#for bakugou its about establishing equality

[bakuhatsufallinlove]

Omae Part 2 Electric Boogaloo

Tomorrow is the one-year anniversary of my post Omae: Complexity of Self-Expression and Intimacy in the Japanese “You.” In honor of it, I’m doing a follow-up post.

Why? Because I made two claims in that post:

“as far as I can tell, Izuku is the only person Katsuki has ever used the pronoun omae (おまえ) towards in-canon”

“Furthermore, he has only used omae towards Izuku on three occasions.”

I prefaced both with “as far as I can tell” because I had some doubts that Katsuki’s use of omae was exactly that exclusive, but I knew it was pretty damn exclusive, so I went ahead and wrote the meta anyway. And I still stand by my assessments of how he uses it and what those moments mean.

But I was wrong on both counts.

Katsuki has used omae towards people other than Izuku.

He has used omae towards Izuku on five occassions, as of chapter 409.

Of course, chapter 409 wasn’t released until months after I wrote my pronoun meta, but at the time of my post, I had in fact missed one pivotal omae directed at Izuku that occurs much earlier in the series.

I wanna talk about those two extra omae towards Izuku and who else he has used omae towards. Much like Katsuki, I am a perfectionist, so if I'm gonna revisit this topic, I'm gonna go all the way.

So, I went through 409 chapters and catalogued every single time Katsuki uses a second-person pronoun.

STRAP IN, BUCKOS.

An Exhaustive Analysis of Bakugou Katsuki’s Second-Person Pronoun Usage

These are all the “you” pronouns Katsuki has used in the manga. We’ll go over them one-by-one and talk about who he uses them for, when, and my thoughts on why.

First, a note about rudeness: In many languages, and certainly in Japanese, familiarity and rudeness go hand-in-hand. In dictionaries and on grammar websites, you’ll see advice about using a term only with “people above you” or “people equal to or below you.” In general, you are either talking up to someone (polite speech) or you are talking down to them (casual speech). Excluding outright derogatory language, talking down to someone is the same as treating them as your equal.

Talking up creates or maintains distance between parties. Casual speech, familiar terms, and directness are nuances that generally get introduced into relationships as they deepen. Basically, being close to someone gives you the “right to be rude” to them. To speak this way with a stranger or people who are your hierarchical “social superiors” is considered rude in part because you lack an established (or equal) relationship with them.

I mention this because I think some people are under the misapprehension that for Katsuki to show someone he cares, he would have to speak respectfully towards them—that is, talk up to them. That simply isn’t the case, and in fact such behavior might convey callous indifference instead, because switching from casual speech to formal speech with someone you have history with puts distance between you, pushing them away.

Instead, there are more nuanced ways to connect and affirm bonds. Katsuki using omae rather than temee, for example, is not him being more polite, he's just being less insulting. He is still talking down, and one could argue that by refusing to talk up to anyone, Katsuki treats everyone equally. I mean he is still a foul-mouthed little monster, but you know, at least he’s consistent about it.

Anyway, keep this “right to be rude” in mind.

As mentioned in my first post, temee is basically Katsuki’s default second-person pronoun. If he’s addressing someone directly and he isn’t using one of his mean nicknames, it is almost guaranteed to be this word. This graphic is the only one that is not exhaustive, featuring just the top three.

Temee is derogatory; it is often translated as “you bastard,” and even when it’s not, its presence encourages translators to slather a veneer of rudeness across the sentence as a whole. Unlike the other pronouns we’re going to talk about, there is basically no scenario where you could use temee and not come across like an asshole. You could use it with friends or family to joke around, but you’re still being an asshole, just a funny one.

And... can we just acknowledge the vast gulf between Izuku’s 62 and runner-up Todoroki’s 14? Obviously Izuku is the protagonist, so it makes sense that much of the dialogue we are shown from any character is about him or directed at him. But it’s also just really funny.

No single use of temee is particularly notable since it's so common, but it is obvious why these two are at the top of the list: Katsuki has a lot of scenes with them, and he considers them his rivals. As a result, they tend to throw him into a tizzy often.

Anta is a contraction of anata. If avoiding a “you” pronoun entirely is the most polite way to refer to someone, anata is arguably the next most polite way. It is considered polite towards someone of “equal or lower status,” but can seem distant—you hear it in commercials when the narrator has to address the audience, “you, the customer.”

Anta strips away that distance and expresses either familiarity or contempt, depending on how you want to read it, which makes it pretty fucking funny that Katsuki uses it for his mentor figures. It is worth noting that anta is significantly less offensive than his typical temee and arguably even omae. A normal person would never use anta towards their boss or teacher—or their lifelong idol, for that matter—because it is talking down, which puts them on your level. But Katsuki’s whole persona is built around rebellious superiority, so out of all the options, he affords All Might and Best Jeanist the least offensive pronoun he can stomach using. Essentially, “I’m not gonna be fuckin’ polite but god, fine, I’ll be LESS rude, I guess” while still maintaining plausible deniability.

I also wanna note that there are instances where Katsuki technically uses temee towards All Might and anta towards Izuku, because he uses them in the plural form to refer to both of them at once. It’s actually pretty interesting to see who is framed as the “primary subject” of his scolding based on which pronoun he uses.

Chapter 257

All Might is the one droning on and on, so Katsuki’s response pluralizes his All Might pronoun anta into antara, lumping Izuku in with him. Basically: “stop wasting my time and get to the point (and that goes for you, too, Deku).”

Here we’ve got him pluralizing temee and, between All Might and Izuku, it’s definitely more the Izuku pronoun. So this reads a little like “dammit Deku you kept this secret so badly I found out and then you swore me to secrecy but you’re STILL UTTER SHIT AT HIDING IT so you are MAKING MY LIFE EVEN HARDER (and you, All Might, don’t you fucking know better??)”

Aaaand now we’re at the good shit. Okay, let’s break it down.

Ochako

Chapter 36

Katsuki addresses Ochako with omae at the very start of their Sports Festival battle, and this is in fact the first time he addresses her personally with a second-person pronoun. It’s a great writing choice: unlike every other fight we’ve seen Katsuki in so far, he isn’t busting out his typical boisterous insults. Rather, what he says reads as a measured assessment of her as a threat, and omae contributes to this. Had he used temee, he might still have come across this way on the whole, but the use of omae as the first word out of his mouth—when the audience knows he uses temee—sets this moment apart even more.

The text of Uraraka vs. Bakugou isn't ambiguous: Katsuki takes Ochako seriously, immediately, when no one else does. This is of course a rejection of sexist assumptions about girls, but it is also because Katsuki is smart. Kaminari’s battle is the foil to this fight. Where Bakugou succeeds, Kaminari failed, having been too sexist, cocky, and just plain dumb to properly assess his opponent and the danger they pose to him.

I said in my first post that Katsuki’s omae towards Izuku immediately after Deku vs. Kacchan 2 reads as him addressing Izuku as an equal, and I would say the same is true here.

After Ochako tries to execute her plan and Katsuki accuses her of colluding with Izuku, he uses temee towards her. It’s his standard choice, of course, but the change feels a little loaded in hindsight. She might have been afforded a different pronoun once, but she quickly gets lumped into the temee pile at least partly due to Proximity To Deku.

Katsuki talks the most shit when he’s on the ropes—a strategic, cocky camouflage for his vulnerability. We know from his thoughts watching Todoroki vs. Midoriya that at this moment, he was pretty worried he was at his limit. But Katsuki also likes a good challenge, and he respects people who can give it to him, so in gearing up for the climax of this fight, he calls her by her surname.

The progression: omae + mean nickname → temee → surname.

In later scenes, he addresses her with his typical temee, which just goes to show you that Katsuki really picks and chooses his moments.

Or, as All Might put it:

Speaking of picking and choosing his moments, this next one was a delight to discover.

Jirou

Chapter 182

As with Ochako, this is the first time Katsuki uses a "you" towards Jirou personally. To be precise, what he uses is a sound-shifted variant of omae pronounced omee (written variously as おめえ, おめー, and おめぇ). We’ll talk about whether that means anything later.

This occurs during the school festival when Jirou belts her heart out suddenly. Katsuki thinks back to how the band had criticized his improvisation and her specifically telling him not to do it during the show. So he says out loud, to himself, “omee ga surun kai,” for which I think the funniest translation would be, “OH BUT YOU CAN DO IT, HUH??”

The official English translation is “hypocrite!” which isn’t bad, but yeah, he is being such a grumpy little sarcastic baby about it, it’s very funny. Just muttering complaints under his breath, with no actual ill-will attached. The fact that he uses omee reinforces the sense that this is not a serious complaint; it’s good-natured ribbing and contributes to the reader’s awareness that Katsuki likes and respects Jirou.

While Kaminari and Sero mischievously try to trick him into participating in the festival, Jirou earnestly asks for his help while acknowledging his skill.

Chapter 171

On top of outright asking "onegai" (please, but literally: "a request"), the verb construction she uses (やってくれたら, yatte kuretara) frames his participation as a favor; kureru is basically “to do for the benefit of someone else [often to your disadvantage or inconvenience].” And then she personally works her ass off to make their performance the very best it can be.

Later during the Joint Training Battle, Katsuki relies on her, uses a nickname for her (to her annoyance), and saves her. Kirishima and Kaminari both astutely comment that the festival band reinforced Katsuki’s trust in his classmates and his willingness to work with them towards success.

In this moment during the festival, Katsuki is letting Jirou shine, because each of them doing what they do best is what makes the performance a triumph in the first place.

But the boy’s still gonna be a bossy little tsundere about it.

4th Grade Bullies

Chapter 62

In Izuku’s flashback, little Katsuki uses omaera (plural form) towards the 4th graders who pick a fight with him.

You might be thinking, “Hang on, haven’t all the omae uses so far been for people Katsuki likes or at least respects? So why is he using it for these two?” And you’d be right, at least when it comes to present-day, teenage Katsuki using omae, because it’s no longer his default.

Flashbacks to Katsuki and Izuku’s childhood tell us that Katsuki’s default peer address as a kid was most likely omae, and that he switched to temee as he got older and became more of an obnoxious little shit. I emphasized in my first post that omae seems softer coming from Katsuki because it’s a departure from his normal way of speaking. The flashbacks show us a time when he was... kinda just a regular kid using language common among boys his age.

Still, there is a “cool tough guy” air to this moment, because omae can also come across as contemptuous—which is how Izuku uses it towards villains in present-day. Izuku uses boku for himself and kimi for peers, the combination of which tend to be seen as kind of soft and boyish, rather than macho and cool. Little Katsuki uses the boastful pronoun ore for himself and omae towards the bullies, who are both older and therefore technically "above" him.

So Izuku marvels at Kacchan, who talks big and tough like a grownup. Kacchan who can do anything, who stands his ground, fights to win, and invokes the heroic ideals of All Might.

Izuku

Chapter 9

The first time we see Katsuki call Izuku by his name is when we learn the origins of the nickname Deku. It also happens to be the first time we see Katsuki address someone with something other than temee. This scene shows us a glimpse of what their relationship looked like before it totally fell apart: before Katsuki nicknamed him Deku, he called him Izuku. And before Katsuki started hurling insults and screaming “you bastard” (temee!) at Izuku all the time, he used a different “you” word for him, too. Little Katsuki addressed him as a little boy would address a peer or a friend.

It made me wonder… is the aftermath of Deku vs Kacchan 2 the first time Katsuki has addressed him as an equal since they were little kids?

And, furthermore, little Katsuki uses the sound shifted variant, omee.

You might be surprised to learn that temee itself is a sound shifted variant of temae (手前, てまえ). Temae literally means “before the hand” and historically, it was a humble first-person pronoun, meaning “me, who stands before you.” Omae (お前) literally means “the one before [me],” it was historically very polite and only used for extremely high-class people. Somewhere along the way, temae became a second-person pronoun like omae, and both started to be perceived as quite rude.

Tough guy Japanese speech patterns are epitomized by sound shifts and bitten off words. Supposedly, this dialect originates in Tokyo’s historic Shitamachi area, which is characterized as rough and working class in sharp contrast to the wealthy, high class Yamanote area.

So, does omee mean something different than omae? Maybe, but not always. Does it mean something different when someone says “Thank ya” rather than “Thank you”? Or when someone says “y’all” rather than “you all”? Not exactly, but… does it feel different? It can.

Little Katsuki’s sound shift links this moment to our last example:

Chapter 409

As you acquire language, you develop a personal relationship with it informed by your experiences. More than just dictionary definitions, you gain cultural and emotional associations, and that impacts how you interpret media and other people. I don’t think anyone can say that omee definitively conveys something different than omae, but I do know that when I personally read Katsuki use it in 409, the shift feels like casual fondness. Like letting down your guard. A reassurance spoken softly. It somehow feels just a bit softer than if he had enunciated omae.

Years ago, Katsuki used it to tease Izuku about how he can’t do anything. And four hundred chapters later, he uses it to say “I won’t get in your way anymore.”

You should read pikahlua's really, really good meta about what this line means.

Whether it was intentional on Horikoshi’s part or not, I think it is a meaningful callback. These are the only two times Katsuki has ever used omee towards Izuku. It emphasizes how he has changed, yes, but it also ties in the context of his own past "uselessness" and how he has surpassed it, that he won't ever again be "a weakness others can exploit" to get to Izuku. But also, as pika says:

(And I read that he’s ready to let Izuku be the main character.)

The only other time Katsuki has used omee is towards Jirou, when he affectionately teased her for being a hypocrite while also making sure she got her time in the limelight.

And what does Katsuki think in the next chapter?

“Izuku, do your best.”

Izuku gets his time in the limelight. They each brought their own strengths to this final battle, and Katsuki has held up his end. He wasn’t a burden, he didn’t hold Izuku back—he came back from the dead, saved their hero, and took out All For One. Now Izuku has to do what he does best.

A lot of the things I said in this post simply reiterate the meaning of the text itself, and that's because the nuances in Katsuki’s dialogue support the narrative. They reinforce what the story tells us about him and his relationships, and I think that's pretty amazing.

[doodlegirl1998]

Hey, I saw a fic of redemption Toga fic (with a good dash of time travel) and all fine and good, not here to talk about the fic but...

Have you noticed how the entrance exam makes no sense? I meant the scores and how the teachers (dont recall in canon, but fics love to say "oh those teachers were fascinated by student X and Y" I think it isnt canon) were watching.

Its a school for heroes so why have "villain points"? If a person has villain points shouldn't she or he be expelled (unless the villain points is fanon)

And say it has an explanation. Ok, why the students have to fight a giant robot? Again, assuming it has an explanation...

We are never given any reason for how the students are graded and selected in the classes. What is the big deal on class A1? Shinso seems to think they are the best and resents not be there....why?

Hori never developed the academy part of a story called MY HERO ACADEMY.

Hi @mikeellee 👋,

I think the entrance exam was meant to test a couple of things -

How good are you at beating up things? Bakugou obviously excelled at this, he's been practising beating people (mainly Izuku) up all his life 😒

How resourceful are you? See Toru who even with just invisibility managed to score enough points to get in the hero course.

And - the hidden point of can you put aside the competition to save someone? Here Izuku did and at great detriment to himself for the sake of Uraraka - this obviously singled him out as having great heroic spirit.

I have no idea why class 1A were given all the hatred / ire when 1B as a fellow hero class were right there as their equals.

With Shinsou - canonically he seems to have a victim complex, he seems sour he couldn't just skate through to the hero course with his powerful quirk in that entrance exam. Let's use the ideas I just mentioned for a second with the entrance exam

1) he's at a disadvantage of not having a naturally combative quirk like Bakugou.

2) he obviously isn't resourceful or clever in battle like Toru since he didn't score enough points to get into the hero course despite this.

3) he obviously didn't try to use his quirk to save someone like Izuku did (maybe there just wasn't someone to save in his exam) or maybe he saw someone in trouble and didn't help them.

These are all things I thought of and established in 10 minutes when Hori never bothers to explore any of this. Despite being called "My Hero Academia " Hori never bothers to explore the academia aspect of the series which is a massive waste.

A few more accurate names for this series have come to my jaded mind (please forgive the bitterness.)

"My Hero Kacchan" - all the Bakugou simping make me think Hori would prefer him instead of Izuku as the MC half the time.

"It's ok if we do it! A stunning story of hero hypocrisy."

"Our Abuser academia" - not where Abusers learn to be better and to stay the fuck away from their victims but where the other characters learn to forgive the abuser if they cry.

[khattikeri]

i loved reading your post. i think hori is way worse than kishimoto when it comes to writing female characters. he has disgusting opinion on women and at this point i cant even separate the art from the artist. hori disgusts me on many levels. also, are you an anime only fan or do you follow the manga as well. if its the latter, what are you thoughts on the recent events of the series.

apart from his sexist view on women, i think the plot itself, it's fights and everything in between also has plenty of flaws rearing it's ugly head

I think it's less of a hatred for women on Horikoshi's part and more an unconscious bias that ends up leading to female characters all dying or fading away into irrelevancy... or being established as "strong" only for them to have a single shining moment before being relegated to supporting male character arcs, which get a lot more time and detail.

I quit the anime halfway through season 5 and haven't been reading ongoing manga chapters properly in years (I stopped when Lady Nagant was defeated), so I don't actually know how the final arc is going. I've seen some things relating to Dabi/Todoroki family drama and Bakugou's status in the battle. But I check leaks very rarely.

I was pretty disillusioned and emotional when I wrote the rant post on misogyny in the series. I just typed it out in one go fueled by my own indignance at how conveniently things go for Midoriya and how little any of the women in the story get to shine, even when the intention is for them to do so.

I obviously missed some points and examples because I was so emotional... so seeing people take it out of context on twitter and calling me a crazy tumblr fujoshi or radfem acting in bad faith pissed me off. I blocked a lot of people over it. Not worth my time if people can't fucking read and use their brains, lol.

I hesitate to throw labels at Horikoshi though. Maybe he does truly believe that women can be as strong as men. Maybe he doesn't truly hold misogynystic beliefs in the extreme way, where he thinks women have to be subservient. How people view strength between genders is an important aspect to consider. Saying a woman is strong or having her fight physically is not the same as being given equal character development to a man. Men get inhuman or creature-based designs, such as the centipede, but all the women have moe humanesque faces even if they have different skin colors or horns. Where do you draw the line?

Regardless of Horikoshi's intentions, there is a disparity in how he writes and draws his female vs his male characters, and especially how many of each of them he creates. I think it's ridiculous to act like that difference doesn't exist at all, or that someone calling it out (with no intention to like, cancel him) is reading into it too deeply.

In the end if people can't handle others pointing out flaws about things they like, that's a problem for them, not me. I've heard others say the final bnha arc is flawed and overly rushed, but I wouldn't know. I don't intend to read it until the series is over so I can binge and then mark it complete on my lists.

I used to like it but these days I find myself understanding more and more that shonen manga, especially Jump manga and action shonen, truly are not meant for me. I'm not a kid anymore and my standards for character development, plot development, and critical analysis just don't mesh well with it.

[savethepinecones]

4, 13 (bakugo), 10

ooh thisll be fun

4: do you have a notp in your fandom? are they a popular otp?

oh boy im about to get absolutely destroyed but tododeku. i dont read established relationships much and i prefer lots of drama but the vibe i get from tododeku is theyd get together without much hassle so i just have no interest

13: unpopular opinion about bakugou?

ohhhh boy. i dont think theres anything i can say about him that hasnt been said before. the fandom has analyzed him to hell and back and honestly i think theyve got a pretty good grasp on his character at this point so i dont think any of my headcanons would really qualify here....

i think the biggest thing would be that i think he gets too much focus in the fandom. yeah hes the foil for the mc and hes had probably the most character growth out of everyone but there are other characters yall can obsess over smh.

also i think hes much more up front about how he feels than hes portrayed as a lot of the time. the shit he keeps to himself is either stuff hes still figuring out or stuff he feels guilty about but even in the case of the latter it comes up sooner rather than later (deku vs kacchan 2 for example). once he knows how he thinks/feels he doesnt really hide it. i think a lot of the time in fics he tends to keep things pent up or is sometimes a bit tsundere but honestly i think hes much more straightforward than that. hes not afraid of consequences because he very much believes he can overcome anything with enough effort so hes going to say what he thinks and deal with the results as they come up.

ngl though most of the fic i read is shippy stuff so this may not apply in non-romantic scenarios

10: most disliked arc? why?

the pre-ua arc. mostly because the only characters we see are all might deku and bakugou and im more invested in the dynamics of the class as a whole.

early bakugou is The Worst and while i think showing that is important in order to establish how he grows as the series goes on, its not something that i especially care to rewatch. i think looking back on cringey middle school times is always difficult for me irl or otherwise so its not really a complaint about bakugou specifically but yeah.

as for all might i frankly disagree with a lot of his views on being a hero and this is when most of them are established. every time i watch this i just want to argue with him lol

and with deku tbh im just not super a fan of him??? i think part of it is because a lot of his behavior thats emphasized in canon is stuff that i personally struggle with (his tendency to worry about others to the point that he completely neglects himself for one) and while overall i think this is something the series discourages i also want to shake him and scream at him every time he does this stuff. please value yourself small green child. (also all might encourages the self sacrificing stuff and sees it as a sign of being a True Hero and this is an excellent example of what i was talking about in the previous paragraph.)

also its always kinda bothered me that the initial couple episodes are all deku trying to become a hero without a quirk but a) hes not actually doing anything to get closer to his goal (unless you count the analysis of other heroes) like he knows he wouldnt be able to rely on a quirk but hes not even trying to figure out any more obtainable alternatives hes just saying "i want to do this thing" and then not putting any effort in until all might offers to train him. meanwhile characters who are equally committed to the same goal (bakugou and todoroki for example, although todorokis situation is complicated what with endeavor being The Worst and all) are training themselves physically in addition to strengthening their quirks. i would consider deku to be more on par with characters like kirishima who didnt commit to the hero thing until their last year of junior high but that just doesnt match up with the emphasis by both deku himself and the narrative that he has always really wanted to become a hero.

also the whole "i want to become a hero even though i dont have a quirk" thing gets resolved by him just. getting a quirk?? idk i feel like bnha toys with the idea of addressing quirkless discrimination but always just handwaves it away. like oh this character wants to do something that historically has never been achieved by someone with his disability. the resolution is that he no longer has the disability.

also in the case of touya it talks about his experience having a quirk thats incompatible with his body and how that affects him and shapes him but then it just gets kinda pushed aside by endeavors influence on the situation and instead of talking about how touya was affected by a bad home life and struggling with disability and being unable to accept his limits, it just becomes "endeavor was bad at dealing with the situation and then touya became a villain" idk it just keeps skirting around this stuff that i think is important from both a world building perspective and also applicable to actual things that irl people deal with but ultimately it just dismisses it as unimportant. like objectively saying "hey the mc is considered disabled and then in chapter three is magically no longer disabled" is a dick move. yes he struggles with adjusting but like?? the emphasis was on the disability and then it immediately just removed that factor and moved on to a New Problem (oh no the quirk is Too Awesome) (because he didnt bother to do any sort of training or anything to reach his goal until all might was in the picture)

i went on a big tangent but tldr a lot of the problems i have with bnha are especially emphasized in the first five episodes or so and because of that and my lack of interest in the characters with the most screen time (sorry deku stans) i just cant stand the "training to get into ua" arc

thanks for sending the ask! i had a lot of fun talking about this and also spent way too much time on it lol

[prettyboykatsuki]

Hi handsome. Is there anyway I can ask for some advice? As a fellow bkdk shipper and bakugou lover. So I am trying to write a bakugou x reader, with a bakugou who’s all-knowing reluctant closes friend is Izuku. For storyline purposes (as my all knowing kind eyed friend for reader) and just for the length of time.

This almost seems like a silly ask. But how would you recommend, for me to build the relationship between reader and bakugou… to feel genuine and worthwhile and just as intense as a long time friend Izuku could be? Basically, I’m asking for advice on how to make an audience ship Bakugou with reader as opposed to his best friend who has a somewhat intense relationship with him already built into canon.

i dont find this ask silly at all! i think as an avid x reader and shipfic writer - this is actually a relatively understandable concern. you have to convince your audience that your y/n is also able to metaphorically compete for bkgs heart that canonly has other paths paved

in the situation for bakugou specifically, i think your y/n has to exhibit 2 things. mental strength and any sort of identifiable thing they care about. for bakugou as a character, there is nothing more important to him than respect. your reader, in some way, has to be able to earn his genuine respect. this is NOT limited to physical strength. the nature of bakugous development is that he deeply recognizes strength in all walks of life.

make your reader formidable. maybe they stand up for justice. maybe they’re especially good at handling conflicting and mediating. maybe they’re competent at their job. maybe they’re very good at something trivial like making tea but they dont let bakugou talk down on their hobby. you have a lot of options but i think representing that bakugou values reader insight and respects their viewpoint will lend itself to them being compelling.

additionally, when i say mental strength, i think reader needs to be able to reconcile with bakugou easily. this is one of those bkdk things they dont have which is an ability to communicate clearly lol. this doesn’t mean reader has to have an easy going or even patient temperament - but that reader can say sorry and have just a sliver more of emotional intelligence than bakugou because while i think hes grown a lot, romantic feelings probably turn him into a complete baby.

a reader who is willing to hash things out even at the sake of fighting is very important contrast. while i am a bkdk enthusiast, i think them having a romantic relationship canonly would take a shit ton of effort and therapy. they are deeply intricate but thats a double edged sword. you can play off those gaps.

the most important thing is that you understand bakugou is a character with a natural intensity and presence. this makes him very versatile in the sense he doesn’t discriminate other people at all based on shallow shit. if you want to write a compelling love story with him - any partner can work as long as you keep who he is in mind. anyone who can stand as his equal can be a compelling love interest.

[tired-biscuit]

Ruin

Pairing: Katsuki Bakugou/fem!Reader

Warnings: 18+ content [minors dni!!], established relationship. aged up, meanie!bakugou fucks you stupid on the kitchen counter after he's had a bad day at work.

Word count: 1.6k

---

YOUR entire body feels like it’s on fire.

Bakugou’s hands are still warm from the earlier usage of his quirk as they run along your sides hungrily; thick, calloused digits coated in smoke curling and tightening around the arch of your hips whenever he pushes his cock deeper between your soaked walls.

The November night on the other side of the kitchen window he’s just spent hours patrolling and suffering through is laced with bitter cold and ferocious curtains of potent, icy rain. The chill makes the glass rattle in its frame whenever it hits and provides a perfect contrast to the warmth of his palms that keep burning your skin, as well as the scorch of his tongue as it twists around your own. 

His heavy gauntlets and gloves lay on the spotless wooden flooring in the same forgotten manner your cutesy pyjama shorts and equally as adorable panties are clinging around your left ankle as he fucks you even harder into the marble counter. 

Your legs are spread wide open for him, even though your body insists that they close from the way the knot inside your lower belly tightens now. It feels like it’s pulling your very insides taut; right to the brink of snapping. You’re not entirely sure how much more of his bullying you’ll be able to endure, but Katsuki doesn't seem to be thinking about being nice any time soon.

Truthfully, the need of bursting into orgasm is turning you brain-dead. Every single time the squelching slap! sounds out from the way your pussy kisses his abdomen, a broken squeal of pleasure bubbles up your throat. You’re literally feeling your brain cells shutting down and vanishing into the fog of pure bliss that’s overtaking your numb mind as you keep producing sounds that only a stupid bimbo would make on her regular night out: which is getting her brains fucked out in the narrow bathroom of a packed club.

Your lacking morals and the way your sanity is crumbling down right before him only make Katsuki's dick harder. Make him shove it even deeper; until he's hitting right against your cervix and continuously abusing it with lewd kisses from the blunt cockhead.

Christ, he's tearing you right apart. It’s heaven and hell in one.

“Enough, enough! Fuuuck…!” You whine as tears well up in your eyes. The sting burns hot on your waterline as you suck in a quivering breath. “‘s too much, Kat! I can’t-... Can’t take it!”

“Don’t lie to me, baby. It ain’t nice, ya hear?” Katsuki grunts in reply, slamming himself into you until hot, gooey slick is spurting out of your tight hole and gushing all over his dick and the counter. “I’ve had a bad day at work, so don’t start shit with me... ‘m pissed off enough as it is already.”

You might be a bad girlfriend for it, but you’re simply too fucked out to ask him what’s wrong in that moment. He’s come home from his patrol twenty minutes ago and has spent the last fifteen drilling you absolutely dumb with zero explanation as to why there is literal fire burning inside those crimson irises of his. 

You feel like you’re becoming one with the cool marble that keeps sticking to your sweaty, trembling thighs as he keeps slamming into you so viciously raw and angry now; as he keeps unleashing his unexplained frustration in the form of some harsh pounding you didn’t even know you needed.

He’s making you cry - quite literally. Making you blabber incoherent sentences and pleas that neither of you know what they’re meant to be even pleading for.

About to retaliate, your argument is cut short from the way you gasp when he squeezes your ass and pushes you closer to the edge of the counter. You can feel the spark of his quirk dance on top of your skin as he fondles your curves; can feel him grin wickedly against your lips that have been stuck in the shape of a small ‘o’ ever since he’s shoved that monster of a cock inside your weeping cunt. You’re going to bruise both from the inside and out. He is such a brute, but you still love him, nevertheless.

After all, what else can you do - stuck in this stupidly submissive position like a hot and bothered prisoner underneath the tenacious grip and his firm hand that holds it?

Your toes curl to the point of cramping as they tangle into the adorable lace that’s still hanging from your ankle as Bakugou licks your front teeth and scrapes the roof of your mouth with his drool-coated tongue. He sucks on your bottom lip and bites into it when you try to pull back to beg him to stop. If you didn't know him any better, you'd say that he's trying to make you shut up before you’re even given the chance to speak.

He’s panting and sweating like a roused beast above you. The sweet scent of caramel is potent to waft through the narrow space between you from his hero gear as the salt keeps clinging to his chest in the same way the spandex does. It overtakes the smell of dinner that’s still cooking in the oven, and that you were so eagerly preparing for him before he forced himself upon you like some enraged animal in heat. 

God damn it, even his scent dominates the room.

Fine sugar seeps down your throat now and fills your lungs with liquid honey as you keep kissing him and inhaling his intoxicating scent. It fogs your senses instead of heightening them, even though you swear that you can feel yourself getting high from it. He’s worse than the filthiest party drug.

"Look at the mess you're makin', pretty," he whispers before a huffed, mocking sort of laugh begins to rumble inside the depths of his chest like the same profound thunder that’s currently raging just on the other side of the window. "Drippin' and gushin' all over my cock and the fuckin’ counter, hah! Might have to make you lick both clean later, mm?"

"Kat-su…!" It's the only thing you can give him as an answer and it is outright pathetic. Your saliva has turned runny from how demanding your body has turned to finally become undone. Especially when he forces your legs to bend even more and digs his palms into the back of your thighs until you're splayed wide apart for him like some dirty slut.

Or a meal, since you're, well… In the kitchen.

And truth be told: you really do look absolutely delicious this way. He can see the thick strings and ropes of arousal that glimmer in the dim glow of the small light just above the stove; can see how your sweet pussy is eating him right up as it sucks him in, in, in. 

The lips have gotten puffy and tender from all the overstimulation he's making you grit your teeth through like a champ. You're sensitive as hell and it causes your hips to jerk upwards when he spreads your pussy wider apart with the help of two of his fingers.

You're spluttering as soon as the touch strikes home; chest heaving from the lack of oxygen and the subtle brush to your swollen clit. “More baby, I-I need it…! Fuck, holy fuck… Shit, oh my god!”

He groans - a guttural curse leaving his plush mouth as his carmine eyes fixate on the spot where you connect the moment your walls begin to clench in response to his pleasuring. Shadows twist inside the clever irises from the sight. It’s so hot that it brings his blood to a simmer; especially when you wiggle your hips to feel him better. 

His voice sounds strained and coarse as he says, “You wanna cum, babe?”

“Yes!” Your eyes shoot wide open as you stare at him with such a dazed look that it makes him wonder if there's anything even happening behind the dilating pupils. They're so huge that he can nearly see himself in them. “Please, I-I… Please, please, please!”

“Yeah?” He tilts his head to the side lightly - the movement more animal than human, “You wanna cum real bad?”

Tears run down your heated cheeks as you nod eagerly. You remind him of a puppet with the action. Like he's tugging at the strings that make you approve of anything he wants from you.

“Beg me all you want, baby.” Katsuki smiles now as he says the taunting words and pushes deeper. The flash of his perfect teeth grows bigger; wider and more wolfish when he hears you cry out again the moment he burrows himself so deep that it makes your eyes cross. 

His grin is outright tantalizing and it is wonderful. So fucking wonderful, despite your blurry vision. Better yet, he's wonderful. Handsome. Yours. 

All yours, whilst seeking and demanding comfort from you in the most twisted of ways.

Staring down at you, all rough and tough and mean, despite the pretty, tousled spikes of ash blonde and the pink, sweat-coated cheeks: a chill rushes down your spine as he slams his broad palm flat against the counter, leans into your ear and murmurs, “I'll ruin you either way. Just like I ruined dinner, and just like that stupid motherfucker of a perp ruined my goddamn patrol.”

He jerks his chin towards the oven, and you have no doubt that he will, in fact, ruin you. That he'll fuck you so hard you won't be able to stand; much less sit down for a day or two. That he'll keep pounding into you until you're sobbing into his shoulder and clawing at his hero suit so harshly, that perhaps you'll even be able to shred the fabric right apart, just like a kitty-cat does when it drags its sharp claws down the expensive living room curtains you've just bought.

But hey… At least it'll make him feel better, right?

Masterlist

[ripplestitchskein]

Something I’ve been kicking around is that with the addition of Edgeshot’s quirk (assuming BK can use it, which, given that people merging together and gaining access to each other’s quirks is like really common I don’t know why he couldn’t), and with 2nd users quirk most likely being a one and done kind of power Bakugou and Deku will be on a pretty even playing field ability wise, and after watching the anime and reaffirming some suspicions I had after the manga, it seems pretty apparent that this is and might always have been the goal.

Canon makes it a point to highlight in dialogue or internal monologue that with each quirk or move Deku gains Kacchan either already had it or can avoid it in the case of Blackwhip (Catch a Kacchan). It goes out of its way to establish that each move Deku gets or learns Kacchan can do it, or was the basis for because Deku straight up copied it from him.

Even the addition of the vestige quirks has them getting to a place of equity and I think Edgeshot is going to finalize that equality and I theorize that was probably the actual reason for BK’s death in the first place.

Rather than have Deku give Bakugou OFA like in the movie HK is leveling the playing field by showing that Bakugou already has most of the quirks himself, and now he’ll have the final one.

Fa Jin: is similar to the Cluster/condense move Kacchan has and uses for speed which he could still use after he gets his Edgeshot upgrade even though that move is what killed him. (Side note: It was also interesting to me that Endeavor is the one that encouraged him and Shouto to develop and hone those abilities and speed, and it would be interesting if Shouto also has a parallel with his in his fight with Dabi). I think Edgeshot’s flexibility could make the internal combustion problem a moot point since he’ll be able to theoretically change his body to accommodate it. So Bakugou could be able to keep up speed wise if that’s the case. This was something he could already do but it just turned out to be the catalyst for his death so has to be fixed to still be viable which Edgeshot’s quirk could do.

Danger Sense: I feel like Bakugou is incredibly good at this innately, and that has been shown over and over in canon from an early point. The invisible guy at USJ comes to mind. That was early on in canon so he’ll have only improved with experience. Also his ability to work blindfolded, in his own smoke etc. He honed these abilities over the years where Deku couldn’t so they should be pretty equal on this, and as we’ve seen Danger Sense is far from flawless.

Smokescreen: Has always been able to do this, used it deliberately at the Sports Festival.

Float: Bakugou has also always been able to do this and crows about it when they learn that will be the quirk Deku gets next. Bakugou’s control over his flight is an early impressive feat and one he only gets better at.

Blackwhip: This is the quirk Bakugou can’t just be naturally good at or have trained for and I believe now that Edgeshot is going to give him this one. BK can’t take Edgeshot’s ability naturally, he would never use nefarious means to get additional abilities no matter how much he wanted to win, and even getting a quirk awakening wouldn’t grant him what he needs to imitate Blackwhip, it is the only quirk of Deku’s he can’t do himself, he can only avoid. But if he has Edgeshot’s quirk he now has a ranged rope-like ability just like Blackwhip and they will both have the same level of power. Black whip always bothered me because it seemed OP on top of everything else Deku can do and because unless he got a support item BK couldn’t imitate it and his gauntlets are already fucking massive. So Deku would have a huge advantage with a ranged suppression quirk like that.

So I think this death, and his final thoughts were leading up to this: yes he WILL catch Izuku because he’s finally going to get the last bit of his “natural OFA” he didn’t have, and they will both be on a level playing field and will be able to work together to bring down AFO with their individual versions of OFA. It’s a really interesting way to have a similar ending to Heroes Rising but without giving BK OFA.

Deku has always admired Kacchan on the same level as All Might, and I think that’s important. Bakugou has had most of OFA already and from early on, he had an amazingly powerful quirk, good control, excellent combat skills, and has held his own against Deku even with higher percentages of OFA, and he also had natural abilities similar to the vestige abilities except for Blackwhip which he now has the potential to get. Where Deku had to learn how to use his new abilities, BK already had most of them, and spent his time instead getting over himself, becoming more emphatheic and compassionate, and dealing with his inferiority complex and after this rebirth, and possibly getting the last piece, they should be equal in all the ways.

Thanks for reading this completely unnecessary but I think viable theory.

[azucanela]

FIRST DATE HEADCANNONS + SCENARIOS

[FT. BAKUGOU KATSUKI, TODOROKI SHOUTO SHINSOU HITOSHI]

SUMMARY: Your first date with a few some of the first year boys[Bakugo Katuski, Shinsou Hitoshi, Todoroki Shouto].

WORD COUNT: 2.9k

WARNINGS: kissing, pretty pg, wholesome, perhaps slightly ooc oops, bad writing, just a tad of spice

A/N: someone send tik tok related requests they make me laugh

BAKUGO KATSUKI

when he asks you out on a date for the first time hes not actually asking

comes up to you and tells you, “get dressed im taking you out.”

you are just there talking to mina and kirishima in your pjs like ???

“with your quirk?” like you dead thought he was telling you he intended to kill you 

“no idiot...” now he’s embarrassed oh no

mina and kirishima are like 👀👀

“on a date?” they’re really trying to help him get his point across bc playing matchmaker is fun

“SHUT UP EXTRAS”

probably takes you to like some sort of outdoor thing on the first date

has to to involve movement

stroll through the park, or through like a mall if you don’t like more athletic experiences 

take him on a date to a trampoline park. do it. 

COOKS FOR YOU ON THE FIRST DATE!!!!!!!!

ITS AMAZING 

YOU HAVE BEEN BLESSED

is quieter during a date rather than his normal explosive self, he wants to listen to you, get to know you better

won’t kiss on the first date unless there’s a pre established friendship

your next date happens the same way, just tells you that you guys are going out, but you get it this time

lets you choose where you guys go that time

wants equal contribution to dates 

katsuki in street clothes is just beautiful, just ART, a masterpiece, he looks like a grumpy piece of ART

Katuski had just asked Y/N on a date, completely out of nowhere. Katsuki had asked Y/N on a date. It was difficult to believe, and considering his loud tone, the rest of Class 1-A also found it shocking, the student who claimed to have all his focus on becoming the number one pro-hero was now seeking a relationship. Ironic.

Though Y/N herself initially didn’t understand what he had been trying to say, she quickly got the message, and off they went. She was necessarily shocked by his feelings for her, they had discussed it in the dead of night, when she couldn’t sleep so he decided to forgo his normal grandpa sleep schedule. He fell asleep shortly after that conversation though, in her arms, he’d likely deny it if she ever mentioned it though.

Now, she sat on the counter in his parent’s kitchen, though neither of them were home, and the kitchen looked mostly unused. Y/N had tried to assist him but he’d brushed her off, “I asked you out. And you’re a horrible cook.” 

Y/N hopped off the counter and came up behind him, “whatever.” She mumbled, half expecting Katsuki to shove her away as she wrapped her arms around his torso as he sliced vegetables. He didn’t, though he did freeze momentarily before grumbling something about how dumb she was, Y/N knew he didn’t mean it based off the blush on his cheeks. 

Katsuki placed the vegetables into a pot of boiling water, covering it with a lid before tapping Y/N’s hand, signaling for her to let go. When she did, he turned around, and Y/N’s brow was raised. “C’mere.” He pulled her closer with one hand, and placed another on the back of her necks, bringing their lips together. 

She hummed in response, hand tangling into his hair, this wasn’t the first time they’d kissed. But it was the first time they’d gone on a date, he’d been sure to hide the dining room from her on the way inside, and she couldn’t help the excitement that bubbled up inside her. 

Y/N’s free hand found it’s way to his bicep, nails digging into his soft skin, courtesy of his quirk. Meanwhile, Katsuki’s hand found its way to the curve of her back, pushing her body closer to his only for Y/N to pull away, “pay attention while you are cooking.”

Turning to look at the pot, he’d realized that it was boiling far too much for comfort and cursed, releasing Y/N to salvage his food, she began to laugh. Katuski glared at her as he turned off the stove and put the put the vegetables into a nearby plate. 

With a smile on her face, she pressed a kiss onto his cheek, only for him to roll his eyes as he picked up the plate and moved out of the kitchen, Y/N trailing close behind as he headed to the dining room. “Can I see now?” She asked.

After a moment of contemplation, he nodded, and together they entered the dining room. It was a basic set up for a date, but it certainly set an intimate atmosphere that was rare when you lived in a dorm with several other students, and Mineta. There were candles lighting the room, and a rose in the center of the table, along with more food that he had already placed on the table. 

Grinning at him, Y/N spoke, “god you are such a sap.”

His cheeks flushed as he responded, “shut up.” 

SHINSOU HITOSHI

lol cutie, he asks you out on a date, you two are probably close friends and he just really likes your personality and attitude and stuff

“you don’t have to- well you know that but-”

“no, i’ll go out with you.”

“it’s fine i understand- wait what?”

did not think he’d get this far so he had no plans, he was expecting to plan a funeral for your friendship

ends up being the basic movie and food date

he picks a horror movie because he wants to protect you!!!

it makes him feel useful and bb needs validation

hold his hand during the movie

give him AFFECTION

you guys end up skipping dinner because you filled up on popcorn and other snacks during the movie so y’all just walk around

gives you his j a c k e t if its cold

he’s classy like that

unlike other people, he would kiss you on the first date

it would be an AMAZING experience that probably occurs at your front door, super adorable, he asks if he can kiss you

“can i kiss you?” fully expects you to say no

“yeah you can.”

“its fine, thanks for going out with me- wait what?”

same vibes as asking you out, did NOT expect this

walks you home because he is a GENTLEMAN change my mind, Shinsou brought back chivalry 2020

treats you RIGHT!!! the entire date, opens doors for you, pulls out your chair if necessary, pays for you unless you try to split the check but he might propose if you do that and pay for you regardless

When Shinsou asked Y/N out, he genuinely expected her to say no. His plans for the date included a funeral for himself and the friendship between the two of them. But, Shinsou was an honest guy and wanted to confess his feelings to her, secrets were a rarity between them, and this was no exception. They’d known each other for a while and his feelings weren’t something he could make disappear, no matter how hard he tried.

The last thing he expected was for her to agree to go out with him. 

She was still clinging onto his arm rather harshly as they exited the movie theater, having seen a horror movie, she exclaims, “I am never letting you pick the movie again.” 

Shinsou can’t help it when his heart skips a beat at her comment, looking over to her as he smirks, “again? So there will be a next time?” He asked, hoping that he hadn’t misunderstood.

Her cheeks warm, even though he asked her out, and Y/N looks away, “yes, if you want.” She mumbled, loosening her grip on his arm as they stepped outside. Cool air hits her, and Y/N can’t help the shiver that goes down her spine at the sudden cold. 

“I asked you out, of course I want a second date.” He replied, taking his arm from her grasp to remove his jacket, which he puts around her shoulders. “You still want dinner?” 

Y/N hums, taking his hand in hers and grinning as his cheeks turn red, “I’m not really hungry after all the snacks we had.” She replied, leaning her head onto his shoulder. “Let’s just walk.” 

They walked throughout the small shopping center, speaking with each other in regards to a variety of topics before beginning the walk home, when it started to rain. Thankfully, they were nearby Y/N’s home, and the laughs that consumed them as they ran didn’t stop as they ran up under the roof of Y/N’s porch. Shinsou’s hair was now matted onto his head thanks to the rain, their clothes soaked. 

Looking up at him, Y/N let another laugh escape her, “I like your hair.” She teased, bringing a hand up to ruffle it, though it had little effect.

Shinsou playfully glared at her, “yeah, yeah.” A smile found its way onto his face as he looked at her, the rain still hammering down on the roof, he found himself not wanting to let go of her hand as he asked, “can I kiss you? You don’t need-” He began to ramble, and Y/N was reminded of when he first asked her out as she watched him. 

Y/N’s hand released his and she grabbed his face, bringing his lips to hers, effectively silencing him as his hands fell onto her hips. They broke apart momentarily, only for Y/N’s arms to circle around his neck and pull him closer for yet another kiss.

“I’ll take that as a yes.” He mumbled as they pulled apart.

Tilting her head, Y/N smirked, “you’re cute.” Shinsou ducked his head to hide the pink in his cheeks at this comment. “Be here next Saturday around 2 in the afternoon. This time I pick the movie.”

Looking back up, he raised a brow. “I happened to enjoy the movie, particularly the parts when you-”

“I don’t have to agree to a second date.” Y/N threatened as she playfully slapped his shoulder before heading to her front door, looking back at him as she walked.

Shinsou hummed, eyes meeting hers as he grabbed her hand and yanked her back. “I think I liked the way you shut me up the first time around better.” He presses a gentle kiss to her lips before releasing her hand so that she can head inside. 

TODOROKI SHOUTO

THIS BOY

you probably don’t know its a date he’s like “so how was the date”

and you there like “im sorry how was the WHAT?”

asks his siblings for help because he’s clueless, also asks izuku and maybe even bakugo during their remedial course, though camie is 10x more helpful

this is because shoto always spends all of his father’s money on you

while you two are just best friends, he’ll see you look at something and then he’ll just buy it

you guys already act like a couple. like stfu we get it, you have Class 1-A’s resident pretty boy wrapped around your finger jeez no need to brag

it because he’s in love with you already but he doesn’t know that its not his fault he is oblivious to his own emotions

this just amplifies on a date

tries to take you to a ridiculously fancy restaurant and you’re like???

settles for a cafe

you get lost in the convo and forget to actually drink your drink so he just reheats it or makes it nice and cool again ya know

super useful bb

give him validation

listens to you super intently 

intellectual conversations EVERYWHERE he is literally so fun to talk to like discuss any and everything with him

First date at a cafe, he’s rich, he stole his dad’s credit card, and he happens to love trying new things since he was sheltered as a child so he will buy EVERY S I N G L E DRINK for you two to try them all together

50/50 chance he kisses you on the first date

100% chance a kiss happens if you initiate it

he walks you home, and depending on if you are feeling hot or cold, you’ll stand by his side, preferably away from the road because shoto is a gentleman who gets hit by cars for his partner 

When Izuku had suggested that Shoto take Y/N out on a date to help confess his feelings for her, he figured it would be a good idea. Except, he forgot the part where he asked her on the date.

Oops.

This didn’t really dawn on him as she led him away from the fancy restaurant he had tried to convince her to enter,  “we both know that neither of us would understand a thing on the menu because it’s probably all in french.” Though she had dressed for the occasion, and so had he. “Why do you even want to eat there?” Y/N asked, her hand still holding his as she dragged him along the side walk.

She knew very well how much he disliked such places. They reminded him of all the high end restaraunts he had been forced to go to as a child. And since his father was an infamous pro hero, and Shoto himself was one of the more popular Class 1-A students, it wasn’t uncommon for reporters to frequent areas he was seen in. Carrying their cameras as they tried to get a story about him or his father. He’d told Y/N numerous times how much he disliked the attention, which is why he avoided certain areas of the city. 

Shoto stared at their joined hands, that feeling of joy bubbling in his chest, “my understanding is that you take people to a nice restaurant for a date.” Came his response.

Y/N stopped walking, though Shoto didn’t, causing him to run into her and nearly trip her had he not grabbed waist to keep her from falling. “This is a date?” She asked, hands clinging to his arms as she tried to maintain balance. He’d been acting different, so Y/N felt as though she shouldn’t be shocked, but the fact that Shoto liked her?

He said nothing, releasing her from his arms before taking a step back, “I feel as though I should apologize-” Shoto began, realizing his mistake.

“I know a nice Café I’ve been meaning to visit that’s nearby, you want to continue this there?” She interrupted, extending her hand. Y/N wasn’t stupid, neither was Shoto, she knew he was inexperienced in the romance department and it was clear this was his attempt to woo her. 

It was cute. 

Looking up at her, he couldn’t help but give her a small smile, which she returned as he took her hand. Shoto was thankful that she hadn’t mentioned his poor preparation for the whole ‘date’ thing, since he failed to really ask her about it. Thankfully she was just going with it, “I really like you, Y/N.” It was blunt, but it was the truth, and it was Shoto, being himself. 

Y/N felt her cheeks warm as they approached the Café, “I really like you too, Shoto.” He moved in front of her to open the door, “and here we are.” She gestured to the small Café as they entered, it was a nice set up and she had been meaning to visit. The fact that it was Shoto that she was visiting with made it all the better.

“Why don’t you go find us somewhere to sit?” He suggested, small smile on his face. “I’ll save us a spot in line.” Y/N nodded, and it was clear that she had yet to notice that there was no line, and Shoto had Endeavor’s beautiful black mastercard in hand. 

Which is how they ended up with every possible drink on their table, some of which were going cold, and the cashier thanking Shoto for the $200 cash tip, laughing quietly side by side in their small corner within the Café. Y/N had chosen a more isolated part, though there were already very few people within the store. 

She looked up from her drink to find Shoto’s eyes on her, an unreadable look in his eyes, but she couldn’t help but smile at him, one that he returned. “I like this.” He said, his hand finding hers as he played with her fingers. 

“Me too.” Y/N replied, watching his movements. She found herself Y/N bringing her hand to Shoto’s cheek, and his eyes met hers momentarily, looking up at her in awe as she leaned forward and pressed a kiss against his lips.

Neither of them knew what they were doing, Shoto’s delayed reaction reminded them both of this fact as he finally kissed back after a few moments. The hand that had once been fidgeting with Y/N’s free hand, making its way to her bicep to rub circles in the spot. 

The moment didn’t last long, and when she pulled away, his lips were chasing hers, “we should do this more often.”

A small smile was on his face as he stared at her with what seemed like stars in his eyes, “yeah.” He pressed a kiss to her hand, “we should.”

A/N: when i tell you season 4 made me CRY

[honeyheaded]

now, i havent been on tumblr.com in a Hot minute, but now that im back ive been seeing

this image a lot

something that ive been seeing with it is people speculating that kirishima is the ua traitor bc of it

im here to propose a different theory

one of the main reasons people are saying this is because both todoroki and midoriya are posing like dabi and shigaraki respectively, who are both villains, and so the fact that bakugou is posing like kirishima suggests that he is one as well, theyre posing like their main adversaries

but what if theyre actually not?

what if theyre posing like the people who have influenced them most or have had the most effect on their story?

think about it, shigaraki obv has a huge influence on deku and his journey as he is the main antagonist to deku's protagonis, he is a major part of deku's story

dabi, obviousl, is just as big a part of todoroki's story, considering the recent reveal of his status as todo's lost older brother. this is obviously going to affect his story, as well as the relationship that is the biggest part of his story, his relationship with his father

bakugou doesnt have an established villain. his story revolves mainly around him dealing with his odd combination of both a superiority and inferiority complexes and realizing that there is more to being a hero than just power and that its okay to rely on others

bakugou has made strides, Huge strides, in doing just that, especially when we compare his relationship with midoriya now to the way it was at the beginning (no matter if you ship them or not, they have come a Long way since the pilot) but midoriya is not the one who championed this change in bakugou's character and story

that was kirishima

kirishima, who, from the very beginning has established himself as bakugou's equal, who has established himself as bakugou's friend, one of the first of those he's ever really had

so of course, as bakugou's first Real friend and as the first person he sees as an equal instead of better or worse than him, kirishima would have a hige influence on bakugou's character and story, hell, he already has in the kamino arc

i'm just saying

[linkspooky]

Your analysis are interesting but feel overly bias since many aspects of the story you forgo despite them being influencers. In the case of the villains, so much of what makes them redeemable to the audience is seperate from their interactions with the heroes, the heroes only get to see violent killers and mass murderers who they have to stop and protect people. They are a immediate threat, so their not going to pull out the therapy chairs mid battle and that is not a flaw.

You phrase things like Shigaraki is only responding to violence against him which is false because through most of the story he was the one initiating attacks on the heroes (USJ, Hosu, Forest training) it's only after Kamino but by this stage he's already established himself as a dangerous threat to children and society - post Kamino it was mostly other villains but the reason Heroes attack his experiment is in response to intelligence of PLIF's planned attack. Heroes are mainly responsive.

I do agree with the point that there is a cycle of violence that has to be broken because the story has set up a good illustration of it's escalation but while the story reasons why the villains want to attack society that let them down doesn't change how the villains are going about that in a violent and deadly way that is going to spark a suppressive response - it's not necessarily faultly judgement on the heroes to respond based on their knowledge and what has traditionally worked to protect.

Your analysis of Bakugou I disagree with. Horikoshi takes care when writing All Might because everything he says has value and he never lies. Additionally violence in heroics is not inherently wrong as many of your meta's imply, so much All Might says to Bakugou, it's not wrong to seek being strong (so that is not regressive) and Bakugou seeking of strength and win is to be like All Might "I will win, that is what heroes do". Bakugou and Deku do understand each other on a personal level, pt1

“ Bakugo’s focus is still being stronger than the bad guys, rather than on saving people. It’s still all about winning to him”. This is not true. Since Kamino Bakugou’s development has prioritised saving. Leaving the battle with the purse snatcher to save All Might and the civilian from the lap post while also saving the people’s belongings, saving his team in joint training, saving Natsuo instead of fighting Ending, Saving Deku because he knows how self sacrificing Deku is and how that will get

that will get him killed. Furthermore he even forgo seeking more strength at Endeavours to look for what he was missing as a hero. Denying all this of his character is reductionist.“Bakugo was set up to learn something, and he didn’t, and that’s character regression! – again this is not true. He did learn, hence he started to actually progress as a hero whereas before when he was not learning he was punished for it. I am not saying the majority of your analysis is wrong – like Bakugou not yet

like Bakugou not yet dealing with his trauma or guilt both to All Might and Deku which leads to self harming battles and suicidal acts of saving but I do think a big flaw in your arguments is to ignore that Bakugou’s character has been exploring other aspects outside of strength and power to improve himself. You also cut off the part of the internship arc where Bakugou listens to Natsuo after the fight with Ending and after that Bakugou does think of his hero name signifying he’s grown somewhat

grown somewhat in thinking about what hero he wants to be – especially since atonement is what Bakugou mentions in chapter 284. Your analysis make great points but also feel very bias because you cut out a lot of information, information the story mentioned and connects up There is a difference between knowing the character’s fundamental flaw – how to deal with the feelings of guilt and weakness beyond simply pushing passed them unaddressed- and claiming they have not grown at all or regressed.

"..but All Might didn’t show up that day because he was turning a blind eye to his responsibilities." <- WHAT! You can't just put that in your analysis like it's fact. All Might might have been saving people at the other end of the country. Same with your writing on Gran Torino, lets ignore that Nana asked the opposite of what you claimed for him not to interact with her family to protect from AFO.

Okay, anon. I’m going to reply with more politeness than you’ve shown me. Your main problem seems to be that I don’t mention the hero’s perspective as often as you think I should, or the positive aspects or intentions of the heroes. However, what you call bias is incorrect because it’s simply the essential tool of making an argument. 

Literary Criticism is the art or practice of judging and commenting on the qualities and character of literary works. It’s an analysis, interpretation and/or evaluation of works of literature. It is essentially an opinion, supported by evidence, related to theme, style or setting. All literary criticism is opinion based, it is a personal response to the text. I have always been forward and upfront that I consider myself to be using literary criticism. The best I can do is make my argument and support it with panels. Because these are my arguments that come from my head, they are inherently personal. 

It usually includes discussion of the work’s content and integrates your ideas with other insights gained from research. Literary criticism may have a positive or a negative bias and may be a study of an individual piece of literature or an author’s body of work. (source.)

 You are supposed to include your ideas whether positive or negative because the act of reading in itself is a cooperation between reader and author. Without audience response, a manga is simply a bunch of drawings on paper. It’s a story that exists only within the author’s head. However, people respond to texts in different ways, that’s the beauty of literary criticism itself. A story doesn’t have to be told in one way, it can be told in many ways. 

Literary criticism is by its nature personal? I received two asks which asked what I thought about whether Bakugo has trauma from being kidnapped, and then an ask on whether I thought Bakugo was thinking on the relationships between heroes and villains. Whether Bakugo has progressed in saving people is not relevant, because I don’t think Bakugo cares much about the villain’s perspective at all and that to me is the more pertinent thematic question.

If I think the central theme of the text is “Are villain’s worth saving” then I’m going to include arguments that relate to that theme. The act of presenting an argument means I’m going to look for evidence that supports my side of the argument. 

If I wibble back and forth if I add “I think” if I constantly bring up the other side of the argument, those are things that are only going to serve to weaken my argument. My goal is never to talk about things like they’re objective facts but rather present them as I see them.

Can you please try to understand what it’s like anon, to receive messages asking for my thoughts, and then when I share them? For free. On the internet. To receive criticism for... sharing those same thoughts. 

Your argument starts with a personal argument against me, accusing me of biased and being unfair. However, I’m not writing whether or not you should like or dislike certain characters. I’m trying to make arguments about themes, Ideas, and justify my own observations on those matters. Once again, all text is a response through a certain narrow lens, because it’s impossible for someone to talk about a text from every single angle possible and mention every single detail. (The posts would be so, so, long and they’re long enough already. What I’m using is a story lens. 

For example, there’s a feminist lens. 

What does it mean to read through a feminist lens? The feminist lens allows us to look at text through the eyes of a feminist to closely analyze how women are portrayed and presented in comparison to men. Feminism- a movement for social, political, economic, and cultural equality between men and women; campaigns against gender inequalities.

A Narrative lens is by its nature reductive. You are reducing a text that can (and should) be read many different ways into one lens. It’s like if you’re writing a story from a first-person perspective, you can’t have a character telling the audience other people’s thoughts unless their a mind reader, because you have to carefully consider what point of view you’re TELLING the story from.

In the opposite case when analyzing a text under a certain lens, you have to carefully consider the point of view you’re READING the story from. 

My blog is titled “No Heroes, Only Villains”. I have made it clear in the past that I’m arguing in favor that the central theme of the story is “Do villains deserve to be saved? Are heroes contributing to the violence of the system.” I read the story through that lens, and make arguments in favor of that lens. 

I am, in fact, completely at liberty to say that All Might neglected his responsibility towards Shimura Tenko. Because the THEME of the STORY is that Shigaraki was created by the neglect of everyone around him and hero society as a whole. All Might is told years later that Shigaraki was captured by All for One and tortured for years, and rather than take responsibility then and there, he handed it off to Gran Torino. If the story is continuously building up the idea that the people who could have helped Shimura Tenko in some way, didn’t end up helping him, then I can respond to that idea. 

It’s a repeating motif. Shimura Tenko being alone in the street waiting for one hero to save him when nobody did. In real life it probably wouldn’t be anybody’s fault, yes. It would just be a sad accident. However, in stories, there are always reasons behind the characters actions. The reason why is because the authors intentionally craft stories to make some theme come across. So, in regards to theme, All Might did contribute to the fact Shigaraki did not get saved. Not only that, but if you were to not hold All Might accountable that only weakens his character. 

Characters are stronger when they are at fault. Characters are stronger when things are decided through their choices and actions. Otherwise a story is a bunch of things, happening to people. All Might chooses not to try going after Shigaraki when Gran Torino advises him to treat Shigaraki like any other villain and that choice means something. 

Other things are things that are just, already obvious? I think the story already makes the case clear enough the good intentions of the heroes, so my commentary on it is unnecessary or redundant. The story already tells us how good All Might is, the story already holds Nana Shimura, Toshinori and waxes on about their good qualities. I’m simply offering a different perspective.  If I can find evidence of the text of my perspective then the argument is valid.  It doesn’t have to be right, it just has to be supported. Another thing is, while it may be true that the villains are dangerous and bad people there are countless cases of villains at least trying to make their arguments, and plead their cases to the heroes, only for heroes like Endeavor to completely brush them off, or tell them to shut up. Shigaraki gives an entire speech about his perceived flaws with the hero system and Endeavor doesn’t even listen and tells him to just die. So yes, I think it is fair game to say that the heroes for the most part are blind to their own faults. Maybe in real life people wouldn’t have to listen, but it’s a story. The point of villains appearing in a story, and pointing out those faults to the heroes, is to have them confront those faults. The confrontation of those faults is what leads to character growth. If the villains weren’t supposed to be right to at least some extent they’d always be chaotic evil monsters. They’d be captain planet villains. The heroes have to be wrong to at least some extent because otherwise there’d be no story because the character has to learn over the course of the story. 

 The goal of literary criticism isn’t to be right, to have my opinions be more correct than the opinions of other people. You and I are able to have two completely opposite opinions of the text and neither of those opinions negates or cancels out the other. They can in fact coexist because we are different people of different perspectives that simply read things differently. 

The goal of literary criticism is to do the best job I possibly can of making my argument easy to understand, which is why I present a clear argument, don’t contradict myself, don’t use wishy-washy language.

I’m being polite and responding to you, but please don’t do this again. As I said, it’s my firm belief that my opinion doesn’t contradict yours in any way. I wouldn’t try to go out of my way to invalidate your argument like this. I love hearing about people’s different perspectives on the manga, and talking with people with different opinions than my own, but only if they’re willing to play ball with me. 

[i-just-want-to-destroy]

what do you think of bakugou and endeavor redemption arcs?

SEE THE THING IS,

I feel like bnha is always on the precipice of like. Touching on some REAL stuff but it always backs out at the last moment.

First of all im a big hater of both characters so expect a biased opinion here (lol). But i do think they are “good characters” as in they are interesting and pertinent to the plot, complex etc. bleh. bleh bleh. but the way their arcs are written.... lots of things rly dont sit right with me 

**Fair warning i dont have the english skills to phrase this whole thing better.

1. Bkg first. I remember when bkg took the hit for deku i made fun of the whole thing bc OFCC thats how we r going to “redemp” him. Which in one hand ok, it does stay true to bkgs character bc he literally cannot communicate his feelings to save his life, hes more of an action guy. But also i really do think the buildup for that moment can be pushed more. And im not even gonna blame bkgs character entirely here bc he IS an established stubborn ass with the communication skills of a tadpole etc etc. what im gonna blame is the way horikoshi never lets deku even TOUCH on the bullying he’s endured before UA. Its literally never been discussed. Like the only time it IS brought up is the flashback we get right before bkg sacrificed himself. But deku, instead, never got the chance to process any of it. And i think thats my main problem with the whole bkg thing (and ofc there is a vindictive part where i feel like bkg hasnt got enough “repercussions” for it, which may be arguable, but thats a whole different ballpark).

i especially think bkg should apologize outright/address what he’s done to deku, but if horikoshi wants to drag that speech out (and thats if the speech will ever happen in the first place) i can accept that. BUT. to me. It has to be equal... as in deku should be allowed to address that too.

I get that deku is a virtuous main character who will supposedly forgive kacchan no matter what or whatever. And fuck it you know what, thats okay. But im begging let deku at least process it in some way. Bc the thing about deku’s character is whenever he gets angry, its always on behalf of someone else’s and not himself.

Which, again, is a virtue. But i also think the author tapping out on the whole bullying issue is kinda a coward move. Even when deku dukes it out with bkg its always about “im gonna get stronger and be number one kacchan!!111” and not “man you irreparably damaged my entire childhood and told me to [redacted] myself.”

literally the whole bullying nuance is casted out and replaced immediately with some boys will be boys rivalry. Which, really, just looks like the author taking the easy way out to me.

I can see how much both characters have grown, tho, and its clear that they care about each other. but the development is really :/ it leaves much to be desired wtf. 

I’m not satisfied w bkg’s redemption arc thingy but i dont expect anything better either. I think if i were to reread bnha from the beginning i can have a clearer perspective on the whole thing, but i dont really feel the incentive for that bc it simply doesnt compel me enough to do so LOL.

If its worth anything, i dont really hate bkg anymore. only sometimes lmfao

2. End*avor. Ugh.

Ok. I love family drama its like crack to me. the whole dabi thing had me yelling forreal. And todoroki fam has like some of my most favorite characters in the whole series.

I dont even wanna discuss end*avors character... like honestly, the ones that shine the most in end*avor redemption arc are the other family members and not end*avor himself. Which on one hand i appreciate but also i might be biased? But im really <3 over how we get todoroki rei’s character development from this arc. Not only is rei’s arc cathartic as hell but its also very, very encouraging to see a character stands over her ab*ser like that after suffering for so long. I cant express how much i love that. And fuyumi and natsuo? Insanity. I esp love how fuyumi’s efforts get the appreciation they deserve.

And i liked the surprise where dabi rained on end*avor’s parade right after end*avor thought he could actually redeem himself. Ok im not gonna sugarcoat it i just liked to watch dabi fucked him over, it was a standing applause eureka moment for me.

Honestly i think the whole concept is really delicious, like the son of the number 1 hero is a villain thing, heroes arent saints, etc etc etc. like that is so sexi so dramatic so soap opera literal superhero telenovela and i loved it a lot. Like i really enjoyed reading the whole thing. so like. i am entertained.

Do i feel like end*avor has redeemed himself? Mm NO <3. I appreciate the details that he himself thinks that he is unforgivable (blehh) and he DID suffer which was nice to watch, personally. but its not enough and it will never be <3 

im not sure if i think this way bc i just think what he did is irredeemable or bc the storytelling sucked OR BOTH <3. And i still do feel bnha did that thing where it backed out at the last moment with end*avor’s arc.... like it was touching it but it still didnt want to get its hands dirty, you know? Like what stance is it taking, really? It just never goes all out. 

i think some details about this arc also irk me...... like why does the rest family got to shoulder the burden of his fuck ups? <3 die <3 like this part annoys me so much. and seeing how he got to be comforted after everything he’s done.................................................... i cant even say how much that just ... pisses tf out of me <3 haha

like thats the thing. i feel like both characters (bkg n end*avor) are still coddled despite everything.

im fully aware im biased tho. and no i will not change

leaving that clownery aside, i didnt expect bnha to take this direction, so like. ..Applause i suppose :/. The recent arcs have been a pleasant surprise in some part and i will still be following its developments. i do genuinely think both characters are interesting btw i just kinda hate them lmfaooo. 

honestly, what i do. is just to keep low standards 🙌

TLDR I dont rly feel like either characters have redeemed themselves and i feel some disappointments over their respective arcs but i like the development n direction that the story is taking overall.

[purgatoryandme]

The biggest problem with BNHA re: abuse and bullying is that both abusers (Bakugou, Endeavour) are given a chance at redemption simply because nobody really knows what they did. They know the WHY - the justification - they know the ‘aftermath’, but they don’t know the gritty details. Neither of the abusive characters have to actually make up for what they did OR suffer any public consequences for their actions BECAUSE no one really knows what they did. Ex 1) Endeavor gets to live on as someone many people look up to and, despite not earning it the way he wanted to, he gets to be the Number One Hero. He literally gets to achieve his dream. The narrative sets it up like its a punishment, but in reality its a consolation prize. A real punishment would be Endeavour being stripped of his title for uhhhhHHHHHH child and domestic abuse. A real punishment would be Endeavour winding up in a situation similar to Ingenium - why didn’t Endeavour ever have to face a real threat from the Hero Killer or a similar “morals driven” villain who sees him for what he is? A real punishment would be All Might rejecting him as a hero or Shouto flat-out refusing to be near him once and for all with all of his other children. There’s still /some/ hope for this narrative through Dabi and through Shouto’s continued resentment, but honestly I think at worst Endeavour will get a heroic ending considering how things have been framed so far. Ex 2) Bakugou gets to even become a student at UA when, lets be real, if they knew about his past he likely wouldn’t have been allowed in. Can you imagine if his teachers EVER reported his behaviour towards Midoriya? Then, to make things worse, his classmates never really find out what he’s done to Midoriya because, again lets face it, they wouldn’t be able to maintain their status as heroes in the narrative if they supported Bakugou after hearing about the extent of his actions early on. This goes double for the teachers. All of them know /something/ is wrong, however they have no idea that Bakugou spent a decade intentionally demolishing Midoriya’s dreams, his personal sense of safety, his self-esteem, and then ultimately suicide-baited while also THREATENING him out of going to his dream school. Oh and then continued this pattern of abusive behaviour well into their shared schooling to the point that multiple characters made it Midoriya’s problem to resolve, risking his future because of Bakugou’s resentment. This goes TRIPLE for All Might and Inko. None of the characters /really/ get to call Bakugou out - at most he receives a slap on the wrist and, because that slap effects him deeply due to his insecurities and the fact that he’s clearly the author’s favourite, we are supposed to believe that this is ‘redemption’ or in any way...fair. That it is somehow equivalent to what he’s done. Keep in mind that his slaps on the wrist have been less severe than those experienced by other students for more minor or first time offences.  Redemption for both of these characters means NOTHING as long as the other characters they interact with are unaware of the extent of their actions and as long as they continue to not experience any real PERMANENT consequences for their actions. There’s no real lesson learnt...there’s just a “but they were really heroic deep down and they had to get past their insecurities for their true selves to show” which is kinda messed up when you consider uhhhhhhh their victims? It paints the victims in this scenario as martyrs who, in their acceptance of their abusers, get to make them better people. It essentially makes the heroism of these two the responsibility of their victims. Because it is through their silence that Endeavour and Bakugou got the chance to truly achieve their dreams.  Also, as an extra to really make this hit home: none of the other characters, who ARE good people, are handed nearly as much to them by the narrative. Every single other character has to work HARDER for their positions despite uh...not being terrible people. Endeavour is Number One and so is Bakugou in pretty much every way that counts. They both have countless people supporting them. They have been acknowledged and accepted by the strongest moral pillars of the story despite not deserving it. All of the other characters have flaws that drag them down somehow WORSE than an established abusive past lol. Like imagine...low self-esteem somehow holding you back worse than beating an actual child and your own wife. Shouldn’t the previous abusers have to work harder than everyone else and come from lower than everyone else? Shouldn’t they fall behind in “true” heroics? Have more personal crises? Shouldn’t they be forced, time and again, to come face to face with their past decisions? Because right now it seems like they’re being treated as equal to every other character, if not better, which is bullshit in a hero narrative. 

[bakugaykatsukii]

I Talk About Bakugou Because I'm Bored

Bakugou. He's best boy. My son.

No, actually, I'mma explain in as few words as possible why I absolutely adore his character.

Oops this got long.

Okay, so it's the first chapter/episode (I'll go off the anime because it's practically identical and more widespread) and it opens with Deku narrating. This is to establish an immediate connection between the audience and the main protagonist; it conveys how important Deku is. Plenty of shows do this so it's not really a big deal, just common practise. HOWEVER, the second character we hear speak is Bakugou, who is insulting Deku.

This is framed in a way that's supposed to make us dislike him, and continues all throughout the first episode. He's presented as a four year old trying to beat up our main character, and then his next scene is being ten years older and Still Trying To Beat Up Our Main Character. This makes him seem rotten to the core, as his character hasn't changed whatsoever in that time, and as an audience we know very little information about him.

On top of that, within this first episode he is deliberately made to have no redeeming qualities, nothing that could make him sympathetic in any way. The Sludge Villain fiasco isn't until ep2, and in this one he literally tells Deku to kill himself, reaching peak middle school bully. He destroys something the Main Protagonist clearly treasures and is privelaged in every conceivable way, even his (later obviously intense) desire to be a hero is simplified to monetary gain, with "I'll be even richer than All Might himself!!!" (or something to that effect). Later on I'd explain such a line to be a result of young Baku trying to quantify his future success, something he never mentions again after the Sludge Villain.

In these first twenty minutes of the anime, he's been absolutely dragged through the mud. Not only is he this arrogant, selfish, mean bully, he's also the sort of bully we can all relate to having, making him even more dislikable! It's so easy for an audience to write him off as irredeemable almost immediately.

But then comes ep2. Seasoned anime watchers likely brush over some small details, but the fact that the Sludge Villain attack happens when Bakugou is 14? Wow. At this point no one likes him, and to many people seeing this happen could come across as a sort of karmic punishment, deserving and therefore less sympathetic. And so Horikoshi succeeds in continuing to make him dislikable but also adding depth to this character who so clearly believed he was invincible.

However, any such depth is pretty much ignored by the audience. I've watched many reactions, and, at this point, due to Bakugou's sub par personality, most people don't care about what happened upon first viewing. To be fair, it's treated as background until Deku steps in and proves himself a hero, at which point he's promised a quirk and That's all anyone can think about.

(also there's some symbolism in this ep because Bakugou and Deku were both attacked by the Sludge Villain and saved by All Might, showing they are actually equals in character and have a lot in common.)

Anyway, so for the first few episodes no one gives two shits about Bakugou because he's meant to be dislikable. He's set up to be as bad as possible without needing to be arrested/never being redeemable. Yet, he's also not clearly set up to be redeemed whatsoever. Let me explain:

Quick break from bnha to head over to atla, Zuko is the perfect redemption arc. And some of that can be attributed to his presentation in the first few episodes: where he's portrayed as antagonistic but still honourable, and has a tragic past. He's the sort of character you know isn't actually bad at heart. But Bakugou hasn't got any tragic back story to speak of, and certainly isn't honourable, so we don't expect a redemption.

That's so interesting to me, because it basically means his character could go in any direction but most shounen fans expect him to be the typical rival. He's mean now and will be mean later, nbd. Will probably betray Deku in order to gain more power. That sort of stuff.

But, as the first season progresses, we're shown that Bakugou (on top of all of his anger issues and cruelty) is also so incredibly determined, to the point where it's harmful. A lot of people, even in season three, expect him to accept the LoV's offer, but as early as ep7 he's shown to be dedicated to being the best on his own. He utterly fails at pretending to be a villain, and doesn't manage to work with his "villain" teammate. When the USJ attack rolls around, he fights alongside Deku.

I feel like I've just word babbled for a while so here's a picture:

Isn't that adorable? Anyway, I continue.

Okay, recap: Bakugou is presented initially as bad and in no way sympathetic, but throughout season one some of his good qualities do get highlighted.

The Sports Festival is probably when I was most on edge about who my favourite character was. Todoroki vs Deku vs Bakugou was a whole internal debate. We all know who eventually won though. Point is, this is the first time Bakugou is supposed to seem likeable.

Like, yes, he helped out at the USJ, but he was still reckless and angry about it. In this arc his flaws stop seeming so antagonistic (even though he's now more at odds with 1-A than he's ever been) and are framed humorously; if you think about it, the only times you're not rooting for Bakugou in this whole arc is when you're laughing at his antics. He stops seeming like a massive unforgivable bully and becomes a secondary threat behind Todoroki, even though he ultimately wins the Festival.

One of the first things he does in the season is tell people messing with their class go away, albeit bluntly, and is then complimented for it by Kirishima, who is the nicest guy in the class! No longer are we supposed to necessarily dislike him, as he's being developed after all of season 1. Him saying "I'm gonna win" as his speach is expected by the audience and laughed at- absolutely nobody watching was scared he'd hurt Deku in some terrible way due to it.

The cavalry battle demonstrates that he can work in a team after some adjustment time, and he gets his own antagonist (Monoma) who we all root against! This makes us closer to his character, as in a way we have a common enemy.

Then obviously the single battles are super interesting, his one against Uraraka especially turning people to his side. Since Aizawa, who as an audience we trust after his actions at the USJ, backs up Bakugou's actions, we accept them as the right thing to have done. Especially since Bakugou later calls Uraraka "not fragile", demonstrating that he can respect people and actually isn't as discriminatory as his earlier actions against Deku might lead one to believe. Everything about this fight is pure gold.

The rest of his fights are also very interesting, so let me go off on a little tangent. He's the only person to 1) be uninjured by the end of the festival (he did win tho so...) and 2) he's the only person to win all of his fights by forcing his opponent into submission. He knocks out Uraraka and Kirishima, goes to knock out Tokoyami but has him give up instead and then knocks out Todoroki! His fights are so much more violent than the others, who are primarily trying to win by pushing their opponent out of the ring or by immobilising them, which could make him come across as more aggressive (which he is). But it actually works for his character considering the way he demonstrates respect is by giving his all, therefore in order to show he cares about these fights he has to go for absolutely decimating the person against him.

Also, interesting side note to all that, out of our main three festival contenders, Bakugou is the only one who actually needs to use the festival for its intended purpose: impressing scouts. Todoroki, as the son of Endeavour, is already known throughout the hero community as a promising young talent, and could even get the No2 hero to coach him if he so wished. Deku even says himself that he doesn't necessarily need to get scouted when All Might is already teaching him. Out of the three Bakugou has the most incentive to actually show off here, no guilt/baggage required.

Anyway blah Stain arc blah. Bakugou picks Jeanist to intern with, which many might think makes him shallow. Their quirks are in no way similar and their images are almost diametrically opposing, and Bakugou only chose him because he's such a highly ranked hero. However, I believe the creators crafted this pairing in order to convey how good of a future hero Bakugou promises to be. BJ, in these episodes, is all talk. He's such a superficial hero that, in order to rectify Bakugou's foul personality, he gives him a haircut. He demonstrates the arrogant nature that Stain hates so much. Meanwhile, Bakugou ignores him and is still arrogant in his own way, obviously, but not for anything other than his own pride. He, when you break it down, spends all of his time working towards a genuinely good goal, just to prove to himself that he's worthy- no desire for fans or fame in there, he wants success but isn't actually looking for any of the perks that come with it. This, imo, makes him better than BJ. Also, Bakugou never actually says he is working with BJ due to his rank and could be doing it because their quirks botha require so much time, practice and effort.

Okay, so, now for the final exams. This is where I decided he was my favourite. He works with Deku etc and proves to the audience that he can work with him and won't necessarily become a villain, plus All Might lets loose a little and proves he too can be violent and mean.

What I really love is about ep24 s2 is actually the bit that makes a lot of people chuckle: where Bakugou bites AM's hand. This kid has been giving his absolute all, putting every ounce of strength into beating his idol, because, lbh, his self worth depends on his success here, until he literally cannot raise his arms to punch anymore. And yet, he still refuses to go down, despite every odd against him. Something about that tenacity is just so incredible to me.

It's almost 1am, let's have another break, shall we?

Idk I thought it was funny when it came onto my dash.

Btw, it's now I wish I knew how to hide most of a post lololol.

Season three is just Baku's season, ngl. Like,,, so many of his Stans got their start here, and it's not hard to tell why. A big reason why Bakugou felt irredeemable was because he had no reason to be so mean, but the narrative makes up for that by then putting him through so many bad experiences.

There's been a million metas on why he's so perfect in this season, and this is already abhorrently long, but ah well.

Okay so he's captured by the League through no fault of his own. As the audience when we find out Bakugou is missing we immediately think he's done the dumb thing and gone off on his own, but it's quickly revealed that he's already been kidnapped. Tokoyami is also taken, cementing that the LoV are looking for kids with some villainous feature, but also showing that their perception of what makes a child villainous is skewed, since we know Tokoyami is good.

At the hideout Baku is entirely restrained and silent, so clearly against his will. If we remember every other time he's been restrained (so goddamn many) we'll think back to the Sludge Villain, finding out Deku had a quirk, after his *win* against Todoroki and his internship with BJ. In this way, it's obvious to tell that this is all a Bad experience for him, as those were all very negative times in his life. There's no way he'll join them.

None of the pros even consider it a possibility. Aizawa defends him against the press (and, once again, we like Aizawa! So we trust him) and none of his classmates think he could be evil, they're all primarily concerned for his safety. Even BJ, who insinuated that Baku could easily become a villain, doesn't appear to believe he'll turn down that path.

Also Baku is pretty cool when he fights of the villain like I'm ngl.

And then, when he sees All Might? And his face screws up? With his lip trembling? It's undercut with a joke but he's so obviously just a scared/relieved kid in that moment and it's gut wrenching to remember that.

It's really getting late and I'm at 11% here so speed round through the provisional licence exam.

He can tell Shindou is two faced

Even though he's blunt he's still got the instincts and smarts of a hero

The class looks up to him

Aizawa has a lot of favouritism for this child, y'all, how did I not notice this?

His failure here is intrinsic to his character growth as it means he hits absolute rock bottom and we can move onto:

Deku Vs Kacchan 2

Where to even start. The guilt and pain he experiences has made me tear up several times just from thinking about them, and that GODDAMN VOICE CRACK AS HE YELLS nope it hurts too bad.

It's sort of the culmination of every emotional issue Bakugou has exhibited throughout the series. He can't find self worth without constant praise and pressures himself to be unimaginably perfect, to a self destructive point. He has no support system in place to help him with these issues. His anger stops being repetitive/funny/annoying and is finally, clearly shown to be more damaging to himself than to anyone else, as he feels the only way he can deal with his stress and hurt is by lashing out at those who try to help him.

In this fight we also learn why Deku, even though he's Baku's victim, still looks up to him so much. And the whole dynamic is so perfect I might cry rn.

I am annoyed, though, that further than that Baku's mental health has been pretty much entirely ignored for 200 manga chapters. Probably my only complaint about him.

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.

.

At an entirely selfish level, I can relate to Bakugou. Obviously I'm not a teenage boy with explosion powers who bullies people in order to feel any self worth, but the high standards for himself? The pain at any failures? Being told through childhood how great you are only for it to be torn away in your teens? That's all so painfully relatable to me, and so I feel an even deeper connection with his character.

One last picture to finish off:

[proheromidoriyashouto]

Class 3-A doesn't have a Big Three like previous years. Too many sheer powerhouses. Instead they have Top Teams. Groups of students who have decided to work in teams rather than go Pro solo to take up the mantle of their predecessors together, share the load.

Valiant: Izuku, Shouto, Tenya, Tsuyu, Ochako, Momo. An all-around team that prioritizes rescue and damage control over combat, though their skills are definitely not lacking in that regard. They always reassure people with a smile, emphasizing saving hearts as well as lives. They have matching costumes while together and go back to individual costumes once they've split.

This team breaks up formally but re-unites regularly. Izuku and Shouto become the duo Shooting Star and are equal part win and rescue. They pushed their wedding date so far back due to emergencies they forgot about it entirely. They finally have the whole shebang when their oldest child is fifteen and the youngest is five. They tie the knot in the morning and have a Sports Festival watch-party for the reception. Tenya leaves to head up Idaten Agency and strives to be an even greater hero than his brother. Hatsume was hired by Idaten just before he officially became Ingenium II and the two can be heard yelling at one another from across the building, several floors between them at times. Momo, Ochako, and Tsuyu establish a rescue-oriented agency, A Swee(t) Mocha, and become well-known internationally. They revitalize interest in space exploration after a mission to save an astronaut actually took them from the ISS to the moon. Along with Shouto, they sell space-themed mocha products on the cheap. (Ochako insists the work is sourced to her hometown and her parent's company.)

Vava Boom Glitch: Aoyama, Mina, Bakugou, Kirishima, Kaminari. A team that dazzles on and off the field with flashy entrances and quick, hard-hitting combos. Prioritize combat and villain capture over rescue but will (mostly) switch in a pinch. They had to talk Bakugou down from naming the team KA-FUCKINGBOOM BITCH. Kaminari's sacrifice is remembered for a whey-k.

Revel in the Hollow: Tokoyami, Shouji, Hagakure, Shinsou, Ojiro. An underground recon focused team. Prioritize missing persons investigations, and subterfuge for villain takedowns. Ojiro's overwhelming normalness is weaponized as the unassuming face of the operation with the rest investigating from the shadows. The peace of mind and closure they bring to people who have long lost hope more than makes up for the lack of fame. Smaller but especially dedicated fan-base.

Beating Heartz, Speaking Handz: Kouda, Jirou, Sato, Sero. A logistics and combat support team that prioritizes assisting other heros already in combat or rescue ops though they aren't to be underestimated when seen holding the front themselves. Anima and Sugarman mark their visits to hospitals with unconventional therapy animals and baked goods. Jirou and Sero run a podcast discussing music, art, gaming, and the "legitness" of exotic icecream flavors with stalemates decided by livestreams of paintball matches. They had a devoted following of Little Listeners who determine the "wild rule" of the week and which hero could be a surprise guest on the stream. The most common guests are Izuku and Tsuyu or Kirishima and Hagakure. Bakugou got banned by a 7-year old with a technopathy quirk a few years ago and they just went with it. (His body is always blurred out on the video feed- somehow even though its live- and his voice is reduced to 8-bit noise. He's treated like an urban legend sort of cyberghost by viewers.)

Following years are going to have so much to live up to.

[codenamesazanka]

I think i fell into the trap of villains being more interesting than the heroes in bnha. I find tomura more entertaining. The kids in 1-a aside from bakugou and maybe todoroki are too nice? What are they’re flaws?

Hiya! Thanks for this cool question! I’m sorry, but you’ll be getting a looong essay from me! 

And yeah, same!! Though I don’t think its that the UA kids are boing/too nice/flawed. When I first started watching MHA, I was on the lookout for a favorite character to stan. Uraraka, Iida, Eraserhead, even Snipe(???)… I actually didn’t care for Shigaraki Tomura at first, tho I did like his creepy vibe. When I finally did take notice, it was a delight trying to figure him out because he’s so contradictory and still mysterious. Making sense of it all/using all of the pieces to discover a characterization that made sense, was just fun and rewarding. 

IDK exactly what changed to make me like him, but I think it was that I got interested in the worldbuilding, how exactly quirks and heroes and villains exist. Villains are a really cool perspective to look at the society from, and who better to use as an example than hand man? 

…Which is also the main flaw I perceive about MHA. 

(Everything here is my opinion! I’m a huge sci-fi/fantasy fan so that’s the angle I’m most interested in, and also I read the non-villain arcs like once and that information has largely been crowded out by the ever-expanding and all-consuming thoughts of the League of Villains, so I will get somethings wrong)

IMO, Worldbuilding is a bit weird, in that it’s not enough to establish the norms - which is hard enough - but often you must also establish the taboos. Figuring out how things function includes examining the dysfunctions. Sometimes you create a world only to tear it down. 

But that’s the heart of speculative fiction - imagining different ways of living, different ways the world could be, taking aspects from our world and dissecting it. “Fantasy — the fantastic, the imagination that I love so dearly and that I’ve used to try to construct my own work — is everything that helps to expose more clearly and more powerfully the reality that surrounds us,” Julio Cortazár said. The classic sci-fi stories of exploration and invasion, othering, transhumanism - all are already issues irl: colonialism, discrimination, disability. The lives and conflicts in those stories can exist because of the lives and conflicts of real people as sources to build upon. 

@dabistits​ has said this much more eloquently and comprehensively than I ever could, so go read her meta!!

It’s obvious Horikoshi has put a lot of thought into figuring out his world, with all sorts of details to flesh it out - he writes into it issues like the accommodation of bodies that deviate from the supposed norm; what if people had innate differences, some of which are seen as dangerous; discrimination; self-determination and the right to bear arms affecting the social contract. You can say, ‘Nal, you’re looking too deep into this, it’s a comic for 8-year-olds’, and it’s true! But the first words the begin the story are ‘People are not born equal’; I’m taking it as invitation to examine that. 

So we have a world with its many dysfunctions and flawed systems. Everything that happens hinges pretty much on quirks. I think a great way to explore that is using plot and characterization. It’s not characters being plopped into the world; the world produces the characters. Development occurs as a response to trying to live under these conditions, trying to grow and push the boundaries, or accept and pass it on. 

But I feel like Horikoshi haven’t done this with the UA kids? 

These students are in the contained environment of school and not really interacting with the people they are to protect and serve, and their goal is to get stronger and more powerful but that’s kinda indistinguishable from any other shonen manga and not Hero-specific. Instead of just ‘use my quirk to punch a bad guy and save the day’, I wanna see situations where the kids learn that they cannot use physical methods, I wanna see the moral dilemma of arresting a person who punched out someone discriminating against them, I wanna see them having to accept failure and death as part of the job, dealing with the compassion fatigue. The Hero-specific things. Also, we don’t get to enter the headspace and background of the rest of Class 1A. It’s not the kid’s flaws. 

So the questions Horikoshi brings up about society isn’t actually usually answered by the heroes (some of the exceptions are, as you point out, anon, Todoroki and Bakugou). They’re answered and navigated by the Villains. The Villains are the ‘failed’ products of the world, their grief and discontent is due to being unable to function in this specific society. Their motivations are specific to Hero-society and quirks. And I love that! I love that we get a better sense of the setting and society through their stories - Twice is the one who gets to show us the effect of All Might’s retirement, Spinner introduced us to mutant discrimination, Detnerat gave us some important info about the economy and quirk-usage rights. 

The Heroes don’t get that? Not really? At the beginning of the manga, we do, though! Todoroki and his family, Shinsou and his quirk, Tenya and his brother. But after that, iirc, an issue is brought up, then usually quickly resolved. Kouta hates heroes? Midoriya becomes his hero and Kouta has a change of heart. The media rightfully rips into UA for the camp fiasco and the public agrees? The AFO and All Might fight overshadows that. Aoyama and Midoriya share a moment over quirk-incompatibility, but nothing more than that. 

It’s not that I just side with the Villains completely. I love Vigilantes, and I love the characters that try to do good. Vigilantes explores the dysfunctions and idiosyncrasies. Doing good despite breaking the rules; the desire to use your quirk but having to suppress this innate part of yourself; questioning the Hero system but keeping the ideals.

Koichi, the main character, is very sweet, ‘too nice’ as you might describe, very mild-mannered, his adventures limited mostly to the streets of his neighborhood. He is not flashy like Shigaraki, but I like him a lot. His growth is in response to him learning to be a citizen of his world - what it means to do good, having to interact with the community and its people, finding a niche to make use of his quirk. Making a lasting effect on the every day of the streets. The ‘trigger drug’ storyline works really well because it’s both giving us some insights about how official investigation works and the legal definition of ‘Villain’ (Tsukauchi), the use of social media and Pop’s influence to detect the villains, the biological mechanism of quirks and things people use to enhance it, along with Knuckleduster’s history and developing the relationship between the vigilante trio. 

So yeah! I feel like the full potential of the story Horikoshi wants to tell - this world that’s still dealing with the consequences of quirks appearing, the law enforcement system that arose from having to govern millions of individual with a million different abilities and needs, all of who has to learn how ‘great power comes with great responsibilities’ applies to them, and villain created by these circumstances, who is fated to be in a century-old battle that came to be because of the advent of the extraordinary, a wild fantastical full circle - hasn’t been shown through the UA kids and heroes. Instead, it comes across better from the Villains, and that’s why imo I find them more interesting. 

[erasethedarkness]

Seeing Red -Day 1 | Asking the crush out- (Bakugou x Kirishima)

Summary: Much to his own dismay, Bakugou couldn’t stop replaying that scene in his mind. He didn’t even mean to. It just happened, and kept happening- over and over in dreams. An outstretched hand. A single word. Months later, by chance, he heard someone say that constantly thinking about someone meant that they probably liked them more than a friend, and it finally clicked with the explosive teenager. But what was he going to do about it?

Note: Alright, here we go with the Valentine’s Day Countdown! This is my first KiriBaku piece… well, ever, so I hope it’s alright and captures the characters decently enough. ^^’

Theme Song: Hold Me Tight Or Don’t - Fall Out Boy

Word Count: 1872

@bnha-valentines

Realized I can’t not be with you, or be just your friend…

In retrospect, it all seemed like a dream. Getting caught in some magic marble during the middle of a courage exercise in a forest sounded bizarre, no matter what way he spun it. When he was finally released, he was effectively kidnapped and dealing with some familiar faces from the first time his class encountered the League of Villains. Apparently, being blunt, confident, and ambitious meant he was top-tier villain material- especially with that explosive quirk of his.

...but that wasn’t the scene that he kept dreaming of. Neither was the fight that broke out, or the heroes coming together for him.

“COME!”

That voice was always crystal clear in his dream, despite how loud everything else was in reality. It didn’t matter that Deku and Iida were there, holding onto the red-headed, hair-for-brains kid and projecting him through the air. It didn’t matter that it was probably stupid Deku’s stupid plan, because no way would Kirishima have thought of using at least four quirks together in tandem. His heart was always in the right place, but Bakugou had seen the way his friend studied and retained information. That wasn’t his idea.

Still, it only took was one syllable, and he was there, soaring through the sky with pinpoint precision until he grasped Kirshima’s hand. He didn’t need to ask why they were there- it was obvious. A group of fifteen year olds didn’t just show up at villain hideouts unless they had a damn good reason, and he was a damn good reason, indeed. But he never thanked him, either. Was that why he couldn’t stop seeing red?

It’d been months since that scene played out. In that time, All Might retired, U.A. moved its students into dorms, and school resumed. At first, he thought that if he just repaid the damn debt of Kirishima’s night vision goggles, he’d stop feeling some way or another about him. Unfortunately, that didn’t quite work out as planned. And then, absurdly enough, Kirishima managed to get his Provisional Hero License before he did, while he was stuck taking a 3 month training course with Todoroki and some other kids. All of this came together and frustrated Bakugou, especially because of that fleeting feeling that skirted around being identified. He was as brilliant as he was strong and capable- so why, for the love of heroics, did he struggle so much when it came to seeing and being around Kirishima?

“I don’t know, dude. Maybe you like her if you can’t stop thinking about her?” he heard in passing on campus one day. It was getting to that time of year where people started confessing their feelings as if other days weren’t good enough for it. The words didn’t mean anything to him at first, until he was back in his room and trying to focus on his studies. Occasionally, he’d hear footsteps, and he’d wonder if it was Kirishima walking back or leaving. And then he’d realize he was thinking of Kirishima again, and he’d get frustrated to the point where studying was no longer effective. The words he overheard came back out of the blue as he rested for a moment, taking a break from math and listening to music instead.

He sat up and took out his headphones, letting the silence of his room clear his mind.

“...Maybe.. I.. like him?” he slowly and pensively asked himself, the words manifesting into something almost tangible. Having said it, that fleeting feeling came back as if it confirm, ‘Yes, Bakugou, you like him.’ Simultaneously, it felt as if a great burden was relieved when the thought established itself as fact, but also like a weight was placed on his chest to make him face the next problem. What was he going to do about it?

For days, Bakugou tried not to let the newly recognized feelings change anything. He still sat with Kirishima for lunch and chatted with him and the people that gravitated to that red-headed bundle of joy. He still kept his wits about himself and nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

...except that he was gazing at him more often, and for longer. Whenever the hardening hero spoke, he listened more attentively. There was greater care and attention given whenever it came to him, and even though Bakugou didn’t catch himself being softer and more serene around Kirishima, everyone else seemed to, save for the equally oblivious person of affection. His peers noticed he was so much easier to be around when it was both of them. He didn’t yell as much. Hell, he didn’t even scowl as fiercely. It became so obvious to everyone else that whenever they talked about Bakugou, it was almost always including Kirishima in one way or another. In private whispers, their friends even began to refer to them as a single unit: Bakushima.

Finally, he had enough. The repression route clearing wasn’t working for him. It was Friday, classes were finished, and their workload was fairly light this weekend. He didn’t care that it seemed like everyone else was trying to get someone to notice them and return their feelings; he didn’t care if it was cliche anymore. He couldn’t just keep pretending that friendship was actually enough- not without trying first. If friendship was the farthest he could ever get, fine, but he wasn’t the type of person who just settled on less without even taking a shot.

“Kirishima, you free tonight?” he asked as they walked back to Heights Alliance. Behind his nerves of steel, his heart pounded and chest tightened with borderline forcefully calm breaths.

“Huh? Did you forget already, Bakugou?” Kirishima asked, looking to his fellow, spiky haired friend. “We’re gonna hang with Kaminari and everyone. I think they wanted to go to the mall or something.”

“Let’s ditch them.” The suggestion came casually, as if it was a completely natural thing to propose.

“What? C’mon, that wouldn’t be manly of us! We told th-”

“I know what we told them,” Bakugou curtly interrupted. He wasn’t trying to snap, but he was hoping he wouldn’t have to be so blunt either. The confusion on Kirishima’s face was too sweet and innocent; he really didn’t have a clue, did he? “I want to see a movie together.”

“Okay… well, we could invit-”

“No.”

At this point, neither of them knew what to say. They made it back to their building and to their floor, and much to Kirishima’s surprise, Bakugou didn’t stop at his own room, but escorted him all the way to his.

“Hey, is everything alright, dude?” he asked as he opened his door, stepping in and allowing his company to join him. The blond closed the door after stepping in, his eyes looking around at anything but his friend, settling on the punching bag. “You’re not acting like yourself. Something up?”

“...yeah,” he admitted with a soft and reluctant sigh. Kirishima sat down in his office chair and spun around to look at Bakugou, gesturing to his bed and inviting him to sit and talk. But he didn’t move. Other than finally looking back at those worried red eyes, he was rigid and stiff.

“Bakugou…” His voice was soft, breaking the silence after what felt like a lifetime.

“I want to go out,” he stated simply.

“...Okay.. well, we’re going to go out with our friends, so I don’t get why you want to ditch them.”

He sighed and closed his eyes, finally beginning to move again. His bag dropped and to the ground and it looked like Bakugou was going to sit down and finally open up- only he walked to him instead, standing with his arms crossed and with his weight shifted on one leg, contrapposto, as if he was sculpted by Grecian hands.

“I want to go out with you- just you.”

“Why..? Did someone piss you off again? Don’t tell me Ashido said something dumb about-”

“What? No. Jeeze, it has nothing to do with raccoon-eyes. You really do have hair for brains,” he half laughed before rolling his eyes and staring straight back into Kirishima’s. “How about this? I want to take you out. Out to a movie, maybe to dinner if you want, or whatever.”

Silence fell again. A nervous and confused smile was cracked on Kirishima’s lips- he was completely caught off guard by this seemingly sudden change in his friend and the request he was making. It was almost as if he was asking him out on a date or something. But then again, it was Bakugou, so there was no way, right?

“But.. why?” was the only thing that seemed to make sense to ask at this point. Every time he brought up their friends, he was shot down, so there was no point in that anymore.

“Damn it, just let me take you out on a stupid date!” Bakugou’s cheeks were red at this point- but not in anger. Sure, he raised his voice, but there wasn’t a bite to his words; he was just louder, as if that would make his intentions clearer. And yeah, his fists were clenched, but that was only normal for someone who was both nervous and somewhat frustrated because they weren’t getting their point across.

He wasn’t sure if it was the words, his blush, or his volume that made the redhead’s eyes widen and cheeks blush, but it didn’t matter. All that was left was for him to respond, and it seemed like he was going to take his sweet time in doing so. Bakugou tried to be patient, but waiting for the answer was stirring up more of a riot in him than he wanted to admit, so he finally broke the silence. “It’s fine if you don’t want to. It’s not a big deal or anything,” he tried to play it cool, even if it meant more to him than he said.

“N-no, that’s not it… I, just, uh…” Kirishima stumbled on his words, looking away. “I mean.. You’re so manly, y’know? And- ” He still couldn’t believe that Bakugou was asking him out. When silence was the only answer he received, he looked back up at the blond in front of him, immediately meeting his red gaze.

“And? That has nothing to do with wanting to go out with you. Just.. hurry up and say ‘yes’ or something.”

There was a long pause as everything processed in Kirishima’s mind. His confused expression finally gave way to a happiness that was somehow both soft and excited. “... but what will we tell the squad?” he finally asked, looking to Bakugou, unable to stop smiling once he started. Once he saw that expression, he couldn’t help but smile a little himself, even if it ended up looking like an impish grin.

“Just tell them I’m taking you on a date and to leave us alone.”

Kirishima’s face flushed to match his hair at how straightforward and confident Bakugou was. He really was the epitome of manliness… and he was going to take him out on a date.

...I love you to death, but I just can’t- I just can’t pretend.