"Toya There Are Other Things Besides Being A Hero!"

So I had a thought:

Dr. Garaki straight up says that due to his catastrophic injuries, Dabi shouldn’t have survived a month after escaping the facility and because of that, none of All-For-One’s cronies bothered retrieving him, and everyone involved was pretty shocked when he turned up years later for the villains’ social upheaval/anarchy quest.  The explanation we get for this medical improbability is he remained alive because of his absolute hatred for Endeavor and need for personal vengeance/validation.

Me:  “There’s no scientific or medical explanation that makes this remotely plausible outside of bullshit anime willpower and——*side eyes H.P. Lovecraft’s Cool Air*——You!”

Long story short, Cool Air is one of Lovecraft’s lesser known short stories about this guy Dr. Muñoz who is technically dead, but through sheer willpower, he’s able to keep himself alive, and through the use of a janky cooling system he keeps in his apartment (an air conditioner, it's an air conditioner) he’s able to keep his body from rotting.  The contraption fails one night, and in a desperate attempt to stave of the inevitable, he recruits his downstairs neighbor to keep him supplied with ice until they can get the machine fixed.  They can’t fix it in time, Dr. Muñoz dies, his horrible secret comes out, and that’s pretty much the plot.

To sum up, a technically dead guy who keeps himself alive through sheer willpower…and ice…?  And Rei’s Quirk is…

It’s still implausible because Lovecraft should never in a million years be taken with any kind of scientific/medical seriousness, but neither should My Hero Academia, so my new headcanon is Rei’s Quirk manifested way earlier than everyone thought it did and Dabi just never noticed it and credited his survival to the aforementioned hatred and determination.

In short, Dabi is a Lovecraftian abomination.

...

And for good measure, when I re-watched Overly Sarcastic Productions video on Lovecraft to see their rundown on Cool Air, this description of Dr. Muñoz came up:

This shitpost is writing itself.

The way shouto consistently empathizes with other people through comparisons to his own experiences and worries about everyone else before himself. God you are so nd its unreal

This is so unserious. A normal blood transfusion doesn't do that??? OFA is not that unique if Toga can just do transfers like that too. Lmao

I'm at the movie theater to escape the heat and almost the entire row in front of me is just a group of 12 year olds... send help

this might be unhinged, but I figured out that at the beginning of that manga (Year Class 1A entered UA/All the events up to and including Deika), Shigaraki Tomura’s Birthday (4/4) likely occurred either on a Thursday, Friday, or Saturday.

In Chapter 7, All Might confronts Aizawa on the first day of classes, and he says that “April Fool’s was a week ago.”

Of course, it doesn’t absolutely mean All Might meant it exactly one week ago, but still. With this information, let’s say the first day was on April 8.

April 8 can either be on Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday. This is because Chapters 5 to 12 covers three school days consecutively. First day was Aizawa’s test; Second day was Battle Training; Third day was when the media rushed the school.

The first day can’t be earlier than a Monday. The third day can’t be later than a Friday. Thus, those first three days of school, April 8 to 10, can only be Monday-to-Wednesday, Tuesday-to-Thursday, or Wednesday-to-Friday.

This means that Shigaraki’s 20th Birthday on April 4, four days before April 8, could only be on Thursday, Friday, or Saturday.

*

The end of Chapter 11 is when we first meet Shigaraki Tomura, who starts plotting ‘What if I kill All Might’, and this was on the evening of the day of the Battle Training (April 9).

Immediately the next day (April 10), on the morning of that third day with the media frenzy, Shigaraki Tomura is there at UA to disintegrate the gates.

*

The USJ invasion would be the next week, on a Wednesday.

It could not have been on the same first week of school because, as above, the first week’s Wednesday was either occupied by Aizawa’s test, battle training, or media frenzy. USJ invasion must happen in the second week of school, on dates April 15th, 16th or 17th.

ok ummm sorry but why are people talking suddenly like irl domestic violence victims get any sort of widespread sympathy or support??? like, for one, let’s just establish that it’s silly to complain that real, living, breathing people are being treated with more sympathy than a fictional character. but even that alone would also be completely wrong, because… rl victims are not treated well at all??? did we just forget all the victim-blaming, the slander, the cross-examining, the doubt, and the legal institutions that are weaponized against rl victims all the time???

if you somehow see someone condemning rl abuse but dismissing fictional abuse, it’s because they only care about rl abuse in the broadest and most conceptual sense. rl abuse is hated as a contextless idea, or when it’s committed by someone the person doing the condemning doesn’t care about, like some dude they’ve never talked to or some celebrity they have no personal attachment towards. condemnation of, like, weinstein, who most people do not know anything about nor care about, is not the same as popular support for victims as a whole. compare the reactions to weinstein vs reactions to johnny depp or even (god) joe biden. the difference is entirely in how much attachment people have to these abusers.

a character like endeavor makes people trot out an entire circus’ worth of excuses not because these people actually care about irl abuse as opposed to fictional abuse, but because the narrative gives endeavor a way of playing on people’s heartstrings and allowing them to nurture an attachment to him, which they will then vigorously defend even at the expense of his victims. they do this as well with rl abusers who they particularly like or have some sort of connection to. it’s not that ppl’s condemnations of abuse are either existent or non-existent—it’s that they’re frequently circumstantial.

please, let’s be finished with the insinuations that rl victims receive care and support or even, like, lip service that isn’t getting extended to fictional characters.

Talking to your Villain: Deku vs. Shigaraki and Ochako vs. Toga

Questionable method but I typed up all the dialogue spoken out loud in each encounter, from the moment things really start picking up steam to the moment the Villain's heart gets saved. The Heroes are trying to get through to the Villain - how much effort do they put into trying to have a dialogue?

Green is Hero Speaking; Red is Villain Speaking.

Need you note that Deku's 4 lines of green - the longest line he speaks - in the middle of his battle is actually not directed at Shigaraki. He's talking to Nana about smashing Shigaraki's lid. But maybe Shigaraki heard him, idk.

I also took out Tsuyu's speech to Toga. That was a good chunk of 'Hero trying to talk to Villain', and also just a good attempt too from Tsuyu, but we're focusing Ochako and Toga.

I love VA comment inspired fan art (by yamcat_he)

The mock screenshot/prompt background art.

Thank you for celebrating Spinaraki Week Round 3 with us! See ya next year!

Some more negative reactions to 426 in Japanese fandom