#ask-aoyama-bnha

[sapphic-agent]

Hori really does love rewarding characters who don't deserve it, while punishing those who actually give a damn.

Bakugou's a bullying, narcissistic, idiotic moron of an asshole who lived a golden spoon life of wealth and being spoiled (conformed by Hori himself)? The narrative and characters bend over backwards to accommodate him. Obviously he's this genius prodigy who inspires everyone, even though his behavior in the field would realistically get people hurt and/or killed.

Shinsou's a whiny scrub with a victim complex? He gets favoritism from Shota "I hate favoritism" Aizawa himself AND gets to join the hero course.

Endeavor's outed as an abusive person? Well, obviously the people criticizing him are in the wrong, and this is supposed to be kept within the family!

Nighteye is a creepy and pathetic control freak who uses teenagers for his own means and doesn't understand the word 'no'? He was coming from a good place, and he was right in the end!

All Might's been put on a pedestal for the past 40+ years and makes mistakes because he's a human being? No, he's an idiot of a mentor who gets criticized and villified for breathing.

Aoyama's forced into being the traitor because of his parents and clearly hates doing it? Bye bye, he's leaving the hero course and getting replaced by someone who didn't care to actually TRY to prepare for UA.

Izuku operates within the law and tries to work with his bully? No, HE'S the one in the wrong and he's not allowed to be at least slightly resentful when he's screwed over by those around him. Not to mention, he's seldom been apologized to by those who wrong him.

The journalists rightfully call out UA on coddling Bakugou and doing a shit job at protecting their students? Obviously it's a smear campaign against UA, and who cares if Aizawa didn't even answer the journalist who directly called him out on not doing his job as a teacher and getting Bakugou's head out of his ass.

I'm so glad I dropped this series, because what in the actual fuck was Hori on while writing it?

It's such a pattern of rewarding shitty behavior that it's actually gross. And you know what? It exactly perpetuates what the narrative was trying to call out before Horikoshi changed everything. He literally actively wrote against his own thesis. That's got to be some kind of cruel irony right?

[delawaredetroit]

#maybe act three’s izuku’s segments would have been less awful if there was more aoyama

Everything about MHA would be less awful if there was more Aoyama

Exactly. More Aoyama could have ameliorated a lot of the thematic holes in BNHA.

With more Aoyama, it would have given Izuku more of an opportunity to reflect on his own backstory. Since Izuku was someone who couldn't put himself first, make him self-reflect by giving him more interactions with a character whose life story is a funhouse mirror of his own.

I've already spoken about how considering Aoyama could have put an interesting twist on whether Bakugou ever had consequences for his treatment of Izuku.

As Aoyama believed himself to be a saved villain, he would have been easy to incorporate into the save the villains plotline. In particular, he had unexplored parallels with both Shigaraki and Touya. Both Shigaraki and Aoyama were pawns used by All for One since they were children. All for One manipulated both of their parents to gain access to them as children and bind them to him with quirks ill-suited for their bodies. Leaning into the Aoyama and Shigaraki parallels could have opened the door to humanizing Shigaraki.

Touya knew about Aoyama's betrayal but chose not to snitch to All for One at least twice. Digging into that more would have been interesting characterization for Touya in terms of how he processed both his Todoroki household childhood and the All for One's science experiment lost childhood.

[aoyamacademia]

I think this world more Aoyama and LOV friendship bonding fics.

Yes!! It does! Honestly, aside from Yuga’s guilt about being a villain, he’d probably get along with the LOV (minus AFO).

Yuga and Tenko are similar in that the adults in their life failed them, and they had no one to turn to for comfort. (I mean, Yuga has his parents, but they got him involved with AFO in the first place and reinforced his belief that he had to “be like everyone else.”)

Yuga and Himiko both with to be more like the people they love/admire. Yuga saw himself in Izuku, but despaired over the fact that he wasn’t as “heroic” as he was. I believe he wanted to be more like him, the same way Toga wanted to be the people she loves.

Yuga and Mr. Compress are both eccentric individuals. I think their personalities would blend well. The same with Magne (especially since I headcanon Yuga to be queer himself, too).

Yuga and Spinner can bond over the discrimination they faced for being “different.”

Twice can entertain Yuga a lot, too. He can make several clones of Yuga in case he ever wanted to test out different outfits or something, lol.

Dabi can probably help Yuga learn that his relationship with his parents isn’t really that healthy, even if they do genuinely love him. I feel that Yuga is the sort of person to refuse to blame his parents for anything. In canon, he blamed himself more than anyone else. I think Dabi can help him realize otherwise.

Kurogiri can be sort of a “dad” figure to Yuga as he is to the entire league.

Yuga would definitely have an interesting dynamic with each of the LOV members! I also find it kinda adorable that he’d be the youngest out of everyone (aside from Mustard, but he was arrested for most of the series).

[heronoegg]

hey dude! How are you doing, hope you’re doing okay. Just wanted to ask, what would Aoyama and Monoma be for your Wing AU?

these are not my best and the colors may be off BUT there they are! Aoyama is a french bird and Monoma being a mocking bird just makes sense

[twinklingcrow]

I constantly flipping back and forth about whether or not Mamayama & Papayama would be accepting of Yuga being queer.

Because on hand it would be nice for them to be accepting.

But on the other hand they quite literally sold their and Yuga’s souls to the Devil (All for One) so Yuga could fit in with the rest of society. And if views on queerness in the MHA universe is mirrors how queerness is viewed IRL… then I doubt they’d be very accepting.

So, I guess it just boils down to how accepted queerness in the MHA Universe :headscratchingempji:. In my opinion of course.

[itsnothingofinterest]

Hey 👋 been a while, hope you're doing well?

Regarding the recent bnha chapter, and the ones before it, does it feel like the way things are going that everyone is kind of missing the "point"?

Because yeah, it's great for Deku to finally be seen as a "rising" hero that also inspires everyone, with them all fighting together and the civilians cheering them on.

But is all of that really so different from when All-might fought AFO at kamino? With the heroes helping All-might win and everyone else cheering him on?

It feels like everything has gone in one giant circle up to this point...

It doesn't seem like anyone (except for ochako, shoto and maybe Deku depending on what he does with shigaraki now) has really changed or learned anything.

(Aizawa is in a weird place because kurogiri is doing all work for him by glitching out and helping the heroes now, so aizawa can see that shirakumo is still in there, so he just acknowledges that.)

Because It's true that the civilians did try to "help" the heroes in a recent chapter but looking past the symbolism, all they actually did was give Deku a shirt and the other heroes some bandages or something, it wasn't very moving in my opinion.

And the hero side may take a more nuanced kind of view, with how they deal with aoyama and lesser villains like gentle and la brava, but that doesn't really help anything either.

Because aoyama was practically a hostage and gentle/la brava were the least "villainous" villains ever.

Can I ask what you think about all this?

Hey good to see you too, and yeah I 100% get what you mean. I don't want to act like I didn't like the chapter for the spectacle, but it is lacking something; and I think it's the sense of progress and improvement you're talking about. Because the chapter feels like it wants to have that, but i just don't feel it does.

And so, though I find the chapter rather fun & inoffensive on the whole, I'm still gonna throw some of what I will politely call constructive criticism at it and the last few before it for a bit if you're giving me the chance to.

These past few chapters have just been tossing all else to the side to get all gung ho about Deku and his hero allies becoming the greatest heroes, the heroes they were always meant to be (the kind of black & white story you'd expect AFO to usher in)...and I'm just not feeling it. I mean the team-up montage trivializing all of AFO's moves was cool but I got all style, no substance from it. Just typical hero stuff, comparable as you said to All Might with the other pros at Kamino.

It's like, I've been feeling this real want from both the readers and these latest chapters to say that Deku is surpassing All Might, and this is the moment where it's happening. 422 even talks about Deku's having a 'weakness' All Might lacked let him get up again and inspire others to get up again. But I've said before; Deku hasn't done anything All Might wouldn't in the same circumstance, and I think people who believe otherwise tend to assume AM was a lot less kind & a lot more independent, and Deku a lot less independent, than they are. Plus, All Might was the king of inspiring other heroes and he had to be literally paralyzed to stop fighting so what's that even about?

(Thinking about it; the problem might be that the manga wants to say Deku is more inspiring than AM; but the group we see him inspire to action most by far is fellow heroes, the same group All Might too most inspired to action.)

So yeah, it feels on the whole like we've just come full circle with our wheels spinning where I was hoping we'd move forward by now. And maybe there are a few exceptions where you could see some change, but even for them I question how much.

For one thing: I’m honestly not sure how much of Deku and Shoto’s more nuanced behaviour to their villain foils is from them being better heroes and what’s from Touya and Tenko being exceptions to them. Like, how will Shoto treat the next Dabi he meets if they aren’t his sibling? How will Deku treat a Tomura Shigaraki type that he can’t psychically see the inner child of? Ochako's the only one going against the grain just for the sake of a villain, and even then, it's not like we can expect repeat results. Fun as it sounds, she probably can't date every abused girl she meets and send off to jail.

Not to mention these past few chapters haven't even had any talk of villain saving anyway; no one has come here to save Tomura. I mean, Deku might (though sadly even his intentions must now be qualified with a 'might') but everyone else is here to save their fellow hero and beat the big bad; same as ever.

The civs haven't done anything too noteworthy or out of expectations we would've had for them in the early arcs either: just provide small help ranging from medical aid to one guy's shirt, and then sit back like a cheer squad for the next symbol/pillar while the heroes rush forward to do all the work, inspired by that same symbol/pillar. Maybe that's more than they would've done without the events of ch. 323~325...but that thought is mostly just depressing.

Even the cases of Gentle, La Brava, and Nagant don’t seem like these signs of progress to me; because I’ve said it before, but police asking criminals to catch worse criminals is normal. This has been standard procedure throughout. And Aoyama shouldn't even count and I'm almost angry that the story thinks he does.

Something that kind of caps off all this is how All Might talks about how Deku is his greatest hero; that line Deku was always eventually meant to embody (and apparently always did to AM). And cool as that is to confirm he's met all of All Might's expectations, it also feels like it's saying he's ended his arc; at this point where, if you ask me, he's only gone so far as to match All Might at best in every department besides raw power. Which is fantastic as far as Deku's personal goals go, that's all he's ever wanted; but when it feels like the world of HeroAca needed a guy who could exceed All Might, would could lead the charge for a generation of heroes to exceed their predecessors, it’s a shame that’s a level they’re all content just to meet. And that small shame sours something that should be really cool.

[bibibbon]

when it comes to the traitor reveal, I feel like revealing it during the training camp would’ve been too early but while the canonical reveal is okay timeline wise it’s also kind of too late? but with how the tightly packed the timeline & events of manga goes, I’m not exactly sure when it’ll be the best time to reveal it?

especially since it seems like shigaraki doesn’t utilize yuga’s spy status? either because he has no use for yuga post-kamino (especially with himiko’s existence, gestures to himiko infiltrating the license exam), had no way to get into contact with the aoyamas, or maybe afo didn’t tell him about the ua spy (or maybe even shigaraki saw the aoyamas as strickly afo’s property and didn’t want to (or couldn’t) get involved? idk?)

anyways, where in the canonical timeline would you have put the traitor reveal?

au where the lov uses the aoyama residents as their primary hideout pre-mla arc when-

The more I think about it the more I start to realise that horikoshi revealing the UA traitor plot line after the vigilante arc isn't the problem but the problem is that the plot point felt and was heavily neglected.

We get hints of there being a traitor among UA during the training camp arc by present mic meaning that if that plot point was resolved within that arc it would be incredibly rushed and wouldn't of had time to fully breathe and be developed especially because the moment in itself is framed as mic being too paranoid.

Ultimately, horikoshi, from this point, starts to slowly build up yuuga and his role very indirectly, whether that be through yuuga's hero name of ✨️i can't stop twinkling ✨️or yuuga consistently breaking the 4th wall.

While these are small little hints spewed here and there in the story they aren't further developed or we don't get much attention to them as mha slowly branches out from class 1a making the plot point feel quite deattached.

Other than this, yuuga also has some weird gag scenes that draw a sense of uncomfortable aurora around him. This can mainly be seen with the way that he interacts with izuku. He gives him cheese and sneaks to his room. He also is quickly to see right through him and connect the dots that izuku must have been formerly a quirkless guy.

Yuuga perfectly ends up encapsulating a character that's a bit suspicious but not enough to really raise any warning bells. Ultimately, it just ends up making it look like he is being himself, especially with how he seems to seemingly fabricate lies and truths together because he genuinely did start to care for 1A but he is also a spy that has given accurate information to the leauge.

Now I think my main problem is that we don't see yuuga interact with the league at all or get eird messages. We don't see shigaraki utilise the resources he has when he easily could, and we don't see a lot of yuuga's own perspective at all. For example, we don't know how yuuga retold the information and it would of been hella interesting if we saw yuuga's active conflicting feeling of fear and obeying orders due to that and with sheer regret and guilt.

Did yuuga try and distance himself and not form close relationships with 1A because he felt guilty? He felt like a sheep in wolves clothing. He was a student at heart, he loved UA, he loved the classes, the teachers, but he has no autonomy having to actively tear down what he loves to protect himself and his family.

They made a deal with a devil, and now he pays the price being haunted by what's to come. I imagine that the events that played out during and after the war arc must have done a great deal to his mental health, completely breaking down and engulfing him in guilt. He probably blames himself for the deaths and injuries of so many heroes because if he could do something, this wouldn't happen.

It seems like the plot kind of forgets about yuuga in all honesty, especially when they had himiko break in and infiltrate the exam. It would have been interesting to see why that happened. My theory is that shigaraki started to develop some doubts about the information yuuga was providing and wanted someone he could trust to infiltrate and cause a bit of chaos while also checking up on yuuga in a way. This could have been a great moment to show tensions between yuuga and the league.

[harukamitsuki]

hi! In the scenario where aoyama and shigaraki grew up close together. Do you think shigaraki would’ve accepted help if it was aoyama that extended his hand instead of midoriya (or if it was both of them instead of just midoriya), idealistically i like to think so but realistically I’m not so sure. there could be a chance that aoyama kindhearted nature would’ve influenced shigaraki for the better, obviously it wouldn’t be enough to fully undo the manipulation that AFO put shigaraki through. Actually, a fun way to show shigaraki’s influence on aoyama is maybe aoyama just randomly knowing video game lingo/trivia or maybe aoyama subconsciously picked up on picking objects up without his pinkie finger touching it (and perhaps his classmates just think it’s just a French thing)

Another thought is that, it that if aoyama had grown up close to shigaraki, would he also be close with kurogiri? I personally like to think so, maybe aoyama also could even view kurogiri as a pseudo-familial figure.

This also brings up another thought, would aoyama ever reveal to his classmates that he and shigaraki had been close growing up or if he would keep it a secret? Assuming it doesn’t get revealed during the classroom scene, because I don’t think tsukauchi asked about shigaraki during the traitor arc or onwards but I might be misremembering. Also, in this scenario, if it was ever revealed, I wonder how all might would’ve felt about now knowing that one of his students had been close to nana’s grandson. Actually, speaking of nana, I wonder how her vestige would have been feeling under this scenario as well? Hmmm, also I wonder if all might would ask aoyama about shigaraki, actually all might asking aoyama about shigaraki could been a fun way to reveal a bit more about aoyama’s childhood.

Another, another thought. there’s a handful of aoyama fan (including myself) enjoy the idea “uncle” is more than just a codeword and that aoyama has been referring AFO “uncle” for years prior to AFO even thinking of using aoyama for spywork. I also think this idea fits wonderfully into the whole aoyama growing up close with shigaraki.

Ahhh, just realized how long and ramblely this ask is. Sorry Dx I just really enjoy the idea that shigaraki and aoyama growing up with each other, in fact this is actually canon to my own rewrite.

I think it mostly depends on Tomura, whether he would accept help if both Yuuga and Izuku were reaching out to him. Because Tomura seemed to have been destroying anything, even his relationships, so it would mostly depend on whether he can destroy his relationship with Yuuga or not.

It also depends on when this happens, because it could be in the final arc, or it could be earlier, if Yuuga decided to try to save Tomura after Izuku saved him.

I would say yes, to being close to Kurogiri. Not as close as Tomura, but close enough to be comfortable around him, maybe even teasing Kurogiri by calling him a mother or father.

I don't think Yuuga would bring it up himself, but All Might wanting to know more about Tomura and thus Yuuga would be great way to delve into their backstory together. And the remnents of One for All would allow Nana's vestige to hear about her grandson. I imagine she'd be an awkward mix between soft and sad. She'd be happy hearing about the boy she never got to meet, and sad that she never got to meet him, only seeing him when it was too late and listening to his spiralling mind.

Yuuga calling All for One uncle pre-spywork is funny, therefore it's great.

All in all, Yuuga and Tomura being childhood friends would have been delicious food, and I'm mad it's not canon.

[bnhaobservation]

Actually, I hope you don’t mind if I add a question from the the brother’s relationship ask: Do you think the brothers’ relationship suffers from Hori unable to balance the victim-hero-villain categorization of the characters?

Ops, sorry, when I replied to your ask I missed this addendum.

As for the brothers' relationship...

it suffered of plenty of things.

The main problem specific for this relationship is, mainly, the fact Horikoshi kept on retconning the Todoroki family plot so that what was likely meant to be Shouto connecting with his brother and saving him to Shouto becomes the Hero he wanted to be and saves the world from being nuked with his ice side while the family connect with his brother... then Touya will die and everyone will go on separate ways.

Basically... it could have been developed a lot more but Horikoshi wasn't interested in doing so and, at a certain point, when Horikoshi decided Shouto's goal in the fight wouldn't be anymore to connect with his brother, he didn't really need to develop it that much... but I talked more about the Todoroki family ending here.

Now... regarding the balance of the victim-hero-villain categorization... I think more than lacking of balance the problem, which is presented in all the relationships (Tomura/Midoriya, Himiko/Uraraka, Touya/Shouto... and if you want to stretch Iguchi/Shouji) is in the general idea behind the story.

To summarize A LOT as I've already talked about it in other posts what the story tells us seems to be:

No matter how much SOCIETY wrong YOU, SOCIETY won't be hold accountable and you should just endure and shouldn't retort to attack society. If you do YOU'll be held accountable, you'll need to stop and accept to be punished. You might receive understanding if you're against the new generation of Heroes, but you'll never receive justice and the Heroes will never hold society to blame or accountable for making you snap.

Now this is not all wrong, it's true you can't attack society... but in many countries if you were also a victim, you can have leniency or, at least, have justice.

Watch how Aoyama, a minor, was forced to act as a spy to AFO under duress and yet the police doesn't care of the extenuating circumstances since he conspired with AFO and Present Mic insists that a crime is a crime and the kids shouldn't trust him since they're his victims. Even later Tsukauchi will insist that even if he can sympathize the fact remains that Aoyama turned his back on decent society.

Long story short, even though Aoyama is a victim, they believed Aoyama should have accepted to die instead than cooperate with AFO. Aoyama will be forced to fight, they'll put him on the frontlines and use him to defeat AFO.

A society that thinks a teen like Aoyama should have chosen to die before accepting to cooperate with AFO and offers him zero indulgence isn't going to offer indulgence to Tomura, Touya or Himiko as they aren't presented as acting under duress.

Ultimately even Shouto, who used to insist over and over on how Rei burned him due to what Enji did to her, will let it go. When Rei will take responsibility in front of Hawks he won't defend her any longer.

That's also why, as I said in another post, the story won't save Tomura, Touya and Himiko. Because all it has to offer to them if they were to be saved was jail (which in Japan is a place that doesn't respect human right for Horikoshi's own admission) and execution so since they were very pitiable victims, it was better if they were to die in gentler settings because otherwise it would have felt too cruel.

At least those are my feelings. As usual I might be wrong. Thank you for your ask!

[comet-soda]

AOYAMA!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!

[sapphic-agent]

I WAS RIGHT!!

I WAS RIGHT ABOUT THEM FINDING SOME WAY TO REPLACE AOYAMA WITH HITOSHI!!

So in case you didn’t know, back when I was first starting making critical BNHA posts, I made one talking about my fear that they would find some way to kill off Aoyama during the war so Hitoshi could get into 1-A.

And while I can sort of understand Aoyama’s decision here, replacing him with Hitoshi just doesn’t feel right to me. Aoyama was one of the few characters in this manga I actually liked, so to see THIS is how they decided to end his story feels horrible.

Losing Aoyama for Shinsou is such an L trade. Give me back my sparkly cheese boy.

They should have put Aoyama on some sort of probation maybe? Let him earn his place back at UA. Justice for Aoyama

[delawaredetroit]

#… - how fairly was aoyama treated at ua

Now you got me thinking about that too. Based off of everything we know about UA and its staff, how fairly do you think Aoyama was actually treated at UA, especially before the reveal?

This also got me questioning what the students thought of Aoyama in terms of his belt and if there was any student (probably unintentionally) treated him differently or unfairly due to that! Including the non-hero course students.

He was probably mostly overlooked. It didn't take much for Aoyama to start to crack under pressure and start saying bizarre things. If nobody else noticed it, then no one of average intelligence and social skills greater than Izuku's was giving Aoyama any thought.

As for your second question, some portion of the student body likely looked down on him for his reliance on a support item. Mina in the Sports Festival is a good example of this. She believed the Support Course students being able to use their inventions in the Sports Festival was cheating. It's easy to extrapolate what she thought about Aoyama based on that comment. She also went straight for the belt in her matchup with Aoyama...

[aoyamacademia]

so rn I’m writing a mha oc fic and one of the plot points is “Aoyama’s quirk damages him bad enough he needs surgery”

wait this is so real because i headcanon that aoyama had an operation on his stomach when he was little and now has a scar (though barely noticeable) on his abdomen

[heronoegg]

Heya! I just wanted to ask, have you drawn Monoma lately. I was scrolling through this blog and I saw some old art of him with Kiri and Denki. He looks great in your style, like, you can sense and tell that he’s petty, and I love that.

he doesn't want you to say it but Monoma is really just Bakugo in a different font jkfndjgkndjfk i really wanna sell home my cousins theory so also have these

they all have fangs and bite, their mom's are sisters

[twinklingcrow]

Love the idea of the Aoyamas being Catholic. Especially combined with the idea that Yuga was indeed born in France and moved to Japan sometime later (I like to think they moved to Japan any time between 6-12 months after Yuga got Naval Laser).

Imagine Yuga having a little journal(/series of journals) he writes down his prayers in. Overtime, as he gets older, the weight of AFO becomes apparent as Yuga begins to write down prayers based around the safety of his parents more & more often. And when he forced to become the AFO's Spy, he began including the safety of his classmates in his prayers, both written and verbal.

Also, religion in MHA is also kind of interesting because it makes me curious how much of people's faiths was changed by the existence of quirks? Makes me wonder how many people viewed quirks as "sinful" during the dawn of quirks.

[call-me-chips]

What are some traits you have in common with characters you like? Example: you two have the same fear, both are kind, love similar foods etc

Oo tis an interesting question

Not sure what fandoms you want characters from, so I shall do mha :)

(These are not in order from most to least fav btw)

Sero: Were both the forgotten one in the friend group???? Idk, we don't have a ton in common xD

Kirishima: Gay. (But fr we don't have just about anything in common other than that)

Jirou: We are both introverted little punk/alt lovers who love music and women

Mr. Compress: Good sense of fashion??? Idk xD

Aoyama: We both have blonde hair. My hair is also styled similar to his (not intentionally). Oh also we're both gay

Best jeanist: Again, maybe fashion sense?? I do own an all-jean suit for special occasions (which I absolutely bought because of best jeanist). We're both also kinda quieter

Hawks: Ik fandom Hawks is WAY different from canon Hawks, but going off of fandom Hawks, we both like to crack jokes and both have a dirty mind. Also I've always wanted wings, if that counts

Monoma: We are both blonde and are tactical thinkers. I've also been told I'm loud, so we both got that xD

Tamaki: Shy, socially awkward, insecure, anxious little beans who eat too much xD. I was also once adopted by a blonde extrovert