#1 Stan.

The issue with overhaul is what he did to Eri. No amount of sob story fixes that

Of course nothing fixes what he did, but nothing will fix what any of the villains do. Yet, Shigaraki, Toga and Dabi are seemingly being set up to be saved, and the manga going toward a 'everyone deserves to be saved' message. If that's the case Overhaul should be saved too, and it's kind of bizarre that Hori ignored him, despite him being a really good first candidate for a villain being saved.

And sure, what he did to Eri was unforgivable, and she is under no obligation to forgive him, neither is Izuku, but at this point it's almost cruel to not help him. Unlike Shigaraki and Pals, Overhaul is defenseless. He is a danger to no one, and can barely function. He is a broken man, who just wants to fix his dad.

There are logical reasons why Izuku or any of the Heroes continue to have giant, violent fights with the LoV, particularly Shigaraki. I can't fault Star for trying to kill Shigaraki, or not trying to reach out to a person who has not just leveled a country and is trying to rule the world, but is also actively trying (and succeeded) to kill her and steal her power. Despite what the stories themes are, I don't think it reflects badly on someone to defend not just themselves but billions of people from a really terrible fate.

But that's not the situation with Overhaul. Yes, he hurt Eri, but he's not doing it now, and physically and mentally can't harm anyone. Continuing to deny him basic human decency and lock him back up in prison is kind of terrible. I mean, I was floored that Izuku didn't even seem shocked by Overhaul's state. This is the guy who turned himself into a huge ass monster to kill him, and now he can barely hold a conversation because he's been so fucked up.

I just don't understand how Izuku can see a small child in Shigaraki, who is actively trying to kill him and everyone he loves and decide to save him, but not look at a disabled man that is mentally not all there anymore and not feel anything. If the point of this manga is that villains are people, and that Heroes save everyone, regardless of what they've done, Overhaul should not only count, he should be a wake up call for Izuku.

And it's not like he hasn't forgiven abusers before. I mean he defended Enji's right to change and be a better person to Dabi--the kid Enji neglected until he set himself on fire. How is Overhaul somehow not deserving of the same chance?

If Shigaraki and Co. get to be happy after all the horrible things they've done, why is Overhaul excluded? Especially when he has a similarly tragic past and a super tragic present?

Sob stories can't be a factor when it comes to someone actively trying to hurt you or someone else, but that's no longer the case with Overhaul. Helping him and treating him with basic human dignity is just the right thing to do. Letting him suffer doesn't fix what he did to Eri anymore then treating him humanly does.

I'm not saying Izuku should be his best friend, all I want is for him to see Overhaul's humanity like he did Shigaraki's--because saying everyone deserves to be saved is a far better message then saying only a select few deserve to be saved.

Spring themed Dabi! Because Spring is all about New Life and Rebirth, right? 😅 I guess this is a little bit to spite chapter 350. If the only thing keeping Dabi alive is his grudge, doesn’t that mean if he gives up on his revenge (or, “is saved”), then he’d just die…? :/ My fav parts of the drawing are the socks, the crystals and the little glass with the sapling. xD 

funniest genre of bnha fans who still exist are dobihokers who think dabi owes hokes an apology. hokes should thank dabi for only burning off his wings when dabi should’ve crazy murdered him god bless🙏

‘She wasn’t a good mother’ great are we evaluating this character trait as one of her many facets or are we just damning her for not being the most maternal womanliest woman who ever womaned

ok ummm sorry but why are people talking suddenly like irl domestic violence victims get any sort of widespread sympathy or support??? like, for one, let’s just establish that it’s silly to complain that real, living, breathing people are being treated with more sympathy than a fictional character. but even that alone would also be completely wrong, because… rl victims are not treated well at all??? did we just forget all the victim-blaming, the slander, the cross-examining, the doubt, and the legal institutions that are weaponized against rl victims all the time???

if you somehow see someone condemning rl abuse but dismissing fictional abuse, it’s because they only care about rl abuse in the broadest and most conceptual sense. rl abuse is hated as a contextless idea, or when it’s committed by someone the person doing the condemning doesn’t care about, like some dude they’ve never talked to or some celebrity they have no personal attachment towards. condemnation of, like, weinstein, who most people do not know anything about nor care about, is not the same as popular support for victims as a whole. compare the reactions to weinstein vs reactions to johnny depp or even (god) joe biden. the difference is entirely in how much attachment people have to these abusers.

a character like endeavor makes people trot out an entire circus’ worth of excuses not because these people actually care about irl abuse as opposed to fictional abuse, but because the narrative gives endeavor a way of playing on people’s heartstrings and allowing them to nurture an attachment to him, which they will then vigorously defend even at the expense of his victims. they do this as well with rl abusers who they particularly like or have some sort of connection to. it’s not that ppl’s condemnations of abuse are either existent or non-existent—it’s that they’re frequently circumstantial.

please, let’s be finished with the insinuations that rl victims receive care and support or even, like, lip service that isn’t getting extended to fictional characters.

Not-Really Chapter Thoughts BNHA 424

You know, I really think there should be a point at which Deku rushing in with no plan and doing whatever he thinks feels right should become Heroic Malpractice.

Just me?

Because, like, Shouto had a plan. He spent the time between the two war arcs specifically developing a brand-new combat technique that he planned to use to shut down Dabi's combat advantage without killing him. He convinced his dad not to change the plan like Endeavor was hesitantly sounding him out about[1]; he went out and talked and asked questions, and even if they weren't the right words every single time, he did his best and he did it with intention. If Dabi proves to be dead, it won't be because of anything Shouto did to him; it'll be because Dabi himself chose to stand back up, take a warp gate across the country, pick a fight with the guy who doesn't have the power set to shut him down without unduly hurting him, and try to replicate an Ultimate Move specifically tailored for someone with a balanced power set Dabi doesn't have.[2]

And if Dabi lives, it's still going to be because Shouto booked it across the country and used that same technique to stop him again.

1: Dabi surely would have preferred to fight Endeavor from the start, and it probably would have been the more "just" choice if it had to be one or the other, but Shouto is the nominal focal character between the three of them, so, critiques of the broader Hero-side decisions aside, Shouto's arc has to come first. This is one of those places where you can clearly see how much the decision to let Endeavor survive where Horikoshi originally planned for him to die hurts the shape of the later story.

2: Obviously ultimately if Dabi dies, it's going to be because his family and Team Hero made repeated choices to ignore and neglect him, culminating in the entire family swearing to deal with Touya together only to passively accept a battle plan that involved splitting them all and letting the kid who knows Touya the least be the one to fight him. But like, in the context of that fight, Shouto isn't the reason Dabi takes all that hurt.

Uraraka may or may not have had much of a plan, but at least the words she said to Toga reflected that she had been seriously thinking about Toga in the here and now, what Toga's told her, what Toga needs. If Toga dies, it will be because Toga chose to give Uraraka an unsupervised blood transfusion with no intention of stopping it. (With the same general caveats as in Footnote 2.)

But Deku? From the very beginning, Deku has been valorized by the manga for how much he doesn't plan. All Might tells him specifically that it's a sign of greatness shown by future "top Heroes" that, in some crisis situation, their bodies moved before they could think. Bakugou's Rising chapter is defined by him reaching that same state.

Deku claimed he wanted to save Shigaraki; he's sad in the latest chapter that he couldn't save Tenko's[3] life. But did he ever have a real plan to do that? With all the quirks he had at his disposal - both his own and those who would be in the flying coffin with him, or classmates whose presence he could specifically request - did he think hard and come up with a technique that would let him stop Shigaraki without harming him? Did he try to connect with the Shigaraki right in front of him by citing to the future?

3: And I have nothing but scorn for Deku's insistence on that name when "Tenko" goes out very pointedly calling himself Shigaraki Tomura.

Well, no. Deku obstinately yelled at the phantasms in Shigaraki's mindscape that he had no plan whatsoever. The only plans we saw him carry out were ones handed to him by the OFA collective that involved "breaking" Shigaraki's psyche; the only plans he came up with himself involved more efficiently breaking Shigaraki's body.

Way back in Chapter 130, Nighteye harshly scolded Deku by saying that his way of thinking was arrogant. He said, "Go after him haphazardly and he'll slip through our fingers. You're not so special as to be able to save who you want, when you want. (...) This world is not so accommodating that you can act the Hero because you feel like it."

It felt like something that Deku should have taken to heart, a lesson to be learned and applied later, but I never much got the feeling that he did. Nothing he did in that moment, in that arc, or anywhere else in the series afterward indicates that he thought Nighteye was right. He just chose not to talk back, and the arc ended with Nighteye dead and no longer around to pose objections to Deku's mode of heroism.

But Nighteye was right. Three hundred chapters later, Shigaraki is dead because Deku could not be arsed to plan for how he could stop Shigaraki without killing him. Because he let Gran Fucking Torino give him the intellectual out that killing someone could be a means of saving them. Because he followed his gut instincts of prioritizing the phantom Crying Child that he always saw as more valid and real than the human being standing in front of him.

Because he haphazardly acted the Hero and let his body move without thinking.

And he wants to act sad about it now? I hope Nighteye materializes in his bedroom to sneer at him every night for the rest of his life.

--

Incidentally, fuck All Might, seriously. "Wow, Deku and Bakugou, you two are the greatest Heroes ever. Fuck me and everyone else who fought tooth and nail, arm and leg, eye and earjack, life and death, to contribute to the pile of damage that was necessary to kill and/or save Shigaraki and All For One. You two got the last blows in, so you're the only ones who get the credit for it in my eyes. Hero Society is definitely going to be different and better with you two around."

okay, but is Dabs ever gon see his mom again or what

something something the primacy of the nuclear family and the nuclear family as the site of discipline/ responsibility/ duty/ redemption leading to this kind of dialogue imo

maybe i'll elaborate more but i think it ties into a lot of other parts of the series i still have to think through, like it's shown with toga's family, twice being viewed as an acceptable character sacrifice because of his lack of blood or emotional ties to any heroes, the narrative's unwillingness to explore the LOV as found family and instead turning around to the biological/nuclear family as the solution (especially for dabi and tomura).

13 yrs. Touya under care of Ujiko [theory]

I really like hori Noumu design it a perfectly mixture of hideous and cute

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I don’t think Ujiko is a good person, he really twisted and a mad scientist type. but I think he have soft spot for all his creature [aka. noumu] like it his child/possession.

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I wonder if Noumu is cuddlable? or even comfortable to cuddle or not [but it made out of flesh so maybe it smooth for texture?]

essentially Dabi said no to League Bonding Camp to go spend the month hanging out with Shigaraki’s creepy stepdad and weird necromancied dogs