#bnha ch 241 | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

makeste · 4 years ago

Note

this is pretty random and you don't need to answer it, haha, but could you share your personal hcs regarding platonic todobaku with me??? 🥺🥺🥺 i'm in need, LOL, and your takes on characterization and relationships on bnha are always so spot on, so... i hope you're having a good day/night!!!!!!!💖💖💖

thank you so much! sorry it took a while to gather all of these; my TodoBaku headcanons weren’t as immediately forthcoming as my general Baku headcanons were. but here goes. the first half of these ended up being more just my general thoughts about their relationship than actual headcanons, but I eventually steered myself back on track.

first of all, this is important to note: when Katsuki says in ch. 241 that “there’s no correlation between time spent [together] and friendship”, it’s not purely out of denial. this is something he genuinely believes, having learned it the hard way growing up. for someone who seemingly led a pretty charmed life for most of his childhood, Katsuki hasn’t actually had a particularly sunshiny experience when it comes to his friendships. all of his closest childhood friends eventually left him (Tsubasa), turned on him (Deku -- from his perspective lol. obviously this wasn’t actually the case at all, but it’s how he interpreted it, and it definitely had a big impact on him emotionally), or abandoned him (that long-fingered kid, who notably fled and never looked back when the sludge monster tried to eat Katsuki back in chapter one. like, thanks for nothing, my dude).

so it’s not surprising that all of these experiences would have a profound impact on Katsuki’s ability to trust other people and accept them as real, genuine friends. in its own way his childhood was almost as isolating as Deku and Shouto’s. it’s only since coming to U.A. that he’s started to make real friends again for the first time since kindergarten. and even then, in the case of Kirishima and Kaminari and Sero, even though I think he does consider them friends, he still isn’t very open with them. because he’s learned the hard way that that can lead to hurt, and I think he’s very hesitant to ever let himself be vulnerable to that again.

but having said all that, Shouto is still absolutely correct when he says that they’re friends. and the thing is Katsuki knows it too, but he’s just reluctant to admit it. partly because the part of his brain that processes everything as rivalry isn’t sure whether Being Friends With Shouto = Losing To Shouto (IS THIS A TRAP??), and partly because of everything else I just explained above. even though by this point he knows Shouto pretty well, well enough to be reasonably sure he’s not just gonna be another fakeass groupie who turns tail at the first sign of trouble, there’s still a part of him that’s hesitant to admit that connection is there, because doing so opens him up to potentially being hurt again at some point. goddammit. why is this shit so complicated.

meanwhile on Shouto’s side of things, this poor lil bubba never had any friends growing up to begin with, so he’s not nearly as paranoid or prickly as Katsuki is. instead, he’s still discovering for himself just what friendship is all about. the interesting thing about Shouto is that since he never had any childhood friendships, in a way, the friendships that he’s making now at U.A. are his childhood friendships. and so they tend to be straightforward and uncomplicated in much the same way that very young children’s friendships are uncomplicated. “I like this person; I am going to make them my friend.” boom. done. friendship is mad easy yo.

and he does like Katsuki! sure, his personality is a bit unconventional, but there’s a lot to admire about him even so, and they actually have a lot in common! they’re both rather introverted. they’re both very serious, and I think this is something that Shouto particularly appreciates, because jokes and idioms and playful insincerity sometimes fly over his head just because he doesn’t have a lot of experience dealing with other people. but Katsuki NEVER jokes around, and he is never insincere. he says what he means, with the exception of insults, which are 90% more bark than bite. and so once Shouto figured that out, it became very easy to figure out how to interact with him. aside from that, they’re both close with Shouto’s Other Best Friend Midoriya, they both have incendiary quirks, and they both tend towards the quiet side (yes, even Katsuki) with the occasional burst of hotheadedness (maybe a bit more than “occasional” when it comes to Katsuki’s end).

and like I said, there’s a lot that Shouto admires about Katsuki as well. he really respects how determined Katsuki is, because he himself lacked any sort of clear goals for quite a while growing up. all he knew was that he didn’t want to end up being like his dad. but Katsuki is someone who has always known what he wants, and he goes after it with a singlemindedness that Shouto is almost envious of. he’s also very intelligent and quick-thinking, and Shouto knows he can rely on him in a tight spot. he’s also honest, and surprisingly principled, and while he’s definitely not the nicest guy around, I think Shouto can recognize to some degree those same types of walls that he once spent so much time building up around himself. and so he knows that to a certain extent, Katsuki’s hostility is just a front. and I think he’s both intrigued by that, and drawn to it. because every so often when Katsuki’s guard does drop and his better self briefly shines through, Shouto can see that he’s someone worth getting to know.

anyways, but enough of my rambling about their relationship, and on to the actual headcanons. first of all, I firmly believe in my heart of hearts that at some point during all of those mentally and physically taxing weekends spent training for their provisional exam, they have each fallen asleep on the other’s shoulder during the ride home. Katsuki was actually the first to do it, and it was only for a couple of minutes, but when he woke up he was absolutely mortified. but much to his relief, Shouto never said another word about it. (and if Shouto still remembers the warm, cozy feeling in his chest during those few brief minutes when Katsuki was dead to the world, with his face smoothed out and completely trusting and his breathing strangely in rhythm with the movement of the car, and if doing so brings him a sense of calm that’s hard to describe, well then, that’s no one’s business but his own.)

anyway, so because life is Just Like That, eventually of course the reverse happened. and with anyone else, Katsuki would have violently shoved them aside without a second thought, and he was almost gonna do the same here, but then he remembered he owed him (because he really did keep his mouth shut about the earlier incident, thank fuck), and so he didn’t. for almost two whole minutes, anyway. whatever. that’s more than generous, really. meanwhile no one else knows about this except for Aizawa, who was chaperoning them that day, and took mild notice at first on account of it being unusual behavior on Katsuki’s part, but then immediately forgot about it afterwards. he was proud of them both for upping their napping game, though. he respects naps.

both Shouto and Katsuki were actually scared shitless during the test of courage at the forest training camp, and if Katsuki hadn’t been kidnapped and everything had instead gone on as normal, they would have both had trouble getting to sleep that night. Katsuki actually can’t stand scary movies or ghost stories (fyi this is canon according to the third light novel, and EXCUSE HIM FOR HAVING A HEALTHY RESPECT FOR THE SUPERNATURAL. you wanna go and get your own dumb ass cursed or dragged to hell or whatever, BE HIS GUEST). whereas Shouto has next to no experience with them and doesn’t really see what’s so scary about ghosts because GHOSTS AREN’T REAL DUH, but even he feels a little unsettled when an undead swamp girl suddenly rises from the depths and crabwalks towards them in the middle of the woods.

Katsuki has on rare occasions been so drained by provisional lessons that he goes into autopilot and forgets to pretend not to be friends with Shouto, which can result in them having completely normal conversations for minutes at a time before he eventually regains enough of his senses to realize he’s fraternizing with the enemy. this is how Shouto learned about things like Katsuki’s favorite foods, and his love of hiking. the latter is actually one subject that Katsuki can go on and on about if you get him started, and Shouto very much enjoys hearing about it and never tries to stop him.

by contrast, Katsuki never intentionally seeks to gain any new knowledge about Shouto because he feels like he already knows way more than he ever wanted to. however, this doesn’t stop him from absorbing knowledge against his will by simple osmosis, and then discovering to his dismay that he’s retained the information afterward. this is why he also knows Shouto’s favorite food in return (although to be fair, I think everyone in Japan knows Shouto’s favorite food), as well as other tidbits like the fact that he likes strawberry-flavored things (because he always gets the same brand of strawberry milk from the vending machine during their lunch breaks). he hates himself a little for both noticing and remembering these stupid little details, and would rather be kidnapped again than ever admit to Shouto that he does.

Katsuki thinks of Shouto as “Todoroki” in his head rather than “IcyHot” or “Half n’ Half”, and has to make a conscious effort to use the nicknames whenever he addresses him out loud. more and more often he finds himself forgetting to do so nowadays, much to his dismay. Shouto was pleasantly surprised the first few times it happened, but quickly stopped taking notice of it, as he’s come to realize that the way Katsuki addresses people carries very little meaning regardless, since something like 75% of his actual feelings are conveyed through his actions rather than his words.

Katsuki does wish that Shouto had had the decency to choose his surname as his hero alias rather than his given name, though. he lives in fear that one of these days he’ll be required to call him “Shouto” while on duty. number one hero or not, there’s a good chance he would resign from his internship at the Endeavor Hero Agency before he ever willingly agreed to that.

and last but not least, the number one thing that Katsuki would rather jump in a freezing lake than admit to Shouto or even himself is that he actually cares about him too. and has even mostly forgiven him for wussing out at the last minute during the sports festival. he still doesn’t fully understand why he did it, but he gets that Shouto was Going Through Some Stuff, and okay yeah, he can admit that his family situation is pretty fucked up, so whatever. there’s an uncomfortable feeling he gets whenever he’s reminded of this; sort of a weird, squirmy feeling in the pit of his stomach whenever the subject of Endeavor comes up, or whenever he sees Shouto talking to the man himself. it makes him feel restless and on edge, and he never knows what to say or do afterwards, especially if Shouto goes all quiet and sullen and reflective. he wants to scream at him, or slap him on the back of the head, or grab him by the shoulders and shake him; whatever it takes to snap him out of it and ease the tension. but he knows that’s not the right way to handle it. and more to the point, he knows that he’s not the right person to handle it. and sometimes, if he’s not quick enough to squash the feeling when he senses it coming, he wonders how Shouto would react if he ever found out what Katsuki used to be like back in elementary and middle school. and he wonders whether Shouto would still be so dead-set insistent on calling them friends. and then he does squash out the thought, as viciously as he possibly can.

anyway so that turned weirdly angsty towards the end whoops. not even sure what happened there, since this is supposed to be my cute and funny ship, while BakuDeku greedily hogs all the angst for itself! lol my bad. but don’t worry, they still love each other, and Shouto is still fond and soft and equipped with bullshit-radar, and Katsuki is still rabid and in denial and a dumbass.

#bakugou katsuki #todoroki shouto #todobaku #bnha headcanons #bnha meta #bakugou meta #bnha #boku no hero academia #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #makeste reads bnha #asks

226 notes · View notes