Real talk what are your hopes for your favorite villains?
wow sooooooo glad you asked because i have a LOT of strong thoughts but unfortunately my hopes and dreams do not line up with what i actually think is gonna happen. but for like absolutely bare minimum my hopes are just like. "alive". my second bare minimum is that i really need a bnha shippuden. most secret revered hope is “vigilante endgame”.
firstly obviously i would like for mr compress to no longer be in jail somehow but if i can't have that then he SHOULD be a hannibal lecter-lite to best jeanist and the majority of their conversations revolve around bondage innuendo. i believe i have expressed this desire before but i still stand by it. anyways i just wanna learn his fuckin full backstory man horikoshi PROMISED me personally. anyways in bnha shippuden whoever is left of the villains SHALL bust compress out and best jeanist will erotically hunt him down but never truly be able to put him back behind bars. it's all very heart-wrenching trust me.
trumpet is gonna start a political riot in order to distract the guards from how geten is very carefully and delicately using whatever water is in the prison and like burst the whole thing open (shamelessly stealing this from @stillness-in-green because it's only justice) and they get rikiya the fuck out of there and i haven't like, figured out how much further i can go with this outside of them like meeting up with the remains of the league but in bnha shippuden they will be used to significantly have the students question their society now that everything's been rocked to pieces and the MLA remainders are both figuring how to live according to their philosophy in the new world while also stepping around the fact. rikiya is constantly like side-stepping the growing implications that he was kind of groomed in a cult which is easy cuz trumpet's sitting there like "everything is FINE i will take CARE OF YOU because you are my my beloved my dear leader. no we aren’t going to talk to shigaraki right now he has stuff and things let’s just hang out the two of us. geten is there watching trumpet suspiciously and prepared to protect rikiya’s virtue.
muscular appears again cuz jail SUCKS finally gets to reveal that he was raised in a baby-fighting ring. he claims it’s no big deal but everyone is like “oh my god i’m really sorry that happened to you no one should be raised in a baby-fighting ring”. he realises that yeah. YEAH. being raised in a baby-fighting ring was actually kind of fucked up. he cries, and he’s actually a really gorgeous crier? like the kind of crying that makes you wanna cradle a person. this does nothing about his love for murder but at least i was right.
moonfish gets to eat a guy <3 straight up unhinges his jaw and swallows someone whole. no one knew he could do that.
okay toga this is gonna be complicated because the manga isn't gonna have the space for it but i've been OBSESSED with comparing power csm and toga and their relationship to blood as they use it as a means, symbol, and substitute for relationships, and a big thing for showing how deeply power cared about denji is that she let denji drink from her and later straight up gave him her blood so she could survive yeah?? so i'm still turning over in my head how to get from toga embracing herself and her desires, but also still very much on the murder train, and how to get her off the murder train without devaluing who she is as a person, but i would LOVE for her to get to the point where just like how twice gave her an emergency blood transfusion in MVA, she's like standing over a bleeding out uraraka or something and she goes. damn this actually sucks. but because i am a brilliant person, like my beloved friend twice, i will also know how to perform a blood transfusion. bc one hell of a twist on how toga experiences love by taking blood would culminate in her giving it right?? i have a funnier riff on this that i shared elsewhere but i shall be coy. but at some point uraraka manages to somehow PROVE that she has genuinely thought about toga and is willing to reach out more and toga tries rejecting it cuz she’s no hollaback girl but it twigs something in the back of her mind, and then bam uraraka’s life is in her hands, and it’s gonna be the most poignant bloodletting of all time.
okay you asked favourite villains and i’m a known dabi h8er insomuch as i am known but i WANNA say before i move onto the most important endgame hopes. you know that one tumblr post about how hamsters are born seeing a thread and they stubbornly follow it straight to their deaths. that’s dabi i think he’s gonna straight up die like he’s barrelling so hard at it. but CRUCIALLY, i think it will happen one of two ways. a) shouto manages to break through to him and soften that hatred and vengeance inside of him but unfortunately the power of love does not have a lot of medicinal benefits in this universe compared to the power of hatred, so dabi expires. or b) just as dabi is gonna land the killing blow on his little brother, the GHOSTS OF THE MURDERED ORPHAN CHILDREN suddenly appear to finally get their revenge. and they like drag him into hell or something. horikoshi is gonna include recordings of like this ghostly, childish rattling going “sleeeeeepyhead.............we’ve been waiting for you........” and it’s gonna be so good. if i’m feeling kindly i’d say that skeptic somehow manages to rescue dabi’s lil charcoal’d brain and stick it in a robot (i know skeptic can do this) and they have mediocre but ultimately okay sex for the rest of their lives.
now that i’ve given dabi his pity fuck we gotta move onto the real important fellas.
okay shigaraki is even MORE complicated because horikoshi has refused to let shigaraki speak to anyone from the league since chapter 233 and i want them to be crucial in shigaraki’s endgame and downplay deku as much as possible, because deku is a bad character, and a horrible foil for shigaraki. also obviously my shigaraki endgame has to be closely tied into spinner’s endgame because spinner is the most special fella in the entire world.
problem is that actually thinking of spinner makes me so anxious that i feel nauseous, like this is rvb13 ‘is locus gonna fuckin die’ levels of anxiety but stretched out tortuously. i know i won’t get what i want i never do but it’d be SUCH a missed opportunity. and also if i speak my hopes and dreams out they won’t happen and i’m literally paranoid, like superstitious about it. it’s so clear in my mind but if i don’t get it i’ll throw a fuckin fit. okay breaking it down into high level points.
in deku’s journey to the shigaraki death trap fight he encounters spinner, words are exchanged, spinner says something pings deku’s hero sense and he’s torn between rushing to the fight, or taking this avenue, this barest sliver of a chance, that interacting with someone who cares about shigaraki might be crucial to his whole “saving” thing. conversation helps spinner figure some things out, modifying his course and his resolution. deku ends up overusing his quirks and falls into the ocean to drown.
also spinner is on his way to lift kurogiri from jail. this is to make coordinating placements easier. also we’ll get a moment where kurogiri fights between his programming, loyalty to AFO and protection of shigaraki blah blah blah, spinner’s begging and resolution is crucial helping kurogiri be like “yeah tomura is a grubby lil weirdo who’s only ever rude to me but this spinner guy. he’s really something huh.” i didn’t discuss my kurogiri endgame but kurogiri’s defense of shigaraki when they arrive on the battle scene causes aizawa to waver and that’s gonna be one of the clinchers in The Escape.
spinaraki completely fuckin steals that big kiribaku moment from the kamino arc. on the surface level kiribakus and spinarakis become allies but there’s friction cuz the kiribakus have a bit more longevity to their name, but the spinarakis get to be of Endgame Significance and also can’t be ignored for the rest of the manga cuz that was the rest of the manga. however, I will devoutly defend the honour of the kiribakus cuz i have like one beloved kiribaku mutual. i can be an ambassador.
okay so crucially for shigaraki’s plot. like obviously being driven entirely by anger and hatred only sticks him further into AFO’s control, an obvious allegory for the impact of abuse and grooming, and i maintain that shigaraki’s endgame (along with the heroes taking like five seconds to take shigaraki’s grievances seriously) is to buffer that anger and hatred and giving him a drive with something else. ie, realizing that he doesn’t hate the league, is actually really okay with them, and wants more for them than dying or being in jail. and that’s the wiggle room.
anyways so there’s an emotional moment, spinner and kurogiri get shigaraki the hell out of the death trap, they take a moment to pick up toga, maybe they stop by dabi but dabi’s being eaten by ghost orphans and they decide to respect his personal business. as a prelude to this point there’s been a lot of personal realizations and shake ups about how the league really do want to Live but maybe the murder terrorist train isn’t like, an awesome path to be on.
bnha shippuden involves a lot of the league confronting themselves and their actions while still not succumbing to being absorbed by Society and slowly, accidentally stumbling their way into vigilantism. spinner and shigaraki will get a really smooshy and angsty plotline here but again, i am coy.
also. six will turn out to be alive. he and koichi? just chilling in hiding the entire time. they actually intended to join the endgame battle but turns out, they both suck at directions! i have secret fantasies here but it’s like half a step away from me creating OCs related to AFO’s secret numbers and i’m too shy for that.
last but not least AFO gets turned into a child and he’s just the sweetest little thing. i stole this one from @codenamesazanka who was joking in a tangential discussion but i’m taking it dead fuckin serious now <3
Isn't it weird that Dabi is literally burning to death in front of their eyes and the Todorokis are still talking about how it's causing problems for other people? Like? Priorities? Also wasn't that the whole root of the issue back when Toya was a child and all he did was complain about his father mistreating him they considered THAT to be him causing problems for other people?
Oh totally. I swear, everyone has villain tunnel vision this arc; focused more on if someone’s causing a bother than addressing any root issues.
And with Dabi specifically, no one wants to talk about his feelings; and if they bring up his health it's never the first thing they say to him no matter how obvious his damage is. Shoto says their childhoods & dad may have sucked but he's still bad for being a villain, Enji said one thing to Touya he could comprehend before the brain damage set-in and it was to ask about Shoto's well-being, and now we see Natsuo telling him to stop being a villain while watching him burn to death. Like I don't want to throw too much shade at his siblings but this prioritization of everything but his feelings & welfare is just Touya's childhood all over again.
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
In chapter 187 of BNHA Natsuo and Fuyumi visit Rei in the hospital at the same time that Endeavour is fighting High End.
Natsuo ends up commenting on his fathers recent promotion as number 1 hero, and though chastised by Fuyumi he expresses resentment with everything Endeavour put their family through. He claims Endeavour left them behind. This is when Rei chimes in and says she doesn’t belive that, and that she thinks he’s trying to face the family.
What proof does she have, though? After all, she herself says she hasn’t seen Endeavour in ten years. Well, the proof to her claim is this:
Rei says that Endeavour brought her that flower and remarks he remembered she liked them despite her only telling him once.
Here’s the problem I have with this though: this chapter is the one that started building Endeavours atonement, and yet for Rei to be the one to create its foundation doesn’t sit well with me because she shouldn’t be having those opinions about Endeavour. He was her abuser for a decade, and the one responsible for her pain.
A single flower shouldn’t change Reis mind.
This fixation on the flower is what reminded me of a scene from another work that creates some unnerving similarities between the two
This is the flower scene from chapter 187:
And this is the flower scene from the DC comic Mad Love:
Some context about Mad Love:
It was a comic published in 1992 by DC comics, with Paul Dini and Bruce Timm as the writers and it was the first canonical backstory of Harley Quinn (other backstories would follow after, as is the case with American comics). The comic was all about Harleys abusive relationship with the Joker and how she seemed to be unable to realise just how bad he was for her. At the end it looks like she finally realises (after Joker throws her off a building)…. and yet, while still covered in bandages from the injuries he inflicted on her, she notices a flower he left her… and changes her mind once more.
Of course it must be said that Harley is a very, very different character from Rei, but these two scenes have a lot in common:
Both are women that experienced abusive relationships
Both of them are hospitalized because of their abuser
In the hospital, both receive a flower from their abuser as a form of “apology”
In both cases the flower seems to be proof enough for them to change their mind about their abuser for the better.
Perhaps the only difference is that in Mad Love this change of heart from Harley is framed as wrong and tragic. In the foreword of the comic, Paul Dini wrote he saw Mad Love as “… a cautionary [tale] about what happens when someone loves recklessly, obsessively and for too long”.
Horikoshis intent with his scene however, seemed to be the opposite. As I said before, what Rei says about Endeavour sets up his atonement. Its meant to be a hopeful moment, a good moment. But not for Rei. For Endeavour.
Mad Love tells the victims story. Chapter 187 is there for the abusers benefit.
Now. After writing all of this:
Do I think that Horikoshi made this connection with Mad Love on purpose? NO
Do I think these similarities with Mad Love are unfortunate and damaging to Reis story? YES
Every time I read that scene in the manga or watch it in the anime I cant help but remember Mad Love. And it’s endlessly frustating that BNHA tries to frame that scene as good when it very much shouldnt be. Because there is already a story that framed a similar scene as the tragedy it very clearly was.
Reis two appearances outside of flashbacks in the manga have mostly served to develop her abusers story, but I still have some hope that she’ll be able to escape Endeavours suffocating presence in the manga and break free of his influence.
Just like Harley eventually did.