Found WIP. I Won't Finish This But They're Too Perfect To Be Kept Hidden.

Dabi hands study

i had to drop everything to quickly doodle fanart for @storybookprincess hxh big bang fic, how to shoot somebody who outdrew you, where killua has gon as his guardian angel!!! pLEASE GO READ IT RIGHT NOW ITS SO GOOD AUHHGHGH it gave me heartaches while reading it in the morning!!!!!!!!!

"I like food"

I saw many posts people saying how random Shouto's line is about praying at Touya's altar and realizing that he likes food - and I wanted to point to how it helps wrapping up his arc.

Shouto is saying: "When I was praying at Touya's butsudan (Buddhist altar), I suddenly realized something, I liked eating food. I realized there's more to me than just the person I want to become."

Food was a "negative space in the Todoroki family, so liking food was not evident to Shoto growing up.

In Shouto's flashbacks with his family, we never see him eat food. His only memory tied to the kitchen is the kettle incident. We know from Natsuo that Shouto ate alone, a diet prescribed by Endeavor, no doubt all geared towards maximum performance, rather than enjoyment. Not even knowing your siblings favorite food is the ultimate symbol of how dysfunctional the household was.

2. Food was a positive space in Class A - tied to comfort, bonding, friendship

In class A, Shouto starts eating with Iida and Midoriya after the Stain incident. Food becomes comfort, connection, sharing, caring, teamwork, etc. He experiences things like using his fire to prepare food together, eating together, cleaning up.

Many memorable Shouto-scenes are tied to Class A eating together (e.g. heroes cry too) and he connects to Inasa over a discussion about favorite foods (udon vs soba) which is a theme that carries over to his endgame with Touya

3. As the Todoroki family tries to reconnect, food plays a central role

As the family changes, they attempt to reconnect around the family dinner table (the famous sluuurp scenes). But Todoroki dinners end in a disaster - still they are useful bringing to the surface important conflicts and trying to communicate about them (another important theme discussed in Shoto Rising).

There is more in the light novels: Shoto's and Rei's decade late reconnection as Rei offers him a little kid strawberry milk that she remembers he liked when he was 5, and their attempt to connect with Natsuo ending up in a mush of ruined soba - it's all out of sync.

4. Food as a symbol of lost time and broken futures

Food is also very central for the hopes of a happier future: Enji's dream of his family at the dinner table, Natsuo's regret about years of missed meals, Shoto wanting to share noodles with Toya, all culminating in the heartbreaking realization that they have the same favorite food they'll never get to share.

5. Food as a symbol of processing grief and healing

Praying at the butsudan (the Buddhist altar at home set up for a deceased loved one) involves the preparation of offerings of food and drinks, which then the family eats afterwards. We see this practice referenced in Ch 249 when Enji prays at Toya's altar.

So Shouto making a reference to it is a shorthand for telling us that Touya died at some point, Shouto is still grieving him and just like Deku and Ochako, he's trying to make sense for himself out of their short encounter. So wanting to learn how to make chopsticks and bowls (a traditional Japanese craft of woodwork and applying lacquer, often involving intricate patterns) implies that he wants to bring Touya the perfect offering, but also that he's finally stepping outside fully of the framework Endeavor created for the family, where children are cast into roles of heroes, villains and by-standers, masterpieces and failures but never human beings. He's thinking about what connects him and Touya together and who they would have been in a different story.

6. Shouto's personal arc

Shouto's character was always about balance. Balance between past and future, ice and fire, duty and family, etc. So crafting chopsticks and bowls to elevate good food connects the grief and survival guilt with healing and growth. It is both a tribute to Touya's memory and a new possible hobby to express still undiscovered sides of himself.

It fits the theme of the chapter "More" - as it focuses on what lies beyond being a hero, reaching a goal, working hard and how Izuku, Ochako and Shouto have been transformed by their experiences of trying to save their villains.

But it also fits Shouto's personal arc that was about discovering who Shouto really is. Earlier in the chapter, Shouto refers to being constrained into the framework of a bigger story, where his choices are bound to happen. As a hero of the sidestory of that manga, Shouto has no choice but decide what kind of a hero he wants to be (not-Endeavor, like All Might, reassuring, family hero). Encounters with his family helped crystallized this image of himself.

But now that he's being released from this story, he can look outside of the framework of a hero manga and discover those "more sides than just a hero". And Touya was the last encounter - the last piece of that puzzle. I think there is a parallel in how Tomura destroyed much of hero society - Touya also destroyed the foundations of the Todoroki family, so something different can maybe built.

Without Touya, I think the family would have kept at trying to piece themselves together in a tense, fake kind of peace to keep up appearances. If nothing else, Touya's actions tore through that need of saving face - leaving them all exposed and grappling with the harsh realities of their actions. But I think it also allowed the younger siblings to step outside the cage their parents created for them and build things better from scratch. It allows them to find more sides to themselves outside of the logic of the Todoroki household.

431 is a mixed bag but i love that Bakugo is in tune with his emotions, he realized that Deku is a special person to him and can live with that, regardless of where they stand, whether Izuku reciprocates that committment. that's such a nice testament of Bakugo's growth :)

love language

clean scan of BNHA's last cover

an attachment formed during childhood could've saved them maybe

Colored by Hexamendle

the part in hunter x hunter where everyone starts voting for leorio just because he fucking called out and decked ging shows that the author really understands people

i don't really see how people call or think dabi lazy of all things when he's spent the last ten years of his life keeping his walking corpse alive through obsession and virulent hatred, meticulously planning out his revenge, all the while honing his quirk, even when his skin withered and charred away from his body.

or the fact that, before that, he kept repeatedly burning himself on his own flames when he secretly went off to train as a child without pause or care for his well-being in order to not be seen as defective and worthless as he felt and was made to feel but instead as someone who could achieve the same toxic dream that was ripped away from him to be peddled to shouto.

like ... "i can't wait to see that miserable expression on his face. all i've been waiting for ... it's taken so much to get this far." — touya.

let's not forget the fact that he ... canonly kills those that he deems worthless because they live day to day without ambition when he scouts for recruits.

and if i really, really want to reach, we also have the smash!! dabi who worked his little ass off on that island. 😭

not to mention he gets mad when tomura isn't doing anything to help.

tl;dr — dabi's a hard worker. he has been since he was a kid for the wrong reasons, and that has continued as an adult. but he is still a hard worker, an over-achiever.

i could see him taking breaks when absolutely needed, but those would be short-lived and fleeting at best. much of his life has been.