#but I'm suffering from BakuDeku brain disease and all y'all need to pay for it

[krokonoko]

just in time for pride month: here it is, the rant on BD canon status I promised!

in the BNHA fandom, as in any big fandom, there’s a lot of discussion going on surrounding the subject of whether slash ships will end up canon. this conversation is as old as the hills, happens in every fandom, it can be lots of fun, and I’m not trying to end it!

but as your local fandom elder who over the course of the last 20 years has consumed more shonen manga/anime than you can name, I still wanna add my two cents to the discussion of BakuDeku canon likeliness, maybe dampen some expectations, but ultimately also bring you some good news.

I don’t think BakuDeku will become canon. but I also don’t think it should matter to you whether it does.

just the other day, I saw someone say that Deku and Bakugo being narrative foils might point to them becoming canon endgame. and to whoever said that, bless your soul. I wish I had your optimism. because you are right: if this was about which relationship is the most pivotal to both characters and the entire plot, BakuDeku would without doubt be the one to end up canon. but here's what you need to understand: generally, shonen manga doesn’t care about narrative foils when it comes to picking and choosing what ships to make endgame.

shonen manga rivals can have the most intense relationships, they can proclaim their undying loyalty to each other, they can have the most profound connection - none of that matters when it comes to deciding who will end up married. ask the SasuNaruSasu fans.

I feel like there is a fundamental disconnect between what we (women and queer fans who create and consume transformative work) consider good endgame material, and what shonen manga considers good endgame material.

there’s a pattern here where the character the protagonist marries is not supposed to be someone he’s fought countless battles with or who spurs him on to become the best version of himself. instead, it’s supposed to be someone the protagonist can come home to in order to escape his every day struggles, the intensity of his rivalries, the hardships of his fights. shonen spouse material can be someone who’s been with the protagonist every step of the way, but not necessarily someone he’s had a lot of interaction with. someone who’s nurturing, someone who takes care of him, someone who is always there for him. not his Sasuke, but his Hinata.

aaand in some cases it feels like the less the two have interacted on screen, the better their chances are for ending up married.

in that, shonen manga works a lot like the ancient Rome’s idea of love. only a man can ever truly understand another man, a true connection of profound respect can only be possible between two men, etc.

but if it comes to who you marry, who you have a family with, who you create a home with, that’s what women are for. this reflects a certain image of women, and how manga approaches that subject could fill an entire essay on its own. but I feel like someone more educated than me should be the one to tackle that issue. so we are going to try and phrase this as neutrally as possible and leave it at that: shonen manga has a sexism problem.

Japanese culture is also permeated by some strong conservative values. according to those, boys having crushes on boys and girls having crushes on girls is one thing, sometimes tolerated, sometimes romantically depicted. but growing up, you are expected to leave these things behind as a “juvenile phase”, have a heterosexual marriage, have children, and become a respectable, productive member of society.

another matter we encounter is how we define what is gay. 

you might look at Deku blushing at Bakugo, calling him Kacchan, calling him the most amazing person he knows, and for you these might be obvious signs that Deku has a crush on Bakugo.

[long post, lots of images and BNHA MANGA SPOILER WARNING]

but the problem is that shonen manga makes a very hard and fast distinction between who is and isn’t gay. Japanese anime and manga, especially shonen, has clear cut stereotypes when it comes to depicting queer men. there’s a very informative post written by @satans-tiddies​ which I will link over here. it talks about a lot of difficulties emerging from Western audiences projecting their own views on Japanese media, particularly about the differences between what Western and Japanese audiences consider gay stereotypes.

let’s just say that if a character in a shonen manga/anime is supposed to be gay, most of the time you’ll know, because he will look somewhat like this.

be careful not to generalize an entire population here of course. these kinda depictions do not mirror the view of the entirety of Japanese audiences or content creators. I don’t think they even necessarily mirror the views of the mangaka. but they do mirror what does and what does not fly with the vast majority of young male Japanese audiences, and that’s really all that matters for this discussion, cause they’re the target audience of BNHA.

what I’m saying is, it might not occur to the target audience, or even Horikoshi himself, that Bakugo having Deku-brain and vice versa looks incredibly queer to us. imho, this is what sets this kind of depiction of rivalries between young men apart from a lot of queerbaiting you see in Western media. sure, there is some fanservice directed at shippers to be found in BNHA.

but generally, the reason these two are so obsessed with each other has got nothing to do with baiting shippers, and everything with the fact that it makes sense for their characters - and that it’s just a very compelling relationship to read about.

and I know it may seem contradictory, but there are many instances of shonen walking a tight rope between platonic and romantic relationships between two male characters. take for example Yugi and Jounouchi from Yu-Gi-Oh. not only do these two mean the world to each other, Yugi straight up proclaims his love to Jounouchi in a life-or-death situation.

that never amounts to anything more than this though, because that’s just what their relationship is: an incredibly deep connection bordering (?) on romantic love that neither characters nor the mangaka feel like it needs to be taken to another level. because in canon it just. is what it is.

is that rooted in homophobia? maybe, partly. it could also be that Takahashi tried to get some actual queerness past the radar here, but could not take any further than that. you don’t know, I don’t know, and it is not for me to judge. all I’m doing is try and explain to you what to expect.

and just to show that the general attitude we encounter here is not unique to Japan, another, even better example to explain where I’m going with this comes in form of Western media.

Sam and Frodo have one of the most profound, loving relationships in all of literature. they hold each other through their darkest hours and support each other through the hardest times. they constantly kiss, blush around each other, even call each other beautiful.

Sam even admits to himself that he loves his Mr. Frodo.

yet Jolkien Rolkien Rolkien Tolkien did not consider Sam and Frodo gay. he was a deeply catholic, conservative man. the mere thought of his characters being considered gay would probably make him rotate in his grave (which is all the more reason to do it if you ask me.) after all is said and done, Sam goes back to the Shire and does not marry the man he has held naked in his arms, who he carried up Mount Doom and who he described as beautiful. instead, he happily marries Rosie Cotton, a woman with barely more than a couple lines to her name. (but Frodo lets them and their children move into in his house and they live together for a couple more years in what to everyone but Tolkien is obviously a fantastic little polycule.)

my point is, people don’t always realize what it is they are writing. if asked about Sam’s and Frodo’s relationship, Tolkien would say he was drawing inspiration from the relationships between men he encountered in World War I. something that for you and me reads like an intense and loving relationship could have been intended by the author to be incredibly close friends, because the point where they draw the line between romantic and non-romantic differs from yours or mine. I’ll come back to this in a minute though, now it’s time for a brief interlude.

"so you’re saying Deku is straight?”

imho, he’s probably intended by the author to be straight, or what the target audience thinks passes as straight. though to be fair, the word “straight” does a lot of heavy lifting here.

“so you say we shouldn’t argue the dudebros on twitter who say that Deku is straight and he can’t be in love with Bakugo.”

lmao no, fuck those guys. for all intents and purposes, there is no proof that Deku is straight. there is no proof that any of the BNHA characters are straight. or cis for that matter. there’s a handy little thing called a queer reading or queering of any given media.

it’s what any of us should always fall back on when arguing clowns. the friendship between Bakugo and Deku has strong homoerotic elements, and to deny that is to be disingenuous. the queer reading of BNHA happens to suggest itself very strongly because there is so much canon material to work with. nothing more, nothing less. your queer reading of the manga is a valid way of interpreting what canon has given you, and it is your right as a reader to interpret Deku as bi, or Bakugo as trans, or any other queer reading you can come up with.

I refuse to let my view of media be dictated by the heteronormative views of their authors or target audience, and you should do the same. if you view Deku as bi, there’s plenty of canon material for you to back up that claim, whether that’s intended by the author or not. 

esp anti culture is so damn obsessed with getting the approval of authors, of show runners, of creators, in short: of people they perceive as the authorities. but what if I told you that approval is not necessary. no, even more, that being queer and making transformative work is the exact opposite of that, and that that’s important! disregard authorities! reject them! reject the heteronormativity and cisnormativity of the majority of media and replace it with your own idea of who the characters are and what relationships they have! (but don’t make the mistake of turning around and praising the author for putting it there. it was you who put it there, and you should praise yourself.)

sorry I’m gonna get down from my soap box in a second. but like, that issue is so important to me. I’ve been watching with growing concern how young queer fans are so desperate for that authoritarian approval that they are ready to tear each other to shreds over literal scraps, instead of banding together in solidarity. 

if the normies give us representation, that is great! but we’re not dependent on their approval. and we shouldn’t chase after it, or their permission, and we definitely should not throw each other under the bus for it. if the author, or the target audience, or the whole damn world tells you what you’re doing is weird and wrong, ignore them. don’t curry favor with those who dislike you for being who you are. do your thing. be proud of being what they call weird and different. embrace it. wear it like armor.

anyway, soap box rant is over now, back to the topic at hand. 

after all this slightly depressing talk about how we always have to claw our way through adversity and carve out our own happiness from the heteronormative, cisnormative nightmare that is this society, I also have good news.

because the good news is, just like Jounouchi and Yugi, just like Sam and Frodo:

Bakugo and Deku love each other.

the feelings these two have for each other are so complex and multilayered and include so many different kinds of emotions that it would be dishonest to claim love is not an important facet of their dynamic. actually, they affect each other on a level so fundamental that it’s hard to call it anything other than love. you could argue what kind of love we’re talking about, but personally, I don’t think it matters.

nothing even comes close to the profound impact they have and keep having on each other their entire lives through. one cannot exist without the other. they are inseparably tied together by fate, and fuel each other’s resolve more than anything else. they are the X, Y and Z axis the other revolves around. they are the key to unlocking the respective other’s full potential. their friendship is what has been driving these characters and the entire story from conception on.

it sometimes is hard to believe that Deku could look at someone like Bakugo and even after all the years of bullying could still see someone so amazing if there is not at least some form of love involved. because Deku does love Bakugo. he has never let go of the affection he’s held for Bakugo ever since they were kids, symbolized by Deku never ceasing to call Bakugo Kacchan. he cannot even imagine a world without Kacchan in it.

Deku is inspired by Bakugo’s resolve to win, his tenacity, his confidence, sees past all his shittiness, and recognizes the amazing person he could be. in turn, Bakugo sees Deku’s heroic spirit, and while he’s ridiculously intimidated by how much he admires it, he learns from it, and grows into a better hero because of it.

no one has inspired Deku more than Bakugo, nothing fuels his will to move forward the same way, not even All Might.

they’re barely on speaking terms and are still not back to being friends by a long shot, yet absolutely nothing makes Deku go as feral as someone insulting Bakugo’s honor...

...or even worse, Bakugo getting hurt.

(don’t get me started on Deku and the gang saving two entire school classes and a small child from villains, everyone’s alive thanks to them, and only one person was abducted - but since the person who was abducted is Bakugo, Deku sees the entire endeavor as a total loss.)

and who could forget about “give him back”?

and on on the flip side? 

Bakugo’s feelings for Deku are so intense, he does not even know how to deal with them. one of the reasons Bakugo has been such a dick towards Deku all this time is because he felt he had to bury his feelings, bury how deeply he cares for Deku, or else he would not be able to deal with watching him being as self-destructive as he is.

hell, Bakugo’s feelings for Deku, no matter their nature, are so strong and intense they actually scare him.

Bakugo would, without any hesitation, give his life to save Deku.

and Deku would, without any hesitation, give his life to save Bakugo.

they may not be entirely there yet, but they’re making progress towards being able to face each other eye to eye, to taking each other’s hands, and accepting these unbelievably intense feelings they have for each other.

and when they finally are ready to hold hands, they’re gonna be unstoppable.

my point is: even without any canon confirmation, without kisses, without anything else? these two already love each other so, so much that it’s sometimes hard to take.

all that is not to say that I think they shouldn’t end up being canon.

I’m not saying we should stop striving for inclusivity, for diversity and representation, and the amount of fantastic manga and anime with a focus on that is growing every year! I’m just saying mainstream shonen manga is probably not where to expect it.

we should still hold it accountable of course, but like... I feel it’s also kind of not our place as Westerners to tell Japanese content creators how to do their job based on our values of how social progress should work.

cause then you get bs like the hate mob dogpiling on Horikoshi, demanding he make their slash ship canon and calling him terrible names in the process. I think it’s what kids refer to as “not a good look”.

...I’m gonna level with you. nothing would make me happier than being wrong about this. I’m not even kidding, if all y’all end up being right and I end up being wrong, and BakuDeku becomes canon? I’ll be the happiest person on earth. it would be so revolutionary, there’s a possibility that I’d die on the spot from a heart attack.

I wouldn’t even care whether it was BakuDeku or another slash ship involving the main cast. just. ANY mlm ship happening between major shonen manga characters would blow my mind so hard I’d have to lie down for a whole month.

but after being here for twenty years, I’m not banking on it. I’ve had my share of deep disappointments, and I’m trying to protect you guys from that. cause believe me, I know how much it hurts. and honestly, I found my peace with what we have. BNHA already is the 300+ chapter slow burn fic of my dreams. it’s a fantastic story about these dorks figuring out how to accept their feelings, their own feelings and that of the respective other, and them both becoming better, stronger people because of it, because of each other, for each other, to be worthy of each other.

Deku and Bakugo already love each other, as much as two human beings possibly can. what more could I want?