Jokes Aside, The Megumi Hate In The Jjk Community Has Gotten Completely Ridiculous And It's Not Even

wherever you are

hey have you ever made a post about what changes you would make to bnha to make the story more cohesive and less *gestures vaguely*

Hi @trulyisawesome 👋,

Great question! Please be aware that there's some spoilers below and that some of what I have to say may be an unpopular opinion.

It is also rather disjointed as this became a bit of a rant / brainstorm.

So here's a list of what changes I would make to MHA.

Give Bakugou proper consequences - such as having Aizawa expel him right away as soon as he makes to attack Midoriya. It would highlight the message straight away that bullies and abusers can't be heroes as well as the fact that power isn't everything.

Change Izuku's hero name to Dekiru - not Deku. I know some people like the reclaimation of this insult but I'm not one of them. Having Bakugou's insulting nickname meaning 'worthless' be instead changed to Dekiru meaning 'you can do it' fits more with Izuku's character. How he is an underdog who despite the odds never stopped trying with his dream.

Make Shigaraki Tomura the 'rival' as well as the 'villain' of the story. Think about it. What are rivals in these Shonens meant to do? To challenge the Protagonist and inspire them to become stronger. Bakugou in canon just tears Midoriya down relentlessly calling him "Deku" and calling the OFA holders "worthless nobodies" there's nothing inspiring about that. However - Shigaraki. He definitely could challenge Midoriya (both in views and power) and inspire him to become stronger. He's also shown to think of Midoriya constantly (separate to AFO's influence which is huge) so Midoriya could easily challenge (both views wise and in terms of power) and inspire him. Plus more interactions between these two would have done them wonders.

I would have Midoriya be the one to be kidnapped by the League rather than Bakugou. With Shiggy constantly thinking of him I believed this would happen, that Shig would try and fail to recruit Midoriya upon finding out he's a 'late bloomer'. It would also make a contrast between that moment and Izuku trying to save Shigaraki later because at that point they've both reached out to each other. And the whole narrative of 'saving Shigaraki' feels less forced.

Build up Shigaraki either as the main villain taking up AFO's villianous legacy like how Izuku is taking AM's heroic legacy or build up his redeemability by having him question what he was taught by his 'Sensei.' Either of these routes would be better than the inner child that is crying B.S. It neatly sidesteps all of the fact that Shigaraki canonically does not feel remorse or wish to change for any of deaths he caused. It is poor writing to try to redeem a character by throwing a pity party for them because they have suffered rather than addressing 'Do they want to be saved? Do they want to do better and change?' With Shigaraki, he wants to be saved from All for One but does he want to change or feel regret? Canonically, no. He uses Nomu's with no guilt. He kills people with no guilt. All he wants is destruction.

Don't redeem Endeavor - here's the thing. When Hori went down this route several things went wrong. Shoto lost his relevance as a main character and it became 'the Endeavor Show.' So instead, I would explore Shoto's POV growing separate from his Dad as well as reconnecting with both his siblings and his mum again as well as exploring their autonomous POV's. In canon, Hori scapegoated both Dabi and Rei to shift blame off of him which was a mess and muddles the messaging. Endeavor is meant to the symbol of the corrupt heroics 'redeeming him' undermines that.

Make Stain have a point. A controversial opinion but Stain in theory does have a point because there corrupt heroes (*cough* Endeavor *cough*) however the heroes Stain is shown to hurt do seem to be those he should like I.e Tensei Iida (who in the Spin Off Vigilantes is shown to be a good hero.) Give Stain targets that make sense I.e make a hero who is being corrupt, doing bad and being bad and have Stain hurt them. At the moment he just appears to hunt those that aren't All Might and dont emulate him.

Show Heroes / The Hero commission being corrupt more. Sure we have 'the optimist and murderer' Hawks as an example, Nagant who is in a few chapters but this corruption is meant to be a systemic issue. How the HPSC ruled and how the heroes have to bow to them is never fully explored I hate that (I actually wouldn't mind these guys being the actual bad guys of the series and the villians being the ones speaking out against them.)

I would establish Nagant as a character earlier. I would have Izuku be a fan of hers and I would have Hawks be mentored by her to support her place in the story and the impact of what happens to her by showing established characters effected by her and care for her. Since canonically it feels like Hori dropped her in the story out of nowhere.

Don't make Geten a Himura or reveal this earlier. Again. What was the point of this revelation? I could have seen this and been more open to it if it were revealed in the MVA arc. I would either have Geten rant maniacally about the purity and strength of the Himura Ice perhaps to parallel Endeavor's lust for power while Dabi stares at him shocked or not go down this route at all. Since now, it feels out of place and shoe horned in out of nowhere. And the incest stuff... I get that this sort of thing would happen in a world of quirks but what does it add? Rei is now canonically a product of incest - and what does that do? Narratively wise it nothing at all except give Rei's situation a whole other layer of ICK.

I would not give Dabi ice. What was the point of that revealation? His whole suffering comes down to the fact that he wasn't born perfect. That through Endeavor's quirk marriage he was born with a quirk that didn't suit his body and constantly harmed himself with his fire. Yet even so Touya used and continued to train his fire because Endeavor built up his sense of self as only his successor / how good he was with his fire then tore that away. Giving Dabi ice as a reaction to his near death state does what narratively? Shows Endeavor should have kept hurting / training Dabi when his quirk starts to hurt him? The whole point of Dabi's story should have been that he shouldn't have to be born "perfect" to be worthy of love yet the narrative robs him of that.

I would also either erase Dabi's kill count entirely or I would have it so that he accidentally killed those in the orphanage with his escape. And counted them in his 30 kills. This move I feel like would make him more sympathetic. It feels like Hori gave Dabi a kill count of random civilians to undermine him / his point against Endeav. Having him blame himself for the deaths of those in the orphanage (and them be a majority of his 30 kills) helps his redeemability because it proves despite his words that he still feels things and is in fact emotionally repressing things due to trauma.

Build up Toga Himiko as a sympathetic villian from the get go instead of a "Blood Yandere" or just make her a full irredeemable villian. With Toga from the start I would give her internal conflict about killing others, give her guilt about taking lives to feed her addiction to blood, make her try not to take lives /her killings accidental before she loses more and more of herself to the thirst for blood which then Ochaco could 'save' her from by reminding her what she wants is genuine connection/ help. Or I'd have her be a full unrepentant villian that needs to be stopped.

Explore the full consequences of Twice's death on the League and proper rammifications for Hawks. Or Don't kill Twice - redeem him instead. I like Twice, I feel like he's one of the best and most sympathetic villains Hori has ever written. Therefore I am miffed that canonically the League's feelings (outside Toga's) haven't been explored on Twice's death when they all, even Shig and Dabi, seemed to be fond of him at least. I am also annoyed that Hawks isn't even looked down on for this decision and didn't lose anything. No one is sideyeing him for deliberately stabbing a mentally ill man in the back? He gets his wings back despite Dabi burning them off? Or instead of killing Twice I'd have him be captured by Hawks instead and receive therapy.

Explore the process of the creation of an intelligent Nomu. I would either make Shirakumo 'alive' somehow being making Kurogiri an alter of him which the Doctor tortured out of him then brainwashed. OR I would explore Kurogiri's internal thoughts realising that he is a sentient corpse and exploring a full identity crisis for him, still wanting to be a hero and reconnect with his old friends but also wishing to save Shigaraki from AFO. That would be more powerful than what we got.

Give Nedzu, Momo and all the intelligent characters back their brains. Hori doesn't write intelligent characters well, everyone does what he wants them to do for the sake of plot. I would have them tackle the problem and put their characters first when they think things through and make the plot bend to them rather than vice versa.

Make AFO a proper threatening villain and a consistent threat or replace him as the main big bad. - Not sure how to elaborate but some of AFO's decisions in the recent arcs have been laughably stupid to the point of extreme annoyance. So I would either write him off after Kamino or keep him a consistent threat.

I would also explore Dr Giraki / Ujiko as a big bad alongside AFO and the horror of the Nomu condition. These are puppeteered corpses! People's dead bodies! And yet the heroes even upon knowing this are still kicking them around like volleyballs. There's no attempt to save the High ends even after realising Kurogiri's condition. So I would change that. I would have the heroes want to treat these creatures with respect. And only kill as a last resort.

Make Nedzu an actual character. Nedzu has a very interesting premise, a creature, who hates humans, with a very high IQ in charge of a school. Why is this? Because Hori said so in canon. I would actually explore why - does he actually want control and influence over how some of the most powerful heroes will turn out like - I think yes. So I would explore his morally grey tendencies and flesh him out.

Allow all the 1A girls to be both useful and intelligent. Momo especially has an OP quirk, an OP intelligent stat yet Hori never allows her to be as useful or intelligent as she should be. Jiro, Hagakure and Froppy also have OP quirks - yet they are under utilised and unexplored in what capabilities they could do.

Make Aizawa less of a bad teacher and more of a hardass with a heart of gold. (This will be an unpopular opinion.) I am firm in the belief that Aizawa's methods are deeply flawed and canonically he is not a good homeroom teacher at all. I would remove his 'expulsion record' (doing that would literally ruin lives even with the retcon of it only being on paper because that black mark would stay there.) I would change it instead so he moves the classes he deems to have no potential to Gen Ed so that there is no black mark nonsense and the students with potential could earn their way back into the course via the sports festival. I would change the "logical ruse" nonsense which would only breed trust issues in his students IRL to him being straight forward with the goals but having the activities have secret targets too (like the whole concept of hero points in the entrance exam.) I would also erase him falling asleep all the time because that doesn't support the notion that he cares about these kids. These changes would lead to him being a better teacher and would make more sense canonically as his teaching methods are meant to come from his trauma around Oboro's death.

I would either erase Aizawa's mentorship with Shinsou entirely or I would have Shinsou get further into the sports festival and earn his way into 1A that way. Canonically we see Eraser help and mentor Shinsou more than his own students (even the ones who actually need help!) So I would change this by removing the mentorship entirely or having Shinsou join 1A having earnt a spot via the sports festival and having Aizawa help him catch up with everyone else.

Shinsou. I would have him actually be treated as a villain in his backstory. I know we are all used to fanon Shinsou but canon Shinsou isn't abused. Isn't even really bullied bar from a rather justified wariness of 'that quirk is great for a hero. Just don't use it on me, ok?' Which doesn't inspire sympathy if anything it makes you wonder if Shinsou had believed he could coast into the hero course on his powerful quirk and is bitter that he couldn't do that. So I would have him be literally called a villain (literally have his quirks similarities to that of the villain Dictator be called out), I would also have him train outside his quirk to make him more sympathetic. Izuku did with his analysis. Shinsou canonically didn't train at all.

Tone down or Erase Mineta's perversions. I get this is a shonen so there is nearly always a character like this however with Mineta's 'comedy' Hori always goes too far and makes him appear like a budding sexual predator (thankfully he seems to be growing out of this in the later arcs but still.) I'd turn it into him trying and failing to flirt rather than groping people.

Have Midnight only make saucy comments to her peers - this I don't feel like needs further elaboration but the fact that Midnight had said she was turned on by things the students did (even though it's a persona) felt ick to me especially as this character is meant to be a teacher. I would explore her deeper as a character and juxapose her off duty 'more reserved' character vs the hero 'saucy' persona. And have her warn the girls about sexualisation in the hero industry 'women need to use their bodies / sex appeal to get ahead.' Which this new generation of heroes could change that.

I would either not kill Midnight at all or give her a heroic and impactful death. I hated how Midnight died off screen by a meaningless mook, only to be mentioned once again by Mic for Aizawa to shut him up about it. I hated how from here her relevance in the teacher OG friendship group essentially ended as Hori shifted focus hard to KurOboro. I hated how the impact of her death on the students that found her wasn't explored. Midnight died grievously injured and on her knees, Hori didn't bother to even give her a death scene. I would either not kill her at all or have her sacrifice herself heroically to save her students and fully explore the impact of this on everyone.

Explore the UA teachers / how they teach outside of Aizawa and All Might. The series is meant to be 'my hero academia' - So where is the academia? I would have some of the other teachers teaching styles explored as well as the students learning things that come in useful for hero work other than fighting. I.e first aid, villain psychology, quirkless hand to hand fights - all things that would come in useful as a hero other than being good with their quirks. I would also explore these teachers more as characters because I'd love to know more about Vlad King, Mic, Midnight, Thirteen, Ectoplasm and Nedzu.

I would have Endeavor always remain second to All Might. Endeavor in my opinion never deserved the number one spot, he instead deserved to fall from grace after being outed as an abuser. I would have All Might after losing OFA go full 'Iron Man Might' and remind Izuku that he showed Toshi how great of a hero he was without a quirk so Toshi is now taking inspiration from him and showing the whole of Japan how power isn't just from Quirks. It would show AM and Izuku's mentorship and the bond between these characters nicely.

I would either erase Nighteye from the story entirely or change his personality entirely and have him bond with Izuku over being an AM fan too. This I'm not sure if it needs explanation but Nighteye being a bad friend to AM, a bad mentor to Izuku wasn't needed. Aside from his role in Mirio's life and saving Eri he wasn't needed in general- especially not to bring down Izuku's already critically low self esteem.

Eri is too OP - it's narrative breaking. If she can rewind things why hasn't she rewound All Might back to his prime health? Why hasn't she given Aizawa back his eye and leg? Why has Eri only gave Mirio back his quirk? Can she rewind the dead? These are all questions Hori has left dangling because he couldn't be bothered to think of them before he thoughtlessly slotted her into the narrative. I would give her hard limits to her Rewind (such as only being able to rewind a few years or one part of the body at a time) and the drug that Overhaul uses be her power plus trigger to enhance it.

I would leave Mirio quirkless and have him be an awesome hero without Permeation. It would do wonders for the narrative if after losing his quirk Mirio kept working toward being a hero anyway. It would be interesting for both Midoriya and Aoyama to react to this. And for Mirio to have a big brother relationship with Midoriya.

I would give Izuku a proper support group. (I feel like this will be an unpopular opinion.) Class 1A should have been perfect for this role however Hori having them unite with Bakugou against Izuku in the 1A vs Izuku mess, Hori never bothering to develop 1A's friendships most people in 1A don't feel like Midoriya's friends. So I would change that and have them be more of a found family.

I would narratively foreshadow Yuuga as the UA traitor. Yuuga being formerly Quirkless and the UA traitor came out of nowhere. So I would foreshadow it by having him bond with Izuku over "being a late bloomer." I would explore his hesitancy to make friends through this too so Izuku and he would unknowingly bond over a shared Quirkless past. I would also have AFO explode him like he did with Nagant upon finding out Yuuga's treachery. I wouldn't kill Yuuga but this act would make the stakes much more personal for Izuku.

I would narratively develop Midoriya's family. We know so much of the Todoroki's yet so little of the Midoriya's it's criminal. So I would develop both Midoriya Hisashi and Midoriya Inko as people and show the impact of their parenting on Izu. Show Izuku calling his Dad 'overseas' . As well as drop hints about DFO (because I do like that theory but Hori hasn't built up to that well.)

I would tell the stories of the OFA holders instead of having them be plot devices. We know so little of the OFA holders, their motivations, their personalities it's criminal. So I would develop them and tell their stories of what it was like to hold OFA in their time as well as explore First as an actual character. What was it like for each of the holders in their time? Who were each of the holders to each other, all mentees and mentors or best friends, partners? Were any of the holders 'bad' or 'redeemed villains' it looks like everyone was all good which is a waste!!

I would give All Might a proper support group. Think about the people who know his OFA secret, Midoriya, Gran Torino, Nana, Nighteye, Nedzu, Detective Tsukauchi and Recovery Girl. Out of these people; Nana has tragically died in front of All Might, Midoriya is his successor and a child in need of his support and the other four (everyone else except Detective Tsukauchi) supports All Might poorly. (Especially Gran who AM is shown to be afraid of to the point of shaking!) Detective Tsukauchi is the only one who I think actually is shown supporting AM the most. So I would add more supportive characters to AM's circle (like Mic who is shown to be a very good, supportive friend and Inko who is Izuku's mum and is also shown to be a kind and supportive lady.)

I would keep the coherent clear problems in society such as Quirkless Discrimination and Mutant Discrimination shown throughout the story. Hori does a poor job with tackling his themes so I would show more how Quirkless (other than Izu and Aoyama are treated). I would also show Spinner taking offense when Dabi calls him "Lizard" as well as the Police chief taking offence when Shoto calls him a "Mutt." And have more instances like this.

I think this is all the ideas I have for now. Please let me know what you think.

oh my god I binge read sea glass garden last night and the third and fourth chapter DESTROYED ME.

I’m omw to reread the entire fic because it was too good and I KNOW that it’s going to be one of the must-reads of this fandom. I’m literally in love with all your characters (your Tsumiki is so freaking interesting she was READY to get at it with Maki✊🏻) especially your description of Megumi’s situation is killing me, my heart is in pieces. No matter how many stories there are depicting the years before his high school time, there will always be too few idc.

I’m pretty sure it’s canonically stated that Megumi went on missions before being enrolled as a student and that he witnessed the death of at least one comrade, all because he had been bought to be a jujutsu sorcerer. Imagine never having the delusion of a future because you signed your life away to ensure your sister would live happily. Your take on the fact that, maybe, at some point of his life, Megumi didn’t wish to be a jujutsu sorcerer anymore destroys me. I never really thought of it, and he probably never imagined a life for himself where he wouldn’t die as a jujutsu sorcerer either. He was downright begging to be left to die in peace because he couldn’t bear it any longer when he shouldn’t have even gone on missions yet at all😭 And even though his current injuries weren’t caused by a mission, I don’t think he’d be so stupid to try to tame the snake unsupervised a few days after Geto’s death. Like c’mon. It’s all the higher ups fault, because it always is. Damn them. I hope they choke on their rotting teeth😤

ANYWAY I GOT LOST ON THE WAY TO ASK YOU A QUESTION JANSJAJANJAHA I ramble way too much

I noticed the updates have been pretty frequent, so do you have an update schedule with pre-written chapters? No because if you don’t I applaude you for being able to write masterpieces in a few days😩

P.S. I was curious about the meaning of the title and I read your other post about it and it’s so beautiful😭 obviously it’s sad but it also speaks of the determination of humans’ will to survive yk? You are genius😫

No update schedule, unfortunately! I don’t have the self control to not post chapters when I have them. I go on hyperfixation-fueled writing binges and writers block crashes of unending despair. It’s a Whole Thing. Updates tend to come in waves with me. It’ll probably be pretty erratic updates until the story ends. Thank you for reading and for your kind words!

You are speaking my ENTIRE LANGUAGE with Megumi. He is, hands down, the most interesting character in the show to me. His backstory and how it intertwines with his philosophy and approach to morality make him just so unendingly interesting to me.

Like, the Fushiguro siblings and specifically Megumi really were doomed by the narrative from the start. Megumi never really lived in a world where he had a future. Like, the past arc takes place during spring of 2006, and his dad had ditched long enough at that point that he straight up forgot megumi's name. Tsumiki's mom had been gone long enough that Megumi thought she and his dad ran off together, so she probably wasn't around after Toji stopped coming. Megumi was born late December of 2002, so he would have been three then. Tsumiki was, at most, five. And because Gojo didn't go to meet them until after Geto's massacre in late summer of 2007, it was just the two of them for at least a year.

Like, the sheer horror of being two very small children taking care of each other, knowing that the money's running out and that your parents probably aren't coming back. They were living in abject poverty, and Megumi was most likely seeing curses during at least part of this (considering he was right at the age for it and he wasn't all that surprised with Gojo rolling up to tell him his dad was from a magic clan) with no idea what they were, because even if Toji explained anything (which i doubt) the chances of Megumi remembering the explanation aren't great. He's seeing horrifying things every day and doesn't have any support past his sister, who can't see the same.

Tsumiki and Megumi faced parentification at a ludicrously young age. We know that Tsumiki most likely took a pretty strong caretaking/maternal role for megumi from an early age, but the fact that baby Megumi's only question when Gojo found him and made his offer was about Tsumiki's happiness suggests that the caretaking wasn't one sided. Making decisions about your future based on the needs of your family is a very adult concern, and it was Megumi's only concern. While Tsumiki was canonically far more open with her affection and care (grumpy baby Megumi refusing to hold hands, you have my whole heart), Megumi definitely loved her deeply already and was modeling his actions with her interests in mind. They must have both been shouldering the load of raising and protecting the other for as long as they can remember. Tsumiki and Megumi were likely barely surviving day to day. They were already shouldering the stresses of grown ups and likely didn't have any of those childish, starry-eyed dreams about what it would be like when they grew up.

Even when Gojo enters the scene, the parentification didn't end. While he does take on a paternal/caretaking role, his intro into their lives very much heralded a time where Megumi became the family's compulsory breadwinner. I won't break down my thoughts on how Gojo probably wasn't the one who came up with the deal of Megumi being collateral for their survival since I already did it in another post, but however it came about, it doesn't change the fact that Megumi knows that he's the one his family's survival hinges on from a stupidly young age.

We know that Megumi was training/working as a jujutsu sorcerer pre-canon. Gojo straight up tells him at age 4 that he's going to need him to work hard, he references the fact that he's been training megumi for a while in season 1, Megumi admits to nobara that he's lost a comrade on a mission before Yuuji (though Yuuji was the first that was his age), and Megumi knows a lot of the people in this world. By the time canon starts, he's been training with Kamo since before Kamo entered school, so for 3-4 years minimum, and Mai knows him as well. Kamo straight up says that Megumi's got more talent than the head of the Zenin clan by his first year, and his Grade 2 status at entrance means he's considered a prodigy. There's also a lot of little scenes that suggest that Megumi's been doing this a while. When Gojo's talking to Yuuji about the detention center fight, he makes a few comments about how Megumi likely understood the reality of the fight and just how bad their odds were better than the other two, suggesting 1) megumi has the experience already to do that and 2) Gojo has witnessed him in the field enough to get a sense of how he evaluates situations. He's been doing this a while.

But the thing is that he's also passively suicidal the entirety of season 1. And that's probably because he spent his entire life believing he was going to die young.

He probably doesn't think of it as being passively suicidal, but he absolutely is. The sacrifice bunt vs Yuuji's homerun in season 1 is SUCH A GOOD MICROCOSM OF HIS CHARACTER.

Yuuji has the blind confidence of a very young god who was never informed that there were other gods that were older and more powerful and will kick his fucking ass. Like, he will be in Sukuna's throne room after the man ripped his heart out and Literally Killed Him and still be like "I will beat your entire ass." No doubt. No hesitation. I simply love him.

Megumi, meanwhile, walks into fights knowing he will find one that he can't win. Yuuji thinks he can beat anyone, but Megumi defaults to the assumption that he can't win in a way that is really suggestive of a very, very deep underlying mental issue.

I don't know if you're anime-only or if you know what the "trump card" gojo refers to during his training scene with Megumi, so I'll confine it to what's already appeared in the anime. Throughout the anime, there's multiple times where it's alluded to the fact that Megumi has some kind of "trump card" where he can take his enemy down with him. Gojo specifically refers to it as "dying to win." Sukuna even recognized to some degree that he was pulling it during their fight and called it "burning through your own life." Whatever it is, it's a sacrifice play. It's taking someone down with him.

And we see throughout the anime multiple times where he almost pulls it. Sukuna is the biggest example, but he likely almost pulled it twice in the fight against Hanami during the Goodwill Event arc. When Hanami first confronts them, Megumi immediately says "Get Inumaki out of here" to Kamo.

And that's fucking weird. Inumaki's a semi-grade one sorcerer, higher than him. He's his very experienced senpai. He's no slouch in a fight. Kamo is older than all of them, has been training his entire life, and is a first grade sorcerer. Out of all of them, Megumi was the baby kohai who should have been leaning on the older students. Instead, he's trying to get them out of the line of fire. He probably saw an immeasurably powerful special grade and decided to pull the same trump card he almost pulled in the fight against Sukuna as soon as Inumaki and Kamo were safe.

Later, when Hanami has Maki by the throat, after he was already hit by her root attack that would kill him if he used cursed energy, he makes the same hand signals he did during the Sukuna fight while thinking about how he's the one who has to make the sacrifice play. He was absolutely killing himself to win.

And that mentality makes so much sense when you consider that Megumi already made the sacrifice play with him and his sister all those years ago.

He's spent his entire life locked into being a sorcerer. It's the collateral keeping himself and his sister alive. He doesn't have a way out. His future employment is collateral for an already-accrued debt; he just doesn't have the option to quit and do something else the way everyone else does. And the thing about being a sorcerer is that the mortality rate is not awe-inspiring, to the point where the Kyoto students canonically tried not to get close to each other because they knew that a decent number of them would be dying young and it would hurt less.

Megumi's not stupid, and he's been doing this for a long time. He's probably been reconciling with his own likely violent death for a long time by the time canon starts, and it really fucking shows with how he approaches fights until the bridge fight. There's something so tragic and sad about that to me. Like, what age was he when he realized this life would probably kill him? When he realized that he would never have a way out?

When you bring in his own morality structure and philosophical approach to life, that entire mindset becomes so fucking interesting. Because Megumi's plainly fucking furious that people did this to him.

Megumi's middle school bullying days is both hilarious and endlessly fascinating in the context of his history. His entire thing is that he hates bad people and believes that we’re born into a fundamentally unjust world. Specifically, he hates people that look at the vulnerable and lack empathy for them, to the point where he ended up going out of his way to beat up every single bully in his middle school an unilaterally enforce peace. He had an entire dramatic speech about how he was doing this because they had hurt others—the worlds based on social construct, "please don't kill me and I won't kill you." They had broken that to make themselves feel strong, and if they did it again in front of him, he'd kill them. All that jazz. And it's really interesting that he never once looks down on the people getting bullied. There's a huge emphasis on strength as tied to value in JJK--Sukuna and Gojo being some of the biggest examples--but Megumi only looks down on a lack of empathy and compassion, not people who are physically weak.

Once that's contextualized with the fact that the person who was supposed to protect him abandoned him and sold him to some very bad people, it becomes a lot more tragic. He's doomed by the narrative and he's self aware of the fact that he's doomed. He spends his entire middle school years kicking the shit out of people who take advantage of people because they can, and I personally think that's because that's exactly what happened to him when he was a kid. There's always a bigger fish, and some pretty fucking big fish have him in a corner. But he's the biggest fish in the pond of his middle school, and he does not put up with people who hurt others just because they can.

He spends his last years before becoming a full time sorcerer acting as the sort of person that never was there for him as a child, and there's something so tragic about that to me. Megumi just reads as someone who's already accepted he's doomed and is so angry he wasn't saved.

Even his name has tinges of tragedy to me. Like, it's the difference between "blessing" and "blessed."

On his face, Megumi seems like he's blessed. He won the genetic lottery. He was born with one of the most powerful techniques in the franchise, the one that the Zenin clan desperately wants. It's rare enough that no one else alive has inherited it. It's suggested that it's the Zenin equivalent to the Six Eyes, and Gojo's the one who's always saying how he alone is blessed by heaven. Even Kamo, who isn't even Zenin, commented during their fight on how much people wanted someone like Maki or Mai to get it instead. I won't comment on manga events, but as it proceeds, it becomes even more obvious just how valuable his technique is considered to be.

But Megumi doesn't seem to particularly care about his technique.

He said at one point that, in middle school, he didn't really want to be a jujutsu sorcerer because he couldn't imagine who he'd want to save (the fact that his first act in the series is to save Yuuji is another discussion entirely that I am so mentally ill about). Megumi spends the series surrounded by people who are extremely impressed by and focused on his technique, but for Megumi? His technique and its value seems to be the thing that trapped him. No one was ever going to let him live in peace, and he was young enough that he had no real way to protect his own interests.

He never got to be a kid who got to dream about what he'd be when he grew up. Other kids got to say they'd be an astronaut, or an actor, or a veterinarian or whatever, and he has known that he would be lucky to not die in wizard school his entire childhood. He is a blessing for other people, for the Zenin who want his technique, for the higher ups who effectively own him until he repays his debt, but he's not blessed. He's just valuable sea glass with collectors circling. He hates his name, and I think he hates what he is as well. He's an extraordinarily strong willed person who hates people who take advantage, but he's spent his entire life with a boot on his neck. that must piss him off.

I think his relationship with jujutsu sorcerer would have potentially been a lot better if it had been a choice for him, but he's someone who intensely values control over himself who has been controlled by the circumstances of his birth his entire life. There are all these tiny ways in the show that he tries to exert control over his own circumstances because he just doesn't have a lot of control over his life and it's just amazing character design.

He's just so tragic to me. I am so mentally unwell over him.

Tsumiki and the fact that she was fully about to fight Maki for a hot minute was a lot harder to settle on, mostly because we just don't get a lot about her. But I actually kind of like those kinds of characters? I get to play more in those sandboxes and have more freedom with the character because I'm just using what's little known about them as a bouncing off point and making shit up for the rest.

And with Tsumiki we just do not have a huge amount because she's in a magic coma when canon starts. What little we have is coming through Megumi, who is a naturally unreliable narrator when it comes to her. Like, in his mind, her primarily defines her as "a good person," and that makes a lot of sense when you consider that this is his big sister who was, effectively, the only source of stability and care he had growing up and is almost completely lost to him by the start of canon. he's the last person i would expect to be an reliable narrator about her.

Fanon (at least what I've seen) seems to have translated what we've seen to her into "kind natured good girl" which I don't entirely agree with? I just don't think those kind of people exist. Like, the one's who are all sunshine and rainbows and kind thoughts all the time. Everyone has negative emotions; it's just a matter of how they deal with them.

Also what little concrete we have on her doesn't necessarily suggest she fits that kind of eternally-caring good girl motif anyway.

There's the big example, where she says she would much rather think about the ones she loves rather than curse anyone. This very notably isn't an idealistic "everyone has good in them" rationalization, but it's more "I have better things to do with my time." Forgiving bad people is a trait that Megumi attributes to her, but he's an unreliable narrator about her, so it may be accurate or it may not be. There's a difference between forgiving someone and taking a policy of non-interference.

It's also suggested that she doesn't actually look down on the absence of forgiveness--she actually comments pretty favorably on it. She says that Megumi's refusal to forgive people is a part of his kindness. This suggests that, even though she goes after him for fighting, it's not some kind of perfectly kind "forgiveness is the right thing to do" rationalization. She recognizes the nuance in Megumi's actions and his anger. The thing she really gets on him for is the fighting itself, not the anger, and fighting 1) has wider impacts on Megumi (physically, mentally, emotionally, on his record, etc) and 2) it's suggested that she gets on him because of these wider impacts. We never actually see her discuss it at all in terms of the people he beats up, and Megumi thinks, in retrospect, that she was picking him to care about the same way that he picks who he saves. Again, he's unreliable, so this may be true and it may not be, but I find her character so interesting if it is true, especially in light of her quote about not cursing people because she'd rather think of her loved ones.

That takes Tsumiki from the kind of "prototypical good girl" character type into the realm of someone who has picked to only care about certain people and approach the rest of the world with polite indifference. She doesn't share Megumi's anger at the world, but she doesn't exactly approach it with starry-eyed idealism either.

A much better example of starry-eyed idealism within JJK is actually Yuuji (pre-Junpei) or Geto (pre-genocidal breakdown) than Tsumiki--and the narrative immediately deconstructs both cases of starry-eyed idealism, suggesting that it doesn't genuinely tie being a "good person" to those approaches to morality.

Both Yuuji and Geto kind of spout like, baby's first philosophy class styles of idealism. And I don't mean that in a derogatory way towards either of them--they're both highly empathetic teenagers who care a lot about the world and people in it who are trapped in a system that is fundamentally hostile. Yuuji has a stance of "even considering killing would affect my soul" and Geto has a stance of "I exist for the sake of protecting those weaker than me," both of which aren't wholly without merit, but both are overly simplistic and lack nuance. Which makes sense, because they're both a teenager's approach to morality. In a safer environment, they could have grown in nuance and had their world views challenged safely. but the system they're both existing in isn't safe and never has been--so Yuuji ends up having to confront his stance on killing when he has to put literal children trapped in inexplicable torment out of their misery, and Geto goes off his rocker entirely.

In contrast, Tsumiki really isn't as idealistic as either of them, from what little we see of her. She never once gets close to their levels of "I want to save everyone" syndrome--it's straight up that she's picked her people to care about and has better things to do with her time than waste it on hate and anger. Contextualizing it within her background, that reads more like a survival strategy than being a sparkly kind perfect good girl.

She was a very young girl who had to shoulder a huge amount of responsibility at a young age. She was stuck in terrible circumstances, living well below the poverty line, with her only support being a brother that was even younger than her. We don't know anything about her mom or bio dad, or how much she knows about/remembers Toji, but it's interesting that Toji's approach to life is the antithesis of Tsumiki's.

Toji was so caught up in his own bitterness towards how he was treated that a big part of why he took Riko's assassination was so he could prove he was stronger than *checks notes* a sixteen year old miracle baby and his repressed boyfriend. In the end, the fact that he was caught up in his bitterness was his downfall, and he said it himself: he normally would have fucked off the second Gojo showed up after the assassination was done. He directly ignored his instincts to prove a monkey like him could take on the pinnacle of jujutsu sorcery, and that's what killed him.

There's not enough in canon to tell us either way if tsumiki had any impressions of the adults in her life, but I honestly really like the idea of her looking at the a life where the adults are neglecting her because they've been consumed by their own anger and hate and purposefully deciding to not let it consume her as well. To discard that kind of stuff, not because she thinks there's good in everyone or that it's horribly wrong to have negative emotions, but because she has the people she loves and she's building a life with them by sheer force of will. She's fleeing the teeth of a beast, not approaching the world through rose-colored glass.

For another thing, we have legitimately two actions that she's canonically taken in the series. One was nail Megumi in the back of the head with a milk carton during a fight, the other was fling her fucking body off a bridge with a homemade bungee chord. Girl's probably not a nun.

I ended up deciding that the core of Tsumiki's character needed to be that had a, for lack of a better word, selfish way of loving people. Not to say that she acts selfishly (if anything, canon shows she's intensely selfless when it comes to the people she loves), but just that she's decided to conserve her efforts and care to center around the people she loves and not care about the whole world and everything in it. In her mind, Megumi's kindness is in part because he's angry on the behalf of other people, which is a trait she doesn't share. She cares about her brother and just straight up doesn't have the time or resources for everyone else. Megumi is her landmine.

There's not enough in canon to contradict this reading of her, which makes her fun to write. So she's a relatively nice and polite girl until her brother's in danger, in which case she's immediately stealing cars and about to throw hands with a girl holding a polearm. She's so fun.

kevin day is like. he's a child star. he's experienced an incomprehensible amount of labor abuse and inhumane working conditions. he was taken from his home country by a close relative with bad intentions. he's a cult baby. he grew up in captivity underground. every bad thing that could happen to a human being has happened to him at some point. he is happier than most of us when he can kick a ball for a living.

very interesting to me that the big three of the current hero gen in mha - shouto, midoriya and bakugo - are often portrayed as also being the closest in a lot of fics bc it's like. you've got shouto's two best friends as a boy with a volatile personality fuelled by his blind ambition and desperation to be the best, and a boy whose quirk destroys his body. like if you combined two of shouto's best friends you'd get touya but we're just not supposed to redeem him. okay

Lev St. Valentine

Kevin Day pov fic rec list that no one asked for but I’m gonna make cuz I’ve been really feeling the Kevin Day brainrot lately

Canon and post-canon:

how will i know (when it’s gonna come back round?) by nebulousviolet

Neil says something to Andrew – Kevin doesn’t catch it, too busy gathering his things, but what he does catch is the look Allison gives Matt, and the way Matt’s eyebrows knit together in response.

And Neil – Neil doesn’t say anything to Kevin. Later, Kevin will wonder why. Later, Kevin will wonder if there was even anything to say.

The 1st half of Baltimore from Kevin’s pov

biting down by pipe_dream

kevin learns that in order to understand something, you have to allow yourself to learn, and talks to andrew about neil.

Good Kevin and Andrew friendship content

Proof of Life by mostly_maudlin/ @mostlymaudlin

Realistically, Kevin knows he is safe now. No one is after him anymore. No one is plotting to drag him down into the hole he’s clawed out of. He has people who will fight to keep it this way.

A morning in the life of Kevin Day, 10/10 characterization all around here

202607 by abramdeath/ @abramdeath

The Olympics and his life collide into one. Kevin is just trying to win gold with the people he trusts most in the world.

(or, a roulette of dreaming with your eyes open, loving too hard, and winning.)

Kevin has a sports anime flashback moment at the Olympics

Au:

Signs Of Life by moonix/ @annawrites

In which Kevin works the graveyard shift, Andrew is the witching hour cryptid, and Neil guards the ice-cream freezer.

Kevin works at a convenience store and gets befriended by his two strangest customers

Fuck Riko: The Musical by justwhatialwayswanted/ @birlwrites

“Okay, but we still need a show,” Dan says. “A very cheap one.”

“Andrew,” Aaron says.

“No,” Andrew says.

“You didn’t even wait for me to ask my question.”

“I know what you’re going to ask, and it’s a stupid idea.”

Neil looks back and forth between them and says, “But it would make Riko so mad. You could write him out of the show.”

“Fuck.” Andrew sighs. “I don’t know anything about music.”

“I do,” Jean says, so quietly that for a second Kevin thinks he’s imagined it.

“Just to be totally clear,” Nicky says. “Are we talking about Andrew and Jean writing us a musical?”

*

or: What happens if you piss off every other theater kid in your very insular theater kid friend group?

If you’re Riko Moriyama, they write and perform an entire musical as revenge.

Absolutely unhinged theater kid au

who has the worst kevin complex among the aftg men.

riko is patient number 0 we have to hand it to him every time. i hate you i love you you're my other half you're a pet you're a footstool i'm jealous of you i need you i made an altar for you out of our old room i'm going to force you to see me live out our dreams you will never ever ever ever be able to leave me the people who tried to take you from me will suffer :)

i feel like we tend to forget about this when we talk about kevin