All Reiterations Of This Moment And Its Heartfelt Glowing Framing Become So Funny In Retrospect

Some instances that I feel show how some messages MHA are detrimental, especially on how victims react to their abuser, can be gauged by responses that tend to be highly prevalent in the fandom.

(Definitely not every fan, but a great majority).

Endeavor is a great example. Whenever you post criticizing his approach to atonement (and ultimately criticizing Horikoshi’s writing), you get BOMBARDED by people either belittling you for not liking his character or essentially forcing you to like his character by frantically writing “at least he tried” arguments.

If I have the CHOICE whether to forgive his character or not, especially given he goes through an atonement arc and not a redemption arc, why is any form of criticism about his abusive behavior and essentially his abuse of power practically ignored by the story unacceptable?

The message was detrimental because people operate on the notion that for victims to be good people, they must forgive and even help their abusers. MHA presents people who choose not to forgive him as either a monster (Toya) or inconvenient (Natsuo). And if they are still unforgiving, they must admire the abuser for doing the bare minimum (taking responsibility; this is also about Natsuo).

Essentially, they are considered "imperfect victims" because they weren't merciful in their approach to their abuser.

The majority of the fandom tends to ignore the lack of actual consequences for Endeavor's actions because he vows to talk to Toya every day. Insisting that doing the bare minimum, which is recognizing his son's existence and suffering, became his "hell" is a wildly fucked up message, in my opinion.

It harps on the issue mentioned above that if a victim isn't receptive to forgiveness or doesn't act "demure," they are seen as an inconvenience—which is how the Todoroki family ultimately views Toya.

On a less critical note, I'll vent, so if you don't like this, just ignore it.

I'm so fucking tired of stories depicting imperfect victims as people who deserve death and torture. Plus, having to be on the brunt of so many people acting like you're morally fucked because you're not impressed with how a writer handled abuse. Horikoshi is not the first writer to try to atone a character who is an abuser (and he isn't the first to fail at that, either).

I'm not about to dick-ride every decision every author makes. Especially if the message convinces some audience members that victims are inherently broken if they can't bring themselves to forgive and/or admire someone who hurt them.

Another old tweet from Spinner’s VA Ryou Iwasaki!

During a talk with my manager about the November Event, he said, “When will Spinner get a power up?” I replied, “He’s fine the way he is. He is someone whose weakness is meaningful. I want him to be a person who fights with spirit more than ability.” [Manager] also asked “When will the Quirk be used,” so I stuck myself! On to the wall! Haha.

This man knows his character. 🙏🏼👍🏼❤️

HOTPOT = 鍋

"Touya loves his dad" and "Touya hates his dad" both don't get the full picture. Dabi loves the IDEA of Enji as his father but he HATES the person Enji is. Any love he has is for the idea of what his father *should* be or *should* have been and his hatred is based on the reality of who Enji is as a person

it's interesting that bnha attracts many "fandom isn't activism" types (it's a big fandom, so of course they come here) when bnha IS imo very concerned with instilling a sense of ethics within its readers. bnha IS a series where the protagonist is right, the flawed characters on the protagonist's side "get better," the good guys win and the bad guys answer for their crimes. "fandom isn't activism" but good lord bnha is guiding you down the most lawfully sanctioned route.

yes, bnha goes through the trouble of characterizing the bad guys and showing the reasons behind their actions, but it insists that the bad guys should still be held accountable. which is fine, plenty of stories do, but bnha is: (1) really ethically very simple as a story because of that, and (2) stymies its own emotional storytelling because it's fundamentally more concerned with drawing lines in the sand that "good" and "bad" guys can't cross.

for example: good guys can never overly identify with the bad guys or put the harm bad guys have done on the back burner. we have to remember endeavor, natsuo, and shouto are more worried about other people's lives, even as touya is burning to death in front of them. there's no lapses in judgment, no wrong decisions, no selfishness, nothing crazy, no one making insane gambits that put others in the line of fire to save their loved one, no one to say "fuck the world, you're the one i choose." only villains do that.

it's love at its safest and most sanitized for capitalism, love that is only self-sacrificial, love that doesn't interfere with the law, love that doesn't upset the social order, love that never implicates the world. at this point, even deku going berserker mode over bakugou's death would be more interesting, but that impulse is immediately suppressed and he follows the plan to fight shigafo, without even going to bakugou's side. in ten years they'll be married with a child and they'll miss its 13th birthday in a row because they have to bust a trigger smuggling ring. please god it's so fucking bleak.

so, yeah, i believe in the villains' relationships more. they make disruptive, unhinged, terrible decisions out of love and i love that for them. spinner puts the hand back on tomura's face, dabi burns down himiko's house, spinner wants to save tomura by walking into hell with him, himiko wants to pay back twice's death a hundred times over, and she knows what dabi will try to do and she lets him do it. it's fucking unhinged and i am invested!

people really are out here giving takes like "fandom isn't activism so the characters i like aren't really cops, but the LOV make each other worse so they have to be saved from themselves by paw patrol" as though that isn't the most vanilla take on the gotdamn earth... i don't want the shit that's been workshopped by therapists and lawyers for maximum correctness, give me some crazy deranged shit that'll determine the fate of the world.

This week’s manga chapter and anime episode had a bad effect on me

Insta/Twitter/Ko-fi

super quickly sketch

- Did you have a shitty childhood? Bad parents? - No! I had a good family. Two brothers and one sister, and wonderful parents. And we all lived happily in a beautiful house. - And what happened? - I’m.

“what will we do without police to arrest child abusers?” well, you see, in the anime my hero academia, a few characters took it upon themselves to ruin a child abuser’s career, chase him down on the highway, and cut off his arms, all the while police guarded him, and i think that’s the real kind of grassroots bottom-up initiative we need to be looking into. it was an aspirational example of how justice could be served without involving police

something i’ve been turning around in my head for a bit: i think it’s different being disappointed when a character with no clear motivation or set of values takes a turn you personally didn’t want, versus when a character who DOES have a clear, established motivation and values has those aspects abandoned. there were so many people who were upset with the direction hox’s character took, saying it wasn’t right for him and he should’ve stayed with the LOV, but honestly hox betraying them was always a possibility and there was no established characterization that ever implied he wouldn’t side with the heroes. just because there was a lot of fanon and theories about it doesn’t mean hori “took” something from y’all or wrote badly just because you didn’t like it.

there’s more argument to be made that, for example, deku’s characterization is less consistent and the writing might be weaker with him. deku IS someone with more-or-less established motivations and values, who tells off shouto’s abuser early on but in the late series only seems to take a conciliatory approach to the todorokis’ situation. there’s at least a case to be made that deku turned way too much from his earlier stance on the issue and it felt manipulated in order to support the abuser’s redemption.

these two cases are just not the same.

"How interesting. Your quirk is so strong that it hurts you" yes endeavor 😐 so interesting 😐 nothing like you've ever seen before 😐 doesnt ring a bell 😐