touch him in the end. He's alive, don't you know it? And anyway, it's been 22 years since he fought that last terrible battle.

This fall is an important anniversary of sorts. He's now lived more years in freedom than he ever did in servitude.

His house is small, and warm, and his coffee is ready. It's Saturday morning and he's having a good breakfast with someone who loves him and someone he, against all odds, found himself capable of loving in return. He has the day off from his work from home IT job, where he spends his days in comfortable solitude with his two corgis sleeping at his feet. He absentmindedly rubs his wrists and knuckles, age making his joints ache during the descent into winter. No matter, he has support gloves now for when he games.

The old League, the best friends and truest family he's ever had, is coming over for dinner tonight. They try to meet up at least once a month, but it still seems like Toga is always in his house to coo over his dogs and update him on everything going on in her life. He's never said it, but she's been a little sister to him since shortly after they met and her constant visits are one of the most treasured aspects of his life.

It's fall, and Tomura is thinking about curry for dinner and if he could convince Sako to cook it because he's as much a magician in the kitchen as he is everywhere else.

It's fall, and his joints ache, and he has to wear reading glasses now, but he has known the blessings of age and the warmth of a full, happy life of love and comfort.

Can you hear me, Tomura? My deepest heart wants nothing more than this for you. I don't care what that man said. I speak it into existence and I pull you out of the terrible summer that you lived and died in. You will see the seasons change to fall and you will be happier than you ever thought you could be.

Notice that Hawks takes off his mask before he starts saying something truthful/outside of his role. Everything he said until this point was part of his façade.

And it's notable that the first genuine dialogue Hawks has is that he doesn't admire All Might. Not all hero characters in BNHA had All Might as their main inspiration, but until this point there wasn't a single hero character to say anything like "I never wanted to be like [All Might]". Endeavor was not the exception. He may not have liked All Might personally, but it was primarily due to envy. Endeavor wanted to be like All Might in that he wanted to be number one and the strongest.

It's interesting that the takeaways from Hawks' introductory chapter are that he's duplicitous, ambitious, and doesn't like All Might. His introduction unsettled the status quo of the story until this point because Act One revolved around All Might the Symbol of Peace and Number One Hero. But Hawks is established as a top hero character outside of All Might's orbit with ambiguous intentions.

I feel like a lot of people tend to forget that Touya was only a baby in his backstory.

Touya's quirk was discovered when he was less than a year old.

Touya was born in January, and Fuyumi was born in December of the same year. We see Fuyumi as a baby in this panel, and they already know about Touya's quirk which means it developed almost immediately after his birth.

Shouto began training when he was 5(ish), while Touya had started training much younger. Touya's lack of fire resistance was found out when he was only around 4 years old. He was not "old enough to know better". He was a child who'd lost his fathers love and sense of self worth in a span of 5 minutes, and didn't know how to deal with it.

I understand disapproving of his actions once he became an adult, but the things people say about him when he was js barely out of diapers are so nasty. How can you hate a child that much?? He acted out because that's what his only role model taught him to do?? He was practically taught that violence is the answer, and gets blamed for lashing out. How about we blame the abuser this time!! Just to switch it up for once.

Soba brothers by unyonami

why hello there touya todoroki