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sketchfanda · 2 months

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Kirishima’s Mystique:Da’Bandit comes to Play!

One thing Kirishima knew was a constant in life since Maya came into his and Mina's life as the third wheel to make their romance bicycle into a tricycle was this. That she was one spicy lady especially before and even after she transferred to UA and given she was bisexual, it stood to reason she had lady friends that were every bit as kinky and erotic as she was. Be it the friends she had back in Jagua, penpals and of course the friends she'd made since coming to Japan and UA, Mina being among them of course so no surprise there. It only stood to reason that he would come to meet some of these same friends one way or another.

Case in point being the Amazonian toned golden eyed blonde bombshell standing outside the doorway of his dorm room known as Jessy Da'Bandit. There was no doubt this brickhouse stunner was one of Maya's friends alright, from the firm handful sized rack to the the well toned but oh so bubbly booty barely contained and confined within her denim short-shorts and of course a well honed and trained gym body. She was sexy and she knew it, lived by that old motto if you got it flaunt it and it showed certainly as her amber eyes twinkled with a spark of mischief he was all too familiar with from the bubblegum duo. A sensual, sly smile on her freckled face as she no doubt expected him to have a few questions to which she certainly had the answers for.

Kirishima:*Doing his his best not to ogle her or at least trying to which was easier said than done. Given her physique and looks on top of her ensemble which consisted of a pair of denim shorts, a thong, sneakers and a modefied tanktop acting as her bra.*"Soooo friend of Maya's? She and Mina sent you here? And how much you know about me and them exactly?" *His suspicions were confirmed correctly of course as that smile of hers grew, her hand fishing out her cellphone out of her pocket. Unlocking as it as se opened up an app and showed him the screen, displaying some familiar pictures and videos.*

Jessy:"In order, yes, second verse same as the first and for the final answer, let ask your question with another question. This is you, right? Because let me tell you if this what the preview is promising, I think you and me are going to get along famously handsome.."*The blonde quipped in her rapidfire response, seemingly non-chalant to the fact she was still showing off the evidence on her phone. Finger swiping along to the screen as Kirishima saw not just a few samples of past intimacies with Mina and Maya but also a few past and regular encounters. Yeah there was no mistaking Jackie's thicc skater/surfer girl figure or Elena's regal sensual cheetah-self, that was for damn sure. Knowing that any blatant denial wouldn't do him any favours, he simply nodded which she took as an acceptable answer.*

Once he had done that of course, she locked and put her phone away as she licked her lips with sensual anticipation and draped her quite well sculped arms around his broad shoulders. Her firm melons pressed against his pecks with only the material of their tops being a barrier between skin on skin intimacy as she pressed her lips to his. Ambushing him with a French kiss that unsurprisingly was loaded with sloppy passion and spicy desire as her tongue invaded his mouth to explore it intimately, purring and moaning as she felt those sharp pointy teeth of his. Her delight and pleasure increasing as he felt him return the kiss with equal measure, a spine tingling rush of bliss running to her brain as she found his hands grabbing and squeezing her ass.

The moment he did that was when she had made her next move, feet leaving the floor as she draped legs around his waist to have her body cling to and hug him like koala around the branch of eucalyptus tree. The sultry blonde and hard-headed redhead making out with a skyrocketing lust burning between them as he carried her back into his dorm room, kicking the door closed. Taking her back into the living room where he sat down on the couch, Jessy straddling his waist as she parked her in his lap while she made her pelvis bump and grind against his. The cameltoe of her denim clad sex rubbing against the crotch of his baggy cargo pants as she purred sensually at feeling the rising bulge signalling she was turning him on.

More so especially when he grasped her tanktop and pulled it right off, making her break their liplock with a strand of saliva trailing between them. The honey eyed freckled blonde hottie grinning like a cat with sensual delight at how forward and assertive he was being especially when he wasted no time in grabbing and removing her bra. A soft sensual gasp escaping her lips as her marshmallows breathed and bounced free in the open air, Jessy taking delight in Kirishima's sweet little red eyes drinking in the sight of her and decided to strike a pose for him. Hands behind her head as she flexed her biceps and crunched her stomach to show off her washboard class six pack of abs.

Jessy:"Mmmm, loving the enthusiasm handsome but wouldn't it be fair and equal for me to see your goods too, don't you think?"*The blonde teased playfully, giggling as Kirishima once again wasted no time in obliging her as she took off and threw his shirt aside. Licking her lips with a growing sensual appetite as she took in the sight of his physique, well cut and honed from hours to days, months of effort and intense training with a dedicated workout routine. Draping her arms around him once again as she locked lips with him to resume making out, all the while she ground and rubbed her mound against his crotch. Arousal skyrocketing more so especially when she felt those shark teeth of his nibble on her lips, making her feel like she was about to be devoured by a shark in the best way possible.*

It was only a matter of time naturally before the muscular blonde and red head duo found themselves fully naked, filling the room with groans, moans and gasps of pleasure as they made out and explored one another's bodies with sensual caresses and lusty gropes. Soon laying horizontally on the couch in a 69 position as Jessy let loose with cries of passionate delight from Kirishima eating her out, his hands massaging her toned bubbly ass while he plunged and probed his tongue in around her moist folds. Drinking up her juices as she herself squeezed and caressed his balls while she deepthroated his cock, drowning his length and girth in a shower of saliva as she sucked and blew on it. The taste of his pre dazzling her tastebuds as it flowed and poured down into her stomach, making her bump and grind her mound against his face as their arousal mutually skyrocketed to greater heights.

But oh when they commenced with the penetration after such a satisfying protein filled snack they shared together, it only got even better from then on. Jessy sitting on the edge of the couch with her torso at an even 90 degree angle as Kirishima pumped and jachkhammered away into her snatch like an erotic piston. Their tongues dancing together in an open air sloppy spitswapping kiss as her freckle kisses tits bounc and rubbed against broad firm muscular pecs, her bubble butt jiggling with every slap and smack of Kirishima's heavy balls. Every orgasm she had hitting her like a rapid fire missile assult while anticipating the moment when he'd hit his own and she'd feel that white hot seed pour into her womb and pain its walls.

but of course soon as that climax finally hit, the honey eyed blonde Amazon didn’t hesitate with basking in the afterglow, especially when she could feel how hard and stiff Kirishima’s shaft still was. Her freckled face grinning sensually as she pried herself off, albeit with hesitance at losing the feeling of his length and girth filling her but damn if that rod of his didn’t look hot all wet and sticky with their mixed juices. Before she stood before him in all her naked glory as she took a deep breath and began to put in some focus and concentration, panting and moaning sensually as before the hard-headed redhead’s eyes, she began to grow in height and muscle mass. Her athletically toned curvy figure increasing in bulk snd depth as he went from fitness model to a literal amazonian beauty, flashing a sensual smile at him as she struck a series of poses to show off and entice him to great effect.

Jessy Da’Bandit, Nationality:American. Residence:Jagua Del Toro, Quirk:Muscle Bomb: Allows Jessy to increase her height and muscularity through sheer will power, boosting her speed, strength and flexibility all at once. Also had the bonus effect of enhancing her durability, making her able to handle blades and bullets among other things. As well as adding to her already high libido of course…

But now reslly how else was Kirishima going to react to such a sight before him but proceed to pounce snd ravish the muscle goddess before him. Jessy eeping with erotic delight at the sudden shift into caveman mode from the sturdy himbo before she soon filled the walls and ceiling of the apartment with her howls of passion once more. Her powerful legs on either side of her head as Kirishima jackhammered her into a halfway between a mating press and piledriver. His heavy nutsack slapping and smacking her jiggling bubbly booty with every thunder imoact of their loins as he used his own quirk for good measure to give as good with it as Jessy was with her own.

Jessy knew Maya and Mina had held back a little in their still rather detailed praise and recommendation of their boyfriend enough to intrigue her but damn were her expectations being surpassed wonderfully. The sturdy himbo proving himself quite dominant and assertive but never to a point he left her needs and desires neglected as he showed he was no slouch at pleasuring a woman. Her amazonian form being out through a full nelson fuck as he stood his ground with intensity and passion, her arms and legs trapped in his grasp as he jackhammered away into her snatch. The muscles of her pussy welcoming his length and girth’s penetration within their tight erotic embrace as her womb became flooded with his seed invading it.

The muscular pair got so into going at that minutes passed into hours as their lust and passion made them lose track of time just long enough that Mina and Maya arrived hime to find their stud balls deep in Jessy. The blonde bent over the couch as he fucked her doggy style, simply smiling and waving to the bubblegum duo while he was looking like a deer caught in the headlights. To which the pink and blue bombshells responded by smiling back as they proceeded to get naked and do as was natural for them, throw themselves into the fray and double the pleasure and fun. After all, Mina knew she just had to have some fun with Jessy when she met her, after all any friend of Maya’s of the female persuasion Was sure to be very fun in bed.

Now of course there is a point when Kirishima knew not to be surprised at things playing out like this and expect them to be just a natural part of his relationship with his two girls. But of course this wasn’t quite that point yet so it was quite something to find his rutting with Jessy turn into a foursome as the blonde rode him cowgirl style while he laid on the bed. The amazonian beauty of a freckled blonde bouncing in his shaft with growing intimate familiarity as Mina and maya took turns kissing her and sucking in her tires or moving to make out with their man. Tongues dancing in sloppy games of spit swapping and tonsil hockey as the apartment was filled with the familiar rhythm of erotic passion.

It wasn’t long before dusk came after hours of passion consisting of combinations of 3 on one to two on one before Kirishima found himself laying and basking in the afterglow. His girlfriends and new sex friend laying on his Herculean body as they all had dreams of how future encounters would play out, after all how could Jessy not want more after this first time encounter? She was definitely wanting in on Maya and Mina’s little Red Riot passion project that was for sure, and she had a friend or two who woild,love themselves a little Riot in the sheets. A man like this was a treasure to be shared and there were bitches who needed wild oats sown in their fields.

Elsewhere Mineta felt bile in his stomach and bloody tears seep forth as he felt a strange yet familiar sensation. Something told him that knce again some lucky bastard was living his dream and he was still a little Pervy runt loser that’d never see a slice of action. Cursing god all the while unaware that once again Kirishima had outdone him when it came to love and sex. He just knew someone out there was getting off on his misery, he just knew it…..

Sketch:*the evident flame skullheaded writer sat typin away as he looked at the screen. The look on his face showing he knew those who knew him coild tell he was he source and cause.*”Eeh everyone expresses their dislike for the little grapehead,this just happens to be how I like it. So yeah he can die mad about it…”*He quipped as he fished out and popped open a can of Pepsi max. Nothing like spite and caffeine to fuel a man’s work, how sweet it is…*

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stillness-in-green · 1 year

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Chapter Thoughts: 373 — Friends

Thank you all, as always, for your patience. As I said previously, I had some cruds catch up with me, on top of holidays and house guests, so between those and work, it’s been rather some while since I’ve had the time and energy for dedicated post writing. But here’s this, finally! And since the next chapter is much more scattered around in multiple places, it should be easier to write about.

As to this chapter, I’ve decided, rather than breaking it down chronologically or by broad topic, to cover it one character at a time, since this chapter more than many really is about the interplay of characters.

Hit the jump!

On Pig-Nose Guy

Taken strictly as-written, he’s got a pretty good head on his shoulders. As many people have said, attacking a hospital under the auspices of a leadership of a known terrorist is the most desperate kind of play, the heteromorphs are doubtlessly underinformed and, as of this chapter, are being openly told not to think. The fact that he doesn’t give into his emotions in those circumstances is admirable! Still, I can’t help but think I’d have preferred to see him ask questions of his own leadership, rather than trusting the judgment of a teenage hero student who—like Deku in his bad faith bargaining with Overhaul—has no authority to speak for Hero Society at large.

Also too, it remains tiresome that he and the others are only asking these questions just now, instead of back when they were first told that they were going to be attacking a hospital. This is especially the case given the weird inconsistency between pig-nose guy saying he couldn’t bring himself to hurt the people in the hospital and the gaping absence of anyone asking him to hurt the people in the hospital. Maybe Scarecrow would have tried to goad them into that eventually or it was something they were told to do in advance, but if either of those is the case, we certainly never saw evidence of it on the page, which keeps his dilemma here from ringing completely true.

I do quite like the evocativeness with which he’s drawn. As ever, Hori’s art is great, especially his expressions, even when his narrative decisions are being underwhelming-to-infuriating.

On Scarecrow

Christ, I hate the way Horikoshi insists on giving the MLA these awful little extra cruelties to make them worse than they need to be, as if, “Militant antisocial terrorist cult,” isn’t bad enough. I could deal with the “meant to bring about our supremacy” bit—that’s not new rhetoric for MLA types—but am considerably more exasperated with “mighty meat shield.”

Like, guys, that’s just not how the MLA think of their rank and file. Yes, they prioritize their leadership, always have, so it’s not that I mind as such that Scarecrow would think of the civilians as ultimately expendable. But the key is that the MLA view such deaths as honorable, as important martyrdom to reach their goals. They don’t and never have treated their people as “meat shields” in the derisive, callous sense that that term implies.

Again, look back at this sequence from Chapter 329:

Does this sound like someone who doesn’t deeply believe in the orders he’s being given and the person he’s being told to lift up? There’s no reason to portray this guy as a bad actor. An extremist, absolutely, but thinking so explicitly about the manipulation of the civilians’ opinions just makes it sound like he wants power for its own sake, and that’s never been the MLA’s bag.

I’m particularly annoyed with Horikoshi having Scarecrow think of Shouji as an octopus, which feels akin not just to a minority thinking of another member of his group as [relevant derisive slur], but to putting that thought in the head of someone who wears the mantle of an activist, a student of history, someone who can speak passionately and eloquently of the rightness of his cause. Scarecrow should know better than this, and portraying him as falling back on this dehumanizing language for his own kind is just another thing that makes him feel like he’s operating in bad faith, making him an even more strawman-ish depiction of someone who’s already set up as a violent radical.

…All of which makes it even more strange that a nameless hero apologizes directly to him. Which is a pleasant surprise!

On the one hand, I like a lot that even someone who Horikoshi is making some effort to portray as not-genuine still gets a straightforward, genuine apology. In principle, I’m in favor of that, because I strongly believe that even villains who are acting in bad faith deserve to be treated humanely and have their issues recognized—and regardless of what else we can say about him, Scarecrow does have a huge scar on his head that’s implicitly a result of anti-heteromorph violence. Further, for Horikoshi’s plot here to land, it is important for heroes—not just students, but adult members of the system—to acknowledge that the heteromorphs have a legitimate grievance.

On the other hand, it does also still feel a bit like farming out apologies and weaknesses to nameless nobodies because god forbid any of the characters the audience has been encouraged to like be acknowledged as having flaws or biases. It’s one of BNHA’s long-running issues that Horikoshi has this big system he wants to critique but, with the exception of characters like Bakugou and Endeavor, whose whole arcs are founded on personal improvement, he’s uncomfortable letting sympathetic and/or popular characters meaningfully reflect that flawed system.

As a result, we get stuff like last chapter’s apology for perpetuating heteromorphobic microaggressions coming from Mineta instead of Sero, no shallow fame-chasing students ever folding from the pressure and dropping out, the immense wishy-washiness of any critique of All Might, and, inversely, the facile resolutions of thorny issues like the traitor plot, the HPSC’s corruption, Izumi Kouta’s hatred of heroes, or, here, the idea of heteromorphic discrimination.

On Shouji/The Resolution

This continues to be a desperately wanting resolution. Shouji still holds up this idea that heteromorphs can change the minds of bigots by just acting cool and admirable enough when his own backstory should have taught him that there is no such threshold. Bigots cannot be made to be ashamed of their bigotry, Shouji! They will find ways to justify it; they will hide it if it looks to be socially unacceptable and then talk openly about it when they think they’re among people of like mind; they will react with resentment when called out.

And like, I do believe that bigots can change, and some of the examples I’m aware of are a credit to the actions of a person the bigot had hated, but those examples are all the more remarkable for their rarity. It cannot be the default and ongoing responsibility of the oppressed to Nobly Endure until bigots change their minds, to risk their own safety just to win approval from those who hate them. That’s what Shouji’s answer here says, though, and it’s frankly unconscionable.

And it’s such a bizarre chain of events! Like, Shouji was just telling Spinner that this attack was going to set heteromorphs back thirty years, but now he’s saying the rioters are a shining light? He was (baselessly) castigating them for showing up without a plan, but now he’s saying that the feelings that drove them to show up were neither useless nor wrong?

Are we to believe that protests have never happened before? So either heteromorphs have been quiet and stoic and noble about this for generations and in exchange they’ve gotten infamous historical massacres and highly conditional semi-safety in sufficiently large cities while still suffering dehumanization and increased rates of criminality, or they have protested before but feel that their needs have been ignored. When Rando The Hero apologizes to Scarecrow for never having realized heteromorphs were in such dire straits, which are we to believe is the explanation: that he never saw because they never spoke up, or he never saw because he wasn’t looking?

When Shouji tells them they look like a shining light, it recalls Scarecrow’s dialogue about how heteromorphs were never illuminated and would have to become their own light—but who exactly is to be credited for kindling that light? Shouji tells them the feelings that drove them to come weren’t wrong, but we know that the MLA were working behind the scenes to stoke indignation and hurt up to the tipping point—what Scarecrow this week refers to as radicalizing these peoples’ passion.

So like… This all seems like it never would have come about without Skeptic and Scarecrow and even Spinner and all the rest’s hard work. So what’s going to happen to them, the people who enabled this change, in the end? Do the nice and good victims who stood down before they went too far get embraced, while the people who drove them to be noticed get thrown in prison and forgotten about?

There’s this weird dynamic in the series where heroes and Hero Society ignore the problems their society has—sweep them under the rug, as Shigaraki put it—so insistently that change requires people willing to Go Too Far, like villains. Then, when villains do exactly that, heroes are like, “You may have legitimate grievances, but you’re Going Too Far.” Yes! Because that’s what it takes to make “the good guys” pay attention!!

So what happens after this? Do the agitators get put in prison while everyone else is just free to walk away? What about the dozens and dozens of people who’ve already been rounded up and restrained? Do they just get to walk? Or are they going to prison too, for all that their feelings were totes correct, because they were captured before they had a chance to either press on or stand down? (This, incidentally, takes us right back to the difficulties in dealing with an underground army—how do heroes on the ground know who’s a radicalized civilian and who’s a member of the PLF?)

So that’s all the usual headache-inducing platitudes. There is one positive thing about all this that I want to talk about as well, though: the outcome of Shouji fighting while also talking. I said it about Mirio a while back, and it applies here too, for all that it got lost in my deep frustration with the content of Shouji’s words: it is possible to carry on a dialogue while still defending oneself and others.(1)

Consider how this would have gone down if Shouji hadn’t been here. Rock Lock thinks—in a moment that very clearly illustrates the current dilemma—that all the rest of the hero side could do was defend themselves by force. That fits the current hero modus operandi, which the students have, up until now, been playing into. Presumably, left to their own devices, the heroes and police would have either eventually hit a morale tipping point that broke the crowd, who would have been captured or fled with their resentment unaddressed, or the crowd would have overwhelmed them, freeing Kurogiri and cementing themselves as villains.

This makes Shouji—a pivotal figure as the tides of battle shift and we move into a new stage—a potentially very significant model for how the conflict resolutions from here on out are going to look.

A huge number of Hero Stan types disregard this strategy, which is why we’re all so frequently subjected to those tiresome, “Well, the villains were trying to kill people; do you expect heroes to just stand back and let them?” false equivalencies. Here, though, Shouji provides a sterling example of how to engage with villains in good faith: defend as much you need to while keeping the conversation going as long as you can, in the hopes that eventually a breakthrough/understanding can be reached. That’s the whole point of the Shonen Jump talk-no-jutsu trick.

I don’t buy Shouji’s message here by any means, but the manner in which he delivers it is unimpeachable.

On Mic

I love Mic being the ruthless one of the Rooftop Trio; I really do. It’s been very entertaining to watch the telephone game of Realist Mic Fans talking about how this was totally predictable and only Fanon Mic Fans are surprised by it. ‘Cause it’s 100% true; Mic’s always had those undertones, which were really what set him and Shirakumo apart despite their surface personas being fairly similar. Look no further than Mic’s reaction to the traitor reveal!

That said, predictable or not—and the set-up was always there for it to be Spinner carrying the day here, not Mic—it really does hit deliciously hard. My favorite part is that Mic never actually opens his mouth to call to Shirakumo himself—not this chapter, at least. All his thoughts and pleas for Shirakumo are strictly internal;(2) externally, he’s winding up to unleash his quirk again.

An aside: The one quibble I have with this scene is that it’s legit unclear to me who Mic is winding up to attack here. He’s very obviously prepared to kill Kurogiri if it comes to that—indeed, his internal monologue suggests that his killing Kurogiri was even a part of the plan here, albeit only as a last resort.(3) However, he also says that was only on the table if it looked like Kurogiri was about to be taken back. He explicitly notes that Spinner is down, though, and he’s already seen that Spinner’s alone, so who is he even worried about taking Kurogiri at this point? Why attack Kurogiri when the main threat has already been neutralized?

So is he attacking Spinner, then, to make sure he stays down? That seems a bit beyond the pale even for the most ruthless member of his group, doesn’t it? And even if he were willing to go that far, an attack on Spinner doesn’t seem consistent with where his gaze is focused—aimed forward rather than down and to his right—and is even less consistent with his train of thought about Shirakumo fading away and leaving only good memories.(4)

As it is, it reads like Mic is already telling himself to execute Kurogri to prevent even the possibility, now or in the future, of Kurogiri regaining consciousness and making a decision Mic doesn’t approve of. That’s very Plus Ultra of you, Mic, but like, in a really bad way.

Anyway.

Compare Mic’s silence to Spinner, who openly begs Kurogiri to save Shigaraki, and we have yet another scene that beautifully illustrates the tendency of heroes to embrace stoic self-denial even at the cost of their personal bonds for the greater good, while villains utterly reject questions of big-picture morality in favor of embracing/preserving the things and people they personally value.

On Spinner/The Final Hand

Man, I didn’t like Cook’s rendering of Spinner’s patchy dialogue as caveman-speak, but at least it made clear that Spinner’s thinking was irregular. Here, comparing to the raws, you can still see the irregular kana usage throughout, but the official release portrays his thinking as largely clearing up once he gets all the scales blown off and shrinks back down to his normal size. The sentences are fragmentary, but that could be read as a result of him being semi-conscious. More importantly, “I” is back in his dialogue (“All I wanted” rather than e.g. “Me just wanted”) and his verb usage gets more regular. That’s all to say, the official release makes it look like Spinner’s mentality stabilized in a way that doesn’t seem to match the raws. Frustrating to get my hopes up like that!

Anyway, there’s been a certain amount of discourse getting around about whether Spinner’s crutching on The Hand for Shigaraki and now Kurogiri is good or bad, whether Spinner’s feelings for Shigaraki are leading him to make decisions that are bad for both of them, to what degree Spinner cares or should care about heteromorphic discrimination and so on, and I just want to say that I’m in total agreement with @codenamesazanka and @robotlesbianjavert’s takes on the matter, as can be read in multiple posts. These posts put it all so well I don’t particularly feel the need to retread it at length.

To be succinct: Spinner is doing the best he can from a position of limited information, and dinging him because he’s, what, prolonging the amount of time Shigaraki spends away from the miraculous saving light of Deku’s good intentions? Fuck that; Deku doesn’t even have the courage of his convictions to speak them aloud, and even saying them to the people in his head, the best he could muster was, “I want to try.” Nothing he’s done so far has earned him a right to the League’s trust.

There is one aspect of that I want to talk about specifically that I haven’t seen discussed elsewhere, which is the Spinner-Stain-Deku angle. To wit, I once theorized that Spinner would be a key person in Deku’s drive to save Shigaraki because a) Spinner has the clearest understanding of Shigaraki as a regular person, whereas Deku’s limited exposure had only allowed him to see The Crying Child and The Symbol of Fear, and b) Spinner defended Deku that one time during the training camp attack on the grounds that Stain declared him worthy. I thought Spinner’s action at that time might later give them enough common ground to recognize each other as having good intentions, enough space to at least tentatively open a dialogue, and advance their common goal of Helping Shigaraki from there.

It’s looking less likely now, mostly because of Spinner’s eroded mentality meaning he doesn’t have the ability to carry on a conversation with Deku right now about Shigaraki. That’s not the entirety of the reason, though.

Firstly, there’s the issue of Spinner’s loyalties. He was only cosplaying at being a Stain devotee to begin with, and has cultivated a much more deeply felt loyalty to Shigaraki, who, last Spinner heard, explicitly wants Midoriya Izuku dead. New leader, new directive.

Secondly, there’s the problem that even if Spinner were inclined to give Deku the benefit of the doubt originally, so far as he can see, Deku has done nothing but align himself with the hero status quo, and particularly with Endeavor’s status quo. Endeavor, who Stain condemned, and who Spinner’s own teammate revealed to be an abusive monster, the worst kind of person imaginable to be hiding behind the mask of a hero. Endeavor, who contributed to Shigaraki being in such a state at Jakku that Spinner was driven to use The Hand to begin with! Deku has given exactly zero sign that Spinner would be aware of that he’s willing to treat Shigaraki any differently than the hero establishment would, so what basis does Spinner have to entrust Shigaraki to him?

Both in terms of a Spinner who decides things based on who he's following and a Spinner who decides things based on the evidence of his own eyes, Deku fails coming and going.

Anyway, I still think it would be good to somehow get back to Spinner as a bridge between Shigaraki and Deku, because Deku saving Shigaraki based on nothing but his empathy for The Crying Child is desperately insufficient to truly address all the problems Shigaraki Tomura represents, but that’s a good deal more up in the air at this point, so I guess we’ll see how it goes.

As far as The Hand is concerned, I really do wonder if we’re starting to see its symbolism shift somewhat. Like, yes, yes, it is a concrete reminder of everything AFO raised Shigaraki to be, that’s all true. But it’s this hand, too:

Nana, who wanted to save her son, wants Deku to save her grandson, and wants Shigaraki to not forget the boy he used to be—it’s her hand. Carried by Spinner, the person who loves Shigaraki the most, extended beseechingly to Kurogiri, the one who protects Shigaraki Tomura, the one who “cannot abandon others.”

Just saying, there’s a lot packed into that hand that AFO didn’t put there. Letting him be the only authority on its symbolism is kind of letting him make the rules, isn’t it? He isn’t the only one who gets to decide what things mean, and believing otherwise is just ceding him control of the narrative.

We even have a prior example of this in One For All: what began as a play to bring Yoichi under AFO’s control instead grew, through Yoichi’s desires and those of the people OFA was passed to, into a power meant to bring AFO down. Eventually, even that purpose was eclipsed by All Might and Deku’s desires to use that power to save people. The Final Hand, while much more gruesome, could go the same way in terms of it being utilized in ways counter to what AFO intended.

On Kurogiri

Kurogiri strikes me as being in a potentially crucial position, and not merely for his ability to disrupt the heroes’ plans, which up to this point looked like there were going to lead to nothing but yet another rotation in the cycle of Hero Society sweeping all its problems under the rug until something rancid causes an eruption.

No, the more important thing with Kurogiri is that he’s in an even better position than Spinner to provide a bridge between the hero and the villain sides at large. Spinner may have the better vantage point on Shigaraki as he’s developed over the course of the series, but Spinner’s pretty locked into the position of villain and victim; he’s never once been on the right/light side of Hero Society.

Kurogiri, if you assume that he’s become something of an amalgamated existence (reflecting his use of ore rather than watashi this chapter) has lived in both worlds. As Shirakumo, he has all the memories of an idealistic hero with a good upbringing, solid bonds and a stable place in society. As Kurogiri, he’s had plenty of exposure to the social deprivation, systemic bias and manipulative wickedness that creates villains. There's no one else in the story who has both the experience within Hero Society to believe in its value but also the perspective to understand why villains don't believe in that value.

That’s if you assume he’s become an amalgamated existence. My favorite read on Kurogiri treats him as the survivor of a traumatic experience, one that has fundamentally changed him such that he can’t reconcile with his old friends as long as they refuse to recognize the person he’s now become in favor of fantasies about who he used to be. Sadly, I don’t think that’s particularly well-supported by the story thus far,(5) but the pronoun shift is an exciting new development!

Really, despite Shirakumo breaking through once, I want to think that it would be impossible for him or the heroes who want him back to ever shake "Kurogiri" entirely if they can't assure him that his cat (Shigaraki) is going to be taken care of. Because even if Shirakumo might choose otherwise consciously, that care is him; it's the whole foundation Kurogiri is built on. Heroes can't just will it to go away and think they’ll have anything left afterward but fragments of a person.

The editor’s note at the end of this chapter said the battle was moving to a new stage, and let me tell you, I am so ready. Heroes are not yet at a point where they’ve earned a victory, moral or otherwise, so Kurogiri returning to his bartender roots and putting this whole war in a shaker before pouring it out into different glasses is incredibly welcome.

Stray Notes

O I appreciate that Nimble, even when her talk bubbles indicate that she’s shouting full-volume, still shows no indication of a mouth. How does she eat, I wonder? RIP to my dreams about Spinner’s #1 Advisor getting anything important to do, though; Horikoshi’s Women Sidelining disease strikes again.

O Spinner’s biggest contribution this chapter, wherein he finds the strength to surge forward in desperation to help the person he cares about, comes after he loses all the bulk and extra-scales; it’s like an anti-quirk evolution. This continues to prove the point that Spinner’s biggest role in the plot was never about the strength or weakness of his quirk, but rather about his heart. Love-interest coded Spinner is real.

O So what was up with that big ominous panel of the gun and the sound effects of it firing last chapter? Because I really feel like if someone just opened fire on the crowd, it should be WAY harder to have the whole extended dialogue Shouji and pig-nose guy have this chapter.

O The color page at the start really is incredibly gorgeous. God, I wish Hori did more color pages for the villains. We are so underserved in this specific category. I did see some people talking about how Shirakumo’s face here is an adult’s face, not a teenager’s, and if that’s true, I feel like it raises a whole bunch of fascinating questions about what Ujiko is doing with corpses to stimulate growth. As if the Winged Noumu didn’t raise enough of those already, mind. If Noumu can age, does that mean they can die of old age??

---FOOTNOTES---

1: I made a bitchy quip last chapter about the manga’s earlier stance that words are less important than actions, but just to be clear, my issue isn’t talking itself—I think talking is very important, and something the heroes should be doing a lot more of, but that the current system disincentivizes them from doing. The trouble is when the talk is a bunch of empty twaddle that refuses to outline the specific action being proposed to address a character’s accusations.

2: I’ve seen a number of people talking emotionally about Mic’s last yell for Shirakumo this chapter, but I think they’re misreading the art. If Mic were calling that name aloud, it would be in a talk bubble, not the internal monologue text overlay.

3: And wow, does that contingency ever remind me that Hawks was a key member of the team that masterminded this plan.

4: Please go read @codenamesazanka’s excellent meta on how Hero Society prefers dead victims to victims who couldn’t be saved.

5: Shirakumo’s sole action upon being woken by Aizawa being to spill Ujiko’s location is not a promising sign. The most generous read possible that reconciles that action with a Shirakumo who cares about Shigaraki would be that Shirakumo legitimately thought Shigaraki being imprisoned in Tartarus was a better outcome than letting Ujiko have his way. That’s feasible, but it’s also the case that, as far as Kurogiri-as-trauma-victim goes, I’m just not convinced Horikoshi approaches the story with that level of allegory in mind.

#bnha #bnha 373 #bnha civilians #plf advisors #octolad #dj parakeet #bnha spinner #iguchi shuuichi #kurogiri #heteromorph discrimination plot #chapter thoughts

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