One Thing I Find Frustrating About People’s Takes On Sinners Is That They Want To Use One Particular

chronically 19yr demon slays while slaying

All the MBTI characters together :D Men and women versions !It's so satisfying to see them all on the same pic ! 🥺💚Also sorry for being incative aah I missed this acc so much ! What's your MBTI ? who's your favorite ?  I'm INFP ! my favs are INFJ & ENFJ ! ^^

Kento Nanami, a hardworking sorcerer from Tokyo, abides solely by the world in front of him. Tiana Baker, a recent college graduate from New Orleans, is no different. When a curse-ridden anomaly forces their paths to intertwine, they must contend with their own rigid ways of thinking, and with whether they belong in each other’s lives.

Wishes. Dreams.

Can there ever be a place for such silly, childish things?

((Never directly linked my fic! If you like Tiana and Nanami, then check it out!))

Sorry for not being on in, like, forever. Life’s just gotten in the way.

Anyways, that’s not what I wanted to talk about today. What I really wanted to focus on is something I’ve been thinking a lot on lately, and that’s the idea of asshole characters.

Obviously asshole characters come in all shapes and sizes. Each have their own motivations for being an asshole and/or unfriendly individual. Katsuki, Shota, and Hitoshi are asshole characters themselves, but why is it that I dislike them so much?

At first I thought I didn’t like asshole characters in general. However, I then remembered that there are several characters people would classify as assholes/unfriendly individuals that are characters I adore. Lysithea from Fire Emblem 2 Houses and Natsuki from Doki Doki Literature Club are characters who are rough around the edges and aren’t nice to people immediately. The reasons behind their behavior aren’t too far off from why Shota and Hitoshi act the way they do, that being trauma, so why am I able to look past their behavior and not that of Shota and Hitoshi? With Katsuki, it’s obvious, but the other two had me scratching my head for a bit.

The answer, outside of the fact that Lysithea and Natsuki are multi-layered characters written far better than Shota and Hitoshi, is that the girls are REACTIVE assholes while Hitoshi and Shota are ACTIVE assholes.

What do I mean by that? Well both Lysithea and Natsuki for the most part keep to themselves. Something that someone does ends up causing them to snap. For Lysithea, it’s when she feels that her time is being wasted after someone approaches her about something irrelevant. For Natsuki, it’s a defensive mechanism triggered by a perceived attack on her character. Now, is that an excuse for their behavior? No. There are better ways to defend yourself and to get people to stop talking to you, but it’s at least understandable that they’d snap due to their traumas.

Katsuki, Hitoshi, and Shota aren’t like that. When they’re an asshole, it isn’t because they’re provoked into being one by someone else’s actions, but because they’re the ones doing the provoking. Katsuki’s rude and aggressive to everyone around him, choosing to make the life of another boy absolutely miserable without any provocation. Hitoshi decides to mock 1-A and issue his “challenge” not because anyone approached him, but because he himself is looking for trouble. Yeah, Katsuki gave off a shitty first impression, but Hitoshi already was planning on challenging 1-A from the beginning. Shota’s the one who controls his teaching style and is a position of authority. Rather than do his job, he’d rather tear someone down.

Am I supposed to sympathize with these so-called heroes? I for the life of me can’t seem to do so. Meanwhile, with characters like Lysithea and Natsuki, I can because they don’t mean to be an asshole, it’s just that they want to be left alone.

Now, am I saying reactive assholes are better characters than proactive assholes? No. Proactive assholes can have great character development. The problem is that proactive assholes are tougher to warm up to, especially when they’re meant to characters the audience is meant to root for. MHA’s writing does nothing TO make people want to root for these guys. They’re just assholes who wanna throw their weight around and never receive punishment for it/are called out for it. Hell, MHA seems to think these characters ARE in the right for being the way they are and/or doesn’t take the fact that they are assholes seriously (looking at you Katsuki).

Anyways, I thought I’d write this up to really explain more of my thought process and why Katsuki, Hitoshi, and Shota bother me so much whereas I find myself adoring characters such as Lysithea and Natsuki.

love when this happened

The funniest part of Sinners was when the Native Americans just said “yeahhh good luck with that”

“Worship me but don’t WORSHIP me” is an insane line to say to your brother who jerked you off and is now explaining himself, and who you’ve been unconsciously (?) grooming since the moment you set foot in Thailand.

Saxon Ratliff you’re not sane in the head….

Like I knew Lochlan was batshit insane, and I know they’re both deep in denial (especially Saxon), but this reaction is not the reaction a normal 26 year old adult would have after something like that happened with a younger sibling. The sexual component of the relationship only appeared in episode 5, but it was the “innocent” kind of worship that got them in trouble in the first place. That’s why you’re both here dude, because you blurred all the boundaries between the two of you. And that’s his response??

I swear to god that whole scene had me cracking up. Between Lochlan calling him a narcissist (deserved), and Saxon just trying to bury all of it so blame doesn’t have to be assigned…

The Bakugou Experence(TM)

Bakugou: *punches Izuku*

Izuku, starry eyed: "Woow, Bakugou, that was so cool!"

Kirashima: "What a manly punch!"

Eraserhead: *grumbles, but is secretly impressed by how good a punch it was, even though he wants to improve his form a bit*

Shigaraki: *nods* "I can see why you're the one closest to Deku."

All Might: "What good friends they are!"

Bomin Reference Sheet

My Hero Academia vs Assassination Classroom: Becoming Teachers

Now I recently saw a post going on about how people dislike Deku becoming a teacher in chapter 430. And another user chalked it up to Westerners' disrespect for teachers vs Japan's great revere for them, plus shipping discourse

And while I feel that those definitely don't help, I do feel that that isn't the balk of why a lot of us hate it. It also reads as one of those elitist takes in fandom where they are talking down to those who don't agree with them

Now I'm a Westerner, and I hate Deku becoming a teacher. It's not because I don't respect teachers, and when it happened in Assassination Classroom I was all for Nagisa Shiota becoming a teacher. I would have preferred to see him and/ or Karma become assassins but I was still satisfied with how it ended. So why is that? Especially because we know Hori was a fan of Assassination Classroom, prototype Bakugou was based on Karma for crying out loud.

Achieved vs Happenstance

A big part of it is framing, everyone in 1A, 1B, and basically everyone else explicitly want to be heroes, or at least something adjacent to it. That's why they are in the hero course, and Izuku Midoriya especially has a one-track mind for heroes until the surprise reveal. He was constantly told no, pick something else, for a decade but was still hyper-focused on being a hero leading up to the show. Nor do we see or otherwise learn that he has other developing interests. There's a ton of fanfics and headcanons of him helping his classmates with school work or even just their quirks, but there's nothing in canon. The only character who does anything like that is Momo Yaoyorozu. The vast majority of 1A and once again especially Izuku Midoriya are only interested in being heroes. Izuku is also the only one who didn't become a hero (until years later) despite the need for them totally going down and them being paid per arrest.

Meanwhile, no one in 3E the end class, chose to be an assassin, Kuro Sensei just decided that he was going to teach that class, and the world needed him dead. A lot of students explicitly have other interests and none of them have a personal interest in being an assassin past killing Kuro Sensei. Yes, Nagisa Shiota is shown throughout to be surprisingly good at assassination work, and he is explicitly given an offer to join the world as an assassin. But when he gets the offer he asks himself do I really want to do this. We also learn via the little girl who suggests the career to him in the first place, that he has been tutoring her. We also get to see how he takes the uniqueness and skills from 3E into his teaching job.

So in short the premise of Assassination Classroom is much better suited to have it's characters enter very different fields to begin with.

Better Focus on Academics

Yes, My Hero Academia takes place largely in a school, but they don't put any focus on the school part. Whenever they're doing something in class it's either big combat test or self-directed training. And in the later seasons, more and more time got taken up by the big-name pro-hero fights. The two teachers we see the most of, both have bad teacher tags on Ao3 and I have seen numerous takedowns of their teaching skills accurately citing the series.

Assassination Classroom however has school and studying as a constant theme throughout the series. We see 1E being taught both standard school stuff, and learning various assassination techniques to achieve their goal. Kuro Sensei also makes it very clear that if they are just going to bank their futures on killing him and winning the money, then he sees no point in staying around for them to do it.

Getting it Regardless vs Earning Respect

One ongoing issue I have with MHA is that I largely got into the series because I thought that it was going to criticize societal issues. Instead, it ended up doing a 180. Now this mostly applies to the pro-hero worship, largely because once again there is barely any time dedicated to the actual academic part of the show. But with both the teachers and pro heroes their failures and shit behaviours aren't treated as reasons to lose respect, making any respect for them empty. This also leans into the very real issue of roles that come with unconditional respect, will attract people who will abuse it.

Meanwhile, 3E came into the show without this innate revere for teachers, because their past teachers especially in their school have actively screwed them over at every turn. Karma is even elated at the idea of killing a teacher after his last one betrayed him. Nagisa Shiota was being very blatantly abused at home, and Kuro Sensei is the first teacher to stand up for him. The teachers of 3E have to earn the students' trust and respect. When Bitch Sensei treats them like shit when she first joins, the students return the favour, she has to apologize for her poor behaviour for the class to give her a second chance. So when it ends with the students having a deep connection to their teachers and a renewed appreciation for school it's because that respect was fucking earned. Also, the principal who created this system set up 3E to be abused and sabotaged them every chance he got, got fired for his shit leadership aka actions have consequences. They also didn't feel the need to excuse the bullies shit behaviour either

So in one setting, we have authority figures constantly being shit but being revered anyway. And the other, where the respect has been lost and needs to be earned back, thus the respect they get has a much stronger foundation.

Side notes

Deku sucks at explaining, I've said it both on my main and AU blog, but Deku is horrible at explaining. One of the main aspects of teaching, and he sucks at it because he overcomplicates and goes off on tangents, plus mumbling. If it was just his thought process, it would be a mildly annoying but harmless habit, but he does it when talking to people

Also, Assassination Classroom has a way less bloated cast, allowing us to actually get closer to the characters.