#being physically abused by someone who was meant to protect her while she was growing up
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Through The Worst // modern!Aemond x Reader
Summary: You're reminded just how much Aemond loves you.
TRIGGER WARNING!!! Self injury, in depth description of panic attack, talk of physically abusive family
CW: p in v, unprotected sex, creampie, oral f and m receiving
The starry sky has always been your companion, through the good and the bad. You take a deep breath and smile. You think of all the good in your life, your boyfriend, Aemond. Aemond, the light in your life.
Like him, your family wasn't the most stable place in your life. Fights between your parents were frequent and you had to protect your sister from more than one attempt of violence against her. When it came to you, though? You would gladly endure the pain if it meant your sister was safe.
When your mother left you and your sister with your father it was terrible. If he was angry you and your sister would find another place to spend the night. If you two were caught off guard, you did all you could to prepare yourself for a terrible night. Sometimes it was keeping food away from you, sometimes it was a beating. But it was never too much, or somewhere that could be seen by anyone else. All the hits were strategic, easily being covered by a regular t-shirt.
While your body almost never scarred, as bruises were the only injuries that would mark your skin, scars remained nonetheless. Unfortunately, those were your own doing.
It was never intentional, you would tell yourself. And it was true. Some people would see them and automatically assume that you wanted to die but that wasn't the case. If anything you just wanted to feel something.
Growing up in that household on top of not being at the best school was not a good combination. Classmates were cruel to you, whether you knew it or not. With such a kind heart you gave everyone the benefit of the doubt. Even the guys who dated you as a joke or who just wanted to add you to their body count.
Once you were old enough to get out of the house, you did. You tried to bring your sister with you but she refused. She believed that if she stayed with your father she could help him. You tried everything to convince her not to stay but she wouldn't budge. So you left home without her.
You felt someone lay down next to you in the grass. Immediately you could tell it was Aemond. You gave the sky a small smile before turning over to face him.
“Couldn't sleep?” You asked him.
He shrugged. “I was restless. I know you can't sleep sometimes so I figured I'd check in on you. You weren't in your room so I came out here.”
If you were anywhere else you'd be sharing the same bed but since you were spending the summer with Aemond’s siblings you had your own room. While his mother wasn't around you knew it would be a bit much if she heard her son was sharing a bed with someone, even with them being in college, even with his own girlfriend. So, you stayed in a room, not too far away from Aemond's, but still too far in your own opinion.
You cupped his face with your hand and ran your thumb across his cheek. “You know, I miss you at night sometimes. Even if we've spent the whole day together.”
“I miss you too, my love.” He placed his hand on top of your and kissed your palm.
You closed your eyes, content with his presence. For a while you two just lay there in the grass underneath the night sky until Aemond got up and pulled you up.
“I think it's time for bed. We can sleep in my room tonight,” he whispered.
“Oh, getting rebellious, are we?” You joked.
“No, I just want you to fall asleep in my arms tonight. Is that okay?”
“Of course it's okay.”
A gentle kiss graced the top of your head as the two of you went in for the rest of the night.
That night you slept peacefully wrapped up in Aemond’s arms. When you fell asleep he was there. When you woke up he was there. His soft snoring brought a sweet smile to your face as you brushed his hair back with your hand. His hair was also so neat, you felt somewhat blessed to see it unkept and so…comfortable.
When you saw his eyelids begin to flutter open you peppered his face with kisses.
“Good morning, my love,” you whispered in his ear.
He chuckled. “Don't do that or we may not get out of bed.”
“Do what?” You asked innocently.
He gave you a knowing look. “You know what your whispers do to me.”
“Well maybe I want that, I'm just trying to get you ready.”
“Congratulations, it worked.”
Aemond captured you in a passionate kiss. His hands ran up your body to capture your tits over your shirt. It was a flimsy shirt, but it was still too much. Aemond circled your breasts with his hands, getting closer and closer to your nippes. You whined against him and arched your back to get closer. He took advantage of that and snuck his tongue in your mouth. The feel of him adding more and more. Your hands went to his hair and you pulled him even closer.
Aemond smiled at your eagerness and gave in, running each thumb over a pebbled nub. He had been teasing you so much you felt yourself clench at his touch.
After torturing you like this a few more times, each one causing louder and louder whines, he finally relented and pulled the shirt over your head. Free from the barrier, Aemond dipped his head down to take a bud in his mouth.
“Fuck, Aemond,” you whispered.
You reached down and felt him hard under his briefs. You palmed him as he lifted his hips to meet your hand. He was just as needy as you.
As he switched from one nipple to the other you tugged down his briefs just enough to free him. Hard and red at the tip, you got excited just looking at it.
Aemond released you with a pop before pulling you into another kiss. He was about to slip off your panties when you stopped him.
“I want to taste you first,” you told him.
You skipped his briefs off all while keeping eye contact. His eye never left yours. They widened as you dipped your head down to lick the head. Just that small touch had him buck into you. You gave his head another tiny lick and he groaned.
“Take my cock, my girl. I want to see your face stuffed.”
You gave him a sly smile before taking as much of him as possible all at once. You've done this enough times to be used to the stretch. Of course, you still need to warm up before taking *all* of him.
His precum was salty on your tongue and you loved it. You swirled your tongue over his head while bobbing your own head up and down. Raising your eyes, you could see Aemond gripped the sheets and tried to keep everything in.
You hummed, causing vibrations to go through him as he flung his head back in ecstacy.
“If you don't stop I'm -”
The words spurred you on. Hallowing your cheeks and bobbing faster, you wanted him to spill himself inside you. You wanted to taste him, all of him.
“Fuck!” He spilled into your mouth and you swallowed each drop. You let him go with a pop and crawled over to him.
Aemond brought his hand to your face and wiped away a dribble of his cum that was left on your lip.
“My turn,” he said before flipping the two of you over.
You landed on your back, sprawled over the bed. Aemond gave you a mischievous grin before settling himself between your legs. He hooked an arm over each thigh to keep you from moving away.
“I don't think that's necessary -” you began to say. “Fuck!”
His head was fully between your thighs and he was languidly lapping at your folds. He was slow and deliberate with each flick of his tongue and it drove you mad. He moved his focus to your clit and sucked on it, making you whimper. You pushed your hips up to meet him in a desperate attempt for more. You could feel Aemond smile against you as he sped up his flicks and licks. You were nearing your peak, you could feel yourself tightening but he wasn't going to let you off that easily. He pushed two fingers in, making you groan in surprise and pleasure. He pumped you with his fingers hard and he felt so damn good. Curling his fingers, he found your sweet spot.
“Aemond - Aemond, please, I'm gonna -”
“It's okay, baby. Let go. I want you to soak my hand.”
At his words the building pressure crescendoed into its peak. Blinding white pleasure was all you could see. Pleasure was all you could feel. Aemond didn't stop, he fucked you with his fingers all the way through your orgasm. He didn't stop until your body had stopped shaking. Gently pulling his finger out, he placed a soft kiss on your forehead.
“I can't wait to fuck you,” he whispered.
“Then why are you waiting?” You taunted.
Aemond growled then quickly flipped you over on your stomach.
“You want to be fucked? I'll fuck you.”
He teased you, playing with your entrance with the tip of his cock. You whimpered and tried to press back into him.
“So desperate for my cock. Don't worry, you'll get what you want.”
You could hear his smile but you didn't care. He was so close and you needed him inside you. In a quick motion, Aemond sheathed himself inside you. That glorious stretch shot through your body. As many times as he's fucked you, you know you'll never get completely used to the size of him and you welcome it gladly.
Relentlessly he pounded into you, each thrust hitting that perfect spot. You loved it when he fucked you like this. It felt so perfect.
His hands gripped your hips to move you in time with him. There would be bruises from how tight he was holding you but it was something you loved.
Soon, a hand was brought around to play with your clit. You writhed against him but it was no use. You orgasm was building and building and the extra stimulation only made it rush to the surface even more.
Aemond pulled you up so you back was flat against his chest.
“Does this feel good, my love? My cock slamming into your pussy?”
“Yes, yes - fuck!”
“I need you to come for me. Can you do that?”
You mumbled out an answer.
“Aw, my baby has gone dumb,” he teased. “Let go. Come for me.”
He brought his other hand up to a breast and pinched a nipple. With a scream and the arch of you back you came undone on his cock. Aemond fucked you through it, chasing his own peak. Soon, he emptied himself inside you and the two of you collapsed on the bed.
You heard a soft laugh.
“I will never get used to that,” he whispered.
“Neither will I.”
He pressed a kiss to the back of your head before pulling himself out. You complained at the emptiness but he was quick to placate you with a warm towel to clean up.
Once the two of you were clean, Aemond gathered you into his arms and held you close.
“I love you, all of you.”
Those were the last words you heard before falling back asleep.
Screaming. All you could hear was screaming. It wasn't anyone around you; it was yourself. You hated this. You absolutely despise yourself when it happens. No control. None.
And you couldn't get it back.
It was nothing, it should've been nothing.
When you woke up you knew something was wrong. Your nightmare shook you and soon you were snowballing into a panic. A panic you couldn't stop.
When you saw that Aemond wasn't asleep next to you, you freaked out at the absence of him. Thoughts poured in from everywhere, being about everything. Maybe you were just a joke to him, just like how all the others used you. Maybe your father showed up to take you back.
You shut your eyes and pulled your knees to your chest. Rocking yourself back and forth, you tried to calm down, but to no avail.
“Aemond,” you whispered, “please come back. Please, please.”
Slowly, you began to dig your fingernails into the sides of your knees. You could feel the indents that were forming and almost wished to break skin and draw blood. Drawing blood was the only way you could feel something. Only then was the pain enough to even feel a hint of something.
You took your nails and drew them back and forth. Soon, you created a groove in your skin. You moved faster. You were desperate. You needed to feel something now or you were going to scream. While you continued to scratch you absentmindedly began to hit the back of your head on the headboard.
Two things now.
You could almost feel two things.
Looking down at your leg you saw that you broke skin. You couldn't help but smile at your achievement, sick as it was, horrible as it was; but you didn't care.
Feel. All you need it to feel.
Your snowballing thoughts soon turned into memories.
A group of girls laughing at you in the hallway.
Your first boyfriend telling you it was all a joke.
Finding another boyfriend making out with someone else.
The first time you slept with someone, thinking they cared but later laughed in your face when you asked what happens next.
Your father getting more and more aggressive as he steps closer to you.
The fear in your sister’s eyes as you take the blame.
Your father’s fist flying into your gut.
Your sister. Choosing your father over you.
It was too much. Your fingernails and the headboard were not enough for you to feel. You needed something more. You hated yourself for thinking this way but it was the only comfort you had then and the comfort you go to now.
Aemond still wasn't back. You tried to hold on for him. You knew he was coming back even if your jumbled mind told you otherwise.
“I'm so sorry,” you whispered as tears fell.
There was nothing you could do to make yourself stop. Instead, you got up, wrapped a blanket around yourself, and began looking for something, anything, that was a little sharp.
Keys. Aemond’s keys. Your eyes widened when you found them and you were quick to grab them off the dresser. Taking them in your hand, you began to scratch yourself back and forth. You were beginning to feel more and it was ecstasy. Tears tumbled down your cheeks as you let out a dry laugh. You were so focused on what you were finally feeling that you didn't hear the door open. Or hear him come behind you.
Aemond placed his hand on top of yours to stop the scratching.
“Take a breath, love.”
You stopped scratching but you were now shaking. You could barely get the words out. “Too much, Aemond. I'm so sorry.”
“There's nothing to be sorry for.”
He opened your hand and got you to drop the keys into his own. You stood there, frozen, as he put it away. He came up to you and put your hands in his.
“What happened?” He was concerned and his head was racing but his face remained soft.
“I…I don't know. I woke up, you weren't here, and I just started spiraling.”
“You had a panic attack because I wasn't next to you when you woke up?”
“No! It's not your fault!” Tears began to well up once again. “It's my head, it's my father, it's all those people in my life. They haunt me, Aemond. I've tried to erase them but whenever I get a little scared it all hits me again.”
You began to pull away from him and he let you, giving you the space to think and breathe. You bring yourself back to the bed and curl up.
“I love you, Aemond. I do. And I'm so, so sorry I'm like this. I hate it. I hate my head. I hate my father. I hate my ex’s. Hell, even to an extent I hate my sister for choosing our father over me. Everything hurts me and I hate it!”
Silence.
“Please say something,” you whisper.
Aemond sat himself down on the bed. “May I hold your hand?”
You nod and let him take your hand in his.
“No one's ever going to hurt you again. I promise you that on everything I believe in.” He brought your knuckles up to his lips and gently kissed them. “As long as I'm with you, I swear.”
You closed your eyes and finally took a deep breath. “It's so much and I wish it wasn't. I've been working so hard it all crashed.”
“And that's okay, love. No matter what, I will be next to you.”
You pushed yourself closer to Aemond, seeking his warmth. Once you were close enough, he wrapped you in his arms and kissed the top of your head.
“We'll stay in here all day if you want. Just us,” he offered.
“Just us,” you echoed. As blissful as that thought was, you shook it off. “No, we should go out. I think I need to go somewhere else.”
“The park then? Or we can watch a movie?”
You cocked your head in thought. ��Let's go for a walk, Aemond. I need to see the world again.”
“My love, I'll give you the world if you ask.” He tilted your head up and pressed a soft kiss to your lips. While there was no heat, there was still passion.
Passion, and the promise of undying protection and love.
#fics by bean#aemond targaryen#aemond one eye#aemond fanfiction#aemond targaryen x reader#hotd modern au#hotd#modern!aemond#modern!aemond x reader
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The Point of Love Triangles
It's en vogue to hate on love triangles right now, and while a good deal of the criticism is deserved, I think people are missing the point of what a love triangle is meant for. A love triangle when used correctly is an extremely useful tool to show a character's growth, personality, and values.
The most important thing you can understand: a love triangle is the physical manifestation of a metaphysical crossroads and the focal character must make the choice. A question has been asked, and it must be answered. The focal character (the one everyone wants) can't go back to their old life, and now they're forced to make a decision on who they want to be going forward. The paths they can take (and the consequences of those paths) are shown by their love interests.
I'm going to illustrate with the classic love triangle: the new girl, the bad boy, and the good boy. Of course, it doesn't matter the genders of the characters or how many potential love interests there are, but this makes it easier to explain.
The New Girl (focal character) is thrown into a new world. The "New World" spectrum goes from literal (space travel/teleportation/pulled through time) to the figurative (new job/growing up/new school/rebuilding a broken life) with plenty of grey area in between (hidden secret society/new country/war). The New Girl is out of her depth and confused in this new world, and she's faced with dilemmas and decisions she'd never faced before. In a more life-focused world, this might mean choosing whether or not to play the power games everyone else in the office plays, choosing to leave a friend group she doesn't like or confront the others about what she doesn't like, choosing whether or not to go to parties where there are drugs and alcohol, choosing whether or not to stick up to a bully who is targeting her or someone else, choosing whether to follow her passion for the arts or the safe route of a stable job, etc. In a more action-oriented world, this might mean choosing whether or not she's willing to kill and for what, choosing to fight when she could choose to be safe, choosing forgiveness over revenge, choosing whether or not to use morally corrupt means to get power for what she thinks is a good cause, etc.
The two love interests should have contrasting answers to that question. This is why she can't choose between them: it's not that she isn't sure whose abs she likes more. She can't decide between them because she can't decide which answer is the right one. This does not mean that one of the love interests has to be evil/abusive.
The Bad Boy represents power. He doesn't follow the rules he doesn't want to, he's intense, he's persecuted by society, and he doesn't cave to social pressure. He wears his moral code on his sleeve, whether that's good or bad: he'll threaten violence on a bully, disrespect authority figures he thinks are wrong, and confidently advocate for what he wants. He puts his money where his mouth is and is willing to suffer for what he thinks is right, detention, write ups, physical pain. He wasn't just born this way: his strength comes from deep wounds and old hurt. He was weak once, and he knows the suffering that causes, and now he wants to keep anyone else from suffering the same way again. He doesn't just protect the New Girl, he empowers her. If the New Girl is being bullied, mistreated by an authority figure, forced to conform by her parents, wants to pursue a riskier life path, wants to protect people, or wants revenge, this attitude can look very attractive. Long term, though, this kind of personality can lead to difficulty getting/keeping a job, unnecessary trouble with authority figures, stubborn refusal to compromise/not realizing the other person feels railroaded, etc.
The Good Boy represents safety. He follows the regulations of society, he's laid back, he's diplomatic, and he's better attuned to how other people feel. Being law abiding doesn't mean he would follow bad rules, but he buttons his shirt, straightens his tie, and walks on the crosswalk only when the light says he can. He cares what people think and feel, and he tries to be something that they like. He can be susceptible to peer pressure, participating in activities he doesn't really like because he wants to make people happy, and bending the truth to avoid ruffling feathers. He also picks up on little things people like and remembers: he found out when New Girl's birthday is and brings her favorite coffee (he read her order on a receipt she dropped) and a cake pop (strawberry, to match the earrings she wears), he runs ahead to open doors for everyone (not just women/New Girl), he stays after a party to help clean up, and he's good at picking on things that bother people and steering the conversation away from those things. He's kind, stable, and sticks to what he knows works. If the New Girl struggles with anger issues or impulsivity, comes from a chaotic home life, wants peace and a steady life after the conflict, needs to learn forgiveness, or needs to learn to overcome a prejudice, the Good Boy shows what she could learn to be. He comes with downsides too, though: he avoids conflict, he can struggle to take a firm side because he can see both sides, he might value societal acceptance over defending the New Girl in a questionable decision, and his long-term goals might mean the main character would have to give up her wilder side.
Who the New Girl chooses isn't just her choosing a partner. It's her choosing a life and a set of values. This is why it's very important that she makes a choice. If you don't want her to end up with a love interest, keep in mind that rejecting both suitors will seem to the reader like she's rejecting both paths. Maybe she is rejecting both paths and forging her own path, but it will be hard to have her choose one of the two paths and but also reject the love interest who represents that path without undermining your message and her character arc.
Framing the whole love triangle around the moral ideals the characters represent makes plotting the whole story easier.
You know your New Girl needs to have a reason to like the Bad Boy, so she's persistently targeted by a bully and he not only defends her but builds her confidence and skill so she can defend herself.
You know your New Girl needs a reason to like the Good Boy, so he talks her out of trouble with an authority she offended and gives her a few tips on how to use tact and charm to her advantage.
You know you need a sweet scene with both, so you have Good Boy notice that she's been upset all day when no one else did, ask her about it when they're alone, let her be vulnerable, and comfort her.
For Bad Boy's sweet scene, she patches him up after he jumps into a fight to protect her, and when she says that she's not worth it and he shouldn't have gotten hurt just because she was too weak, he tells her that she is worth it and that she's stronger than she knows.
You need to show how both the love interests change her and how she changes them too.
New Girl in the beginning might harshly judge someone for their religion, social class, personality, or background because she's been mistreated by that person or by people like them before or because her side is in conflict with that side. After learning the value of gentleness and kindness from Good Boy, New Girl changes her mind and is kind/merciful to someone she previously disliked. After learning the value of protecting others, she defends that person from someone else.
New Girl might confront Bad Boy about how he hides his pain and feelings behind a mask of strength, which prompts him to share with her something he's never shared with anyone before: a secret passion like painting or music, fears he's always tried to hide, scars with a tragic background, etc.
New Girl might confront Good Boy when he chooses not to get involved in an argument she needs his backup in. He justifies himself by saying that he can do more good by staying in the good graces of the person she was arguing with, but she calls it cowardice. He takes this to heart and apologizes, and later does defend her in another confrontation.
If you want her to date both love interests before making a decision, you have her head a little ways down one path before coming to another crossroad and needing to decide whether to continue down that path or change her mind and go the other way.
For instance, she dates Good Boy, but when she goes to a high society party with him, she's disgusted by how fake everyone is and by the mask he puts on to blend in with them. New Girl has to decide if she values the connections and power that these social games can bring her or if she values living authentically at all times more.
Maybe she dates Bad Boy, but his rules don't apply to me attitude gets them both arrested and nearly charged with a crime. Worse, he doesn't seem to regret anything other than getting caught and starts planning to try the same thing again. New Girl has to decide if she wants to be someone who lives a truly high-risk life with the real consequences that could bring or if she wants to play things safer.
Maybe she dates both, breaks up with both, and then one or both of them makes a choice too. Remember, the focal character is a crossroads for the love interest too. Both of the love interests should change as people, not because "she can change him <3" but because they are dynamic characters just as capable of moral reflection and development as she is. Will the Bad Boy learn to deal with painful emotions with trying to hide behind anger? Will the Good Boy choose New Girl and the boldness she represents to him over social status with fake people?
You can also:
Add more love interests so long as those love interests also represent their own moral choice
Replace either love interest with a friend (make the New Girl choose between one friend or another, make her choose between a love interest or a friend group, etc.)
Replace either love interest with a job
Replace either love interest with a parent (make the New Girl choose between the values/culture of her family and the values/culture of a love interest)
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ok info dumping about the old au I had. mostly just precanon stuff bc I just wanna get something out so I can sleep but I can talk about the rest tommorow if u want.
so! during one of eda's trips to the human realm, 6 year old luz ends up stumbling across the portal and accidentally ends up getting herself stranded in the demon realm (and since she’s very frightened and confused, she doesn’t go up to eda, so eda never actually realised this happened).
after a while, though, news of a tiny human child does end up spreading, and luz quickly gets caught by the coven scouts. understandably, she’s terrified and she’s convinced she's going to be killed but obviously that doesn’t happen bc y’know. random scouts aren’t going to kill a toddler for existing. that’s not a crime.
when belos hears about her he’s obviously immediately like “another human lost in this world? clearly it is just like me and caleb and i need to protect this sole other human from the Dangers Of This Realm for reasons completely unrelated to me trying to make caleb 2. obviously.” so adoption (derogatory) ends up happening.
and this Isn’t Great for luz for what are hopefully obvious reasons. being raised in an incredibly sheltered environment by a bigoted extremist who's also really fucking abusive isn’t a fun time. luz does try to escape for a while, and while she doesn’t because she’s six she does end up discovering some pretty secure hiding places. and in hiding, she sees and learns a lot she was never meant to.
still, she's being actively indoctrinated into a cult, so despite what she sees, she still trusts and believes in her adoptive father because she doesn’t know any better. she assumes what happens must be normal or necessary. after all, shes just a silly human, regular old luz who just is completely unremarkable in everything but failure. it bothers her a lot that she can’t do much to help.
when she first arrives, our hunter doesn’t even exist yet, and the old golden guard who was dariuses mentor is still around. i mean by old hes like in his twenties max but that’s ancient by grimwalker standards at this point. he sort of becomes this mentor figure to luz, too, and she really idolises him. she wants to be just like him, in how he's able to do so much without magic. she's really close to him.
which means it hits hard when he's killed. especially since, unseen by anyone in an unnoticed corner somewhere, she sees it happen. it traumatises her quite a lot, though she's good at hiding it and never lets it slip she was somewhere she wasn’t meant to be. when the new hunter comes around, though, she does take it out on this weird new young copy of someone who was practically an older brother to her. not intentionally, and not to like, a huge degree, but she's very distant to him at first.
they do eventually grow very very close, due to basically being the only person the other is allowed to really talk to, and luz stops seeing him as some sort of replacement. after all, they might look similar, but they act completely different! the old hunter was always calm, always reliable, but the new one is young and scared and needs a guiding hand through life in the castle, which luz is of course able to provide.
luz and hunter grow up in quite similar ways. luz is allowed to leave the castle much less- after all, it’d be a shame to lose the only other human left in some silly mission- but she's generally physically harmed a lot less too, though she does have a few scars that no one her age should have. both of them are manipulated and emotionally abused frequently, and are lead along by promises of a false destiny.
while hunter, of course, falls into a blind obedience, luz is privately a lot more sceptical. not that she doubts her papa is trying his best and doing the right thing, of course, but she worries he's going about it all the wrong way. while this makes her more easily swayed, she’s also unlikely to give up her views that wild magic is dangerous even if she realises her life was a lie. clearly, he must have been corrupted from a once noble goal.
she's also desperately lonely, and privately longs for friends that she knows she’s not allowed. when she has the time, she reads and rereads all the fiction available in the library, and desperately imagines herself as one of the young witches in them, able to go outside freely and talk to whoever they like and have adventures! but she knows she'll never be like that. after all, what are the odds she'd ever make it on her own, even if she somehow left the castle despite not knowing how.
(until, of course, a freak accident on a mission leaves her ending up unwillingly in the care of the owl lady, who doesn’t know who she is but knows she’s a human and someone who needs help, and surely it wouldn’t be that bad if she spent just a few days with a wild witch, right? surely she could make a few friends among the populace, right? no one would even know.)
#the owl house#the owl house aus#luz wittebane au#tw harm to children#tw abuse#tw kidnapping#tw self hatred#tw manipulation#tw murder#tw isolation
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Making fun of people’s mental health issues, even if they aren’t people that you particularly like, is absolutely despicable. This is incredibly poor behaviour for a so called “historian”. Whatever happened to working against historical bias? You don’t have to like bpc, but maybe check yourself first before you mock someone’s alcoholism
Anon,
You are indeed correct that I am not particularly fond of Charles Edward Stuart. That said, you should not treat a three to four lines long post on Tumblr the same as a scholarly opinion expressed in, say, a thesis or a paper. These are different media, and serving different purposes.
The post is already marked as not being anything close to historical fact as it deals with Charles Edward and his father being (un-) able to set up bots, which, given the different landscape of technology and information media in their day and sardonic tone, should be enough to know not to treat this post as a scholarly piece.
I agree that illnesses are a difficult subject and have to be dealt with sensibly.
In the case at hand, there is ample historical record suggesting that Charles Edward Stuart was generally not a very pleasant person to deal with, growing increasingly worse following the failed rebellion in Scotland, which seems to be the time when he made visibly intoxicated appearances in public more often. Being seen behaving erratically further hurt his cause as it led to potential European supporters feeling that he was in no shape to make another (and successful) attempt on the British throne (or even just on Scotland), which frustrated him, and perhaps contributed to his alcohol abuse, which also alienated him from his partner Clementina Walkinshaw and only daughter.
Walkinshaw left Charles after putting up with a little shy of a decade of physical and psychological abuse to protect their young daughter Charlotte and herself from harm, possibly with the help of his own father, as Charles' controlling ways meant she would have had little chance of just closing the door and leaving, even more so as mother and daughter would have been financially dependent on Charles, who, for the next 23 years, did not support his child as she grew up and declined wanting any contact with her.
Given this historical background which the post and tags also allude to, I felt it was safe as not to be misread as a general vilification of people struggling with alcohol abuse (who are, which is important to mention, not automatically abusive, particularly intentionally so, to other people by the way), but an expression of a personal distaste for this particular man featured in the post which is coloured by the fact he turned violent against people in a socially and physically weaker position than and dependent on him while intoxicated, and did so, as the lengthy period of the abuse and indeed disparaging letters written by him suggest, unremorsefully.
This does of course not mean that I think Charles Edward Stuart would not have deserved help, a kind of help that sadly was not available at the time, or that I have a distaste for any (modern) person who struggles with an addiction of any kind. If you had taken the time to check my past post history, you would have found that there is nothing to suggest so.
Your criticism has however alerted me to the fact that I forgot to add warning-/mention-tags to the post as I normally would, so that people who do not wish to stumble over a post mentioning either alcoholism or domestic abuse can filter it; I have rectified that.
To me, the line "[y]ou don’t have to like bpc" especially in conjunction with you also citing "working against the historical bias", reads as though your main point of issue with my post is that I do not like Charles Edward Stuart and made an according comment on my blog.
If this is the case, my best advice (something you were so free in giving me unwantedly that I in turn am confident you will hear out mine) to you is to not engage with people whose opinions you don't agree with rather than getting up and personal in anons.
I don't know you (and you clearly don't want to be known by me even in a loose internet-acquaintance way, seeing as you used the anon function for your ask), and don't have to agree with me; but I am also firmly of the opinion that the key to good, peaceful coexistence in any space where people meet is to engage them respectfully.
To me, your response is emblematic of the worrying trend of (internet-) anti-intellectualism that does not tolerate discourse in that, instead of expressing polite critique, you resort to a public response coupled with attacking the credentials you deem me to have under the guise of defending what, nonnegotiably, is a good cause (namely the dignified treatment of people who suffer from mental illnesses) by taking a post out of context, or misreading its message.
Lastly, I would also like to remind you that first and foremost, you are responsible for curating your own online experience and how that, and your resulting behaviour, affects others; you are of course free to disagree with me or any other poster on this site or anywhere else, but there are other, more proportionate responses to not liking a post someone put on their own personal blog than getting up and personal in an accusatory anon message.
Your personal feelings on a matter are not necessarily those of others, and to shout at a stranger because you do not agree with them is poor form both in person and online.
You are free to block people, including me, whose posts you don’t want to see and sites like AO3 or Tumblr allow you to filter tags.
Perhaps the best, and most effortless response is to move on from posts that you do not agree with. This does of course not mean you should ignore things such as hate speech or other content that violates Tumblr user guidelines, or indeed the law (e. g. doxing, (explicit) images posted without the consent of the person in them, or in some places, denying the Holocaust happened etc.), but if a post simply does not sit right with you personally, sometimes the best response is none at all. There is so much content on Tumblr alone that each of us could fill our entire day just sending (and in turn, receiving) rude anons to people we disagree with for one or the other reason.
If you feel like wanting to discuss something you read with the original poster, perhaps the best response is to send them a private message, and ask politely “what do you mean by [x]?” or “could you please explain?” rather than sending them a rude anon attacking them personally. Many people, including me, are genuinely open to discussion and constructive criticism and will listen to what you have to say if you approach them politely.
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I know some many might asked about this but do you know more source that cancel those fails claims that Amber abused her friends/gf, I got few only but I think I need more.
Sure, I'll share what I've got. The four here are the ones I know they've made those claims about.
Tasya van Ree
I already spoke to this so I'm just gonna share a collection of links
Here where I debunked it the first time, with sources
Here where I wrote a second post debunking it in light of Leonard's testimony & knowing Van Ree was ultimately not called as a witness
Amber also denied it in both UK and US trials, however I recognize that's not super strong evidence because they aren't going to take her word.
Rocky Pennington
All the things here come from her deposition unless otherwise sourced:
When asked if she considers Amber a friend, she says, "I wouldn't consider her not a friend." When asked to elaborate, she says, "We don't speak. We are not enemies," then clarifies that they are no longer speaking because, "We grew apart" due to wanting to "prioritize other relationships." She says they last spoke around 6 months prior to the deposition (Jan 20, 2022 per the timestamp) and had been speaking about her (Amber’s) baby who hadn’t yet been born. After the divorce, there was a period of time where she and Amber were living together again around 2017-2018.
Regarding the fight the two got into, Rocky describes a disagreement about finding some wine glasses (it sounds like this was in the 2017-2018 period when they were living together), where Rocky thought she had already looked in a particular place and they got into an argument, which Rocky says she thinks is because Amber thought she wasn’t looking hard enough. Rocky says that during the argument, she pushed Amber, and that Amber then pushed or hit her back (”She either pushed or hit me back. [...] I think it was on my cheek”).
She denies having had any other “physical altercations” with Amber. While I’m not saying it’s great, I don’t think arguing with a friend and then hitting someone back after they pushed you (especially when you’re a survivor of abuse and may have reacted from fight-or-flight) and never having any other physical altercations is evidence of abuse. As such, there’s no evidence supporting the claim she abused Rocky.
Of note, in the UK trial (this transcript, page 2289) she says they are still close friends at that time (7/24/2020), which implies the argument described above was not the reason for their friendship ending.
Kate James
In this post I broke down the allegations she was abusive to James as well as the allegations she stole James’ SA story
Whitney Henriquez
Testimony & cross-examination:
She says during cross that growing up she and Amber tried to protect one another from their father’s abuse. She also describes in her testimony that at one point Depp hit her (Henriquez) which had led Amber to hit Depp while telling him "don’t hit my fucking sister.”
When initially asked in cross if she’s had conflicts with Amber, Henriquez says, “We’re sisters. Of course we’ve argued.” When asked if she has ever wanted to “run away for days” to get away from Amber, Henriquez says she feels that’s being taken out of context and was not meant to be taken literally. She admits to joking with Depp about him hitting Amber before being fully aware that he was actually abusing her.
She says she stopped living with the two due to Depp accusing her of leaking things about their wedding. (In day 13 of the UK trial, linked below, she said she fell out with both of them due to this.)
UK trial (day 13 transcript):
Henriquez says she has never witnessed Amber be violent to others (outside of the staircase incident which she, as in the US trial, characterizes as Amber protecting her), then clarifies, “We tussled as kids when we were children; but no, I have 16 not seen her be violent with anybody.” When asked, she denies having ever been hit by Amber as an adult and also denies being afraid of Amber in any way.
Henriquez characterizes her and Amber’s relationship as, “Even in times where we were falling out, I am her sister, I am always in her life, and, yes, she is also one of my best friends” (pg 2121).
UK trial (day 14 transcript):
The video of some women claiming Amber “beat up” Henriquez is discussed. Apparently it was filmed somewhere around 2006-2007 as part of a reality show, but was allegedly unscripted and not intended for broadcast.
Henriquez denies that the argument was physical. She says that it was only verbal and that there were actually no injuries and the woman speaking in the video was just trying to dramatize the situation, saying, “I was not talking about a physical fight. That was that person inferring and trying to make a story line, albeit a bad one, interesting, nothing more” (pg 2265). She says the reason she keeps saying she doesn’t want to talk about it is because “I had no interest in bringing a personal fight with my sister, a verbal argument with my sister, a very personal matter to me, on camera. That is all I was doing. I had no interest in doing that” (pg 2266), saying she was just trying to shut the conversation down. She says that the woman in question was “looking for injuries that were not there.”
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Imagine you were born disoriented. It takes years just to get your right and left down let alone being able to read a circular clock.
Your mom is separated from your dad, never married. You don't know it but she does highly addictive drugs that make her serious mental problems even more serious.
Your sisters turn on you every chance you get because you're an oblivious and easy target. You assume everyone has your best intention at heart so you don't see they are being malicious.
The constant yelling, screaming, beatings, and cruel punishments leave you with no sense of security.
The insults and constant misunderstandings of who you are cause you to fracture and never develop a base identity.
People say reach inside yourself and it's like your hand going through a ghost because you see and feel nothing there.
Yet you are. You are observable to other people and you dont know how much so.
You are in a poor family with used clothes that don't fit. You always smell from stress and often an inability to care for yourself due to the fact that even going to shower will increase the probability of a scary or dangerous situation.
All you want is to be known. To be seen. But also you don't want to be seen.
There's a constant struggle that makes you awkward and unnatural to others.
Then when you are seen it is grossly obviously that you aren't meant to be there. Like you had walked into the wrong school.
You didn't know how to interact. No one had ever taken the time to show you and you are sensitive and hyper aware due to everything going on at home.
Kids sense the difference. Smell the difference. See the difference. Hear the difference and while once in a great while someone takes interest, most find you creepy and annoying. Some even go so far as to sabotage and hurt you. And even when that didn't happen there was always a air of, 'what are you doing here?' 'you are unwelcome.'
You continue to be oblivious. The abuse at home makes you feel like this is the natural result of being you. This is who you are and it's your fault and everyone hates you for it- but at the same time you know it isn't your fault.
You were just a baby and didn't have any opportunity to grow.
Your father was just as bad. Most interactions were threatening or creepy. You always felt cornered. You always felt that he was a predator - even as young as you can possibly remember. In your body you knew he was bad.
As young as four at least you can remember the confusion and disorientation as he bounces you on his lap- but not like everyone else did. Like he was stimulating himself in some sick way. And when he came to check in on you at night you didn't feel protected. You felt like something was going to happen to you.
There was no safe place so you stayed small and sensitive. As a mental child you continued begging for that in which you should have gotten then.
As a woman, you eventually find men want a piece of you. Physically. They couldn't give a damn how you feel enough to do anything about it.
Your body and mind were violated at every turn.
The toll was taken and you stopped being able to even try. You think you will just end your life so many times meanwhile you are reaching out for people.
People you know. Strangers online. Your abusers. You are always begging for care and security.
You get into so many relationships with people. You think someone has to care enough but even when you're being actively abused they just get mad at you for upsetting them with your sad fucked up life.
You are alone. Even when you do get out. Even when you have someone with you. Even if you're with multiple people.
You start to get sicker and sicker with people until you can't force yourself to do it anymore.
You center men in your lives and trust them with everything you have because you know that you can not manage on your own. You have not been able to heal. You still have not been able to be heard, understood, and felt. You don't hold on to what happened but the pain does not leave you.
You can't forgive the helplessness. The neglect. The misunderstandings.
You forgive the person a million times but these things still have effected you.
You choose to change. To work on yourself. You start to see progress but the progress but you know it won't last when you know you are still helpless.
A lot of people promise to be there and protect you.
All of them lay their hands on you. Ignore your suffering. Leave you alone to dust yourself off.
You don't feel you can trust or rely on anyone. You can't rely on yourself either. You know that you always try to be rational and logical, objective, empathetic- you do so much emotional labor for others because you know they won't do it for themselves and your hightened empathy means you care so much-- so so so so SO MUCH.
It took you a long long time to start thinking of your own needs instead of constantly just trying to suit another- but. .. you still can't care for yourself. you still need help. You are always greatful to help when you can do you think naturally if you do your best others will too-
And that works... Kind of. You help bring people up and you love that but you still aren't being taken care of. You are still being disrespected and hurt.
You had pushed yourself so hard from not being able to get yourself out of bed to getting things done every day-- fighting excuses to better yourself.
You're stronger for trying so hard. For taking action. For forcing yourself on your terms.
But still nothing is better for you. The person who says you are the day and the night to them is still making excuses even though you had made all this progress.
You know you and them would have never made it this far if you hadn't made changes and continuously worked on your mindset but they are being stubborn.
They refuse to sacrifice and work properly and makes everything as miserable as possible. Instead of taking your example and trying to uplift each other they just made you drag your weight and theirs.
Sure. They will say things like, 'i never asked you to do that' and you see the disrespect in that. Of course you had to do what you did or it would not have gotten done.
You put your faith in this person at every turn but they continue with their dusty attitudes of 'i will' and 'im trying' instead of being a reliable no nonsense no excuses kind of person that you value and are trying to be yourself.
You love them. You want them with all your heart... But you are growing smarter than your heart. You have to take into account your position as someone who is vulnerable and that person's likelihood of coming through for them into account....
Then you hear a phrase.
"Men don't try to fix woman. They just get a new woman."
You want to cry. You want to laugh. This was the truest thing you had ever heard.
No one had ever tried to help you change. Yet you tried to go out of your way in all kinds of ways to help every single person who has ever been in your life- even to your detrament at times.
You always choose to see the value in others and thrive on their potential.
You're seeing your only chance at life is going down the drain.
You're the only one you've ever known to try this hard for people who didn't take care of you and often abused you.
This made you stronger. This made you more kind and understanding. You don't regret it, but you're seeing that you are taken for a fool at every turn.
You're tired of waiting for change. You have such willingness as asked of you and yet no actions are taken. No new knowledge is aquired.
You are tired of waiting.
You don't even know if it will be worth it because they had only shown up for you a few times.
You accepted behavior that you would have blocked many for less.
You are done dealing with it.
You will not handle how you are treated any more.
You will be treated right or you will go look for someone who will because you know you deserve better.
You have been willing to deal with everything just to be with someone who can't complete simple tasks without emoting in ways that make everyone feel bad for asking them.
You are starting to see them as a loser. You love them but they are a loser. They took all their pain and made it everyone else's problem.
If they don't change you need to commit to yourself to figure this out because they are showing daily that the only person who will care is you.
They could be broken up with and have their little sob story and go back to what they were doing before you met them and they will just call you a bitch for it. Someone like that has not shown they have your back.
You need to be shown it now.
You gave away all your trust and understanding for free before to anyone who asked for it but you are putting your foot down.
You are tired of loosing people but you can not be scared to go. As long as you sit around scared to leave you will be taken advantage of and nothing will change.
A man will not change for you. You are not a good enough reason for them to care.
You shouldn't have bothered with one that needs changing anyways. No one invests in a lame limbed horse.
Love is becoming less important to you the more you realized how fucked you are.
Your partner acts completely blind to the fact that they have a family, they have a job, they have friends, they have security.
You are not protected and they are not protecting you. They are not doing all they can do.
You are seeing that them looking up mental resources a couple times is not lasting change and for as long as there is more time spent on temperary coping the more they areissing out on real growth and healing.
You see them waste every second. They take you for granted. You and all the love you have given.
They promise to be better but you don't know how many more times you can believe that
You're starting to think you need a way to hold them accountable for all the broken promises but then what? More complaining? More bs? Youre tired.
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You Have the Ability to Go from Nothing to Something Amazing
Fatima Oliver is a wife, mother of four boys, an author, and an extreme lover of chocolate. The loss of her first child was the epitome of heartbreak. She felt like a tremendous failure to her husband and as a woman. When her marriage ended she felt bamboozled as though life was one big joke at her expense. Have you ever felt that way?
Both tragedies taught Fatima how unfair life can be but also exposed an opportunity for faith to carry her.
Fatima has embraced self-discovery and acceptance by challenging insecurity, anxiety, and depression from childhood trauma, heartbreak, and physical abuse. The result brought tremendous breakthroughs in her life and helped cultivate some baby steps she shares with others.
We are not meant to do life alone. Everyone needs a safe place to fall.
It is critical to change a victim mentality to a victory mindset - here is how
Accepting hard truths is essential
Releasing people from great expectations is a path to forgiveness
During Fatima's interview, she will give you the key steps for your soul healing journey and give you the strength to continue:
Fatima is offering a bonus for anyone listening to this interview - a 20-minute "Safe Place” session, where you are able to share what's on your heart, uninterrupted. There is great power in being heard and what is shared stays in this safe space.
The Prescription is in the Dirt is a bold, funny, illuminating, and sometimes hard-to-swallow inspirational memoir, that embraces the journey to self-love and acceptance. It served as an extension of freedom and therapy while writing it and is now used to lift the voices of those considering their own soul journey.
Speaking the truth in love is not just powerful when it is towards others. It is even more impactful when it is used for self-reflection. Waiting on loved ones to grow, was wasting time I could be using to mature myself. I needed to start participating in the change that was happening in my life instead of reacting to it all the time. This meant releasing unrealistic expectations for people to live up to, and accepting them right where they are. Then, peacefully detached myself from any future scenarios that did not respect my growth.
"For years I believed love meant suffering from someone unconditionally. Love is long-suffering but it is also gentle - not a host of emotional and mental torment. But hurt people hurt people.
This truth does not lose its value based on who is dishing out the offense. This is why some people should be loved from across the street. I am thankful for the route I had to take to learn these life lessons. Trudging through discomfort and down-right tragedies helped me to find my identity.
My pain exposed God’s grace. My fears exposed His protection. And the rejection I encountered by those I loved the most, revealed his undying love for me. Our behavior is a reflection of our freedom, and I was bound for most of my life, waiting for someone to come and do for me what I was unwilling to do for myself."
Check out this episode!
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let's talk about lily evans and the marauders, aka moony, wormtail, padfoot and prongs. given that i didn't use their actual names, i think you can figure out where this is going. it's also long as hell, so. canon vs fanon, marauder edition, except snek is sleep deprived.
now, before we begin, i don't dislike the marauders. or lily, tbh. if I'm being perfectly, genuinely honest, i still go back and forth sometimes but they've been growing on me for a while now. the canon versions, at least. fanon does them real dirty, and that's part of why i'm writing this, because i'm genuinely tired of it. it's an injustice.
you can at least make excuses for james and lily, who were so undeveloped that jkr practically dropped a fill-in-the-blank sheet of character information in our laps, but sirius, remus and peter were around long enough for y'all to get real acquainted with them.
in canon, sirius black is an unhinged mf. genuinely. this isn't to say he's a bad guy, in fact, we see that he's still capable of doing good things, still capable of love, still capable of all the things that prove he's actually not bad at heart, just,,, severely traumatised and very steeped in negativity from his time with the dementors. what i'm saying is that this man is absolutely, no questions asked, no holds barred demented, and how could he not be? the guy sat wrongfully imprisoned in azkaban for twelve years, a good portion of which he spent as a dog in order to protect himself from the dementors. he certainly wasn't completely insane, but you cannot tell me that he was all there. he got out of azkaban fuelled almost solely by the intent to get revenge on pettigrew, tried to commit murder in front of three witnesses who were also children—one of whom was his godson—ate rats and was also malnourished, which i'm certain did not help the situation any. this man is off his goddamn rocker, and you know what? you love to see it. good for him.
oh, but, snek, that's what he's like as an adult. what about when they were at school? before azkaban? my guy, the reaction he has to grimmauld place is not the reaction of someone without trauma. i don't believe that walburga and orion were the type to physically abuse their children, but whatever happened in that house helped to fuck him up enough that he skipped the joke of part of practical joke, and pranked snape by telling him how to meet a werewolf that he knew would be fully transformed and dangerous to humans. more than that, the werewolf was remus, whom he's friends with, and who—best case scenario—would be facing a trial if james hadn't stepped in. you can say that maybe he didn't think about or understand the gravitas of his actions, but at the end of it, that's not how properly sane people react to people they dislike, and that's not how they treat their friends. if anything, it reads like he was in the middle of a breakdown and absolutely losing his shit and he wasn't thinking at all.
my guy went through some serious shit, and was in no way completely mentally stable. we can see pretty clearly that he's got a serious dark side to him that probably would have gone unbridled had he not disagreed with his family, and yet, fanon took one look at him and went, "teehee, uwu bad boi go vroom."
fanon said padfoot is a pretty boy with nice hair who is tastefully traumatised from his horribly abusive household. sirius rides his motorcycle and plays jokes and flirts with anything that moves, but he can do no real wrong and always comes back to his soft, bookish, chocolate-loving boyfriend remus, who will laugh about his lycanthropy and quietly disapprove but secretly laugh at his friends' antics while hiding his smile in his cardigan.
respectfully, what in the absolute fuck.
i'd put that meme in here if i could, the one that's like, "well done, you've broken _______ down to its bare essentials," but no. i can't bc it doesn't even apply. this isn't a meme, it's theseus' fucking ship.
fanon broke it down, and replaced the pieces one by one until we got to this point, where we need to sit down and ask ourselves, "is this even the same character?"
the answer is no, by the way. it isn't. when people talk about woobifying characters—you know, taking away every flaw they have, romanticising everything they do and making them only capable of doing good, wonderful, lovely things?—this is what we mean.
and it'd be one thing if it was just the one character, but, no. fanon went all in and made them all squeaky clean and boring, especially peter, who draws the shortest of the straws.
remus got fucked, too. not just because fanon insists on sticking him into a relationship with sirius. which, we'll tackle wolfstar in a bit, but that's not even the worst of it. here, we have yet another example of blatant, rampant woobifying. again, is he a bad person? no. we know he's a good guy, we know he's generally kind and well-mannered, we know that he wants to fo the right thing but hey, fun fact. did you know that you can be nice and a coward? did you know that you can be benevolent and good and kindly and have the greatest of intentions and still be shady as fuck? no? ask dumbledore. the man played people like chess pieces when he needed to, and he was a twinkly grandpa. these are things that can coexist.
teenage remus is a coward who, understandably, does not stand up to his friends, likely for fear of being ostracised, and doesn't uphold his prefect duties as he should and takes part in their bullying of snape as a result. he lets them romp with him in werewolf form while they are in their animagus forms and then, he lets them continue to do so even after they have multiple close calls, which, again, had anything happened, would have resulted in a trial in the best case scenario.
grownup remus is still a coward, he tells no one that sirius can move about the school in his animagus form despite wholeheartedly believing that he's a mass murderer, he tries to run out on his wife and unborn kid. he isn't deliberately making attempts to harm anyone, but he's content to sit back and let things happen to him and around him so he doesn't rock the boat, although he is capable of action, which we see when he is more than willing to help sirius merk pettigrew in the shack. he can be careless, he runs out to the shack knowing he hasn't taken his wolfsbane and ends up transforming in front of the students he, as a teacher, is meant to be protecting. of course, this doesn't negate his good qualities, it just bears repeating that his flaws do exist, and they're pretty serious.
fanon moony is always pleasant and kind and soft-spoken and bookish, and he always has to have his chocolate. he knows when to tell off his friends, and he'll do it, even if he's secretly amused by everything they do and laughs about it with his best friend, lily evans, who coincidentally spends all her time with them so he and sirius can go on double dates with james and lily and no one has to remember peter exists.
why. theseus' ship 2.0. does the actual character still exist or is this something entirely different thing bearing the same name?
as for peter, who needs peter pettigrew, the actual, legitimate, fourth marauder when you have lily evans? canon pettigrew is opportunistic as fuck. he's latching himself to the biggest bad on the block and he's going all in. for teenage peter, that was james and sirius, and for adult peter, that's voldemort. canon peter is good enough at transfiguration to master the animagus transformation, just like his friends, and he's good enough at potions to brew the potion that gives voldemort a body. and honestly, you can't say he wasn't brave. he could've run off somewhere and died, or changed his identity or something after he faked his death and framed sirius, but, no. he goes and resurrects voldemort. that's fucked up, yeah, but it happened and honestly, i respect that it. he stuck to his guns.
fanon wormtail is lucky if he exists beyond being a spineless sycophant for james and sirius, or an evil conniving little rat who's looking to toss his entire friend group to the wolves at eleven.
of course, this isn't meant to negate his bad qualities, he still murdered people and framed sirius and sold out the potters to die, but his good characteristics do exist, and james, sirius and remus genuinely were his friends.
and now, we get to lily and james.
we have hardly any information on either of them. they're a pair of cardboard cutouts that we can paint and stick flyers to and colour outside the lines however we want. we can do whatever the fuck, as long lily is brave and smart and somewhat kind and james is brave and willing to die for his family. we were essentially handed a pair of ocs.
and yet.
what little bits of canon we have are thrown out of the window regardless.
james is privileged and rich, and he throws hexes for fun. he's willing to hex lily when she disagrees with him, and then, he goes behind her back to continue hexing snape after she believes that he's stopped doing so. and that's all we know about him until he dies for his family at twenty-one years old. once again, say it with me: this does not negate his good qualities. he definitely had them, he took sirius in when sirius ran away from home, he became an animagus to keep remus company as a wolf, and he saved snape in the shack, thereby saving remus and sirius by extension. him having flaws does not make him a bad person.
fanon prongs is a feminist. he fights for equal rights for women everywhere, and he constantly treats his girlfriend, lily, like an absolute queen. he's the hottest boy in school and everyone claps when he walks through the halls. mcgonagall and dumbledore are always patting him on the back and making jokes with him. he has a built-in dark detector that helps him sense when someone is a evil and needs to he punished.
give me a break. the dude's cool and all, but was the gary stu treatment necessary?
...oh, he needed to match fanon lily? right, right.
canon lily is a contradiction unto herself. she's supposedly a great friend, but since we see her at a point where they were already drifting apart, we see her putting little effort into keeping their friendship afloat. she victim blames based on rumours, she doesn't seem to care over much about what snape has to say about the people who have been tormenting him since day one. and she's justified, of course, she doesn't have to stick around. canon lily is a bit of hypocrite, she says that snape calls everyone of her birth mudblood, but then that begs the question why she still hangs around with him if that's the case. he calls her mudblood, she retaliates by calling him snivellus, and finishes up with a dig about his underwear, which, sure, it's kicking a man with a rusty spoon and pouring salt in the wound, but she's, again, justified. i get where she was coming from. and then, of course, she dies for her kid after marrying the guy who relentlessly bullied her quote-unquote best friend for their entire school careers. but, like i said, canon lily is, in many ways, a contradiction.
lily is basically a plot device. she pushes everyone's narrative but her own, and does little else.
of course, this trend would continue in fanon. fanon lily exists to be the perfect girl who gets really angry over the slightest injustice, and of course, she gets to be one half of one of the oldest enemies-to-lovers "it was just sexual tension" cliche pairings in the book. she's just,,, a mary sue. in so many fics, so many headcanons, she's just pettigrew's stand-in, a girl to form a gang with marlene, mary and dorcas—who happen to be more undeveloped ocs who also get the woobify mary sue treatment—to parallel the marauders. there is nothing compelling about her character when she's presented as a saint, and even less when she's supposedly the other moral compass for the marauders that doesn't actually work because she thinks that james is cute.
and this brings me to the next topic. jily. what, why, how. this was supposed to be a healthy, happy relationship that would have lasted in the long run? absolutely not. even for its time, i can't say that i see it lasting.
first of all, jkr presents james' crush on lily as just that: a crush. a mildly obsessive one, but a crush nonetheless, which she tries to liken to the pulling of pigtails. and then, we see that james' way of getting her to go out with him consists of blackmail, and when that doesn't work, he resorts to threatening her. this could have been set aside if he had actually, genuinely changed when they started spending more time together, but as we're told by sirius and remus, he didn't. he just got better at hiding what he was up to. and it has to be that he hid it, because if she knew, this further damages the character that she's set up to have and paints her out to be either unable to stand up to him or an enabler.
regardless, they get married. and while i have trouble believing that it was out of genuine love, there are scenarios that could make some semblance of sense. it's wartime, after all, and maybe lily is worried about her stability in the wizarding world, so why not marry into an established family whose son is already showing interest? or perhaps, she falls into the trap of every bad boy cliche ever, and she thinks to herself, well, i got him to be better then, maybe i can get him to do even better in the future. or maybe, she doesn't get into a relationship with him immediately and sees him on and off, until eventually, she accidentally gets pregnant and they scramble to have a shotgun wedding so as not to leave lily alone at nineteen with a baby. or maybe they marry each other because they're there and sure, neither of then is ready and they don't know what love even is but what else is there to do when there's a dark lord about? anyways, the point is, they get married.
and then what? if we count pottermore into canon, he goes on to further damage her relationship with petunia and vernon, to the point where she ends up crying. if we don't, she fades into the background enough that nobody has anything to say about her. she's harry's mum, she's james' wife, lily potter, she was kind and smart and brave and that's it. her agency is gone, anything else we have of her personality is gone.
jily just,,, wasn't built to last. and, yeah, this,,, this is a hill i'll die on.
same with wolfstar, honestly. there are so many reasons why it wouldn't work, but fanon has made it so fucking prevalent that it's literally everywhere no matter where you look.
first of all, i've said it before and i'll say it again. sirius is more likely to get with james that he is to ever end up in a relationship with remus. their chemistry is just,,, underdeveloped. net zero for a relationship.
secondly, sirius instigated the werewolf prank, and lupin would have paid the price for it. this could have been overlooked, but he doesn't seem the slightest bit guilty about any of it when it's brought up in poa. he could have been responsible for lupin losing the security of his place at hogwarts in the best case scenario, and in the worst case, his life. and he seems to look forward to full moons, even though they clearly aren't pleasant for remus, which,,, yeah, you're going to have fun, but like, maybe be concerned about the fact that your friend undergoes excruciating pain and it isn't a pleasant time for him? read the room, my g.
thirdly, they don't trust each other as much as fanon seems to think they do. they were both willing to believe each other the traitor before ever suspecting pettigrew. sirius thought remus gave away the potters, hell, he thought remus was a spy for voldemort, and remus was convinced that sirius was a mass murderer. neither of them needed to be convinced.
fourthly, maybe i'm reading too much into it, but like. sirius had money. remus had no money, since, yk, he was a werewolf and struggling for cash and still, sirius,,, did not leave him any money. i feel like if you had money to spare, you would give to your friend who is literally poor. but, again, maybe i'm reading too much into it and this isn't as valid a point as i think it is.
and ehh, the fifth reason is that it's,,, actually very much not the representation for the ltgbt community that fanon says it is but y'all aren't ready for that conversation.
anyways, just,,, even when you set the couple shit aside, the power dynamics between everyone here is fucked. like, james and sirius are clearly at the top of food chain calling the shots and egging each other on. then there's lily, who isn't even a marauder, but is always ever-so-slightly above remus but still not on their level, because, well. neither of them actually listen to her. remus is the novelty friend, the friend who's,,, alright, i guess, but you keep them around specifically because they're funny or they can dance or they have something that you can either show off to other people or keep as your little inside joke, your little secret, yk? and peter is just sort of there. like, yeah, he can do what we can but does that make him as good as we are? no. does he have a funny little something about him that we can exploit? nah. therefore he sits at the bottom. and like, yeah, james and sirius are on the same level, but james is yanking sirius' chain, not the other way around. anyways, like i said. power dynamic's fucked and it bothers me that we were given all of this, and fanon decided to take it all and throw it away so they could give us flamboyant!badboi!sirius black x softboi!motherhen!remus lupin going on double dates with feminist!trustfundbaby!james potter and saint!lily evans while ignoring peter pettiwho?
theseus' fucking ship, indeed.
anyways, this needed to be said. it might not make as much sense as i want it to, considering it's 4:12 in the morning as i'm posting this, after taking a break from writing to do some research and coming across way too much content about fanon marauders, but it's here and it still makes enough sense that you can read it and understand what i mean. and like, at the end of the day, you can go ahead and headcanon whatever you please, you can write fic and make art and do whatever you like, just,,, remember that they're exactly that. headcanons. stop presenting fanon as canon. please. i'm literally begging. we actually have evidence against it. just,,, acknowledge that they're headcanons and stop putting them forward as though they're able to fit into canon. please.
#harry potter#marauder fanon#canon vs fanon#lily evans#james potter#sirius black#remus lupin#peter pettigrew#the marauders#severus snape is mentioned a few times#but this isn't about him#i'm just#so sick of fanon#i need to like refilter my tags or smth bc istg i see more fanon marauder posts than i do anything else#anyways this is my take#and yeah it is 4:11 in the morning and i'm tired#i can't remember when i started this but yeah#point is i am so done#anti jily#anti wolfstar
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I don't know who needs to fucking hear this, but I'm about to say it with my full chest:
SEVERUS SNAPE DESERVES NO RIGHTS, I SAID WHAT I SAID.
Why? I'll tell you why:
Let's start with Neville Longbottom. Often the butt of the joke, Neville was often played up for comedic effect, so I can understand why we never took the implications of his boggart seriously.
But the fact of the matter is: Neville Longbottom was more terrified of his potion's teacher than he was of Bellatrix Lestrange, a woman who was a proud Death Eater who tortured his parents into insanity, a fate several people throughout the series state as "worse than death."
I've heard the argument from Snape Apologists that Boggarts are "superficial" creatures, so they don't go much deeper for a fear of yours, and, having gleaned a recent and prevalent one, will shift into that. Hence why it would be Snape, who recently tormented Neville, rather than Bellatrix, who Neville has never met.
It still stands, however, that Bellatrix is a known Death Eater, and Snape was just his potion's teacher.
We also see from Harry's own experience with the boggart, that the boggart hesitated before turning into the dementor. It "chose" which of Harry's fears to become, Voldemort, or fear itself?
Now, because I always listen to both sides of a story, try and see it from both perspectives before I draw a conclusion, I asked myself "why?"
There never is a good reason for abuse, but I still tried to look at it from Snape's eyes. And the conclusion drawn was literally the same as almost every single motivation for every one of Snape's decisions: because of Lily.
Neville was born several hours before Harry, and was a contender for being "the Chosen One" (the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies) but Voldemort chose Harry.
By Snape's logic, it meant that if Voldemort had chosen Neville, Lily would've still been alive for him to woefully pine for from a distance.
And so he takes it out on a fucking c h i l d.
He abuses him, torments him, and even forces Neville to poison his pet toad, Trevor, who has been shown to be of incredible significance to Neville.
And when the potion doesn't poison Trevor? And actually proved to be a competent potion? Snape made his displeasure known by deducting five points from Gryffindor.
I know that's not a Big Deal™ in the grand scheme of things, but we have to remember that Neville was a CHILD.
Moving on from Neville, let's get to: Lily.
Remember what I said before, about Lily being his end-all and be-all for everything? I meant it.
I'm not saying she was the sole reason Snape became a Death Eater, but she was the "last straw."
Snape's dislike for muggles stemmed not from Lily (of course not, he loved her), but from his father. Yes, I remembered his father, Tobias Snape. The muggle, the abuser. Apples and trees, I guess. From what I recall, Tobias was never physically abusive towards Eileen, Snape's mother, but he was emotionally and mentally abusive towards her. This would be cause for resentment for any young child growing up in that environment.
But, for a moment, may I direct your attention to Harry James Potter?
Who grew up that exact same way with the Dursleys?
Who was also neglected (Severus was said to have ill-fitting, mismatched clothes, sound familiar?) but who also did not have Eileen there to protect him?
And did Harry ever become a member of a muggle hate group? (No. The answer is no, in case you all didn't remember that Very Important Detail of the series).
So, yes, Snape was abused, and no, I am not condoning it, I do sympathize with him on that front: no child should ever go through that. Ever. No matter the fucking child, there is no good reason for it. But do I condone his actions later on in life? Absolutely not.
Because he called Lily a "filthy mudblood."
Not just "mudblood", but a filthy one, too. And why did he do that? Because she defended him against his bullies. Yes, Sirius and James were bullies, I guess everyone's faves are a little problematic in this bitch.
And not only did he call her that, but he also was besties with people who fancied themselves the next generation of Death Eaters.
And when Lily asked him if he STILL intended on becoming one, he never gave her an answer, prompting her to sectumsempra all ties with him. Meaning, she probably gave him multiple chances to not be a raging bigot, none of which he took. Love of his life my fucking toe, gtfo—
Also, Snape obviously knew what his "friends" were doing at the time. Particularly, and especially, Mulciber's attack on Mary Macdonald.
Now, we can't talk about Lily without talking about James and the Marauders.
I HAVE NOT FORGOTTEN THAT THE MARAUDERS BULLIED SNAPE, OKAY? But listen up: still not a good enough reason to join the wizarding world's KKK. Actually there is no good reason, period, end of message, send tweet.
He loathed them so much, he literally gave zero fucks about their wellbeing.
Even though! Sirius' biggest crime against Severus is jokingly telling him to follow Remus Lupin under the Whomping Willow during that time of the month.
And Severus would swear that James' biggest crime against him (after "stealing" Lily, of course) would be stopping him from encountering the werewolf and saving his fucking life.
Where the fuck was that reciprocated energy when Snape KNEW that James was also marked for death?
Also, are you going to tell me, that with his ear so pressed to the ground about news on Lily, that he didn't know who the real rat was? That he didn't know that it was Peter Pettigrew? This is speculatory, but... Snape had to have known that Sirius was not the betrayer, he must've at least known it was Pettigrew, meaning he let an innocent man waste away in Azkaban and for what? Something that happened when they were kids? I wonder why Sirius is a "stray dog" idk probably because someone let him rot in Azkaban for thirteen years?
Don't even get me started on how he literally stepped over James' body to get to Lily's while Harry sat there crying. Please. Or the fact that he only wanted Lily spared? He literally said "yes, only her, please, Dark Lord, fuck that newborn"?
OKAY AND MY FINAL POINT BECAUSE THIS GOT TOO LONG AND HONESTLY I'M LITERALLY WAY TOO FUCKING ANGRY AT THIS POINT... I PRESENT TO THE COURT: THE CARROWS.
Severus had been made headmaster of Hogwarts, and what does he do? Allow the Carrows to torture muggleborns and first years. Eleven year olds. Disgusting. Please. What the fuck.
I don't think Severus Snape died a fucking hero, or in "penance." NOT when twelve hours prior, he'd been turning a blind eye and a deaf ear to eleven year olds screaming as the Cruciatus Curse was used on them.
Also, James never sexually harassed Lily? Wanna discuss sexual harassment? How does "waiting outside the Gryffindor common room until someone lets you in even though it has been made very clear that the person you want to speak to doesn't want to speak to you" sound?
I am not denying that Severus Snape is a tragic character; he's a very complex and somewhat interesting one, even. All I am saying is that I don't think saying "always" on the brink of death excuses any of your past actions. He's a martyr at best — having his sins "forgiven" by sacrificing himself for a just cause.
Yes, this is a hill I'm willing to die on. But, as always, I am open to a respectful conversation (not argument, conversation). If you disagree, I'd love to hear why. Try and change my mind; as long as you do so respectfully, I will hear you out.
#i don't know what to tag this as#anti severus snape#tw hp#tw abuse#tw bullying#this is not a kink shame this is a i just don't really see the appeal of this specific character but you do you b#he deserves no rights cause he should be in azkaban in case i wasn't clear in my thesis
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Hey mod Taeko! Can I request some headcanons with Masaru and Monaca with the reader treat them like their are the reader's child?,like the reader and Masaru/Monaca are not related to them but the reader is so attached to them to the point to considered them their on child and the reader can sacrifice their own life for them. I hope this isn't a problem but can I be 🧃 anon? Take care of yourself! Bye bye! :D
MASARU & MONACA WITH A PARENTAL LIKE READER.
mod taeko ;; ooh, my first WoH request ! of course you can be 🧃 anon ! i hope you take care of yourself as well !
WARNING ;; angst, panic attacks, spoilers for their pasts, mentions of abuse & neglect, self harm in masaru's part, & manipulation/gaslighting (?) on monaca's part. dear god, sm warnings ...
MASARU DAIMON
why the hell was a demon sucking up to him ? he would scoff every time he thinks about it and how you would act so ... kind. it threw him off.
how you would offer to bandage his wounds every time he got hurt, how you would offer to make him his favorite foods, how you always suggested playing video games with him to distract him when he remembered his past, how you'd supervise him when he went demon hunting, and how you even tried to participate in his hobbies alongside him ...
you had to be sucking up to him because he was the WoH's most powerful and fearless leader, right ? ... right, of course he's right ... so then why does your smile seem so genuine and bright ? how do you manage to fake being so caring in your position ?
he's always getting mistaken for/called the bossy brat who's an idiot - and while it may take him awhile to notice something rather than the others who do so faster - he's not dumb. he's not an ultimate for nothing and most certainly not just for his physical skills.
so when he notices and deduces your behavior to being ... caring and protective out of all things after a long while, he's still cautious and confused.
he'll confront you with his usual hot headedness (is that a word ? LMAO) and point his finger in your face, aggressively asking you why you keep doing such things. he's partly angry, but that's mainly because he's extremely confused and it annoys him.
when you tell him that he deserves a second chance and didn't deserve the treatment he got, he freezes and stares at you in confusion, a mix of emotions evident on his face as he grabs his hair and sweat drops with a nervous grin on his face.
"w-what are you talking about, you d-demon ... ? i-i don't ... it's not like i ... i c-care ..." he'll manage out while taking a few steps back, beginning to tremble, his face once again contorting to anger when he realizes he's shaking.
"what the ... ? no - i'm not scared ! i-i'm not scared, i'm not scared, i'mnotscared, i'mnotscaredi'mnotscaredi'mnot-"
at this point, he turned his back to you, repetitively hitting one of his arms with tears streaming down his face until he saw that his arm would stop shaking, shrieking when he felt you come up from behind him and gently grab his arms after the first few hits.
"what ... ! s-stay away from me, demon ! g-get away from me !" he'd shout while struggling in your grasp before eventually falling limp against your chest when he didn't have the strength to fight back any longer, confused as to why you hadn't already hit him or - well, killed him.
you began stroking his hair as he hesitantly buried his face in your chest, overwhelmed by your nurturing presence before silently sobbing with his face hidden away from you.
"why do you ... why do you care ..." he sniffled, absentmindedly leaning into your touch. were some demons really ... not ... demons ?
after inspecting masaru's bruises and giving him a bunch of affection, the following day he somewhat goes back to his usual rowdy behavior. however, he's noticeably softer and kinder to you - just when none of the other WoH are around.
he'd scold any of the others if they put you in harm's way, telling them to not mess with "lord masaru daimon's slave or else he'll smite them" ... he then went on to lean in your direction and ask you what the word smite even meant in a whisper 🤦♀️
he wakes you up really early by jumping on your bed energetically. not to be mischievous, but because he's excited someone is actually kind to him and nutures him. he wants to spend almost all his time with you doing things he never could before. it's really sad ... brb, mod taeko is crying.
but, yes, in conclusion - masaru is "secretly" babie and is hyped to be around you. he sometimes falls back into his old habits which is a given, such as stealing things, beating himself up physically, flinching away from you (especially when you're angry or upset), nervously smiling so that you don't hate him like he did with his dad - but he always tears up just a bit and looks like a sad puppy when he realizes you're not the same.
you actually care about him and his wellbeing. that realization itself made him choke back on a sob.
MONACA TOWA
monaca is an extremely intelligent girl despite her age. however, although she's smart, she's still a kid all at the same time. it can be hard to remember this with how confusing her behavior and actions seem.
monaca catches on to your behavior pretty fast. at first, she’s simply amused, playing along to see if you have any unknown motives and/or if you’re trying to deceive her like a fool, but when she realizes that your behavior and actions are genuine - she admittedly gets pretty taken aback.
“monaca doesn’t know why a demon such as yourself is being so kind to her, meow !” she admits with her mischievous and childish giggle following afterwards, glancing up at you from her wheelchair with her “innocent” doe eyes.
even though she's small, a bit frail, and in a wheelchair, she's still terrifying. more so because of her mysterious aura and unpredictable actions.
though she calls you out on your behavior, plays dumb, continues to try and manipulate you like she does with the others, and acts pretty indifferently towards you, you've begun to grow on her like a leech - and it's slowly beginning to annoy her.
she'll try to get you to go away by threatening you with any blackmail she can get her little grabby hands on, but you just. won't. go. away.
"why ! are ! you ! so ! per - sis - tent !" she practically shrieks when she finally snaps one day and confronts you, slamming her fists against her armrests on her wheelchair.
when you tell her it's because she deserves a second chance and she's not as bad as everyone makes her out to be, pure shock takes over her face and she sweat drops, little hands beginning to tremble while she digs her nails into the cushions of the armrests.
she quickly regains her composure though - or at least tries to, smiling as she sweats visibly and continues to shake like a leaf in the wind. she can't breakdown now. she has to make big sis junko proud of her.
"what are you ... ! ... what are you talking about, silly ? are you just saying that because you feel bad for me ? why would a demon like you feel bad for me when you demons are the reason i'm like this ?" she giggles with a menacing closed eyed smile, backing up slowly in her wheelchair.
she's been the unwanted child all her life. these emotions ... are so foreign to her. it's overwhelming. she's not sure how to deal with this. she's not sure if she even can.
when you come towards her to try and reassure her, she's unsure of how to react, grinning nervously as she's backed up into a wall now. you were going to hurt her now, weren't you ? she pissed you off and got you to snap and you were going to finally take it out on her, right ?
she contemplates getting out of the wheelchair to run, but you end up hugging her which leaves her confused and shocked for the millionth time.
tears slowly begin to fall down her face as she hesitantly reciprocates the hug, once again overwhelmed - but now because of how gentle your touch is.
"w-why do you care for me ... i've hurt so many people ... and my friends ..." she'd mumble into your shoulder, clinging onto your arm/sleeve. monaca tries to keep quiet and not sob, but tears are streaming like waterfalls from her face.
when you reassure her that she's not a bad person, just someone who needs help and deserves so much better, she hiccups and chokes back on a sob, wailing into your chest. eventually, all the crying takes a toll on her, and she ends up falling asleep against you.
that night, you got to tuck in a genuinely peaceful and relaxed monaca as she begged you while being half asleep to not leave. if you tell her in the morning what she said, she'll deny it was out of care with a sinister smile and simply state it's because she can't have you telling everyone she cried, but we both know the truth.
after that confrontation, monaca is a lot more open and noticeably sweeter & soft towards you. she doesn't say it often and most of the time denies it, but she tries to express it through acts of service.
she bakes you lots of cookies ! the warriors of hope always complain about who will taste her cookies first, but she simply snickers at them, giggly and bubbly as she tells them that they're actually for you.
they'll all groan when she presents them to you or you two cook/bake in the kitchen together, jealous that you get to taste her cooking/baking first before any of them.
she'll become extremely terrifying to anyone who dares to lay a hand on you in a harmful way. she'll threaten to send her robots out to get them with a little innocent chuckle and a closed eyed smile. or she'll hold a knife herself and make stabby motions with a smile. either one works.
at the end of the day, as much of a menacing gremlin she can act like at times, she can be pretty loving and caring, too. she just needs someone with patience for her to open up and help her get out her bad habits and old ways.
#order up ! 🍹 request complete.#mod taeko's requests. 🍸#sobs in masaru kinnie#masaru daimon#danganronpa masaru#udg masaru#danganronpa monaca#udg monaca#monaca towa#platonic hcs#danganronpa another episode ultra despair girls#udg#danganronpa x you#danganronpa x y/n#danganronpa x reader#warriors of hope#danganronpa hcs#danganronpa headcanons#danganronpa imagines#danganronpa scenarios#danganronpa fanfiction#danganronpa self insert#danganronpa angst#danganronpa comfort#danganronpa fluff#woh x reader but so SO very platonic#i can not stress this enough
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I just found your blog and I LOVE IT.
If I might ask: What’s your saddest dbd headcanons (killers or survivors)
Call me crazy, but I must know! ❤️
Ohh this one was a good one but it hurt me so badddd, ahhh. I’m glad to share , I have some bad dbd brain rot lmaooo I didn’t do every character so I hope these are ok 🥺 these are a bit long too
Sad Dead by Daylight Hcs
Claudette Morel:
Claudette is one of the criers. Probably cries while getting mori’d and can't help the tears during the really bad matches. Her pain tolerance isn’t very high, hence the willingness to waste time healing herself if it means she can stop being in so much pain.
Meg Thomas:
Spends time alone thinking about her past life. Her mother is a subject that makes her really frustrated. People mentioning their moms makes her a little standoffish. Wishes she had a chance to say goodbye in some way.
Ace Visconti:
Ace doesn't have much family to even miss him. He wonders if they noticed he’s gone or hasn’t come back. Maybe they think he hit big bucks and left them behind. Ace is stuck really. Even if he were to go back, he’d be dead or working off his debt.
Feng Min:
Gets super mad when she loses, it makes her so angry that she doesn’t control the trials. She blames other people for her losses but actually is very critical of herself. Casts the blame on others so she doesn't have to face her own mistakes.
David King:
All of his perks are about putting his ass on the line for his teammates yet everyone seems to think he’s selfish and a dumb brute. David doesn't know what to do to be more approachable; genuinely wants to be seen as a friend.
Laurie Strode:
Laurie never got the chance to mourn her friends. She thought she won. Finding out she’ll never truly escape Michael or be able to forget him makes her so mad. When she gets Michael in trials she makes sure the glass in her pocket is extra jagged and serrated.
Jane Romero:
Jane only wanted recognition and acknowledgement. Everything she's worked so hard for feels like a waste for her now. She should have spent more time on herself or with her father. Jane feels like she has no purpose anymore besides running and screaming for the enjoyment of the entity.
Yui Kimura:
Yui can’t stand the Clown or the Stealth Killers. Reminds her of bad memories. When she loses against killers like ghostface, she is especially angry.Her fighting spirit can’t help her actually get back at them.
Zarina Kassir:
Spent so much time fighting inequality only to spend the rest of her life where the odds are never in favor of the survivors. Where the oppressed are destined to lose. Each one of the people is subjugated, both killer and survivor and there's nothing she can do to free them.
Cheryl Mason:
She's been through literal hell and back just to end up in a weird recurring nightmare. At least Silent Hill had an escape. She's killed a god and somehow someone her size with a boxcutter can kill her? Huh.
Élodie Rakoto:
Feels guilty over the loss of her parents and feels extremely disillusioned by this realm. It's so much more boring than she thought it would be. All of her searching and traveling was not worth this shithole.
Steve Harrington:
Steve, though 18, is very much still a kid. Steve is naive about certain things and his optimism gets chipped away at a lot. Wasn’t too enthusiastic at having to care or look after Dustin and his friends but misses having people to protect.
Jeff Johannson:
Someone who definitely ends up taking hooks for people and ends up dying. Has a reputation among the killers as a survivor who is easy to leverage during the endgame because he will try for that save.
Kate Denson:
Feels very lucky to even have her guitar. The other survivors didn't get to bring many things with them. Makes her feel a little bad when she Often feels too worn out and exhausted by the trials to play it.
Quentin Smith:
Unfortunately stuck in pseudo-hell with his abuser. Gets really anxious against Freddy. Leans on his fellow survivors. Will sometimes accidentally bring Freddy to others in an attempt to get Freddy the hell away for him.
Evan ‘The Trapper’ Macmillan:
Actually has tried on numerous occasions to remove the metal rods and shrapnel embedded in his skin. It hurts like hell and just when he thinks he’s got it, he loses grip. These attempts never work.
Philip ‘The Wraith’ Ojomo:
When he’s alone, Philip will try and talk to himself. His vocal cords are warped, his voice a scratchy growl and garbled gurgle. He remembers what he used to sound like but he tries talking less and less.
Max ‘The Hillbilly’ Thompson Jr.:
Besides being named after someone who locked him away for most of his life? Max has to rest a lot between trials. The constant movement puts strain on him and causes him dull pain. His back causes him a lot of grief. The Entity is barely merciful.
Michael ‘The Shape’ Myers:
Meant to be forgotten by everyone who ever knew of him and he knows it. Loomis, after deciding that Michael couldn't be ‘fixed’ just hoped that the system would swallow him. If it weren't for the entity, Michael knows he'd either be dead or caught and back with Loomis.
Bubba ‘The Cannibal’ Sawyer:
Used to be one of the nicer killers to go against and might have been sweet to certain survivors who deserved kindness. But the Entity punished him for it. Bubba isn't very nice anymore. Probably a little meaner to avoid being in trouble again.
Amanda ‘The Pig’ Young:
Another one down to give second chances, much like the second chance she saw in John Kramer. Doesn’t do this a lot however, therefore escaping the ire of the Entity. She’s spent a lifetime hurting others emotionally and physically. Now, she’ll spend an eternity.
Rin ‘The Spirit’ Yamaoka:
The pain and anguish is so heavy but time is no cure in a place where time is nonexistent. No happiness to replace her rage. Especially in a place where her anger is a weapon for a greater power. Also has tried to pull the glass out of her skin and press her limbs back together. Can’t stand to see herself in the mirror.
Adiris ‘The Plague’:
Her body is always on the precipice of falling apart. Her skin rots; her flesh aches and feels like it will tear away at any moment. She is immortalized yet so close to death. Her body hurts so much but she has a purpose to serve. (makes me even sadder bc jannneeeee my mainnnnn😔)
Kazan ‘The Oni’ Yamaoka:
Misses his son. Never got to see him grow up, considering he;s already met his descendant. Proud from a distance because that's all he can be. The beginning of something so angry that it passes down his family line.
Caleb ‘The Deathslinger’ Quinn
During his life, was under the control of people who made him work for their gain who used him. The Entity emphasizes the killers as a position of power but Caleb does much of the same here. Works and works. Never for himself.
Pyramid Head ‘The Executioner’:
His existence has always included pain. He’s not quite sure what it’s like without it. He’s made several efforts to take the pyramid off. It pulls painfully at his neck. Makes awful groaning noises and roars.
Ji-Woon ‘The Trickster’ Hak:
Has never been much more than entertainment for other people since he was a child. Never expected to be much more. To the point that now, if he doesn't feel impressive in some way, he feels incomplete. The entity is his way to really indulge his ‘true artistry’.
Yun-Jin Lee:
A bit selfish when it comes to surviving. A few people around the campfire dont like her for that reason. Some of the meaner people will even leave her behind because they remember all of the times Yun-Jin might have done something similar.
Thanks for reading!!! I’m sorry I don’t post often but I have Shit ton of hw and I recently started a new project sooo ya know 💖💖💖
#dbd#dbd x reader#dead by daylight#michael myers#slasher x reader#dbd the shape#dbd killers#dbd survivor#red writes
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While on the topic of wishing sjm had done something different for her characters, I really wanted something more for cassian. For example, cassian’s wings going from being completely ruined in the end of acomaf to being 100% healed in acowar made no sense to me. I think it would’ve been an opportunity for the growth of cassian’s character to see him go through the loss of losing the ability to fly and instead retrain himself to be a warrior in other ways and find other things about himself that prove his own worth to himself. Given the fact that cassian’s confidence is aligned with his ability to protect and serve others, it just would have been sooo good to see him overcome his grief and become even stronger of a character. And how wings, in general, are a sense of male pride among illyrians. I think this would’ve been the perfect way to write cassian and have him break away from his own idea of masculinity. He could have redefined what it meant for him to be a Man ™. Ugh, it just could have been so GOOD, imagine the character we could have gotten from him.
Listen, after ACOMAF, when this happened, EVERYONE was buzzing about this. Most people thought he wouldn't outright lose his wings permanently, but there would be a LOT required.
And then ACOWAR came and approximately nothing happened whatsoever. Oh he had to be healed. the healer had to rebuild his wings. he had to do strength training every day. But fundamentally: not a sausage.
Personally? I think Maas chickend out. I think she was unable to commit to taking Cassian's wings, or figuring out how to write him as anything other than what she's established him as: fun jock man who likes to hit things real hard and make dick jokes sometimes.
Having to see Cassian vulnerable? Having to see him broken, and struggling, and having to reevaluate his entire life and self-esteem and sense of masculinity would have been an incredible option for a character arc.
Most of the theorising/Nessian fics involved Nesta helping him. The two of them being broken/fundamentally altered by their experiences in Hybern - she being killed and Made with a dark power, Cassian losing his wings.
There was expected bonding over that, peeling away the masks they both wear to discover the softness underneath. The two of them being able to reach one another, because of their bond, in a way the others could not. It produced some pretty epic stuff, honestly.
And how badly I wanted that I didn't FULLY realise until the disappointment of ACOSF, when it hit fully.
Because instead of stripping Cassian back and seeing the tactician, the strategist, forcing him to put his other skills to use, to develop those skills, rather than 'smash with sword and ask questions later'. This man is a General. All the combat training in the world doesn't let you be good at this job if you can't command, if you can't use tactics, if you can't strategise.
And THIS is where I wanted to see Nesta. Nesta, the woman who calculated how many ships would be needed to save the humans of Prythian. The woman who looked at Greysen's manor and assessed its capabilities and saw a prison. The woman who devours history novels, who has a tactical, cunning mind. Who has never been a warrior or a creature of brute strength or physical abilities.
THIS is how I wanted to see Nesta evolve. This was how I wanted to see her develop. I didn't want her taken out of lady's dresses. I didn't want her forced into fighting leathers, to basically become another copy of her sister, and follow down that path.
I wanted her to take her own. I wanted her to finally be in a place where she could learn, and strategise, and contribute. And I wanted her to work with Cassian on this - who was grounded because of his wings, who couldn't command on the frontlines anymore, or even fight. Who had to stay back, and see how he handled this. How he maintained his authority. How he maintained his sanity without his wings.
We could have had so fucking much. Such a powerful narrative about survival. I wanted her in the library, with the other survivors, (and with fucking MORRIGAN - not sidelined, not dismissed, not being bitchy and catty for the sake of it. But someone who visits the library frequently, who interacts with the women there, and sometimes just is a woman there herself, because there are still hard days.)
But no. No instead of something nuanced, and original, and actually tailored to Nesta's strengths as a character, we got Yet Another Weapon's Trainng Montage.
We got the narrative that the only way to heal from abuse is to be able to beat the shit out of your abusers. Because that's #GirlPower, right?
It makes me so furious I almost want to just. Just fucking rewrite the whole damn fucking thing myself the way it SHOULD have gone.
And I know you talked about Cassian and not Nesta, so I do apologise, but they were tied together. But I agree.
We all wanted Cassian to evolve from that 'Lord of Bloodshed' / "savage brute" because reading between the lines and forcing some nuance from these books, which is the only way to survive: Cassian has a lot of layers. There's a lot of trauma there. A lot of insecurity. A lot of angst. A lot of heart. A lot of fucking INTELLIGENCE. (I'll fight on that point, I really will. Cassian is not a dumb himbo who can barely add 1 and 1).
But sjm was too busy writing him having a hard on for Nesta to explore....anything about himself. Or his relationship with Azriel, and Rhys, and Mor, and everyone else.
The removal (even temporarily) of his wings would have allowed for a LOT of that exploration.
Firstly, the fact that he injured them by CHOICE, saving Azriel's life. That would have been such a deep connection and bond between them. The guilt that Az would feel - but the potential for Cassian to step in, even with his wings gone, and say that he'd do it again.
Because Azriel is his brother. He loves him. And it was worth it. It would be worth it a hundred times over to save him. Because he's worth saving. And he's worth sacrificing for. And what that would have done for Az as a character, too. Who always offers himself up first for dangerous missions, puts himself in peril to protect the others.
And having Cassian join Feyre and Az's flying lessons? Because Cass having to relearn how to fly once (if) his wings healed to that extent, means letting Azriel train him. Because those old instincts aren't enough. And he has to learn how to strengthen them, and train with them. And how this affects his perception of himself and his masculinity, as he said. But also deepening his understanding for Az, and the bond the two of them share, in having this experience together.
Bonding with Rhys, who FINALLY fucking opens up to someone and has some nuanced therapy-like conversations about what happened with Amarantha. The sacrifces they've made for their people. How they'd do it again but it still hurts, and changes them, and how they have to learn and grow and move on from that and heal together.
Rhys working with Cassian on his other talents, using him as the skilled strategist and tactician he MUST be. Helping him to develop that, keeping his brother from losing his mind while he can't fight or use his physicality to solve problems, as he usually does.
Mor personally healing and tending to Cassian. Mor being there at his bedside every day while he was bed bound. Mor becoming as possessive and overprotective of both him and Az as any mate ever has been.
Mor speaking to him about her own rehabilitation after what her family did to her, the physical toll that took on her. Mor's heart breaking because she nearly lost both him and Az and she couldn't handle that at all. Mor reiterating how much she fucking loves him, and how she needs him.
Mor helping him through the darker days of his depression because she's been there. And she knows what it is to put on a front. To always be laughing, and joking, without the seriousness of life -leave that to the others. But sometimes it's too much and he needs to break down. And be angry. And furious. And hopeless. And scared. And that's what she's there for. Because she understands.
Mor winnowing him to his favourite spots that he can't fly to anymore, just so he can be there. The two of them spending time, and bonding, and developing that relationship we got in ACOMAF beyond 'we bicker constantly and drink together and make sexual innuendos'.
Even Amren showing up and doing her part. Snapping at him to stop brooding so much. But also bringing him some of her puzzles. Some of her favourite military history books (which she has anotated and edited to highlight the bits that have been incorrectly reported). Spending time with him to stop him going mad. Exhausting herself those first few days personally attending to Cassian's wings, and snarling at anyone who tried to interfere.
IT COULD HAVE BEEN SO MUCH.
IT COULD HAVE DEVELOPED SO MUCH WITH THE INNER CIRCLE. AND CASSIAN. AND NESSIAN. AND JUST. EVERYTHING WOULD HAVE BEEN BETTER BUT NAW. IT WAS BASIC ASS AND BORING AND I'M GONNA DIE MAD ABOUT IT.
#cassian#nesta archeron#nessian#rhysand#azriel#morrigan acotar#amren#acotar series#acotar meta#cassian meta#IT'S WHAT WE DESERVED I TELL YOU#IT'S WHAT WE FUCKING /DESERVED/#im still ANGY#answer tag#anonymous#taryn answers#long post#taryn rants#anti sjm#anti acotar
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A (long) analysis of Azriel,
+ a bit of discussion about Gwynriel vs. Elriel at the end.
Lately I’ve seen much discussion surrounding Azriel, and there seems to be a lot of hazy gray area. We know he has a terrible past, carries a lot of trauma, is both mentally and physically scarred, and has disturbingly possessive habits. But why? That’s the question.
I think most of Azriel’s character can be filtered into three sections: his anger, his possessiveness, and his self-loathing. Altogether I believe these form his crippling sense of emotional immaturity, which ultimately shines through most every action he makes in the books.
So yes, I firmly believe Az is a child in the body of a 500 year old Fae. But is he treated as such? No. No, he is not. In fact, he’s treated as the exact opposite, and that can’t be doing wonders for his mental health (which is already in shambles. Off to a cheery start.)
Let’s take a look at his past. He was both mentally and physically abused for the majority of his childhood. Then he was thrown into an unforgiving culture that both mentally and physically abused him as well. Then he was essentially bullied by Cassian and Rhysand for quite a while... until they randomly decided to like him, which is a choice he didn’t seem to play a hand in. And then he became a professional torturer. All the while falling madly in love and becoming obsessed with a female who can’t love him back. Not to mention he’s been ostracized his entire life.
(One big thing though, that I’m going to reference frequently, is Azriel’s constant chase of “happiness.” Kind of like my friends with ADHD. We squeeze all the serotonin we can get out of one thing and then fall into a listless, depressed haze until we find another. I honestly think Azriel does the same thing with people--he latches onto them and lets his mood swings rely on how much attention they do or do not pay him, and whether it is positive or negative.)
So I’m going to go through his relationships with pivotal characters and try to explain what I think is really going on with Azriel.
Regarding Mor:
He was obsessed with her for most of his life. He was incredibly possessive of her and fell instantly in love upon seeing her. Do I think it was love? No. But does Azriel think it was love? Yes, and that is so important. It shows how desperate he was for human connection.
This “love” spiraled into centuries-long obsession that we’ve all seen play out throughout the series. But why is it obsession, and not love? Well, I’m going to go ahead and say that Azriel doesn’t know how to love. He’s never been shown genuine love and so he doesn’t know how to show it to others in the way he intends. He’s basically a baby.
But right after he falls head over heels, Mor sleeps with Cassian, and then Cassian plays the role of the buffer between the two of them all the way up until the events of ACOSF. This is where I think Azriel’s anger comes into play. He can’t get to Mor. His best friend, his brother, is blocking him from her. He can’t touch her, love her, feel her, and he’s so desperate to. But he literally has no way to communicate it because he doesn’t know how, and so he responds in the one way he’s able: anger. And jealousy. And intense protectiveness that eventually begins to translate as possessiveness.
Again, he lets his happiness rely on Mor because he can’t make himself happy, and so his lack of emotional maturity ends up revealing him as desperate and unable to communicate his feelings of inadequacy and frustration. I’m not trying to justify his behavior, not at all. But I think this could be a decent explanation.
Regarding Cassian and Rhysand:
I mean... I kind of hate the way these two have treated Azriel. They all have their fair share of trauma, but Cassian and Rhys also bullied him and ostracized him, and then basically said, “Oh, we like you now.” Which completely leaves Azriel in the dark as to where he stands with them, and strips him of awareness regarding how his friendships with them will operate.
And then he becomes the head of espionage for the Night Court, which involves lots and lots of torture. What kind of message does that send? You’ve seen dirty things, Az, so you don’t mind doing the rest of the dirty things for us, right? That’s the only real message I can get from this. Which then plants the message in Azriel’s head of: Not only do I do dirty things, I myself am a dirty, disgusting thing. Thus, furthering his already deep-seated sense of self-loathing.
Plus, the IC generally operates with a pack-like mindset. One person’s method of healing is everyone’s method of healing. It worked for one person, so it worked for everyone. It’s a very naive mindset, and very toxic as well, so it’s not surprising that literally everyone in the IC is colossally messed up despite preaching themselves as having overcome their demons.
So Azriel never really gets to understand himself and mature as a person. He’s stuck pretending to be perfectly fine underneath Rhysand’s oh-so-benevolent and compassionate hand. Rhysand and Cassian recognize Az as being a little... odd, by seeming to think things like “he’s the quiet one” and “he’s the serious, scary one.” But do they attempt to understand him? No. They leave him to his own devices and let him figure it out himself.
That’s the issue. He’s not ever going to figure it out himself, so long as he’s surrounded by the people who’ve been unwittingly suffocating him for most of his life.
Regarding Elain:
Azriel’s infatuation with Elain, in my opinion, comes as a direct result of his detachment from Mor. Just like one hyperfixation fades quickly from an all-consuming thing to a passing thought, Azriel has shifted from one obsession to the next, in order to keep his spirits on a high.
But I think his feelings for Elain reveal a lot of what Mor did not. Why does he view Elain as so holy compared to him? Why is he so hesitant to touch her? Why does he put her on such a pedestal? That’s his self-loathing coming through again. He hates himself so much that he has to place her above him.
He wants to touch her and love her, just as he did with Mor, but again he is unable. It's a repeating pattern that he can’t get himself out of.
Let’s also look at the way Elain and Azriel’s friendship/relationship began. He had to take care of her, and treat her with utmost respect. She looked at his scars or his siphons, both monstrous looking things, and called them beautiful. Let’s remember that he’s basically a child who’s rarely known genuine love. The minute he gets a glimpse of it, he’s going to grab it by the neck and crush it to his chest. Plus, the fact that she’s the last sister left unattached and he’s the last brother left unattached is probably even more convincing for him that he and Elain are meant for each other. When he’s denied this love that’s come nearly close enough to grab, he responds in the only way he’s able: anger. And jealousy. Just like he did with Mor.
But moving on, that glimpse of potential love comes from Elain. That’s why he’s able to let go of Mor; a relationship with Elain suddenly becomes possible. He’s terrified of ruining this potential love and is incredibly drawn to her all the same. Best of all? She wants him too.
BUT. Azriel knows how fragile Elain is, so he walks on glass around her, coddling her, putting her first like he’s put everyone else first since being a part of the IC. I think he wants to save her from becoming like him. He essentially plays the role of her white knight, entirely losing his sense of self-preservation (not that he ever had one), and thus loses any chance of letting Elain help him mature in return.
Regarding Gwyn:
Now, Gwyn is a different story.
We know Azriel likes her. Maybe not in a consciously romantic way, but he likes her. She makes him smile and laugh, and he finds her amusing. He doesn’t have to walk on eggshells around her.
The big thing, I think, is that he doesn’t have to take care of her. At least, I think that’s what makes him so comfortable around her. With Gwyn, he can relax, and he doesn’t have to watch every move he makes. She treats him like a regular person and he treats her similarly.
Now, is it a bad thing that he doesn’t put her on a saint-like pedestal like he does Elain? No. Definitely not. I think this ordinary friendship signals a much healthier relationship than his festering obsession with Elain. Gwyn simply being his friend and not someone that he feels he has to be perfect for is a good foundation for Azriel growing as a person.
Gwynriel vs. Elriel (the necklace):
Honestly, I’m scared for whatever SJM decides to do, because Azriel has a shitload of trauma to move past and years worth of emotional growth needed before he can be a steady partner in a relationship. Both Gwyn and Elain’s character arcs are definitely not finished and so I think that no matter which way his narrative goes, it’s going to be disappointing in some aspect or another, unfortunately. I don’t think that either one of the females’ arcs really fit well with Azriel’s.
But I’m going to take a closer look at the necklace, because I think it’s a telling narrative point.
For Azriel, the necklace for Elain and Gwyn herself, are both “thing[s] of secret, lovely beauty” to him.
By describing the necklace for Elain as such (instead of Elain herself), Azriel unconsciously reveals his more idealistic view of Elain rather than his love for Elain herself. I kind of get the sense of Azriel giving offerings to a goddess, or something like that. He seems to be more preoccupied with appeasing Elain than actually loving her.
Now, this probably comes from, again, his self-loathing and his emotional immaturity. I’m just repeating myself at this point. He doesn’t know how to love himself and he doesn’t know how to love anyone else.
But then he describes Gwyn as such. Gwyn, the person. In my opinion, this demonstrates a potentially much healthier relationship than what he has with Elain. Azriel, instead of wanting to be perfect for Gwyn and wanting to appease her, is simply made happy by the thought of her. It is Gwyn whom he is taken with, not the idea of Gwyn loving him. And so that takes off so much pressure for him, and introduces the hope that he might be able to mature as a person in a friendship or romantic relationship with Gwyn.
Closing thoughts:
Azriel is a blundering, hormonal child desperate for love with no idea of how to get it, in a 500 year old Fae’s body. He’s also surrounded by people who refuse to address his clear issues... his future’s pretty dim, and I think he realizes it. Which is why whoever SJM chooses to be his romantic interest is going to be very important.
In short, I’m scared for what’s to come. But fingers crossed that his incredibly complex character is done justice.
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At the risk of all my credibility as a person being thrown out the window because I genuinely enjoy Steven Universe, I need to say this.
The military in Steven universe doesn’t represent nazis. Genocide literally isn’t the theme of this children’s show. The only overarching theme related to actual militia is War Is Bad.
SU is about breaking cycles of abuse, not pulling yourself in a million directions to please those around you, and making your purpose in life to make yourself happy and surround yourself with supportive people who love you. It’s also about being critical of those you love, and sometimes supporting them while they actively try to change and grow from their pst mistakes.
Life on other planets being destroyed isn’t meant to represent some kind of active genocide. It’s individuality being stretched and worn out until only what the abuser (the diamonds, more specifically white diamond) wants to see and hear is left.
Steven isn’t some kid that wants to be buddy buddy with dictators, he’s a child that sees how his mother was beaten down and abused and wants to mend the bond with his family that couldn’t be fixed before new perspectives were brought into play.
Blue Diamond is a parent who swears she’s doing right by her child because tough love (emotional abuse) is necessary to protect them, Yellow Diamond is a parent who is afraid of anything out of the “ordinary” being a sign of her failure and so treats her child unjustly and gets physically abusive in order to “fix” the problem, White Diamond wants a clean slate, someone who will do and act as she says because of her own inferiority complex and the need for everything to always be perfect. These are all people that children & teens & adults have to deal with, and the biggest arc on the show being Steven demanding that everyone be treated as an individual deserving of love and growth is such a huge thing to show on television.
What widespread kids show have you ever seen so clearly outline abusive behaviors and the thoughts and feelings behind both victim and abuser? How many people do you think have been forced to realize they can and should be treated better, and maybe their own treatment of the people they love has been warped by their own abuse?
If you look at the show through this lense of healing and doing better by children, rather than the popular “Diamonds are Nazis” lense, the show is chock full of messages of self love, distancing your emotions not being a solution to every issue, and other related things.
#boyfriend.txt#steven universe#I personally had to pause the episode where blue realizes shes abusive because i was sobbing too much to pay attention#because my own mother and father are exactly like that#except i know theyll never have a beautiful moment where they realize theyve done me so much harm abd want to get better#its so amazing to see something like that being shown on television in a way that kids and unaware adults can understand#yes be critical of what you love but dont use broken metaphors
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BNHA Villian Creation Oc Analysis
Introduction:
All right time for my villain creation analysis guide for people who are having trouble creating Villain BNHA OCS. In light of the War arc that happened and the reveal of Dabi being Touya Todoroki, this post went through a major overhaul. I will try my best in explaining how to create my BNHA villain.
Horikoshi stated in his design process, one thing that is most important when designing a villain is the impact they make on the people’s psyche when they first see them. You don’t half make your villain OCS disgusting or terrifying but focus on how you create a type of impact upon first seeing this villain. It’s about how you wanted to create a visual impact on someone.
It’s high time to talk about how to create a villain with these characters and about these character villain designs and how it correlates to their personalities. (This post isn’t about how to create a Marvel or dc Villain from superhero shows but to design a BNHA villain by using these characters as an example.)
What is a Villain?
While you design your BNHA Villain, you need to ask yourself this question: what makes a villain?
As Stan Lee once said in the guidebook there is no such thing as a villain, they don't view themselves as villains. Villains are the heroes of their own story and they take it further in their actions by saying the ends justify the means. This rings true for characters in BNHA. You can see that villains have different ideologies and feelings that motivate their actions which lead them to clash with others. BNHA is proof that they are not evil. The villains are people who just have different views and different perspectives. There is no such thing as a villain; Horikoshi shows this by doing a villain academia arc with the villains as main characters of the arc.
Each and every villain reflects the very flaws of hero society.
Dabi and the rest of his family had been abused by his father who is a hero. Dabi faced neglect and overwhelming pain due to being ignored which eventually led to his death by Sekoto Peak driven by the very man who ignored him in favor of surpassing All Might.
Himiko was ostracized for showing interest in anything blood-related and labeled as a freak; most of her problems stem from the side effects of her blood-related quirk but instead of addressing this problem she was told to suppress it.
Spinner dealt with prejudice due to his appearance caused by his quirk.
Tomura’s abuse started due to his father’s abandonment from his grandmother, which drove him to abuse his son who showed interest in anything hero-related. His father’s abandonment causes him to lash out at Tenko and the rest of his family was hurt indirectly by the actions of a hero. After he killed his family and wandered on the streets people ignored him because of his appearance and used the excuse that a hero will save him.
As you see villains are people that are shaped by their circumstances, with every member of the LOV as an example of this. They are the shadow of hero society, the dark side that most people choose to ignore.
The reason why people ignored Tenko and did not bother to help him is that they don’t want to risk their cozy lives for a stranger in fear they would lose that comfort with the excuse that a hero is going to help to avoid taking action. They put all the responsibility on someone else and do not worry about this because someone is going to do it for them.
These thoughts feed into people’s complacency and indifference and emphasize people’s heavy reliance on heroes. It was these small acts of cruelty that created villains like Tomura. Looking at Tenko is a lot like admitting to how corrupt this system truly is. All this stems from personal neglect and responsibility. Personal neglect can end in being a disaster if left unchecked. Tomura is proof of how people avoid their responsibilities in favor of having someone else do it for them. People's avoidance can lead others to the path of villainy as seen in Tomura.
For characters like Stain and Overhaul, their extreme actions that go along with the ends justify the means show that, Unlike villains who don’t view their actions as evil, both Overhaul and Stain see their actions as evil but know it’s necessary to accomplish their goals. They both see their actions as justifiable since they believe they are fighting for a worthy cause. The only difference between the two is that what Overhaul does to accomplish is much more selfish when looked at closely. Overhaul’s actions may be driven to protect the place of belonging that gave him a purpose but in reality, he has a grudge against heroes for ending the yakuza reign and blames quirks for giving others purpose while taking his purpose away. He may think his actions were for Pops, but no, they are far from what his father wanted. Overhaul doesn’t think about what he wants and gets angered when things don’t come his way: these traits are more about himself. If him abusing Eri wasn’t a perfect example of his narcissistic attitude I don’t know what is.
Stain is more of an extremist but he has more justifiable reasons than Overhaul. We are introduced to bad heroes like Endeavor, one of the heroes he hated and hunted. Despite Stain injuring Iida’s brother and ending his hero career, that part with Endeavor is what makes him comes across as more justifiable to the audience.
As AFO puts it,
Villains are people who committed a couple of quirk-based crimes and couldn’t control their quirk. People who disrupt the balance in hero society are labeled as villains, even ones who use their quirk freely for good deeds or unintentionally cause problems with not controlling their quirks are still branded as villains.
if villains are people who have done a couple of quirk-based crimes and then the heroes are the civil servants who are allowed to use quirks, as stated by Knuckleduster: "heroes are no more than cogs in a machine that is meant to uphold societal order."
People are labeled as villains because they disrupted a machine for societal order. Heroes are only meant to apprehend villains to uphold social order just like how Knuckleduster once said heroes only exist to keep the status quo in check to prevent any disruptions towards it the same way on how heroes choose to save people, not the ones that fall through. The very same system that is never made to catch people who fall through the cracks.
Even Nagant pointed out heroes are cogs in a machine made to uphold social order and eliminate anything they deem as a threat; they sacrifice others to keep the image of peace in society running smoothly ignoring the problems growing underneath.
As AFO answers say that people who are villains are thoses that society outcasts with quirks who don’t fit in the societal standard, people who can’t fit into a tightly controlled society become excluded by others and become villains whose ranges are true if you look at the LOV.
The Villains are created in response to heroes’ societal problems who were driven to change the LOV are not just here because of some grand ideology but they’re here because of their hurt and hatred towards the hero society and desire to destroy it to make a change the LOV is driven to destroy what they hate most of their actions that they lash out where their pain got from society.
As I mentioned before, the main members of the LOV are prime examples of hero society own flaws,
For Tomura it's how the actions of heroes can indirectly hurt their loved ones and other people. People's over-idolization and overdependence on heroes causes them to neglect the growing problems that are present within.
For Dabi, it's how we don’t look at the issues regarding the heroes in favor of our security or want to see these issues within others because it would be like looking at the very same issues ourselves.
For Toga it’s in how people treat those who have issues. Instead of addressing these problems, we instead tell others to suppress them so we wouldn’t have to deal with them. Telling someone to suppress wouldn’t make it go away; instead it makes what’s suppressed stronger.
If you are going to choose a villain, think about how they become villains by using the LOV examples. How did your OC become a villain? What flaws do they reflect in society? I am going to elaborate on these there characters design and how it matches up with their characters.
Design:
Tomura Shigaraki:
Wow I mean wow. There is so much jammed-packed Tomura’s character design that I don’t know where to begin. Tomura is a pretty fascinating character that has an equally fascinating design that goes with it. There's so much that goes into it that I’m worried that I may not be able to mention it all in this post. Shape-wise Tomura has no prominent shapes to speak of but his design has a lot of visual components put into his design. Unlike Izuku’s character design Tomura’s character design changes a lot correlating to his character development in the series.
Tomura has a lot of symbols that are the main components of BNHA, one of which is hereditary. Hereditary is one of the main central components of BNHA since it’s about passing on one’s legacies to the next generation. This example of hereditary in his design is seen the most with his grandmother Nana Shimura the 7th holder of OFA and All Might's master.
Tomura resembles Nana Shimura with him inheriting most of her physical features. They have the same face shape, sharp eyes, sharp chin, even the mole beneath his lip. He’s even drawn to have many parallels to her in the series. Tomura’s relation to Nana Shimura deepens his connection with Izuku and All Might, his resemblance to her linked him closely to those who are connected with Nana through OFA. This makes him more compelling because it gives a connection with the protagonist Izuku Midoriya
Horikoshi designed him with Hero society's main flaws in mind with the first flaw being in how people can be indirectly hurt by the actions of a hero when they are not thought through.
This is highlighted by Nana’s abandonment of her son Kotaro, Nana gave him up to the foster care system to protect him from AFO’s evil clutches. Looking at this from a different angle you may think she is doing this to protect Kotaro but it could be considered selfish since she wasn’t taking Kotaro’s feelings into the equation, only her own. She never thought about what Kotaro would want; she never thought about how Kotaro felt when she did this to him. she did what she thought was best for him but not thought Kotaro would feel when she did this. It seems like she was asking something from him and not thinking how he felt.
Her choice can be considered selfish. She could have given up being a hero or not carry OFA but choosing not to Nana’s choice to have Kotaro despite the responsibility she had when given OFA only to ask something from him in return while she abandoned him is incredibly selfish on her part. Her letter sounding this is more about her than her son.
Her saying “I love you” while abandoning him than killed later was only adding more salt to his wounds
again on her not thinking about Kotaros feelings at all, only her own. She never thought any of this through when she was given OFA and the abandonment of Kotaro. Her abandonment showed that she chooses her duty of being a hero over her son’s feelings. though she only was doing this out of good attention to protect her son, good attention does not lead to good results. Nana’s abandonment and death left Kotaro deeply hurt from her actions. His pain from the abandonment makes him lash out at others and abuse tenko who showed anything interested in hero-related things. You can see how one person’s actions affected the people around that one person. Kotaro’s abuse of his son caused him to kill the rest of his family and him leading down the path of becoming a Villain the pushed further into AFO clutches. It was Nana's choice that caused all the series events to happen in the first place. Nana’s actions remind me of something like just how a hero’s actions can inspire others by doing good. They can also harm as well especially if the character harbors the same responsibility to the people around them.
There are characters from BNHA whose characters’ environments entered around their quirks. Tomura’s design is centered around his quirk decay. It is based heavily on a corpse since corpses decay after the person dies. His white hair reflects loss of pigment in the hair a corpse has when the body decays. His hair is unkempt and messy resembles in how he wasn’t taken care of and neglected to rot like a corpse as seen in his skin and his entire body is emaciated and his skin looks like it's physically rotting away his attitude in the way he was first introduced in the USJ arc looks listless like a corpse. His second appearance in the series with him donning a trench coat resembles a robe from a grim reaper again with both the corpses and grim reaper notes to how he carries the aspect of death with him emitting fear when first introduced.
Death is another factor in his design, this is seen in how he brings death and destruction to those around him seen in how he killed his family when his quirk first manifested and himself when AFO gave him a new name to say goodbye to his old self the heroes broke his pod and how he emits fear to people by just a look. People avoid talking about death, when you hear the word death most people are afraid of it and avoid mentioning it directly. In different cultures such as Japan death isn’t something that is scary but it’s dirty, the lack of care in his appearance references the dirtiness of how Japan views death. Seen in the flashback of his childhood when he was wandering the streets people noticed but looked away not looking at his appearance directly. The way people ignore Tomura in the series is just like people’s attitude towards death, something they want to avoid mentioning as a reference to death itself. Tomura's death motif is a reference to the concept that Horikoshi is trying to convey in his art.
Another way the dirtiness and emaciated-ness in Tomura’s unkempt appearance in his design note the second flaw of hero society. This second flaw is seen best in how the people around treat Tenko, who wandered the streets after he killed his family onlookers saw him but ignored him due to his scary-looking appearance by using "hero is going to help you" as an excuse to escape any responsibility.
People ignoring tenko symbolizes how they don't want to look at the ugliest side of society and go in and out of their way to avoid it with their willingness to look away from the corruption to protect the cozy lives they have. This small cruelty showed us that they don’t want to look at the ugliest side of hero society and see how corrupt the system is. People looking at Tenko would be a lot like admitting they are something wrong with the system they profit from. The real cruel reason why people didn’t help Tenko is that they cared so much about their security they don’t want to risk their cozy life for someone they just met so they use the excuse hero to escape responsibility so they don’t need to worry about it if someone else is doing it for them why would they need to? People's overreliance on heroes making them out to become overly complacent. People’s negligence and compliantly caused the rot to slowly accumulate and spill out from the injustices that others ignore.
Now for the second flaw, it’s that people's over reliance on heroes causes them to be complacent in helping others to escape responsibility for someone else to do letting their negligence create more villains.
It’s all about those hands, hands, hands it’s all about those hands that are prominent in Tomura’s character design.
According to Horikoshi, he likes drawing hands because they are the body parts most capable of showing emotion and character. This makes sense since hands are rich in symbolism in BNHA,
This is seen in how people use their quirks with their hands, as well as having agency and the ability to get things done with them. The way people use their hands symbolizes how the characters interact with the world around them. Hands are a universal symbol of reaching out to lend a helping hand to other people. Hands are symbols for heroes; hands are used in BNHA as a symbol to reach out to save people.
There are also the general meanings of hands that have been used in relationships, with sites of intimacy and connection to other people with the hands are used to touch and express affection to someone. Hands are capable of destruction and creation they can either reach out to soothe someone or strike them with violence.
The symbolism that is associated with hands are central to Tomura as a character which is in how he activates his quirk, Decay, if all five fingers touch something it disintegrates into dust.
The way Tomura’s expressionless hands are drawn reflects the emptiness and hollowness he feels constantly.
The hands that grip all over his body in his character design if you look closely it doesn’t look at all comforting. The exact opposite the hands look exactly as if they are Strangling and choking him, putting him in a suffocating death grip. The hands that grip him look like they’re controlling him like a puppet with the hands possessing him to control the person underneath this symbolizes how he is bound by the hands of AFO who is groomed to be his successor chaining Tomura down.
The image of Tomura being gripped by hands in different angles symbolize a lot of things that are,
Abuse, manipulation, exploration, control, restriction, destruction, comfort, connection
This symbolism that here is present with Tomura’s character with the “Abuse" he experienced under his father and AFO, him being exploited by AFO as a child who picked him up in the streets after he killed his family and is ignored by the civilians, control can mean he how he was only saved to be controlled by AFO, AFO’s manipulation of Tomura, Violence can mean in how he was abused by his father who hit him if he ever disobeyed the rules and how Tomura is threatened by violence from the people he comes in contact with, the destruction portion notes on how Tomura choose to utilize them because of his quirk in that wants to destroy everything since he thinks destruction is the only thing that he can do, he subconsciously holds his quirk back to the trauma of how he killed the rest of his family when his quirk first manifested, the Comfort portion is how the hands both give him comfort and disgust, his connections he has with the members of the LOV in which he accepts them in open arms. The hands also symbolize how his entire identity was molded by AFO.
Hands have a lot to do with his character arc with him in need of a helping hand since in his arc, He requires a helping hand but no one gave him helping hand Tomura was never given a genuine helping hand by others even when he was abused by his father no one in his family helped him or society ignored him when he needed help and only was saved by AFO only to manipulate him. The only hands he dealt with were people who were violent or wanted to use him.
The way Tomura uses his hands looks like he's reaching out for help. His desire to connect to seek people out for help was also what caused him to disintegrate his own family. and the only hand that reached out to him only was there to control him. The pose with Tomura reaching out symbolizes him reaching out for help.
The hands-on Tomura’s body is revealed to be his family’s hands AFO gave him his family’s hands to constantly remind him of his trauma and act as an AFO control over him. His family hands don’t give him comfort or connection to them and are there to remind him of his guilt and trauma.
As I stated before The hands around his body that both comfort him and restrict him this aspect symbolizes his complicated feelings towards the rest of his family even though Tomura loved them he hated the way they treated him. His father forced Tenko to give up his dreams of being a hero so he can keep his ideal family in line the other beat around the bush on the abuse caring about the peace of the household over Tenko’s feelings and they don’t matter and that their not important they only cared about the peace of the household over Tenko own wants and needs. He hated him for standing by and allowing the abuse to happen and completely rejected his wants and needs. He only wanted to be accepted for who he is but didn’t get it. He feels that the house only rejected him quietly. Though he felt guilty for killing his family he is glad to end the pain of the abuse.
His family’s hands make him it seem like their holding him back with his memories locking away he subconsciously keeping his quirk in check due to guilt he’s imprisoned by the death of his family in which he caused when his quirk when first manifested. The hands symbolize his past in which he is bound by from the trauma of him killing his family.
The last remaining hand that grips on Tomura’s face represents AFO’s incredible control over Tomura.
Here is another important reason: The reason why Tomura’s face is always covered with his father’s hand was to fully utilize the fear, the popular reason why most people are afraid of something means in how we don’t understand anything about it. This can mean how none of the characters can understand or relate to Tomura. Most of they see him could relate to him or understand him
The fear that Tomura is presented with is unrelatable and inhuman. Rather than being a human, he is a symbol of terror that creeps with malice and causes others to tremble in his presence. As something to be feared he wasn’t supposed to look human to others, this goes hand in hand with the dehumanization he has and how he wasn’t treated as a person by others.
The mask on Tomura’s character is a very important representation of how his identity is molded by AFO to be a villain. Tomura taking his mask off shows what he feels to Himiko and twice with him he becomes more of his person Tomura is bad at communicating his thoughts with others even if left vague this may be due to Tomura’s distorted memories he has.
The clothes Tomura wears correlates his development as a villain with his original outfit: a black shirt and slacks. His lanky posture indicate his immaturity. The long trench coat he wears while on the run and AFO arrested notes his competency as leader of the LOV.
The clothes Tomura wears correlates his development as a villain with his original outfit: a black shirt and slacks. His lanky posture indicate his immaturity. The long trench coat he wears while on the run and AFO arrested notes his competency as leader of the LOV.
Another interesting detail that correlates to his character development is been his competency as a villain is Tomura’s "NEETNESS" he was called a neet before by Ujiko,
His second outfit when he and the members run from the police and heroes AFO arrested is like a neet striking out on his own becoming more independent looking for employment.
Tomura final outfit a business suit when he defeated the MLA and created the paranormal liberation and that he’s now a powerful supervillain with everything at his disposal symbolizes how the neet finally got a job.
The last thing that I want to discuss in his design-wise and writing-wise is how Tomura is the foil to Izuku Midoriya. Both Izuku and Tomura are villains and hero foils in which their development correlates to each other.
With their design harboring the same red shoes to further collating them to be foils and their posture with Izuku having a straight positive posture that reflects his personality and Tomura being slouchy and lethargic citing his listlessness that is present in his personality. Another interesting thing to note is in their bios they are both seen standing straight. one with an anxious expression in the beginning before he acquired OFA and the other with confidence in being a villain, one another aspect to reference to them being foils.
Writing-wise they are very similar to each other, both are taken in as successors for Izuku to All Might the greatest hero of all time, and Tomura to AFO the greatest villain. Before meeting them, they both face opposition that prevents them from going to their dreams with Izuku being quirkless and Tomura being abused by his hero-hating father. They are both inexperienced in many ways when they were first introduced Izuku recently acquiring the quirk OFA and lack of control and Tomura lacking the means to be an effective terrifying villain as Izuku is growing in the mastery of OFA Tomura is growing ineffectiveness to be a villain.
Tomura’s bonds with the members of the LOV mirror Izuku who started with no friends due to his quirklessness until he’s enrolled in UA and gained friends Ochaco and Iida similar to how Tomura bonded with the LOV after AFO arrest. Even the hand injuries parallel to each other with Tomura’s hand injuries from his fight with ReDestro mirror Izuku’s hand scars that he received from his fight with Todoroki.
Himiko Toga:
Time for my 2nd favorite character design for the BNHA series and my second favorite villain, Himiko Toga. Himiko's design is easy because you can tell what sort of person she is in one look.
Her character design says what sort of person she is. Firstly, she’s a high school student: you can instantly see that she is a high school student because of the uniform she wears. In Japan, schools require students to wear school uniforms and Himiko is 17 years old. The blushes on her cheeks make her look like a lovesick girl also showing her insanity when first introduced to us. You can tell from her background in one look that Himiko is designed to look like a girl in love all the while telling that she’s ready to stab you. Her design is enough to know that she’s someone you need to look for and be a villain. Horikoshi is a genius when it comes to styled character design, Himiko has many design elements that go very well into her character.
Himiko has two prominent shapes in her design: a circle and a triangle. The circles are visibly seen in her face and hair buns; it tells her personality and entire character. For symbolism that goes with circles, it’s that they are feminine, cute, honest, expressive, love, youthful, likable, charismatic, emotional, cheerful, compassionate.
The youth aspect is, as said above, from how Himiko is the youngest member of the LOV being 17 years old.
The feminine can point to how she’s the only girl in the group. Himiko is the most cheerful and liveliest in the LOV and her honesty is Himiko’s best qualities. Himiko is honest about herself; she's one of the members of the LOV to speak her mind even if she honestly comes off as morbid. Characters designed with circles are expressive and emotional. Himiko wears her emotions on her sleeves and does whatever makes her feel good. An example of her being emotional is how she goes out on her own to do what she likes and how she reacted to Twice’s death and cried when talking to Ochaco. Himiko is an emotional person that acts on her emotions. Himiko is one of the most expressive members of the LOV as the symbolism for the circles implies she shows an abundance of emotions in her gestures and mannerisms her joining the LOV Villians was primarily to be herself to express herself in a way she wasn’t allowed to s a kid: you can see how she freely uses her quirk when at the LOV being the ultimate act of self-expression. The best example of this symbolism of expressiveness is seen in her hair buns, her hair bun is shaped like two circles and also carries along with the symbolism of self-expression.
In her childhood when she first discovered her quirk you can see that she wore her signature hair buns that were when she was expressing affection with the bloodied bird reinforcing the expressive symbolism.
The way she put her hair down resembled how she was forced to repress a side of herself by others being forced to hide her bloodlust all these years by other people. Her hair down symbolizes how she repressed a part of herself. In the present she is happy expressing herself with her quirk when she was with the LOV she wants to express herself when she wasn’t allowed to do for her using her quirk freely is a form of self-expression Himiko is considered cute by Giren and she loves cute things. This is seen in how her villian uniform was deeply upsetting to her as she says it’s not cute. Himiko is all about love: she falls in love with Izuku, and Ochaco and Stain to the point of wanting to be them the people she loves Himiko loves to fall in love with others as her shape implies she has no problem with showing affection even if it's considered dangerous to the people to she attracted to. Himiko is compassionate. This compassionate side is prominent when she is consoled Twice for his guilt for letting Overhaul into the hideout and killing big sis Magne and taking Mr Compress’s arm. Himiko has a likable design and is considered popular with the audience ranking 3rd in an American popularity poll.
Now for Himiko’s second shape: it’s a triangle. The symbolism for triangles is that there is a quick, nimble, agile, conniving, scary, dangerous shape reserved for villains.
You can see this in her eyes, which have a distinct triangle to them. Himiko is a villain like her shape suggests withdrawn with his shape. The symbolism notes her intelligence to how she picks someone she needs to imitate to go undercover and reflects in the way she fights being very quirk. Himiko is considered dangerous by the people she is attracted to and she was wanted at large by others before she joined the group.
Another detail is her sharp teeth, this can refer to Himiko being blunt by nature and how she always speaks her mind. She is forthright when she points out others' feelings, making her emotional perceptive a skill she picked up when she was on the run from police and heroes. This is seen in how she provoked Mimic in the Yakuza arc and comforted Twice.
Horikoshi sure loves cats, he loves incorporating cats in his characters as with Aizawa and his favorite thing being cats and the Wild Wild Pussy Cats with a cat theme. Cats go with Himiko in her design and character, too.
Himiko has cat-like features in her character design with slit iris in her eyes and the blushing under her eyes resemble whiskers on a cat along with her canines in her teeth coming from fangs stuff that is seen in a cat a lot of these traits related to cats and are very prevalent in her design. Another example of her cat motif is how Himiko styles her hair into two messy buns, if you look at the silhouette of her buns resembles the ears of a cat with the hair strands coming out of her buns that look like ear tuffs from a cat. I find another interesting fact as to why she has two buns in her design the reason why she has two messy buns is that in Japanese the word for two is ni, ni sounds like nya a sound a cat makes her putting her hair up in two buns reference to her cat motif in her hair. Her speed and agility in her abilities reference cats that includes how she stalks her victims and attacks them. It resembles how she hunts like a cat, by moving without a sound stalking her prey and waiting for her prey to let her guard down then take them out when the moment is right.
Her villain costume has many influences from DC and Marvel villains with the blood-sucking machines, for example resembling Bane’s from Batman, but it has feline teeth reinforcing her catlike appearance.
Himiko was inspired by two cat yokai in Japanese mythology: the Bakeneko and Nekomata. Cat demons that have shapeshifting powers that turn human and cause chaos, which references Himiko’s quirk and personality. Bakeneko is known to have a taste for human flesh and can transform into humans by licking their blood ingesting blood and becoming a human in disguise fits Toga’s quirk Transform which she uses blood to transform into other people. The Nekomata is a cat that can transform but is seen with a fork-shaped tail, the fork-shaped tail being the cat being able to shapeshift into two different things: a cat and a human. The Nekomata plays more into Himiko’s quirk with her two buns referencing the Nekomata with the forktail. In mythology cats are known as tricksters or creatures of deception this references her quirk transform and what might be what Himiko’s was heavily inspired from seen in Himiko’s quirk transform and her cat-like appearance.
Himiko’s bun might not only look like cat ears but are meant to represent a red spider lily. In her concept drafts, Himiko had a spider lily hairstyle. The red spider lily is a flower associated with death and is put on gravesites because it is believed it can guide souls into the afterlife. The flower symbolizes death and transformation that could strongly reference her quirk transform. Another aspect of the flower comes from two lovers who feel each other at first sight but are cursed to never be together. This is why it's considered a flower of separation hence the separation between the two lovers. This notes her relationship with Izuku how she fell in love at first sight when he was bloodied and beaten but could never be together due to being from two different sides. The separation aspect in the flower goes with how Himiko feels separated by others and can never be close to them due to her interest in blood.
A minor detail in Himiko’s design is that it’s heavily influenced by Yami kawaii, a subculture in japan that glorifies sickness and mental health being taboo subjects in japan the point of the movement is not to glorify death be to express themselves in the way they haven’t prior. This subculture goes with her character and is seen best in her home cut in her character design the same hair that you see Yami kawaii use. as someone pointed out her straight Hime cut bangs and bags under the eyes reference the bags comes from the makeup effects from a Kawai trend which emulates the sickly style. Himiko’s fascination with blood is deemed a mental illness because people don’t view blood as toga does even call it wrong or weird. Himiko’s desire to express herself by expressing a taboo feeling or emotion the idea of wanting to express a taboo feeling instead of repressing it comes from the Yami kawaii movement. The use of syringes and box cutter jewelry reference Himiko’s choice of weapons her villain costume has deployable syringes that gather blood and she has a knife as a weapon of choice with the box cutters reference her butterfly knife she uses often in her fights. her syringes that gather blood resembling the strings from the Yami kawaii movement.
Toga is a strong allusion to a vampire. Even her backstory starts in a chapter “interview with a vampire” denoted to her.
Her sharp teeth play into vampire fangs along with her quirks of bloodsucking nature. The Vampire allusion notes her quirk's blood-sucking nature and her ambiguous bisexuality; vamp in a vampire is slang for bisexuality this notes her ambiguous bisexuality as she displays interest in both Izuku and Ochaco.
Vampires are written as biting commentary towards the upper class in how it guzzles down the lower class. This can refer to how Himiko’s character makes a biting commentary on society in which I will discuss later in this down below.
Another aspect is how she expresses affection openly in the way she chooses to express reference to how affection is treated in Japan. showing affection in public is considered indecent. This can infer how she was called indecent by her parents when she carried the dead bird while smiling since it's her showing affection.
To Himiko when she sucks someone's blood it's akin to kissing someone with her making the chu noise the sound of kisses in japan,
kissing in public is considered indecent. It could be said that the people in BNHA view Himiko the same way as Japan views affection.
Next, Himiko is the Villainous foil to Ochaco, with them being the only girls in their group. Both are blunt, cheerful, and outgoing and are extremely expressive, as seen in their exaggerated mannerisms. They are also perceptive of others’ feelings, traits that they learned from others around them with Ochaco watching her parents and Himiko becoming sensitive of others around her when she was on the run from heroes and police.
They are different in how they deal with their personal feelings. Where Ochaco chooses to suppress her feelings, Himiko chooses to be open and act on her feelings.
They are both in love with Izuku,but the way they approach their feelings is different. With Himiko becoming excited at the thought of seeing him and becoming open in her affection for him, Ochaco chooses to keep her feelings down thinking that her feelings for Izuku would hinder her from becoming a hero. Ochaco's admiration towards izuku mirrors Himiko’s desire to be close to the people she loves it was Toga who made her realize her feelings towards izuku later on.
Even they have similar goals to each other in which that they want to make things easier, for Ochaco was making the money from being a hero so they can have easy life out of poverty
For Himiko, it wants to make the world an easy place for her to live in so that she wouldn’t be forced to repress herself again due to her blood-related quirk by others and live freely without having to repress herself again.
Another detail in the way they contrast each other in being foils in their designs with them having permanent blush stickers on their cheeks and how she balls up her hands much like Ochaco. This may be considered an unintentional part by Horikoshi.
In her design draft Himiko was considered to symbolize distortion by Horikoshi but in what way does she resemble distortion in her personality? The distortion aspect might have meant hero society.
This makes sense since she represents the hero society's main flaw being in how it distorts other’s views.
How Himiko’s perception of herself had been shifted and distorted by her environment this is largely due to how hero society looks at others with distorted lenses regarding quirks and judge what is normal and condemn something wrong and weird. Himiko was designed and written as a biting commentary of her society in the way it views quirks in general.
Dabi:
I am super stoked to talk about my favorite character of the series, Dabi a.k.a Touya Todoroki, it's not surprising since I have a blog dedicated to finding out his character. His character design is my favorite in the entire series. There's just so much to go over in his design there are so many things jampacked in his design, many elements that are prevalent in his character. Unlike with Himiko's by which you can tell what sort of person she is in one look, Dabi’s design carries a lot of questions such as where did you get those burn scars? He just has this mysterious vibe when he was first introduced. I loved Himiko’s character design for being easy to tell and I love Dabi design for having an enigmatic presence.
When it comes to shapes his design Dabi has one prominent shape that is visible in his design which is a triangle, His entire body is a reverse triangle. You can see the shape of a triangle in his hair and face having the same shape. Something is interesting about his eyes; it's that the shape within the eye resembles a reverse triangle. His eyes have a little bit of an upside triangle to them, again referring to his main shape.
Triangles in character designs are reserved for villains with them being lanky with the triangle in their design since they commiserate being edgy and evil. Triangles when seen on designs on characters are dangerous, devious, stubborn they show danger to warn others to watch out.
I find the symbolism fits very well into Dabi’s personality and communicates these aspects of his character well.
If there's one thing we underestimate is just how smart Dabi can be, he's very calculating, always planning his next move and acting when the moment is right. You get to see this side in action when he was put in charge of the vanguard action squid during the camp raid where he completed the mission despite having three casualties and put a dent in U.A’s reputation.
Dabi is good at reading other people; this is where his intelligence truly shines. He knows which buttons to push; this comes in handy to recharge his quirk:
You see this with Vlad and Eraserhead and know what to do to rile them up, predicting how they will react. Another example is in on how he didn’t trust hawks during their cooperation because he suspects that hawks are a spy sent to infiltrate the LOV. He always watches others in the background while he's planning his next move that comes in handy to know what he's going to do next.
Another example is how he reveals his identity as Endeavor’s long-dead son Touya Todoroki and exposes Endeavor's past on broadcast effectively ruining Endeavor’s reputation destroying peoples faith in heroes. This goes so well with the deviousness Dabi’s triangle represents. The stubbornness symbolism in triangles can infer to his tenacity in his character you can see this in how he set out his plans whether he was Touya in trying to surpass all might make his father proud and Dabi in exposing the abuse on television one of the main things about Touyas the tenacity to carry out plans in his character. For Danger, despite his appearance being shrouded in many mysteries, we know from a look that he's someone to look out for he gives off a sense of ominousness just from one look at appearance and we know that he's someone to look out for and the danger part refers to how his identity as Touya Todoroki which he can use the truth to his advantage. His presence would spell danger to not only heroes but all of society in general because of how he knows the truth of Endeavor’s abuse and the dirty side of heroes; the danger in how he has the potential to put a dent in peoples trust in heroes he lacks the sharp edges when it comes to triangles downplaying his dangerous aura. Another thing to note: triangles are attention-grabbing in warning signs and characters they scream look at me to use. This strongly corresponds to Dabi’s need for acknowledgment in his catchphrase look at me.
Dabi’s slim lanky build resembles how villains are drawn as being somewhat lanky in design but also it can be a direct call back to what I said before I said that his body is an upside-down triangle. Triangles symbolize imbalances that ties directly to Dabi in a nutshell. The imbalances aspect notes Dabi’s lack of control of his life due to his abuse and neglect from Endeavor.
The triangle notes his ill health in his body which can mean his constitution in which he has a powerful flame quirk but a body made for ice his quirk burns his skin because of the incompatibility. His quirk runs on his emotions burning him if he becomes too emotional which results in him almost dying like he did at Sekoto Hill. His quirk is dangerous to his unmatched body leaving him with burn scars all over his body.
Dabi was never in control of his life at all due to his situation. The triangles note Dabi’s constant contradictions in his character in which he acts cool and collected on the surface but deep down he's an emotional beneath. Dabi may claim he doesn’t care about the LOV only using it for his objectives but he is seen risking his life for them many times despite what he says. He follows Stain’s will but it serves only as a basis to him; in reality he is only doing this to get revenge on Endeavor for the abuse he put him through.
One thing about his eyes is that they are the most prominent features of Dabi. Dabi’s eyes say a lot about his personality: they’re almond-shaped with a downward slant to them and have a double folded eyelid; the eyelid makes him look indifferent, lethargic, aloof and detached to his surroundings giving him a sense that he's cool and indifferent. The eyes give off a sense of emptiness to others when you first see him. Dabi has a double fold in his eyelid it makes him come off as cool and aloof to others a call back to his surface exterior.
For his face, Dabi’s chin is long and narrow to indicate that he's an adult.
Like most characters in BNHA, his hair is designed based on his quirk. His flame quirk makes his hair shaped like a flame. Dabi’s hair resembles Bakugo’s but with one big difference, it's designed based on flames with the strands resembling the sparks of fire.
There is something to point out about the way his hair flows. Dabi's hair goes outward in different directions. Dabi may look cold and stoic on the surface but deep down he's emotional and is driven by his feelings. dabi is emotional and expressive with his hair going outward. He's chatty and vocal on his opinions to the point of being ill-mannered; this is seen in the way the direction of their hair flows.
Another good design example is seen in his childhood as Touya. Touya’s soft round face indicates that he's 13 years old since characters having around sort of face point to the age of juvenile characters that are not yet adults. His hair is unruly; this can note his bright energetic personality when first introduced when training endeavor His soft hair notes his innocence that was destroyed by endeavors abuse neglect. If Dabi’s hair looks like fire Touya has a candle flame shape for his hair much like the kanji in his name is spelled. This showcases his youthful innocence in his features before he becomes the villain Dabi.
Dabi’s staples that keep his burnt skin and unscared skin together symbolizes how his practical mind keeps him level headed not completely off the edge his burns note how his ice body that is unmatched for his fire quirk with his quirk slowly killing him showcasing his self-destructive tendencies. Dabi’s stitches in his skin is metaphorical in how he's barely holding his life together. The piercings on his skin together show how he becomes numb to his pain but at the same time makes him look in pain both metaphorically and literally. The staples give off this failed experiment connotation this notes he is called a failure by Endeavor since he discovered he cannot surpass all might. In Dabi’s coat, you see the combination of medical staples and stitches on his clothes emulate stables that go with skin. The staples point out that Dabi is a contradictory character in BNHA and this part in his design proves this with his skin drafts reference his constant contradictions in his personality. Dabi’s dyed hair and multiple pieces suggest Dabi has more of a rebel attitude, with his general outfit resembling a typical delinquent appearance: piercing, loose white shirt black coat. Dyed hair is usually considered a delinquent concept having dyed hair and multiple piercings frowned upon in some parts of conservative areas in conservative areas in Japanese society. Dabi rebels and acts opposite of his father by becoming a villain who opposes heroes like his father and follows Stain’s ideology the same one that despises heroes like Endeavor. Dabi’s rebellion is supposed to go against his upbringing of being raised by her father and the values he grew up within how he was raised in a traditional Japanese household. When he takes on Stain’s ideology he rebels against the system that creates heroes like Endeavors.His delinquency is how he reacted to the abuse from Endeavor by going into delinquency and lashing out. The thing I noticed about rebellions is how they always aimed to get attention from others I find this very sad since Dabi that despite his hatred he still yearns for acknowledgment from others.
Another way his dyed hair symbolizes other than concealing his identity represents him hiding his identity and feelings from others, removing his dye is how he's letting himself feel the pain instead of repressing it.
Dabi turns his hair back to his original color that symbolizes how his identity as endeavors son is out and him leaning it white to spite him.
An interesting detail is seen in his villain costume after he joined the LOV other than the stitched up aesthetic carried over to his coat but they added cuffs, His cuffs are inspired by Japanese stove burners:
When you turn on the stove blue flames appear which is likely a reference to Dabi’s blue flames, a design reference from Horikoshi.
Dabi’s animal is a snake. People often say dabi looked like a serpent when he was first introduced. This may be a bit of a stretch but if you see the recent art it might not be. Snakes are sneaky and cunning this is symbolic of his strategy and cunning with his approach to bringing down endeavor. The snake goes with the whole hell symbolism that the Todorokis have. It brings to mind the serpent from the bible the serpent in Adam and Eve is near the fruit of knowledge tempts them to eat the fruit. The snake plays into the fact that Dabi harbors knowledge on Endeavor and the abuse. Seeing Dabi’s snake form reminds me of the Japanese phrase “Ryuutou-dabi”, the Japanese phrase of a strong start but a disappointing end in sort of an anticlimax. Dabi embodies the phrase in his snake form in how as Touya he started as Endeavor’s successor with a powerful fire quirk only to be tossed aside by him and considered a failure for having a body made for ice someone deeming him incapable of surpassing All Might, someone who started with a strong beginning but ended a disappointing start.
Dabi has the entire death theme in his design a closer look at Dabi’s face you see what's left of the skin of his face looks like an upper half of a skull with his fire quirk resembles fire from a cremation. This notes his supposed death as Touya when he was almost burned to death at Sekoto Peak when he was younger. Dabi has a death theme similar to Tomura, but different because tomura represents the dirtiness of death in his design being his design based on decay. For Dabi it would come from cremation. Even his villain alias means cremation, noting on how dabi is designed to represent how the body looks after its cremated nothing but bones and ashes. Tomura’s design is based on a corpse decaying from negligence; Dabi’s is a charred corpse that was burned to death from neglect and lack of care.
Dabi is a heavy allusion to Frankenstein's monster with his patchwork skin and background. Dabi’s birth bears similarities to how the monster was created that being created through unethical means with Touya’s birth is through a quirk marriage between his parents. The monster was created through the sewn together of different corpse parts. how both Endeavor and Dabi have humongous allusions to the novel Frankenstein with on how Victor created the monster for the pursuit of scientific knowledge to discover life similar to how Endeavor created Touya because he wanted to create a powerful child that can surpass AllMight. Both Victor and Endeavor are characterized by their ambitions with both placing their ambitions above their famil;y Victor threw himself into his studies to neglect his family and his fiance, while Endeavor neglected his family's feelings. Victor's abandonment of the monster is when it first came to life: he fled in terror being disgusted by the monster's appearance, mirroring Endeavor’s neglect of Touya when he realized that he can’t surpass All Might. Frankenstein is motivated by his ambition to achieve something great when it comes at a great cost which led him to mess around with life in creating the monster; Endeavoris characterized by his ambition and want to be stronger no matter what means he has to do with it which results in him in getting in a quirk marriage to create Touya. Both Victor and Endeavor did a crime of messing around with life with both failing to recognize how their actions have repercussions and failing to learn from them. Both failed to take responsibility for their actions when it matters with Victor failing to act when learns the death of his brother under false accusations of Justine victor can act be choose not to fail to take responsibility allowing Justine’s execution and endeavor fail to take into account how his actions deeply hurt his family. Both Victor and Endeavor blamed their faults onto others running away from their responsibilities. The monster and Dabi have similarities too with the monster been shunned by society for his appearance and isolated by society mirrors Touya’s isolation from the rest of his family and feeling unseen by them as Dabi he feels unseen by others in society knowing his father the hero and how abusive he is people won’t believe them since they never see anything wrong with hero society and heroes. Another similarity between is their experience with fire with Dabi almost burned to death with he was young and the monsters first experience with it. Both Dabi and the monster serve as reminders of how Endeavor and Victor fail to take responsibility.
Dabi is the villainous foil of Shoto Todoroki. Like Shoto, he holds some Asian influence this best seen in his eyes in which as more of a downward slant to them they have many similarities in their designs to correlate to each other with having the same eyes, face, body type and height this isn’t the first time that BNHA uses hereditary in character design as I explained with Tomura. Dabi is similar to Shoto not just in his same features and positive in his design but also their personalities. With Dabi and Shoto both cool and collected in their respective groups and both suffered under endeavors abuse to be endeavors successor where Shoto was favored due to his quirk and Dabi was cast aside. Dabi harbors the same attitude and mindset as Shoto, in the beginning, they share they were cold to the people around them and viewed their flames as Endeavor’s are both cold and focused when it comes to their goals Shoto wants to be seen not as an extension of Endeavor, and Dabi wants acknowledgment from Endeavor and others. Dabi and Shoto are foils to each other and have known to have more similarities to them than differences in his design. Dabi was around Shoto’s age had a rounder sort of face like Shoto had indicating theirs simulates the way. Their hair flows is different Shoto hair goes inward refers to Shoto subdued and reserved and Dabis being an emotional person his hair goes outward it also symbolizes their dispositions regarding their abuses where Shoto is closed off to his abuse Dabi in the other hand shows it openly.
What is the flaw that Dabi represents in hero society? It's how heroes do scummy things than the villains of hero society. The people in hero society don’t question the heroes because it is a lot like how the civilians treated Tenko after they wandered the streets. They don’t see anything wrong with the heroes allowing them to get away with crimes without punishment. This is why Dabi said to stop and think he wants people to question pro heroes in the broadcast. Dabi knows there are bad heroes like Endeavor.
Epilogue
Each of the LOV is modeled after a monster in some way this can be considered intentional since it would represent how hero society can create its monster as seen with the LOV. Designed to look like monsters or maybe part of Horikoshi’s preferences since he loves pop culture references note them many times in the story. Horikoshi took inspiration from horror and slasher film genres when he designed his villains.
Horikoshi said when he designs his villains he when he creates villains he tries to bring out a sense of disgust and what sort of impression they make on the psyche of the audience like the concept behind Shigaraki was to install fear among his audience with Himiko being cute and being able to mix into society and continue living and Dabi comes as more mysterious to us readers to use readers.
The villains of BNHA are based around a flaw in hero society like with Stain and getting rid of fake heroes It tells us that there are bad heroes like endeavor and people who become heroes for money and glory rather than selfless hero work. and Nagant addresses how the hero commission uses heroes like hawks to protect their self-image then make everything and eliminate anything that is a threat to that self-image.
These two things to keep in mind when you create a villain in BNHA are in how they make an impression on someone and a flaw that hero society has.
Color:
In most media, black is the color reserved for villains since it’s a color that traditionally symbolizes evil. The LOV of villains is no exception,: black is the LOV image color. But beyond that, each one of the members of the LOV has an image color that correlates to their personalities.
Tomura Shigaraki:
Tomura Shigaraki’s image colors are both black and white. Black references him as a villain, but in actuality his main image color is white. White may seem a positive opposite to black colorwise in western cultures; however in Asian cultures white is considered bad luck, because it’s the color of death.
White is the color of death in Japanese culture. In many Asian funerals you see people wearing white; it is used as a symbol of the mourning. Funerals are a call back to his given name Tomura because it translates into mourning and the character for death is his surname.
But, white also symbolizes innocence or someone who has a blank slate; the color white is known to be dyed by any color, noting Tomura’s ability to learn and reflect and his character development.
Black is the color of evil, death, chaos, and destruction
Black is the perfect color for a character revolving around death to himself and those around him. For himself as death his old identity as Tenko Shimura the civilian with a hero lineage to Tomura Shigaraki AFO’s successor physically as seen when he was accidentally killed in the raid of the hospital caused his heart to stop. Chaos and destruction note his personality is what he wishes on hero society for rejecting him.
There’s also another aspect of him that is his hair that changed color. After he killed his family when his quirk awoke how he was left wandering the street with everyone ignoring him no one helps him because of his appearance and him being taken in by AFO name change him in those instances he was reborn as the greatest supervillain. His colors signify Tomura’s dark rebirth as Tenko civilian from a hero family to Tomura adopted son of an overlord: it's a transition from good to evil black to white Tenko’s hair being black to white is powerful.
This suits Tomura really since he is someone who is always in constant morning metaphoric, literally and figuratively and physically
Himiko Toga:
Himiko’s image color is red, as red is the color of blood. Himiko's quirk transforms in which she ingests blood to become someone else and her obsession with blood. The symbolism of Red goes with Himiko personally, red is the color of passion and emotional color that symbolizes desire, danger, instinct, impulsiveness, liveliness. Red also symbolizes love, but the deep passionate kind. Love has a lot to do with Himiko as a character. She falls in love with the person that is covered in blood. Feels it deeply so much that she wants to be the person of her affection. Desire could reference Himiko's distorted desires she has in wanting to be the people she loves via by draining them of all their blood. Red is the color of passion and emotion that goes well with Himiko; she is emotional and follows her desires and impulses when it comes to her warped desires diving headfirst not thinking about anything else. Himiko is the most morbidly cheerful and liveliest of the LOV; she is the most energetic of the group and gets excited when she sees her crush. She feels her desire deeply as she stated before in her conversation with Ochaco. The dangerous part can refer to how she's a dangerous criminal who is wanted by both police and heroes who were a subject in the blood-letting cases. Her affection is considered dangerous to those she's attracted to.
Her color scheme goes hand in hand with her cat-like features seen in her design with Himiko's pale hair and gold irises resembling colors that are seen on a cat and Her cat likes the ability to sneak and stalk her target.
Dabi:
Dabi wears darker colors. As I stated once before in my last creation meta character who wears darker colors shows a brooding, aloof and detached personality; this goes with Dabi who is seen as aloof and detached from his allies. But for image color Dabi’s main image color is blue. Blue is seen in both his eyes and his flames in contrast to the popular belief that his eyes are turquoise and blue. Blue flames are said to be the hottest flames of the spectrum. blue is not only the color of his flames but also his entire personality as a whole the color blue is very complex and contradictory which is Dabi’s character in a nutshell.
On the surface, Dabi is calm, serious, intelligent, cool, cold, like Blue. Dabi is the most serious-minded and focused when compared to the rest of LOV when it comes to missions. Blue is the color of order and rules, Dabi has his own sets of principles and ideals in contrast to LOV that he follows. He follows Stain’s ideology but albeit very differently since it goes hand in hand with his motives.
Dabi is intelligent, it has been proven many times in the story, in how he leads the vanguard action squad by using himself as bait to distract the pro heroes from the original objective and being successful in his mission despite three casualties. Dabi has a degree of emotional intelligence and he knows what makes them tick. He taunts opponents and reads their emotions then attacks at their blind spots. Dabi is good at people. He always watches his expressions in the background and has a good idea of their emotions.
How he gauges his opponent’s weakness to buy himself time to recharge his quirk and to find an opening in their defenses. This is how he makes plans: Dabi is calculating and waiting as seen in the way he makes plans watching endeavors every move to await the opportunity to publicly expose endeavor.
There’s another thing about blue that’s related to ice and water since blue is the color seen in both of them. The cold and cool of ice and water symbolism may refer to Dabi’s surface personality and constitution as having a body made for ice. His surface personality is in how he comes off to others cold, cool, and empty on the surface with him having empty eyes, he’s emotionally distinct with others and himself. He keeps a low profile and approaches with uncaring and cold indifference to others. Despite his aloof and cool exterior is passionate as I will elaborate.
Blue is a sensitive color; the same can be said with Dabi despite saying he cannot feel anything. He feels his pain so deeply and his own emotions too strongly he is just too numb to his pain emotionally and physically.
Blue may seem like a calm color on the surface but it’s a color that feels things deeply. Blue symbolizes deep emotions. It goes well with Dabi since he is deeply emotional.Dabi may seem cool and collected in the exterior he usually displays, but deep down he’s emotional. Blue being a color that feels things deeply notes the function of Dabi's quirk in that the power of his flames is linked to his emotional state.
Blue is also the color of sadness and depression. This references Dabi’s inner pain he suffered from the abusive neglect from endeavor in that he was used and discarded as a tool to endeavor ambitions and the pain he got from his quirk which burns his skin when he uses it. The definition also notes the lack of acknowledgment he was given of his pain and on how he distances himself from his emotions to prevent him from having any more pain. The sadness is noted in how he reacted to Twice’s death, but couldn’t cry since his tear ducts were burned and thinking about Snatch’s words on family while he cried tears of blood. Dabi’s inner motives regarding heroes to why he wants to bring down the hero society have a lot to do with him harboring deep emotions related to Endeavor's abusive neglect he suffered underneath. Though we only hear his voice, his making stains will, in reality, aren’t his own. In reality, his motives are exposing his father’s abusive past and making him suffer for the abuse he put Dabi under. Dabi never voices his desires due to how little he has an opinion of himself. blue is both an orderly color and emotional color. They are contradictions like Dabi himself: underneath his cold and aloof exterior he’s full of emotional turmoils.
Blue also stands for truth and idealism. The truth is referred to in how he knows the truth of Endeavor, abuse to his family, and corruption of heroes. Dabi is more truthful to what we give him credit for as seen when he introduces himself to Tomura and states that he will reveal his real name when it’s time and carry the hero killer’s will. When it comes to idealism though he has Stain’s ideology he views it differently: where Stain believes in true heroes Dabi believes that no true hero exists. Dabi is very open, honest, and true to the point of being ill-mannered by other people. He is truthful when he broadcasts Endeavor’s family abuse on television. Although Dabi himself is not straightforward like the color blue, he's honest about his goals.
Blue symbolizes commitment. This can go in how Dabi is steadfast and tenacious he refuses to give up when the goal is done. This dedication is seen in his devotion to how he follows stain ideals and commitment to his plan to publicly expose endeavor and bring down hero society. Dabi has a lot of emotional depth to his character and the blue shows this.
There’s also a lot of symbolism of black that goes with Dabi very well in his design and character.
Black is a color reserved for villains so he’s a villain with his own villain persona Dabi. Black is the color of what corpses look like when they’re burned to death the color black is reminiscent of charred corpses or cremation the color black.
Again, black means a lot of things: power, fear, mystery, and death. The mysteriousness in Dabi is noted when he was first introduced to us as someone mysterious and his motives that we don’t know until it was revealed. The black Dabi wears as his color symbolizes how he is rebelling against endeavor by becoming the villain Dabi who ignored him since dying one’s hair is an act of rebellion or change. Black symbolizes death. It shows up a lot in Dabi’s design and character to when he was Touya who burned to death at Sekoto and Dabi who killed 33 people and his ending Endeavor’s reputation.
The power symbolism in black can mean the power Dabi has over Endeavor and his position of power in terms of his quirk and position in the LOV. Dabi’s black resembles his strength and power he carries over his father that he knows about the truth of Endeavor’s abuse towards his family and Dabi displays this power when he gleefully taunts Endeavor and exposing his past to society.
Black is a dangerous color. You can note this in his design when he is first introduced that even one look can make anyone tell that he's dangerous and someone to look out for and in the way. He knows a truth that would shatter hero society to the core and weaken people’s trust in heroes and put the hero-reliant society to question their faith in their idols.
Black conceals where white reveals, this plays very well on how he conceals his identity by dying his hair black to avoid others from knowing his real identity and taking on the villain persona Dabi than at the dawn of the war arc he washes off his hair with dye remover revealing his white hair to Endeavor and Shoto. The saying black conceals where white reveals goes hand in hand with his reveal as seen with his hair.
The greatest thing he did he didn’t choose white or red but both! He subverts our expectations by saying his hair color is both colors. There one interesting thing to note it’s about how Touya’s hair color represents his mental state. Horikoshi shows Touya’s character and mental state by using his hair colors as a reference. His mental state is seen best in the color of his hair with his changing color symbolizes his deteriorating mental stability.
Touya’s original red hair color represents hopes, dreams, and passion. You see this in how he was feeling excited to be trained by Endeavor and his energetic personality admitting passion and radiance. The color red symbolizes others such as determination, strength, and anger. This regarding the red in his hair displays his determination to surpass all that might make his father proud.
Touya's changing hair color meant he was having the inkling that he was getting replaced and the process of him losing importance in Endeavor’s eyes, faith in his father and himself. as time passed every time a new sibling was born his hair became more and more white fully turning white until the birth of Shoto a reflection on how each child becoming closer and closer to being obsolete in endeavors eyes with his hair losing his fathers color entirely like a child who would take his place was born with the birth of his successor that would mean that the birth of Touya is meaningless. The red hair symbolizes Touya’s eagerness and liveliness and his white hair symbolizes his loss of purpose, becoming vulnerable to the abuse. Touya's red hair changing into white symbolizes his fire and potential was slowly put out with the whiteness of his hair is the decline of his radiant self.
The white hair represents the loss of his purpose and importance in his father’s eyes, his innocence, and the vulnerability that was brought out by Endeavor’s abusive neglect. His white hair symbolizes lifelessness and his loss of purpose by being treated as a tool for endeavors ambition when it was discovered he has a mismatched body. His hair color is the tragic implication of how he used to be an upbeat child until endeavors abuse sank in.
His hair is the ice genes he inherited from Rei as well the color of emptiness that plays heavily in Dabi dissociates himself with his feelings and that he is usually seen having empty eyes.
Quirks:
I already explain what quirks are in the BNHA section with my last creation analysis. The character's personalities complement their quirk but this is more complex with villains.
As I stated in my previous analysis, characters are influenced by their quirk in some way; their quirk in which forces them to interact with their environment can be changed based on how they view themselves and shape and shaped by that person's self-image and perception of the world.
This is true to how these quirks affect these main three, in particular, they impact mental health as seen with twice and Himiko and lead to discrimination towards someone’s based appearance leads to villainy as we see with Spinner,or pain such as Dabi and Tomura these problems could have been prevented but chosen not to it shows how society cared about a slice of itself and would rather ignore the part they take too much effort to change.
If you think about it most of the problems in my hero academia contributed to quirks. Look at how people with villain quirks are treated with gang orca’s appearance saying that he resembles a villain’s hero that looks like a villain Gang Orca is stated to have a villainous appearance even voted to be the hero that looked like a villain. Shinso’s mind control quirk is orchestrated for being a villain by his classmates Shinso’s mind control quirk is considered villainous. None of the quirks showed villainous qualities but facets of a character’s personality. This is how people react to quirks, heroes, and villains that cause other people to shun them due to how they feel. If you look closely villains are victims of their environment they are from society is another many creating villains.
Before I talk about these characters’ quirks let me clear something up first: quirks are neither good nor evil in fact quirks were originally had no meaning to them it only depends on the people behind these said quirks the quirks don’t have to be villainous to be villains look at Mr. Compress, Twice, Spinner, and Magne’s quirks.
Mr. Compress compresses things into marbles; they are a typical magician magic trick that makes sense since he’s a stage magician. Magne’s quirk shows her sexuality on how she’s attracted to men but repels women.
Twice’s double allows him to make doubles of other people and himself but it depends if he knows them well enough to measure them with their personalities. His quirk symbolizes his need for companionship and self-acceptance. Spinner’s quirk gecko allows him to stick to walls this can note an aspect of Spinner on that he is known for riding on the coat tail of someone for whom he’s passionate in like Stain and Shigaraki like sticking to walls and shows his strength as being supportive and on the side of people he cares about. That's something to keep in mind when you’re choosing a quirk for a villain oc they don’t need to be villainous just as long as you wrote them to keep their personality in mind.
Another non-villainous quirk but used for villainous means is Overhaul the quirk of Kai Chisaki. His quirk allows him to disassemble and reassemble things on command; it says something about his personality in how his quirk is a metaphor for how he treats people. In which he can disassemble and reassemble people like objects, rebuild them in a moment, and see no value in them other than their use. subordinates childhood friends and Eri treats them as all dispensable tools for their use. It highlights Chisaki’s main flaw is that he doesn’t understand people or their values; he only sees others as objects for their use. The main reason why Chisaki hates quirks is how quirks give people self-worth, believe that they are special, that they are worth something, how quirks give them purpose or self-worth.
Chisaki wants to protect the place he found a home in the place that gave him worth that’s going extinct because of quirks he hates because it brings the end of the yakuza the home be found in. He hates heroes and quirks because they took away his purpose.
As I stated before he doesn’t see value in others as people he views the people they see value in themselves based on their quirk are infected mice infatuated with their disease which is a quirk. Overhaul believes himself to be different from others because he found this realization but in reality, he doesn’t care at all about what others want or think and society in which he doesn’t care what happens to it. Him wanting to reinstate the yakuza may seem selfless on paper but it’s actually to protect his fragile sense of ego from the place he has found worth in. Heroes and quirks threaten his fragile sense of self-worth, reinstating the yakuza as his self-worth was being threatened. when his arms are taken away it is a blow to his ego it was the same way he mocked mirio for the same reason.
Tomura Shigaraki:
Tomura’s quirk is called Decay, his quirk allows him to disintegrate anything that comes in contact with all five fingers. Decay serves as a metaphor for hero society. This system is slowly decaying on the inside out from all the injustices and corruption and the people’s neglect of this causes it to accumulate and spill out. The decay happened because people ignored all their problems in front of them. Tomura is the metaphorical decay that society neglected.
His quirk Decay turns everything into dust with no hope of return. Tomura has no hope in a society that constantly rejects him for who he is and sees no hope in being saved and thinks that there's nothing else to do but destroy.
Tomura believes himself to be capable of nothing but destruction AFO and other people say the same thing and he internalizes this he believes of what others tell him Tomura defines himself that he is only useful for anything but destruction he doesn’t find identity other than destruction. We know that Shigaraki is capable of more than that. Shigaraki proved to us that he is more than what they say. He doesn’t take delight in destruction as we are led to believe in the recent arc no matter what Shigaraki destroys he's not fulfilled. He is capable of feeling genuine guilt and remorse for what he's done; he felt guilt and disgust within himself for killing his family. you know how Tomura is careful about what he touches. This detail may note how he surprises his quirk subconsciously he does that out of guilt for what he's done. Tomura’s impulse to destroy wasn’t his need for destruction but a reaction to his abusive environment and desire to be freed from it.
His itch wasn’t a destructive impulse but a reaction to his toxic environment. The reason why he destroys was no more the reaction to the abusive environment he's in, the reason why he is quick to lash out is a reaction to the abusive upbringing. The flashback shows how he was forbidden and punished for being the one thing he chooses to be. People in his family take a blind eye to his suffering and make excuses for the abuser not validating his pain being rejected by the household. being punished violently is a good reason to feel anxious and uneasy with his environment until he reaches the point of not taking it anymore. People are born with people around them as I stated people are villains by how the characters interact with their environment the same can be said with Shigaraki. He embraces but contradicts it as Tomura showed us he is capable of more than just destruction I think I have already gone over what hands mean in Shigaraki’s character design as I stated before in his design aspect hands a very important aspect in his design his hands are used to activate his quirk I stated in Tomura’s hand motif that hands symbolize connections to others since his quirk requires him using his hands it showed us his connection to others the great example of it is in his bonds with the LOV. His hands are capable of connecting with others.
His insecurity in his quirk acts as a metaphor for his complete inability to form connections with others without lashing out due to his trauma.
Himiko Toga:
Onto Himiko and her quirk transform, which allows transforms she digested blood from. In Himiko's design drafts Horikoshi was basing her on this concept of distortion. Himiko herself has distorted desires of love but he must be giving a commentary of hero society when he was designing Himiko's quirk as a social commentary on BNHA society. This is seen well in how her quirk forces her to interact with her surroundings.
Toga had her worldview shifted and her emotional tendencies distorted by the world around her, things we find wrong or weird. Instead of addressing this we brush it aside, ignoring the issues hoping they would go away when instead it only represses them; it was something they could have prevented by choosing not to. Himiko's concept is a distortion but this could not only mean herself but the distortion of society around her. The distortion was not only Himiko herself but society as a whole. Himiko is the symbol of distortion or better yet society distortion in the BNHA universe.
Himiko states in her monologue when she loves someone she sucks their blood and she makes a chu sound which is the sound of kissing to her blood is the same as kissing. In Japan kissing in public is frowned upon and displaying affection is considered indecent. She was called a deviant by her parents for expressing interest in blood. This is not only based on the Japanese attitude on affection but also her bisexuality. Though homosexuality isn’t taboo students in adolescence experience harsh bullying when students go to guardians or teachers the common thing that they are told is to act normally this sounded similar to Himiko’s background and similar to what Toga was taught.
The functions of the quirk note aspects of her personality how her digesting blood. Her quirk only changes her appearance and can note her surface-level admiration towards someone and her desire to be close to them. When Himiko loves someone she sucks their blood because her blood is the only way to get to know someone. She expresses affection by becoming the object of said affection. The way her quirk acted in changing appearances notes her surface-level admiration; this can mean she wants to be close to them on a deeper level. Her views on love and connection are considered wrong or weird because she knows they don’t view blood as she does.
Himiko wants to be close to other people but Himiko was forced to repress herself to a quirk that she has that digested blood no one knew the real her she wanted to be close to others and no one was close to her. Her real self was not accepted by others around her: Himiko wants connection but doesn’t know how. That may be what she envied Uraraka and Izuku's relationship because she is accepted and loved for who she is. She can use Uraraka's quirk is because she wants to have the same connection that Uraraka had with her loved ones. Her quirk notes that she wants to feel loved and accepted for who she is and her desire to connect.
Dabi:
Now for Dabi’s quirk. Dabi’s has a powerful flame that is incompatible with his body made for ice.
Dabi’s quirk is incompatible with his own body like Aoyama’s and using his quirk burns the skin of his body faster. His flames run on his emotional state even changed color when he hit puberty. If Dabi becomes emotional he might accidentally set himself on fire.
Dabi having a flame and ice body notes Dabi’s numerous contradictions in his personality and actions. These two things say a lot in Dabi in a nutshell as seen with his actions and personality. His ice makeup notes how Dabi is cool-headed on the surface due to his body made for ice and how he comes off to others being aloof, detached, cold, uncaring, and serious. His flames note the intense emotions he has underneath his cool exterior. Dabi is cool-headed on the surface but underneath he’s deeply emotional and he’s hiding his sithing emotions underneath his exterior.
His flames are blue a cool color yet burn hotter; as stated earlier, blue fire is the hottest of flames in being what burns bright and the strongest this represents Dabi’s deep ever so turbulent emotions.
He may act rational and sensible on the surface but His actions are fueled by his own emotions with the blue flames representing how intense his emotions are. His flames are blue which are considered the hottest and brightest, the hottest part of his flames symbolizes his need for acknowledgment from others.
Another thing Dabi dissociates himself by saying he can’t feel anything anymore but this is him trying not to get too emotional otherwise it could kill him like it did when he was younger and to not get close to others due to the pain he experienced from the abuse in his past.
Dabi uses his quirk very recklessly without any regard towards himself or others. This is seen in the way he uses his flames quirk to burn away his enemies while he burns himself. The way he uses his quirk and his quirk will burn himself refers to how little he thinks of himself and doesn’t value himself since Endeavor never valued Touya as a person but a tool as seen in the way he fights. Because he was neglected by Endeavor he neglects himself in a fight and his unhealthy mindset to how he pushes himself and not care because he feels he’s never going to be good enough this refers to Dabi’s self-destructive tendencies his intense emotions which come out as self-destructive with his body served as a reminder that he was never going to be good enough Dabi felt inferior and neglected due to the abuse. Dabi's self-destructive tendencies come from his quirk; it comes from his abusive environment. The abuse gave him an incredible shattered sense of self-worth as seen in how he uses his quirk: he doesn’t care about what happens to himself; he is a dead man walking.
His quirk reflects his character flaw perfectly in which the flames serve as a metaphor to how he cannot regulate his own emotions since he was never taught to know how.
So when you choose a quirk for your villain, have it represent their inner insecurities like these, such as Dabi’s needing validation of himself and his feelings, Himiko wanting to be herself, and having the ability to connect to someone. Twice the need for companionship and Tomura may be the most obvious need for freedom without restrictions.
Names:
Tomura Shigaraki:
Time for names,
Tomura Shigaraki’s name is packed with a lot of interesting things that are intrinsically linked to his character, quirk, and development he underwent in the story.
I will go over his original name Tenko Shimura (志村 転弧) first. For the kanji in his given name “Ten” means “転, shift, curve, crescent, turn, abrupt, fall, change, revolve” and “ko” means “弧, arc” when put together it is read as "changing arc”. His given name notes his transition from civilian to villain and his character arc that develops in the story.
His given name “Shimura” when broken down goes like this with “Shi” means “志, aspirations” and “mura” means “村, village” when put together means "village of aspirations”. His surname notes his grandmother's hero lineage and connection to OFA and Tenko himself as a boy who once had dreams of being a hero but was forbidden by his father.
On to his villain name Tomura Shigaraki (死柄木弔). It is rich with so much meaning that goes very well with his character, situation, and role.
For “Tomura'' means “弔, funerals'' in Japanese but it comes from the Japanese verb “Tomura'' which means "to mourn”. His name is given to AFO to symbolize the death of his old self reborn as one who inspires fear and acts as mourning around the world. Someone who constantly is reminded of his pain by AFO.
Tomura came from “Tomura-age”, Tomura-age is the final stage of the memorial in Japanese culture
Being a completion of the rites with the spirit has been one of the kami. This alludes to AFO’s plans for Tomura to how he plans to rule using Tomura’s body and to get back OFA All the while getting revenge on All Might by using his master's grandson. Tomura’s body being taken over by AFO brings his final rite to being a villain. the one of kami and refers to how AFO is called a god to his followers, to how AFO gave his real quirk to him taking control of Tomura being one with him is similar to how one with the kami sounds. AFO named him intentionally to reference the final stages of his plans.
For his surname Shigaraki, when broken down the kanji, is comprised of “Shi” means “死, death” and “gara” means “柄, grip” in Japanese. when the first two kanji of his name is put together it means “death grip"
As I explained in his character design segment death is a core aspect of his character you can see this well with his villain name, with death grip is the literal interpretation of the function of his quirk Decay if he touches you with all five fingers you dissolve into dust. Death grip can be used in the literal sense the moment when Shigasaki grips you with his quirk. The meaning came from the term death grip which in itself for something gripped too tightly which is exported by a person in panic or fear of life and that their grip causes a death that you cannot escape from. This notes Tomura carrying this image of fear that he conjures up to the other characters signifying the definition of the literal death grip. Death Grip also means something on Tomura’s entire situation to how he is always being under someone’s control by both AFO and his family, with his family in the abuse he was put under and their hands that keep him both in check and suffocate him.
The last kanji in his surname “ki” means “木, tree”, The tree aspect can reference family tree as such as his connection to his grandmother nana Shimura 7th holder of OFA with the tree can mean how he’s tried to both all might from his mentor and a being AFO successor and surrogate son. His reference to being the symbol of terror in opposition to the symbol of peace, All-Might.
Death plays into his character well as seen with him having the kanji death in his surname as the death of Tenko his old self and the rebirth of Tomura the Villain and the successor of AFO. Tomura’s name notes his morning for his original self that was lost to the abuse of AFO.
Later we found out that Shigaraki is AFO’s surname. Shigaraki is a homophone for a town in Shiga prefecture that was once an imperial capital for a few months. This notes the AFO empire which was short-lived since it was dismantled by his little brother and All Might and the presence of OFA. when Shigaraki is revealed to be AFO surname’s it not only symbolizes AFO control over Tomura but also being his successor in his evil the translation of death symbolizes AFO having complete control over him.
Tomura Shigaraki’s name is nuanced just as his character is a character coated in death both literal and metaphorical is the Perfect transition from being a civilian to a villain.
Himiko Toga:
Now time to take about the only girl in the LOV Himiko Toga (渡我 被身子) and her name.
Himiko’s entire name notes the function in which her quirk is used, with the first kanji in her name “Hi” means “被, to wear or put on” and “mi” means “身, somebody” and “ko,子 ” is a common end particle for girls in japan Her given name when put together means "to wear or put on someone else”.
For her Surname Toga when broken down into the first kanji “To” mean s “渡, cross over or migrate” and “ga” means “我, self, and ego” together with its read as "migrate one’s self”. When her entire name is spelled together you can read it as “covering up all over my body and hiding”.
Her entire name is structured to note the functions of her quirk transform which allows her to take on the physical appearance of the person she consumed blood from.
Dabi:
Last but not least, Dabi, otherwise Known as Touya Todoroki. I did several metas on his name on my blog and I explained over it again. Dabi’s name like Tomura’s carries a lot of nuance in both his character and role in the story. The meaning in his villain name is very complex and intricate, much like Dabi himself.
I am going to start with his civilian identity, Touya. His name fits the naming themes of BNHA and ties well with his personality in the story the first kanji of his name “Tou" means “燈, lamp”, The kanji both notes his flame quirk and his ice constitution that is unmatched for his fire quirk. The other definition is “the fire that illuminates the surroundings”. This definition notes how powerful the flames of his quirk are when compared to Endeavors. "燈” the old version of the common kanji. The old version in which the kanji used in his name notes how he grew up in a traditional Japanese household. The kanji "Tou" is used for saying “lanterns, torches or night lights" in Japanese. Light/torch indicates that he’s the oldest of his siblings and lanterns mean torches that can refer to how Touya has a fire in his soul lit by Endeavor. Lanterns and torches are seen at the beginning of the festivals but slowly fade out when the festival ends. The indication of a beginning like night festival notes his previously exuberant, fiery personality when he was first training with endeavor only to slowly fade in the background after he finds out that he was being replaced as Endeavor’s successor with the arrival of more children.
Lamps are used by people to help them see through their way in the darkness. This suggests Touya’s entire situation to how he needed help to see where he was going but didn’t receive help from his family. No one was that lamp to help him see through the darkness of his situation leaving him all alone in the darkness with no help. Touya needed help but the people in his family didn’t understand him. His bedtime talk with Natsuo fully incorporates the night lamp symbolism that goes with his character. The lamps used to see these ties very strongly for Touya’s need acknowledgment from others. The lamp notes his current situation has never had any help received; he is still stuck in the dark in need of a light.
The second kanji "ya" means "矢, arrow" in Japanese “ya" is a common end particle of a boy’s name.
Arrows are aimed straight to hit their target, a blatant implication on Touya's one-track mind, his arrow-like ambition to surpass all might to make his father proud. The arrow meaning in his name notes his disappearance as an object that is fired doesn’t return.
The lamps and arrows in his name are tools used by others They have no agency. This plays into the irony for Touya of how he’s seen as a tool to be used and discarded by endeavor once he realizes he cannot fulfill his ambition, another reference on how Endeavor views his children as a tool for his ambitions. Touya having no control over his situation in an abusive household with Endeavor or his body makeup notes his lack of agency seen in the tool symbolism I previously mentioned in the paragraph. His civilian name is tragic for his entire character.
Time for his villain name Dabi, Dabi is translated to “cremation” in English. His civilian name may have an obvious meaning in English but if you look closely at Dabi’s villain name in Japanese it has much more nuances to his character and design especially in how Dabi is used in Japanese culture.
If you break down the kanji in Japanese "荼, weed" in Japanese the kanji used to translate Buddhist terms borrowed from Sanskrit. The other meaning of “Da" is “suffering” The second kanji “bi" means "毘, help or save” it doesn’t mean anything in Japanese but if you put these characters together in Chinese it’s translated as “saving people's souls from their body”.
This meaning correlates to Dabi’s Buddhist religious origins where it notes the actual cremation funeral practice Dabi is the Buddhist ceremony the purpose of Buddhist cremation is to liberate the soul from the body so that the person can be reborn the ultimate purpose of cremation is rebirth since the purifying flame of cremation to separate attachment of the soul to be reincarnated again. The reason why they choose cremation in Buddhism is that Buddha was cremated so his followers would follow suit. cremation is the most common practice to bury the dead in japan.
Dabi’s villain name might reference the Japanese phrase "entrust to the flames” (Dabi ni fusu,荼毘に付す). “Entrust to the flames” is the English equivalent of "they passed away" in English. "entrust to the flames” original meaning comes from Buddhism. The Buddhists have the idea that the body is a cage and believe that cremation frees the soul from its body by freeing them from any impurities by setting its body on fire. The fire is used to burn away any worldly attachments to purify the soul for reincarnation. the part you’re putting them in better hands could come from that definition of Buddhist cremation funerals.
Now you know the entire context of what people meant by entrusting the flames and here’s the reason why. His villain notes on how his character and design are centered around death and how he uses in his flame quirk resembling fire from a cremation robbing the lives of and leaving nothing but bones and ashes seen in how he burns the thugs in the alley much like an actual cremation. and Dabi’s cremation ties back to his supposed death being burned alive at Sekoto Hill.
The Buddhist origins of Dabi of his codename represent his character and ideals. His flame quirk represents the flames of destruction but also rebirth both physical and spiritual to Touya he died from the flames of despair and reborn as Dabi the villain who revealed the truth of the corruption of hero society in the person Endeavor, who set on a mission to change society through the flames of destruction that it might be reborn anew a society without heroes.
The purifying flame of cremation symbolizes not only Touya being reborn as Dabi but in a spiritual sense symbolizing the societal change he wants to bring down hero society through his purifying flames to be born anew free from the influence of false heroes.
There are two ways to say cremation in Japanese one of which is “Kaso” 火葬" which is translated into “fire burial”. Dabi is used frequently in funerals instead of Kaso because Kaso is straightforward for the meaning of cremation and in Japan polite people avoid saying unpleasant things directly so they substitute Dabi instead to avoid bringing up death to seem less harsh.
This can refer to how no one can bring up Touya because he died in the eyes of his family. He's dead and his family avoids Talking about it directly. But the way Dabi is used in Japanese refers to Touya’s position in the abuse being the scapegoat. Where everyone in his family avoided confronting their problems and ignored them. Dabi is well aware of the circumstances in his family but no one brought it up until Dabi’s reveal as Touya Todoroki on the broadcast.
Epilogue:
In light of the war arc and the story coming to its final arc I did this all in a rush, I apologize if I forgot to add anything or left stuff out Feel free to add this post. This post is here to serve as guidelines to help others when they need help in designing their BNHA villains OC. I want to give credit to these people down below who helped me write this meta. One last thing to say is to have fun.
Here are the previous metas I did if you want to go look.
BNHA Oc Creation Analysis
BNHA Bio Creation Analysis
Sources:
https://www.youtube.com/c/MetiNotTheBadGuy/videos
https://scarletrain1724.tumblr.com/
https://linkspooky.tumblr.com/
#Dabi#touya todoroki#himiko toga#shigaraki tomura#tomura shigaraki#my meta#Character Design#meta#Thank you Hamliet~#THANK YOU SO MUCH HAMLIET!#league of villains
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Fruits Basket, SE03, Ep1
I’m here! The final season continues from where se02 oddly left, right in the middle of a conversation! XD.
-Tohru’s crushed heart (scarf): Excellent symbolism!
Tohru, burdened with trying to lift the curse of teen & adult sohmas, is now also troubled by trying to help Arisa’s romantic life is sad for akito! Too much for compassionate selfless tohru. Unable to help, protect & erase the pain, tohru crumbles. Freezes. Her white scarf (heart) flies away, gets crushed by cars & becomes dirty. But here comes a boy ( who thinks himself a monster) picks it up, cleans & returns it back. He thinks nothing of his deed. nothing heroic abt saving a scarf, really. But do we need to be heroes to save others? kyo saves tohru by being kyo. Not the zodiac cat & not the menacing monster. Her heart is saved by him, shown much care & returned back. Mind you, the heart (scarf) is not brand new after the delima. It’s not very clean after being crushed, some marks remain, but these are marks of growth!!! you walk away after hardships carrying minor scars of victory. This scene solidify kyo’s role in tohru’s life as an equal companion. Not a heroic prince charming. It is the little things he does that shows who he is. kyo isn’t abt big soft words, he doesn't say the best things. he is a man of action. His care, love & compassion comes so very easily & naturally to him thro actions. This is what yuki meant by saying he’s jealous of kyo. Yuki over thinks his steps & doubt everything before he acts. Kyo acts spontaneously then doubts himself later. He saves the scarf (heart) then tells her directly to buy another one if she feels it’s not clean. He failed to see how this trivial action meant the world to tohru. Tohru smiles lively cuz her heart is back to her.
Why is the scarf scene so important? (aka furuba’s best usage of symbolism yet!)
It symbolizes tohru’s toxic flaw that she must overcome! It represents tohru’s tormented heart over other ppl’s pain with severe neglect to her own problems & issues. Arisa’s love life shouldn’t be tohru’s delima, nor Akito’s complex or Kureno’s or the damned curse. Tohru toxically chooses to bear other burdens’ until they crush her.
Hana can’t come to save tohru from pain each time tohru indulges in it. Tohru must realize her own flaw & grow up beyond this toxic type of kindness. Feel & help others, but don’t use them to escape your pain & don’t indulge in their own struggles & neglect yourself. There is a reason hana’s knowing of tohru’s pain is thro “magical” waves, to symbolize that this can’t become a norm, not real. You can’t depend on magic to grow. I love that!
The white scarf bearing smudges of the tires even after kyo washed it shows that kyo’s love & care can’t magically heal all tohru’s pain. It parallels kyo’s words from se01, ep,24 when he said tohru didn’t heal all his pain, but he feels better simply cuz she stayed by his side. Tohru now is feeling better cuz kyo chose was there for her. Love doesn’t magically heal you, kids! But it sure puts you on the path! Also, this once again adds more depth to the (tohru/kyo) equal give & take dynamics.
This scene deconstruct the image of Tohru represented as an angelic mother throughout 2 seasons. Instead, It paints her as a real flawed girl with much need for growth. Exactly, like how we have learned by now that kyo isn’t a horrible monster nor a prince charming saving the day, but a flawed boy with much need for growth. However, these two push each other forward in a subtle way through daily situations! Excellent writing!!
-Kureno. (aka. who tohru should never become):
The harmful kindness: Kureno is someone who hurts himself & hurt many others (akito, arisa, shigure, & consequently the rest of the zodiacs) by giving the harmful types of kindness to akito, by completely erasing his own needs, desires & living for the sake of someone who would be far better without him. Kureno is who tohru might have become if she selflessly continues fighting solely for the sohma’s sake & trying to break the curse while ignoring her own life. She’ll become as miserable as kureno & the zodiacs will become dependable on her.
The destructive pity: Kureno pities this tormented child (akito) & chooses to stay with her until her tears dry. This pity is destructive cuz it is done while he wishes to be miles away with Arisa & it encourages akito to stay as she is. Look, a child whose mom hates her deserves pity. But an adult woman needs to learn to build relationships based on mutual affection & respect. This talk of pity reminds me of kyo & kagura. Kagura pitied the cat zodiac. The relationship was doomed cuz kyo refuses pity. It doesn’t matter if her pity turned into love later. Kyo doesn’t want that from her or anyone. There is NO equality there. We know tohru came to love kyo for all the times he was there for her & all the times he pushed her to improve, to complain, to want things! she said so in se01, ep, 24. But we also know that young baby tohru pitied the cat when her mom told her the zodiacs story. what if kyo thinks tohru’s affection is pity???? that’s a big NO for him & for every person. I really want tohru to be as far from any kurno’s traits as possible!!!
-Akito, the pitiful woman:
Akito was born a girl, forced to be raised as a boy by her mother’s demands? where is the father?? she was hated by her mother. why? she also hates her mom. (hate your child & they’ll hated you). So, akito is doomed by her mom. Akito tries to prove that she’s loved by the zodiac “she specified the male zodiacs” interesting! we saw how she hates both Isuzu & kisa & doesn’t give a damn abt kagura. This woman, forced to pose as a man, actually desires to be treated as a woman. As for the other zodiacs:
No worries abt hatori leaving cuz he’s 24/7 attending to her health.
Ayame makes tea exclusively for her & hatori.
she thinks Ritsu is too timid to attempt leaving.
Hiro’s a baby, momiji is hated cuz she can’t break him.
Kyo is destined to be locked. but Why she cares abt the cat anyway?? She publicly hates him & feels disgusted by him.
She used to control yuki but can’t anymore.
she uses intimacy to bound those who “can” leave her the most: kurno! & shigure? she sleeps next to shigure in the valentine ep. hatori remarked: don’t let akito catch cold. We saw the sexually charged rage in se02, ep10. So, she isn’t faithful to kureno. They don’t have a relationship. She doesn’t even have a relationship with shigure, either. to her, sex is a tool to tie them both to her?
It is ironic that the person who said she despises woman & accuses Isuzu of seducing hatori is herself seducing others. Except, tragically, kureno isn’t with her for herself, but cuz he pities her. We saw her slapping & embracing him. Next scene; her bare shoulders & his unbuttoned shirt clearly implies they got intimate which is what akito does to feel secure in kureno not leaving her. Kureno is not even interested in her despite submitting to her advances, needs & orders. He does it out of pity. Truly the most tragic form of physical affection: sex for pity. wow... how tragically pitiful is the abusive ruler of the zodiacs who looms over them & demands respect & eternal bonds. How can she find someone who’ll love her for herself, if she doesn’t learn to show good sides of her? Yuki wasn’t loved for who he is in school, but for being the “prince”, he showed his real character & got himself true friends & soon a lover!!! Kyo, was feared & pitied for turning into a “monster”, but once he showed his kind & harmless self, he got himself true friends & a girl who loves him for his actual personality! Who will love akito for who she is if she only shows a spoiled child, horrible family head or a pitiful woman? What does shigure love in her? he doesn’t seem to pity her nor pamper her much, does he? perhaps we’ll know more abt the real akito later.
Side notes:
Akito’s mom reminded me of kyo’s dad. Abused children, who are hated by their parents, don’t let go of the hurt easily. they’ll always try to either get their approval, show them they were worthy of their love, or they’re NOTHING like their parents think they are. eg: Kyo’s biological father’s hate has destroyed kyo. Kyo have kazuma & tohru & he still wonder why they love him. It took kyo 17 years to actually promise to call kazuma "dad” one day in se01 finale. You need time to heal the wounds inflected by the ones who should love you the most. Being loved by others doesn’t magically heal you! You need to take few steps forward.
Isuzu is Ren’s clone! finally understanding why the severe hate from akito towards Isuzu. I’ll wait for more Ren/Akito content before analyzing their relationship.
Ren is so sexy. ngl, the scene of the zodiacs touching her belly after she just *conceived* akito is so creepy~ ew!
Hana picked up tohru first before kyo, cuz this show isn’t exclusive for romantic love as much as it isn’t exclusive for friendship. There is balance.
Tohru needs her own future, so does Arisa & hana! Learn to accept the limit of what you can do as a friend, tohru.. forever loving furuba for steering away from “friends stay together forever~yay” anime trope! Furuba is abt independent & individual adult life! building your own future! Epic writing!
Forever fascinated by how much the little small ordinary daily life things has really built kyo-tohru love! It feels so real & very uniquely built! Excellent writing!
Arisa is stuck with an adult man trapping himself in the most unnecessary love triangle. Kureno’s cage is self made, no curse. A very sheltered boy/man not living in the real world. Only two options for kureno if he continues this path: he’ll hurt akito, or akito will hurt him. We know the answer from the trailer, don’t we?
Arisa letting go of kuron is growth! Let go & live, girl!
There is a subtle theme of learning to let go in furuba~
Yuki is the biggest kyoru shipper!
Tohru intentionally hitting kyo with scarf’s pon-pon is my fave side of her! intentional flirting shows change from her little girl’s good girl attitude to her own type of a feisty woman! after all, she’s nearly 18!
The way the camera moved when kyo spotted the scarf was so good!
The director is obsessed with flying!! did he work on attack on titans? cuz the Ren-akito flying fight reminded me of Titan Eren strangling Titan Annie in AOT se01 finale! but chibi version! XD. I’m sorry for akito’s pain, but I was distracted by laughing! XD
look, if you plan to dramatize a situation, know your budget & your skills. Obviously, the director knew the scene is badly done, hence, the wide far away, dim lit shot to hide as much as it can. Couldn’t he do without it? let akito strangle her to the ground without flying!
oh well~these over-the-top shots are now a furuba trade mark~ just praying they stick with one weird shot per season.
#Fruits Basket#Anime Only#Tohru Honda#Akito Sohma#se03#final season#kureno sohma#shigure sohma#kyo sohma
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