In my opinion, the reason the reunion scene was skipped was because the author couldn’t figure out a way to write it non-romantically and gave up after a while
honestly. i kinda agree with you nonnie.
it just. the set up to the scene is sooooo romantic. you have lloyd being absolutely devastated at the thought he's not going to see any of his loved ones ever again and that he's been dropped back into his terrible life, to the place he admitted he'd rather die than go back to,,, and then someone knocks at the door and when he opens it this is the sight that greets him:
his best friend, the person he's closest to, the one he's spent years with, the one he promised a peaceful life at his side, the one he wanted to grow old with, the one he sacrificed everything for, the one he effectively gave his life to save, the one he thought he'd never see again, standing at his door, having crossed literal dimensional barriers to get to him, a soft and teary smile on his face as he tells him "i missed you"
like. c'mon.
i'm all for platonic interpretations, i'm aroace, i love me a good best friendship as much as the next guy, but,,,, isn't this,,, like,,, really fucking romantic??? extremely so??? am i??? reading too much into it?? because it feels really, really romantic to me.
and like you say. where do you go from there. what response could lloyd give that doesn't involve throwing himself at javier and clinging to him with all of his strength. what conversation could these two have that doesn't involve them seeing how truly devoted they are to each other. what resolution does their arc together have that isn't them spending the rest of their lives together, at each other's side, like they so dearly wanted to.
but. alas. that wasn't the story bk moon wanted to tell. and that's very much his right. i just think that if he didn't want me to assume there's no in-character and narratively satisfying version of that conversation that doesn't end with them kissing he should've at least tried to give us something. and not completely skipped it lol
but that's just my opinion too :]
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the seven (+ nico and reyna) if they were children if minor gods/goddesses
percy - i'm not gonna lie, it was so hard to find a minor god for percy. the best one i found is basically just another god the sea: nereus. he was a son of primordial gods; gaea (sorry for that, percy, omg 😭) and pontus, primordial god of the ocean. anyway, nereus was also a god of wisdom, prophetic visions (so it would kind of make sense for percy to be a 'prophecy child' if his dad was a prophecy god ig), and change. also! nereus valued loyalty (and, if we excuse demigod children lmao, he was loyal to his wife), and loyalty is percy's fatal flaw.
annabeth - themis, the greek goddess of justice, order, and overall fairness (not unlike nemesis), which are all values that i think annabeth holds close to her. themis is also depicted to be extremely wise (and sometimes she's also called a goddess of wisdom), another trait that annabeth believes in.
jason - aiolos, roman god of the wind (the greek version is aeolus). he's also known as the 'keeper of the four winds,' meaning he also controlled storm winds, so jason would likely have similar powers to children of jupiter. also, his name means 'quick-moving.' jason already has powers relating to storms and winds (those are his main powers, other than lightning), and being a son of aiolos would likely just increase his power over wind.
leo - i honestly couldn't find any minor gods that suit leo, but i think pallas, greek god of warcraft/handcrafts (and in some cases - 'useful arts,' which i'm taking to mean machines/mechanics, etc.). pallas is often also related to athena, goddess of wisdom, but i believe he's depicted as more of a 'quick-thinker,' which suits leo a lot.
piper - psyche, greek goddess of the soul; she's described, in mythology, as a mortal-turned-goddess whose beauty rivalled aphrodite's. the goddess represents passions, as well as misfortunes. this means piper could likely still have charmspeak because of psyche's close relation/similarity to aphrodite.
hazel - i feel like this one's sort of obvious; hecate. not only is she goddess of the mist and magic, but also ghosts, so hazel would have similar powers to a child of hades/pluto. hazel is already shown to have powers over the mist, and hecate is often associated with gemstones/crystals, which hazel can also already control.
frank - i really couldn't find many gods for frank, but i think honos, the greek god of honour, works well. he also represents glory, and in some cases, bravery. these are all some of frank's best qualities - ones that he himself actually values a lot too. additionally, honos symbolises victory and achievement, which are more qualities that frank would need for his role as praetor, etc.
nico - ok. so. the best one i could find was erebus; primordial god of shadows and darkness. he's also the god of a particularly dark part of the underworld, so it's likely he'd also have control over ghosts and bones (like nico does). this probably also means children of erebus could shadow-travel. and, although he isn't always perceived as powerful, erebus is. one interesting thing about erebus - even though he is not explicitly evil, his name is often used interchangeably with tartarus (which, if we're talking about experiences with tartarus: this could be an added factor as to why nico went to tartarus so confidently. if he didn't know enough about his father, he might've assumed he could be okay through tartarus.)
reyna - fides, roman goddess of loyalty and trust. fides is said to represent everything 'required for honour and credibility.' throughout the heroes of olympus, it's clear that honour and trust are two things reyna values deeply. it's also said that fides embodies everything needed for soldiers in rome, which, as praetor (for a long time), reyna is to be considered a soldier of new rome. additionally, loyalty and faithfulness are two qualities valued by artemis and her huntresses.
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I think, at the end of the day, what I want above all else from the end of the Todoroki family story arc and Dabi's story, beyond Enji not just getting off scotfree after ruining his family's lives but I feel that's a given but beyond that-
I want Dabi to be given time.
One reocurring thing running among the Todoroki's is that most of them has been given time away from the fucked up family situation, away from Enji, to grow as their own people.
Fuyumi complicates this obviously. You could argue her becoming a teacher and building an adult life could count, but Fuyumi also wants other things compared to her siblings, and that's okay! But if you look at the other three, I think it's easier to see what I mean.
Shouto is the most obvious example. It's thanks to not having his thoughts occupied by his father and letting them rule his actions and mindset, even if just to piss his dad off, that Shouto is able to grow. UA and his classmates give him that, he's given a space and time to develop as a person and find out who he is and who he wants to be. Bouncing off his classmates and interacting with people his own age as equals helped him.
It's a big part of Shouto's character that he thinks about his decisions thoroughly and what he wants to do. And he's able to do this because he is given the time and space to do so. It's not explicitly stated, but I think moving to the dorms helped him a lot with this. Shouto is no longer at risk of interacting with his father everyday, letting Shouto distance himself and decide how he feels about his father, being his son, and his ow quirk, without his abuser there to influence him.
I think this page best shows what a bad influence Endeavour can be on Shouto's mind. Shouto was calm before this, just trying to get to his match and not engaging, but his worsening mental state is called to attention the longer Endeavour talks. Keep in mind this match and moving to the dorms happens long before Enji decides to be a better parent when he realises becoming No.1 wasn't satisfying.
Shouto had not even given Enji his contact information before this and Enji had to get it from Fuyumi(a breach of boundary most definitely, but we don't know Shouto's reaction to this). Shouto doesn't even reply to his fathers incessant messaging until he himself needs something from him, and it's from Endeavour the hero, not Enji the father.
Shouto's development is gradual, but noticeable, and never really stops happening. Even now in the manga he's not finished his arc. But that's what made it very satisfying to watch him grow and find what kind of hero he wants to be.
I think it's worth noting that no one tells Shouto he should go visit his mother. Neither does anyone tell him he should try and talk to his siblings. How Shouto got started on properly talking to them is unknown, but it's clear it's on his terms, and because he wants to. Visiting Rei and reconnecting with her is something Shouto decided himself, and he goes to see her when he can and writes to her. How these visits go are never shown, but it's clear both of them want to connect again, and that both Rei and Shouto are in good places to actually do so in a healthy way.
Rei being in a good place is very important for this, and she is because she has been getting help and been away from the source of her distress and breakdown. When we see Rei out of a flashback, she's calm. She even seems happy, smiling with her children. Happy Shouto is keeping in touch with her through letters despite being so busy.
Rei was in dire need of getting away, that is obvious when you read the flashbacks. Her worsening mental health and situation ended up hurting not only her, but her children, especially Touya and Shouto. And she's been getting help and getting better since. At this point, she hasn't seen Enji since she was admitted to the hospital. Thanks to all that, Rei has been able to better process her trauma, what went on in their family, and her part in it, and she can face it. Rei, unlike Enji, is open about scarring Shouto, how she couldn't reach Touya and ultimately failed him as a mother.
We don't know a lot about Natsuo, but in his character profile, it's stated that thanks to Fuyumi, he was able to make the decision to go to college. It's said he spends a lot of time away from home and Fuyumi teases him about not keeping in contact enough. For Natsuo, who was one of the 'worthless' children of the house along with Fuyumi, going to college, making friends and getting a girlfriend, probably did wonders for him.
Natsuo is very upfront about his dislike for Enji, and his refusal to ever forgive him for what he's done. He's taken up the role of holding Enji responsible for his actions after Touya was no longer able to. I think it's pretty clear what Natsuo would like to do is go no-contact with Enji, but he doesn't want to hurt Fuyumi's feelings, so he goes to the family dinners where he has to sit in Enji's presence anyway. Though we still see him stand up and leave sometimes because he can't stand to be in the same room as his father. Natsuo getting up and leaving is, I think, the mature thing to do. He's looking out for himself.
So, where the heck am I going with this? Basically, I want Dabi, Touya, to be given the time and space to decide himself what kind of relationship he wants to have with his family, every single one, in the same way the others have.
Touya up to the point of his death had his life defined by decisions made for him or things happening out of his control. His life after his death were dedicated to one day kill his father, with the heavy implication he has no plan to get out of that confrontation alive.
You could say Dabi has no identity outside of the Todoroki family, outside of killing Endeavour and getting revenge for himself because no one else ever would. He was born, raised and groomed to be Enji's successor and the next number one, only to have that ripped away from him and expected to just, deal with that and move on, when he had no tools or methods to do that. Touya had no identity outside of being Enji's successor because that wasn't how he was raised. In his mind, he had no worth outside of that.
He was scapegoated by his family for most of his time living with them, and he might not even remember what being with them without being treated as the source of all the problems in the family is like. He went back home and thought they continued on as if he never died. And while that might not be fully true, just telling him that isn't going to magically absolve and fix the damage that left him with.
Throwing him right back into the family, with or without Enji involved, when the rest of the Todoroki's doesn't even know how to treat him now either, could end up really badly.
Especially when they still appear to lean into Touya being the problem. Dabi is the problem for acting out and "involving unrelated people in family matters" as Shouto so eloquently put it(not word for word don't shoot me), when Dabi wanted society to hold Enji accountable for his actions. They still say Dabi needs to be stopped, not saved.
At this point of the arc, Dabi is expecting to die, and he'll have to deal with the fact he's still alive after all this. I don't think he's gonna have the mental strenght to reconnect with the family he hasn't seen for years, not to mention we don't know if Dabi believes they even want him around or ever truly loved him. What does he think of them? We don't know, and chances are big he doesn't know either.
And that's why, I think a timeskip is one of the absolute best ways MHA can end, with time to see, years later, how all the characters are doing. And for the Todoroki's, it could mean Dabi has gotten time by himself to heal, to find out who he is outside of being a Todoroki, outside of being Enji's son, the failed experiment, his own avenger, and deciding on his terms how they should finally meet and talk and what kind of relationship he wants to have with them, if any at all.
It would also give the rest of them the time to once again process Touya's death, Dabi's existence, the fact their brother and child is alive once more and what that means to them individually. It's clear Touya's death was a big open wound for the family even years later, and if it wasn't still bleeding it definitely was after Dabi revealed himself, and that shits messy to deal with.
Then, we can have them meet at a dinner table. Maybe even have it be a picnic or something. When Dabi, Touya, is in a better place, because he was given the time and space to get better and finally decide for himself what he wants to do. It's the very least he's owed.
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What gets me about DOTCs is ot could've been better. Like, it's by far the worst arc in Warriors.
It kills me because they completely wasted so much good material from the field guides. COTC could have been repurposed into a 6 arc book where you follow the code as it's made, from the First Battle to the Law of Loyalty, to the rise of deputies.
But, they're unable to kill off characters they like too much, so they just slaughter powerless women to make the male arcs sadder and plunge us into fucking insultingly bad "drama" between the boys.
And by "drama" I mean Gray Wing playing defense for his brother's shitty actions endlessly, Thunder being sooo sad his Real Dad doesn't love him, and whatever the fuck they were going for with that Clear Sky Redemption Fart.
Sometimes i hear someone caw like "I like it because it's like tpb because the cats are fighting again!" And like... go read TPB because you clearly don't remember it.
In TPB, Brokenstar is dethroned in BOOK 1. Its prologue OPENS on a battle at Sunningrocks. Don't @ me that DOTC is anywhere near that level of a rollercoaster when Gray Wing cries that self defense makes him Just As Bad every 5 minutes
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