Pretty Deku

katsuki soft genderfluid icons for anon

(tysm for requesting me!! and hope this is what you meant by softer)

It is! Spinner talks about it; and while this topic honestly deserves essays, I’ll just get into the meat and bones of it. This is not a real meta from me, because this topic deserves a lot more work and I promise to make something at some point that really addresses some of the social disparity here, but here’s a bit of an answer to your question.

We do have a problem.

Let’s talk about Spinner. Spinner’s inner monologue reveals a struggle with discrimination. His reaction to being called a lizard is important because being a lizard has been what caused his trauma all his life. When confronted with cultists that have a religion based on hating/wishing death on people like him, the first they do is call him a lizard. And he calls their thinking outdated but is it really ‘out-dated’ when it has been so pervasive in his life that not only is his hometown full of it, one of his teammates unknowingly has the same attitude of seeing him as a lizard?     Dabi (and Shouto) both say their lines in times of some distress, to be sure, but it’s revealing that neither think much of what they have done.  At the same time, like with most discrimination, there are different grades/reactions. Spinner has spent most of his life isolated and ostracized in his rural community for his appearance and also by his family for a ‘weak’ quirk. In a sense, his being a heteromorph had no ‘benefits’ in the way someone like Hawks might have which is why this difference is absolutely fascinating;

The difference here is very fascinating; Hawks was sheltered for most of his life and praised for his quirk and his mutations (which are subtle but there, as those eyes aren’t human whatsoever), and also was born in an urban area where there are presumably far more mutants. 

Meanwhile Spinner is alone in his town, except for his family. He’s been defined down to his mutation all his life that the pride Hawks has for his (and for people like him) doesn’t come naturally when he’s been excluded for it. Of course, Hawks is being exploited for his abilities so there’s a fragileness to that pride, especially when that birdness might stop being useful.

So, we have two ways that like two different mutants approach their mutations - one with outward pride and identity, and the other with resentment when he gets defined by it and the society that made him feel this way. But yeah, this is the second time Dabi’s done it. Shouto did to the dog-cop whose name escapes me, and very importantly, Shinsou did it. And look at Deku’s reaction here.

Deku’s shocked; all Shinsou has to is like say that Ojiro’s a dumbass for throwing his chances away after this, and Deku loses it. And while certainly there’s a lot to be said that Ojiro’s sacrifice is seen as very noble culturally, the highlight of monkey means that there was something particularly inflammatory about Shinsou’s words.

Now, remember, Shinsou says this because he wants a rise out of Deku. He’s saying something completely ‘un-PC’ because it’s shocking, because normally no one would call Ojiro a monkey. Especially not a stranger. Someone is pretty much insulting Deku’s classmate due to his mutations, a classmate who is helpful and nice to him.

We can really gleam a lot from moments like this. Shouto’s insult was done in anger; in the same way that many of grab for hurtful things regarding people’s identities when we’re insulting them, so do the people of BNHA. It’s clearly rude to. But why? 

It has a lot to do with this, to borrow some of @dabistits‘s writing on Twice:

This leads to yet another societal dysfunction. Because some Quirks are considered more valuable than others, and because Quirks are attached to persons, some people are considered more valuable than others. This comes through even more clearly in the original Japanese word for Quirk: 個性 (kosei). Kosei can be translated as “individuality” but also as “personality” or “character,” e.g. she has a strong personality (kosei), [source] a meaning that inevitably implicates the human behind the personality. But in the world of BNHA, a strong kosei no longer simply means a strong personality—it can also mean a strong Quirk. In the linguistic realm, personality and Quirk have become indistinguishable, and this has two effects: one, Quirks are presumed to influence personality (as in the cases of Toga and Shinsou), and two, that which makes us individual, our personalities, has become entangled with Quirks-as-commodity. That is to say, one’s kosei determines one’s worth under capitalism.

In a society where Kosei is everything, where your entire personality is your kosei/quirk, do you see where heteromorphs might have issues?

The MLA (and I’ve continued to make distinctions between them and the League because I strongly believe the PLF are not a permanent alliance inasmuch as an alliance of convenience; the world Shigaraki destroys also means destroying the society they want) very much wants this quirk-based society to go further.

That children’s book we seen an excerpt from; look at it closely. A little girl who looks incredibly ‘baseline’ and not mutated is given a bandage by a heteromorph who resembles a japanese oni; this is meant to be seen as contrary to the nature of oni, as they are bloodthirsty and eat people. But that person is being really nice! Take a look at the other children in the picture! It’s a zebra and a sheep, two prey animals, and they are dancing with a crocodile! It’s really telling how smaller and how the predatory animal is on one side facing the others! It might as well be zootopia. 

The meaning is clear; people aren’t their appearance! Especially mutants! Sure you have emitter quirks that can be hidden but the people look mostly normal! So you have to remember that heteromorphs are people, just like you and I!

Except in a quirk society, that doesn’t work. In a society where your quirks didn’t define you, you could do that; but it doesn’t work that way. 

Now, they’re talking about No. 6 the villain here; and there’s a clear link to AFO’s experimentation, but either way, there’s a reference to an abundance of ‘unknown’ and ‘non-human’ DNA which is why Tanuma, the cop in this picture, kind of winks and say ‘woops’. 

This is a very revealing attitude about how seriously society takes heteromorph/mutant discrimination; there’s an acknowledgment it exists, but methods to be at least more sensitive are treated with amusement by the general population; to parrot Redestro once more, “It’s a good lesson! I was raised that way too! But there’s a clear link between quirk and personality!”

This isn’t a society managing to fix itself.

The insect-guy in this is Kamayan, a man who was kidnapped and experimented on from his quirk and bioengineered into what you see in the picture. He talks about the challenges he faces in a world simply not made for him; even mentions how he can barely use public facilities in his town which is a ward in Tokyo, of all places. There’s a mention in that chapter (Vigilantes 37) of public housing for people whose quirks mean they can’t live in ‘normal’ housing, but Kamayan immediately mentions resenting having to be separated from society.

Something to note here is the immediate deflection from his friends. Kamayan might be a whiner, but he’s right, but when he brings this up, it’s just treated as a joke. In the same manner as the wink and nudge from Tanuma about ‘non-humans’. Or how in the same chapter, Tsukauchi tells Kamayan that his anger at being apprehended after a drug-induced rampage should be directed at the villains who kidnapped him, not the police who treated him like any other villain. In a sense, people like Kamayan are being told to shut up. Let’s see that panel from 160 one more time:

This is a different translation than Viz, but between “the hell you gettin’ mad for, such a pain.” and “Don’t flip out”, there’s a clear bewilderment (the anime made Dabi get angry, but the manga was far less emotional in this line) about the fact that Spinner cared so much. But Spinner does, because people have been throwing lines at him all his and likely not evening letting him be angry at it.

Much like Kamayan’s anger about the society being ‘half-baked’ and his need not being met, or that of others, Spinner’s anger is that people like Dabi get to choose whether he should be hurt by being downsized to just being a heteromorph. Because it’s ‘shocking’ when someone uses it as an insult, because it’s ‘not politically correct’, but does that matter when it’s done constantly? Or how Hawks gets to claim being a bird because his wings and bird-like mutations are useful in serving hero society, while Gang Orca makes lists about looking like a villain despite being a hero.

Fanfic writer: *plans out intricate plot and incorporates different theories and characterizations to drop those subliminal messages*

Fanfic reader: aw cute!

Fanfic writer: …