I Hate When People Say The Heteromorph Prejudice Was Last Minute

I hate when people say the Heteromorph prejudice was last minute

because remember our introduction to the MHA world was through Midoriya and guess what? he isn't a heteromorph or live in an area where hate against heteromorphs is common

like if you look at his classmates they mostly have mutation quirks, so it makes sense he would be ignorant to heteromorph issues, and even at the beginning of the series you can see hints of it

Spinner getting upset at being dehumanised by Dabi (Ik the caption is wrong)

Shoto calling the police chief a mutt like even everyone around him was surprised

Pony calling shoji a ugly octopus (I remember her being meaner in the anima, but I couldn't find it)

there's definitely more but you get my point that no the Heteromorph prejudice didn't come out of nowhere if you were paying attention

wow yugen, inactive much? 🙄

I love this panel sm man

Monoma is happy celebrating getting the recognition he deserves with the rest of class 2-B. Like Horikoshi didn't need to add this, he could have just forgotten about it like Kurogiri, but I'm so happy he didn't

You ever think about how AFO probably has a lot of resource trauma considering his past, like I can't get over the fact that when we see a toddler-ish aged AFO he was noticeably more malnourished than his brother signaling that he probably only ate the bare minimum to survive in order to keep his sickly twin alive.

And I wounder if deep down that caused some subconscious resentment to from in him against Yoichi as they grew up. Like how some siblings who take the protector role in abusive environments can go on to resent the other sibling that they were protecting because 'they had it easier', that could probably explain why when they got older AFO seemed to overcorrect with him treating himself to luxuries whist Yoichi was kept in such poor conditions.

Like he still loved Yoichi and wanted him near him but he might've also resented him for the fact that he wasn't the one who had to constantly fight tooth and nail for them to survive. So, that's probably why he never took Yoichi's love for hero's and being kind seriously since he probably saw it as a result of his brother never having to deal with the 'real world' the way he did so just brushed it off as being naive.

And I just can't get over what that would do to a kid, like imagine a toddler coming to the realization that he has to starve himself in order to prioritize his siblings health. That's got to be traumatizing and I can just imagine AFO working to provide for the both of them even through illness, injuries or whatever because he new he couldn't afford to be sick or truly take a break and relax.

idk man it keeps me up at night.

having feelings about shoji's mask again, specifically after seeing that he chose to go back to wearing the mask in the epilogue. like. smth smth idk the choice has so many dimensions To Me but it also may not be that complicated. he's emulating old school heroes. he's gonna be cool just like them. he's covering his scars so no one thinks he's operating from a place of revenge. he's masking both literally and figuratively. but then he chooses to take off the physical mask for his classmates, and explains what happened to him (the figurative mask). and then in the battle, the choice to unmask is taken from him in a way. but like. the fact that he's been hurt too seems to be instrumental in turning the tide of that battle. the fact that he owns his face, his professed 'ugliness' and says 'yeah this is who i am,' is such an instrumental part of that battle and of his character arc.

but now post battle we see him back in the mask and it's like. is he hiding his face again? is he putting up another (figurative) mask? or is it just that he doesn't owe anyone his face? is it a sign of trouble or a fashion choice? is it not that deep? i think a lot of it is up to individual interpretation but i do think that having him unmasked in the class portrait and masked in most panels we've seen is a definite narrative choice.

i think shoji, more than a lot of the other characters, operates very similarly to all might. he's actively trying to become a symbol, and actively hiding his scars and past traumas, ostensibly so that they don't disrupt the myth of 'coolest hero' he hopes to construct. i wonder, post battle, if he still wants to become that symbol. i also wonder if all might recognizes their similarities, and, knowing what he knows now about his own life, and especially after the successes and failures of mentoring izuku to take up his helm as the symbol of peace--would all might ever sit down with shoji and talk about what it really means to live your life as a symbol? i think it would be a valuable talk.