…I discovered that he, the author at once of my existence and of its unspeakable torments, dared to hope for happiness… envy and bitter indignation filled me with an insatiable thirst for vengeance…
…I had cast off all feeling, subdued all anguish, to riot in the excess of my despair. Evil thenceforth became my good… The completion of my demoniacal design became an insatiable passion…
…dreams of virtue, of fame, and of enjoyment… I was nourished with high thoughts of honour and devotion… But now crime has degraded me beneath the meanest animal. No guilt, no mischief, no malignity, no misery, can be found comparable to mine…
For while I destroyed his hopes, I did not satisfy my own desires… I desired love and fellowship, and I was still spurned. Was there no injustice in this?
Am I to be thought the only criminal, when all humankind sinned against me? …I, the miserable and the abandoned, am an abortion, to be spurned at, and kicked, and trampled on… my blood boils at the recollection of this injustice…
…My work is nearly complete… Do not think that I shall be slow to perform this sacrifice… Soon these burning miseries will be extinct. I shall ascend my funeral pile triumphantly and exult in the agony of the torturing flames…
despite my dislike of Deku, I do want to see and Spinner meet and interact, mostly because Spinner will go “you’re Midoriya Izuku, the UA student, the kid Stain saved, the boy Toga likes, the guy who beat up Shigaraki at Jaku, the OFA holder, the one AFO wants to capture, that guy!!!”
and Deku won’t even know Spinner’s name and barely remembers this lizard dude is part of the League.
actually, Deku does remember Spinner, but only as: “you’re the guy with the cool sword of swords!” And Spinner, all touched, will go, “you thought it was cool?” and there’s some nice small talk before getting down to business
despite my dislike of Deku, I do want to see and Spinner meet and interact, mostly because Spinner will go “you’re Midoriya Izuku, the UA student, the kid Stain saved, the boy Toga likes, the guy who beat up Shigaraki at Jaku, the OFA holder, the one AFO wants to capture, that guy!!!”
and Deku won’t even know Spinner’s name and barely remembers this lizard dude is part of the League.
Spinner and Deku’s gonna meet, and when they do, Spinner tells Deku about how Shigaraki is the most beautiful, coolest, dorkiest, incredible man alive and it’s all very gay, but also Deku will notice that Spinner still has The Hand and via OFA he’ll recognize it as Nana’s hand. ‘wtf, that’s the 7th hand’
and despite being taxidermied and burned and whatnot to hell and back, it still contains Nana’s DNA, which means it still contains Nana’s quirk factor, which means it still contains Nana’s essence, and when Deku touches it, he psychically sees all of Nana’s ghost vision of Shigaraki’s life with AFO and also all the reasons why Shigaraki hates Heroes and how villain’s Shigaraki has met has suffered, and finally Deku will be like, oh shit.
worst/best AU thought: had Touya revealed himself that day he went home, he would’ve been able to stay and reunite with his family… except Enji would’ve had to eventually take Touya to the doctors because his body starts failing. And Enji can afford the best doctors.
unpopular opinion but I pity kotarou, he just gives me so many feelings because he’s so damn tragic. He’s a repressed wreck of an asshole, but my god, he tried. he really tried.
like, after his mom relinquished him, he must have sworn to do everything right - that is to be, in his eyes, a better family man than Nana. Kotarou’s literally like the Confucian Ideal. He studied and worked hard, enough to leave the foster care system to go to college and got a job that allowed him to become wealthy. I bet you anything Kotarou chose whatever job he had specifically to make lots of money in order to make sure his family would never want for anything. He’s an orphan turned wealthy professional. he’s a success story.
Kotarou married, built a house big enough to allow his wife’s parents to move in with them because he wanted to be the perfect son-in-law. Traditionally the eldest son have his parents move in with him when they get old. Lacking parents, he basically decided to adopt Nao’s parents as his own. He had kids - a girl and a boy, perfect balance - and he gave the kids a dog. Does Kotarou seem like the type of guy to want pets? No. I bet you anything again that he got the kids the corgi when they asked for a pet, just like that. His profile wasn’t wrong - the thing he liked was actually his family (yes, including Tenko).
Kotarou tried and nearly did everything right, all except the most important thing - being an actual dad, a emotionally supportive parent. Man was internally an complete angry traumatized grieving disaster obsessed with getting everything perfect. Had no idea how to do healthy feelings. All that emotional damage suffocated the entire household, everyone wilting in that toxicity. Even if it was inadvertently, he ended up emotionally neglectful/abusive and it caused his wife and in-laws to tolerate/comply with it, leaving the kids unprotected. Hana learned to lie as a survival skill, and Tenko got to be the main target of all that dysfunction.
I truly believe the day Kotarou slapped Tenko was the first time he physically hit his son. His usual method of punishment was putting Tenko outside - traditional method of punishment in Japan - and he did this with a cool, stoic demeanor. Once the Nana picture entered the picture tho, he snapped. Just two slaps and that was all it took to ensure his demise.
For all that Confucianism extols filial piety, it also demands reciprocity. The parent behaves well, then so will the child. If the parent sucks, don’t be surprise when the child rebels.
Kotarou fostered a toxic environment, and Tenko developed that itch of his, the physical manifestation of that poison. It built up, slowly, darker and deeper, until that itch became the Decay that would ultimately destroy the family, the house, and especially Kotarou. Too easy of a metaphor. He fed the rot (or perhaps rather, he let the rot fester as he ignored it) and eventually the decay consumed him too.
Plus. The manga doesn’t even really frame Tenko killing his dad as bad. Horrifying, yeah, but there’s not quite any condemnation. Shigaraki doesn’t forgive him, and he’s the only person left in the Shimura tragedy whose judgment matters, so there’s just no forgiveness.
Kotarou tried so hard, but he was his own undoing. He worked so hard to create the perfect family, and completely failed. What a disaster of a guy.
so apparently the photo where the family is in traditional wear is for the Shichi-go-san festival that celebrates children at ages 3, 5, or 7. If Tenko’s age 5 in that photo, that means Hana’s 7 years old. She’s 2 years older!
if spinner has been a girl, i still think she would be pretty cool should she be kept pretty much the same: gecko appearance, weak quirk, gamer, hikikomori, swords enthusiast, intelligence: D.
But it would be undeniable that she would be the most stereotypical female love interest for Shigaraki ‘real protag of bnha’ Tomura.
Only things on her mind are dudes; is considered weak, rarely ever in a fight, mostly provides the emotional support for the League; becomes a figurehead that inspires people but isn’t actually in control of that influence; falls for Shigaraki and being awe-struck by his eyes and smile and power, loyally attending to him when he’s in pain and can’t do anything but watch as he suffers, holding onto an important item of Shigaraki’s most likely hoping to one day return it to him when he comes back…
And obviously she’s on track to be a housewife. Between the role and loyalty and ‘yamori’ meaning ‘housekeeper’ and voice actor talking about how she wouldn’t need a quirk upgrade because she’s got heart and cares for Shigaraki— it’s all right there.
But he’s not and so Spinner is groundbreaking and this is win for feminism, gaymers, and malewives.
my dream is to write a novel, get it published, become rich. or at least moderately well-off. If I can get off my lazy ass… Anyways, this is to say, I love writing fanfic.
And tbh most of the meta I write is entirely from brainstorming ideas and details for fanfic. I wanted to really understand the characters, really get into their heads and write them as in-character as possible. Every word, every action, every neurochemical that might run through their brain and affect their heart rate. Obviously I’ll never know them as well as Horikoshi-sensei does, and I take some minor liberties to get the story where I want it to go, but like, I just wanna get it right.
How a character behaves and reacts to things - meta about their reasons and motivations. Need background events and to know norms the characters might follow - meta about details of the world, setting, history, etc. Making something that hopefully ‘resonances’ - meta about themes and development.
Soooo much of my meta is from me thinking up AUs. The compare and contrast really helps in figuring out why and how the canon story went the way it did; what is the essential and immutable cores of the story that I gotta keep in the AU, and what can be changed or do away with completely. I think it would be cool if this and that happened to this or that character - so why didn’t it? What factors would need to be changed to achieve this AU? What facts and theories would I need to pull out of the canon to do that - or rather, what is in canon anyways?
AU where Sako finds Tenko during The Walk and takes him in - why would magic marble man even do that in the first place? What life would he be living back then at age 17, and how would incorporating a traumatized 5 year old effect that. What’s Tenko’s as-in-character-as-possible reaction to that - guess I’ll have to squint at his every word and movement in the manga. Sako’s got family and Harima’s legacy - gotta fill in those blanks, so what’s most probable and reasonable, accounting for HeroAca culture, history, social structure? All For One has to let Sako keep Tenko (for now) for this AU to work - he’ll need a reason, he’ll need to have limitations on his actions, so can I look at his goal and motivation in a different light without changing the core?
And then suddenly i’m writing an essay about Harima and All For One and what the environment must have been like all those years ago and theorizing…idk, something-something about the politics among metas back then that must have happened to lead to the modern day situation. But really, I was probably just trying to figure out if I can wring out an awkward meal scene from this.
This also probably sounds all pretentious but in reality I usually never have a clear outline or vivid thought. My brain just spins bits and pieces around and sometimes things smash together into a realization. Then it might even just make it onto paper. I rarely have the discipline to actually sit and plan meta, and much less make it coherent. I usually don’t have the discipline to write the fic either. But I have lots of fun imagining it and thinking about how I might write it.
Japan has two native species of bears! the black bears of Honshu and Shikoku, and the brown bears of Hokkaido. So there are bear sightings and attacks in rural areas even to this day.
And here’s a image of bear behavior throughout the seasons from it.
Wanna note that the in the skit, the League did everything opposite of what you’re supposed to do when encountering a bear ahaha (not remaining calm, yelling and being noisy, running).
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My personal silly headcanon is that Spinner is from an area with Matagi hunters, traditional bear hunters in the mountains of northern Japan, and maybe even tried bear hunting himself. Would explain having enough survival skills and familiarity with those blades of his to not immediately get killed when in a fight. Would love a Spinner having some of that knowledge.
AFO shows up as a savior, liken to a god, offering forgiveness, salvation, second chances to the lonely and despised— but it’s only through him, no one else, nothing else, and so complete devotion to him is the hallmark of his followers. “To you, the powerless, I present a choice. Forgiveness for those who have sinned. I give to all whatever they may seek… that is, if you agree to join me.” But obviously he’s a false savior - the people he takes in become ever more isolated from everyone else, all the more damned, all the less forgivable. Cut off from everything else, they can only ever follow him deeper and deeper into hell.
Salvation/saving could mean lot of different things in different religions and beliefs, but I wanna take a look at the Buddhist side of things, because 1) Japan and it’s culture has a long and significant history of Buddhist influence which inevitably often makes its way to its media; 2) All For One has been compared to the Buddha (Chapter 270, Ujiko said of him as having a ‘Buddha-like smile’); and 3) HeroAca has always had a Buddhist vibe to me, esp. inShigaraki and his sufferingandemptiness.
(Most recently, we’re seeing it with the Todorokis and Dabi; 'Dabi’ (cremation) is a word with Buddhist connotations, and funerals are nearly all in Buddhist style.)
What 'salvation’ in Buddhism usually mean is to be free from all forms of suffering. It is the liberation from things like pain, grief, jealousy, anger; and from the things that cause these black feelings. In HeroAca, there’s suffering from: physical dangers (villain attacks, accidents, disasters); emotions such as fear and distress (hence Nana’s philosophy of smiling to provide comfort and hope); selfish acts, harmful behaviors, and malevolent thoughts that spell out doom for both the perpetrators and their victims (Endeavor’s eugenic scheme, Shigaraki’s destruction that inevitably includes self-destruction, Iida’s attempt at vengeance, the more mild case of Gentle’s desire for acknowledgement).
Above all, there’s the great pain of being rejected from society that is the common backstory of the Villains. Whether it’s being different and unable to fit in, or having done wrong and shunned, or just plain misfortune that left one in ruin, Villains are often the rejects of Hero society, the darkness at the edges, the dregs at the bottom - the forgotten and the lonely, the unforgiven and the despised. Unable to find a place to belong and unable to be live free, they suffer.
Which is where All For One comes in. As stated above, he offers salvation - purpose and solutions, belonging and flourishing, the ability for his victims to create a life that they think would free them from whatever pain they have. This is why he’s likened to a Buddha - imo, I think, specifically, he’s like a bodhisattva, who are Buddhist “saints”, people who have stop short of Buddhahood/ultimate enlightenment in order to stay and achieve the same enlightenment for all sentient beings. They are beings of great compassion, ready to help whoever is in need of it, like Kannon/Avalokiteśvara with thousand arms to reach out to those in need, or Jizo/Kṣitigarbha who made it his goal to empty all the hells.
That’s All For One, appearing before those in need and saving them, offering his compassion. Except. You know. It’s false, not that at all. There’s a knife hiding behind his smile. He doles out his ‘kindness’ to manipulate and exploit people and ensure their devotion and willingness to get blood on their hands. He’s the evil, distorted opposite of a bodhisattva. Demon King indeed.
Still, it’s true - as unpleasant as it may be - that he was there for the people who needed rescuing but who Heroes (and society) have ignored. He took in Tenko after the kid was left to languish under a bridge, plus countless children who ‘grew twisted’/developed a vicious hatred for a world they had no place in; he befriended Ujiko when the scientist got shunned for his quirk singularity theory; gave the Aoyamas’ son a quirk to no longer be bullied; offered Nagant a chance to change the sham Hero system that betrayed her; and he even saved Touya from literal death.
All For One is able to do all that, because Heroes didn’t. For people who are supposed to save other people, Heroes have giant blind spots that causes them to fail/ignore/actively alienate not-insignificant parts of society. A lot of it isn’t on purpose, but a lot of people aren’t saved all the same. They fall into despair. They grieve and hate and harm, and they fall further from enlightenment, only ever into a cycle of suffering.
Put it another way, All For One (false)saves anyone who needs help, because everyone will have that one bad day where everything goes wrong. Remember, anti-bodhisattva.
Heroes, on the other hand, are people whose job is to save people; but their system they uphold have massive cracks that people slip through everyday, and for whatever reason, that definition of ‘people’ doesn’t include all people, and so they just aren’t bodhisattva.
(Which is why Heroes have to save the villains - all of them - from their rage and desolation and suffering.)
(This doesn’t mean the villains get off scot free. They just gotta work off alllllll that karma.)
Anyways this got too long so there’s a part two later where I talk about Heroes and if they’re supposed to be the true bodhisattva. (Answer: Yes, but also no. it’s complicated.)
i need Tomura + Aoyama + Six + maybe all the orphan vessel kids interaction. bonding (dysfunctional). AU where all these kids go off to evil summer camp every year to network, learn crime, get ever sucked into the darkness, have fun.
i am forever thankful to the metacantina group for translating Tenko (the one-shot) but sometimes i really wish they credited me for providing the raws
I wanted in on Mermay month, so I came up with an AU idea? No actual story cuz I’m lazy. Starring Shigaraki, of course, but also! Toga Himiko. I needed to give her some love.
Toga Himiko! Age 17, still a runaway, still has a taste for blood, still a bloodletting serial killer
One day, though, she targets a young man who turns out to be very unusual:
He can’t be killed
So she meets Shigaraki Tomura, a centuries old immortal, forever with the appearance of a 20-year-old
400 years ago, he ate the flesh of a strange fish that had a human face
And so he was cursed to never die
But there’s a second part to the curse: he’s now a ‘merman’ of sorts
Touch even a single drop of water on land, and his legs turn into a fish-tail. Can’t change back til he’s submerged in the sea… but there, he’s human and human lungs don’t work underwater
(Remember, though, he can’t die)
He’s a creature that has no place on land or sea
Ever since, he’s been traveling the world, searching for a cure/permanent death
Now that Toga had consumed some of his blood, she’s similarly cursed
Because of that, she joins Shigaraki on his journey
Things get (more) dangerous when they encounter another immortal
A man known as All For One, with whom Shigaraki has a dark history…
Yeah.
Also drew a merman Shigaraki!
He kinda gave up eating a few decades ago because it got tedious and also he doesn’t technically needed it
once again edited/filtered to hell and back on photoshop couldn’t help it
This post is from three years ago, but it’s the last day of May, so why not! Plus, I don’t believe I ever share this absolutely incredible fic @stillness-in-green wrote base on the premise! She does it beyond justice and more; I adore the way everything is crafted, whether it’s the writing or folktale inspired ideas or story in general. <3333333 So please, go read it!
