All for one, and one for all.

We know that there are three ue students who specifically have their villain foils. Deku is parallel with Shigaraki. Ochaco is parallel with Toga. Shouto is parallel with Dabi. There is a clear set up between them. And i realized those three seperately find three important points to change things for better.

1. Deku’s View; The villain who should be saved

This is one of the most important things in story. This point is made by Deku. Scene shows the destruction Shigaraki caused but even so, Deku still see him as someone who needs to be saved. So the idea of villains needed to be saved will come with Deku. He is the first one who realized this in hero side.

Of course Ochaco realized Toga is sad, Shouto thinks his brother but i think they dont specifically think that they should save them/villains. We know that Deku always want to save everyone but he also starts to realize that villains are also should be part of that everyone.

Deku looks at sitution as society thing so when he sees Shigaraki as victim, he wil bring up the idea that there are villains who should be saved too. This is why Deku’s narrative is important for this part.

2. Ochaco’s View; Heroes arent righteous

This is also one of the most important things in story. “Heroes are good, villains are bad.” And Ochaco is the first one who notices this part. Failure of system and dark Side of heroes.

Yes, Deku and Shouto also know many dark things but we can clearly see that they somehow accept this sitution. They know more than Ochaco know. Ochaco as someone who is not victim of system, she always see villains as selfish, heroes as selfless, then she sees that one hero being selfish. (Ironic that she is one of the most people who saw heroes as perfect)

So i think Ochaco’s narrative is important for this point. Since she is really pay attention how system hurts people like Deku and how heroes can be selfish as villains, she might be the first one who brings this subject.

Maybe the reason she is the one who first realizes this is she is not the victim of system so she can look at sitution more obvectively. Deku and Shouto are personally involved with failures of system and heroes thats why they cant judge sitution logically. Thats why Ochaco can see failures of system and heroes.

3. Shouto’s View; You are me

Again, one important thing. Shouto is the first one who realized how similar he is to villain foil.

Deku can see Shigaraki’s self destruction but he still has no idea how much similar they are. He also ignores the similarities cause his priority is his job as hero.

And even though Toga said many times, Ochaco denies her similarities with Toga. But they are, they all similar. Shouto is the first one who noticed this part and he might be the one who brings this subject.

Shouto looks at this sitution as invidual, thats why he can see his similarities with his villain foil. He is being honest with himself first.

Conclusion;

Those points are important cause if they want to be better heroes, they need to change things. They need to save villains too, they need to realize failure of system and heroes, they need to realize their connection so they can face it.

Deku realized that Shigaraki is someone who should be saved but he also should face failure of society cause he blindly idolise it and he also should see his similarities with Shigaraki cause thats how he can face with himself and reach out to save him and become better hero.

Ochaco realized that heroes arent rightous but she also needs to understand Toga, villains need help too, she also should accept her similarities with Toga, thats how she can face with herself, reach out to save her and be better hero.

Shouto noticed his similarities with Dabi but he doesnt really think society s failure and villains being victim, he just look at this whole sitution as family bussiness but its more than that, when he understand it, he can face with himself, reach out to save him and be better hero.

So;

Who gets to be saved? It is a question the villains have asked over and over. What this chapter did was highlight how despite the parallels between their backstories – abusive fathers, emotionally distraught mothers who were also abused – Keigo was saved and Touya was not. 

(Saved from his family situation, that is. The Hero Commission is a whole ‘nother story)

No matter what some might claim, Hawks has no moral superiority over Dabi. Both have killed. Both have lied, manipulated, and hurt others to get what they want. Both are condemnations of the same broken system, even if so far only one has been treated as such where are the consequences for killing Twice.

The only difference is that in terms of quirks, Hawks is a success while Dabi is a failure. 

Hawks has an extremely useful quirk, which he proved by saving those people from a car accident. But it wasn’t the saving people that caught the attention of the Hero Commission. If they were concerned with saving people, wouldn’t they have, I dunno, placed this vulnerable child in foster care so he could recover from his trauma and grow up normally? Helped his mother receive treatment for her addiction/mental health so maybe she could care for her child? Nope, it was that he could be molded into a hero and his mother was poor/afraid/unwell enough that she could be bought. So they reached out a hand to help.

Compare this to Touya, who was born with an immensely powerful and destructive quirk. But it was so detrimental to his own body that he was prevented from ever becoming a hero or being useful to society. The fault for this lies solely on his father, who literally engineered his children without any care for the biological risk involved – yet it is Touya who was thrown away, burned, not only by his father but by a society that also deemed him a failure. 

And the only difference they had in terms of parents is that Thief Takami was a villain while Endeavor is a hero.

Hawks gets saved from his abusive home (only to be manipulated/trained as a child soldier, which IS awful and wrong, yes – but the point is he was removed from a life of poverty and hostility to be given stability, and as an adult he enjoyed a life of wealth, fame and privilege). He gets to see his abuser condemned to prison, and even if it wasn’t for the crime of hurting his family, it is gratifying to see your tormentor righteously punished.

But for Touya? For Shouto, Natsuo, Fuyumi and Rei? Endeavor terrorized his wife and children but they had to watch him be venerated and praised. Just because during his 9 to 5 he’s a hero. Dabi is right on that account– I’d go crazy if I spent the last 10 years thinking about that, too!

Heroes won’t hesitate to save a kid from an abusive parent when they’re a criminal — and therefore, inherently evil and not even human, according to those Tartarus guards – like with Eri and Keigo. But when the abusive parent is a hero? Then Dabi gets told he should be more like his dad because Endeavor is “trying” to be better (which he only decided to do on his own terms and not for the benefit of the family he hurt).

telling all for one to shut the fuck up

au where inko finds tenko wandering around and reaches out to help

now izuku really is his little brother  

(alternate under the cut: some things are just meant to be)

(don’t read the next sentence if you don’t want slight manga spoilers 👀)

Shigaraki’s first order of business now that he can control his decay -w-

also he no longer believes in the concept of wearing a shirt anymore, this is canon in my head now

people are allowed to write characters however makes them happy, but i wish there were an equal amount of people who paid attention to his canon characterization too. i wish i could find a fic or two that doesn’t make him a tsundere (he’s not one - though i understand the appeal) or weirdly mean to his friends (he’s usually very chill!!)

he let toga hold a knife to his neck. he let spinner grab him by the collar of his shirt and yell in his face. he let dabi tell him he didn’t give a shit about his tragic backstory and wasn’t gonna stick around to help directly. he let twice tackle him to the ground and all he had to say was “wow, you multiplied yourself! good job!”

so, heres a long post explaining where canon tomura is much different from fanon tomura - mostly in terms of how he treats his team, his general understanding of other people, and his actually very mellow attitude. ft. lots of manga panels as evidence

I keep seeing it said that Deku, Ochaco, and Shouto will “save” Shigaraki, Himiko, and Dabi, but that there will be no redemption and/or no survival for them. I’m truly not trying to vague these posts and everyone is entitled to their opinion, but literary criticism is fundamentally responsive so I’m writing this anyways.

I personally think that’s not BNHA’s definition of saving nor of redemption. So here, have a deep dive into literary tropes related to redemption, genre, and character arcs as they pertain to BNHA and the question of: what does it mean to save Shigaraki, Touya, and Himiko?

Before we begin, let me say that while we might be personally uncomfortable with redemption (there’s a redemption arc in BNHA I am personally quite uncomfortable with), that doesn’t inherently mean the narrative won’t go there. The key principle I’m operating on here is BNHA’s message that heroes save people. It’s held up as the highest ideal. 

So it seems that by the end of the the most recent chapter, Deku has intuitively graasped the consequences of Shigaraki falling between the gaps and into the clutches of OfA. On one hand, the last panel of the destroyed cityscape is a simple reminder of all the destruction of this arc. On the other, it’s an important symbolic reminder of the root of Shigaraki’s rage.

First of all, the cityscape is featured in Shigaraki’s “Plus Ultra” speech. It should be noted that Deku, unlike Endeavor, actually seems to listen to what Shigaraki is saying.

Just as important is the word “reject”. It’s not the same, but it’s ancestry can be traced back to this motif, the most fundamental building block of Shigaraki’s origin; the feeling of being “Denied” by his father’s house.

Shigaraki destroys the house, his family and the itch that plagued him, but tragically only for a short time. Being shunned by the people on the street, like how his plight was ignored by the rest of his family, transferred the feelings he about his father’s house to the entire world.

This all comes full circle with the final panel of the latest chapter. Despite all of Shigaraki’s crimes, Deku understands that somewhere down the line, someone was failed. They were never saved at all. That’s why Deku’s final line is accompanied by obliterated cityscape that denied Shigaraki.

In just those two lines, Horikoshi shows us how bad AFO is for him and also explains his whole goal. From the first time we are introduced to Shigaraki, we see the running character detail of him scratching his neck. Even to the point of making himself bleed and that he has scars there. We see him do this when he is in distress or angry. It’s not until we get his backstory that we see why he does this. It’s his reaction to the abuse he was facing from his father. His mother thinks it’s allergies, but he says it’s only when he’s in his own house does he feel the itchiness. Yet we see it manifest when he is feeling upset, helpess, and confused about what is happening in the Shimura household.

Then when AFO takes him in and is not letting Shigaraki heal from his trauma, it comes back to the point that he is literally on the floor in distress. And this is after an incident that triggers the same feelings he had when he was being abused. Helpless and confused. But AFO being the worst person in the world, tells him that the itch is because he isn’t using his quirk and if he destroys whatever is making him feel this way, then it will go away. He also tells him that this mean he clearly wants to go out and destroy things. That itch is just his true nature and he feels itchy because he’s just supressing his true desire to go fucking apeshit on ppl.

Which as we can see from the flashback and even how he interacts with the LOV, is not true at all. Shimura Tenko and even Shigaraki Tomura’s true nature is not one of destruction. Tenko was a lot like Midoriya. He played with the kids who were being bullied and stood up for them. He wanted to be a hero. Shigaraki, while yes is a villain now, legitimately cares about his friends in the LOV. He tells Toga that he won’t destroy what she loves and that extends to the rest of the LOV as well. The first thing he does after defeating ReDestructo is make them order sushi because he remembered that Compress mentioned it.

So clearly AFO is wrong about Shigaraki. But having Shigaraki believe this only helps AFO keep Shigaraki in his grasp and trapped within the cycle of abuse. Because we see Shigaraki go out and do what AFO says. He decays them, but then remarks that the itch didn’t stop for long. So what does AFO say? Welp just keep on destroying kid, and you will feel better. Yet it doesn’t go away. And this is how AFO trapped Shigaraki into becoming a villain. (And yes, he does have agency in the choice to do what he does, but it is a choice that was manipulated to seem as if it is the only one, still accountable though) By making Shigaraki believe that if he destroys things, that he will feel better. That the itch will stop. That those feelings of helplessness will go away. He effectively creates a destructive coping mechanism that Shigaraki become reliant on.

Feeling upset? Go destroy stuff. Something triggers your trauma? Go decay someone. Realize that hero society is corrupt and is part of the reason why your life went to shit? Well Shigaraki’s solution and ultimate goal: destroy everything. AFO has essentially trained him to constantly hold onto negative emotions. We see it when he gives Shigaraki the fucking hands of his dead family. He says it’s so he never forgets what happened and to hold onto the feelings that come with seeing them. He literally makes it so that Shigaraki is always going to be triggered by his trauma, so he will always be primed to destroy.

And we can see that when AFO is out of the picture, Shigaraki gets minimally better. We rarely see him talk about the itch when we had the LOV arc. And he slowly loses the hands because while it is a sign of his character growth, it’s also a sign that his friendship with the LOV is helping him deal with his trauma. Or at least give him some semblance of a healthy relationship. He takes off the hand for Toga and Twice. The LOV is able to joke with him and they care about him. He literally loses all of them(except for his father’s) in the moment when ReDestructo say he looks free.

Yet, what happens when AFO comes back into the picture? When he literally is possessing Tomura? The itch comes back and so does the hand on his face. One, because Shigaraki’s other father figure has returned(AFO). And two because AFO is the other source of Shigaraki’s trauma he hasn’t dealt with. And the itch is back because he is feeling those same feelings of helplessness. I mean Midoriya literally said Shigaraki looked like he wanted to be saved. And we can see that Shigaraki is still trapped under AFO’s influence. Because he immediately lashes out when he feels the itch. His first thought after waking up again is that the itch is back and he wants it to stop. And now AFO has taken control. AFO has basically turned Shigaraki into a living weapon for himself. He makes sure he keeps Shigaraki’s trauma unhealed and then gets him to believe that the only way to heal from it, is to destroy everything.

AFO is a terrible person, we knew this. But from this, we can see his manipulation is not just an “I saved you and the heroes did not, so they are the bad guys” kind of manipulation. AFO just keeps Shigaraki trapped within the cycle of abuse and then when Shigaraki has had enough, he points him in whichever direction he wants destroyed. And it’s very different from Dabi’s arc as well! While Shigaraki and Dabi have a lot of similarities, Dabi’s is the more common cycle of abuse of “I was hurt and now I will hurt others because my trauma hasn’t been properly dealt with and now I want them to feel what I felt” Shigaraki’s on the other hand is “I was hurt, and am still being hurt and I want it to stop and the only way to make it stop is to destroy what I think is causing me to feel this way” Yet, it’s AFO who gets him to believe that. His manipulation isn’t just hurt them because they hurt you. It’s if you want to stop feeling this way, get rid of whatever is causing it(aka Hero Society) Basically subtly nudging Shigaraki into become his vessel for destruction.

IM ACTUALLY FUCKING CRYING RN PLEASE I-

This is seriously so fucking sad to me, I’ve loved Shigaraki since the first time I saw him and he’s such an amazing character and villain in general. To see this really does hurt; Shigaraki never asked for any of this. He didn’t ask for a piece of shit father or to be abused, and didn’t ask for such a disastrous quirk. He didn’t ask to be manipulated and used by the one person he initially thought cared for him (fuck you All For One) and then quite literally possessed by him.