#i get especially frustrated because it's most often people with proship-esque beliefs

[jecook]

There's been this ongoing dialogue with BNHA fans about how certain fanon tropes are seemingly amoral, especially the idea of changing, erasing, healing to a level where they become invisible, or otherwise removing scars and/or trauma is a moral failing of those engaging with certain headcanons, art, fics, etc.

This conversation arises especially with the villain characters, as many AUs are about if their trauma never happened. Other stories and theories revolve around the main LOV getting rewound to be kids again so they can grow up without going through the horrific childhoods they have had. More have Shigaraki or Dabi have their scars get completely healed with no trace. Some art and fics have Dabi's burn scars replaced with tattoos. These things are all part of a larger narrative of fans of these character wanting the character to have a better, less painful alternative to the horror that they have been through, wanting the characters to not have to live in pain daily. Of course, much of BNHA is about scars and trauma. Getting rid of these things does indeed erase a large part of what Horikoshi addresses in the narrative, and many people feel that headcanons and fanon of this type also do a disservice to real people with scarring and real people who have gone through abuse and trauma. Their experiences can't be magically erased, although a lot of media often makes it seem like disabilities, scars, and trauma in fantasy and scifi deserves to be healed, given a completely new start, even though that isn't possible for those people in actuality.

So is it wrong to have these headcanons/fanon? In short, no. Seriously, no. I approach this with the exact same logic as a lot of the same rhetoric as being able to write dark content--this fan content will not change the direction that the canon narrative is going in, it is just something that these people want to explore for their owns reasons. It is nice to imagine characters if they had gotten to live better lives and it makes sense to wish for this idealistic life, and that's okay. It's aesthetically cool to imagine Dabi with intricate tattoo work instead of tattoos. Yes, it is good to consider the larger concepts behind how these things can have serious implications in published work, but I firmly believe that most fanfiction inhabits less of a literary zone and more of a fan wish fulfillment zone, which is awesome! Good, that's what many people want in their fiction oftentimes!

If someone's enjoyment of BNHA hinges on how scars, trauma, and disabilities are represented honestly, then great! Ignore the rest of the stuff by scrolling past, filtering it out, not clicking on that twitter thread, unfollowing, or blocking.

Personally, I understand fan content disregarding what you like best about a work. There's tropes popular in BNHA fanon that I don't engage with because it leaves out what I like best. That isn't a moral failing on the part of those creators, it's just a difference in what time of fan content you enjoy.

Tl;dr: please stop moralizing so much fanon content. If you believe that people should be free to enjoy and explore what appeals to them, sometimes that means just letting people enjoy a wholesome, idealistic version of the story. And that's okay.