#deku is a good friend

[xspidershex]

If only had I realized sooner

[beybuniki]

tododekus as in shoto has a crush and deku is oblivious, but either way they’re so affectionate towards each other it’s so cute

[yugiohz]

[that1notetaker]

Mha chapter 429 Spoilers! Deku hugging ochaku mirrors exactly ochako's hug when Deku's 'heart' went out of control back all those chapters ago. In both cases, both their hearts were out of control because of someone else. Izuku because of Katsuki and Ochako because of Toga. Again, they're mirrors. They've been mirroring each other for a long time. Izuku knew exactly what to say, because he literally understands. He really does. Now, I absolutely loved the tenderness of the scene. The 'hey, you can let the ugliness out, I'm here, it's okay. You can let it out." Izuku has been dealing with his own closed-off heart for a long time, and we still haven't seen HIM open up properly. I'm not sure how the manga will handle it, IF it will. But it feels like there's something missing, for Izuku's character to round up. I vote for Deku vs Kacchan 3, a reversed of 'The only one that can accept Kacchan's feelings is me'

[habken]

They would add salt on aizawa coffee 😔

no they would not that man has been through enough and they don’t have a death wish

[kiisaes]

Deku literally was not emotionally available for Ochako but he was still there for her he’s such a friend we al need

anon i completely agree. i think ppl are being really mean about deku in the recent epilogue chapters

saying he doesn't deserve bkg (and to an extent all his friends) and that he's invalidating ochako's feelings and that he's an evil heartless murderer. when he's literally just a dude who nearly died and actually did lose his quirk for good this time and his dream's dead in the water and he now has survivor's guilt and believes himself a heinous killer and has no idea how to tackle all of that for his greater well-being because he's historically NEVER been good at tackling his deeper emotions or desires so he just shuts himself down

this is the deku y'all signed up for and when he finally shows real signs of trauma and guilt and pain y'all hate him in return. you guys suck. appreciate him or die

[arirovi]

“The Girl Who Loves Smiles” is an evocative and provocative chapter, which “shows” before “tells.”

I think most of the reactions I saw about the chapter reflected that.

From the first moment, the chapter was evoking memories of the plot and the characters in us and with great ease. We all wanted it to be about Ochako, because the title alluded to her and consequently, also to Toga, and it was (but not in the way i'd expected).

On a personal level, I was hoping for a more direct and concrete resolution on them. I wanted to know if Toga is still alive or not. Find out if Ochako knows anything about her current state and how she is facing the end of her own battle.

Would the chapter present a final confrontation between the two?

Looking back, I think expectations played tricks on me again, but that's because, as a human being, I look for patterns everywhere. The pace of resolution of the previous two chapters had been just what I expected from this last one: a direct and concrete resolution, both for Todoroki facing Touya with his family, and for Izuku facing Spinner.

The change of narrative pace in this chapter, I think, affected many of us quite drastically and I have the feeling that this abrupt and unexpected change was put there with the intention of provoking us, but not in the sense of making us anxious (for the idea that there is not enough time to tie up all the loose ends), nor addressing the typical revenge speech of those who like a certain ship (we all know which one).

I think it was intended to evoke Ochako's motivation as a hero and provoke a real emotional connection with her in her process to endure that weight (at this particular moment).

The first time the chapter shows us Ochako, she is literally and figuratively silent (her mouth is covered), as they talk about Shoto, Kacchan, and Izuku's central role in the war. Of course, she was also a part of it, so why isn't she also included for her merits? And so, the first hint that someone is feeling pain appears in the form of an sfx, which is evocative of his own battle with Toga. The way of showing this, in white, invites us to remember what she did almost by force (since there are no flash backs), rather than focusing on the present plot.

Then she disappears from the scene for a moment and what are we supposed to do with these seemingly inconsequential pages? While I was glad to see how things improved on a social level; how Kacchan, Edgeshot, and the rest were inching forward, I was still bothered by why now?, when there's a bigger part about Ochako to address? Then Ochako returns to being the focal point and her first words are in response to what a civilian said, reaffirming what we already know: that everything is going better. However, just as she appears falsely cheerful, we as readers are forced to place our attention on these distractions instead of the pain (like Ochako did to).

It's frustrating and it's painful that everything seems to move so fast but in slow motion at the same time, that everything feels so superficial and mundane, when there is something more important that should be happening under the surface. And why does everyone seem so optimistic so quickly? Where is the feeling of the aftermath of something so terrible? The guilt? The trauma? The emotional resolution?

The thing is, we've been provoked to feel like Ochako all along. The narrative, so far, shows us what Ochako wants to see, the day-to-day life that Ochako struggles to experience, because it's what she supposes she should do and feel about it no matter what (and us with her).

And then, Tsuyu comes to tell us other thing that we were already shown before: Ochako is not responding, but not only to the most obvious thing, the text message, but to her surroundings and not to her friends either.

Now is when the “telling” becomes the center of everything: Ochako directly explains to us why she was not included in the group of heroes, her companions, who gained admirers (there were no recordings). She tells us, like an echo while reaffirming it to herself, that everything is improving, that the city looks like before, that it is time to be optimistic and positive because the war is over. She reminds us that he has been hiding his own pain because she loves seeing people smile, since that is a sign that they are happy moving forward.

However, even though she is saying it, she does not remember any smile of her classmates in particular (the words are on a black background) and instead, the only smile she remembers is Toga's, but whose image is tinged with the pain of his battle scar (which at the same time represents special, intimate connection with her).

In a few pages, all the evocation and provocation increase in a crescendo until reaching the point of no return. Ochako can no longer suppress the truth and neither can we: that the one smile she apparently couldn't save weighs more on her than all the other smiles she can see day after day.

It is a very intimate chapter, which seeks to incite a feeling of empathy and vulnerability with the character.

I don't know about you, but I felt very vulnerable too while watching her break down.

With this slow and almost artificial, forced rhythm, I felt that she invited me to live this repressed pain with her and to hope that, somehow, there is a kinder way out that does justice to everything she is having to endure.

And yeah, i hope the next chapter goes well.

[dekusleftsock]

I think that there’s a fundamental misunderstanding of what exactly is…happening with Izuku’s character. Specifically in regards to chapter 425.

I’m glad that a lot more people generally recognize that Izuku is not a character that can be read at a surface level, given that he’s both a repressed person with built up emotion of basically everything and also a very glaringly HUGELY unreliable narrator, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I agree with the ways I’ve seen this most recent chapter spoken about.

I see posts, comments, etc with ideas like “Izuku don’t suppress your emotions! Open up with people! It’ll be okay I promise!” When that’s fundamentally not what is happening here.

There’s always always ALWAYS been a distinct difference in character throughout horikoshi’s writing when he is showing that a character is:

A—Avoiding emotions, thoughts, ideas less than ideal for them. Not opening up when they probably should about their problems given that they’ve been handed the space to do so. Just genuinely not acknowledging, feeling, or expressing emotions that they don’t want.

B—Reflecting on the ways they feel about the world, themselves, or other people given their new perspective on a situation. Not outright reaching out to others to talk about these problems/feelings, but instead waiting until the moment they feel they have the most confidence to do so with their new outlook on their own life.

And genuinely, guys, to grab your BkDk attention rn, this is the exact reason why Ochako’s reflection on her feelings for Izuku and thereafter decision to pull away from them WAS NEVER GOING TO END IN OCHAKO EXPLODING WITH HER LOVE FOR HIM.

This was another common interpretation I saw of Ochako and Izuocha for a long time. That because she pushed these feelings away, they were somehow going to explode in this unbelievable way and she would “get the boy” because of it. That her arc would surround accepting her romantic feelings and that she can’t just push away how she feels for a career.

But yk. That didn’t happen. At all. Nowhere close even.

The same kind of goes for Katsuki, allmight, etc. They all had moments in their arc where it was spent genuinely reflecting, and the only reason we as the audience never connected it in the same ways we do ochako or Izuku was ALWAYS BECAUSE the narrative showed their inner thoughts while doing so (mostly because Allmight’s arc after losing OFA and Katsuki’s arc on what it means to be a hero were so intrinsically tied, both starting at the same time and ending at the same time during the final war. And because they were so tied this caused their own reflections, development, and thought process to be broadcasted to us frequently throughout their arcs… to each other. They also somewhat shared aspects with Izuku, but these were cherry picked more often than not, like dvk2 for example).

To us Katsuki never seemed to be.. idk, suppressing his anger in any way because we were always told what he was doing and why (side note: this is why I’ve always thought arguments against Katsuki were so weird, bc unlike characters like endeavor or Ochako he wasn’t like… hiding who he was and how he was changing. Ever. Like the audience knows at all times past basically season 3 what Katsuki is thinking and doing. Like how do you watch this happen, stare me dead in the eye, and tell me how much of a terrible and awful teenage boy he is. Like damn I didn’t think we were this dumb. This is also my theory as to why he’s most popular, his arc is very… in your face if that makes sense). Katsuki’s entire mini arc on reflecting his mistakes and his childhood and his future is spent TELLING YOU that it’s what he’s doing. (I’m referring mostly to the endeavor internship arc, the provisional license exam makeup, and basically everything in the war arc related to him leading up to bakugou Katsuki rising here)

And see, Horikoshi will stare you dead in the eye, tell you “this girl has taken into consideration that she doesn’t want to waste her time training her career focusing on a boy because he kinda caught her fancy”, and y’all will still say that this will explode in her face.

Y’all this is a series about learning how to manage emotions, maturity in relationship to one’s emotions, how to feel an emotion, but in a way that is helpful. Horikoshi isn’t telling you “go buck wild, feel everything all the time and always express it”, in fact he explores why you DONT do that! Through Toga or Shigaraki, they show how grief and anger can genuinely consume you. But he also shows why you shouldn’t just put everything in a box to never look at or acknowledge, or why you shouldn’t just let your grief destroy the world around you, or pretending that some emotions simply don’t exist.

I can’t say this enough, so let me say it now, mha is about the extremes of your psyche. That you should control something, but not too much. Everything can be harmful. Everything can be good.

Izuku is not controlling too much, he’s expressing just enough.

I LOVE shaming this dickhead at all times in all my posts. I love saying he’s an ignorant dipshit with a weird amount of distaste for a girl who just confessed to him. I’ve joked that chapter 348 is basically an entire chapter spent on Izuku calling Himiko a mean dyke. And yet I also believe he’s doing nothing WRONG here.

In fact, I’ll even say that this moment right here?

ISNT EVEN IZUKU DOING THE SOCIALLY APPROPRIATE THING ABOUT IT! But he’s still TRYING to reach out to someone he thinks MIGHT be able to understand. (And frankly, this moment is far deeper than what it’s being made out to be, to me it reads more like an unrequited friendship that Izuku both desires and has thought of them to have, while simultaneously showing the distance Ochako has successfully wedged between them for her own sake. Maybe it was always there though, maybe in weird, miscommunicated Horikoshi fashion, this is a representation of how Ochako always read all those “fun friend hangouts” as a little more than that, and without those feelings the friendship never really held any substance to her in the first place. Where Izuku saw his first real friend at UA, she saw little more than acquaintance)

Simultaneously, Izuku is genuinely reflecting on what it means for the world to change, to be a hero, to live after loss—and trying and failing to gain the connection he desires from individuals who can not and will not afford him that.

Izuku is ready for the world to change, a few select characters are also ready for the world to change (mirio, for example), but not nearly enough are. So maybe I’ll have to take this back if I’m proven wrong and I accidentally looked into this far past what everyone else did for no reason, but I genuinely believe with moments like this

And this

Aand this

That Izuku has come forward with that aspect of his character development. He’s reflecting on his new beliefs, not repressing his emotions for them.

[ellisbian]

i was a hardcore tododeku and kiribaku shipper back in 2017, i liked how their relationship developed and damn if it has been horikoshi who wanted just going deeper in all of the relationships who deku and kacchan have only for then reinforcing the deku and kacchan’s one and leaving all the doubts behind: these two are made for each other, and the one who don’t see any traits that izuku and bakugou share are the one that still babyfied izuku and make bakugou just a bully

[ramblebramblefun]

Kacchan hasn't even been gone two full days and Izuku has already managed to Commit a Crime.

If Kacchan has to interrupt his vacation to bail Izuku out of jail, then Kacchan will end up in jail. For murder.

Izuku does not want to be murdered. Or to interrupt Kacchan's vacation! Kacchan has earned this vacation! Izuku will not, cannot, be the one to interrupt it.

Which means that he absolutely, must not, on any account, get caught.

Covering up your crime is also a crime! So Izuku is going to have to commit at least two crimes to hide the fact that he has already done a crime, and maybe Kacchan had a point about how Izuku absolutely must not be left to his own devices, but making Kaminari babysit Izuku like some kind of crime-baby was just plain mean. To Kaminari.

Izuku can run circles around that guy.

Kacchan should have made Mina do it. Oh well! Kaminari's not awake yet, so all Izuku has to do is-

"OPEN UP! THIS IS THE POLICE!" The bellow was accompanied by a pounding fit to wake the dead. Or Kaminari.

...

Kacchan is going to kill him.

[k3r0deku]

i love the trope of katsuki breaking down kirishima’s door in the middle of the night cus he’s having a meltdown over being in love with deku

[chandralia]

Horikoshi updating us on the fantasy au:

[beybuniki]

re-read the 200s and I love their awkward phase in-between animosity and rekindled friendship :) bakugo has an awkward way of expressing his interest and worries regarding deku’s quirk and deku in general it’s so funny to follow

[yugiohz]

was thinking about how nice it would be if shoto also had a token girl best friend and then I remembered he got yaomomo…… and that horikoshi just dropped this dynamic…… I feel so sick but then again yaomomo DID get a yuriful friendship with jirou and atp they’re a couple kinda so idk i guess shoto has to deal with not having a token female best friend, you lose some you win some!!!!!

[everypanelofizuku]

Chapter 69 - Interview with Midoriya

[sugawara--san]

the au where deku and kirishima have actually been internet bffs since middle school is my new fav omg