“Uh,” said Shouto, and then rewound the past thirty seconds of conversation back through his head. “I. Uh. Are you sure?”
Next to him on the park bench, his mother beamed.
“Of course! He said he wanted to meet you,” she informed him. She looked splendidly happy, much more than Shouto had seen her in – well, actually, this would explain his mother’s sudden upturn in mood the past month.
Shouto’s icepop was beginning to drip onto his knuckles from the summer heat. He paid it no attention; there was a much more imminent problem currently staring at him in the face.
“He… did,” he said, very slowly.
His mother’s smile was still blinding. Shouto wondered if this was a dream, or maybe a nightmare. “Yes! All of you. I already called Fuyumi, but you know Natsu, it’s his exam week. And your eldest brother…” she paused, and then sighed. “Well, as many of you as I can manage, anyway.”
Broke: endeavour as an abuser getting his own arc, giving horikoshi ample time to downplay his criminal behaviour and ask the audience to relate to him, whilst neglecting the nuanced lives and trauma of all the people he’s abused. Not to mention prioritising the story and life of a man and an abuser over his victims.
Woke: giving Todoroki Rei, Natsuo, Fuyumi or Shouto an arc about recovering from the trauma they’ve endured and forming new lives, thus refuting the social prejudice that says the lives of men and abusers are more valuable than the lives of women and abuse victims. Proving that people who’ve suffered trauma are perfectly capable of being fully realised human beings with interesting lives worthy of narrative space
Lesetoilesfous 