This YouTube Comment Has Been On My Mind Since I Finished SOTR So This Is What I Came Up With:

SUNRISE ON THE REAPING SPOILERS

“I first saw the girl at the Hob when she was just a baby. Burdock was so proud of her, he toted her around everywhere. After he died in that mine explosion, she started coming alone, trading the odd squirrel or rabbit. Tough and smart, her hair in two braids then, reminding me for all the world of Louella McCoy, my sweetheart of old. And after she volunteered for the Games, that nickname couldn’t help but slip out. I didn’t want to let them in, her and Peeta, but the walls of a person’s heart are not impregnable, not if they have ever known love. That’s what Lenore Dove says, anyway.”

When we first meet Haymitch, we can instantly tell that he has made a habit of distancing himself from tributes. That he has nobody left he loves, so he pushes away anybody else that tries to come into his life. But now we know how full of love Haymitch was. How deeply he loved Lenore Dove, how deeply he loved his mother and Sid, his friends, even Hattie. Everything Haymitch did was out of love. He was reaped because he tried to protect the girl he loved. As he was reaped, he did his best to protect his sweetheart, 13-year-old Louella McCoy he grew up with. He tried to distance himself from the other tributes, but eventually he couldn’t help but love them too.

He couldn’t help but call Ampert “Buddy.” He couldn’t help but call all of the district 6 tributes his doves, and mourn all of their deaths, no matter how little he actually knew them. How Louella was replaced, and how he wanted to hate her replacement, but gave her the name Lou Lou and protected her like their own. Haymitch was the one who initiated the hug of all four tributes from 12. He was distrustful of Wyatt, and grew to mourn him like a brother. He carried Lou Lou like his life depended on holding onto her. How he hated Maysilee Donner, and thought of her as the most stuck-up girl in 12. He called her Sis. He grew to love her like the sister he never had. She died as his sister.

All of the love that Haymitch didn’t need to give, and yet he loved so endlessly and so whole-heartedly. And with every person he loved, he lost them, and lost a part of himself. No wonder he didn’t want to let Katniss and Peeta into his heart. He had already tried so hard to push away Burdock, who relentlessly tried to care for him in his despair.

Then, in comes Katniss Everdeen. She carried with her a piece of every person Haymitch tried to push away. She was Asterid, Burdock, the Seam children he grew up with, all in one person. He didn’t want to let her in. He couldn’t have.

And yet, Haymitch couldn’t help but call her sweetheart.

Because Katniss was a woven tapestry of every person he had ever loved. She was his best friend’s daughter. She carried Lenore Dove’s songs. Louella’s skin and hair. Wyatt’s protectiveness. Maysilee’s fight, Maysilee’s resistance, Maysilee’s pride, Maysilee’s pin. And in the arena, she painted the best poster Haymitch and Maysilee could’ve ever hoped for- Rue, surrounded by flowers, her passing in dignity and not as another number in the games. And refusing the Capitol their winner by eating the berries with Peeta.

It’s no surprise that Katniss and Peeta broke down Haymitch’s walls. Haymitch had the flint striker, the spark. And Katniss was the fire that caught 25 years later.

curse spirit geto

is it just me or was endeavor's arc never about him deserving redemption??? nor was he ever actually redeemed? like, atonement vs redemption are two very different things, and watering him down to "he is a horrible person henceforth he does not deserve to be written a redemption arc." in my opinion, that's just a tragic waste of his character.

endeavour's existence as a hero actually brings a very important and nuanced layer to the world of MHA and also brings up the question; is a person's good deeds enough to measure their worth?

think about it: todoroki enji is an abusive father and husband. he bought his wife, participated in a genetics scheme, neglected two of his children, pushed his eldest to his limit psychologically, and physically abused his youngest.

but think of endeavour: the number two hero. his efficiency rates are the highest in the country. he keeps property damage to the absolute minimum and runs an agency with an expansive network of sidekicks. and what is this man's job? he SAVES LIVES. it is his literal JOB to SAVE PEOPLE, and he is THE BEST in his field. it would be one thing if he were incompetent, but endeavour is literally incredible at his job.

the dichotomy proposes a philosophical question: would you remove this man from his job when he is so instrumental to the protection of the population?

i understand how severe his abuse was. i understand how severe abuse IS. it ruins the very foundations of who you are. todoroki enji effectively has ruined his family. but he has something that many abusers do not have: guilt.

his guilt does not absolve him of his crimes. he is aware of this. but he is attempting to take accountability. and while he is entirely too late, would you rather have the man not try at all? and for the people who want him locked up: what is endeavour serving a prison sentence going to do for the population? sow growing fear and distrust in a society where people are losing faith in their heroes?

there's one more layer that people forget, or in some cases, refuses to acknowledge: he loves his family. he only comes to love them far too late. and thats another thing people forget: abusers can truly love the people they abuse. and enji loves his kids, you can see it in the way he embraces natsuo after he thought he almost died, how he embraced touya even if he thought he would die with him, how proud he is of shouto as a hero, and how thankful he is for fuyumi. he still remembers rei's favorite flowers and always has them sent for her. the problem is that it's all too late. too little, too late. but it's THERE and i find the writing incredible.

i just think that endeavour is such a brilliantly written character. not redeeming endeavour would've made him a cartoonishly evil character, and undermined the themes mha depicts. what makes a hero? what level of morality does someone need to have? if a man is a murderer, but ends up saving another in a heroic act, is he now a hero? redemption is never something people deserve. it is something they earn, and whether endeavour was truly redeemed was a personal decision, that only the people he abused could ever make.

the beautiful part of it all, was that every todoroki had a different response to it. because every single one of their responses were valid.

natsuo walked away and went no-contact. enji would never see his future daughter-in-law, or grandchild, or anyone from natsuo's family ever again. and that's something enji will forever have to live with.

rei stays by her husbands side. she chooses to forgive. if only because she feels guilty too.

fuyumi genuinely wants to reconnect her family, not just for enji's sake, but for her own. because she wants to cling to the only family she has.

shouto wants to establish his own identity away from his father, and become a hero in spite of what enji has done to him. because it's who he is.

and touya wants to burn it all down.

these are all very, very real responses to abuse and destructive family dynamics. and it was all beautifully written. keeping up with the todorokis is honestly some of the best family writing i've seen in shounen. its rare to have a full family written into the picture with such realistic and complex problems, that show their lives as a family not just from childhood, as almost all animes do, but how their dynamics shift and change as everyone in the family grows and moves on with their lives. families aren't just shed for narrative purposes like it's mostly written in manga and shounen. they stick with you almost your whole life. and endeavour is an important part of the tapestry created- "not redeeming" him is the same as throwing him out of the picture.

because endeavour is a realistic depiction of an abusive man. and i know from personal experience- abusers are not cartoonish monsters. they're real people with emotions like everybody else. and the harm they inflict on others always backfires on them- they'll feel it for the rest of their lives. and so does endeavour. he destroyed his own family, and he's not getting it back. he knows this. so he's not going to try and get all of them to love him again, he knows that would he pointless.

hence the atonement. he's going to be there from now on, however he can, because he knows that nothing he can ever do will fix his mistakes. he will never be at that dining table with his family.

anyway lol end of ramble i just think he's an amazing character and stories should explore more themes based around him and the todoroki family

theres a distinct difference between Katniss’s and Haymitch’s narration style that i think a lot of other people are noticing and it is that haymitch seems to know a lot more about District 12 and Panem than Katniss seemed to. and SotR might seem like lore dropping or name dropping but like. i think it says a lot about them as people.

I think the lack of context we get from Katniss isnt just due to propaganda, but largely due to the fact that she’s so deeply rooted in poverty and survival mode that she simply doesn’t have the mental capacity for anything else. When traumatized, our brains automatically retain less information than they ordinarily would and we see that with Katniss. Not for friends, or school, nor propagandized television lore. Notice how we get descriptions of most tributes before she remembers their names, if she ever does, while Haymitch actually remembers a lot of their names right off the bat. When you’re fighting for your life every day, it really doesn’t leave much energy for anything else. She’s used to saving all of her energy for providing for her family.

But Haymitch isn’t providing for his family. He has several friends, a healthy romantic relationship, and retains information about society because hes not neglected.

It’s just so interesting that Katniss is the luckier of the pair because in their childhood parallels, she drew the short stick compared to him. She’s only luckier cuz she had him.

SOMEONE WRITE THIS PLEASE I DONT HAVE THE TIME

Need a bkdk body swap fic but instead of doing freaky shit they have a competition on who can embarrass the other the most

Can we kill therapy-speak in fanfic?

Don’t get me wrong here. I’m not saying your characters can’t be familiar with therapy keywords. But the use of it in fanfic is just killing off any sort of real, emotional stakes in certain fics. *cough* the my hero fandom

I’ll be real with you; I don’t want my characters to approach a situation with an acute awareness for any possible triggers or emotional responses in an attempt to build rapport with another character who has experienced severe trauma and/or abuse. And sure, let’s say that it is a professional, whose job it is to approach these situations. That doesn’t mean you have to write them like a mental health textbook vs a textbook victim of trauma.

For example; “Aizawa stepped back, not wanting to trigger any sort of trauma response from the abused teenager.”

Yeah, sure. Aizawa is a professional who, as a professional hero, probably has education in dealing with situations like this. But the way it is written is clinically detached, cold, and also way too professional from a man who has probably attended a total of one therapy session on mandate after witnessing the death of one of his best friends (which he never got over btw).

When you want to write a character who is attuned to other people’s needs and fears, try using less therapy bingo words, and be more descriptive of the emotions of the scene.

Instead; “Aizawa carefully stepped backwards, attempting to show he meant no harm. He knew how easy it was to scare a starving alley cat, you would be surprised how the same logic applied to a starving teenager.”

See? Isn’t it so much more soulful? So much easier to connect with? Sure, the first passage got the point across: Aizawa is aware that the kid he’s approaching is likely a victim of something traumatic, so he is approaching it as such. But the average human doesn’t have the dialogue of an occupational therapist, so writing situations like the characters are occupational therapists, kills off any sort of relatability for readers who don’t attend weekly therapy sessions. And even for people who do, it feels more like sitting in the armchair instead of absorbing yourself in the worlds and stories you’re trying to tell.

I’m not saying to ditch the mental health awareness altogether. Sure, having emotionally stunted characters create for interesting stories, but you can tell just as compelling of a story without having to resort to textbook wording. Instead, use that therapy foundation to build something more around your characters. Because using the therapy speak is just the same as telling, and not showing.

With that, good luck with your next hurt no comfort fic, and happy writing!

All Might was literally suicidal and people dont talk about it enough.

How it must've felt to have to pass on the one source of his strength, for years that has kept him at the top, his sole source of not only livelihood but also his way of helping others? How he must've felt knowing that he could not be the pillar of peace as he had been for almost four decades, that he had to subject another young person to carry that weight. How he must've felt after Kamino, after losing that power for good, after the entire nation saw him at his weakest.

His talk with Aizawa about deciding to live for the next generation, absolutely broke my heart. He felt useless, in a way probably none of us could ever even grasp. Not even izuku could.

What does it mean to be the entire world's pillar in one moment, the strongest man alive, only to go powerless in the next? It's no wonder Toshinori considered ending his life after Kamino- He didn't even look the same. What other option would you have but to end it all there? When you go from the man everyone looks to for help, to a man who can't even take a punch and survive?

But the fact he chose to live speaks volumes of his strength. His willingness to carry on, and help his students and successor fight with whatever strength remained. He helped Izuku during his tenture as a vigilante, because All Might would've done the exact same thing. He packed those lunches. He chased after Izuku, trying to give him the same support he knew All Might would've needed if he was the same age as Izuku.

It's why he put on that suit and fought All For One, even if it meant stalling and not defeating.

Because All Might is beyond his quirk, the same way Izuku is. He has the heart of a true hero.

The reason Izuku probably managed to survive those eight years without an ability to fight alongside his class- was because All Might was likely there beside him, both of them sharing the loss of their power after being at the front of the field. And they both know the importance of sharing their strength, their true strength, with future generations.

It was the strength of their hearts that put All Might and Deku above the rest.

headcanon that gojo is actually a massive nerd. if he had to go to university, he would probably major in mathematics just for the fun of it.

he has to run so many mathematical calculations in his head on a moment’s notice just to use his technique. i imagine he geeks out over numbers and whatnot. i bet his passwords are like the answers to some freak equation that only true nerds could know. he’d probably say shit like “yeah my favorite equation is the cauchy-goursat theorem. it’s an important statement about line integrals. it can be used to show that every function that is analytic on a simply connected domain has an antiderivative on that domain. isn’t that insane? that’s insane lol.”

omegaverse may be for the freaks, but have you considered that its also a political commentary on divided power structures, patriarchy, gender roles, societal expectations, rape culture, and intersectionality in gender dynamics?

all while being for the freaks!

HELLO

happy Thursday the 20th