So You’d Rather The Mla Stick Around As A Sore Thumb And The Lov To Stay Broke And Weak Than For Both

so you’d rather the mla stick around as a sore thumb and the lov to stay broke and weak than for both to join forces, creating a definitive resolution to the my villain aca arc and consolidated threat for the heros? are you so against it being settled by a fight that you’d rather it be dragged out?

my feelings about the resolution to the mla arc are honestly mostly negative. i don’t feel like it makes sense for either side join forces (unless they plan on backstabbing each other, or unless hori is deliberately introducing a regression for the lov, which are all possibilities but lets take the resolution at face-value for the sake of this discussion). it’s been laid out since overhaul’s arc that the lov are tight-knit and value one another as comrades. even if you excise tomura out of the equation for his questionable/nebulous attitude towards relationships, twice and toga are very explicitly characterized as protective, and vengeful toward people who hurt one of “their own.” but at the end of the mla arc, they’re inducted into this organization which not only tortured and held giran for weeks, but also has no second thoughts about using their own members as canon fodder—which is, again, almost exactly what the shie hassaikai were like! if hori were going to have them collab with a shie hassaikai-ish organization later on, then why even bother drawing a comparison between shigaraki & the lov and overhaul & the yakuza?

on the mla’s side, their reasons for capitulating (at least as internally narrated by redestro during his defeat) are completely bs. the mla’s vision wasn’t just a nebulous conception of “freedom”; they had a specific vision of what that freedom looked like. they were a group who planned to rebel for the legalization of indiscriminate quirk use (defined as “freedom”), which is a specific, targeted, and limited goal; no amount of marveling at decay indicates that the logical progression is to embrace shigaraki’s desire for indiscriminate destruction. for a group of people who have largely benefited from the overall structure of society (they’re fucking ceos with some top heroes on call and shit ffs), it makes very little sense for them to buy into the utter unpredictability of shigaraki’s agenda just because he put on a very compelling live performance piece by curbstomping redestro. having two different visions of the future really isn’t a narrative conflict that should be solved by a physical fight, or at least not a straightforward a fight as this one.

like, i know it’s the Way of Shounen to have most things settled by a fight as an easy shorthand for interpersonal development. maybe the L is on me for feeling like the conflict could’ve been handled more satisfactorily & for ideology to actually interact in meaningful ways (even if it leads to one side renouncing theirs) rather than for the resolution to be a metaphorical dick slinging contest. sure, it’s true that it does all those things you said (consolidate a base for the villains, become a real threat, etc. etc.). it’s true that it moves things along, and i’m not against that. BUT i think that making these two particular villain groups ally with each other makes both of their characterizations worse: the lov bcs they’re turning back on earlier characterization from the overhaul arc, and the mla bcs it feels like they can’t fucking stick to a conviction. this wouldn’t be such a big problem if the mla were written differently from the start or, yes, if hori took more time to tell me why the fuck these guys aren’t still trying to kill each other, because tbh nothing about these two groups tell me that joining together is the logical conclusion.