Analysis - Blog Posts

I am obsessed and thus I am going to analyse the names of all of these eeveetwotions!! Props to the artist for being super cool and clever and genuinely setting my brain on fire :/

OKAY SO-

BOLTEON: Jolteon (Electric) + Steel: - The concept of STEEL BOLTS + BOLTS OF LIGHTNING MAKES BOLTEON JUST THE PERFECT NAME - Also steel is electrically conductive so it would WORK as a combo

Plus, the colour scheme combo of gold (ik it's yellow but close enough) and silver looks really good together.

SULFUREON: Flareon (Fire) + Poison: - SULPHUR GAS IS FUCKING POISONOUS!! AND sulphur is commonly associated with fire which just makes it such a cool link - The combo of purple and fire is also really giving volcanic vibes, which... also produce tons of sulphur AHHHH

- Also the black rock texture looks amazing!!

- Also, also I think using the "F" spelling of sulphur works so cutely here since it brings the design name closer to Flareon :) but I am a PH sulphur apologist until I die.

My only lil note here would be that sulphur burns blue, so that could have been incorporated #bluehellforthegays

AGUANEON: Vaporean (Water) + Dragon: - The shape of vaporeon with the tail structure blends extremely well with a dragon design (this works for the gills too)

- ALSO!! In spanish Agua = Water

BUT WAIT

- "Aguaneon" is also similar to "Iguana", which is a genus of reptiles AKA WHAT DRAGONS WOULD ALSO BE CONSIDERED TO BE

WHICH IS SO FUCKING CLEVER

Again, colours of the types work well together, plus I love the juxtaposition of the idea that maybe instead of breathing fire this dragon type would breathe water lol (which gills would help with ig hehe)

EPHEREON: Espeon (Psychic) + Ghost: - The new name is very similar to the original name, and we love consistency and theming in this town

- EPHEMERAL = FLEETING (yanno, like a ghost would be)(using my miraculous knowledge here

- The name also is vaguely close to Ethereal (pronunciation and structure wise) which is also linked to supernatural stuff!!

- Not the mention the fact that Psychic and Ghost are already both supernatural types, and thus work really well together naturally. - ALSO AGAIN look at that colour schemeee, Ephereon be looking like a dark high priestess I would totally sell my soul to

OBSIDEON: Umbreon (Dark) + Fighting: - Red and black go excellently together as fighting colours, especially the way the artist has designed the pokemon to look like a ninja

- The bandages (associated with exercise and boxing/exertion etc.) really bring the colour palette together

- Obsidian is a black, dark mineral, that is also very tough (obviously, since you need a diamond pickaxe to get through it) so OF COURSE Obsideon is the perfect name for a tough, dark pokemon.

SYLPHEON: Sylveon (Fairy) + Flying: - Not very different from the original spelling however the subtlety of this one is what I think makes it for me. - So Sylveon + Seraph = Sylpheon A SERAPH IS A CELESTIAL BEING NOTICE HOW SHE HAS A HALO AROUND HER HEAD AND LOWKEY LOOKS LIKE A PEGASUS (FLYING HORSE) - LIKE MAGICAL UNICORN ANGEL ESSENTIALLY, which works so perfectly for a flying fairy type!!!

LEPIDEON: Leafeon (Grass) + Bug: - Conceptually, this is such a good blend of types because, um HELLO, leaf insects exist!! - Upon looking it up, Lepidodendrons are apparently an extinct genus of plants, which I think adds to the eerie vibes that the design has

- And works well enough because it's a similar word to leafeon

OMG WAIT MORE RESEARCH I HAVE DISCOVERED THAT LEPIDOPTERA IS AN ORDER THAT REFERS TO WINGED INSECTS LIKE BUTTERFLIES AND MOTHS. THAT IS SUCH A PERFECT NAME FOR BUG AND GRASS TYPES COMBINED?? AS WELL AS BEING EXTREMELY SIMILAR TO LEAFEON?? HOOLY SHIT

- tHE MOth face is so cute omg, and the forest creature colour scheme vibes are epic

REGALACEON: Glaceon (Ice) + Rock: - Obviously we still have the root word Glaceon still in there, which is cool, and could have just worked by itself as a funny sort of "well, glaciers are just big ice rocks aren't they?" but I'm glad they didn't do that cos I get to ANALYSE 🤓 - However, upon research I found nothing, but what I interpret to be the artist's intention (and I think this is really cool) is that "ice" and "rock" are both like diamonds

(I mean, just look at the design, it is incredibly bejewelled)

So I believe it is Regal + Glaceon, which obviously fit very well together, to form... Regalaceon!!

A beautiful, Rarity from mlp-esque design (always a win for style)

- I like how the ears and tufts look like royal banners, and how the tail kind of reminds me of a red carpet vibe

EVEN THE SCRUFF OF THE NECK IS LIKE THOSE POSH NECK THINGS

It is very beautiful and regal, and I love it and think it's very clever.

AS I DO WITH ALL OF THEM

Also props to them for not including ground type (and obviously normal) as the most boring ones (no offence ground type lovers)

Eeveelutions 2.0!

Ny-ok here I go again, But this time it’s Enji!!!. I noticed in a panel his Bottom lip stuck out so here we go again!

This was the panel, (and theres the same in Anime, if anyone’s curious)

now here’s other panels/sceans that kinda contribute somthing to this,

Now this is probably just his resting B/grumpy face and nothing particular but I’m gonna use myself as an example for a moment, when I’m focused I tend to pout and jutt out my lips or bottom jaw kinda like both Enji and Touya, and seeing as the Todoroki kids all made This face as babies/little kids, I don’t think it’s out of the picture

I’m curious if it was a habit they adopted from their dad of him just having the habit of putting his bottom jaw forward as a resting face. .. or a genetic thing the Todoroki kids tend to take after their mom but they could have adopted some genetic form their dad, lets use Touyas smile at the end of the original post as an example, their making the same face, he got Enjis cocky smile with his own touch due to His genetics, it could make since eather way you put it, (and it’s more likely a genetic thing)

but then again Enji seems to just be jutting his bottom jaw/lip out as he frowns, it may be an underbite or just a habit, but in three pictures it certainly looks like an underbite However other times again it just looks Like a resting Grumpy face, it’s honestly hard to tell but he much like Touya he has Somthing going on,

the strange part is if it’s an underbite then that makes Touyas situation a little more strange since his top lip is the focus wall for Enji it’s his bottom if Touya has an overbite (which I don’t think he does) for this to happen there’d have to be other genetics at play.

And then I found this out, wall trying to find Some kind of connection between Touyas and Enjis different features I found out that if one parent has an underbite it’s actually more likely for their kid to have a gummy smile which Touya seems to have. so it all works out!

Basically Enji probably has a small underbite and a Habit wall Touya has a gummy smile due to how the genetics of unaligned jaws work and possibly a hyperactive lip. (Which may or may not be due to his burns) And I think the other Todoroki kids probably had the same as Touya and mostly grew out of it, (I say mostly because Shoto may have a pout going on to, his mouth does the same thing a Dabi’s . . .could be a habit to tho)

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anyway, this next part is not That important, just an extra bit I thought I’d add! The kids Take after their mom Rei, (it’s obvious)

I hope this isn’t to hard to read/understand but basically, Enjis features are surprisingly less dominant then you’d think, Rei’s softer more kind features came thru on All of her kids, unlike Endeavors, whos are just kinda there in the background. . .

Touya (Dabi) (technically I should have used the picture of him when he woke up form the coma as reference but. . .eh ) hes got his moms face shape with a hint of his dads edgey features/ face shape, a mix, his eyes are header to pin down and this is why I say I should have used fresh out of the coma Touya, his eyes seem to be a mix as well Maby more on his dads side? But also round like his mom? It’s hard so I’ma just say Mix, he also has his moms nose

Fuyumi, mom's eyes, moms nose, and moms face shape, Maby theres a hint of her dad Somewhere in there but basically just a copy of Rei, like Natsuo being mostly a copy of Enji,

Natsuo, he’s got his dads jaw and general face shape, Maby just a bit softer, and he seems to have a mixture of both of his parents eyes leaning more on his dads, he’s also got his moms nose but it’s bigger. . .(dounno if it’s really a mix tho?)

aaaand Shoto, (I am not using time skip shoto because he scares me, I just don’t like it) so generally Shoto did take after his mom as well, her eyes with a hint of Enji (being the angle on them and sharpness) moms nose and moms jaw/general face shape, (but technically speaking it’d be better if Shoto looked more like both of his parents equally as the ‘perfect mix’ child he is)

I also just a funny thing I want to note: I had the Headcanon that the baby todorokis made that face as a thing thay got from their dad and he made that same face as a kid to or Maby even as an adult because I thought it’d be funny, so seeing something like this come to light for me is hilarious!

also I hope I don’t repeat myself to much I was basically writing this as I went and it was. . . .complicated to say the least. . . .it was still fun Tho!!! I love picking at small details like this!!!

Nya-Ok, I reeeeealy think Touya/Dabi has a Gummy smile/Overbite, or Something! Going on with his mouth.

I noticed in a video his gums kept showing a lot when he spoke and stuff and this interested me and I looked in to it and noticed, Yeah He Shows His Gums A Lot, especially when he’s having a manic Episode or just high emotions (Maby because he can’t cry? which is what he seems to have done a lot with strong emotions as a kid, or Maby it’s just exaggerated expressions and he needed some other way to express his emotions because he can’t cry)

In The pictures it eather show his gums or his top lip going up a lot, and (again) yes his facial expressions are exaggerated, and yeah some of these are the same scean and/or scenes close together but still. It’s interesting at least Also it seems to be more prominent in the manga, which tends to look way better detail wise and stuff (I love both anime and manga tho theirs both beautiful in their own way)

(the last picture in the line up is what makes me think of an overbite specifically, theres just something about how it looks)(. . . Also, I Hate that picture. . .)

now what I’d like to note is many things can cause a gummy smile, one of which is a hyperactive upper lip, another is overbite, genetics, medication, and other such things as well.

the hyperactive upper lip is interesting to me because he’s got burns on the lower half of his face/jaw which would probably have severe nerve damage, wall the description of this is actually having stronger muscles in the upper lip, or it’s where the upper lip moves excessively when smiling and such, revealing more gum tissue. I just think that bits interesting because of his burns. . . . .(does that even make since? . . .)

theres another thing I’d like to note as well

The face he makes here, it’s kinda like a pout but not, I have a gummy smile and I tend to make similar faces a lot . . . .just something I wanted to note, baby Touya along with the other todo babies made a similar face to (he’s so cute when he makes that face)

other photos:

(That face is Adorable, Especially when paired with his Japanese laugh)

Enji also makes a similar face, which makes me think I’m rong about all’a this and it’s just some face

All-en-all he seems to have something going on with his upper lip, and I’d say going off of the face him and his siblings made as little kids it may have been an overbite that never got corrected, especially since he was assumed dead in his teens which is when you’d typically get braces which can help correct such a thing, or it could a hyperboile upper lip because it seems to go up a lot even if it’s not showing his gums, eather way, I love his smile Touya. . .he’s cute. . .and insane. . . . I wrote all of this for fun, feel free to make a counter argument or whatever, I’d like to hear other opinions! (but be nice about it!), I thought it was a neat and kinda cute detail and I wanted to touch on/share it!. . . . But seriously it’s probably just his exaggerated expressions due to his manic episodes and such. . . . (Bakugo and Enji doing a similar thing helps that honestly. . .)

also this was my first time making an analysis(-ish) thing and actually DOING Somthing with it! I had fun! And I love making this type stuff! I also enjoy seeing all these pictures of Touya in one spot he’s so cute :> also sorry I repeated myself so much!

. . . .I do kinda get the feeling I’m completely rong and no one else sees this tho. . . Someone tell me I’m not entirely rong

@foundouthatdabiistouyatodoroki it’s not good, awful really but it was fun at least :>

I think the mood for Chosen by the end of this video is ‘completely overwhelmed.’

Seguir leyendo

this is very much subjective- and informed by own journey of dealing with abuse. I hope this makes sense, and I am very much open to other (respectful) opinions.

~The ‘revenge fantasy’ is a storyline I am somewhat sick of seeing! If someone finds them cathartic or helpful, that is wonderful; and everyone is allowed to have different relationships with media. I just want to see other story lines, for a number of reasons.

‘Getting even’ with ones abuser/s isn’t always feasible. Whether through legal means, or taking matters into your own hands, victims/survivors don’t always have that ability. The statistics on SA show this very clearly- the rate of convictions is appallingly low. For many, their abuser may pass away before ever facing the consequences of their actions. In addition, people don’t always want justice/revenge. In many ways, leaving no space for your abuser is the most helpful thing to do. Others may not find revenge satisfying. Especially after the focus and limelight in media, the actual emotional impact maybe somewhat of a letdown. One persons suffering does not erase anothers. Seeing ones abuser be hurt, it doesn’t undo the damage they’ve done, nor does it necessarily stop them from hurting others in the future.

I am also not talking about measures taken that prevent anymore people being hurt, that ensure abusers won’t have anymore victims. There are absolutely some people whose freedom must be taken away for the safety of others. But I will always be more in favour of options that work to rehabilitate. My veiw on the application of the prison system is that it should be about protecting people, not punishing them. I am far more interested in a narrative that centres solely around recovery, around someone rebuilding their life and relationships with no room for the person who hurt them. That makes clear that the abuser was a big part of their past, but won’t be a big part of their present or future.

Let me make this clear- I am not saying that getting justice is bad. I am saying that it is not essential.

Storylines of revenge 100% have their place, but framing them as an essential step in the healing process is not helpful.

thinking abt critiquing the entire existence of the revenge trope as it pertains to pandoras vault,, someone hype me up i need the confidence boost

GENSHIN MANGA SPOILERS! but honestly if you haven’t read it by now it’s your fault alone

So why did Kaeya initially try to hurt Collei?

The obvious answer- he was trying to defend Mondstadt, Collei was a very suspicious figure at the time, and he knew that being aggressive towards her would probably draw out her hidden powers and reveal herself as the culprit of the Black Fire incident.

But there’s more to it than that.

Kaeya canonically loves, LOVES kids. He adores them- there’s lots of times in the game where he talks about how precious childhood is and how he wants to protect the purity of childhood dreams for as long as possible before kids have to grow up and face the real world (kinda similar to Childe). In 3.8, it shows how he is literally willing to do anything to protect a child- Klee, when he literally throws aside his own sibling issues in order to shield Klee from being exposed to the same thing and scolds a couple of bickering brothers for upsetting her.

Additionally, there’s his whole thing with Mika and how he’s basically a big brother figure to the entirety of Mondstadt’s population under 17. The highly implied bond between Bennett, Razor, Fischl and him, even.

Anyway this whole aspect of his character obviously stems from his own childhood and how tainted it was by his hidden identity, so like he probably doesn’t want any other kids to have to go through such hardship especially while they’re still young.

So if he loves kids so much, and wants to protect them so badly, why did he not hesitate to become a full blown villain against Collei, literally wounding an innocent 12-year old girl?

Because he sees himself in her.

Collei hates herself (or at least she used to LOL). She hates the burden (her powers) that was forced upon her from a young age, and those powers inevitably label her as a bad person, one who can harness evil powers to kill And hurt and whatever. It makes her feel like she has no real control over herself, and that she has no self-identity- she doesn’t think of herself as a regular person, instead a monster. And she hates, hates, hates herself for it, but she shoves all of it down under a mask.

Sound familiar to a certain cavalry captain?

That’s why Kaeya didnt hesitate to Go after her. He knows her too well, knows that she’s hiding her true identity under a well-crafted face, that there’s something evil and dark in her- because that’s exactly who he was as a kid.

But then this panel happens.

Collei, evidently so tired of living such a torn life, gives up and offers her life to Kaeya just so that the torment can end, which stops Kaeya in his tracks, because that’s when she reminds him off himself just a little too much.

Kaeya, so caught up in her uncontrollable evil, forgets that she’s just a child, one who never should’ve been forced to deal with such a thing, and certainly not want to die because of it.

That’s exactly what happens internally to him, as well. Over the years, Kaeya internalized being a traitor so much, that often he convinces himself that he’s truly not a good person. Yes, he acknowledges that it’s really not his fault, but that still gets lost and it shows through when Kaeya shows us how willing he is to get himself harmed- because of his self hatred, he places so little value in his own wellbeing and his own life, because he thinks that all harm that comes to him is deserved and that it’s better off if he’s dead anyway so that he doesn’t have to deal with being torn apart every day.

No I’m not making this up, it’s in how he literally covers for Diluc all the time and risks himself in the process, and how Adelinde told us about that one time Kaeya literally took Diluc’s punishment for himself when they snuck into the wine cellars. There’s lots of times, even throughout in the game where Kaeya tries to convince us he’s not a good person- he quite literally says that, at some point.

Only when Collei shows that she’s in the exact same position does Kaeya realize what he’s doing and stops himself. Only then does he remember how painful and hard it really is, and he ends up helping to save Collei and removing her powers, because that’s one burden he can help take off, unlike his own.

Idk man for me the Kaeya vs Collei fight (I like to call it the chapter where collei gave us the hottest panel of Kaeya choking ever) told a story about Kaeya’s internalizations, too, and his own-self hatred and how deep it really goes. BRB CRYING

I have nothing to say since you summed up that preview and Lightning’s character in that scene better than I could. You read my mind and perfectly articulate it in such a way that I couldn’t. Thank you.

Cars 3 Preview Analysis

At the beginning of the clip, we see the race in session, then it focuses on Lightning. If you didn’t already notice, you could see the way he was eying the race car next to him. It’s as if he was observing the design layout of that competitor, and he must’ve been thinking about how those kind of cars were the new kinds of technology they had nowadays. Something that Lightning didn’t have, at least doesn’t have as much due to his age.

When Jackson drives up next to him, remember when he said, “Hey Champ, where did all your friends go?” He was referring to Chick Hicks and Dinoco, along with all his other competitors he used to race against in the first movie. They’re no longer there. They’ve retired. They no longer are able to race because of the new rookies and, it’s almost like they are forgotten. Lightning didn’t retire. His deep love for racing keeps from doing that, and he refuses to let his age show on him. He refuses to give up. McQueen is determimed to prove himself that he can still race. However, you could still see his reaction when Storm states that. Lightning is basically all alone, and in reality, he probably has no true place in that race.

After that, Jackson drove away and literally passed the five cars that were in front of Lightning in less than two seconds. It seemed as if it took him no effort at all. That’s how easy it is for Jackson to take the league. Not to mention, apparently he’s cheating, using a special type of gas that boosts his speed and overall stamina.

After a while, a car attempts to overcome McQueen, making the two of them the same distance apart. They both take a couple of turns boosting speeds, passing over the other temporarily before the other does the same back. Lightning, at this point, was NOT letting another car pass him. So he managed to succeed, seeing an opening in the middle of another set of races and took the chance, squeezing into the two of them. Looking closely you can see how close he was to hitting them. The edges of both sides of his front bumper were inches apart from hitting the yellow car on our side (our left, his right). Who knows how close he was to hitting the other car.

Over time, it shows Lightning slowly but succeedingly overcoming the rest of the cars ahead of him, trying his best to get to first place. Then, eventually, he gets to second place, with Jackson Storm in the lead as first.

Before anything else happens, the two of them head to their respective pitstops, in need of tires. Just like the announcer stated, this final stop will be the big ‘decider’ for who has victory and who is defeated.

Lightning, knowing that if he could hurry up and pass Storm, wanted Guido to hurry up with replacing his tires so he could take first place. Luckily, his team finished, so without a second’s hesitation, he hit his gas and zoomed out of there, just in time at the last moment before the other cars managed to get ahead of him. It was surprising how fast he went at that specific moment, though. A bit slower and he would’ve lost his position.

Everything came crashing down, however, because in a couple of seconds Jackson just sped up next to him. It was emphasizing how much faster he was than Lightning.

Let’s take another look at Lightning’s perspective here… He’s panting. A lot. He’s obviously running out of breath because he’s pushing himself to his max speed. He doesn’t want any cars to take his place, so he’s using all his will power to not falter and slip up. He NEEDS to win this race. He can’t just lose. He’s still as good as he was in the first movie’s races, right? This is what he’s probably thinking from his point of view.

Noticing that Lightning was panting heavily, Jackson asked him if he was alright, seeming concerned for him. He states to Lightning not to worry, and that he had his good run. Then, Jackson had the nerve to finish off with as he sped away, taking first place, “Enjoy your retirement!”

When he said that, it hit Lightning. It was like a smack to the face. Reality flushing over him without warning. Now focusing on Jackson’s words to him, not to mention that being combined with Lightning seeing that Jackson now took first place and is dramatically faster than him, he’s having conflict with himself. His expression falls as he finally understands the 'truth’ about his role in life now. This causes Lightning to slow down, allowing the cars behind him to pass him.

The terrible thoughts of “I’m going to lose the race, I’m not as fast as them anymore, I’m going to retire, I will no longer be able to race anymore,” just makes it worse. The announcer says how Lightning is fading away, meaning he’s losing his places, which actually makes sense in a mentality kind of way. People perceiving Lightning as a rookie is fading away. Lightning’s youth is fading away. His PRESENCE his fading away. No one notices him anymore. He’s not the star he once was. These new, high-tech advanced  cars are. They’re the new rookies, and the new soon-to-be stars that will make Lightning completely forgotten.

Thinking all of this, Lightning finally regains his composure, repeatingly growling to himself, “No, no. No, no, no, no…!” He’s saying 'no’ to all of the things explained above. He’s saying no to the fact that there’s new cars better than him. He’s saying no to him losing first place and potentially losing this race. This’ll be the first time Lightning will TRULY lose a race. Racing is what he loves to do. It’s his passion. And to give it up all away? To lose everything? And not having a say in it? He has no choice. No option.

Therefore, he forces himself to speed up, determined once more to take back the league. Then he faces his problem. He can’t go any further nor faster than he already is. Over the years, his speed decreased, and his age is preventing him from reaching the others. You can see how Lightning’s body just overall shakes terribly, slightly at first then more intensely. It’s showing he’s pushing himself WAY too hard. He’s trying to reach a speed he can no longer do. He’s done for. Lightning McQueen is no longer the fast racecar he was once known as.

His engine is probably overheating from it all. From all the pressure and, emotionally, the hurt feelings and thoughts that’s crossing through him, making it all worse.

And since he’s too concentrated with trying to speed up to reach the others, he’s not paying attention to his actual driving. He’s going too fast for his own good, and therefore that’s what caused his crash. He must’ve shifted slightly while making that long, cursive turn, and in that little shift, his back tire lost all control, making the rest of him get thrown off track. Lightning quickly tries to make his way into control, but fails to regain balance.

Thus, without catching his balance, gravity and the intense force of his speed threw him at the wall, and the force of that hit threw him airborne.

Don’t even get me started on Sally. Her expression is enough to break our hearts. Our shattered hearts from Lightning himself only shatter into nothing once we see Sally’s immediate reaction to him crashing and flipping into the air. Just imagine; watching your boyfriend doing something he loves and for him to crash? Seeing him airborne in the air, now extremely prone to massive and most likely permanent injuries that, God Forbid, could take him away from you? That’s how Sally must be feeling.

Lastly, we have Mater. His best friend, now crashing terribly. Although his reaction wasn’t focused on as strongly as it was with Sally’s (you can see his face a bit as it zooms in on Sally), we can all coclude how he’s feeling right now. The world must’ve stopped for him too, something unbelievable happening in front of his eyes.

And there’s my analysis for the Cars 3 Preview. Thank you for your time!

honestly my favorite part about the whole endeavor “atonement” arc is that we as the audience KNOW that there’s nothing he can do to properly atone for the things he’s done to his family.

the scars from endeavor’s abuse will forever be ingrained in the todorokis, no matter how hard they try to move on from it (and not everyone wants to move on, either). we’re constantly hit with reminders of endeavor’s actions throughout the story- heck, even right in the middle of his whole “atonement” arc, we get another flashback that goes more in depth on the abuse and neglect that the family has suffered because of him. we even get more details on how his marriage with rei began, along with the buildup that lead to rei’s horrible mental state. it’s like although endeavor is trying to correct himself, the show doesn’t want us to forget about the things he has done, and i can appreciate that. i’m sure even endeavor is aware that no matter how hard he tries, there’s not much he can do to fix the past.

him trying to correct himself after becoming the number one hero is kind of the point, because there’s nothing else left to distract him from the weight of his actions. there is no more all might for him to chase, and there’s really no point in trying to become the next symbol of peace because of the impossibly high standards that were left behind in all might’s place. now all endeavor can do is look back and see all the damage that he’s caused, all in exchange for some dream that he will never be able to fulfill.

its ironic, really. he’s been trying for decades to match all might’s power, but is left powerless when it comes to mending his relationship with his family. the past can never go away, and all he can really do is make sure it doesn’t happen again.

Something I noticed about Toga and Uraraka

(Spoiler warning for My Hero Academia!!)

Himiko Toga and Ochako Uraraka obviously parallel one another quite a bit; for example, their appearance and color schemes. But there is a specific way in which they parallel each other that isn't as obvious: their quirk awakenings. Both characters' quirk awakenings happened in relation to the love they have for each other.

Himiko Toga's quirk awakening happened in season five, episode twenty one. This is the very first episode that we learn something from Toga's past. In this episode, Toga uses her quirk, Transform, to become Ochako Uraraka with the little bit of blood she had stolen from her. While she was transformed into her, she accidentally used Uraraka's quirk, Zero Gravity. Of course this was the first time she had ever used someone else's quirk, so she was confused for a while. She eventually realized that this was part of her own ever-growing power ("I want to become more... like those I love!") Episode: Revival Party.

Ochako Uraraka's quirk awakening happened in the episode "A Girl's Ego". Her quirk awakening was the realization that her Zero Gravity was able to spread like a chain. She was in the middle of telling Himiko Toga that she wanted to have their long-awaited "girl talk" when she made this discovery. ("Because I still want to talk about love with you, Himiko!") Episode: A Girl's Ego.

These kinds of parallels really show how Himiko and Ochako truly are two sides of the same coin, and that's why they can understand one another so entirely.

Serial Designation J, what the heckkk??

(Spoilers for episode seven and eight of Murder Drones!!!!!!!!!)

Serial Designation J from Murder Drones is a pretty complicated character. If you want to understand why she teamed up with Cyn in episode eight, you need to use lots of brain power to read into certain lines. But anyway, this is my super-awesome explanation as to why J teamed up with Cyn!!

J's relationship with Tessa is apparently clear in episode five. You can easily see that the two are very close, and even are best friends. "There's humans coming, and I've only ever yakked to robots, J!" (Episode: Home) In episode five, there is also a scene that shows how much they care about one another: Tessa and J clinked their glasses, and Tessa who was reminded of the noise of chains locking her up, rubbed her own wrist and winced in pain. J looked at her with concern and sadness, so Tessa assured her that she was alright.

As we can see just from these two examples, J and Tessa definitely care for each other quite a bit. As we know, Cyn killed Tessa and wore her skin. It could easily be assumed that anything Cyn would do has a purpose and would benefit her in some way, but this just doesn't make sense, as it doesn't do her any favors. With this thought process, it's obvious to come to the conclusion that she didn't have a reason; she just wanted to because she's sadistic, and she particularly wanted to disturb J, specifically (yes, I know that sentence is redundant). Because J was so close to Tessa, and likely was forced to watch Tessa die at the hands of Cyn, she was very disconcerted by Cyn wearing Tessa's skin and even mimicking her voice, so it was easy for Cyn to manipulate her. "If I promise you anything, it tricked me, too." (Episode: The Absolute End)

If you were to ask yourself what you would do in J's situation, I'm sure that you would want to think logically. What do you do if somebody who you've never liked in the first place kills your best friend, wore their skin, mimicked their voice, and tried to act like them? On top of that, this person is super powerful and would be nearly impossible to defeat. Now, they are telling you that they won't hurt you if you do something for them. Anybody would take the deal at this point, so that's what J did. In an already distressed state, J realized that there was basically no way that Cyn would ever lose, so theoretically, it would be the safest option to do what she wants. "I promise, it's better on the winning team as a team." (Episode: The Absolute End)

After J had teamed up with Cyn, she also got V in on it, too. "You said we do our jobs, and that thing leaves us alone!" (Episode: The Absolute End) Both J and V kept the secret from N, and this is implied to be part of their deal with Cyn. This is particularly shown in episode eight after V tries to tell N about how the "Tessa" that they know is actually Cyn, and then Cyn says to her, "Do your job, and I leave you and N alone. Right, V?" (Episode: The Absolute End). Since we know that J and V both had made a deal with Cyn, we can infer that they had always known since the beginning, and have been being manipulated by Cyn in real time during the time of the show. Of course the way that V was manipulated by Cyn is heartbreaking as well (and I will make a post about her in the future 😉), the way that J was manipulated is horrifying. You may have seen memes online about J being William Afton from FNAF, because every time we think she dies she tends to come back eventually. But the truth is that it was very intentional of Cyn to make J basically immortal, because in that case J would never be capable of rebelling against her. If she rebelled, Cyn could torture her and or simply kill her and bring her back with all the memories. J couldn't take her own life because Cyn would bring her back. Because J thought that There was no way to beat Cyn, she figured that getting on her good side was the safest often. She just thought that there was literally no way that she could go against Cyn without being tortured forever.

"You know there's no escape, even in death!" (Episode: The Absolute End)

(This is just a theory of mine, but I find it likely that the reason that J would call Cyn "Boss" just like she called Tessa "Boss", is so she could try to familiarize Cyn and make her seem more like Tessa in order to make the situation feel better. But that's JUST A THEORY-- A GAAMMMMEE THEORY)

This is just a small analysis on how Himiko Toga’s emotions influence the usage of her quirk throughout the show:

(Major spoiler warning for My Hero Academia!!!)

Himiko Toga has always loved a lot, and because of her quirk, Transform, she would express her love by drinking blood. When she drank a dying sparrow’s blood and happily showed her parents, they pressured her into suppressing her quirk, and by extension, her love, “I fall in love too easily. With animals, with villains, heroes too, boys, girls, anything alive. Because they all have such lovely blood flowing through them.” (Episode: A Girl’s Ego).

Since she wasn’t going to drink blood to show her love anymore, she started envying others, instead. She envied their quirk, their smile, their relationships, and more, “Everyone told me I shouldn’t smile, and it made me so envious” (Episode: A Girl’s Ego). A prominent example of her envy is with Izuku Midoria. She is constantly asking for his blood, and saying that it’s because she utterly and truly loves him. While this is true, she is intentionally ignoring the reason why she loves him so much, that being how she would rather be him than be herself.

The one character that she loves purely at this point in the show is Twice. But when Twice gets killed by Hawks, she ends up switching from using her powers because of envy, to using her powers because of hatred. She does so by turning into Twice and making clones of herself in order to get revenge on Hawks, along with other heroes. “Die, heroes!” (Episode: A Girl’s Ego).

Himiko Toga has now gone through three stages. Love, envy, and hatred in that order exactly. In the episode A Girl’s Ego, Ochako Uraraka manages to get Toga from hatred back to her final and first stage, love. Ochako Uraraka is the one who ends up fighting Himiko Toga, but instead of harming her, she just tries to talk. This doesn’t work, however, because Himiko Toga is way too blinded by hatred to cooperate, “I’ll make you stop talking, Ochako Uraraka!” (Episode: A Girl’s Ego). Eventually, Uraraka manages to get Toga to go back to Envy, “You seem normal because you played by the rules! You have no idea what an easy life you had!” (Episode: A Girl’s Ego). Now that Toga had went back to the stage of envy, it was easier for Uraraka to get her back to the stage of love. “Ochako, am I cute?” “The cutest in the world” (Episode: A Girl’s Ego).

Himiko Toga never stopped loving. All she needed was understanding, and that was enough to clearly see how she drank blood out of malice. It was always pure love and affection. Now that she had someone who loved her for who she was, she decided to save Ochako’s life at the expense of her own. “Thank you, Ochako. You made me so happy. Genuinely, truly happy” (Episode: A Battle Without a Quirk). In this heartbreaking scene, Himiko is shown, alive, holding a sparrow that looks exactly like the one she had drank the blood from in her past. But this one looks up at her and flies away as Himiko smiles at it. Though it’s true that she had started and ended her life loving how she wanted to, the first sparrow was dead, symbolic of how back then, Toga only knew how to take. But now that she had met Uraraka, the sparrow was alive because she knew a way to love that now benefits everybody.

“If only I had understood then. If I’d had experienced this kind of love before, maybe I would have wanted to give people blood just as much as I wanted to drink their’s. And then maybe the world would have been an easier place for me to live in.”

I’m confused… who’s Rem?

Rewatching Re:Zero again, for various reasons, and I really want to take a closer look at it because it's been stuck in my head for such a long time. (It's actually the first scene I ever watched!)

Going back to the Rem Infodump, well- this is part of the reason I think Rem's definitely not stopping her character development. From the beginning, we get the message from this story that self sacrifice without any reward is not something someone should be satisfied with.

And this is extremely interesting because of what we learn later on- that despite all the physical pain, Ram was relieved that her horn broke. She didn't regret it, and only Rem was hurt by it emotionally.

I wonder if she ever properly talked to Rem about it? I wonder if she knew how to do that. I wonder if Rem ever knew how it felt to hold the pressure the clan was putting on her sister...

Ram's only guilt here comes from how it hurt Rem.

And then Ram asks Subaru who he'd prefer to be friends with, and I realized something pretty interesting.

These describe each of the twins, but they also describe Subaru himself. Both, together. Those two things add up to a large part of his internal conflict, and are made difficult by the fact that they contrast each other so much.

Because Subaru cannot just save everyone easily, because he's just a normal kid who was thrown into situations far beyond his abilities, he has to learn to love himself while dealing with both of these issues simultaneously. Letting go of one of these flaws (as he sees it) means completely and shamelessly embracing the other. If he refuses help, the only way he can be strong is to sacrifice himself. If he prioritizes himself, then he'll only ever be able to take from those he cares about.

I love how the story doesn't give him the option to become stronger, either. Like- he has Guiltywhip, he has Beatrice, he has Witch Authorities, but he's not the Isekai Protagonist he'd hoped he could be. He can't be Reinhardt (though... I don't know if he would want to be. That comes with its own rabbit hole, doesn't it?).

Rem and Ram each are like two mirrors of different parts of him, and they each have dynamics with each other that play on these connections.

Rem and Ram each embody different parts of the message of Re:Zero and I think that is so cool. All of them do, but the way this is presented just. I love it.

I don't mean to always talk about Subaru, I swear... I'm just in love with his character... Subaru's got such good dynamics with the whole cast,,,

I wish this conversation was in the final timeline, or that Subaru recreated it somehow... got the message across... man

Dear Diary, today I thought about Re:Zero again

also can we talk about how there's little trinkets and items that represent the main cast's personalities? Like, the spoon and the quill represent Rem and Ram in this story, the flower pin that Emilia gets from the little girl is like... the proof of her kindness, and the 10 yen coin represents subaru's brand of kindness- from the very beginning of the story. as well as the key from the elior forest being another one of emilia's, which has a similar diamond shaped gem to the quill and spoon. The only one of the main cast I can't pin down is beatrice... her book? her crown? I'm not sure. I hope we see Subaru's Beatrice diary in the next season!!

This is a preview of my first post (that will be posted eventually, I promise)🎹🦖

My Hero Academia is a popular Japanese anime about a super-human society. About 80% of the population has a power of which they call a quirk. Although being able to fly or heal for example seems to be very exciting, these abilities dictate the course of the character's life. This is seen especially in the tragically beautiful and beautifully tragic character, Himiko Toga.

This picture is me trying to convince you to read my blog!!:

When (not if) you read my analysis, you will REEEAAAALLLLYYYYYYYY see how passionate I am about my silly little characters.

This whole blog will just be me yapping a lot :/

Hope you enjoy!!

Did any of you ever notice that Dean forces Sam into their hella’ toxic codependent relationship?

I feel like I’m over analyzing it, but the more I watch the show again from how Sam was with dean in the beginning to the end it makes me wonder 💭

SPY X FAMILY SEASON 2 (EP. 5)

More stuff on the garden because it very much deserves to be talked about and appreciated!

While there's a lot going on visually, our attention was directed to two plants in particular: the Erica flowers and the winged spindle tree.

Erica flowers, also known as heath or heather, are blooms of many colors that are commonly associated with good luck and protection. They're also symbols of love and even of familial affection, with pink and purple flowers being associated with feelings of passion and romance and of admiration and beauty, respectively.

While I can't find much in terms of symbolism on the winged spindle tree, a quick search showed me that it's also called "burning bush" due to the red hue of its leaves and it reminded me of this story about the prophet Moses and how God appeared to him in a burning bush. During this interaction, God tasked Moses with the mission of leading his people away from a life of persecution and slavery into a life of freedom and prosperity.

But in the context of SPYxFAMILY, what could they mean?

I think the winged spindle tree represented Yor's mission during the Cruise Arc: she was chosen by Shopkeeper to protect Olka and her son as they attempted to escape the clutches of the Ostanian underworld to live a life of peace in a neutral country. On the other hand, the Erica flowers represented Yor's ever-growing feelings for her family. To me, her noticing these flowers first reflected how, during the mission, a lot of her focus was on thoughts of her family being on the Princess Lorelei. Shopkeeper pointing out the winged spindle tree corresponded to his and McMahon's efforts to get Yor to focus on and to prioritize her mission. Which, to Yor's credit, she does try very hard to do. But this parting shot of the Erica flowers hinted at how, despite her efforts, the Forgers would always be on the back of her mind.

A less focused but still very prominent element of the Garden scene are the leaves. Like, okay, obviously they're everywhere since it's a literal garden. But I do think these leaves—in particular, the falling leaves and the ones being pruned off by Shopkeeper—say something about Garden and its approach to the world.

Where there is life, there is also death, and a garden is not exempt from this. To me, the leaves are symbolic of people and their removal from their tree/shrub/bush is symbolic of death. Where the falling leaves are the people who are lost due to accidents and natural causes (i.e., forces of the world that cannot be controlled), the pruned leaves are the deliberate deaths. In the world of SXF, these are the targets or "customers" Shopkeeper and his assistants tend to so that they can maintain the beauty of this world.

What I find interesting is that despite Yor being a rose in our eyes, Shopkeeper might very well see her as just another leaf. A loyal and reliable leaf, but still a leaf. And as long as the shears are in his hands, she's a leaf that could just as easily be pruned if he decides it's necessary.

Rick is my spirit animal i love him with all my heart!! Hes such a nice depiction of an asshole its bordeline giggle inducing. His reasons and motivations to be the way he is are so nuanced its insane. Rick is such a complicated yet simple character. He loves people but pushes them away for their (and his) own good. Being able to read rick (body language, speech, being able to differentiate when he's serious about smth or when hes not) is its own art.

I can seriously rant about r&m alllllll damn day but the more i go on the more incomprehensible everything becomes.

on my rebirth replay i had the stellar idea to write down the loveless prelude and compare it to the "original" loveless poem. also it's color-coded.

later i'm gonna think harder about my big "explore differences" note. maybe on the airplane. i mean, what do you do on an airplane anyway? analyze fictional religious poetry.

Hotel Transylvania is Toxic - [A look into the Dracula Family]

[Spoiler Warning — Duh. I also have the article posted on Medium if you wanna check that out]

So we all know the movie, “Hotel Transylvania” right? For those who don’t, to sum it up, it’s a movie series about this hotel that’s for monsters so that monsters can hide from humans. The owner of this hotel is none other than the culturally known classic Dracula himself — and turns out he has a daughter named Mavis. Her mother died shortly after she was born due to human’s hatred for vampires during that time period. However, I feel like the story tends to be deeply problematic in terms of how the characters treat each other (specifically the Dracula family).

First and foremost, let’s get one thing out of the way: Dracula is a horrible father in these movies.

Legit, I can’t tell which movie he’s worse in. The only movie where I think he’s not entirely problematic is the third one where they go on vacation. And even then, he completely ditches his grandson to date Erica and lies to Mavis (but even that situation was a bit complicated if you watched the movie).

Excluding that, he’s straight-up horrible. Don’t believe me? What did he do in the first movie?

In the first film, Mavis states she wants to travel since she’s now 118 (which signifies her newfound autonomy in the monster realm the same way 18 is the new adult age for humans — gee, imagine having to wait that long?). However, Dracula, remembering his past trauma with humans, is terrified of her leaving because he doesn’t want her hurt. Obviously, this sounds like a caring father, right? But here’s the major issue.

Eventually, Dracula says that Mavis can test the waters by visiting a nearby human village. This obviously excites Mavis considering that she’s quite literally never left the hotel throughout those 118 years (if I was her, I’d also wanna go outside, hot dang).

Mavis flies over to the village. But the most bleeped up part about the whole thing is during that scene where she’s inside the village, it’s shown that Dracula actively set up the village and hired other monsters to pretend to be humans as a way to scare his daughter into leaving — making them seem like they’ll attack her.

Let’s restate that. Dracula — Mavis’ father — hires other monsters to cosplay humans — and scares her into leaving so she goes back to the hotel.

The guy traumatizes his own child into staying with him so that way she doesn’t leave. Deep down–despite Dracula possibly having the good intention of wanting to protect her from humans who hate monsters — only wants to keep his daughter to himself because he’s become dependent on her for his happiness since the death of her mother (Dracula’s late wife). Yes, Mavis does confront him about this after finding out about it (and during her 118th birthday party no less), but it’s still so slimy that Dracula would manipulate and traumatize his daughter just so he could keep her to himself due to his own outdated perception of humans.

I understand that Dracula also avoided humans up until Johnny showed due to his own experience and trauma, but the fact he even went that far just to have Mavis isolated in the hotel with him is all kinds of wrong. It’s one thing to disagree with something that you think is dangerous for your child, and it’s a complete ‘nother to straight up manipulate and traumatize them just so YOU can keep them where you want them.

You think that’s bad? Oh, you haven’t heard the half of it.

In the second movie, Mavis and her human husband Johnny (who she met in the first movie) have a child named Dennis. Throughout the film, Dracula has a creepy fixation on the vampiric aspects of Dennis rather than completely accepting his grandchild for who/what he is. Almost every chance he got, he tried to teach Dennis to be a vampire or try to trigger his vampiric growth. Sure, you could try to paint it as Dracula trying to connect with Dennis or helping him discover more aspects of himself. But he constantly gets progressively more and more shady about it.

It starts off small with Dracula trying to teach Dennis how to turn into a bat late at night while he sleeps. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still icky to wake up a child from their needed rest, but just bare with me here. Then when Dennis got his tooth knocked out during the werewolf children’s birthday party, Dracula — instead of showing concern for Dennis’ wellbeing–acted happy about it, hoping it meant that a vampire fang was growing in despite there being no correlation between the two whatsoever. Even if Dennis would somehow grow a fang as a new tooth, the fact he cared more about his grandson’s vampirisim than whether or not he was okay is incredibly offputting (for lack of a better word).

And then when Mavis trusts her father to look after Dennis while she and Johnny visit his family in California (a plan formulated by Johnny and Dracula), he completely dismisses her wishes and takes him on a trip, hoping to get him to become a vampire while she’s away. He even visits his former vampire camp and throws him off of a high ledge since apparently, he learned to fly by “being thrown and figuring it out.” Yes, he saves Dennis before he hits the ground, but the fact that he’s so willing to throw his toddler grandson off a tower in hopes of him becoming a vampire is deeply concerning — if not immoral and dangerous.

And it makes no sense for him to do this either. Even if it was how Dracula personally learned how to fly, we see in the first movie that there’s a flashback where Dracula teaches a young Mavis to fly in a completely different way. She’s in the comfort of her own home, is wearing a helmet, and Dracula is placed underneath her to catch her should she fall. So it’s definitely not how he taught Mavis. Why would it be any different for Dennis if his method of teaching Mavis was much more considerate and softer? At that point, Dracula may as well have only done that for some sadistic reason. There’s still major favoritism with Mavis going on and I wouldn’t be surprised if Dracula did that out of malice for the fact that Dennis is half-human.

Even when Mavis returns to the hotel and chews Dracula out for it, he still keeps up his antics by attempting to ‘scare the fangs’ out of Dennis by having Dracula’s father, Vlad, possess the mascot playing Dennis’ favorite TV character, Cakey (who most likely mimics or is a parody to Cookie Monster from Sesame Street) and making him act scary. Yes, Dracula ends up stopping it — but the fact that he even agreed to it and dragged Johnny into his mess (don’t worry, I’ll address Johnny later on) is diabolical. He once again attempted to traumatize someone he supposedly loved to gain control. And what is his motive for doing all of this? To control Mavis.

See, in the movie, Mavis states that she wishes to move out of the hotel and go to California since she reasonably believes that it’d be safer for Dennis. Therefore, if Dennis were to be a vampire (and he does become one by the end of the film), Mavis would be okay with allowing him to stay at the hotel. But throughout the film, it makes it seem like Mavis’ desire to move out is unreasonable or a bad thing when she was most likely the only voice of reason throughout that entire movie (but even she’s not without her flaws and I’ll address that as well). Though when you truly think about it, Mavis simply wants to do what’s best for her child and is constantly gaslit in the second movie about it.

Because of the fact that Dennis is half-human half-vampire, he’s obviously going to be weaker than his monster counterparts. Even if not, Dennis is five years old — thus very young — and it was proven he was not even at an actual good strength capacity to survive the chaotic nature of the hotel to begin with. For crying out loud, Dennis got his tooth knocked out during a werewolf party. And considering Dracula’s less-than-concerned reaction to that, it’s no wonder Mavis didn’t want Dennis to be raised in that environment.

Granted, she may have been incorrect about his ability to become a vampire and sure, she might be ‘overprotective’ (a notion I very much disagree with) but at the end of it all, she just wants her child to be safe since she doesn’t know how weak or powerful he could be. In fact, she actually wanted Dennis to be human because she believed it would've given him more opportunities in life than she did. So if anything, Mavis is the only one in the second movie who was ever truly considerate of the well-being of her son for the right reasons — even if supposedly her views were slightly flawed. But, it still doesn’t justify all the stuff that Dracula and Johnny did to Dennis previously.

Dracula was so hell-bent on getting Dennis to be a vampire because it meant that Mavis would stay in the hotel. Even after Mavis gets married and has a kid of her own, her father is still trying to control her. Dracula still refuses to allow Mavis any sort of autonomy over her life and how she wishes to do things.

And Johnny (her husband) is absolutely not in the clear here either because one of the only reasons why he agreed to help Dracula in his manipulative endeavors is because he liked Transylvania so much that he didn’t want to leave.

I’ll say it again.

He liked Transylvania so much that he didn’t want to leave.

Johnny is not even thinking about the safety of his own child and is focused on his own wants. I get that Johnny’s whole character dynamic is that he’s something of a dummy, but there’s a difference between being a dummy and being so outright selfish to the point where you place your own wants above the needs of your child. Heck, the whole reason why Mavis and Johnny were on that trip to California to begin with was because Johnny and Dracula both agreed to trick Mavis into leaving so that way Dracula could keep trying to turn Dennis into a vampire. The one time that Mavis finally has some time with herself and her husband is all because her husband and father are manipulating her.

You’re seriously trying to tell me that Johnny, this selfish incompetent man-child, is Mavis’ zing/soulmate? You’re trying to tell me that Johnny is her one and only love? Because I’m pretty sure if he was, he’d also understand and be willing to discuss the problems with his wife, rather than manipulate her behind her back and essentially betray her trust.

We could call it a ‘lapse’ in judgment all we want, but at the end of the day, what decent father agrees to the traumatization of his own child just for his own personal gain? What Dracula did to Mavis, Johnny is doing to Dennis in a similar format. It’s disgusting.

Sure, the movie has Dennis become a vampire by the end of the movie, but let’s be honest. The only reason why the movie would’ve had to go that direction is because otherwise, the conflict between Mavis versus Johnny & Dracula would’ve never truly been resolved. She still would’ve rightfully been super angry with them for endangering her child to suit their own selfish desires. But when Dennis did become a vampire, there was no longer a point for her to be angry since it then would’ve been better for him to stay at the hotel. Though let’s be clear, Dennis being a vampire doesn’t negate everything that Johnny and Dracula did to her.

Throughout the whole second movie, Mavis is gaslit, manipulated, and her boundaries are constantly being dismissed by her husband and her father.

I know it seems like I’m mainly sympathizing with Mavis here (and that’s because I sorta am) but there’s one thing Mavis does in the second movie that grinds my gears as well.

Why. The heck. Did she invite. Her anti-human grandad. To see her son? In the movie, she says, “He’s never seen Dennis.” But in the grand scheme of things, why did SHE expect a vampire centuries older than her father to be more accepting of humans over her actual father who still has trouble with being unbiased towards them? It makes NO sense. I’m glad she at LEAST acknowledges it in the movie when she says, “I don’t know why I ever invited you,” but it still makes no freaking sense and the only explanation I can think of as to why is because she didn’t want Vlad or Dennis to interrogate her about it later.

In the fourth movie, after Dracula gets married to a human woman named Erica (who was the daughter of a van Hellsing of all people), Dracula realizes that Johnny and Mavis will eventually inherit the hotel. However, Dracula has a problem with the fact that Johnny (a human) would be inheriting the hotel.

So even after all this time, meeting Johnny, letting Johnny marry Mavis, having a half-human grandson, letting the human side of his family visit him (who were all very accepting of the monsters by the way), and even marrying a human woman, he still is discriminatory against them. So this goes to show that deep down, Dracula is just an obstinate racist (well, speciest) who refuses to change his mind unless it suits the situation he’s in. He’ll say, “Doesn’t matter–vampire, unicorn, no matter what.” But he doesn’t actually believe it. Actions speak louder than words. That’s also why in the second movie, Dracula was adamant about calling Dennis “Denisovich’’ which is his vampire name — it subtly removes humanity from Dennis’ identity.

Throughout the movie series excluding perhaps the third one, Dracula consistently shows himself as a manipulative human-hating control freak. Yes, I get that Dracula has had bad experiences with humans, but he’s also had way too many experiences thus far to believe that humans are the same as they were in the 1800s regarding their view on monsters.

This whole family (aside from Johnny’s parents and the children) is so toxic. Sure, Johnny’s parents aren’t perfect, but they were more than willing to let Dennis stay with them and make accommodations to make Mavis and Dennis feel comfortable (even if the said execution was less tasteful than Mavis would’ve originally wanted).

THH's Moral Alignement and Reasoning

[spoiler for danganronpa 1]

disclaimer: I haven't read the novels, also these aren't character analysis, just my reasoning for why i put them in this category, also please add onto it if you disagree or have anything to say ^^

Lawful Good

Sakura Ogami: She always takes decisions that she considers to be the best for the people around her : trying to proctect her dojo by accepting to work with Monokuma or committing suicide and making sure to write a letter explaining to everyone why she did it as to resolve the situation and create a more peaceful atmosphere among them.

Kyoko Kirigiri: She has good intentions and i feel like what pushes her to act is kind of a "i can do it therefore i should do it" mindset.

Chihiro Fujisaki: Cute baby sunshine, never did anything wrong in their life.

Ishimaru Kiyotaka: He's the Ultimate Moral Compass, pretty self-explanatory.

Naegi Makoto: A genuinely good person who tries his best to be kind.

Neutral Good

Aoi: We can see during chapter 4 that she put her personal beliefs above all else but even if she tried to kill everyone i still think that she is a good person.

Toko (Ultra Despair Girl): If we were talking solely about THH i would've put her in Neutral Evil since she doesn't care about anyone but herself and is pretty mean (also something that i find very interesting during the 4th trial is that even if throughout the game she seems totally devoted and in love with Byakuya + her obvious lack of self esteem she still chose to defend herself when she thought Genocide Jack had killed Sakura which could've led to his death), but the character development she gets in that game is golden so yeah.

Chaotic Good

Mondo: Feel free to disagree with me on that because of the fact that he killed Chihiro who very much did not deserve it but contrary to what Naegi says in the game it absolutely wasn't a cold blooded murder, himself stating that he blacked-out while killing them. I still chose to put him in good because otherwise he really tried to do the right thing (protecting Chihiro's secret by moving their body or even when in the anime he covered Mukuro's bldy with his coat it showed that he was a kind person) + we also know that he uses his influence to minimize tensions between gangs.

True Neutral

Byakuya: I feel like his god complex makes him kind of uncapable to relate to other people and consider their struggles on the same level as him so he doesn't care about anyone + we saw during the 2nd trial that he definitely can't be described as a good person. I truly feel like he couldn't care less about rules or moral implications as he considers himself above it.

Leon: His actions only seem to be motivated by what he wants in that moment without a lot of reasoning behind it, like changing from baseball to music or killing Sayaka when he could've totally ran away after she tried to kill him.

Chaotic Neutral 

Sayaka : I feel like she's morally neutral in the way where she's so goal-oriented that she doesn't care too much about the means to get to an end (which is also implicate in her backstory) but she's aware that what she does might bad : she was willing to let everyone die and pin the crime on Naegi but once her plan failed she still made sure to save everyone instead by writing Leon's name.

Yasuhiro : I hesitated to put him in chaotic evil because of the fact that he quite literally could have/tried to kill Sakura + he never was particularly kind to no one in the game and tried to steal money from us during his free time (tbh im still kinda mad at the wasted potential of making him a nice chill guy but well). In the end i went for neutral because i feel like its more a case of picking the worst possible choice than being a bad person, even if he is quite selfish.

Lawful Evil 

Hifumi: The reason i put him in "lawful" is because what convinced him to kill Ishimaru was Celestia accusing him of SA, which is an understandable reason especially paired with the chance to get out happy and with Celestia but he was still willing to sacrifice everyone to get out so lawful evil it is.

Neutral Evil

Celestia Lundenberg: It was pretty complicated but i settled on this alignement if we take the things she tells us at face value (since i've seen a few people saying that she wasn't actually trying to win the game and that's why her plan was so sloppy). I don't feel like she's a bad person but she doesn't care about doing bad things to get what she wants.

Mukuro Ikusaba: That's where me not reading the novels probably makes a difference because i know that she gets more development there but based on the game and the anime i have to put her here, even if she was obviously manipulated by Junko she still seemed to agree with her.

Chaotic Evil

Junko Enoshima: Do i really need to explain ?

Genocide Jack: I mean, she enjoys killing people and has no other reason for what she does.

Thank you if you read all of that, sorry for any typos/grammar mistakes, english isn't my first language and i wrote it all in one go. Please tell me what you think :)

Reparenting Loki

I want to talk about a dynamic in the Loki/Mobius relationship (in the Loki TV-series) that I've seen touched on but not really discussed in depth.

Note to Lokius-lovers: nothing I say here in any way precludes a healthy romantic relationship. They're both consenting adults, after all, and this wasn't a formal therapist-client relationship.

There's a technique in therapy called "reparenting". The idea is that trauma and behaviors caused by bad parenting can be addressed to some extent if the therapist assumes the role of a "good parent".

I think we can all agree that the "All-Father" was crap as an actual father. Odin knew that Loki took after him even more than Thor did, but many of those shared traits were things that he tried to hide from everyone, while Thor better represented the image he wanted to project. The result was a cruel favoritism, which was picked up by Thor and the rest of the Asgardians. Frigga's love and support wasn't enough to counteract that cruelty, particularly in a strongly patriarchal society like Asgard.

Side note (because I'm that kind of geek): there were so many similarities between Odin and Loki (Odin's friend and blood-brother rather than his son) in the old Norse myths that some scholars have suggested that Loki was at one point simply an aspect of Odin. There's also evidence that the stories as they came down to us were manipulated by the Christians who committed them to writing to shoehorn Loki into something more like the Christian Devil.

Anyway, getting back to our guys... Within the context of the TVA, Mobius represented an authority figure to Loki, who had a long history of rebelling against (or betraying) authority for obvious reasons.

I think the first turning point in the relationship for Loki was:

Loki: I am smart!

Mobius: I know. Loki is rarely left speechless, but his only response to Mobius's simple affirmation was a very un-Loki-like "Okay..." He didn't know how to respond because he wasn't used to that kind of thing, particularly from someone who had power over him. It happened again with:

Loki: A villain.

Mobius: That's not how I see it.

The dynamic between these two people throughout Season 1 was like that. Mobius's genuine love (whether you read it as romantic, platonic, fatherly, brotherly, or a mix of any or all of these) for and non-judgmental acceptance of Loki was apparent from the start, but of course Loki's experiences during his very long lifetime made it nearly impossible for him to trust that until Mobius's actions convinced him that it was real. Learning to trust Mobius also allowed Loki to see himself in a new light.

For his part, Mobius consistently modeled what a good father would have been: loving and accepting, yes, but still able to apply "tough love" when that was warranted. Mobius didn't put Loki into the bad-memory loop to punish him because he was angry (though he was angry, or at least a bit hurt and disappointed). He was just trying to force Loki to acknowledge a truth about himself so that they could move forward — and it worked!

Mobius's instincts and experience as an actual father to two boys, one reasonably well-behaved and the other a mischievous troublemaker, served him well in this, even if he didn't consciously remember his life on the timeline.

Mobius all but confirmed this when he said:

Mobius:  I see a scared little boy, shivering in the cold... 

It's also significant that when Loki brought this up later, he called it "patronizing", which we usually use to mean "condescending", but can also mean "supporting" and has its root in the Latin word "pater" (father).

I see the hug in episode 1-5 as a sign that the reparenting had taken hold, and that Loki, while not completely healed (it would take a lot more than that!), was at least in a place where he could trust someone, accept love/friendship, and think beyond his own wants and needs.

By Season 2, the relationship between the two men was evolving into one of equals, but even then Loki still occasionally looked to Mobius for guidance. Mobius's approval had become important to him. When Loki witnessed the firm but compassionate way in which Don dealt with two boys who were so like himself and Thor (despite being a stressed-out single dad rather than a god-king with tremendous resources at his disposal), he had to have seen that this was at the core of who Mobius was. Moreover, Loki — and any viewers who had similarly survived a traumatic childhood full of emotional abuse and neglect — probably guessed that Don himself was a survivor who was determined to see to it that his boys would never have to deal with that. If that was the case, then Mobius didn't just see his own son in Loki. He saw himself and couldn't help but empathize.

Don wasn't perfect. His frustration with his younger son was very evident, but Loki, observing, could see the love that lay under it. He may even have thought of times when Odin was driven to anger by Loki's actions and realized that the anger didn't necessarily mean that Odin didn't really love him. Learning to forgive what can be forgiven is another aspect of recovering from childhood trauma.

It's worth remembering that Mobius knew Loki in much the same way we do. We got to see the things that Loki never let anybody see: the fear, the vulnerability, the pain, the longing, and the sadness. (Doesn't hurt that TH can turn a simple reaction shot into a freakin' soliloquy!) The difference is that, while we only get to see the highlights (and lowlights) of Loki's life, Mobius had access to all of it and he had centuries to study it.

Mobius literally knew Loki better than anyone else in (or out) of the multiverse. How could he not love him? And for Loki, knowing that somebody who knew him that well genuinely cared so much for him (same with Sylvie, who understood him in ways that only another Loki could and vice-versa) had to have shaken him to his core and made him rethink a lot of things. The fact that it was Mobius to whom Loki turned in episode 2.6 when he thought he might have to kill Sylvie shows how much he still looked up to Mobius in many ways.

This was a show about redemption, yes, but also about healing from childhood trauma. They did an amazing job with it.

attack on titian review

In the early 2000s, a college student named Hajime Isayama was working in a café when suddenly someone grabbed him by the collar violently. It was this, “the fear of meeting a person I can't communicate with,” that inspired a brilliant idea of writing what now would be the best anime of the decade. Attack on Titan is a dark fantasy manga (Japanese comic) that got turned into an anime. The anime gained a lot of popularity very rapidly and for a good reason. The show hurt me, it broke me in the most beautiful way, every episode left me with so many unanswered questions, every episode left a big impact on me as a person, it changed my sense of morality, the way I view life, it truly took me the whole new perspective.

Now theirs a lot of reason A.O.T is good but some of the main ones are:

The main storyline:

The anime/manga is set in a world where humanity lives peacefully inside cities surrounded by three enormous worshiped walls that have been built for a century, these walls protect them from a gigantic man eating creatures called titans, one day unexpectedly a titan larger than the 3rd outer wall (wall Maria) breaks it causing chaos destruction and fear leaving other titans to enter, titans start devouring humans at high rates as the main character Eren Jagear and his friends try to find his mother so they can enter the second wall and seek coverage but it’s too late, he watches as his own mother gets eaten alive, her shoe drooping symbolizing her leaving her son behind, in that very moment Eren swears that he’ll take revenge and slaughter all titans and give humanity hope for freedom since he’s always looked at the walls as if they are cages blocking him from the outer world ( it’s pretty ironic since the walls are what used to protect them ) then the real story begins following him entering the scouts regiment building relationships with other characters, and very unexpected plots that will change the whole course of the story.

  The well written characters:

Attack on titan by far has the best written characters. each character has their own unique personality, different interest, different point of views, a motive and a dream, weaknesses and strengths, yet they all are relatable and have one thing in common; they all are trying to survive or save their loved ones at least. We always see them learning and improving from each other, even balancing each other.  For example Armin lacks physical strength yet he has a good head on his shoulder while Eren is the opposite, he tends to let his emotions and humanity take over him. And in one scene Eren was refusing to kill Annie even if it was self defense thinking it was inhumane as he heard those words “To surpass monsters, you must be willing to abandon your humanity.” – Armin Alert. The story is also shown from every character point of view and that left us wondering if maybe Eren is in the wrong, maybe he’s the bad guy . Yet in the same time he’s the hero? The story is the same yet the point of views are changed and the audience are left to think for themselves, and the change of him from being the oppressed to being the oppressor was brilliant. The whole story was a big example of ‘’I can’t blame you nor you can blame me’’.              

As Armin once said “A good person? Well… I don’t really like that term. Because to me, it just seems to mean someone who’s good for you. And I don’t think there’s any one person who’s good for everyone.”

Diversity and awareness:

growing up it was hard for me to relate to characters, there wasn’t any diversity whatsoever. Male characters were superior while female characters were never taken seriously, not mention they always had to live up to the white beauty standards that were limiting to so many children. In attack on titan  they empowered all genders, personalities, bodies, races , and they did it in a proper way to show awareness for example every female character wasn’t sexualized nor objectified like most shows do and were written as proper humans with feeling and motives they were also respected an seen as equals with the male characters sometimes even stronger , as for appearance we see both woman and men with different unique features , a lot of the characters have a hooked/roman  noses, the strongest character is also the shortest,  Onyankopon is a dark-skinned man with black hair styled in a short crew cut and when someone asked him why his skin was dark showing ignores he simply answered by saying: because our creator thought it would be interesting if there was a mix of people, we got created cause we were wanted. The anime also explores other issues like parental abuse, in one seen a character was screaming calling out to her father apologizing while getting eaten by a titan and screaming this was a sign of trauma caused by her father’s abuse in the past. In other scenes we see parents manipulating their children or guilt tripping them into doing what they want for example historia and annie, Another thing the show raised awareness towards governmental corruption the show showed people abusing their authority multiple times and in one seen a  we see a soldier with access to governmental equipment selling them illegally. The government also had a history of lying to the citizens and hurting those who were brave enough speak the truth (Erwin’s father was killed) In season 2 the government falsely accused the 104 cadets by committing crimes against the crown and they sent people to kill them illegally just because they were discovering the truth. The list goes on and on of the governments greediness.                                                                                                                

The dark themes and mixed emotions:

“The world is merciless, and it's also very beautiful.”- Mikasa.  as I said before the show showed some serious problems and the dark realistic sides  the world in general and with these situations we are bound to get a lot of emotions like regret , feeling used, hopelessness, feeling stuck, losing touch with humanity, losing sight of you goals , betrayal, and more yet in the same time the show showed that in darkness there’s always some light , you see people stuck in a conflict find that they’re actually very similar to each other and becoming lovers, we see Armin achieving his long dream of wanting to see the ocean in with his own eyes , we see characters improving to the best version of themselves . The anime ended with our lovable main character dying and getting buried under the same tree he would sit under with the person he loved the most before the war, which was truly a bittersweet ending.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

Attack on titian was very bittersweet and an emotional roller-coaster and it hurt me in the most beautiful way possible, it changed my morals, my views on life, it helped me learn valuable lessons. The anime is a masterpiece and I recommend it for everyone Possible.

I don’t think you really get a real sense of what Anya is like as her own person. STAY WITH ME PLEASE THIS IS NOT AN ANYA HATE POST I LOVE HER!!

It’s just that she’s under so much emotional stress due to being around her abuser and also being pregnant that we never get to see who Anya is. She’s always on edge and nervous (for 100 percent good reason !!) Plus being through the perspective of Jimmy mainly doesn’t help us seen who she really is.

We don’t see her as a capable and competent nurse because of the way Jimmy frames her, the way he talks about her when in his perspective and the way he treats her. I didn’t really think about how capable a nurse she was because it’s hard to keep somebody in Curly’s conditions ALIVE with limited resources because it’s never mentioned by Jimmy even once. All he sees are her faults because it allows him to feel better about what he did to her, allows him to just see her as not really a human who has prospects and a good future in nursing ahead of her.

Jimmy just wants to take everything from her that could’ve made her human in his eyes so he can feel better about what he did, so he doesn’t feel guilt and doesn’t feel the need to take responsibility. He acknowledges Curly being a ‘hero’ and a good person and (not sure if this an actual quote from the game or if I’m just stupid) that he can’t be half the man Curly was and that’s only because he believes that’s something he can ‘fix’ by putting him in the cryochamber.

ANYWAY main point is that Jimmy is unreliable narrator and attempts to take away Anya’s achievements by not acknowledging them so he can view her simply as an object which lets him feel better about what he did.

It’s all for his sake - Endeavor and the Sunk Cost Fallacy

My hero academia 301 is a pretty interesting chapter, but for me, the most notable piece of it was how Endeavour reacted to the realization that Touya couldnt surpass All Might.

upon realizing that his son might not be able to do it because of inborn physical limitations, he immediatly stopped his training, which frankly was the responsible and adult thing to do. 

This stint of real parenthood did not last long however.

After taking the matter to a doctor, he is flat out told that not only cant Touya achive what endeavor wants, but it is a direct result of his incredibly selfish and irresponsible attempt to play god, by trying to breed the “perfect” hero into being.

It is how you react when you lose however, that shows who you really are, and endeavor illustrates that very, very well.

Upon being told in no uncertain terms that his attempts at Breeding an heir failed magnificently, producing a child that was not capable of resisting his own immense power, but also admonished by his doctor for even attempting it, and adviced not to try again, Endeavor instead doubled down, while focusing on the child he screwed over from the start with his attempt at genetic manipulation.

It was all for him you see. Endeavor doesnt use those words, but that is how he spins it here. it was all for Touya, all for his sake. if i stop now, then Touya was all for nothing, a mistake, im doing this for my son.

if im doing this for my son, then im not responsible for any of this.

his wife however, calls him out on it, as she understands Touya much, much more than endeavor does. or rather, she sees him fully as a human being, instead of as a thing, a weapon, a failed attempt at an heir.

Unlike Endeavor, Rei is able to see the way this all is affecting her son. She is able to see, and understand that Touya has fully accepted what Endeavor wanted him to be. a stronger, and better version of himself. however, unlike Endeavor, she only cares about him as a person.

Endeavour by comparison isnt completely uncaring about Touya. like most abusive parents, he does possess love for his offspring, but it is forever tainted by the fact that however much he might care, or not care about Touya, any familial love he has for his son is tainted by the fact that to Endeavor, he is a failed experiment, a failed heir, not his child. 

He is the golden child that Endeavor was building up as his true and only heir, who he breed, trained, and molded to for that single purpose, and now that he’s reached a point where he cant continue that legacy.

so, its time to abandon him, and start over new, despite literarily having just learned how stupid this plan was, and that it can, in fact, go completely wrong, with a quirk that will fuck over the person he brings into the world.

Of course, Endeavor doesnt use those words to frame it. there is no way to pretend to be a hero, if you phrase it like that after all. Intead, this is the words he uses.

this is a very important series of panels for a great number of reasons, some that can be debated, argued, and we will probably never know the full truth to the questions because this is a series published in 2020′s shonen jump, and there are things that probably wasnt gonna fly with Hori’s editors, if it was the case.

but lets start with what can not be debated. Endeavor’s words here.

“If we want him to give it up, then we have no choice… Touya… Cant surpass him.”

These are very telling words, and however you believe The third and fourth children of the Todoroki family was concieved, there is not denying the meaning of what he’s saying here.

The only way that my son will stop being an idiot and fall into line, is if we have another baby. that is the only Right way to move forward. it is morally right, because if we dont do this, then he’s going to destroy himself.

there are two ways to interpret this scene.

The charitable way is to read it as the fact that he used Rei’s oldest son’s mental state as a justification of guilting his wife to have a third child, to give this attempt at a superpowered breeding project another shot, despite the fact that they now know that this can lead to a child who is essentially born crippled from his own powers, and despite the fact that Rei obviously understands the effect of them continuing this insanity will have on their oldest son.

the uncharitable way to look at it, is that he used this as justification for flat out raping her, and forcing a third, and then later a fourth child on her.

I personally believe the last one, given a number of factors shown in this chapter(the way this page is framed, the fact Rei obviously didnt want a third child, given she predicted exactly how touya would react, the way her eyes would latet turn when she looks at who is presumably touya which really brings to mind how she would later react to her youngest son’s face after her mental breakdown, etc.), but i’ll frankly admitt that withouth a direct quote from Hori, its impossible to know for sure one way or another. 

either way however, this is a very good example of Endeavor both being influenced by, and using Sunk Cost Fallacy to justify bringing another potentially crippled child into the world for his own, selfish goals.

sunk cost Fallacy, is a mental reaction to when you invest more time and resources into a project, that you becomes so emotionally invested into said project that you will continue to invest into it, even if it reaches a point that it becomes clear that the resources you put into it, far, far outweighs the potential gains you can achieve.

because if you give up after having invested years, and years of effort to breed, raise, and train a kid, and then all that effort was absolutely wasted. hence he choose to keep going, despite having learned what a terrible idea this is.

He doesnt care about the fact that his next child might be even more crippled than his firstborn, he doesnt care about his son’s actual wellbeing. he cares about the fact that if he doesnt continue this insanity, then not only will he not achieve his dreams, but everything he did to get to this point was for absolutely nothing.

and endeavor cannot accept that. and so long as he can justify breeding more children into the world, and there being any chance they might inherit both quirks perfectly, he doesnt care about anything else.

and the moment he realised that this kid wasnt gonna cut it either, he did it again. it is not a coincidence, that the age gap between Endeavor’s second, third, and fourth children were all 3-4 years apart. because thats the age where you can usually tell when a quirk will manifest or not, as established earlier in the series.

While she isnt brought up directly by Endeavor as a justification, it is very telling that Endeavor decided on having a third child, only after his second child was old enough that he could tell that that there was no chance she could take the place as his heir instead.

So, he had his third child, and as time passed and it became obvious that he wasn’t gonna be able to fulfill Endeavor’s goals either, he dumped him, and instead breed a fourth child into existence.

and finally, he struck gold. he did it. he produced Shoto.

everything was finally worth it, and now, everything would be absolutely fine. the cost fallacy had reached its end, and it was now all full sails ahead.

except of course it wasnt.

His oldest son, now in middle school, had been raised from birth to believe he would surpass his father, only to be thrown away, and getting to see his father try to replace him, not once, but twice.

frankly, this scene is probably my favorite in the chapter, because it goes to show Endeavor’s mindset. Natsuo made a point that their father completely ignored his older children. and he did… from Natsuo’s perspective. however, having a more thourough picture of things, we can clearly see that this wasnt the case with Touya.

Endeavor genuinly cared for Touya, enough that once he got that child he tried to breed into existence 4 times, he genuinly wanted him to just abandon trying to be a hero. he genuinly thinks of himself as a good dad here, wanting his son to abandon the mission he set out for him before he was born. of course, with context, this heartwarming scene is incredibly sad and insidious, because we understand why Endeavor got so attached to his oldest child. because he WAS the golden child. he was the child Endeavor genuinly cared about, and invested in, and trained personally with great warmth and enthusiasm.

And not only did he abandon him as a failed project the moment he realized he wasnt gonna live up to his ridiculous standards, but he literarily created 2 more kids to try and replace him, just as his oldest son was old enough to understand what exactly his dad was doing. over the course of this chapter, we get to see Touya’s start as a 5-8 year old, his deteriorating mental state over the years, until he finally seemed to reach the breaking point with Shoto’s birth sometime in his middle school years 12-15. 

Endeavor is in this scene, just not capable of understanding why Touya so desperately wants to become a hero, when obviously he isnt physically able to do so. he isnt able to understand that he is 100% to blame for the fact that his son is having a full emotional breakdown after literaly being replaced by his siblings. 

In other words, Endeavor genuinly think’s he’s a good person. a person who has made a few mistakes along the way sure, but a person who was always justified in the end, and now that he’s having to face the fact that as dabi would later say “The past never dies” and has to face the aftermath of his inane attempt to play god for the pettiest of reasons, things simply arent going to work out.

He isnt going to have a happy family, who can now put the awful early years behind them, he put way too much effort, caused too much suffering and sacrificed too many years of his life for this not to work out as he wants.

after all, if he walks away from this project now, and lets Shoto have a normal childhood, and decide for himself, with no pressure from him, wheter or not to become a hero, then the sunk cost fallacy will have reached a negative end. it will all have been for nothing.

and we know he did eventually double down on this mentality, literarily beating into Shoto that he WAS going to become a hero, and there was not but’s or no’s about it.

there was no way that Endeavor was EVER going to let things be for nothing. His treatment of his older children could not be for nothing. His treatment of his wife could not be for nothing. His treatment of Shoto, and the way he beat him black and blue to train him, could not be for nothing.

Because if it all was for nothing, if everything he feels guilty about was for absolutely nothing, then he was in fact, a bad, bad person, who had no justification for anything he ever did.

Todoroki: The Mountain, the Hawk, and the Haunted House Part 1

Link to the Todoroki family presentation: Part 1 | Part 2

Link to the Bakugo presentation 2.0: Part 1 | Part 2 | 1.0: Part 1 | Part 2

Link to the Kirishima presentation 1.0 | 2.0

Link to the Todoroki presentation

Link to the Deku presentation

Link to the Uraraka-Bakugo-Toga presentation

Link to the Shigaraki-All for One presentation

Link to the Spinner-Shigaraki-Bakugo-Deku presentation

Link to the BNHA presentations masterpost

In the online fandom system, domestic abuse offenses are considered especially heinous. In the My Hero Academia fandom, the dedicated fans who create the discourse around these fictitious felonies are members of an elite squad known as the So (you think these) Victims (are the most special characters) Unit, or SVU.

These aren’t their stories.

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Know what really pisses me off? When people try to devolve Rei's character as a mouthpiece for Enji. Trying to say she's easily forgiving Enji when it's clear her feelings are (rightfully) conflicted.

In this scene, she makes it clear that she's still too afraid to face Enji yet has optimism. That flower signifies that Enji doesn't forget that he still has a family that he has a lifetime to make up to, even if he's never forgiven. And the idea that the narrative is trying to make Enji easily forgiven when one of his best moments is him dropping this iconic quote

Next, the scene in the hospital.

She doesn't let Enji drown in self-pity, reminding him that everyone in that family has suffered more than he is right now. But she still knows her husband is actively trying to change and doesn't take the chance to fucking put him down unnecessarily like so many people want her to. Enji needs to get back up and help not just his family but also those in need from the 1st war's aftermath.

People who think she's someone suffering from Stockholm Syndrome are full of shit. This is a strong woman, someone who can see a former hateful person wanting to change and gives them the words they need. Trying to use that chance to be full of vitriol and hate will not break the cycle that the Todorokis are trying to escape from. And finally, the Todoroki reunion. She showed up not just to save Toya but Enji as well. She knows he wants to atone and she makes it clear she's saving them both.

And btw, this shows how much Enji regrets what he did and despite the marriage being arranged, he still loves Rei. He doesn't want to lose her too. But Rei doesn't want him to die either. People think that having faith in your former abuser is akin to forgiveness is just...ignorant. She wants him to live to continue atoning and she still has faith that he has changed and wants to do what's right.

Rei Todoroki has my respect for all this.

Thinking about the parallels between how much red is in each Todoroki's kids hair and their opinion of the father they got it from.

It's not a direct comparison based on quantity, but that does play a factor. The more key element is the placement.

Shoto's is the most obvious. His white and red hair is literally split down the middle and after his revelations at the sports festival, he starts feeling more torn about his feelings surrounding his father. Eventually settling on seeing him as a good hero but a flawed father that hasn't been forgiven but has room to change.

Natsuo as all white hair, which makes sense. He's the one that's the most vocally critical and hostile to Enji in the household and is never shown to have fond memories of him. The red isn't there and never was, and neither is love for his father. ..or is there.

Natsu did have red in his hair, at least for a time. But I believe it is still there, hidden and tucked away in his current hairstyle. It's always been there, even if it stays a few small strands, care for his father will always be there whether he wants to acknowledge it or not.

At first glance Fuyumi is a similar way, her care about Enji being small and understated. She has less red than white afterall. But Fuyumi has red strands integrated throughout her hair. She is clear that she doesn't support what Enji has done but she has clear memories from before that point and that has colored her perspective. What she wants, more than anything, is for Enji to be integrated back into the family, for the family to be whole. Her red hair is inseparable from the rest of it because to her, more than any of her siblings, their father is an integral part of their family. And she's not ashamed to say it.

And then there's the juicey changes with Touya. He was born with a full head of red hair, very obviously symbolizing his adoration of Enji. He was eager to be the prodigy Enji wanted and their relationship was positive, at least at the start. It's not an accident that Enji commenting on the first few strands of white in Touya's hair comes right before the first time we see him burn himself.

As his relationship with Enji strains, he gets more white hair until there's nothing left, until their relationship has completely decayed and Touya sets himself on fire. It's gone further than Natsuo's aggression and dismissive attitude. And that hatred spreads to the entire family. His white hair isn't enough to show that, so he breaks from the family completely, with pitch black.

But it's not the whole truth. At the end of the day, it's still artificial dye and by removing that dye when he comes clean about his family ties, he also leaves himself open to that family coming back into his life.

I wonder if that red might come back too.

Have you written metas on the flowers Enji sent to Rei? I'd love to read it

No, I haven’t, but thanks for the question. It looks to me like it may be an Amaryllis or a Kamchatka lily and it’s quite interesting to look into the possible symbolism.  

I don’t know if the colour in the anime is really canon, but I do think it fits Rei that the flower is blue. 

I think the narrative purpose of the flower is to give us a different perspective of Enji’s and Rei’s early relationship; reminding us that what we know is through Shouto’s eyes, who may be an unreliable narrator in this respect. 

I don’t think it’s meant to be a romantic advance from Enji, but a symbol of how his thinking of his family shifted. 

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About that post where you were responding to a bad take made on Twitter about Endeavor. Honestly what could Hori possibly write to have Enji finally step up as a father? I find Enji really compelling as a character, but the dude has literally had so many opportunities to step up as a father and he just,, hasn't??? Even when Touya was trying to kill himself he barely made an attempt to stop him before deciding to just die alongside him (which I suppose made since for his character but the wrong choice nonetheless). It's to the point where when he FINALLY does step up, I genuinely feel like it won't mean a damn thing. Like he's pushed all the real work dealing with Touya onto his family, which is the ONE THING they asked of him. I honestly wouldn't mind any of the guy's *continuous* failures if they didn't fall back on Shoto somehow every single time 😮‍💨

To me that’s why it’s an essential story beat. Shouto’s whole “become who you want to be” and “you are not bound by his blood” cannot happen as long as he keeps shouldering the burden that rightly is Endeavor’s.

Now the rest of the family stepped in a little, but if Enji sincerily wishes for a future where Shoto can choose to be with his friends and where he keeps his eyes on Touya, he needs to understand that the way to do it, is not by beating villains.

He’s lack of taking responsibility is why Shouto is not with his friends. Him prioritising his hero role over talking to Touya is why Touya is burnt so badly now.

So if there is a call for back-up to Deku (which I think there will be with the Warp Gate still in play), I think Endeavor the hero would go (feeling like it’s his duty as No 1), but a father may choose to stay with his badly injured son and family and take care of them.

So basically, for me it’s two things: Enji chooses Touya over the logic of hero work. And he tells Shouto that it’s not his burden anymore and lets him join his friends (by stepping up he allows him a real choice instead of being stuck with picking up the pieces).

Could you speak some more on Natsuo? I feel like the general consensus is he absolutely hates his father, and I would agree with that if not for a few things. He was just as worried as Fuyumi during Endeavor's fight with hood and like you mentioned in your last post, his reaction to his father making a new house for them isn't at all positive. I'm of course not saying he doesn't dislike Enji, I just feel like his feelings are a lot more complex than people choose to acknowledge.

Sure! I love that boy!

Again, this is a personal opinion, I'm not Horikoshi, I can only speak for the feelings the story gives me and for how I interpret the scenes.

I think Natsuo's feelings for his father are more complicate than 'he just hates him and that's it'.

It would probably be more accurate to say Natsuo is totally furious with him, and that's because Enji deeply hurt him, keeps on doing so even when he doesn't mean to and he also hurt the people Natsuo cared about.

But maybe we could start from the beginning.

When Natsuo had birth, the Todoroki family was already slowly starting to break down.

Enji and Rei's marriage was one of convenience for both, she wanted his economical help for her family, he wanted her to bear his children in hope their Quirk would mix in a positive way.

I'll quote the anime because it sums it pretty well:

"It was more or less made to look like an arranged marriage, but this was a Quirk marriage. Choosing a spouse to make one’s own Quirk stronger and passing it on… The purpose of the marriage was to have babies. It’s what I wanted. If my flame Quirk and the ice Quirk of the Himura family were to mix, I thought we could give birth to a hero who could surpass even All Might. And even though the Himura family was once prestigious, they were now struggling. Wanting the status and prestige of the number two hero, and the bride price, her father easily agreed to my proposition. She could have refused. However, even knowing that it was a Quirk marriage, she became my wife for the sake of her family."

Rei though, wanted to make the effort to keep smiling. In short, we can assume she wanted to try to make it work... and, for a while, it works.

Rei's family get the money, Enji gets children who aren't the perfect mix of his and Rei's Quirk but he still think he's satisfied.

This scene is important because it shows Enji basically babysitting Touya and Fuyumi. He's looking after them, he's looking at them for something that's not training and he claims he's satisfied. They aren't masterpieces, he won't even try to train Fuyumi, but he's okay, Touya has potential and Touya will show he's delighted to train with his father.

But then Touya can't use his Quirk anymore and things start to go downhill.

This scene too is important.

It's well known Enji is a bad father but, credits when it's due, when he's told Touya shouldn't use his Quirk, he doesn't shrug it off and says who cares, I want him to surpass All Might, who cares if he does it as a charred man, no, he stops training Touya.

However... in this scene it's Enji's day off, he could spend it with Touya, even though Touya wants them to train they don't really have to, instead he's leaving. He's starting to neglect his kids, likely for the same reason he'll neglect them in the future, he doesn't know what to say and wants to dodge the responsibility. Touya reacts by training harder on his own.

Enji can't stop him, which is frustrating and painful and he can't even get what he married for, a child who would surpass All Might.

It's in this setting he decides they should conceive Natsuo.

He dresses it as something done for Touya, so that Touya will give up, but it's actually something that's done for himself, so that HE will give up.

Rei initially disagrees with the plan but in the end she likely gave up. She know she was married for the purpose of giving Enji children after all.

Natsuo though, can't be the child Enji wanted. He has an ice Quirk. We don't know if it's a powerful ice Quirk but Enji still was biased against ice Quirk or if it was just an ordinary ice Quirk, what we know is that Enji doesn't even take into consideration the possibility to train him, even though, as far as we know, his Quirk doesn't hurt Natsuo.

And this is, according to the School Briefs, how Natsuo was in his own early years:

"Even now, Natsuo would beat himself up over how he used to be before the abuse really began, recalling the period in his life that had made him feel pathetic and ashamed. Before Shouto was born, Natsuo had sought his father’s love and care, and when Endeavor was around, he would turn into an excited ball of energy, eager for attention.

But that love never came. It was only thanks to his warm and caring mother that Natsuo had survived those early years and learned to cope with the rejection from his other parent. But after Shouto was born, even their mother grew distant, though not out of indifference. Natsuo could sense how much energy she’d had to devote to protecting her youngest, her baby, from her husband’s so-called training-which most would label abuse-but at that age, Natsuo couldn’t help but feel that his mother had been stolen away from him. After witnessing his mother and brother crying and screaming on that horrible day, Natsuo had been overcome with crushing shame."

Natsuo started out as a normal child who wanted his father's love but NEVER experienced it. He had to cope to such lack and uses a pretty strong word to define how hard it was, he said it was thanks to Rei he SURVIVED.

Now, I don't really know the original text so it can be that's just the translator using an excessive word but the bottom of the line is Natsuo had to learn to cope NEVER feeling loved by his father.

We can speculate the result was he likely distanced from him, stopped hoping... then his mother too couldn't give him all the time a small child like him needed. Let's remember Shouto had birth when Natsuo was three and, short after, it was decided he would be kept apart from his siblings. An infant needs his mother a lot and since he has to be kept away from his siblings when Rei was with him, she couldn't be with Natsuo.

But then things go further downhill, Enji begins abusing Rei.

He and Fuyumi look scared.

And then Rei is hospitalized, Shouto is scarred for life and Touya is dead. And all this should have been terribly painful for Natsuo, who was merely 8 back then, and the root cause can be traced back to Enji, his enstranged father.

Using anger to cope with pain is a really common thing.

Add to it that Natsuo also had to cope with guilt, he was ashamed of himself for having wanted Enji's love, he felt guilty for haivng felt neglected by Rei, for not having wanted to listen Touya as he vented. Natsuo should have been feeling really bad, and turning all that pain in a ball of anger directed at Enji (who definitely deserved it) should have helped him to cope.

But they didn't heal him. Natsuo is angry... but the anger is just a way to cope with the hurt.

In a tamer way he accuses his father of the same thing Touya will accuse him, of wanting to leave them behind.

It pains him and it makes him angry. He lacks a way to vent his anger.

Fuyumi doesn't want to talk about it (here but in the "School Briefs" as well), she had known the good times and wants them back. Natsuo isn't the type who, like Touya, would try to murder his father and can't even do what Shouto was trying to do at the start, get revenge on him by refusing to use his fire Quirk and becoming a Hero solely with his ice Quirk. Natsuo doesn't have a fire Quirk and no wish to become a Hero after all.

So he's with this huge ball of unresolved pain inside himself and tries to cope with it through anger.

What hurt Natsuo? He says it.

Enji never looked at him, he kept him away from Shouto, made him feel like he was a failure, hurt the people Natsuo loved, caused Touya's death.

Natsuo was hurt over and over and hid everything behind anger. When you strip him of the anger only pain remains.

Enji has left inside him psychological scars, the mere seeing of Enji causes him to remember all that and feel pain.

And to cope either he avoids Enji or he tries to summon up anger.

Staying away from Enji doesn't fix things. After all Enji kept away from him for years before he decided to start his atonement arc and Natsuo remained as hurt as he was the first day. The most staying away from Enji does, is not pocking to his wounds.

Being angry with Enji doesn't help either, it's just a temporary relief, he vents but that's all. It helps him to lower the pressure, I guess, but it doesn't heal him.

And what Natsuo truly wishes is likely to heal. Seeing Enji in troubles, risking his life, gave him no relief.

Natsuo isn't after revenge... he just doesn't know how to help himself, he's stuck with his pain and with, as only means to cope, his anger.

He doesn't know how to heal. The fact Enji initially expected him to just put aside his pain hurt and made him angry... but Enji deciding to keep away likely doesn't solve things because to him it likely feels like what his father had done his entire life... ignoring him.

And if it hurts being ignored... well, this is likely the sign inside him there's still an inner child who's love for his father to look at him...

...a bit like how in Tomura little Tenko is still alive.

BNHA has plenty of characters plagued by the past, who just can't let it go and, since the past hurt them, they claim to hate it.

It's a defense mechanism.

And Natsuo is also another character plagued by the past. He's not to the point he'll destroy the world like his brother or Tomura, he's psychologically much better than them but he's still hurt and needs to heal.

So yeah, if you ask me his feelings for Enji are definitely very complex but that's what makes him realistic and interesting as a character, after all.

At least, that's what I think. I'm not Horikoshi, I don't own The Truth, so of course other people might feel differently.

Thank you for your ask!

Why do you think Endeavor's solution to every problem that raises is to remove himself entirely? Like aside from his obvious inferiority complex (do u think he has an inferiority complex? 🤔)

Well...

let's start in reverse.

Enji himself admitted he had a 'weakness' within, that he'll believe he'll never be a true superhuman (like All Might), that he felt envy for him and had an inferiority complex and tried to hide his weakness by putting up a front.

So it's canon he has an inferiority complex and most of his behaviour stems from his attempts at hiding it by putting up a mask, a front, acting the opposite of how he felt.

So yeah, he has an inferiority complex toward All Might.

Now... is Endeavor's solution to every problem that he raises to remove himself entirely?

I think the question needs some clarifications.

For start, if we're talking of Endeavor as the HERO, Endeavor, no, he generally doesn't remove himself, he tackles problems personally the harder he can.

The only moment in which he felt tempted to remove himself from a problem was when Dabi turned out to be Touya and, in the end, he decided to tackle it, showed up to the press conference, took upon himself the entire responsibility, went to help Deku refusing Shouto's help, accepted to take part to the war, told Shouto he wanted to be the one to face Touya, accepted for the grand plan it was better if he were to face All for One and did face him, even though he didn't feel up fighting Touya he lead him away so that his son at least wouldn't hurt the other Heroes and this despite how worn out and wounded he was.

But I think you are talking about Endeavor the Hero but about Enji the man, the father and husband.

And here canon confirms he tried escaping facing responsibilities by pushing them on others (he told Rei he wouldn't look at Touya so she had to do it, he let Fuyumi face the responsibility of keeping together the family, he tried to push first on Touya and then on Shouto the duty to surpass All might for him, he removed himself completely from Natsuo's life).

That's why he is trying to atone now, because he realized his negligence caused his family's destruction.

He never really explained WHY he decided to act in such a way.

We can just speculate so my answer is as good as the one of anyone else.

Of course we can connect some things to his envy for All Might and to his inferiority complex toward him.

There's a bit in one of the "School Briefs" I find rather interesting. The story is about Parents' Day, a day in which the parents of the students are invited to go to school.

Shouto says nothing about it to Enji (as he doesn't want his father to go there) but Enji finds the invitation (too late) and rushes at U.A. as he really wishes to take part to it but... once Recovery Girl opens the gates up for him he can't bring himself to admit he's there for parents' day because he doesn't want to be exchanged for a doting father as, according to him, a Hero as to project strength and nothing more, absolutely not the image of a sensitive family man. He must look ambitious and prideful, nothing else.

So, if we take "School Briefs" as canon, part of why Enji avoids his family is also due to this, he believes he has an image to project and protect, an image that's tied to his inferiority complex with All Might because it's tied to how he wants to be perceived AS A HERO.

Shouto is in a Hero school and, in the story, Enji ultimately convinces himself him watching Shouto performing in a Hero school wouldn't make him look soft... but think at his other kids.

They aren't in a Hero school, which means Enji might very likely have avoided going to school on parents' day meaning, after Rei's hospitalization, they had no one who would go to school for them.

But there's more to consider.

First of all, remove yourself from a situation, isn't necessarily a wrong strategy. Sometimes we must know when to back off and leave people more competent than us handle the problem... or just give up on seeing it being solved because it can't be solved otherwise we'll only do further harm. Knowing when one has to back off or when one has to continue tackling the problem is supposed to be one of the things that mark the passage to adulthood.

As an adult you're expected to know when something is worth trying being fixed or not and since it's generally not so simple and clean cut people still make plenty of mistakes despite being adults...

For example, while Rei was recovering it was important for her psychological health not to meet Enji. Enji staying away from her instead than, for example, pressure the hospital to let him meet her, was a good thing.

In Japan divorce isn't as smooth as in other countries (it carries a social stigma for both parties as well as for the kids involved) so if it'd gone for a divorce it wouldn't have been equally good... but it could have been a good solution in other countries.

Why this is relevant?

Because Enji has to judge each time if the option of removing himself from something is a good idea or not, it's not a given it's always wrong.

When he decides, for example, that he'll build another house for Fuyumi and Natsuo so they can welcome Rei there, he persuades himself it's a good idea FOR THEM.

Rei can't meet him, Natsuo feels bad when he sees him, Shouto told him not to put up a father's act in front of his friends, making him feel rejected as a father... so if they don't see him everyone's happy, right? Wrong because it doesn't take into consideration his family's wishes.

But the fact it seems right it's part of why Enji feels it's okay to choose such an option.

I particularly like how the anime represents this choice.

Neither Natsuo nor Fuyumi are happy with Enji's choice and the visual seems to imply he's leaving them, abandoning them...

...with Enji who instead continues to think "What I can do for my family after all this time...? I think about this every time I go to sleep."

The fact he dreams his family being happy while he's not with them, to him comes to seem the answer to the question.

He thinks that's what he has to do if he really cares about them.

But there's also, of course a dark side to all this.

Removing himself from his family... is the easy choice. Forcing Rei to look after Touya, leaving on Fuyumi the responsibility of the house, pushing first on Touya and then on Shouto the duty to surpass All Might, not caring about Natsuo... are also all easier choices than actually getting involved.

Let's pick this scene because it's easier.

Enji doesn't know what to say to Touya. Saying the wrong thing has the potential, of course, to make matter worse and Enji excuses his inaction also by telling to himsef 'if I go there I'll end up encouraging him'... so he chooses to do nothing... which requires him zero efforts... and ultimately leads to terrible consequences.

Touya needed him to step up to his duty as a father, to risk doing mistakes but putting up all his efforts into reaching his son, into keeping him safe.

Because although all this seems to steem from how Touya wants to become a Hero, the real core of the problem is he doesn't feel himself being seen by his father.

It's not so much about Enji telling him something, is about Enji making him feel seen. Enji doesn't, he kind of understands Touya needs to be seen but pushes that duty on Rei. He runs away hiding behind his Hero role. He has job to do, he can only show him the world of Heroes.

He runs away. He pushes forward excuses and runs away.

He did it with Touya but it's basically what he had done with the rest of his family, the story simply digs it more on how he did it with Touya because the consequences were terrible and came to bite him back.

And yes, we can blame for it his weakness, his inferiority complex, he wants to look like a strong Hero and he can't even help his child. He's afraid to fail because trying would be hard and failing wouldn't fit the image of a Hero and so he doesn't.

He's insecure, not in battle, not on duty but with how he presents himself.

Which might be tied to how he lost his father.

We don't really know the answer (and, of course, even if we were to know, this wouldn't make right what Enji did to his family), and throwing in his loss makes things really complex because Horikoshi developed extremely little that part.

Basically for 355 chapters he let us think that Enji's sole weakness was he was self centered, selfish, then with basically zero build up, threw in that he had lost a parent same way as Kotarou and this gave him trauma but... well, Kotarou's loss and reaction were better developed.

I really wish Horikoshi were to go back at that because that needed more space and... got nothing. But I doubt there will be time for it.

So hum... I fear I've ended up rambling a bit. Sorry if I can't offer you some definitive answer on why Enji does what he does, just my guesses about it and thank you for your ask!

I do love to talk about the Todoroki family!