437 posts
Latest Posts by tessrry - Page 8
"Ochako's healthy friendship vs the League's unhealthy friendship" you want to assimilate into middle class suburbia so much
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.
seriously what did they put in bnha to make all the villains so interesting and dynamic and unique from each other while still contributing to a common thematic thread meanwhile in the background all the heroes are just slowly melting into the same bland blob. it's insane and dangerous.
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
i would be more tolerant of hawks or feel like #hottakes about him had some value if there was any interest in discussing him as a marginalized person buying into the system, for power, stability, and whatever misguided belief that the system does good. a child in poverty with abusive parents becoming a person who would do anything in order to never be disempowered nor poor again. a child who was saved by the hero system convincing himself that because he got out anyone can get out, especially anyone who is (like himself as a child) morally blameless and willing to try hard to win the approval of his superiors.
if only there was any talk about dabi and twice being, in hawks' view, morally inadequate and not appropriately grateful towards the establishment (nor, in dabi's case, his own abuser), because his assessment is informed by his own contrasting experience. he needs to perform those mental gymnastics to justify his own place within hero society, to justify his own deserving nature by creating a category of people, within his mind, who are undeserving. if only those people who resemble him would change, if only they would work harder, if only they would come around to his way of thinking, they could replicate his success and earn a place within hero society.
there are plenty of marginalized people who've somehow "made it" and are more than happy to use their own marginalizations to support the status quo. "i'm a poc and if i achieved this so can you." "i'm mentally ill but i did this, so what's your excuse?" "i'm a survivor and i think she's lying." we recognize that these people exist and are still marginalized with all the social precarity that that entails; however, they do harm to people who are even more vulnerable than themselves who share their marginalizations. talking about this means analyzing the positionality of a fandom-favored attractive skinny guy and the power he wields though, so it's more appealing to throw him into the trauma olympics to be bnha's one true victim or whatever.
this chapter bringing up lady nagant as a villain too just makes me want to ask... why. why is she a villain? is it because she:
killed people for the heroes/hpsc
killed the person who was threatening her (the hpsc president)
momentarily allied herself with AFO despite hurting no one while taking his orders
because uuuuhhh i can think of another character who has done basically all of these things and yet isn't treated like he's indebted to society. so care to lay it out for me, horikoshi? what is lady nagant's crime?🙃
“gentle criminal, for your crime of uploading unpopular youtube videos of your cringefail illegal activities, repent by showing your remorse and put your life on the line to stop an entire prison break single-handedly and also fight this supervillain.”
I read through the manga for the first time recently (at least what's release in the US bc I prefer physical books to trying to read manga on a screen) and Spinraki kinda grabbed me by the balls ngl. The manga version of mva really sells me on Spinner's growing devotion to Shigaraki at a time where he seemed to be having doubts since it had drifted so far from Stain's ideology. Also gamer bfs playing LoL together and being dorks is just a really sweet thought. 💕
I totally agree with preferring physical copies of the manga over reading digital, it drives my brother crazy lol.
Spinneraki is such a good ship, I love it so much!
I was listening to music while I was drawing this and bunch of sad love songs started playing and looking back it definitely had an impact without me even realizing it until I got too far. It had a very different vibe when I started lmao
Oh well... enjoy some super soft Spinneraki on the house
There was a story behind this image but I'll just leave it up to you guys to come up with your own.
The mock screenshot/prompt background art.
Thank you for celebrating Spinaraki Week Round 3 with us! See ya next year!
can we get some trans spinner for pride month?
I didn't know google does this! So cute!
Any ways,
Here's some trans spin
and the other layer for me i guess is what the shounen fight usually represents, not only a physical determination of who’s stronger but also of whose ideology is more legitimate, and it just sucks that dabi loses on both counts, which is. rough. considering how much of his character is built on the pain of being deemed a failure and the narrative just goes “yeah the inferiority is true actually”
i knew i wasnt gonna like this fight very much lol shouto barely reacts to the shit that happened to touya and is instead is like "u shouldnt be dragging other ppl into this!!" like?? if i found out literally any of that happened to my siblings (or even just people i know??) i would react very badly and i dont even get along with my siblings!! idk this has like no emotional weight to me for some reason idgi
i've been getting the feeling that bnha is written in a way to primarily impart lessons (*but only on people who are not related to law enforcement). that's why we keep getting bludgeoned over the head with how aoyama is still responsible for endangering his classmates or how dabi still made his own choices to kill unrelated people; while true, the story seems to prioritize making sure those lessons are learned first, while what is perceived as excess sympathy is excised so it never comes across as ""condoning"" the person who did wrong.
which is probably why a lot of these scenes feel like they have no emotional weight. often the only person sympathizing with characters like dabi or aoyama is the reader, and there is no outlet for the reader's feelings because characters aren't allowed to sympathize overmuch with the villains. for us there's no emotional payoff because we'll read something like dabi's backstory, but the reveal just gets followed up with a lecture, which is obviously... not emotionally impactful at all. the scenes don't read like a moving or memorable moment so much as the heroes engaging in debate class.
spinner hangs around the LOV watching all the backstory insanity and thinks “goddamn i’m so normal, i’m the normalest guy here” and toga points out he got the biggest nerd crush on japan’s most wanted dead or alive shigaraki tomura specifically when he witnessed the man leveling a city
no but srsly what are we hoping for here. like, okay, so we assume the villains don’t die and get “saved,” but aoyama, who: 1. was blackmailed into helping afo, 2. literally did not kill anyone, and 3. immediately and sincerely regretted his actions, still gets locked up and told to repay his debt to society, literally WHAT are we hoping will happen to people who willingly joined the villain cause and killed people for their own deeply-held values. at this point i hope they die i hope everyone dies!!
it’s normal for girls to want to drink blood btw the backlash against toga is misogynistic and also unrealistic
Ahhh- i cant do annon- 😭 just wanted to say me and my partner really love spinner and your art- maybe if its ok could you possibly draw them a lil spinner! (If not its totally cool!)
Anyway have a good day- *fades out of existence*
Aw thanks so much bro!💛💛💛 Here’s a little dude, it’s raining where I am so I thought it was fitting 🦎🌧
