I Have A Lot Of Thoughts About Why Dabi Pretended Not To See Aoyama Here. It's Implied He Knows Aoyama

Some instances that I feel show how some messages MHA are detrimental, especially on how victims react to their abuser, can be gauged by responses that tend to be highly prevalent in the fandom.

(Definitely not every fan, but a great majority).

Endeavor is a great example. Whenever you post criticizing his approach to atonement (and ultimately criticizing Horikoshi’s writing), you get BOMBARDED by people either belittling you for not liking his character or essentially forcing you to like his character by frantically writing “at least he tried” arguments.

If I have the CHOICE whether to forgive his character or not, especially given he goes through an atonement arc and not a redemption arc, why is any form of criticism about his abusive behavior and essentially his abuse of power practically ignored by the story unacceptable?

The message was detrimental because people operate on the notion that for victims to be good people, they must forgive and even help their abusers. MHA presents people who choose not to forgive him as either a monster (Toya) or inconvenient (Natsuo). And if they are still unforgiving, they must admire the abuser for doing the bare minimum (taking responsibility; this is also about Natsuo).

Essentially, they are considered "imperfect victims" because they weren't merciful in their approach to their abuser.

The majority of the fandom tends to ignore the lack of actual consequences for Endeavor's actions because he vows to talk to Toya every day. Insisting that doing the bare minimum, which is recognizing his son's existence and suffering, became his "hell" is a wildly fucked up message, in my opinion.

It harps on the issue mentioned above that if a victim isn't receptive to forgiveness or doesn't act "demure," they are seen as an inconvenience—which is how the Todoroki family ultimately views Toya.

On a less critical note, I'll vent, so if you don't like this, just ignore it.

I'm so fucking tired of stories depicting imperfect victims as people who deserve death and torture. Plus, having to be on the brunt of so many people acting like you're morally fucked because you're not impressed with how a writer handled abuse. Horikoshi is not the first writer to try to atone a character who is an abuser (and he isn't the first to fail at that, either).

I'm not about to dick-ride every decision every author makes. Especially if the message convinces some audience members that victims are inherently broken if they can't bring themselves to forgive and/or admire someone who hurt them.

BNHA Chapter 187 and Mad Love: The flower scenes

In chapter 187 of BNHA Natsuo and Fuyumi visit Rei in the hospital at the same time that Endeavour is fighting High End.

Natsuo ends up commenting on his fathers recent promotion as number 1 hero, and though chastised by Fuyumi he expresses resentment with everything Endeavour put their family through. He claims Endeavour left them behind. This is when Rei chimes in and says she doesn’t belive that, and that she thinks he’s trying to face the family.

What proof does she have, though? After all, she herself says she hasn’t seen Endeavour in ten years. Well, the proof to her claim is this:

Rei says that Endeavour brought her that flower and remarks he remembered she liked them despite her only telling him once.

Here’s the problem I have with this though: this chapter is the one that started building Endeavours atonement, and yet for Rei to be the one to create its foundation doesn’t sit well with me because she shouldn’t be having those opinions about Endeavour. He was her abuser for a decade, and the one responsible for her pain.

A single flower shouldn’t change Reis mind.

This fixation on the flower is what reminded me of a scene from another work that creates some unnerving similarities between the two

This is the flower scene from chapter 187:

And this is the flower scene from the DC comic Mad Love:

Some context about Mad Love:

It was a comic published in 1992 by DC comics, with Paul Dini and Bruce Timm as the writers and it was the first canonical backstory of Harley Quinn (other backstories would follow after, as is the case with American comics). The comic was all about Harleys abusive relationship with the Joker and how she seemed to be unable to realise just how bad he was for her. At the end it looks like she finally realises (after Joker throws her off a building)…. and yet, while still covered in bandages from the injuries he inflicted on her, she notices a flower he left her… and changes her mind once more.

Of course it must be said that Harley is a very, very different character from Rei, but these two scenes have a lot in common:

Both are women that experienced abusive relationships

Both of them are hospitalized because of their abuser

In the hospital, both receive a flower from their abuser as a form of “apology”

In both cases the flower seems to be proof enough for them to change their mind about their abuser for the better.

Perhaps the only difference is that in Mad Love this change of heart from Harley is framed as wrong and tragic. In the foreword of the comic, Paul Dini wrote he saw Mad Love as “… a cautionary [tale] about what happens when someone loves recklessly, obsessively and for too long”.

Horikoshis intent with his scene however, seemed to be the opposite. As I said before, what Rei says about Endeavour sets up his atonement. Its meant to be a hopeful moment, a good moment. But not for Rei. For Endeavour.

Mad Love tells the victims story. Chapter 187 is there for the abusers benefit.

Now. After writing all of this:

Do I think that Horikoshi made this connection with Mad Love on purpose? NO

Do I think these similarities with Mad Love are unfortunate and damaging to Reis story? YES

Every time I read that scene in the manga or watch it in the anime I cant help but remember Mad Love. And it’s endlessly frustating that BNHA tries to frame that scene as good when it very much shouldnt be. Because there is already a story that framed a similar scene as the tragedy it very clearly was.

Reis two appearances outside of flashbacks in the manga have mostly served to develop her abusers story, but I still have some hope that she’ll be able to escape Endeavours suffocating presence in the manga and break free of his influence.

Just like Harley eventually did.

seriously what did they put in bnha to make all the villains so interesting and dynamic and unique from each other while still contributing to a common thematic thread meanwhile in the background all the heroes are just slowly melting into the same bland blob. it's insane and dangerous.

ay these are two different people???

League of Villains designs from XEBEC (2024)

Luckily history repeats itself so you don’t have to bother trying the first several times.

Source: Twitter

rei todoroki is such a difficult character to talk about because I think people have legitimate reasons to be…some level of uncomfortable with her, but at the same time most people who bring that up don’t do so with anywhere near enough nuance or empathy for a woman with an abusive husband, and lots of them outright victim blame her (as I posted about before, people straight up blame her for being raped) and don’t see the way horikoshi is treating her lately as a problem. 

watching the responses to her these last few chapters…………the misogyny and people’s inability to care about a battered woman made my stomach churn. people have become so quick to jump on her before questioning the writing at all. 

I wish she was written with more care and actual thoughtful, complex characterization–I think her relationship with shouto sorely needs to have actual work put into writing it because what she did to him was pretty awful and traumatizing even if there were obviously extenuating circumstances. shouto doesn’t blame her, but with ten years of distance between them after the incident to stew in their feelings and suffer alone there’s a lot to explore when they reunite. and I think healing from trauma your mother caused because of your mutual abuser is much more worth exploring than putting all kinds of screentime into forcing him to build a better relationship with his dad, but a lot of what seems like obvious baggage he carries from his relationship with his mother has never been unpacked. 

same goes for her relationship with touya. I’d be interested in exploring his anger towards her more but we’re probably not going to get that, because these days she’s only relevant when she can be used to make endeavor look better (and before that as an accessory to shouto’s character). the way touya reacted to both his parents was very different despite resentment that built towards both(desire to please endeavor mixed with resentment over being tossed aside vs. what seems like complete dismissal of his mother), and I think that’s worth looking at. also I think, with what you can extrapolate from her relationship with her parents and then the way endeavor abused her, her inability to help touya is partially learned helplessness(on top of the fact that…there’s only so much she could do when she was being abused the way she was). 

AND I get that they’re not major characters the way shouto and now touya are but it’d be nice to get more on what natsuo and fuyumi think of her, too, especially since they’re the only ones who visited her for ten whole years! they saw a stage of her life everyone else missed entirely, have maintained a closeness with her no one else has. 

灰になったおまえだけを愛している

I’ve only seen the LOV seiyuu event being passed around through twitter screencaps (which is annoying to read imo) so I’m copy+pasting @/shibuyasmash’s posts about the skit below the cut. The full thread can be found here.

💖💀⚔️

The stage is dark except for a light on AFO’s voice actor, and the skit starts with a monologue by All For One in Tartarus. He’s musing about how boring it is in Tartarus and how they can monitor everything but his thoughts.

All For One ponders about how a Quirk that could control the mind & heart could be the most powerful and simple way to get what he wants. But AFO decides a Quirk like that would make things unsatisfying and boring.

All For One remembers his brother reading the comic and thinks about how the last interesting conversation he had was with All Might wearing his sad looking loose hero costume.

All For One thinks about All Might is too sentimental and has to let his student go to learn on his own, like AFO has done with Shigaraki after raising him carefully for all these years…

We then fade away from All For One’s thoughts and see his beloved student Shigaraki… in a room that’s all messy and trashed. They show a picture on the screen of the messy room & the lights turn on the LOV voice actors. All of the LOV is there except for Dabi.

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