#so you guys can have a hint of what to expect from the characterization in my AU
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Not art this time but...
Headcanon: Lucifer visits Earth every decade or so as a part of his job as the ruler of Hell. He does it to learn about new sins as "subtly" as he could.
Lucifer: What is ray-sings-sims? Raising-sims? Raisins? Rain-Race-sin? R-Racisms? YES! That! Is it the one where people hate on the opposite sex for absolutely no reason even though humans were all made of the same cosmic dust?
Black woman: (Looking amused at the most stereotypical rich white guy she's ever met asking about sexism and racism.)
Lucifer: Yeah. This cocaine thing is doing nothing for me. I don't really get it, but this is a sin too. So marking that off the list! Thanks for letting me have a go at this, uh, Mr. Dealer? That's your last name, right? Oh man. I'm really bad at remembering names, but have this as a token of my appreciation. (Gives him a thousand dollars which is basically worth even more at the time.)
Drug dealer: (Gobsmacked the guy was still able to keep walking after practically inhaling every drug in existence back then.)
Lucifer: So this, um, cult thing? How did it get assigned to our department again? It sounds just like what Heaven does to me. Huh. Ah well. I guess I'll just roll with it like everyone else here. (Shrugs.) Yay, cult! Sooo do I get to keep the robe? It's kinda comfy- Aw wait there's murder? One died a-and another... Oh... OH... Ooooh boy. Oof. Yikes... So this means I can DEFINITELY keep the robe, right?
Lucifer: Ah yes. Burning the witch. Time to list down all the sorry souls who threw their life into the flame by believing in the occult arts. (Lists down everyone in the crowd who burned said "witch.") And as for Ms. Agnes The Witch here... Hmm. Well, that's for Heaven to worry about! Toodles~! Or, uh, Tickety-Boo!
(Needless to say, dear Luci has been an accidental charmer back on Earth. ^v^ Specially to sinners and people who were just unjustly treated during those times. He just had to see what every sin was for himself and try them out from time to time, but he didn't know he's been perceived as acting with the manners and traditions he gathered from the LAST decade he was on Earth so to everyone who's long gone pass those times, he comes off as a polite old-school rich white man. Naive yet surprisingly non-judgemental.)
-Bubbly💙
#you guys seem to like my last Lucifer Headcanon about Long Haired Luci so#here's more#just a taste of how I write#so you guys can have a hint of what to expect from the characterization in my AU#spacebubblearts#headcanons#hazbin hotel#fanon#silly ideas#he's just a little fuy#a little lost#a little confused#a little... Yep#but hey he's got character! XD#sexism is bad#so is racism#don't do drugs folks#Lucifer is immune to it so he's fine#Lucifer's earthly adventures#period typical racism#GO references#yes I know what I'm doing#trust me bro#now will you give my AU a chance?#lucifer morningstar#3 am thoughts#but its not actually 3 am yet#agnes nutter#if you know eyyyy#hell's greatest dad
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I've been rewatching Avatar: The Last Airbender because why not and I'm losing my mind at Zuko's proper introduction. I don't know if it's hindsight, shifting characterizations, or just me not watching this in a long time, but this was amazing.
We start off showing he's an impatient and very angry kid. Reasonable, and the sort of flaw we might expect to see in a villain. Kinda funny that he expects to go up against an adult and fully 4-Element realized Avatar, but the kid is desperate and Iroh clearly expects his nephew to get the banishment-denial kicked out of him.
What's important here, though, is Zuko's introduction to the Southern Water Tribe.
Here, we have a very intimidating entrance where his entire ship just sails through the ice right up to the village's front door. It's quite ominous and this is our first proper introduction to how the Fire Nation interacts with a foreign people.
Sokka charges, I'm assuming fully prepared to die, and Zuko casually knocks him out of the way. Okay, so clearly the Water Tribe are entirely outgunned.
He asks "Where are you hiding him?" and the people of the Water Tribe go silent. I assume they're either just too scared to talk or actually protecting Aang.
Whatever the case, it's important to note that the Southern Water Tribe know the terror the Fire Nation can inflict. We have a whole episode dedicated to tracking down a division of raiders.
Sokka was able to not only identify the ash-mixed snow as signs of an incoming attack, but estimate how many ships the amount of ash measures to. These are a people who have experience being terrorized and are probably expecting something terrible to happen.
And then, after they don't answer, Zuko grabs Gran-Gran. There was a horror sting to it, and everything the tribe knows about the Fire Nation suggests that Zuko is about to threaten or straight up hurt her to get answers. Classic "terrorize the elderly" bad guy stuff.
And then...
He goes "He's (the Avatar) be about this age and is a master of all four elements!?" and lets her go.
And all of a sudden, the tension that was built up is shattered as Zuko went "I know, I'll give them a reference for the person I'm looking for because clearly they're confused and I wasn't specific enough."
This went from a show of villainy to a show of Zuko being totally socially awkward and misreading the situation entirely. Not helping is that when he does try to menace them a moment later, his fire is slow and angled quite safely.
It still worked on the Water Tribe because they're understandably scared, but all I could think of is that this was the equivalent of a playground bully trying to make someone flinch with that fake-out lunge thing.
Because the fact-and something we'll come to learn-is that Zuko is TERRIBLE at being a Fire Nation oppressor. He's capable of doing morally dubious things and is a competent fighter. But he's lousy at terrorizing people and cruelty-that's kind of the point of his banishment.
And while we can see the story paint this picture of Zuko's true character as the story goes on with hints of good and conflicting loyalties, here we get to see just how bad he is at being "the bad guys".
#avatar the last airbender#atla#you're not an imperialistic conqueror you're a BABY#a BABY BEAN#diffused tension#bad at being bad#can you imagine how horrible this would have played out if Azula was the one that came?#psychronia
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The Supreme King Judai vs. Dark Deku: How To Do a Dark Deconstruction of your Shonen Hero!
Think of this as less me complaining about My Hero Academia, and more me taking a closer look at the writing of the Dark Deku arc and why it failed to achieve what it set out to achieve.
I like to look at writing on a deeper level than Thing Bad, and Thing Good. Imagine a story is a car engine that won't start, in order to find the problem you've got to disassemble all the pieces and look at them one by one to see what pieces aren't working. That's the kind of criticism I'm talking about, break storytelling down into different tools like parts of an engine, plot, world, characterization, ideas, actions and consequences and then look if the author is using those tools effectively to sell a story.
In other words we're talking about the difference in ideas and execution. All works of fiction have ideas, even bad anime can have good ideas inside of it. The idea in question is Judai's case is can exploring the dark side of a hero. Can a hero's positive qualities also lead them down a dark path? Yu-Gi-Oh Gx answers this in a satisfying way, and My Hero Academia I'm going to argue does not.
IDEAS VS EXECUTION
One piece of writing advice I heard from Brandon Sanderson of all people that always stuck with me is "Ideas are cheap. You can always come up with more ideas."
All works of fiction have ideas and themes no matter what the Game of Thrones guy say, but some works are better at communicating their ideas than others. I want to quote a Homestuck Ending analysis of all things to explain what I'm talking about.
When you are a writer you can write anything you want. But if you want to write a story that people want to read you have to follow the rules of good storytelling.
There are reasons why storytelling rules exist. A story is a bond between author and reader, readers to other readers. It is a communication between humans and humans work in a certain way.
Storytelling rules are rules of communication. Rules for handling expectations and saying what you intend to say without it being misheard. Rules for tugging at emotions and pulling heartstrings in a good way rather than a bad way. Storytelling rules are lessons learned by authors of the past that failed to communicate what they needed to. They are not that subjective.
Chief among these rules is buildup and payoff. In fact one of the most basic techniques of storytelling is foreshadowing, in screenplays you usually foreshadow one important twist, then add a reminder so the audience doesn't forget, before finally paying it off.
To simplify build up and pay off I like to refer to it as question and answer. Usually a story will ask its audience a question, and usually by the end that question is answered, unless the point is to leave that question unanswered / ambiguous.
Character arcs are examples of buildup and payoff too, a lot of characters, especially in serialized media are sold on their potential future development. Here's an example, how may people got invested in Dabi years in advance because of the Dabi is a Todoroki Theory? That's an example of good buildup and payoff, because the author sewed just enough hints to build up an audience expectation and then paid it off. People became invested in the story, because they thought their investment and theories would pay off eventually and it did - so hooray!
Both MHA and YGOGX dedicate an entire arc to trying to deconstruct their main protagonist. They also seek to deconstruct the "Hero Complex" or "Saving People Complex" that each protagonist has, and ask the question if those traits are really a good thing.
This post puts it better than me so I'm going to quote tumblr user rhodanum.
‘Hero complex’ or 'saving people complex’ — an obsession with rescuing people in the face of danger, often to the exclusion of all higher thought processes. All too prevalent among shounen main leads, especially hot-blooded shounen main leads. Yuki Judai is certainly no exception. What is interesting in his case is that the writers follow the consequences of his rash, reckless, often thoughtless actions all the way to their heartbreaking logical conclusion.
For those not fully in the know, it involves spiky black armor, an army of sycophants and a fall from grace that caused as much damage as a thermonuclear bomb. Don’t make perky, happy shounen protagonists snap, people. First rule.
I'm going to quote another video too, to add onto the above quote. It's from this video, starting at around 39:52
"GX is kind of famous among fans for taking its happy protagonist and stripping him down to all of his worst qualities. And that's fun. So Judai is a character who's really interesting. He's definitely open to a lot of interpretation, and you know we're gonna be leaning on my interpretation of him. Sorry. It's my video. I think he's commonly referred to a "very typical shonen protag" probably one of the most shonen protag of the yu gi oh protagonists. He is headstrong and loud, and (makes punching noises while air boxing), he is a type of character who's like I'm gonna be the best and brings everyone along on the ride. He's the kind of protagonist that everybody loves him they're all fighting over him, and Yu Gi Oh Gx really puts him up on the pedestal, of like THIS GUY. THIS GUY DOES IT ALL. Then season 3 rolls around and dares to ask: but what if that's selfish behavior?"
That's the question both MHA and YGOGX are asking in Dark Deku arc and Season 3 respectively, what if all of those behaviors that make them the typical hot blooded shonen protagonist are actually selfish? Is their hero complex really a good thing?
Each arc is tasked with exploiting the main character's flaws, until they reach their emotional breaking point and lowest point in the story. Let's see how each story treats their main character and from comparing that I want to make a point about what makes effective storytelling.
The Supreme King Haou Arc
Instead of recapping the entire arc to you, I'm going to touch upon what ideas the story setup in regards to Judai's character and how it paid off those ideas. What are the questions the story asks and what answers does it give us?
I'm going to focus on the two questions I outlined above. Is their hero complex a good thing? and What if this is selfish behavior?
Yu-Gi-Oh GX is an anime where instead of using super powers, the main characters fight each other with a magical trading card game. Besides that fact there's a lot of similarities between GX and MHA. They both take place in an academy setting where the main characters learn about using their quirks, and playing the card game better respectively. It is a shonen battle anime where almost everything is solved with a shonen fight, they just use cards instead of flashy superpowers. The main characters are all students who have to grow up and enter the adult world.
Judai and Deku are both characters that deconstruct the "hero complex" of shonen main characters. Judai is themed entirely around heroes, he has an elemental hero deck where every hero is based off a hero that appears in popular culture, he is the best duelist in the school and the one everyone calls on to save the day over and over again. As stated above he is the most Shonen Protag to ever Shonen Protag, he's a warrior therapist who makes friends and saves the day because he's really good at the card game, and will always show up to fight for his friends.
For the first two seasons Judai is built up on this pedestal of the ideal Shonen Protagonist, and praised by basically every single character for being "childish" and "pure of heart" however when Season 3 comes around the narrative stops heaping endless praise on him and starts to challenge him. However, this doesn't come from nowhere there are signs of these personality flaws of Judai, they just get swept under the rug the first two seasons.
There are several moments such as the climaxes to season 1 and season 2 where Judai fails to grasp the stakes of the situation, saying things like "Oh, this card game is really fun" when he's dueling with lives on the line. Judai in fact has a pattern of "only wanting to duel for fun", he fights because it's fun to him not because it's the right thing to do. However, he's continually forced into high stakes situation where he has to fight for others just because he's the strongest character - and constantly having to carry that on his shoulders starts to weigh on him after awhile. Judai will show up to fight and save his friends every single time they need him, and that's the source of his hero complex because after a certain point his friends start relying on him too much.
In general he also doesn't have deep thoughts of what heroes are, he admires heroes but it basically boils down do "Heroes are cool." He's kind of like Goku where he doesn't really fight for any idea of justice or to save others, just for the thrill of fighting itself. He also has a tendency to be insensitive to other people's feelings and take things for granted. For example, in Season 2 like three of his friends get possessed and Judai doesn't even do anything about it for half a season because he's too busy participating in the dueling tournament.
In general though it's a pattern of Judai only wanting to "duel for fun" and him being forced to duel to save others instead, and be responsible for other people. Judai will show up to fight for his friends, but even then he falls back on just "dueling for fun" because always having to fight for others is too much responsibility to put on his shoulders.
There's a lot of hints of Judai's flaws, but they also tend to get brushed off because shonen protagonists are just like that. Like, Judai can say some insensitive things to his friends sometimes and be oblivious to their feelings, well he's just a book dumb shonen protagonist. Judai should be taking this fight seriously, well he's just being a happy go lucky shonen protagonist, etc. etc. A lot of these things are also just swept under the rug as him just being a child, a boy-at-heart like most shonen protagonists are supposed to be.
However, season 3 starts looking at Judai not as a shonen protagonist but as a person, and it all starts with the suggestion that maybe Judai remaining a child at heart is a bad thing, especially when his friends around him are all growing up. It all starts with the introduction of this guy right here - Johan Anderson.
Johan shares many things in common with Judai, he can see spirits, he's a duelist who loves to duel, he has a strong connection with his cards. However, the more you compare them the more you notice that Johan has a lot of things that Judai lacks. They are so similiar that they become almost instant best friends, but even then Johan himself notices there are a few things off about Judai's behavior.
Sho: Bro... I thought you would have something to say to me.
Johan: He seems lost. I think he just wanted you to give him some advice.
Judai: SHo will be fine.
Johan: Judai, you're colder than I thought.
It takes someone completely new to the dynamic between Judai and his friends, who likes Judai but hasn't spent the past two seasons idolizing him to realize that some of his behaviors are kind of off. That Judai isn't really the most empathic, or even that good at understanding other's feelings.
Johan is the one to point this out because he has the emotional intelligence that Judai lacks. We've been told Judai is our shonen protagonist for two seasons, only for the real shonen protag Johan to step up out of nowhere and show them how it's done. Johan is good at seeing other people's emotions, and he becomes a near instant pillar of emotional support for Judai. More than that, he also is the first person to treat Judai like an equal, he never asks Judai to save him like all of Judai's friends do, if anything they both save each other.
Johan also exists to show what Judai is lacking, mainly a reason behind why he fights.
Judai: I do it because it's fun. Or because of the surprise and delight, I guess. Well, I guess that comes down to "because it's fun", huh? Sorry, I guess that's an awkward question to ask out of nowhere.
Johan: What's wrong, Juadi?
Judai: Nothing, really.
Johan: I have a proper goal.
Judai: Don't tell anyone. Even if people don't have the power to see spirits, they can still commune with them. That's why, for those people as well... (I want to be a bridge between humans and spirits).
Judai is someone who will always show up to save his friends when he is asked, but he doesn't really have a concept of what being a hero is or the repsonsibilities it entails, he just admires heroes in a pure hearted way. Johan on the other hand has a reason to fight and that's to help humans and card spirits get along, and Judai expresses admiration for Johan because he has a goal.
At the same time this is happening, Judai gets picked apart by two villains for his lack of reason for fighting. Judai has been praised to death for two seasons for being pure of heart, but now the villains are challenging him by saying he has no "darkness of the heart". That without it the reasons that Judai fights are superficial and frivolous.
We have something that you lack.
Judai: That I lack?
Yes the darkness of the heart that slumbers deep within a duelist. The burden that a duelist bears in his heart. Judai, you have none of that.
Judai: A burden in my heart.
I have nver, not even once, dueled for myself. I doubt someone like you, who only thinks of himself could udnerstand that.
Judai: What would be fun about a duel like that?
It isn't fun at all! You must bear other's expectations while remaining strong. That is what it means.
Judai is a bit of a blood knight, he will be dueling with his friends lives on the lines and stop to go "Wow, this duel is really fun" and it's usually just dismissed a shim being a shonen protagonist until suddenly it isn't.
I'm gonna draw a deliberate parallel between Deku and Judai here that I'll reference later on, they both don't understand "darkness of the heart" and they need to understand it in order to grow as people.
There's also the underlying notion that being a hero is not all it's chalked up to be, to be a hero, to fight for other people's sake means also taking on their suffering. As noble as that may seem suffering is suffering.
Cobra: Fortune would never smile on a fool like you who fights while prattling on about enjoying duels.
Cobra: You are certainly a talented duelist. But you have one fatal flaw.
Judai: A fatal flaw?
Cobra: Yes, your duels are superficial. Someone who fights with nothing on his shoulders, cannot recover once he loses his enjoyment. What a duelist carries on his shoulders will become the power that supports him when he's up against the wall!
Cobra: But you have nothing like that! Those who go through life without anything like that cannot possibly seize victory.
Cobra: But I know that nothing I say will resonate with you... because you have nothing to lose but the match.
Judai: I...
Cobra: Afraid aren't you? Right now, you have nothing to support you.
In the context of this scene, Cobra has told everyone that he's currently enacting his evil plan out of the vain hope that he can somehow revive his son from the dead.
As insane as "I think I can revive the dead" is as a motivation, fighting for the sake of your dead son is a much stronger motivation than "I think duels are fun."
Judai doesn't have an appropriate answer as to why he fights when he's questioned by the villains, and instead of coming up with his own answer he relies on the answer Johan provided for him.
Johan: You idiot. Why are you so shaken Judai? You think you have nothing on your shoulders? Give me a break! You always bear other's expectations on your shoulders. When you have other people's expectations riding on you, it means they've trusted you with their hopes! Don't you always carry those? If you lose what will happen to us here?
Johan's words snap him out of it, but this isn't Judai coming up with an answer himself it's just taking the one that's provided for him.
This is also the point where we get start to develop an answer to our question. Is Judai selfish?
In action he's not. His actions are selfless. Judai is always fighting for others, even when he only wants to duel for fun. He will show up and fight if you ask him too.
However, in motivation he is selfish. His motivations are selfish. Judai isn't fighting out of some selflessness, but because fighting for the sake of other people gives him a purpose. He keeps fighting for his friends, because he's built all of his friendships around being the one to solve their problems. It's why he Johan's answer suits Judai so well, because he thinks that's how friendship works that he has to keep carrying everyone's burden for them.
Not only does it lead to unhealthy friendships (he sees his friends as burdens) but also it's unhealthy for Judai himself (he can't keep carrying other people's burdens without getting weighed down).
Judai's hero complex, this pressure he feels to save everyone around him arises from two things, it gives him friends when he'd been a lonely child before that, and it gives him purpose. Playing the hero is how he made all of his friends, and now it's how he keeps them.
However, in spite of doing all this to keep his friends, Judai's relationship with his friends is so all give and no take that he's practically fighting alone until Johan shows up. Judai doesn't form a healthy and stable relationship with Johan however, Johan just becomes a crutch.
In Summary:
Judai's actions are selfless.
His motivations are selfish.
Judai's purpose is to carry everyone's burdens on his shoulders.
Judai's friends exist to be saved by him.
The following arc is roughly divided into four sections. Everything I've covered above happens in the first section the Cobra Arc.
Cobra Arc
Zombie Survival Arc
Dark World / Supreme King Arc
Oh Shit, Yubel's Back
The cobra arc is the introduction and it sets up the basic ideas of Judai's character that I listed above, in addition it focuses on the question of if Judai is selfish, and the idea that being a hero is a burden. There's also the third question where Judai is called to understand darkness of the heart, something Deku will also be called to do.
The Zombie Survival arc is an arc where the school is teleported to another dimension and they have to survive for several days with a limited food supply, everyone fighting, and an outbreak of zombies.
The main setup of this arc is to show how everyone is working well together as a team, even in a high stress situation. Alexis, Judai, Misawa, Kenzan, all pull together with the help of new students Johan, Austin O'Brien and Jim Crocodile Cook.
However, I'm brushing over this arc because Judai doesn't actually do much this arc. If you analyze who does what, it's mainly Johan and Austin O'Brien who are in charge of the entire school. Johan demonstrates leadership skills, calls on everyone to pull together in a time of crisis, and most importantly emotionally supports Judai all throughout.
Even when Judai is confronting the main villain of this scenario Yubel, it's Johan who shows up to support Judai, and it's Johan who wins the duel at the sacrifice of his own life. Everyone gets through the zombie arc unscathed, but it's because Johan is the hero of this part of the arc, not because of anything Judai really did.
Judai who having gone on so long carrying other people's burdens to the point where he's made saving others his purpose, has for the first time experienced someone helping him carry those burdens only to disappear and Judai does not react well to it.
This is when the story has finished setting up all the dominoes that are about to fall. We have one mini-arc drawing attention to the dark side of Judai's personality and how he doesn't understand his own darkness, and one mini-arc showing Johan being a much more effective hero and leader than Judai, demonstrating everything Judai lacks.
You Either Die a Hero, or You Live Long Enough...
Yadda yadda you know the rest. A character being undone by the same traits that made them a hero, is classic tragedy 101. It's called the Hamartia or the fatal flaw. A character's greatest strength in some situations can be their greatest weakness in others. The Supreme King Arc is a masterclass in showing how the traits Judai had that led to his success in the first season, can lead to his total ruin, and even to him becoming the villain of his own story.
Hero and Villain are much closer than you'd realize, and this becomes especially true in the relationship between Judai and Yubel. Judai shares an extremely close relationship to his antagonist foil, just like Deku does with Shigaraki.
However, in Judai's case he's the reason that Yubel turned evil. While it's not entirely his fault, Judai's decision to abandon Yubel when he was a child, made Yubel go through ten years of painful torture all alone, which is the reason behind their current madness.
To summarize Yubel and Judai's story briefly. Yubel is a card spirit, the thing that Johan wants to serve as a bridge between card spirits and humans. Judai had an incredibly close relationship with Yubel as a child, but Yubel was overprotective and used their powers to harm anyone who came near Judai. Judai launched Yubel into space hoping the righteous space rays of justice would calm Yubel down (I know that sounds stupid just go with it) but instead Yubel was hit with the light of destruction a corrupting force that made them endure years of torture. They called out for Judai's help in their dreams only for Judai to eventually forget about them with a psychologist's intervention. Eventually the satellite they were trapped in made it's way back to earth, and they almost died burning up on re-entry. When they finally crawled their way back to Judai, they found Judai had been living the past ten years happy and surrounded by friends, while they had been tortured in space and nearly died all alone.
At which point Yubel snaps, hard.
While it's not Judai's fault entirely because he was a child and he didn't know what was going to happen, he still made the decision to abandon Yubel and stuck them in that situation. Judai's actions creaeted Yubel, and now Yubel is here broken and hurt and determined to hurt all of Judai's friends.
Judai doesn't know how to cope with the guilt or responsibility for either of these things. Both for creating Yubel, and for the fact that because of Yubel Johan might now be dead.
I'm the one who made her what she is!
This is where the show starts demonstrating that understand in darkness of the heart is necessary, because Judai can't understand two things, number one the fact he might have hurt Yubel, and two how to deal with the sense of responsibility he feels towards Yubel becoming what they are, and for Johan's apparent death.
He just feels a lot of guilt, and as someone who's only been the carefree hero up until this point he doesn't know how to deal with that guilt.
Judai makes a very similiar decision to Deku. He decides to go out and hunt for Johan by himself, leaving his friends behind so he won't risk their safety. Unlike Deku however, his friends immediately follow and insist on coming along.
This is when the problems start appearing, because the second everyone enters the Dark World to look for Johan, the show starts demonstrating clearly how different Judai's leadership is from Johan.
All of Judai's flaws start popping up, he's tactless, self-centered, and doesn't consider others feelings, and most importantly of all he doesn't look before he leaps. These behaviors that could earlier be swept under the rug, just become aggravated in a high stakes situation where everyone's lives are on the line. Judai came together with everyone to look for Johan, but he keeps acting like he's alone.
Another user's meta post here summarizes Judai's actions in the Different Dimmension, more succinctly so I'm going to quote them.
Shit Judai’s friends signed up for when they went into the Different Dimension with him:
searching for Johan
working as a team
deciding as a group what risks they’re willing to take
risking their lives together, on an even playing field
Shit Judai’s friends didn’t sign up for when they went into the Different Dimension with him:
having their input thoroughly ignored
being left behind while their friend recklessly charged ahead
having essential information kept from them (Judai didn’t tell them about the fatal consequences of dueling in Dark World)
being kept from dueling without their opinion on the matter ever being taken into account
having their physical, mental and emotional well-being be completely ignored by the de-facto group-leader
being relegated to secondary importance in comparison to Johan, in Judai’s eyes
having their group leader outright break the promises he made to them
To name a few things Judai does while in the different dimmension. Almost immediately after entering the dimension he runs away from the rest of the group, forcing Austin O'Brien to follow before anyone has even gotten their bearings or investigated where they are. Make an agreement with everyone to rest and wait for Dawn to search for Johan, only to run off into the middle of the night without telling anyone. Run off ahead of the group leaving several of their members behind, and when O'Brien tells Judai that members of their group are missing and that he should go back and search for them, Judai asks O'Brien to just do it instead.
Judai doesn't see the flaws in this behavior because it's how he's been acting all along, he always runs off into danger head first and he always fights on his own. Judai's never been good at considering the feelings of others though because he's a tad socially impaired, so he just doesn't seem to notice everyone's growing concerns with how he's acting.
Once again we are asked the question, is Judai's behavior selfish?
Judai deliberately abandons his friends three times, and the third time everyone stops to discuss his behavior.
Kenzan: True, we did come to this world to save Johan, saurus...
Fubuki: He did find some minor clues as to Johan's whereabouts, so I suppose it's only natural, but...
Asuka: But right now, I feel something is different about Judai.
Menajoume: That's right. He got us all riled up about this, and now he's totally forgotten the comrades who came along with him.
Kenzan: That's really irresponsible, Saurus.
Fubuki: I don't mean to be a wet blanket, but I wish he'd realize the anguish he's putting us through.
Asuka: Judai isn't doing this for Johan or us now. It's for himself. He just seems to be rushing forward, headlong, to forget the responsibility he bears on his shoulders.
The answer now is yes, his motivation is selfish because it's no longer about saving Johan, but just to stop himself from feeling guilty.
The stress of the situation is aggravating Judai's worst qualities yes, but Judai's always thought about himself first before others, he's always viewed his friends more as burdens / people to be saved rather than equals.
This all leads to a situation where Judai messes up big time. The same way he abandoned Yubel, he abandons the rest of his friends to run ahead and search for Johan.
They are all kidnapped - and it's Austin who notices they are missing Judai isn't even paying attention. Austin says they should head back and look for the others, but Judai asks Austin and Jim to handle that alone so he can keep searching for Johan.
Jim: The others haven't arrived yet. Something might have happned to them on the way.
Judai: I see. Sorry, but could you go back and fetch them?
Jim: What? You mean you don't care what happens to them?
Austin: Don't forget these are the friends that are in this with you. To fulfill our objective in this dimmension we need everyone working together. You wait here until we return.
Judai: Okay, I will.
Austin and Jim agree to go back and search for the others, if Judai promises to wait for them here instead of going on ahead. A promise which Judai immediately breaks.
Which is how Judai walks right into a trap.
Judai abandons his friend so they get kidnapped. He doesn't go back to look for them, so he misses out on a chance to save them. He doesn't wait for Austin and Jim to come back, and because of that he wanders all alone into a trap.
That trap is a sacrifice ritual where the leader Brron challenges him to a duel, and every time Judai attacks one of his friends are sacrificed. Judai is forced to attack and each friend dies one by one.
Judai didn't want to attack, he didn't choose to sacrifice his friends, but he did make every decision leading up to that. The trap was easily avoidable if he 1) didn't leave his friends behind 2) went looking for his friends after they were left behind or 3) waited for Jim and Austin to come back.
Judai didn't mean to sacrifice his friends, but it's a result of his own bad decisions. It's the culmination of an arc where he's been selfishly taking his friends for granted. It's a consequence for Judai just choosing to recklessly barrel forward because he can't cope with his guilt.
Judai's lack of darkness of the heart really dooms him here, because he was blind to his own flaws until it was too late. This isn't even the part where Judai does the bad thing, Judai's careless actions lead to four of his friends dying but he doesn't learn from his mistakes. He snaps, hard.
Judai: But at least I avenged them. Sho I'm really glad you're alive.
Sho: Those words... they're just lip service. Bro... bro, you're selfish. Before now, I thought of you as the sun. Someone who gave others energy and made the impossible possible. But, I was wrong. All you care about is getting your way. You don't care who you sacrifice. You'll do anything in the name of your goal. Avenging them won't bring back the people you sacrificed. You're just dueling to satisfy yourself.
Judai: O'brien!
Austin: I thought I told you to wait.
Judai: Are you saying what I did was wrong?
Austin: Think it over for yourself.
Judai: Why? What did I do that was so wrong? I... I did the right thing! And yet... everyone keeps leaving me! What... What is wrong with me?
Supreme King: Yuki Judai. To be willing to be evil to defeat evil. This world exemplfiies survival of the fittest. It must be ruled with power.
Judai: Power? I don't have that much power...
Supreme King: You hold the Super Polymerization card in your hand. Defeat the spirits that stand against you. Breathe their lives into it and complete that card.
After this point Judai decides to sacrifice everything else for power, and to complete the Super Polymerization card he's already sacrificed four friends four.
It's the culmination of an arc where Judai's only been praised for his strength and his ability to win duels. Where he constantly has been called to win duels to solve problems, until that stops working. When everyone is gone, all that's left is his strength. He had to keep winning to keep people safe, but even that wasn't enough, he was still missing something.
He knew he was missing something, that there was something wrong with him and he didn't know where to look.
Conclusion?
He needed power. If he had power, then he wouldn't have lost. If he had power then everything would have turned out alright. He didn't have the strength to carry everyone's burdens for them, that's why he lost, so what he needs is more power. He's been demanded to win, win, and win again so now winning is all that matters.
Now we have our second question: Is Judai's hero complex a good thing?
That's a definite no, because the pressure to always win, to always save everyone and carry their responsibilities has now completely broken Judai. To the point where he now believes that the only thing good about himself is that he's powerful, but he now is willing to sacrifice others to gain more power.
My name is the Supreme King.
Now here's the best part about Judai actively having a villain arc.
He does bad thngs. He does a lot of bad things.
It turns out when you're abandoned and left alone to suffer you do bad things, crazy that, I'm sure Yubel would have a lot to say about that.
Judai is also not being possessed in this scenario. They state it several times. You could say he's Shadow possessed in a Jungian sense. The supreme King is the symbolic embodiment of all of Judai's flaws that he's been ignoring until now. You could say Haou is representative of Judai's subconscious that has been repressed for so long until all those flaws finally surfaced, and that the Judai we see on a day to day basis is his ego, that the relationship between the two is a metaphor for conscious and subconscious.
Jim does a deep dive into Judai's mind, where we're shown a symbolic sequence of what the inside of his head looks like. Judai witnesses his friends appear in mirrors before they shatter one by one, all while he mumbles about how he needs to get stronger.
These are all storytelling devices to show Judai's fractured psyche, but Judai is still in control of his actions. Judai talks and responds to questions when he's addressed. Judai's friends confirm that it's still Judai, he's not a puppet or possessed.
Misawa says later to Judai's face that he and the supreme king are the same person. Judai later is able to use the Supreme King's powers and maintain complete control, because the Supreme King isn't a split personality. Judai even says when Amon is sacrificing someone he loved for power, that he was doing the same thing as the Supreme King, sacrificing everything for power.
We later learn that the ritual that sacrificed four of Judai's friends was a part of Yubel's schemes, but that's the only thing Yubel set up. Judai made every bad irresponsible decision that led to his friends being captured. Judai was the one who snapped and decided to complete Super Polyermization after it was completed. Learning Yubel was behind the sacrifice ritual doesn't take away any agency from Judai at all, because Judai is responsible for his own decisions.
What it does do is create another parallel between them, because we learn the reason Yubel set up the sacrifice was to make Judai walk the same path that they did.
Judai is hurt, abandoned and isolated and in that situation he ends up lashing out at everyone around him in a similiar manner to Yubel. When Judai is put through similiar trauma, he doesn't overcome it in some heroic way because he's an innately good person, no he succumbs and behaves in ways that are incredibly similiar to Yubel.
Even when Judai's friends selflessly try to help Judai, he resists them every step of the way. He ignores their constant calls to him, their comfort, and he even fights them. Judai is eventually reached by the efforts of Jim and Austin combined, but they both die in the effort. Judai is saved because Jim and Austin were way better friends to him than he was to them.
Judai is effectively snapped out of his destructive spiral, but he's left alone with the sobering realization of everything he's done and the blood of two more friends on his hand.
When it's time for our hero to finally face Yubel, he no longer has the moral highground. Now when he faces Yubel it's not as hero and villain, they're just two sides of the same coin. Two people who when they were abandoned, lashed out and hurt everyone around them.
The question is no longer can Judai save Johan. The question now is whether Judai can live with the guilt he's carrying within him, and for that matter can Yubel live with the guilt of what they've done now too?
By this point Judai's been completely deconstructed. He's no longer the hero of the story, he's just a flawed person who needs to fix his flaws. He has the choice to live with his mistakes, and the biggest conflict now is whether he's going to save his villain foil Yubel, or strike them down in order to save the rest of his friends (the three that are left).
This also creates a much more compelling reason for Judai to save Yubel. Not just because Judai is responsible for Yubel's creation, but because they've both made the same mistakes, they have the same traumas and the same scars. Jim and Austin were willing to risk everything to save Judai even when he didn't deserve it, and didn't want it. Now is Judai capable of doing the same thing, of reaching Yubel the way he was reached, not for the sake of saving the world but for helping a friend?
I just want to save my friend. That's all.
This is to me a very compelling setup for the challenge of whether or not Yubel can be saved. Judai's not really saving a helpless victim, he's not acting out of a sense of duty to sacrifice himself for the world, he's being challenged to save someone who suffers from all the same flaws that he does. Judai and Yubel are so similiar at this point it's really just Judai saving himself.
The Dark Deku Arc - Setup
This is the part where I'm actually going to praise MHA. Shocking I know. Season 1 and 2 of Yu-Gi-Oh GX are about 105 episodes in total. The Dark Deku arc begins at about episode 131 with Deku's decision to leave the hospital by himself to hunt down Shigaraki and AFO alone and try to understand villains better.
The 130 episodes up until that point are much better build up, than the first 105 episodes of Yu-Gi-Oh GX. To put it frankly GX is paced like ass. There's far too much filler, and because of that the plot points the anime is trying to make are delivered less efectively. In fact 105 is a good example of what I said above, that ideas are one thing and execution are another.
Season 2 especially is a season filled with good ideas and weak execution due to pacing. Here's one I use as a go-to example. There's a character named Edo Phoenix who's on a quest to find who killed his father. The ending of his plotline is he discovers that in a twist, the man who adopted him is the one who killed his father, and he's been encouraging Edo to investigate because it lets him spy on the police investigation and keep it off his tail.
That's a good twist - however that twist happens in the same episode that Edo's adoptive father is introduced. The audience is given literally no time to even get to know Edo's adoptive father, or get invested in their relationship so the twist doesn't hit at all. A better paced story would show Edo's relationship to his adoptive father early on, get you invested in them, only to pull the rug out from under you so you would feel the shock of that betrayal alongside Edo.
GX establishes its character cast, and yes the filler does give the cast time to breathe and they're all well characterized but because the plot around them is so poorly structured, none of the plot points really hit. Okay, Edo's adoptive dad is evil. Next! You can have good characters, but if you don't put them in a strong narrative framework that challenges them then those characters are just gonna kinda sit there.
The first 105 episodes of Yu Gi Oh GX does succesfully characterize most of the main cast, but it also feels like everyone's just goofing around. In comparison the first 135 episodes of MHA much more successfully builds an escalating conflict. Each new arc either introduces you to a new facet of the world, makes the amin characters more complex, or adds to the conflict.
We basically go from arc 1 "The hero high school is fun" to Arc 2 "The villains are a serious threat" to the Camp Arc "Oh shit, Shigaraki is learning and the villains are getting stronger."
When Bakugo is kidnapped at the end of the camp arc, the tension is ramped way up with the appearance of AFO, and All Might's retirement.
After that point we're introduced to the Overhaul arc, which not only again makes the League of Villains more complex and sympathetic, but also introduces the audience to All Might's more flawed side - the fact that All Might literally worked himself to death saving others and it still didn't work.
Then My Villain Academia -> The Villains are now a threat and they have an army.
Each arc builds on a previous arc, the characters and the world grow more complex, and it feels like you're learning about these complex issues alongside the characters. It just makes Yu Gi Oh Gx look like the silly card games show by comparison, by setting up this very layered world, and conflict, and heroes that challenge the protagonists on what it means to be a hero and what it means to be a victim.
Then all of that great setup.
We are side by side with the proagonist. We, like Deku now want to see if someone like Shigaraki can be saved. We, alongisde Deku want to better understand the villains and learn to see them as people. We want to know if the corrupt hero system can be salvaged.
However, these are too many questions so let's boil it down to two once more, because this is looking at Deku's character.
Deku and Judai are in some ways different as night and day. Deku is an introverted nerd and the victim of bullying, and he starts out with no quirk at all. Judai is a self-confident, charismatic prodigy who instantly seems to charm and befriend everyone around him. Deku desperately wants to be the hero and works his way up there, whereas Judai is just kind of thrown into the school hero because he's the best at dueling.
Judai is kind of a mix of Bakugo and Deku's traits, he's a self confident prodigy who always wins, but he's also someone obsessed with heroes and who has a hero-complex where he's continually forced to save others.
The Dark Deku arc, like the Supreme King Arc looks to take a darker, more introspective look at Deku's character, while also exposing Deku who is a sheltered kid to the a very grey on grey world. It also seeks to deconstruct Deku's suposed "hero complex". Despite the many differences between Deku and Judai I believe the two questions an be boiled down to the same thing.
Is Deku Selfish?
Is Deku's hero complex a bad thing?
These are the questions the series itself is asking in the deconstruction of Deku's character. Deku himself is asking if there's a better way to save villains tha just beating them down or outright killing them, but we'll discuss that later.
Just like Judai there is some setup before this to give a previously very one-note Shonen protagonist mor depth. Deku and Judai are both people who fit the determined, punchy, solve everything fist fight shonen protagonist to a T, on top of being the one to always show up to fight for their friends. Just like in the beginning of season 3, we do have some hints before this that there's something wrong with this attitude. That there's something about Deku that's not entirely there.
There's a flashback of All Might talking with Bakugo where Bakugo discusses that the fact that Deku never takes cares of himself or factors himself into the equation when he always puts others first deeply bothers him and there's "something wrong with it" that's made him always push Deku away.
This flashback also leads into a scene where Bakugo pushes Deku out of the way of one of AFO's attacks, telling him to "stop trying to win this on his own." In an attempt to make Deku see that he's not fighting alone this time.
Deku has also been warned repeatedly about the way his power destroys his own body when he uses it, warnings he's repeatedly chosen to ignore. Saving others isn't just a goal for Deku, you could arguably say it's a method of self-harm and that's what unnerves Bakugo. Bakugo even gave a similiar speech in the past, about how someone like Deku shouldn't take all of the bullying that Bakugo has given him over the years and still try to be his friend afterwards. At this point it's not really like Bakugo's done anything other than tone down the constant insults a little bit, he hasn't apologized or anything but even this early in the manga Deku has a tendency to just let Bakugo's treatment of him go. It's not like they were super best friends forever before the bullying started either despite what the shippers might tell you. Bakugo is saying it's weird that this kid just takes it, and takes it, and takes it without fighting back like he doesn't care about how people treat him and Bakugo is right... that is weird!
Deku either has such low standards for how he's treated that he just lets Bakugo get away with it, or he just doesn't hold a grudge when he is mistreated because his pain and his suffering just always matters less. Either way it's not healthy, and it could be indicative of a deeper problem hiding behind the surface.
Either way there's setup here, because on one hand you have everyone and their grandma praising Deku for his "drive to save others that eclipses all common understanding."
While at the same time he's criticized by Bakugo for having no regard for others. This could be the setup for the character trait that led to his earlier success leading to his downfall later. In Judai's case, everyone praises his purity of heart, but then that purity is later criticized as childishness, naivete and a refusal to grow up.
As for Deku...
How can you protect others if you can't even bother to protect yourself? How can you save others if you can't save yourself? That's the question Touka asked of Kaneki in Tokyo Ghoul when she rightly called out his desire to protect everyone at the Anteiku Cafe as just a roundabout way of getting himself hurt by acting recklessly.
In Kaneki's case he's not trying to protect anybody, he's just picking battles against the doves and getting himself hurt. He's acting out a hero complex in the sense that if he feels like he didn't fight his friends battles for them like Judai then he wouldn't have any friends to begin with. That's why Touka also says "Besides that, everyone doesn't belong to you. You have no business protecting us."
Is Deku fighting for the same reason? Does he harm himself to protect others because he views himself to be worthless and the only way to demonstrate his worth is try and fight to save others?
We don't get an answer for that question. Judai thinks duels are fun, and he's really good at them, and because he's good at dueling he's made friends. He think to keep those friends he has to keep dueling for the sake of others.
Deku's not motivated by the idea of protecting or keeping his friends, that's a secondary motivation. All we have on Deku is that he feels a strong desire to save others, and that he worshipped heroes like All Might growing up but has a naive idea of what a hero is supposed to be. However, his lack of motivation could be the "something that's missing" just like Judai has.
The GX writers did some hardcore digging into Judai's character by focusing on how shallow he was in motivation compared to everyone else, and showing that to be a symptom of his childish naivete.
There's also the potential parallel between All Might and Nighteye's breakup, and Deku's decision to leave all his friends behind to hunt for Shigaraki himself.
Even if Deku doesn't have a deeper motivation than just "an unnatural drive to save others" then you could show the effects of Deku walking down the same path that All Might did, the belief that he has to be the one to save everyone singlehandedly and if he rests for a single moment than someone might die, leads to him not only destroying his body, but also doing permanent damage to all of his social relationships.
Even if Deku's motivation isn't too deep, you could still have the traits that led him to earlier success now driving him to ruin as the story punishes Deku for his excessive selfishness.
This is also where we finally get back to Deku's goal of understanding Shigaraki, and contemplating whether or not it's possible to save villains without killing them.
I draw a parallel between this and Judai's enemies calling him out on lacking "darkness of the heart" and that without understanding that darkness he can't win.
Judai's lack of darkness of the heart means two things, he's not mature enough to understand the reason why his enemies are fighting, and he's also not mature enough to se the darkness in his own heart which is why he ends up blind to his own flaws and making pretty severe mistakes later on.
For Deku, it's mainly a lack of understanding of the motivations of the villains he's fighting again, villains he's only ever really beat down with his fists until now.
However, for Deku lacking darkness of the heart you could also re-contextualize that as meaning because of his idealization of heroes he's never once looked at the darker sides of hero society that might have driven people into becoming villains.
Deku's lack of inner darkness may just come from the fact that compared to the villains he's fighting against, he's gotten to live a pampered life. Without understanding that darkness, he can't be a full person because he'll still be a naive sheltered child, and not an adult wise to the way the world works and the moral greys he inhibits. Either way, it's just as necessary for Deku to gain an understanding of "Darkness of the Heart' as it is Judai.
So here's all the setup for the start of Deku's Dark deconstruction arc. As different as these characters and scenarios you can still boil it down to those three narrative questions about Deku / Judai, is there behavior selfish? Are there hero compelexes a good thing? Do they need to understand darkness of the heart?
Before moving on I'm going to summarize Deku's setup as thus:
Deku's actions are selfless.
Deku's motivations are also selfless (a desire to save others).
Deku does not benefit from saving others in any way, if anything he actively harms himself in order to do so.
Bakugo finds this behavior incredibly disturbing.
All Might destroyed his body and burned all bridges because of similiar flaws to Deku.
So the answer to the first question is Deku selflish? No. Is his hero-complex a bad thing? Potentially.
While Deku himself decides that he needs to understand darkness of the heart in order to better understand villains. Deku is actually more set up to contemplate darkness of the heart than Judai is, because Judai charges into the dark world blindly with only the motivation of saving Johan not even caring for Yubel, while Deku has the explicit motivation of trying to understand the little boy inside Shigaraki.
DEKU LEFT THE HERO ACADEMY
Deku begins the arc by leaving alone to go searching for Shigaraki, with hand-written letters addressed to all of his friends that tell the truth about One for All and also say Goodbye. He makes the deliberate decision to leave them behind so they don't get targeted alongside of him. It's a pretty classical superhero motivation, I need to cut myself out of my loved ones life in order to protect them. Of course this sort of ignores that everyone in his class has super-powers too, but you know heroes they're all such drama queens.
Is this selfish behavior?
This is going to be the only time I'm going to solidly answer yes. Deku clearly did not take his friends feelings into account. His desire to protect them, is more important than their own agency. They also might want to fight alongside him, they'd be upset if they saw him die or get hurt trying to protect them. Deku thinks of his own feelings of wanting to keep them safe and not being able to handle the emotional burden of protecting him, more than he does their own personal feelings.
This is also something that All Might did they permanently burned all of his bridges with his sidekick and friends, and deeply hurt his sidekick who was just asking him to take a break so he did not get himself killed and quit because he didn't want to watch All Might slowly kill himself by inches.
Deku is being selfish here, and later on when he does face his friends he even acts pretty condescending belittling them and insisting they can't fight on their own or keep up with him.
However, I need to ask a secondary question.
Is there any lasting consequences for this selfish behavior?
Besides the fact that it hurt his friends feelings for a little bit, no. I spent a much longer time covering this in Judai's sections because Judai's selfish behavior led to character conflicts. Judai disregarding his friends led to everyone starting to resent him in the Dark World, and their once tight-knit friend group further falling apart.
Judai on three seperate occasions makes impulsive decisions to run ahead without consulting with the group. The second time he outright lies to the group and sneaks ahead without them. THe second time all of his friends are captured when they go after him and try to follow him to give their support because they're worried about him. The third time he makes the decision to run ahead, he knows about the danger they're in and the risk of getting captured and he just blatantly ignores them. When Austin notices they're missing Judai doesn't even go looking for them because they're not a priority at this point - saving Johan is.
This is something that has very real and lasting consequences in the story, they're captured because of his recklessness, and sacrificed in front of his eyes. Even though they technically come back in season 4, the trust between Judai and his friends is all but gone and he's alone for a lot of Season 4.
Judai's decision to abandon his friends has direct and lasting consequences. He is being punished for his hero complex. Running ahead, and fighting alone against the bad guys is what Judai has always done and what's worked before, but now in a more complicated world it's not cutting it and Judai is being challenged for his flaws.
Deku hurts his friends feelings a little bit, but even in that case the focus is on how sad it is for Deku, how hard it must be to be a noble hero fighting alone.
Deku's Mary Jane and Spiderman bullshit never impacts his friends directly, other than the fact that they find it slightly condescending. His "I need to keep secrets from my loved ones attitude" is challenged because his friends want to fight alongside him, but there's never any narrative punishment delivered to him. It's just solved with one fight scene and a character holding out their hands. Whereas, the consequences for Judai's rash actions last two seasons.
I call it "Mary Jane and Spiderman" Bullshit, because Spiderman keeping his identity a secret from all his loved ones is a big conflict in the comics. Something that got Gwen Stacy killed, because Peter Parker never told her his identity in order to protect her, and then that just ended up with Norman Osborne finding out about her anyway and kidnapping and killing her.
You might have heard of the "Death of Gwen Stacy" it's a pretty famous moment in comics. It's also a case where it shows that the Hero's failure to communicate honestly with their loved ones in the name of "Protecting Them" can actually get them killed.
There's even consequences in MHA itself for heroes choosing to sacrifice their personal lives to help complete strangers. Shigaraki literally made a whole speech about it. Kotaro Shimura is traumatized for life over his mother's decision to abandon him instead of giving up on being a hero. Nana Shimura believed she was doing something selfless in sending her child into foster care to keep him out of AFO's clutches, but that was shown to be wrong as AFO just found Kotaro's household and then destroyed him later on in adulthood anyway.
So in the story we are shown scenarios where choosing to abandon your loved ones in the name of "protecting them" can have disastrous and lasting consequences, but as for Deku himself, the decision to leave the school has basically no consequences whatsoever.
Well, Deku making the decision to fight alone is something that might lead to some consequences. After all, Judai's breakdown came about because he always felt the pressure to fight alone and carry everyone's weight on his shoulders until he couldn't.
Perhaps, with Deku fighting alone to protect everyone we'll reach a similiar breaking point. Just as Judai couldn't handle carrying everyone's burdens, looking for Johan, and leading his friends into the Dark World all that the same time and eventually broke down maybe we'll see Deku break down because he just like All Might can't carry the burdens of an entire nation - oh wait nevermind he's working with the Top 3 Heroes.
Even the premise that this is Deku leaving the school, to become something like a vigilante wandering the countryside trying to fight AFO on his own is just incorrect because Deku is receiving government assistance right now.
In the Dark World it was really just Judai and his friends, so every single bad decision Judai made had consequences because they were well and truly alone. Deku has backup so he's not even really "alone" in the arc that's supposed to be about him fighting AFO and trying to understand Shigaraki alone.
ALL YOU'LL FIND IS BLOOD AND VIOLENCE
Let's briefly focus on questions two and three, is Deku's hero complex bad, and does Deku need to understand darkness of the heart?
Judai's hero complex was based on the idea that if he wanted to have friends he needed to fight for them and solve their problems for them.
Judai got in such an unhealthy negative feedback loop, that he had to carry his friends burdens in order to maintain his friendships with them, but at the same time he couldn't receive any help from them because he made their friendship all about him carrying their burdens. He was operating underneath an amazing pressure to always win until he lost. The very thing he did to try to maintain his friendships, keeping his friends at arm's length and fighting alone is exactly what ends up driving them away and leaving him alone.
But, still...!
They're all... They're all gone. There really was something missing in me. But what is it? What was missing? What should a duelist burden themselves with?
Judai paradoxically fights alone in order to keep his friend group together, which only ends up with him losing four friends and being abandoned by the rest when they're disappointed for him in his selfish behavior. Judai screams out why, realizing he did something wrong here, that something went wrong because he's been winning duels, he's been fighting the same way he did before only to end up with the worst option possible. The realization that he is truly alone breaks him down entirely.
Judai's hero complex unwravels when simply charging ahead to fight doesn't work for him anymore, because the situation becomes more complicated than that. Darkness of the heart can mean many things. Judai not understanding his own personal flaws. Judai not seeing how his flaws are affecting others. Judai not looking at other people's emotions, he doesn't hear or respond to criticism when his friends start trying to tell him how is selfish decisions making is making them feel.
I can't just stay and wait. All this time I've run on instinct, never second-guessing myself. If I just stand still now... I'm sure I won't be able to start running again. And I won't be able to get to Johan.
Judai's hero complex has a clear source - he believes he has to keep running ahead and fighting for his friends the same way he always has in order to keep those friends and if he stops he'll lose everything / succumb to the guilt he now feels about being uanble to save Johan. His Hero Complex also has clear consequences, him running ahead without thinking gets all of his friends kidnapped and used in a sacrifice ritual that could have been avoided if he had made different choices.
Spiderman kills Gwen Stacy because Peter Parker deciding to not tell her about his secret identity to protect her backfired and made her an easy target to the Green Goblin.
Heck, Spiderman's entire character is about how the burden of being Spiderman and his Hero Complex constantly sabotages any attempt he makes at having a personal life. Miguel O'Hara's catchphrase in the incredibly popular Spiderman movie is that "Being Spiderman is a sacrifice" and he's not wrong either.
SO, is the narrative punishing Deku's hero complex in any way?
Well, the one warning he did receive that if he kept fighting he'd lose permanent loss of his arms turns out to not matter anymore because his body is just stronger now.
So, even the phyiscal toll of fighting alone that's a consequence for Deku doesn't actually apply here.
I keep talking about consequences but what do I actually mean? Am I talking about strictly punishment? Do bad things need to happen to characters in order to get their lessons?
Not necessarily.
When I say "consequences" I mean in terms of actions always having consequences in a story. The best stories are succinct, that means you basically cut down in as many frivolous details in a story as much as possible so everything that happens onscreen is something that matters and contributes to the whole. Therefore, every action should have a consequence directly seen onscreen in story. Stories are all actions and consequences, the choices the characters make should have direct impact on the plots and the other characters because it makes those choices seem like they matter.
If the story constantly draws attention to the fact that Deku is afraid of ducks, but the story takes place on the moon and there are no ducks living on the moon then that's a wasted plot thread because there are no consequences. If a character does something bad, other characters should discuss it, or it should negatively impact them in some way.
When Judai decides to run ahead without all of his friends for the first time after they all agreed on a plan, the result is the next episode they all start talking about their shared doubts with Judai when he's not around. If they all just swept Judai abandoning them under the rug, then Judai running ahead and leaving the others alone doesn't feel like an impactful character flaw.
There's no lasting consequence for Deku's hero complex. It doesn't drive him to any kind of breaking point like it does Judai.
I think the reason why is because there's no real moment of failure for Deku. When he tries to ask Muscular why he fights, and Muscular rejects him and says that he was just born evil and has no deeper motivations, Deku's not frustrated at all.
Deku who feels a "unnatural desire to save others" isn't really bothered by the fact that Muscular insists that he can't be saved and that they can only fight. Despite this technically being a failure, Deku has failed to talk a villain down, failed to find a way other than fighting and also failed to understand the darkness in someone's heart it's of little consequence because it's not framed as a failure.
Deku just punches Muscular, back to the drawing board.
There's another manga called Choujin X running right now, where the main character is on a similiar quest trying to see if there's a way they can save the big bad Sora Shihouhin, and when he is forced to fight against a villain who won't back down, de-escalate, or listen to reason he has a complete emotional breakdown.
This is the reaction of someone who's genuinly invested in the idea of saving the villain, and frustrated with the reality that he might not be able to save her, that he can't talk to the villains or convince them to back down. Tokio's not even characterized by an unnatural desire to save others like Deku is, so why is he the one breaking down and not Deku someone apparently so selfless that he wants to save the mass murderer that's trying to destroy society?
If Deku's desire to save others is so strong why doesn't he show frustration at being unable to talk down, or understand Muscular?
Judai is stuck in a negative feedback loop where he's forced to fight for others, because he believes he has no worth to his friends otherwise. All we're told of why Deku feels the need to save everyone around him is that he's just like that, he just feels like saving everyone no matter who they are the moment they come into view.
If we're choosing to characterize Deku that way, then number one he should be attempting to save everyone, and number two the stress of having to save everyone is something that should get to him. His "Hero Complex" should be what's breaking him down at the moment. The unnatural desire to save everyone around him that led him to so much success should be what's punishing him this arc.
Judai felt pressure from two aspects, first the pressure to carry everyone's burdens, and second the lack of understanding of darkness of the heart. Unlike Judai who doesn't want to understand darkness and who avoids it as long as possible, Deku goes into this arc actively seeking to understand how his villains think.
Deku and Judai also suffer from a lack of darkess in their own hearts. This leads to them having empty motivations. Judai has a childish desire to enjoy fun duels. Deku has a childish desire to save everyone. Neither of them have tried to grow or change or even question those motivations in any way and because of that they're stunted people.
Judai doesn't know why he fights. He doesn't question why he fights. He just takes on the burdens of others to give him something to fight for. This all together leaves Judai blind to his own personal darkness, and also because of that blindness he can't grow in any way because he never evaluates himself, he never looks at himself and tries to change.
When he's on his knees and at his breaking point he screams at the top of his lungs, "WHY? WHAT AM I MISSING? WHAT DID I DO WRONG?" simply because Judai's never thought about these things.
Deku's asked these same questions both in the Dark Deku arc, and hundreds of chapters later he's asked what he's planning on doing as a hero in order to make things better and Deku never materializes an answer.
Pre-Dark Deku Arc, during Dark-Deku Arc and Post Dark Deku arc, Deku always solves his problems by recklessly jumping in and saving others. There's never any point where he's punished or criticized for this behavior in any significant lasting way. He never has to self reflect and develop a reason on why he wants to save others, or eve think about how he's going to save others, he can just keep acting as the rash, impulsive hero.
Judai and Deku are both characters who are empty, and lacking in motivation but Judai is ruthlessly criticized for that until he reaches his breaking point and is forced to look at his motives.
This once again comes from a lack of failure on Deku's part. Deku never fails the way that Judai does. There's a scene where you could have easily had Deku fail. The entire Nagant vs. Deku fight where Deku fails to give her any substantive answers to his questions.
Imagine if Deku's simple philosophy of always extending a helping hand failed here. Imagine if Deku actually got deeply ivnested in the idea of saving Lady Nagant, and did his beset to talk and reach out to her but his answers weren't enough and because of that she just chooses something like suicide. Imagine he has her by the hand, and she's dangling off of the roof and he thinks that his impressive move to save her should have been enough - he's reached out a hand like always. He thinks this should have won her heart over, by showing her that someone still cares in all of her despair.
Then, Nagant in one final spiteful move lets go. The person he heard her entire backstory, the person maybe he once was a huge fan of her when she wasa hero, the person he wants to save the same way he wants to save Shigaraki chooses to let go and fall to her death because dying would be better than living in whatever kind of corrupt world that Deku is trying to build.
This could be Deku's Gwen Stacy moment. Spiderman carelessly webs Gwen Stacy whe she's falling to catch her and for a moment he thinks he's saved her because he's overconfident and has caught people falling like this a thousand times, only to find out he's snapped her spine. His overconfidence, his hero complex making him believe everything magically would work out led Gwen Stacy to her death. This could show the simple act of just offering a hand out to someone in need isn't enough, without empathy and understanding.
Instead, AFO just blows Nagant up in Deku's face.
Except, that isn't even a failure bcause Nagant turns out to be just fine! There's no point in blowing up Nagant except for the spectacle of it, because she turns out to be fine five minutes later and even shows up to fight in the next arc.
There's no consequencs to anything that happens in this scene. Deku doesn't suffer any consequences for being blind to the faults of society. (He's working right alongisde a killer cop just like Nagant and he doesn't even care.) Deku isn't forced to reflect on what saving people or making society better would even mean. He also isn't punished for his lack of understanding the way that Judai is.
Afterwards, Deku denies help to a very mentally-ill Overhaul, who is apparently not one of the villains that Deku wanted to save. There's a whole buch of asterisks on that "Deku wants to save everyone***" goal. This also isn't framed or used to paint Deku in a bad light because Overhaul is unworthy of salvation in Deku's eyes for hurting Eri.
Is this action part of an arc? Is Deku reaching his limit with trying to sympathize with villains only to see people like Overhaul and Muscular fighting him every step of the way and telling him they don't want to change?
Nope, this scene is never brought up again.
Deku never fails, and he never does anything wrong. Even when there are situations where you could argue he does do soemthing wrong, like denying the armless, mentally ill Overhaul help - he's not painted as being in the wrong.
The entire arc is supposed to be about criticizing the protagonist for their hero complex, and their lack of understanding of the darkness of the world but for Deku there's no criticism to be had here.
Compare this to the sacrifice ritual in the Supreme King Arc, where not only does Judai fail to save his friends, but the friends that survive ruthlessly tear into him aftewards for his selfish behavior. THe actions of one protagonist matter, have consequences in the story and are criticized. The actions of another protagonist have no real consequences and are never criticized.
The whole mansion blows up and... nothing happens. No one's injured in the explosion. It may as well have not happened in the story because there are no consequences for Deku just continually choosing to blindly run ahead like his hero complex tells him to.
There's evena moment where Deku winds up in a similiar situation to the dark ritual. After receiving information from Nagant, he blindly wanders into a mansion in Haibori woods believing it to be AFO's base, only to find out it was a trap and AFO was waiting for him to blindly charge in all along.
THAT'S WHAT MAKES US HEROES AND VILLAINS
This is where I'm going to talk about another big similarity between Deku and Judai, and also the biggest point of divergence in the Dark Deku and Supreme King Haou arcs.
Deku and Judai are both character foils with Shigaraki and Yubel respectively. This is where I'm going to praise MHA again, surprising everyone.
The foiling between Shigaraki and Deku is masterful. They both started out in relatively the same place, as boys with dreams to become heroes who were softly told no by their parents. Tragedy struck Shigaraki and he killed his family on accident and wound up alone wandering the street for days until he was found by AFO.
They're both the students of the greatest hero and villain of the last generation. They both end up being surrounded by a group of close Nakama that they want to protect. They're both continually challenged to grow up, and show how they're going to be better than their predecessor for the hero and villain sides respectively. They both have to prove they are worthy successors. Shigaraki has all the heroic spunk and determination that Deku has but on the villain's side, and while Deku loves heroes, Shigaraki is hero society's critic wants to bring down the hero system that didn't save him.
You get the feeling that Shigaraki really is Deku just in a different situation, a same person on the opposite sides of the conflict kind of character foiling.
As the biggest Yubel stan here, in some ways the foiling for Shigaraki works better than the foiling for Yubel because Shigaraki isn't just Deku's foil, he's the foil for all of society. Yu-Gi-Oh Gx takes place in a society run where everything centers around card games, it's not really that deep. In My Hero Academia you have that 100 episodes of great setup where Deku is not only learning to look at the darkness within himself, but also the darkness within hero society around him.
Judai's narrative as much as I love it, is entirety about Judai.
Not only could Dark Deku arc develop Deku's character, it could also say something deeper about the world it's taking place it, because Deku has all these connections to Shigaraki, who also kind of represents the orphaned boy failed on all levels by the society around him.
Shigaraki is the shadow of -> Deku, but also Shigaraki is the shadow of -> all of society.
Yubel is the shadow of -> Judai, and only relates to Judai's personal growth.
Yubel is Judai's personal villain, and was created by his actions as a child. His decision to abandon Yubel into space, led to Yubel being tortured and their later madness.
Yubel is also Judai's shadow. They carry all the same flaws, but those flaws are obvious in Yubel and repressed in Judai. Yubel's belief is that Judai is someone who purposefully enjoys hurting their friends, and that's how he shows his love. While that's twisted it's not hard to see how Yubel came to that conclusion. After all, Yubel loved Judai so much only for Judai to abandon them and turn a blind eye to their suffering. In the Dark World, Judai abandons his other friends continually in order to search for Johan, and they wind up suffering too.
While Judai doesn't sadistically enjoy hurting others as Yubel put it, there's an element of truth to Yubel's criticism. Judai does abandon people, Judai isn't as empathic as he seems to be. When Judai is subjected to the same kind of isolation and abandonment that Yubel has endured for the past ten years, Judai loses his mind a whole lot quicker and starts lashing out at everything around him the same way Yubel has. Judai without the love of his friends starts to hurt everyone around him in his lashing out, the same way that Yubel desperate for love starts to inflict pain on the people she loves. Even before the ritual happened, Judai was unwittingly hurting his friends with his own selfish behavior.
Yubel's stated criticism is "of Judai is "Anguish and sorrow born from loneliness. That is the nature of love as you taught it to me" and further beyond that "When you forgot about me, I suffered. It's hot. It hurts. I am in pain. Why? You know how much I love you? Why did you do this to me, Judai? In that moment I realized that was how you showed love. Because you loved me, you hurt me and made me suffer."
That sounds crazy, but hasn't Judai been hurting the people he loved for his own selfish reasons this entire arc? Is it that crazy then to conclude that neglect and abandonment must be how Judai treats everyone he loves, so surely he loves me.
One of the biggest criticisms of this arc is how Judai's behaviors impact his relationships, so of course his most personal villain and foil is his jilted ex nonbinary dragon lover. On a less joking note, when Yubel was displaying troubling behavior as a child, Judai's first response was to abandon them. Which is ironic for someone like Judai so paralyzingly afraid of being abandoned that he became everyone's workhorse and worked himself to death solving their problems for them. Who when abandoned by those friends finally, snaps just as hard as Yubel did when they were abandoned.
Do you see the parallel I'm drawing here? Judai is slotted into the spot of the protagonist who's friends with everyone he meets, who loves and fights for his Nakama. Yet under closer scrutiny he's shown that he doesn't really understand what love or friendship is or how to give and receive love from others in a healthy way. His antagonist is his former childhood best friend, who is obsessed with love and demands that Judai love them back. Judai's lack of understanding of relationships and love takes a dark twist with Yubel, their shadow, foil and antagonist.
These are once again very personal challenges to Judai, society doesn't really factor into this equation. Though, Judai is somewhat challenged as a hero because there's an irony to Judai plunging into the world to save his best friend Johan who he's known for like three weeks, but not really lifting a finger to save the antagonist of the arc Yubel who he's known since childhood and is personal responsible for putting through torture.
That hypocrisy there too, is a personal challenge to Judai that paints him in a less heroic light. He wants to save Johan and ignore Yubel because it's easier, because saving Johan relieves him of his guilt. He doesn't even know what to do about Yubel, so he doesn't try and falls back on his previously established behavior of playing the hero.
The hero is really just a mask for Judai at this point, something the story has ripped right off of his face by the time it comes to face Yubel.
There are two ways in which Yubel serves as an ultimate foil to Judai.
Yubel acts like a callout post to all of Judai's flaws
Yubel represents a dark path Judai could have taken.
This second one is what Shigaraki and Deku have in Common with Judai + Yubel. There's something deeply tragic about the idea that while Deku was making friends, getting taught by a loving teacher like All Might, Shigaraki was all alone being pushed by a ruthless manipulator like AFO into becoming the worst villain.
Judai and Yubel's lives follow the same tragic parallel path. They began in the same place as childhood friends, but after abandoning Yubel, Judai spent the next ten years growing up, making friends in a healthy and safe envirnoment while Yubel the one who was abandoned was alone in space desperately crying for Judai to come save them only to be ignored because Judai has long forgotten them.
However, there's a striking difference there too. Yubel is created directly by Judai's neglect and actions. Whereas Shigaraki is created by the neglect of all of society, it's not Deku's fault directly.
#1 Shigaraki acting as a callout post to Deku's Flaws
However, this is where Shigaraki's callout post comes in. Shigaraki gives a long speech on how the existence of heroes itself, creates villains like him.
"You heroes pretend to be society's guardians. For generations you pretended not to see those you couldn't protect and swept their pain under the rug. It's tainted everything you've built. That means your system's all rotten from the inside with maggots crawling out. It builds up little by little, over time, you've got the common trash all too dependent on being protected. And the brave guardians who created the trash that need coddling. It's a corrupt, vicious, cycle. Everything I've witnessed. This whole system you've built has always rejected me. Now I'm ready to reject it. That's why I destroy. That's why I take power for myself. Simple enough, yeah? You don't understand because you can't understand, that's what makes us heroes and villains."
To break it down simply, heroes look away from the faults in their society, they intentionally ignore the people they cannot save, and when those people turn into villains the heroes beat them down hard. The villain attacks then convince the common people of the need for heroes, and the cycle perpetuates itself. This is all powered by the people's blind, uncritical faith in heroes.
Deku is a person who has that same blind, uncritical faith in hereoes, and until this point has never thought of Shigaraki as anything more than a villain to be punched until he stops. Which is why this is still a callout post that applies to Deku, because Deku's blind admiration for the Hero System is part of the problem that enables the very flawed hero system.
Deku does not understand darkness of the heart, therefore Deku does not understand that heroes could possibly be bad, and he could possibly be supporting a bad system until he's slapped in the face with it.
However, is there a lasting consequence for Deku's blind support of the hero system?
Nope.
I just described up above what could have been a consequence, if Lady Nagant refused to have faith in Deku since he didn't back his words up with action.
Deku also clearly does not want to break away from the corrupt hero system that created Shigaraki, because the heroes that he brought along to fight with him are Endeavor, Hawks and Jeanist, a child abuser, a state sponsored murderer, and a guy who makes bad puns. He doesn't change any of his bahavior that enables the corrupt system to stay in power.
Not teaming up with the Top 3 heroes, and deciding to go full vigilante would have at least have been breaking away from that system.
This circles around to a big underlying problem in this whole arc in that Deku isn't really doing anything different from what he was doing before, and he's not punished for his character stagnancy either.
So we're left with.
#2 Shigaraki represents a dark path that Deku could have Taken
This is where Judai / Yubel succeeds and Shigaraki / Deku falls flat on its face.
When pushed to his absolute limit after failing repeatedly, Judai snaps. With no friends left he decides that all that matters is power. This path seems natural for him because we've already seen what being abandoned and left alone can do to a person and how it twisted Yubel. The story hints again and again at Judai's blood knight tendencies, and that he thinks the only thing he has of value to offer others is strength by fighting for them.
He loses his friends and the fighting is all he has left.
At the point of despair he decides to just embrace power. If he cares about nothing more than strength, at least that will give him some sense of control over his life after the out of control tragedy that happened to him.
"Yuki Judai. In order to defeat evil, one must become evil. In a world with the law of the jungle at work, one must rule with power."
"Power? I don't have that kind of power."
"In your hand lies the super polymerization card. Defeat any spirits who may oppose you, and combine their lives into it to perfect the card."
Supreme King is just a villain persona that Judai adopts to as a protetive blanket for all the hurt and pain they've gone through, just like ding, ding, ding, the villain persona Shigaraki Tomura is for Shimura Tenko.
Judai snapping under such intense pressure shows us that if even the faultless hero can snap, then how much can we blame the villain for snapping under similar circumstances? Maybe the reason both the hero and the villain fell is because they're both equally human and to fall down is human.
Deku never falls down as hard as Judai does. He doesn't even fall down and scrape his knee. There's no instance where he fails to save anyone. There's no instance where his actions hurt anyone. There's no instance where he takes things too far and hurts a villain. I kow it's unlikely for Deku to turn into a villain, but he could have at least gotten so frustrated he turned into a punisher style vigilante! Is that too much to ask?
There's not even a single moment where Deku goes too hard in a fight and injures or even kills a villain. They could have pulled an "I thought you were stronger" moment like in Invincible.
I don't know why this is called the Dark Deku arc because there's no darkness in Deku's heart for him to exploit, nor is he actually called to better his understanding of the darkness in others hearts. Judai understands Yubel's darkness because by the end of his personal arc he's been there, he's not the hero he's the atoner. He can either punish Yubel, or hold a hand out to help Yubel atone.
Deku's arc might as well be called the "My Little Pony Friendship is Magic Arc" because he never does or confronts anything dark. His worst crime is not showering. All that isolation and his repeatd failures in hunting AFO down should have worn Deku down, but it didn't because he's just that special of a boy!
Deku's hero complex also is completely uncriticized from beginning to finish. Judai's hero complex is an unhealthy behavior that utterly destroys him. Deku's hero complex is a job interview flaw.
FRIENDSHIP IS MAGIC
Just to hammer my point in I'd like to compare these two scenes. One is in the middle of the Supreme King Arc, the sacrifice ritual scene where all of Judai's friends are blaming him for the fact that they're about to be sacrificed while he's still trying to save them.
The second is the climax of the Dark Deku arc, where all of Deku's friends are showing up to fight him and convincing him to accept their help.
Just look at how vastly different these two shows treat their shonen protagonists when it comes to his flaws.
For the ritual sacrifice scene. This is immediately after Manjoume wakes up to find that he has been chained and kidnapped with Judai standing right there.
Judai: Sit tight! I'll save you soon!
Manjoume: Wait, is he dueling? JUdai you damned idiot! Weren't you going to save Johan with us!? Getting yourself all flared up. You didn't even stop to think about us at all, did you?
Judai: That's not it.
Manjoume: That's just how you are! You were the only one in your kingdom from the get-go. We were the idiots for getting all motivated with you and feeling some sense of friendship with you being like that!
Then Judai watches helplessly as Manjoume dies. His other friends don't fare much better.
Kenzan: Big Bro? Why'd you want to save Freed's comrades when it meant sacrificing us-don!?
Judai: You're wrong. That's not it.
Fubuki: It's painful. This pain isn't just physical. It's the pain of a friends' betrayal that I have tearing my soul. apart.
Asuka: I'm being betrayed and sent away by you. To think that I'll have to bear a sadness like this.
All of Judai's friends die spitting on him and telling him what a terrible friend he is and that this is all his fault. Which it is, because his decision to abandon them got them captured and led up to the sacrifice ritual.
Now, what scathing criticisms do our heroes have to give Deku after he left them all behind to fight Shigaraki alone?
Denki: Midoriya! We get that all for one is really importnat but you got something even more important in your life! Me and you we aint'g otta ton in common, but you're still a friend! Even if we gotta force this friendship down your throat.
TodorokI: What a look you have on your face. Is this resposnibility so much that you can't let yourself cry? Seems like a burden you should share with the rest of us.
Uraraka: The thing is Deku, we don't want to be protected by you and reject who you are and what you're doing, we just want to be with you (this part is narration).
Deku is told that none of his friends are mad, they want to be by his side no matter what, and that it's okay for him to cry.
I should also mention how underdeveloped this supposed nakama group is in the manga itself. The entirety of Season 3 of GX is tha the bond between Judai and his friends are more shallow then it appears, but he's also spent two whole seasons bonding with a group that consists of: Asuka, Sho, Kenzan, Fubuki, Manjoume. That's six people total including Judai who serve as is primary friend group. Their friendship is more unhealthy than it appears, but Judai has spent the past two seasons hanging out with one small friendgroup.
Meanwhile the entirety of Class 1-A shows up to tell Deku how much they love him and how much he means to them, and Deku's hung out with maybe like... four of them?
You have one bond shown to be how shallow it is, and one shallow bond treated like it's the deepest, most loving friend group in all of fiction. Deku doesn't even receive some lgiht criticism for how inftantalizing it was for him to abandon them for their own protection, because no one resents Deku or is capable of holding any negative or critical emotions towards him whatsoever. He's just told how much everyone loves him and wants him to come home.
And yes, Judai also does get two characters sacrificing themselves to try to reach him when he's the Supreme King.
However, as I stated above Jim sacrifices himself to help Judai because that's who JIm is as a person. Austin does it after Jim fails, both to honor his friendship with Jim, and also because of someone who got scared and ran he feels like he has to confront the darkness of the heart.
Jim and Austin O'brien's sacrifice is also a sacrifice. They died trying to save Judai, and Judai has to wake up with the knowledge that not only did he kill a bunch of people in his quest for power, he killed two more friends who were only trying to help him.
At the end of the arc, Judai has woken up with the knowledge that he has done bad things that can't be taken back and he's barely better than Yubel at this point.
At the end of the Dark Deku arc, Deku gets a speech from Uraraka about how amazing and selfless he is, and how he never gives up and how he always pushes forward, and how everyone at the UA shelter should appreciate him more.
The Supreme King arc exists to criticize Judai. The Dark Deku arc does nothing but flatter Deku from beginning to end.
Judai's hero mask is ripped off and he's forced to be a person. Deku's hero mask stays on, his hero complex is unchallenged, and he's praised for being teh greatest hero evarz.
I often get accused of not liking MHA simply because I expect it to be a different story than what it is. That I want it to be darker, when it's a more optimistic shonen manga.
However, here's my secret. I hate edgy superheroes. I don't like watching stuff like The Boys because it gets too dark for me. The oly reason I read invincible is because my friend told me that Omni-Man got a redemption arc. My favorite DC Superhero is Superman. My favorite Superhero of ALL TIME is Spiderman.
The thing about Spiderman though, is that it is hard to be Spiderman. The entire point of Peter Parker's character is that he has a terrible work/life balance and constantly loses people around him because being Spiderman is a sacrifice. The story doesn't bend over backwards to praise Spiderman as being a selfless hero, in fact it points out what a loser he is constantly. Peter Parker's friends are always frustrated with him and he's a wreck of a person.
Yet, the fact that being Spiderman is such a sacrifice and he keeps choosing to make it, shows what kind of person Peter Parker is, and that's just a person who does whatever he can to help out.
Even Peter Parker, the nicest, most well-intentioned boy ever has the Symbiote arc. One of the most famous arcs in comics dealing with Peter is when he lets Venom graft onto his suit, and even though the symbiote makes him violent, and makes his behavior change he spends the longest time not wanting to peel it off because the power boost the symbiote suit gave him made his life that much easier.
Dark Deku is an obvious reference to the Venom Suit, but a completely shallow reference because Dark Deku acts exactly the same as regular Deku the only reason he looks like that is he forgot to take a shower.
Superhero stories don't need to be Dark Deconstrutions, but they do need to be SOMETHING. They need to say something about the character. The problem with the Dark Deku arc isn't that Deku didn't experience a villain arc.
It's that nothing of consequence happened in the entire arc. Nothing changed. The story asked us if Deku's hero complex was a bad thing, and then it didn't deliver any answer. The story asked us if Deku needs to understand darkness better and then didn't answer that.
These are ideas that the audience promised were going to get answered. We were told Deku was going to get his development this arc that he was going to be pushed to the edge. The entire premise of this arc was that it was supposed to better help Deku understand Shigaraki and Hero Society only for Deku to not learn about either of those things.
Deku's learned nothing. We've learned nothing. Nothing has changed in the story itself. The only thing we've accomplished was wasting a lot of time that we could have been using watching Yu-Gi-Oh GX!
#mha meta#ygo gx meta#yu gi oh gx#yuki judai#judai yuki#supreme king haou#supreme king jaden#supreme king judai#yu gi oh gx meta#dark deku#ygo#ygx meta#ygo meta
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"How Poopy Got His Poop Back" was OK. The plot was generic, but after 61 episodes, I'm not going to expect every outing to be a mindblowing sci-fi spectacular. Sometimes, it's nice to have a lowkey episode that catches up with old characters, especially since we thought two of them died in season two.
"Squanch! Told you he wasn't dead." The writers knew what we were thinking. I also thought Gearhead died at the end of "Mortynight Run," but I guess he's harder to kill than he looks.
I enjoyed checking in with Bird Person and Bird Daughter--looks like he's got his hands full--and was glad that Rick continued his character development from season six. He's still a hot mess, but he tries to do the right thing for his friends and even the robot ("Hang on, let me go upstairs and grab the business finisher.") The subtext gave the episode some depth so that it wasn't just twenty minutes of pointless hijinks.
Rick's new voice actor nailed his characterization, too. His voice stood out a little at first, but I'd forgotten about the new actor by the second act, and his voice sounds "normal" upon rewatches. I guess it just takes a short adjustment period.
Whatever the case, any drunk guy at a bar can burp and stutter like Rick, but the new actor (whoever he is) picked up right where Roiland left off. He might not sound exactly like Rick 100% of the time, but combining Rick's trademark blunt raspiness with his lower, gentler tones from the past few seasons is more impressive.
Speaking of actors: who voiced Mr. Poopybutthole? He sounded EXACTLY like Justin Roiland. Maybe it was the same actor who voiced Morty, who also did well.
On another note, I loved seeing Space Beth eating breakfast with the family. Ditching your kids to be a pirate/rebel/space badass/whatever isn't the feminist act that a lot of shows seem to think it is, and I'm glad that Rick and Morty subverted that trope. Space Beth can love her family AND save the universe. She's a modern woman who wants to have it all!
On to Morty. I don't have much to say about him, and this review suggests that he doesn't have much to do next week, either--which hints at a continuation of season six's biggest issue. Season six was great, but half the episodes were The Rick Sanchez Show. When Morty did appear, he didn't have much to do until he finally lost his patience in the finale.
I won't dive into his dynamic with Morty because you could write pages of meta on that one, but in summary: their dynamic is the core of the series, and I hope the writers don't keep separating them. C-137 Rick's attachment to his Morty is a sharp contrast to the other Ricks who treat theirs like disposable toys.
Back to this episode: Rick's doing better--he's dressing and showering, he's communicating with his family, and he's even willing to abandon his search for a few hours--but Prime's still the center of his universe. Season five also started small and concluded with insane twists that turned the show inside out, and I'm betting that this laid-back opener is the start of a similar acceleration.
This episode alone made up about a fourth of the trailer scenes, so goddamn: what aren't we seeing?
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Heya! Can I request a fic with lee!bakugou and ler!shinsou, please? Your writing is so cute, and you characterize them so well!
—🐇
Detention
You certainly can!! I’ve never written lee Bakugou before but here it goes. Also, seeing requests and knowing you all enjoy my silly little fanfics makes me endlessly happy, words honestly can’t describe it, thank you guys so much 💛 and to add to that, for future requests, feel free to give a little scenario or prompt if you want anything a little more specific <3 but anyways!! On with the fic, enjoy!! 🌻
Lee: Bakugou
Ler: Shinsou
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Shinsou and Bakugou sat in the empty classroom after school hours. The two had gotten detention. Bakugou for yelling at Shinsou for something and Shinsou for yelling back. They were left unoccupied at the moment.
“This is your fault.” Shinsou spoke dryly after a moment. He was met with silence from the blond sitting beside him. Shinsou glanced at him, raising an eyebrow in confusion as he caught Bakugo glaring at him before quickly facing forward.
Shinsou chuckled, turning in his seat, “What? Do you think I’m gonna do something with my spooky mind powers?” He asked sarcastically and yet, silence. Just a glare
“Wow.” Shinsou deadpanned, feigning offense of being offended. He stared as Bakugou continued to keep his mouth shut.
Shinsou was starting to get a little irritated, and perhaps that was Bakugou’s goal, but either way Shinsou wasn’t having it. “Seriously, I’m not gonna do anything, you asshole.” He spoke, reaching to jab Bakugou in the ribs.
The last thing he expected was the startled sound and Bakugou practically falling out of his seat. Well, not practically, he definitely, very gracefully, fell out of his seat and onto the tile floor, “What the hell!” Bakugou yelled, but Shinsou thought he saw the slightest hint of pink dusting his face.
Bakugou watched as the gears turned in Shinsou’s head and eventually realize what had happened. “Dude, theres no way.” Shinsou chuckled as he stood up from his seat, setting off a fight or flight response in Bakugou’s brain but he just sat there.
“Touch me and die.” Bakugou resorted to words, inwardly cursing himself for the small nervous shake in his voice. Shinsou was approaching ominously, a rare grin across his face.
“Why? Don’t tell me, is the winner of the sports festival, class 1A’s bad boy, really scared of a few tickles?” Shinsou teased with a small tilt of his head. The heat in Bakugou’s face increased.
“Seriously, try anything and I’ll blow you to the other side of the building.” Bakugou threatened as he tried to quickly stand up.
“I’ll take that chance.” Shinsou spoke before he lunged at Bakugou, both of them clumsily tumbling to the floor. Shinsou didn’t waste any time straddling Bakugou’s waist and effectively pinning him down before he dug into his sides.
“GAhah!” Bakugou barked out a laugh before trying to clamp down and fight back the rest of his laughter that was bubbling up now.
Shinsou was met with the slightly amusing sight of a grinning Bakugou as he tried to keep an angry expression. “How threatening. But see, I’m not gonna brainwash you so stop being weird.” He shrugged, moving his harsh tickling from Bakugou’s sides to higher up on his ribs and thats what got him to break.
“SHIHIHIHIHIT! NOHO, I’LL KIHIHILL YOU!” Bakugou threatened, but this was the least scary Shinsou had ever seen Bakugou.
His eyes were scrunched shut and he had an impossibly wide smile, he actually had dimples. He was laughing his head off for crying out loud. It was kind of adorable honestly. Was that the right word? Shinsou thought to himself, unaware he was creeping his hands into Bakugou’s underarms until he noticed the slightly frantic thrashing from the blond beneath him.
“Wow, you’re seriously pretty ticklish, huh?” Shinsou teased, grinning at the way Bakugou’s face turned a darker shade of pink. Tears were starting to prick at his eyes from how much he was laughing.
“STOHOHOHOHOP! PLEHEHEHEHEASE STOHOHOP IT!” Bakugou begged to Shinsou’s surprise. Especially since he hadn’t heard an actual word of protest the whole time. Was it pride? Did Bakugou like being tickled? Oh well, Shinsou could find out about that later.
“Promise to stop being an asshole and ignoring me?” Asked Shinsou, tickling a little harder, making Bakugou throw his head back.
“YEHEHEHEHES, OKAHAY! I PROMIHIHIHISE! JUHUST STOHOHAHAHAP!” Bakugou cackled, uselessly kicking his legs out behind Shinsou.
Shinsou hummed, satisfied to have won… whatever this was. “Will do~” he said and got off Bakugou and stopped tickling him as promised.
Shinsou was smirking down at him until he heard a loud “Ahem” that made him spin around quickly. Aizawa stood in the doorway, giving an annoyed but amused look to Shinsou. “Uh- heeeey.” Shinsou chuckled awkwardly as he turned around to help up a still quietly giggling Bakugou.
“You two have to stay here 20 more minutes then you can leave. Please do so quietly.” Aizawa scolded before sitting at his desk to finish grading some papers.
“Yeah, got it.” Shinsou nodded, slightly embarrassed. He helped Bakugou to his seat and sat beside him once again. Shinsou stared at his desk with a small blush on his face until Bakugou flicked a small ball of paper at him to get his attention.
“When we get out of here, you’re dead.” Bakugou whispered but there was a small smirk on his face that told Shinsou everything he needed to know about what was happening once they got out of detention.
#bnha tickles#sfw tickles#tickle fic#ler!shinsou#lee!bakugou#ticklish!bakugou#fic request#wow I wrote this really fast#i had fun writing this#I didn’t proofread srry
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Greetings, Anon! Thank you for your questions. I have to admit, even in the past, I refrained from posting reactions or speculations as BSD chapters release, but you already knew that, so I will indulge you. I'll answer each part of your ask. BSD ch113 thoughts below, manga spoilers ahead.
♠ "What was your raw reaction?"
It was not a calm, quiet one, I can tell you that. No, in fact I screamed with excitement as if I was in a Roman amphitheatre and my favourite gladiator just got back up on his feet, out of sheer force of will, grinning and sweaty. My scream was the fastest way I could "verbalize" the fact that I was overjoyed to see him alive again, even if it's in the 15th century, and on top of that he seemed to be some kind of spy monk all chained up and having what seems to be a ridiculous amount of fun getting caught and discussing with Bram. This is all very in-character for him.
♠ "Was that something you expected?"
Absolutely not. Yes, yes, I truly did not expect a jump back in time and this infobomb drop, despite the fact that we did get a few hints that Fedya seemed present at past events when all the other character really appeared younger than him (near the end of S4ep3, where on a rooftop Fedya says "It's not V, it's Five" and I am seriously like bruh I give up what I want to say is I need more data to work with, what am I supposed to do with this, rationally speaking?). However, we can't yet extract anything conclusive from this. Is he ageless? A time-traveler? Immortal? Does he revive? When was he born? Was he born at all or created differently somehow? Is he of BSD's world, or an external one (Beast liveaction finale anyone?)? Is this all within the Book and he's just… idk flipping the pages? Anything is possible and I refuse to spend a lot of time working with incomplete data. This is not very follower-friendly (as in, my blog is basically inactive in-between), I know and I apologize, but if after many chapters there will be something worthwile to add to my essay (with what Fukuchi said in ch113 I already have important stuff to add), under those circumstances I will consider writing an update. It's not yet time.
♠ "<Was that> something you felt different for the characterization we all made for Fyodor?"
Hmm, I would hesitate to refer to a characterization "we all made" for him (I wish! T o T), because my analysis and blog are but a tiny tiny part of the fandom (I think…? I wonder about my Fedya essay's reach or influence sometimes). But let's say here we refer to one that comes close to what I tried to show in my essay. In that case, I would say that there is nothing to fear here in this chapter, but it's very understandable to have massive trust issues at this point. We went through a miserable, miserable time when the previous ones made the guy who visually memorized a full deck of used cards somehow not notice Chuuya wearing contacts and fake vampire teeth, despite knowing the vampire race since… well, the 15th century! I cannot even begin to describe what I felt reading ch111.5-112, I was beyond repulsed. Lovers of "villain" characters understand the following thing well: in most media, our fav has to lose, he has to die or disappear at some point, with rare exceptions. I, too, know this well, but that was no compelling way to solve BSD's villain threat. I still don't know how BSD will wash away that narrative stain, as I consider it, but then again one of the reasons we love this manga is that it keeps us on the edge of our seats and the most absurd yet fun turns can happen out of the blue. We can reasonably ask ourselves: ok, what is the purpose of showing Fedya's backstory now? If it's for build-up, we can already start grinning like Cheshire cats. What could possibly be next? I'm cautiously optimistic, things look in-character and good to me. Very good, in fact.
♠ "Or do you think it is later on going add some depth to his character?"
Backstories are shown usually for a very clear purpose. We don't know the purpose yet, but if it's done well, then… then my whole essay could be at risk lmao (and I love this sensation). New info could add so much depth to his character, in fact, that his previously observed traits could gain new meanings, or even contradictory ones. Whichever it will be, I think it's pretty safe to bet on "his backstory will be very relevant".
♠ Bonus: even if I enjoy going "full analytical" and enter conference speech mode when asked, I am driven by strong emotions, by which I want to say – I am not immune to assassin/spy monk Fedya chained up like that and having the time of his life again. I missed seeing him entertained like that, and his current …………. visual representation in the.. uh. ..chapter, yeah, well, it's doing things to my Depeche Mode-worshipping heart.
Anyway, to conclude with some facts we know as of now:
a. Fedya and Bram are inside the Bran Castle, close to the Romanian city of Brașov, "deep in the Carpathians" although not built at high altitude itself. It's basically a fortress built between 1377-1388, with several later additions. The BSD representation of it is very accurate to how it looks today. It's near perfect, actually, I applaud.
b. Bram mentions King Matthias, and in this context that can only mean Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary for 1458-1490. The meeting between Fedya and Bram thus happens some year during his reign, when Transylvania was still part of the Kingdom of Hungary. What is still strange to me is that I can't pinpoint Bram's exact position, as in… were his people independent? Or avoided? I feel like I need to re-read past Bram-related chapters to think about this.
c. Nevermind Bram, the things that Fukuchi says, those are the real goldmine here, but the gold is still… encrypted? I mean: Fedya made the DoA plan (more than confirmed now), and because Fukuchi asked for the condition to keep casualties under 500, Fedya respected that and we got entertained for like half of the whole BSD manga: using coin bombs for terror, for economic/political destabilization, using the vampire infection to avoid further violence, these things. The more you think about it, the more insane it gets. Since Fedya agreed to this condition, it means causing (more) deaths and violence were expendable things to him. (But imagine this: Fukuchi said "I want max. 500 deaths" and Fedya said "Yeah I can do that", now if Fukuchi would've said "I want max. 2 deaths" I really believe Fedya would've still said "Yeah I can do that". What can't he do, especially since murder for murder's sake isn't his goal?). This is in perfect harmony with his "necessary deaths only" approach so far, and much much more. There are far more implications in what Fukuchi said, which I won't type out here now. Gotta keep them and build around them for a future analysis update.
This was a rather long read, but still, I hope this satisfies your curiosities, Anon. *bows dramatically & disappears in a borderline insufferable ENTP way*
#Lav answers#I can't believe I wrote so much#yet still I will keep true to my principle of not over-speculating with insufficient data#a proper essay update would be much more valuable than making separate monthly posts even though in this way I can't contribute to the hype#or despair#or both#but fans of patient analysis will profit .. richly from this#someday!#sigh why is it I can talk about Fedya for hours#why can't I..... ugh.......#Iiiiiiii caaaaan't stooooop lovinggg youuuu#OTL................#man I've chosen the best manga character of all time frfr#also as of ch113 my Philosopher!Fedya fanfic is basically.................canon-friendly to the highest degree and I can't believe it#it happens in like the 1440-1450s and I dont even know how to feel about this reveal skjdfng
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Please at some point if you can write about how those 2 panels in beginning and what they mean to you the begin content is always so good and also really enjoy how rough the drawings where for it UGH
Yess god I love Begin so much. Honestly, it's like a 7/10 star scifi novel at best; it's a pretty standard "guy gets monsterified by evil science" plot. But Sol/Frederick means so much to me and that book did more for his characterization than almost any other piece of GG media has before or since, imo.
I picked this thing apart like a carcass so readmore because it goes on for miles. A thorough dump of my thoughts on what I have labeled as "begin pic 12" in my GG Begin scans folder. Vague suicide mention warning for when I start talking about the personal stuff near the middle.
What I love about those two panels is that it's the first time we get to see Sol after he gets turned into a Gear and it's a downtime moment. It's 6 months after Asuka betrayed him and he just finished whatever mechanical process was required to complete the first Gear cell suppressor headband. He's actually unplugging it in the second panel on the left. There's a third panel below these where he's picking up the headband and there's a strong focus on how monstrous and gross his hand is as an effect of the Gear cells, but it's not quite as interesting as the first panel here.
It's so small. This is the only time we ever see or hear a (canon) description of what Sol's personal living space looks like. They DO show him at some kind of house at the end of Strive, but it's barely fleshed out. There aren't that many details or strong hints in that scene like there are here.
I've talked about this potted plant in the window a lot, it's my favorite detail in this illustration.
It's not clear what kind of plant it is though. Maybe some kind of succulent with how stiff and solid the leaves look? Something Sol doesn't have to worry too much about taking care of—low effort in case he has to leave for a long time or forgets to water it. But like... Where did he get this plant? The building he's living in is described as a rusty shack out in the middle of nowhere, so I doubt the plant was there when he moved in. He must've picked it up somewhere and brought it back. Why?
Sol calls himself a monster multiple times throughout Begin and it's pretty clear how keenly aware he is of his rapidly vanishing humanity. He knows his time is running out and he's trying to slow it down by making the limiter headband but that's only a temporary fix. Asuka betrayed him, Aria might be dead (or worse), he can't even blend in with normal humans anymore, and the only animals that are like him are mindless war machines. Sol is completely and absolutely alone.
Except he's got that plant.
The plant doesn't have feelings, it can't judge him. If he goes mad and becomes a rampaging animal like the bear Gear at the end of Begin, the plant won't know or care. Sol got that plant from somewhere and whether he takes care of it or not, it's something else for him to think about. A single purely organic thing in his rusty, machine-littered, shack. If he can't bring himself to do anything else on a given day, if the Gear cells are screaming too loudly and he just wants to say fuck it all and rip everything apart, he's got that tiny little potted thing that only needs sunlight and water. Daisuke probably didn't even think about it that hard when he was designing this scene, but I have hahah I appreciate this little plant. There is a lot of thought put into the layout of the things on Sol's desk though, so perhaps Daisuke did have a motive putting the plant there too.
Sol's desk space is about what you'd expect. A tiny toolbox under the light, notes, wires, balled up scrapped papers, books (likely on magic and software engineering, probably something on wiring), the corkboard up above that has a map with marked out locations that are implied to be locations of places Asuka might have gone since the research lab him, Sol, and Aria worked at exploded (referenced in the epilogue). The rolled tubes on the right may be maps or computer schematics for Sol to reference for making the suppressor.
Based on the position of his hands in the other panels, that thing near his elbow must be whatever was compiling something onto the suppressor headband. I don't know what those are directly in front of him by that dark tower. They look sort of like computer chips/boards? Too low detail to know for sure.
The rest of the scene around his desk are just cabinets and drawers without much unique/outstanding detail. Nothing unique or outstanding enough to base anything off of, just set pieces.
For purely personal reasons, I love this illustration because I spend a lot of time sitting at my own cluttered, dimly lit, desk working on projects that keep me sane haha. Sol's arc through Begin is relatable too, in a way, with regards to gender and body stuff. It's easy to read a lot of the Gear things as an allegory for transitioning for people that didn't have a very smooth transition or that took a long time to accept that's what they are. I fell into that latter category for a long time. Once puberty hit, I realized that I didn't want to be like a woman, but being trans was bad? All depictions of trans people that I knew were jokes or were things like drag, and none of them were women into men. I didn't know a single depiction of a trans man until I went looking for it myself as an adult. They were all tomboys that rescinded their masculinity and became petite girls in pastels. Or they were villains that died and were made fun of.
So. I just didn't know you could do it. I thought that maybe there were just never any women that felt like men or that they were something other than a woman. There was no one to talk to about it, no resources to look up, I hated myself over it because it was a bad thing meant to be kept to yourself. I grew my hair really long to cover my chest and only wore baggy/layered clothes to smooth out my unfortunately curvy waist. On top of this, I have also been 6'5" since I was about 14. I didn't fit in with the women at school because they saw me as a man and I didn't fit in with the men because, biologically, I was a woman. Through all of this, I had to move with my mom across the country to live with a literal nazi because I knew if I didn't, she'd do something stupid (I was right in that she didn't want to because I was there). My friends wanted me to stay and live with my dad but I didn't know how to tell them that I couldn't. I didn't tell them when I was leaving and just left.
I had no friends, no one else was physically like me, there was nothing for me to relate to or find inspiration in. I don't know what kept me going, in hindsight. Everything pissed me off all of the time. All I had was my sick cat, metal playlists, and art. Man, did I have art though.
My art teacher let me skip Art 2 to go from Art 1 directly into Advanced Placement Art (AP Art) because I was graduating that year and she saw potential in me. For our AP Art final portfolios, we had to do a certain set of pieces with fixed themes (portrait, abstract, specific mediums, life study, etc) and then another set of something like 12 that were wholly original illustrations connected through a single, personal, theme. The theme for my original pieces was that monsters have no friends because they're big and scary and no one else is like them, but that they still need love because they're just trying to find their place in the world. Lol. I wish I still had the short essay I wrote about it, but it was so long ago...
I don't really know what was keeping Sol going at the end of Begin either, when he's living in that shack so far from his own home, alone. But I get it though. Sometimes something activates in the human spirit when shit's got it out bad for you that makes you want to keep going. It ended up working out for me. My mom's still alive, I have friends again and I know who I am now despite being a weird biological anomaly. It's working out pretty well for Sol now too, it seems, despite it all.
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The anime messing with Kahaku slightly in a way that I don't like: Episode 9
HE'S uuuuhhgrrrrrhgghhhhh..... he's still wearing the Guardians' symbol even after learning what Hayase did to Fushi and their friends. In the manga he never wears it again, which indicates that he's no longer placing his faith in Fushi as a god but in Fushi as a person. And the anime staff apparently thought that Ooima just got tired of drawing it... Anime Kahaku still wants to be associated with the person who murdered Parona. Anime Kahaku is still attached to his position as the leader of the Guardians. Anime Kahaku learned nothing during the Uralis arc.
The fact that anime Kahaku has the audacity to be upset that Parona's gone when he's wearing the sign that Hayase appropriated / This fucking guy.
I'm going to try to explain why it's out of character for Kahaku to be upset that Parona's form at this point in time is missing as briefly as possible, which is difficult to do without turning this into a full-blown character essay, but I will manage somehow.
In Episode 8, Fushi told Kahaku that they still needed him, and that he should "enjoy these changes too." Kahaku, having learned the truth about the Guardians' origins and ostensibly ruined everything, had no hope for the future. After hearing Fushi's words, he realized that he could still be useful ("useful" and "loved" are the same thing to Kahaku), and decided to follow them again. So: Kahaku is currently in love with and devoted to Fushi as Fushi, not as anyone else. Arguably, that was always the case, and liking Parona was a convenient excuse because he didn't want to admit that he was gay. Kahaku continues to use his crush on Parona as self-defense mechanism in this new arc of the story, but for different reasons.
On its own, Kahaku's love for Fushi is too self-destructive. We've seen hints of this in the anime, and it's just going to keep getting worse from here. Fushi is a reason to die, not a reason to live. You can blame this one on the Guardians expecting their successors to sacrifice their lives for their cause and Kahaku's fondness for romance novels, kids. Getting married to Parona is obviously never going to happen—she's not even alive, Fushi would never agree to it, and Kahaku was never really in love with her anyways. Even though Kahaku is aware of this he continues to lie to himself—if he can just get through this, his dreams will become a reality—as a way of motivating himself.
All of which is to say that Kahaku should not be reacting with shock and dismay to Parona's form being stolen. Theoretically, he and Parona-Fushi will get married but practically she's just another one of Fushi's forms.
No stutter :(
You know I hate to say this after spending four hundred words praising Kahaku for genuinely caring about Fushi and estranging himself from his family but he is not the kind of person who would be glad that Fushi was fine by themselves. A character stuttering usually means they're unsure about something. Kahaku stuttering on the line "thank goodness" makes it sound like he's not actually grateful that they're safe. Coupled with his insistence on "proving himself" by killing a knocker later in the scene, he was probably hoping that Fushi would be in danger so that he could save them. Shitty, yes, but totally on brand and super interesting characterization. The conflict between wanting Fushi to be happy and wanting Fushi to love him is an ongoing struggle of Kahaku's in this arc. Why would they even change this line? It's such a small thing, why did the anime staff choose to take it out??
#i was afraid that the anime would pull this shit and i was right to be worried. especially with the defense corps. symbol#fumetsu no anata e#to your eternity#to you the immortal#fnae#tye#fnae anime#fnae manga#fnae spoilers#previous era#renryrr arc#kahaku#kahak#original post#meta#i guess??
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My Secret Brother
Author: Willow
Genre/s: Romance/Comedy
I found this one by chance while going through the male yandere tag at MangaUpdates. The guy on the cover thumbnail was attractive, so I gave it a go; plus, I didn’t really care for the incest bait in the summary. Heck, I wouldn't have cared whether or not the series ended in incest. However, I was skeptical if it would contain yandere, so I went into it apprehensive.
I finished the series in just two days, and the yandere is a solid 8/10. The yandere—and the attractive guy I found on the cover thumbnail—are similarly not the brother, by the way. (Although the brother is the true end ML, which pretty much solidifies the pseudoincest. If that squicks you, don’t pick it up.) The attractive cover guy’s name is Yeon Seonghwa and I think that’s who the editor had in mind while tagging "male yandere" for the series on the site where I discovered it. The manhwa has five seasons, and he only shows up from about chapter 80 onward. I write this terribly unsure because Seonghwa is a textbook creepy manipulative narcissist ex, and I think his character more befits that title than "yandere".
To explain, Yeon Seonghwa is the protagonist's (Lee Hanmi's) ex-boyfriend. He’s narcissistic as all hell, not in appearance but in self-preservation and his ego. The story begins with the MC and her brother transferring schools in the middle of a semester, and Seonghwa is the reason why. He’s a dangerous individual. He especially sticks out because of the setting: in this coming-of-age romcom brother-sister dating drama, he’s busy smuggling drugs, and it’s an actual crime the police catch him for at the finale.
The reason for my hesitation in labeling him a yandere is because of his own explicitly written thoughts towards Hanmi in the manhwa. He’s fixated and obsessed with Hanmi because he was once sure that "she" was in love with him, that he owned her, and that Hanmi would forgive anything that he would ever do. He’s thrilled by this. He’s intrigued by her and respects how smart she is. As a result, his ego was completely crushed when he realized, after beating up Oh Junhyuk, that Hanmi values her brother more than him. He’s motivated by money, and even his revenge quest against Hanmi is nothing more than to give himself an ego boost by making her completely dependent on him, then crushing her by dumping her eventually. (Interestingly enough, I don’t think he’s realized his other feelings for Hanmi since there are characterization hints in the extra chapters that point to him being somewhat infatuated with her too, but more on this later.)
To backtrack, I’m aware that yandere characters at their core can be analyzed realistically and broken down to portray real-life behavioral issues that are often negative, and there is merit in acknowledging that this kind of conduct in actual relationships is not desirable. Most series that employ yandere as a fictional trope are a shallow amalgamation of all these toxic behaviors through a rose-colored lens to titillate the reader, and that is okay. This general use of the trope set my expectations of what a yandere is as a reader (someone who is insane for the sake of love, no matter how unrealistic the "for love" portion is explained). Therefore, while I think that Seonghwa is a yandere to some extent, the series makes an effort to show the problematic reasoning behind his actions, so the romanticization of it is taken down a notch. He explicitly states that it doesn’t matter if he likes Hanmi. This portrayal of his character makes him diverge from the usual yandere template (the whole "in love" thing), which was why I only gave him an 8.
Now, about the extra chapters: I did note that Seonghwa’s character motivation, as he explained himself, was to make Hanmi fall completely in love and dependent on him (which he believes she should have been), breaking her heart by dumping her at the end. Yet, in the alternate universe extra chapter ending that the author drew where Hanmi and Seonghwa ended up as partners in crime, they’ve been together for five whole years. I have to note at this point that the author has put up a disclaimer that these extras do not belong to the canon timeline and are simply what-ifs had Hanmi chosen another path. I’m simply taking it as an example to show that Seonghwa wouldn’t have gone through with his plan even if he had Hanmi. Much as he claims it "does not matter if he liked Hanmi or not," he didn’t deny the accusation either. All I'm saying is that if there was anything else in Seonghwa's tiny, shriveled nut of a heart besides money, it was probably Hanmi.
Wrapping up, I wouldn’t really recommend reading My Secret Brother for the yandere if you’re fond of yandere MLs because Seonghwa isn’t the lead at all; he’s the major villain. He’s kind of just a major thorn in their side. However, I still think that it is engaging to read for the romance and the general intrigue. The relationship chart in this series gets hella messy. Plus, the art is nice enough to just stare at when you want to read something to pass the time.
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I swear it's not for starting discourse or anything of the sort. But I'd love to hear your thoughts on the show now that the first season has ended (and we have a more global view of the first season) regarding the plot, the reveals at the end, the characterisation of our fang family, the themes etc. I find your book metas very interesting and what you shared so far has been well structured and refreshing.
thoughts on the finale?
Oof, apologies for the wait, but I think I've gathered myself sufficiently. Thank you so much for reading my rambling!! It's so flattering to know that people care about what I have to say! I'll throw out everything I can think of now, but I'll rb with more if I think of anything else later.
I also want to preface this by saying it really seems like we're missing a lot of context and plot developments from s2 that will affect everything we saw in s1 quite a bit, but I'm just going to take this season at face value for now.
I thought the costuming, SFX, and cinematography was wonderful in the finale. It made me sad that my enjoyment of the show has been so ruined because it was stunning and really scratched the period drama itch I'd been missing with the era change. Claudia in particular looked gorgeous and the gore was really fun and well executed.
Overall, I'm very disappointed in Lestat and Claudia's relationship portrayal/arc. Like I've mentioned before, the tragic impact of Claudia's attack on Lestat is so lessened if they never had the bond of father and daughter in the first place. It rings so hollow when we never saw Lestat LOVE Claudia, adore her and want her with his whole soul before slowly succumbing to his own trauma and perpetuating the cycle of abuse. Book Lestat WANTS to fix things with his daughter, he trusts her without hesitation and that's what makes it so brutal when she quite literally stabs him in the back, but at the same time you feel her pain and her rage. We lose that in the show. They're just enemies, plain and simple. There's no agony of betrayal and broken family without love there first and it does both Lestat and Claudia, originally very complex characters, a disservice. Family, the good and the bad, is at the heart of IWTV and without Lestat and Claudia, that's largely lost.
The pacing of the episode was a bit strange to me. I felt like too much time was spent on the party planning aspect rather than the dissolution of the family dynamic and crescendo of tension. I get that they wanted a longer episode for the finale, but I don't think it justified that extra fifteen-ish minutes.
I think the fucky memory thing was better utilized in ep 7 than it has been up to this point, and given what we know of Armand's mind gift from the books, I think it would make a lot of sense that he had something to do with that. That would be my preference in general because otherwise I feel like we're delving into victim blaming territory with the implications of this take on an unreliable narrator. I thought the implementation of the whole concept was clunky, but this was the best moment it had.
The sort of tableaux of Louis slitting Lestat's throat and then the flashback of crying over his body was also fantastic, so striking and emotional. Again, Sam and Jacob are such good actors with great chemistry, so it's really a shame about the everything.
All my thoughts on ep 5 (and 6) stand. Nothing from the last episode changed my opinions on how that played out and I can't think of anything that would. I won't harp on my issues with the characterization that stem from these episodes, but they definitely carried over into the finale.
I liked the Armand reveal! I think it was fun how they dropped hints and Easter eggs for book fans all season in regards to his identity. Enrichment for the vampirefuckers. Assad definitely captures the Weird Little Guy energy but also the incredibly sinister overtones we expect from Armand. My only concern is that Armand will be treated the same way as Lestat and turned into a one-dimensional monster that they can never properly redeem. If they go the route of making him a new diabolical abuser for Louis who we're supposed to forgive, I'll chew glass.
NO SWAMPSTAT??? Honestly very disappointed. As funny as putting that bitch in the trash is, it doesn't hit the same as Lestat getting gnawed on by an alligator. Lord knows AMC Lestat deserves the death roll.
This is completely inconsequential, but I have to mention how forced that namedrop of Those Who Must Be Kept was. That was so clumsy and stupid that it made me laugh out loud in what was supposed to be a very tense moment.
The handling of the racial aspect of Louis' character was so good in the first four episodes and even in parts of the finale that it made eps 5 and 6 that much harder to swallow. I'm honestly baffled at how horrible and insensitive that was out of nowhere before everything went back to normal. I'm sad that was ruined before it could have its full impact. Louis and Jacob Anderson deserved better.
Daniel had a lot of great moments, but I feel like his dialogue was too obviously viewer insert and on the nose a lot of times. I also found myself soured to him after his comments about Claudia in ep 5. Still, he has good chemistry with Armand from what we saw and I'd like to see more of them together going forward.
#i don't have a ton of armand thoughts yet because there's so much left to shake out but i'm sure i will when that happens#answered#vc#vctv#interview with the vampire#iwtv
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Another ramble, Omniverse gave us something we didn't get to see very often with Ben in previous contexts: Ben interacting with strangers. Not girls he thinks are cute like Julie or people he's meeting on the job but just like casual Ben and it's night and day from how he talks to his family and friends- people he's known for years and relaxes around or needs to confident for. We also meet No Watch Ben. And from what we see he's pretty laid back, he doesn't try to convince people he's great like when he was a kid trying to compete with Gwen for grandpas attention and time.
He's not popular but he's not unpopular, and he works well in team contexts enough that his room is littered in a bunch of different team sports gear and Ben won an award for soccer. No Watch Ben doesn't even get angry at Kevin when he steals Ben's watch, more bummed about not feeling like he really helped his team win. He even made friends with his bullies without the hero stuff to prompt it but without sacrificing his character.
Heck we even see it with Rook in the first episodes, despite not wanting him as a partner he isn't mean to Rook. He just doesn't want to get Rook's hopes up on the partner thing because it Wasn't discussed with Ben and well, he's knew. And because of some taunts from Zombozo Ben got it into his head that its time he prove he can do things on his own- like the ben 10k's of the future handling most of his enemies solo. Ben's caught off guard and expected to just roll with a stranger claiming he was assigned to help Ben without Ben having the time to confirm that one: he actually is a plumber and two: Grandpa actually did that to em.
Like yes we know grandpa was probably going to tell Ben before the mission started but only AFTER already choosing Ben's partner for him, telling Rook it's official, and Rooks already at earth waiting to meet Ben. Ben was probably the LAST person told this.
But he still does his job. Granted he does it while absolutely dazzled by the secret underground alien city NOBODY BOTHERED TO MENTION TO HIM GWEN OR KEVIN (like wtf grandpa) But his job he still does. Episode 5 have I got a deal for you is a personal favorite of mine for Ben's characterization and seeing him handle the situation on his own- if with the professors device helping at the end Ben handled the situation great. He was still goofy but he also got to show off that he's not stupid or easy to dupe and empathized a bit with Pax in the end which i loved "he means well, which makes him even more dangerous." Because Pax was reckless and didn't handle the situation with enough knowledge- and is a take immediate action without thinking the consequences through or explaining potential dangers kinda guy.
Also I loved hotstreak- Mostly how obvious it is that Ben just, doing his job. He's treating Ester like he would any crook he's tailing. For us it's clear he recognizes he's being flirted with- especially when he's backing off from her hug and making excuses to leave the situation at the end of the ep. Also how he just fucks with Rook.
Rook is being weird, one minute he's acting like Ben should respond to Esters flirting and accommodate ( Are you going to stay like that? how long does it take for the omnitrix to time out? I think our crook prefers this ben much more hint hint nudge nudge smirk) for her because she likes him but then gets mad when Ben accepts her invitation to play with her friends? Acts like Bens the one being unreasonable after insinuating Ben should be friendly to the thief so I dont know what was up with him this ep and Frankly if Ben did reciprocate he would have been cheating on Julie, because as far as he and the audience knew he was dating Julie at the time of the episode! Not acting on esters flirting and affections was the good response to it.
Ben's just kinda chill guy who likes a little adventure in his life and craves good company, and likes being appreciated for his work but learned its better not to demand it (and that captain narcissist nemesis isn't a hero worth emulating/aspiring to be like) Omniverse's Ben is my favorite for it, he still acts confident and like himself but the writers let him hold the braincell sometimes without everyone looking at him like he's shoving a knife in a on blender. (even in Alien force season 1 that's rare, and Ben was actively leader and in high stress serious mode) Idk maybe I just like the lighter tone and more cartoony action :)
Oh my god, don't even get me started on the implications of No Watch Ben. That scene you mentioned where the Kevin of that universe steals his watch and he has little to no reaction to it? Yeah, in conjunction with his clear lack of confidence due to the fact that he feels like there is a void in his life, that just serves to further imply that feels no reason to care.
Like, it's obvious that scene was supposed to be this parody of the Prime Timeline without the supernatural powers, but it just goes to show the impact those characters can have on their universe and each other when given the power to do so. The bullies becoming his friends instead ties into that, too, since they wouldn't have a reason to feel inferior to another average kid their age. It really is the man and not the tool, I think they were trying to say.
"Have I Got a Deal for You" was one of my faves too, back in the day. Comparing the way Ben was written in both that one and "Hot Stretch," I think you meant, I definitely agree. A lot of the haters seem to ignore the rational part of his character, despite the fact that it's there. He's got so much experience under his belt that he knows not to trust blindly. Even a girl being too friendly or flirty could be hiding something, and his responsibility is to keep the earth from harm. Since it's established he's willing to forgive people's wrongdoings (for instance Kevin's criminal past or the Highbreed's problematic beliefs), he keeps an open mind to where people are coming from but maintains that preventing disaster is his first priority. Ultimately, he's just trying to do his job, or in other words, "the right thing." Which has become his day to day. Omniverse really served to make that clear.
Or, at least I thought so. Thnx for watching the series and actually understanding the character and being reasonable :P
#sorry for late reply I say for the 100th time#blowing up the inbox is always welcome#perhaps I should release a formal PSA that it may take a while lol#anyway this made me wanna rewatch Omniverse :v#also for the 100th time#lmao#ask#ben 10#ben 10 omniverse#ben tennyson
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my humble and for legal reasons sarcastic opinion of the characterization i’ve seen:
the prevailing sangihun dynamic is FALSE. uwu-ified choccy milk babygirl gihun with a moral line he’ll never cross ✨ DOES NOT EXIST. cold-blooded olympic athlete at black friday sales sangwoo with 2 alternating expressions (1.fuck, 2.off) DOES NOT EXIST.
mind that i project needlessly onto my favorite characters, and therefore may understand a fraction of the thoughts running through sangwoo’s head as my mans was slowly rotting alive in his own bathroom. which is to SAY the gifted kid’s fall from grace and the crushing pressure to meet expectations or greet your lifelong friend: Guilt hits a little bit close to home. in this Very critical essay, i’ll share what that’s like. please be warned that it’s heavy stuff (wait, this was supposed to be sarcasm-)
firstly, some screw-ups like us DO end up resorting to extremes to keep up with expectations. the logic is simple: even if it’s a lie, it’s just our weight to bear, isn’t it? often it’s these honor roll kids that are good at cheating, fibbing, and workarounds that carefully maintain the high standard imposed on them since childhood. do we feel AWFUL about it? does it wreak havoc on our mental health and in the long term pose some dangerous self esteem and integrity issues that cause us to spiral even more and damage our relationships…? WELL LEMME TELL YA, I SURE AS HECJK HOPE NOT but sangwoo’s clearly jumped from point A to point Z in that alphabet. he’s VERY much at a stage of misery that would take years to undo by the time of the show.
point is… you’ll notice (especially if you’re One Of Us) that we don’t do this because we stopped caring. often it’s the opposite, that we care a whole stupid lot. a divide starts between the you that deserves love and good things and the you that’s fallen so behind that any harm to them at the expense of loved ones’ pride and the community’s respect is an inconsequential and near masochist price to pay. (self-care also tends to decline, but south korean society is big on the importance of the physical face, so a businessman like sangwoo is understandably well kempt for other reasons.)
to me, pathological liar cho sangwoo hides agony and self-hatred. after every instance in which he’s chosen self-preservation, he ends up choosing his mother’s health and happiness over his own life. his mindset of wiping his worthless self from the equation so something better will replace him is DAMN FOLLY, I SAY!!!! sangwoo doesn’t redeem himself in the finale, he shatters. he thought it was the right choice to rob a mother of her son. what does life have to do to someone to think that? why does it scare me a lot that i’m starting to get an idea…?
what i’m SAYING is that the extremes sangwoo takes in the games are easily a continuity of lying about his residence in america, of siphoning the wealth of others to toss up and lose six billion and somehow never think to try something else. he’s a sick fuck with an attitude, but the Prodigy Turned Asswipe At Rock Bottom trajectory follows REALLY REALLY WELL here. therefore it’s my idea of how he ended up as the guy we see in S1. and you know what that asswipe needs??
A HUG!!!! REAL THERAPY!! and for GIHUN, seemingly the only person he trusts to accept him when he’s completely lost face, to PROVIDE love and support. to let him be weak and tender and NOT. NOT. NOT the callous bastard that came this 🤏 close to total desensitization to violence. imo THIS is the true sangihun dynamic!! one that doesn’t have any coping mechanism attached to it whatsoever!! this version sparks JOY!!! the possessive, domineering, and enigmatic stone face act that fandom interpretations give to a long-term depressed and isolated man doesn’t appeal to me tbh. he shows signs and hints of the altruistic and almost gentle person he can really be (with proper guidance…!)
his name means “helping each other” and while it was chosen to emphasize his contradictions.. maybe it could be a sign? i’ll take more of that sweet sangwoo please <3 my shriveled grinch heart needs it <3 <3 but that’s all i’ll say about that!! to each their own!!!
NOW. GIHUN.
YA’LL. THIS MAN……………..
A LITERAL WALKING RED FLAG??? how did so many shippers miss it COMPLETELY??
ignoring my additional lengthy history with deadbeat dads with an addiction (well, except for the extent to which it colors my opinions here, if you will 🥸) … gihun’s an alright dude at first glance. but the rift between his personality and the violence he encounters is just…. astounding? and deeply troubling, seeing as he’s joking about military ranks like this is a discord RP server after the first round. ahem. the exceedingly ruthless and gruesome first round?? the only other characters we see enjoying themselves to this extent are deok su and his pack - but there’s gang violence history there, so it tracks. but GI HUN??? (funny that his name means “high ranking”)
and not to mention the raging hot topic that was the very last scene. turns his back on the airplane terminal a few STEPS from boarding and JUST AFTER calling his daughter…. for the sake of revenge? for some righteous cause that borders on delusions of grandeur??
well. actually… i think my sangihun agenda can explain that one. which is where my idea of their dynamic from gihun’s POV takes form. (still keeping in mind that these are all opinions! thank you kindly)
gihun’s had experience with the almost primal violence in the lights-out section of the games. he tells ilnam about the protest that happened when he and his coworkers were laid off, where he watched a friend die. when this repeats with allies like saebyeok and most critically with sangwoo, he pretty visibly shuts down. a whole year passes before ilnam’s fucky wucky doctrine and the sight of salesmen recruiting new players shakes him out of it. so there’s already two reasons to be roused to Battinson levels of vengeance, but…? enough to leave gayeong?
enter: the darker implications of gihun coming to a stop just before winning the games. turning back and reaching for sangwoo’s hand. what choices is he making here, and how are they layered? he’s choosing survival, you’d say - he values life over monetary gain, and that’s noble. but… what about his mother’s life? her treatment?
in his last moments, sangwoo’s ultimate motivation is reparations. his purpose for competing was to right his wrongs, namely the years he’s spent deceiving his mother. he feels I’m Human Garbage tier remorse, and this was discussed earlier - in no way does jamming a knife into his neck help the woman he cares about the most! … but it doesn’t negate that his last act was, in his mind, selfless. gihun’s appears to be, too. UNTIL you read it as effectively putting sangwoo’s life above his own mother’s, his own daughter’s love for him, and even his ex-wife’s lack of financial independence.
in the last moments of the game, he chooses sangwoo. his safety is his only motivation - there’s a broken man laying at his feet, wishing they were kids again, and you can see the sorrow and pity in gihun taking over. when that choice gets turned on its head in a few fatal seconds, you can also see his radicalization finish as early as That Scene.
here’s what i mean.
he’s constantly putting sangwoo on a pedestal. i don’t even have to explain - we’ve seen the memes. i’ve become the meme just to annoy my friends. Did you hear? HUH? You don’t know about the SNU genius??!! … it was adorable and all too sobering to watch. but the answer. Is. Right. There!!! he’s a gambling addict doing irregular small jobs, debt-ridden and divorced, on the brink of losing everything else - of course cho sangwoo, the best of the best, the shining example of discipline and achievement, would give him hope? of course it isn’t possible for life to screw over someone so deserving of the most it has to offer? of course sangwoo’s going to be okay, and at least he’ll have him to lean on?
WROMG, SIR. he watches in real time as the system they’ve both become trapped in grinds up the last of sangwoo’s will to go on. he sees the fate of someone who really, truly had it all going for him, and when you’re witness to a death like that - the “long line of Buddhists” in your family may as well end right there. and i saw exactly that in gihun.
which is to say….. S2 gihun, at least to me, sounds like a scary mf. god knows about that hair but, thinking of where he’s coming from, i see a flipped sangihun dynamic (in life or in death, take your pick) as the True Gospel. intensely protective gihun who won’t let sangwoo go off the deep end again, who does everything in his power to get him help and bring his walls down, or in worse cases, avenge the heck out of him. sangwoo smoothing the furious edge in gihun so he doesn’t go off doing a Stupid when his family is perfectly intact and needs him. sangwoo being quicker to embrace normalcy and showing him what to be grateful for. this is just the park i’m in!
i see gihun as the rowdy, bloody-nosed fight-picking kid in their youth. i see sangwoo as the occasional extra pair of fists, but mostly the quiet, nose-in-books boy who was terrible at making friends and content with just the one. and they’re currently my everything :))))))
pls ❤️ ask me for sangihun thoughts if you want to, i will dust off my bible. xoxox
#sangihun#cho sangwoo#seong gihun#squid game spoilers#rarepair hell#an essay#tw sui#tw depressing stuff#tw blood#…..yea they’re fun :7
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Hello Niku, I hope you're doing well today! ^^
(I tried checking to see if you were comfy with recieving anon asks out of the blue, but I had little luck😔 and I figured that the only way to know was to ask, so I truly hope this doesn't impose or anything of the sort! If you'd rather not read beyond this point, don't answer, or simply delete this ask I totally understand! <:) )
I hope this ask reaches you at a good time. I don't really know how transition from greeting to question so I guess I'll just rip the band-aid off lol. How do you feel about the idea of followers sending in little concepts or random thoughts? I've had a crumb of a Gojo thought simmering in my head for the past few days and it's been driving me insane (positive), and as much as I would love to expand the possibilities and maybe even develop it, I'm just plain stumped.
I've loved JJK since the anime released, but have only recently become a true Gojo enjoyer, and your writing has greatly sped up the process lol. I adore your creativity and characterization for the mad lad, he's got the perfect balance of sweet and smarmy bastard with a hint of seriousness, but he can also be frustratingly endearing when it's least expected, your rendition of the guy has oodles of charm! ^^
Sorry for getting off topic and letting this ask get so lengthy, but essentially! Would you be comfy with followers sending in bits and bobs of ideas and maybe sharing your own two cents on it? Thank you so so much not only for your time, but as well as all of the hard work that you put into all of the content that you create, it is always appreciated!
hiyo anon!!
so first off! thank you so so much for your kind message! i was so happy to receive it! it's very sweet of you to check with me concerning anon asks! i'm sorry i don't have any… like, i suppose guidelines for that sort of thing— to be honest, i'm just a little niku with a fairly small blog so i've never really thought about it!
but to answer your question, i totally don't mind if any of my followers want to send me little thoughts or what-have-you at all so long as they're being nice about it (so nothing hateful!!). i'm actually surprised anyone would want to actively hear my opinions (not in a bashing myself kind of way, but like… i feel like i am very thoughts empty LMAOOO). so please, feel free to send me any thinkles you may be thinkling! i'm always happy to listen (or i suppose read) that being said, i might not answer right away if i'm working doing something.
that being said! i'm honestly really happy to hear that you like my take on gojo! i've said once, and i'll say it again (and continue to say it even), but i'm alway so worried about his characterization when i write him!! he's got layers upon layers! but golly, saying he's got a lot of charm makes me wonder, maybe i really should make him a little bit more pathetic; i think he should be at least a little pathetic.
and finally, thank you so much for taking the time to send me a message i don't mind that it was lengthy at all! i hope you have a wonderful weekend!!
#on anon#wahhhh thank you truly!!!#it really does boggle my mind a little like#someone wants to talk to me?? little ol' me???#wowieee#i guess what i should also say is that i don't take requests? but no one has ever asked so...#i guess i'll cross that bridge when the time comes
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I typed the ask at maybe three in the morning, so now that I look at it again, I'm in horror of the length LOL I didn't realize it got that long?! thank you so much for humoring me!
Also, are you me?! I played the game months ago, and I also played Mozu's second because I had my eye on him (my first route was Shu because he was my initial favorite, so let me say you have GREAT taste! Shu's route is really good!!!)
I agree with everything you say! Those are really great ideas to go around Mozu's route, I wish it went the way you said it. Mozu's characterization is great and the romance stemming from a personality like his has such a great potential…
Saskue sounds so adorable, Mozu might probably do something similar to that 😂. That's so awkward though, but I'd take it over the locker kabedon any day LOL
If you do replay the game, please tell me if you pick up the hints in Mozu's route! I'd love to know, especially because I picked up NOTHING in his route even at my third playthough. And no need to be ashamed with wanting to replay Shu's route, there's nothing shameful about having spectacular taste. :p
LOL! Midnight ramblings are the best. XD But I can't keep things short even when I'm wide awake in the day, so I can't judge lengthy... well, writings of any kind. XD
And that's so funny we played the same two boys first! You also have fantastic taste because he was also my initial favorite from the get-go ;D I loved his character and the plot of his route. From what I remember, it was really well paced and intriguing. And then his side B was also very sweet. Gotta love tough guys with a soft heart for their girl. I should really replay his again. XD
And holy crap I TOTALLY FORGOT the locker kabedon!!! OH! That was SO DANG AWKWARD! It was so out of place and out of the blue and then we just went on like it never happened! Excuse me while I go screech in the corner like a dying cat because I can not with that scene. XD At least with Sasuke, you expected his awkward flirt (that he didn't realize was a flirt) due to the build up of this "former astrophysicist turned moderately awesome ninja" character of his and the progression of his friendship with the MC. But MOZU! I swear the writers just went "we need to put a kabedon somewhere. You know what? It would be funny if it was Mozu." And the rest was history.
If/when I replay this game, I will remember to inform you of my findings! That is, if there's any to be found. If you can't find anything after 3 times, I doubt I will. XD
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I think a lot of the shipping wars, stans vs. antis, etc. comes from the fact that there are generally two types of people when it comes to love stories: those who believe that an unhealthy love is not love at all, and those who believe that love can be a spectrum. I happen to fall into the second category.
My first taste (that I can remember) of seeing love as a spectrum came from Titanic.
Obviously, we all love Jack. Jack is the standard, and Jack set the standard. Jack is magnificent, beautiful, lovely, and refreshing, inside and out. He is the healthy, ideal love interest, and he is wonderful.
And then we have Cal.
We all hate Cal. Cal is the worst. He’s self-serving, he’s abusive, he’s stifling, he’s oppressive, and just slimy overall. We want nothing to do with him. We want him dead.
It’s all pretty straightforward.
But sometime in my teen years, I read through my illustrated guide to the movie, and there was a quote by Billy Zane that jumped out at me. He said about Cal: “His heart is breaking just as he’s realizing he has one.”
That FLOORED ME as an impressionable young teen. Rewatching the movie after that, I saw hints of what he was talking about.
It was like looking through a new lens. One that wasn’t so black and white. It didn’t change my opinion on how horrible Cal was, and it didn’t make me start rooting for him to be with Rose. But I think it marked a turning point for me, and opened up my view of people/characters. From then on, human villains weren’t just villains to me. No matter how awful they were, they were people. There was something to pick apart and understand about them, even while you still hated them. That quote also deepened my appreciation of this film as a whole, because even though I was already an obsessive fan, those “blink and you’ll miss it” layers of characterization add so much to it, and make it the nearly flawless masterpiece that it is.
Now, those who believe that unhealthy love is not love at all, would look at Cal and only see *BAD GUY*. (And they’re right of course - he is a bad guy. He sucks hard.) But those who believe that love is a spectrum between healthy and unhealthy, can see where there’s potentially feelings of love in a bad person. Feelings of love which end up twisted and distorted, and manifests itself in damaging ways. And that’s where you get the unhealthy side of love - possessiveness, jealousy, rage, manipulation, etc. That’s not the love you want, and that’s not the love you stay for, and Cal very much fits in this unhealthy side. He wanted Rose to “open her heart” to him, but he only wanted that on his own terms. When he finds out Rose is falling for another man, his whole world comes crashing down - along with his expectations on how his life should go as a man of “polite society”. He then starts to unravel and crack, becoming far less “polite”.
I think it’s really interesting that in one movie, we see the whole progression of Cal
1) having Rose, but only in a superficial way
2) to losing Rose
3) to trying to “keep” Rose
4) to trying to eliminate his competition, “winning” her by default
5) to realizing he’s lost completely, and tries to destroy them both
6) to accepting defeat
Of course, Cal’s progression above is toxic and horrible. But I personally think that this is proof of there being such a thing as “sour love”, or unhealthy love. Because when you think about it, Cal’s reactions are a distorted and excessive display of the emotions we all might feel when we lose someone we love. The grief that comes from losing someone we hoped to keep, can easily make us jump between feeling devastated, angry, humiliated, jealous, petty - every negative emotion under the sun. The only real difference between a healthy love and an unhealthy one is self-awareness and consideration. I truly believe that those who lack those two qualities, can still feel love, but they just can’t show it in an uncorrupted manner. Unless they try to change.
Now Cal is a more extreme example of the love spectrum, because like I said - seeing him from this angle didn’t make me root for him and Rose as a ship. It just opened my eyes to his complexities. But that kicked off a deeper and more sympathetic view of characters in me, which led to my willingness to enjoy certain unconventional, less-than-healthy ships.
I feel like we’d be able to transform shipping wars into just simple disagreements if more people understood this mindset.
If you’re the type to believe that unhealthy love isn’t love, or you only ship characters that fit your RL standards of love, that’s okay. I’m not saying that that’s the wrong view to have. Just realize that others may have a different approach to consuming fiction than you do. Give those who believe that love is a spectrum the benefit of the doubt. We all have our tastes and views, and just because someone likes an “unhealthy”, “toxic”, or “problematic” ship, that doesn’t mean they hold that ship up as their personal, idealized standard of love the way that you might with your ships. If someone enjoys alternate love stories, and talks positively about them in a fandom-y way, that doesn’t mean they advocate abuse or any form of toxicity in relationships. It just means that it’s a different aspect of love that they find intriguing. For them, it’s just a simple matter of enjoying complex writing, and the exploration of human nature.
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hii fiend!!! i literally adore your art its so pretty and it- it just- *inhales* *exha-*💞💖✨💞💖✨💞🙏🛐🙇♂️🙇♂️anyways so- bcz u guided me to the osaaka ship and now im in love w it couldya please offer me some fic recommendations? ok, i just love ur art ur one of ny faves lov u have an amazingly sweet and beautiful day!!! :D
sure thing!!
i’ll put them by category here (i also have some art for some of them, i’ll post them when i’ve got the time)
i’ve put a star ★ beside fics that i’ve read a bunch of times hahaha!
canon-compliant
(fics that i think you should read first. mostly canon-compliant. so these are post-timeskip. after their meeting at the black jackals vs adlers game. these really won’t make any sense if you’re anime-only, sorry.)
stay with me go places by sparksandsalt ★
this fic. THIS FIC!!!!! this started everything for me!!! this is the reason why i started shipping osaaka!!!! the way they handled the characters is sooooo!!! *chef’s kiss* they really stick true to the characters' voices and the care they put into characterizations is impeccable. i also love bokuto and akaashi’s relationship here!! they’re so in each other’s lives that bokuto ends up exposing akaashi’s feelings indirectly and accidentally lmao and also atsumu and osamu’s relationship is so funny and hilarious. they are like how brothers are, atsumu showing his support but also clowning osamu in the process
this fic single-handedly fueled me to create so much osaaka content.
i dont know how many times i’ve read this tbh
wait by sanguinedawns
i love the yearning in this fic. the longing and the waiting and the expectation there. they’re trying to be subtle about their feelings for each other but they’re seen at the end but at 4k it’s narrated so smoothly. i love mutually pining idiots.
in the afternoon by yamaboto
this is so!!! i love this so much!! at 1k we see osamu yearning for akaashi once again. i love how they write this short scene. i could really picture the afternoon light coming in through the traditional panel doors and how the light must feel on your skin.
take what we love inside by yamaboto
this is an established relationship osaaka and how they got together. in the afternoon (the fic above) is a snippet of how warm the writer could put words together. and it really is so sweet there’s a scene where they slow dance and it’s the best. i also love the simple fact that they put in how osamu cannot let anybody go hungry hhaha
shout softly by lostsunsets
YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW THIS MADE MY HEART FEEL SO LIGHT AND SOFT AND TENDER. THIS FIC IS SO PRECIOUS OH MY GOSH
i love love loooooooove how the author put osamu's love and passion for food and filling in the pieces on what osamu does to fuel this passion --while in the back burner-- while he was still playing volleyball in high school
AND HOW HE LONGS FOR AKAASHI. THIS IS MAKING ME AAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!
GO READ IT PLEASE
we’re in au territory
(the setting is not canon-compliant)
sleeping with the enemy by billionairevolleyboysclub ★
the setting is in 2013 haikyu volleyball circuit. meaning they’re still in highschool and are still playing volleyball and they just happen to chance upon each other at interhigh.
i love how sweet osamu is and how he got his crush on akaashi. and it’s lovely how they wrote the budding of a highschool relationship!! and their take on how osamu and akaashi handle ldr??? it’s delicious. dont let the fake/pretend relationship tag fool you this is very cute i love them so much!! i guess the ‘no drama’ aspect is what i like about this a lot bc osamu’s a pretty straightforward guy esp i guess back in highschool. also the second-hand embarrassment is real lmao
welcome in by risquetendencies ★
in this setting osamu’s still the owner of onigiri miya but the au aspect of this is that they haven’t met before. so basically a meet-cute.
and man oh mannnnn the tension written here is good food. osamu is written so obviously into akaashi (i mean who wouldn’t) and akaashi is affected by this greatly and it is!!! wow!! i just love how smooth osamu is here and how flustered akaashi gets bc “omg a hot guy likes me????” (yes akaashi, this hot guys thinks you’re a sexy piece of ass please believe it)
akaashi in a gay panic is literally the best thing.
blood brothers by billionairevolleyboysclub (18+)
miya twins are vampires and akaashi has a thing for fangs. that in and of itself is enough reason for you to read this. i also love how the writer puts a distinction between atsumu and osamu on how they interact with/ feed on akaashi.
like the dawn by eggsan
this fic is actually inspired by my royalty au but im not putting this here bc of that. i really like how the writer introduced their story. i remember telling someone that the atmosphere of how they write is like the voice of a soft-spoken maiden hahaha it's lovely!! think light academia aesthetic. i also love how i get the doki-dokis when osamu, who is essentially a stranger, gets close to akaashi. i can feel akaashi's excitement and trepidation.
forgive the sea, follow the tide by KyryeDuBarie (18+)★
PIRATE AU!!!!!!
i love the fresh twist that they did here on the classic mermaid/pirate au. the twist being akaashi is actually a pearl diver and at the same time being vaguely hinted as a mermaid hhahaha. osamu's a pirate that got shipwrecked and got washed up on akaashi's shores that akaashi, of course, saved.
there's a bunch of cool things that happened too that i cannot disclose bc that'll ruin the thrill of reading this. the plot is solid and the romance between osamu and akaashi is gradual but so so sweeeeet!! i highly recommend this!! but better clear up your schedule bc this hefty boy comes in at a whopping 40k!!!!
keep time on me by yamabato
this fic is based from my zombie apocalypse au!! and even though it’s set in the end of the world, they were still able to write it so sweet and comforting????? i only wish osamu and keiji the happiness they deserve :’)
i also like the whole theme of time in the story and how the story revolves around it. it’s very good!!!
the contest between by batman (18+)
akaashi is a documentary director and osamu is his subject. i love love looooove how the author wrote how stubborn both of them are and how they could clash sometimes but not in the explosive type of way. it’s actually cute and sweet, you’ll see what i mean when you read this hhehehe
AND AKAASHI IS SO LOVELY HERE!!! so lovely!!! and he laughs and smiles a ton and those moments were written in a way that just said ‘look at this angel!’ LMAO idk maybe that’s just me. i love akaashi so much
AND THIS BABY COMES IN AT A WHOLE 75K!!!!!!!!! AMAZING!!!!
#chocomilked#fiend talks#fiendish recs#GIVE THESE AUTHORS SOME LOVE#love love looooove these fics i swear by them!!!!#if i find more i''l update these!!#happy reading tumblr used chocomilked!! hahaha#osaaka#EDIT: added two new fics!!!#let me go around the fics i've read again hhaha
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