A Moral Scapegoat For Who?

my brother's keeper

I find Endeavor giving up on Toya once he found out that his son's quirk (Blueflame) was self-destructive to be, not only out-of-character, but incredibly stupid.

Endeavor is loaded, he bought Rei. Why not buy Toya special support gear costume with cooling? Aoyama's belt, Mirio's suit, and f*cking Mecha Might basically suggest that support gear can do anything as long as the plot demands it.

Besides that, has Endeavor literally never heard of endurance training? That's literally the only type of training Class 1A does most of the time. Just have Rei on standby if anything goes wrong. It's not like being a human cooler would be the most degrading thing she's suffered.

It's like the first time Aizawa criticized Deku for injuring himself with One for All. Did they try thinking of solutions before trying to get them to give up ?

Also, it's kind of messed that Toya's inability fulfill Endeavor's goals is because Rei, the bought mother. It could've easily been Endeavor's fault, like his intense training at a young age ruined Toya's developing body.

OK, you see, the thing is you're thinking about this logically. Like, Endeavor has been many things, but 'rational' isn't one of them. Deeply toxic and twisted, on the other hand?

You need to think like someone desperate to prove themselves, filled with about eight superiority and inferiority complexes, and yet so resigned to his own inferiority that he ended up needing to make someone else to do it for him. The fact that Toya hurt himself? It meant he was weak. That's it. He was weak for being unable to use his powers safely.

And the second he was weak, he was no longer useful, because he could no longer beat All Might.

(Nevermind, of course, that there was nothing he could do to make someone able to beat All Might, because All Might and All For One are both setting breaking hacks that single handedly break the balance of power. Even a super Shoto with the blue flames of Dabi and, like, absolute zero ice, perfectly balanced and able to withstand his own power, would get casually bitchslapped by All Might. That's how overwhelmingly broken he is.)

Beyond that, it's worth pointing out that, 1, Mecha Might is, again, setting breaking bullshit, even in the bullshit casually tinkertech setting that is MHA, and that 2, while Quirk training is a thing (presumably that's how Dabi was able to be as high functioning as he was with his... well, entire everything, that he grinded with his Quirk until he was able to work beyond the pain), there are limits without Awakenings... and let's be honest, Awakenings are just how Hori tried to explain people's various power ups to try and keep them relevent in the ever increasing clusterfuck of his story. No amount of training would make it so that Toya would not burn himself; training like that increases limits, but it doesn't change how the Quirk works.

There's basiclly no reason, in setting, for someone not to suit themselves entirely in support tech to be a purely tech driven hero, beyond institutional culture that is built around people's Quirks. I can't even say it's expensive, because hell, Mei just pulls them out on the regular, and there's every reason to think she was making them even before she actually got into UA, instead of somehow learning to make them within a week or two of getting into school.

The fact that support tech is so damn underused is almost criminal, especially for people with more limited abilities; can you imagine if Kirashima, with his hardening, was given some kind of ranged tool? An air blast or something?

You're also ignoring all his complexes in implying that, 1, Rei could do anything, when literally she only exists to be a breeder, and I don't think he's ever shown imagining her able to do... anything helpful.

And, most importantly, 2: Endeavor always blames everyone but himself. Always. Even in the 'canon' (I have opinions on the sheer level of retcon there) version of events, with how soft that is on Endeavor, Endeavor sets up Toya to have a psychotic break. He isolates him, orients his entire life around one thing (surpassing All Might) and then takes away the very foundation he built his life on, before basiclly ignoring him and never trying to fix him afterwords; of course the kid is messed up! Yet, all this time, he looks back, and all he can think is, 'I couldn't stop him! Toya was so driven, Toya wouldn't stop hurting himself, Toya wouldn't listen to me!'

Toya, Toya, Toya. Everything wrong with Dabi's story was blamed on Toya, even though he was an actual child and Endeavor was the one with all the control in the family; his recollection of things was so warped you could see how it contracted with literally everyone's experience of events... Of course he was going to blame Rei over himself! Rei is the person he bought, and he's the top hero, rich and famous! Nothing is ever his fault!

(Also, I have opinions on Aizawa, and they're overwhelmingly negative. The fact that Aizawa wanted to ditch Izuku first thing is a result of his overwhelming biases and prejudices..... exactly like Endeavor. MHA has this thing of making massively biased authority figures that are obviously so and then going through fire to protect them from their own actions.)

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hi you are literally my favorite fanfic author and I love your writing and characterizations so much!!

Hiii thank you, you are too kind!! I’m so glad you like my works!!

(Also if y’all have preferences as to fandom with this ask game let me know. If you’re not on anon I usually try to figure out what fandom you’re following me from so that way you aren’t getting a response about a fandom you’re not a part of but if you have a request from a fandom I’ve written for before I’ll do my best to pick an unwritten fic from that fandom. Absent direction we’ll go with Jujutsu Kaisen for this one since I’m hyper fixated on that right now)

Fic where Fushiguro is unleashed into junpeis school like an invasive super predator.

Yuuji accidentally sees Junpei’s cigarette burns from the bullying while he’s hanging out at his house. And he’s instantly like Come To Jujutsu High This Is No Longer A Murder Investigation It Is Now A Recruitment You Are My Boy Now And Forever Ijichi This Is Junpei Hes Getting In The Car Too Junpei You Are Getting In The Car Too and he gently kidnaps junpei away to the school. He's so damn nice about the kidnapping that everyone cooperates with it. He's just that lovely of a guy.

Nanami: I’m sorry did you not only tell our prime suspect about the investigation but also bring him with you to the school

Yuuji: you don’t have all the facts

Nanami: which are?

Yuuji: I love him

The thing is that Yuuji sweeping him up to the school with him butterfly effects it so that way they discover sukunas finger before his mom is killed by a curse. This also means that Mahitos in the wind and they’re still trying to lure him out. Gojo and Nanami think that Junpei as bait will work, but Yuuji refuses to let him go back to a school where he’s getting hurt alone That’s His Boy Now.

At this point Gojo decides that he can instigate the funniest deep cover mission of his career and says that fushiguro is PERFECT for this job.

He will not explain why.

Yuuji, bouncing with excitement: what do I say to him I haven’t seen him since I got my heart ripped out and died in front of him

Junpei: wait what

Yuuji: I’m so excited

Junpei: go back to the heart thing can we go back to the heart thing

Fushiguro is pulled for a deep cover mission and gets the fun, confetti filled surprise that it’s with his dead best friend.

There’s a lot of shouting.

He refuses to do anything until Kugisaki is brought in too and told yuuji is alive, are you fucking kidding.

There is more shouting.

Now all three of them are going undercover in Junpeis school as a protection detail, ostensibly against mahito but really, it’s because of the bullies. Yuuji has Marked Them For Death. That’s His Boy Forever And Always. He’s only known Junpei for a day but if Anything Happens To Junpei He Will Kill Everyone In This Room And Then Himself.

and so the Junpei Protection Squad is born.

THEIR PLAN IS THUS:

They don’t care about their records. This is a deep cover mission. They go to fucking wizard school. They’re taking junpei in the divorce. There are no consequences for their actions. They can and will cut loose over his safety.

If anyone so much as looks at him weird Yuuji and Kugisaki will descend on them like vengeful gods and kick their fucking ass.

Meanwhile fushiguro will remove junpei, who they’re so happy is here junpei we’re all SO HAPPY you’re in the squad now, from the situation and summon a dog for him for love and happiness. Junpei Fushiguro can summon dogs at will they know it’s the sickest fucking power ever it’s so cool.

That’s it that’s the plan there are no further details to the plan.

The thing is while Fushiguro is the angry emo child of them all, he’s also weirdly the politest of them all? Like, if they’re taking down a purse snatcher, yuuji and Kugisaki are the ones wrestling them to the ground while fushiguro is politely returning the bag. They dont think he has it in him for delinquency. he's just a polite dude even if he's an angry one. he's very organized. he reads nonfiction for fun. he's not a delinquent. He will be in charge of leaving the scene with Junpei so he doesn’t have to become a Delinquent like them.

Fushiguro, who has figured out that gojo pulled him for this mission because he was the most notorious delinquent for thirty miles in middle school: *sweating*

THE ISSUE IS THUS:

Kugisaki and Yuuji are bad at this

They are completely inexperienced in delinquency and it shows

Dear fucking god the incompetence

What do you MEAN you threw down the gauntlet to some bullies and then let junpei go to the bathroom ALONE

Oh god he has to do everything around here doesn’t he

Junpeis trying his best. He actually feels really weird about this all. On one hand he has friends and is going to wizard school after this? On the other hes the embodiment of an angry schnauzer and doesn’t vibe with being a princess in a tower. But also he’s cornered by like five guys twice his size and doesn’t have a huge amount of options to defend himself. This is when the Squad arrives.

The thing is that one of the bullies cornering him presently was a bully in Fushiguro's middle school, for all of ten minutes, because Fushiguro kicked the ass of every bully in the area and forcibly installed his own regime of peace like an angry sea urchin. The reaction of seeing Fushiguro here, with him well within punching distance, while he's fucking with someone who is apparently a personal friend of Fushiguro Megumi is around the kind of reaction that someone would have during the Resurrection when 72 hours previous they were the guy holding the hammer and nails. he apologizes profusely, cries hard enough to pass out, and has to call his mom to come pick him up. He immediately drops out of that school and is never heard from again.

It makes an impression.

Yuuji: :o

Kugisaki: :o

Fushgiuro: *sweating* we're late for math

This basically is enough on its own to signal a struggle for dominance within the school's bully hierarchy that fushiguro doesn't actually want to be a part of. The sister he never once mentioned before this moment is going to be sad at him if she finds out he did this again. he's trying not to do this again. his sister will be SAD.

But also his delinquent instincts run deep and he succumbs before lunch is over. Fuck it he's returning to his delinquency days and taking over the school. Kugisaki stop filming this.

And Yuuji and Kugisaki would help but somehow it was decided by the rumor mill that they + junpei were Fushguro's mob wives (Yuuji Climbed On Top Of Him and pressed his forehead directly to fushiguro's and said "fushiguro fushiguro what are they talking about what did you DO to them" and everyone decided that he had to be a mob wife to not get his ass kicked for this and Junpei and Kugisaki were picked up by the rumor mill due to proximity) and this is quite frankly the funniest fucking thing that's ever happened to them. actually you know what? YES. they are his mob wives. they are each other's mob wives too. They're living a slice of life student anime bliss while fushiguro is getting in fights behind the school three times a day minimum. they love being mob wives. there's so much power and so little effort and endless potential to tease fushiguro with. they're taking videos for future blackmail.

Of course Mahito eventually has an entire attack, but he puts his filthy bitch hands on fushiguro and sukuna immediately rocks his shit so hard that the curse is simply Blitzed in a matter of seconds.

and then Sukuna has to cover up the fact that he's willing to protect fushiguro so he pretends that this is just a capricious whim because Mahito was annoying and has to save everyone to cover it up. He can be helpful sometimes. Ohhh look at him he's soooo helpful you know what just shut the fuck up and be grateful. he hates all of you.

Kugisaki: so are we going to talk about it

Fushiguro: under no circumstances no

kugisaki: okay but that was WEIRD right

Fushiguro, hasn't been this distressed since the last time he had to deal with sukuna: stop talking about it

Junpei, who no one told about sukuna, has had a long day: sorry who was that. why did he rip off his shirt.

imagine being kevin day, son of exy, born and bred to be a cog in the well-oiled machine that is the edgar allan ravens. all you know being the routine of practice and practice and practice and performance and victory alongside those you call brothers.

-and then one day you wake up in your estranged father's apartment between a bottle of painkillers and a bottle of vodka and there is a knot of bandages where your future used to be. you don't wake up at 4am anymore. you sleep until noon and vomit the remainders of life as you knew it into unfamiliar toilets. you watch orange and white clash against each other from sidelines you haven't touched since you started growing facial hair.

your brother doesn't ask you to come home. you would come if he asked. the days are longer here and the food is too rich. the colors are too harsh, the language barrier is too much. you speak and no one understands.

they feel sorry for you, but not for what you have lost, instead for what you have suffered. you try to show them what belonging means, to sever parts of yourself to fit inside a uniform, but they don't understand the necessity of the blade the way your brothers did. they don't understand that suffering feels religious if you do it right.

the therapist tells you it's survivor's guilt but the only survivors you can see are on the court in black and red and they read your eulogy after the game at a press conference. you are not a survivor in any way that matters anymore. how treacherous your heart is for continuing to beat when you can't even hold your lifeline in your hand without dropping it.

you want to go home but your key doesn't open the same door anymore. you want to sit beside your brother but there is no space on his side of the table. you want to be a raven but you are a fox.

you grieve for connection until there is a knife where your neck guard used to sit. you grieve for your life until a boy offers to show you how it feels to survive. you offer to show him how it feels to live. he tells you he won't sever parts of himself to fit the uniform, but there are telltale bloodstains in the fabric from long before you asked.

you wake up at 4am again. you take turns vomiting in the toilet, you when the alcohol level dips too low and him when his smile runs out. he doesn't speak your language but he understands it. he keeps the car running when you visit the therapist. he keeps an eye on your back to watch the 02 on your jersey turn orange. the colors don't seem as harsh anymore.

he offers you safety. he offers you belonging. he offers you the only thing he knows how to give, the only thing you know how to take.

he offers you a lifeline. you pick it up with your right hand.

This is kind of out of nowhere for my blog and I feel like I'm going against both canon and fanon when I say this, but having mostly caught up with how My Hero Academia tried to wrap things up in its ending, I think Decay should've been Shigaraki's original quirk. A lot of the fandom likes the idea that Tomura was born quirkless until AFO got to him, since it parallels so well with Izuku. I do think that's a cool idea, but it's not my favorite theory for reasons I'll get into later. Unfortunately for most of us, it's been confirmed that he was born with a quirk, it just doesn't matter what it was because AFO took it and later gave him Decay. From what I can tell, that's not a particularly well-liked explanation since it puts AFO in the position of 'mastermind who organized literally everything bad that happened' which I imagine most people find lame. But consider this: even if Tomura was quirkless originally, wouldn't that leave AFO in the same place? I love the League of Villains a lot and consider them to be horribly tragic characters, but I think Tomura's situation in particular would've been more tragic if the whole thing was just one awful coincidence. Even if his bio family weren't who they were, Decay would've showed up eventually and almost certainly would cause a lot of problems. And I also think it would've been a whole lot more fucked up if AFO just picked him up on a whim because it was convenient, and learning about the kid's relation to his nemesis afterwards was what gave him the idea for his own legacy plan. When I think of tragedies, I usually look at them from the lens of "was there anything else that could've been done?" With Decay as Shigaraki's original quirk, no, there really wasn't. Alas, it is ultimately a story of good triumphing over evil, so there needed to be some bitch behind everything and AFO is that bitch. They needed an ultimate villain to blame instead of acknowledging the faults of their own system, and all of the bad guys connected to him needed to be dealt with in order to 'fix' everything. I wish the story as a whole could've been handled with a little more respect and nuance, but I guess I'll settle for self-indulgent fanfiction instead.

So there's several layers of dramatic irony to this comment from Endeavor. He can kill a "bio-engineered freak" with no remorse here. But this was also the chapter when Endeavor met his twice over bio-engineered son for the first time since Sekoto Peak.

Like the high-end noumu, Dabi was also a patchwork existence pieced together from the dead. But on a fundamental level, Touya's existence was due to Endeavor's desire to bio-engineer his version of the perfect quirk.

It's also notable that while Endeavor's feelings about it were completely different, he used the same maneuver from this fight in his final battle with Dabi. He brought them both up into the sky until someone burned to ash

Sorry to bother you but I’ve been getting into BSD and Chuuya’s my fave, but I’ve been seeing some contradictory things in fanfic so…

Does Chuuya actually have a god sealed inside him? I thought it was just like his power without limitations and was dubious of those takes, but since eldritch beings can apparently be a thing (and not an ability), I think it could be plausible either way.

Though even if it’s not I can see why people would use that route for some good angst.

This is not a bother at all! This is something I very much like to talk about

if you're really new I do recommend you go read both "Dazai, Chuuya, Fifteen Years Old" and "STORM BRINGER" light novels (but SB especially), not only are they great books with Chuuya as the focal point but they will help answer your question in depth (you can buy the English translations but I can help you find the translation online if that's what you need, just message me again)

The short version is that Arahabaki being an actual god, a separate entity from Chuuya that has a personality/a voice/desires, is a common fanon trope, but not a canon fact. The truth is more complex and much more fun, lore-wise, in my opinion

And now the long version, because I'm passionate about this and this is my excuse to deep dive into it (spoilers for Fifteen)

In Fifteen, Chuuya says this:

Chuuya himself presents "Arahabaki" as nothing more than pure power. No thoughts, no personality, but powerful for sure.

That phrasing in Fifteen created a lot of confusion I think, talking about gods as real but also not:

But I think it's more of a symbolic reference, talking about immense power that seem out of this world. Because in practice, as Chuuya said before, "Arahabaki" is simply raw power, not an entity. You can't pray to it, it can't understand you, it can't perform miracles (which is why he knew the Old Boss couldn't have been brought back by Arahabaki and it was all nonsense from the start)

I'm also putting part of the blame on the anime, where they decided (while not being exactly wrong either, out of context it's weird) to illustrate Chuuya "floating in a bluish-black darkness, surrounded by a transparent seal" and being pulled out by a hand:

like this:

When, if you actually reread that part in the novel with knowledge about Storm Bringer, it's actually this moment that was being referred to:

Which brings us to Storm Bringer! (heavy spoilers I'm serious)

"Project Arahabaki" was the Japanese government's attempt to create an ability weapon from an individual. They wanted to craft a singularity that could be used multiple times, thus granting them access to power that should not be accessible normally. They based their research on what France had discovered through Verlaine. The objective is to create a massive energy output through a self-contradicting ability, for which you need a vessel:

Chuuya is the device. "Arahabaki" is the massive energy. That massive energy can control gravity to the point of being able to create localized black holes! N implied that part of the lab's work for the Arahabaki Project was to modify Chuuya's body to be able to withstand the constant gravity effects on it so he doesn't just die. Chuuya's normal use of his ability doesn't seem to have any drastic effects on him, and his physical resilience (to getting hit, stabbed, poisoned, shot, electrocuted, to going through a black hole) does seem to imply they did succeed at least in part.

And this bit here explains why "Arahabaki" was the chosen name for the project; unexplained phenomena across History that can be linked to an ability going haywire, but were attributed to god-like interventions at the time. So you're a funny little mad scientist, you read research papers from another mad scientist that named their own creation after a mythological monster, and you decide to do the same with your own local folklore.

But!

There's still something to be said about how "Arahabaki" is a singularity, and therefore, has its own set of rules. Chuuya does loose control, Chuuya does regress to a sort of destructive instinct while under Corruption. But "Arahabaki" is still no more than an ability singularity. Here's what is said about Guivre and Arahabaki:

They are both singularity life-forms. They exist because they are singularities; outside of it, they are nothing. The inner workings of abilities are still mysterious, but most of them have a link to their wielder's desires. For example, Atsushi's Tiger is there to protect him, a mirror to his will to live no matter what. Verlaine's Guivre is similar:

Guivre was a beast born out of Verlaine's loneliness and resulting hatred. He felt deeply alone in not feeling/being human, and through Pan's (his "creator") special "programming" of Verlaine's ability, N was able to trigger the true form of his singularity with that flare gun and metal powder, which took the form of Guivre. It's what the hat was supposed to prevent, but Verlaine had already lost it by then.

Chuuya's Arahabaki is probably similar. Its first apparition was when Rimbaud tried to absorb him and use his ability for himself, and any subsequent use is linked to grief and survival. Basically, if they're their own entities, they are still born in a specific context and deeply linked to the original ability user's character. And Arahabaki? Only exists if Chuuya uses his activation phrase to get rid of the limitations put into place to prevent him from exploding:

More about about Corruption: SB is kind enough to give us an explanation on how the nullification process works, right here:

Chuuya's self-contradicting ability makes him able to control gravity through the sheer amount of energy it creates by permanently interacting with itself. It is kept under control through the use of an activation phrase, O grantors of dark disgrace, do not wake me again, which, after being either said or thought by Chuuya, will open his "Gate" (which I'm interpreting as a blocker put in place by the lab so the singularity doesn't just kill him, like those poor people they mentioned existed through History), and by opening it, "free Arahabaki's true power" (aka Corruption). When Dazai uses his ability on him, the base self-contradicting ability is nullified, which cancels out the singularity taking place, which stops Corruption and allows that "Gate" to close again. The red markings are there because they're cool and fun.

To conclude, I'll let Dazai do the honors:

bonus: what does that mean for Chuuya's ability?

bons 2: Perceived timeline of Chuuya's past and what happened to to create confusion around his humanity

thinking about how ultimately it was dazai who was too sentimental to stay in the mafia

by the way the day riko broke kevin’s hand was not the first time he ever hurt kevin and at this point if you believe this you’re just plain stupid. not after jean calls kevin riko’s punching bag and says a year in kevin’s shoes made him the target of a thousand subtler cruelties, not after the ec confirms kevin’s first time as a 15 y/o was not consensual either, not after we are constantly told from two different povs that riko was kevin’s worst abuser and ‘what neil’s father was to neil (to kevin)’. i do not use this word lightly but if this is seriously what you got from tsc perhaps you are just dumb 👍