Never Fading Brainrot

day 211

Mind Maze | 2021

As much as Ochako and Izuku misunderstood Toga, in retrospect it’s clear how little Toga knew about Izuku and Ochako despite her infatuation with them. Because with both she approaches them with the aspects of herself that they could relate to the least.

Here, Toga seeks understanding by starting with how her quirk affects her relationships with others, how she is negatively affected by the full suppression of her quirk, and that she used Ochako’s quirk to survive when someone tried to kill her after making a mockery of her life.

Ochako was not predisposed to feel any sympathy for Toga based on this information. Ochako had a praiseworthy heroic quirk that didn’t affect her relationships with others. She had such a safe upbringing that heroism felt like an entertaining spectacle rather than real conflict until UA. The idea that someone would need to use deadly force to survive in a society full of heroes to protect others was anathema to Ochako, so she assumes Toga was inherently in the wrong.

On the other hand, this approach would have been more effective with Izuku. Izuku has personal experience with being ostracized due to quirk status. He is also a quirk nerd who could have figured out that Toga was trying to say that the full suppression of her quirk led to violent outbursts. He could have reasoned that she was unable to integrate with society without the loosening of quirk use restrictions for non-heroes because of the negative consequences of full suppression.

Izuku also may have been more sympathetic to Toga’s self-defense argument concerning her fight with Curious. I’ve mentioned it before that Izuku was more willing to use deadly force/use his quirk before having a license generally because of his unconscious lack of faith in the hero system. Those who fit the mold would not think to use lethal force because obviously a hero would always come to save the day. Izuku, however, was a quirkless person whose life was seen by many as not having any value. Unlike Ochako, Izuku could reasonably believe a non-hero could be put in a situation where their life was at risk without a hero saving them.

But Toga led with her romantic feelings for Izuku when she confronted him in Act Three. Izuku did not have the self-worth to believe someone would love him or seriously consider pursuing anyone else, so this approach was alien and off putting to him. Meanwhile, to Ochako, having a less than ideal crush on someone she admires and feeling social pressure to suppress it is normal. Starting with the emotional repression based on admiration would have been a better way to bridge the gap of understanding between Toga and Ochako.

a very RED sketchbook page

Haven't drawn much Zelda in a very long while so here's something I did to warm up!