#you can believe whatever you want about a fictional story! those beliefs do not negate criticisms of the source material

[irrealisms]

i have to disagree with your read of the op, even as i agree with everything being said-- the thing that i read op as saying isn't "You cannot [believe things about a fictional story] [if those things diverge too greatly from that fictional story]" or "You cannot expect others to agree with the things you think about a fictional story if those things diverge too greatly (and that point of divergence may be different for different people, [etc.])". ; it's something more along the lines of "You cannot use (for example) Diverse Headcanons to make a story progressive, if the story's themes are regressive and bigoted and you are leaving those themes unexamined + unchanged." or perhaps "You cannot use headcanons as a way of avoiding the idea of the source material needing to be criticized." it's not that you physically can't headcanon things that are too divergent from the original, which is obviously false, or even that people won't always agree with your headcanons, which is so blandly generic as to be meaningless; it's (to my reading) about the fact that many headcanons that aim to "fix" something about the original text (and which often get deployed to ~dismiss criticisms of the source) are in fact slapping a layer of paint over it without at any point meaningfully engaging with the problems in the original text that they want to fix!

you cannot headcanon your way out of overt thematic structures on which the entire narrative is built

[chatterbox-meta]

On Narrative Consequence

Or, a meta on how every single one of Katsuki Bakugou’s and Enji Todoroki’s misdeeds have directly or indirectly resulted in their misfortune.

Before I begin, I would like to say sorry for postponing other metas I’ve promised to write in favour of this meta. Well, I say meta, but this is more of a rant than anything. Namely, by writing this, I am mostly venting my frustration with a certain belief somewhat widespread in the MHA fandom - that Katsuki and Enji have never been properly punished for anything they did.

First, let’s examine what “proper punishment” even means. The answers probably vary from person to person, but the most consistent ones I’ve seen centered around legal punishment, verbal calling out and, sometimes, an “eye for an eye” type of retribution. I’ll get to the last two later, but the first one - legal punishment - is genuinely not something either Katsuki or Enji have gotten.

“But Chatterbox! That means the people who say they weren’t punished properly are actually right!” Well, yeah, if this was real life then legal punishment would be the only appropriate response for crimes like spousal and child abuse, as well as certain bullying tactics like suicide baiting.

However, My Hero Academia is not real life and Katsuki and Enji aren’t real people. They’re fictional characters within a narrative and that narrative has a way of dishing out its own punishment. Just because the two of them haven’t been sent to jail/juvie doesn’t mean they were immune to karmic narrative punishment. Such punishment is obviously not possible in real life since karma doesn’t exist, only direct action, but in a story like MHA, the author can write events to serve that purpose.

With that in mind and to put it bluntly, you’d have to ignore large chunks of canon to claim the two weren’t punished. In fact, many events in MHA are designed to hit Katsuki and Enji specifically where it will hurt them the most and in a way that will make them learn their lessons and retain them. Let’s go over the things that happen to them and what actions led to that.

Katsuki Bakugou starts off the series as a bully convinced he’s standing at the top and determined to keep our loveable protagonist Izuku down because, deep down, he (perhaps irrationally, at that point) believes Izuku has whatever it takes to surpass him and fears the failure and loss of identity that would mean for him. Of course, this merely explains his actions and doesn’t justify them, so what is his punishment?

Well, the punishment the narrative decides for him is making those fears come true.The entire story until about the end of S3 (so, for the first 120-ish chapters of the manga) is about Izuku being built up and Katsuki being torn down.

Sometimes this is done incidentally (the Sludge Villain case, which both shakes up Katsuki’s belief in himself as the strongest and leads to Izuku earning One For All, while also serving as karmic punishment for Katsuki going too far with his bullying earlier*), but most of the time it’s a direct result of his mistakes (his loss to Izuku in the Heroes vs Villains excercise/DvK1, him being unable to reach out to Shouto to bring out his full power like Izuku did at the Sports Festival, his temper tantrum attracting the League of Villains and costing him any respect he might have earned by winning, his attitude making him fail the provisional license exam while Izuku passed, etc.).

*(Obviously this only works as punishment from a narrative standpoint, anyone who says a real 15-year-old deserved to almost be murdered because they were a bully is, uh, not someone I’d want to associate myself with.)

I already went into depth about precisely what and how Katsuki loses over the course of the series in this very long character analysis, but the tl;dr version is that he goes from believing that he is the strongest and Izuku is the weakest to believing that he is the failure who caused All Might’s end and Izuku is the prodigy chosen to be All Might’s successor. Izuku keeps building up his self-esteem while Katsuki keeps losing it. In other words, his punishment for trying to tear down Izuku is being torn down himself.

Some would argue that this doesn’t count because Izuku didn’t tear him down personally and instead that this is just the natural and inevitable result of Izuku getting stronger and Katsuki having to face reality. Putting aside that a character like Izuku wouldn’t want to personally tear him down, here’s where we go back to the verbal calling out, the “eye for an eye” and the more “direct” punishments.

A shocking amount of people believe that Izuku has never called out Katsuki for his behavior, some even going so far as to say that Izuku doesn’t realize what Katsuki’s doing is wrong due to Stockholm Syndrome or something. This infuriates me because it is supposed Izuku Stans doing a disservice to Izuku’s character. While it’s true that Izuku doesn’t hate Katsuki himself (I go into detail about why here, along with the reason why he’d forgive him), but he absolutely hates a lot of his actions and can and will let him know that.

Even way back in S1, when he is still a meek terrified kid, he stands up to him. When Katsuki confronts him after the entrance exam and threatens him, Izuku doesn’t budge, he tells him that he’s going to UA and there’s nothing he can do about it, causing him to back off.

During DvK1, despite Katsuki acting more unhinged than usual and trying to either beat him up or provoke him into using OFA, Izuku looks him in the eye and tells him the insulting nickname he gave him is now the name of a hero. He even kind of taunts him by saying he has Katsuki’s weaknesses recorded in the notebook Katsuki burned and threw away!

And he keeps doing it! When they have to work together to fight All Might and Katsuki refuses to do so, even lashing out violently, Izuku yells at him right back and even punches him hard eventually. Granted, it was mostly because it looked like Katsuki would give up on the one thing Izuku admires about him instead of for revenge, but still.

Izuku accepts Katsuki’s challenge in DvK2 not just because he wants to give Katsuki a chance to let out his emotions and find answers, but also because he wants to air his grievences (what he really thought of Katsuki, how it felt to chase after him) and give Katsuki answers in the form of a resounding “I’ll surpass you” and an OFA powered punch to the face.

Another common claim is that the adults and kids around Katsuki never do anything about him. This may have been true in middle school, but UA? Aizawa restrains him and negates his Quirk the second he tries to attack Izuku during the Quirk Apprehension test and tells him to stop wasting his talent after DvK1. When Katsuki grabs an unconscious Shouto by the shirt after their match, Midnight knocks him out and then he’s chained and muzzled.** All Might spells out what he’s been doing wrong after DvK2.

**(Sidebar: it amuses me that this is called out as inhumane treatment and too harsh punishment, even though the adults had no way of knowing whether Katsuki would attack again or what it would take to calm him down, by the same people who claim Katsuki isn’t punished enough. Well, which is it?)

The adults absolutely intervene when he steps out of line. And even when they don’t, they tend to have a reason. All Might didn’t stop the Heroes vs Villains excercise because he knew that if he stepped in, Izuku wouldn’t feel like he’s proven anything, to himself or to Katsuki. He didn’t step in for Izuku’s sake, not Katsuki’s.

As for the End of Term Exam, Aizawa didn’t put Izuku on a team with Katsuki because he “wanted Izuku to get along with his abuser,” but because he knew that Izuku had great leadership and cooperation skills except when he’s with Katsuki and his inability to force difficult people to work with him would cost him in the field. Besides, neither Katsuki nor Izuku can afford to have bad blood between them in high-stakes situations. It might be harsh, but Aizawa was doing it for both of their sakes.

The only thing the adults could have done differently is come up with a more long-term solution to the problem, preferably by actually talking to the people involved, but this was aknowledged after the duo broke curfew to fight.

In conclusion, Katsuki has, in fact, absolutely been called out by the people around him and punished by the narrative thouroughly.

Phew, that got longer than I planned... Where was I? Ah, yes, Area Man Misplaced In The Role of Father.

Enji Todoroki spent his life desperately trying to reach All Might’s spot as number one hero. When he feared his own skills would never be enough, he hatched a plan to get into a Quirk Marriage and then make one of his offspring surpass All Might in his place. Why he thought that was a good idea, I don’t know, but it fits the psychology of the typical Stage Mom, living her, uh, I mean his dream vicariously through his child, Shouto.

In any case, in order to accomplish his goal, Enji was willing to use any means necessary, icluding brutal training of a toddler, physical violence against his wife whenever she tries to interfere and... whatever... happened to Touya. Nothing outside of that goal mattered to him, “unsuited” children like Natsuo and Fuyumi (who presumably only or mostly inherited Rei’s Quirk) were tossed aside and ignored.

So, how does the narrative punish this sorry excuse for a hero, father and husband? By giving him exactly what he wanted, the number one spot? Apparently so!

“But Chatterbox! Isn’t that Endeavor being rewarded by the narrative?” You would think so, but interpreting it that way is actually completely missing the point of Endeavor’s Arc! Because everytime I think of how it’s presented, I’m reminded of a line I might have heard in Disney’s Princess and the Frog: “Did you get what you wanted? S’ what you got what you need?”

After All Might’s retirement, the number one spot was left open for Endeavor to take his place. This is what he’d wanted for a long time and believed he would never get himself. But Endeavor didn’t earn that spot, he was given it, and he knows it. He may have taken his place, but he never truly surpassed All Might and, now that he’s out of commission, neither he nor Shouto (who doesn’t seem to care anyway) ever will.

In other words, every single one of his efforts, every horrible thing he’s done to his family up until that point... It was all for nothing. He may have been at least somewhat aware that what he was doing was indeed horrible but just surpressed that knowledge for the sake of achieving his goal, but now that his goal has amounted to nothing and he feels lost and aimless, he’s finally forced to reflect on his deeds.

But even asides from that, who is Endeavor, the hero with the most solved cases in history, the one who saved countless lives? Well, not much of a number one hero, even with his family situation not being public knowledge, it turns out. After Kamino, the people didn’t just need a hero who would defeat villains, but a hero who would reassure them that everything will be okay and discourage criminals by his mere presence. That he would uphold Peace. Endeavor’s victory never felt more hollow, because the people don’t need him, they need another All Might.

So, Endeavor approaches the man himself for advice. But Toshinori tells him he can’t be him, nor should he attemt to. The age of All Might is over and the public needs to accept that, if they want to prove to Shigaraki that they can go on without him. Toshinori thinks Endeavor should be his own hero, the kind of hero people like Hawks saw in him, the only one who wasn’t lured into complacency by All Might; the tenacious, dedicated and efficient powerhouse against whom villains wouldn’t dare stand against.

And yet, that, too, feels hollow. Because even if All Might and Hawks believe in Endeavor, even if the rest of society comes to believe Endeavor... What does any of that matter for Enji Todoroki? The man who ruined his family for the sake of his own ambitions? Enji now knows that he’ll probably never be a true hero, let alone number one, because of what he’s done, even if the entire thing remains a secret.

Still, he has no other choice. He’s number one, understanding for the first time the enourmous pressure and burden that comes with the position. And, of course, the villain attacks, leading to Enji getting his face torn open by High End, coincidentally (really, within the narrative, it’s not a coincidence at all) on the same side that Shouto got his burn scar. But that is fine, because for the first time he’s fighting not for the sake of his ambitions but for the society that needs a pillar, no matter how unstable or rotten it is beneath its shiny and sturdy marble surface.

For that reason, though this is never expicitly stated, he can’t even “properly” punish himself by going public with his crimes - imagine the utter trainwreck the new number one hero revealing himself to be a former abuser would be, in the wake of the chaos and uncertainty caused by All Might’s fall? When it comes to his family, atonement really is the only option at this point.

So Enji’s punishment is getting exactly what he wanted, at the cost of carrying the world on his shoulders knowing he’ll never be what it needs, getting disfigured and having to face his broken family. Speaking of, what about that family? Aren’t they letting him get off scot-free? Contrary to popular belief, no.

Natsuo doesn’t want to forgive him or even aknowledge his efforts to change and be the hero they can be proud of, he wants nothing to do with him. Shouto is willing to see those efforts and is curious to see what the results will be, he wants Enji to make good on his words, but he still agrees with Natsuo and doesn’t forgive him or want him in his life beyond the pragmatic uses of his experience as a pro. Above all else, he wants to carve an identity outside of his father’s former wishes and outside his hatred for him.

Fuyumi does forgive him unconditionally, but it has less to do with Enji genuinely earning her forgiveness and more to do with her desire for a happy, normal family. Rei also seemingly forgives him, but for her, it might simply be a desire to let go of the hatred that made her scald her child’s face. It would be so easy for her to simply blame all of it on Enji, but she can’t, not all of it.

And Enji himself certainly hasn’t forgiven anything, nor does he demand forgiveness from others and fully accepts the consequences of both his sins and his dream.

I don’t think Enji’s quite done paying his debt yet, there is still the issue with Touya and I bet the LoV would be salivating at the chance to expose him if they found out (in fact I hope that happens, not because I have a thirst for punishment but because I think it would be a fantastic plot), but so far, he definitely hasn’t gone unpunished.

Before I end this long-ass rant (holy shit, this has gotten way out of hand), I have one more thing to address: what is the purpose of a punishment? It’s to stop bad behavior and make the perpetrators realise what they’re doing is wrong. In that way, I believe the narrative punishment of Katsuki and Enji was successful.

So, what, exactly, would even be the point of “properly” punishing them further? Vindication? For whom, the characters or certain audience members?

Again, in real life, learning your lesson, feeling regret and trying to do better isn’t a get out of jail free card (though certain places do prioritize rehabilitation over punitive justice, finding that the former significantly lowers the rate of re-offending), but in fiction, priorities are different. It’s not about making things even (would anything ever make them even?) or treating characters “fairly” or teaching the audience basic morals, it’s about what would be the most interesting to read about.

Everyone’s opinions are different, but honestly?

The story of two boys growing past their relationship as a bully and a victim, past even the destructive rivalry of tearing each other down, and embracing the relationship of pushing each other past who they are now by borrowing each other’s best qualities?

And the story of a man who wants to be a father and a hero even though it might be impossible, of a family that might just one day find closure in the belief that all the years of suffering amounted to something in the end?

I’d take those over some sanctimonious, heavy-handed morality tale of an ao3 “fix fic” any day. Yes this entire rant is actually me being salty after seeing too many self-righteous “I’ll adress what Horikoshi won’t uwu” fic authors, fucking sue me.   

[mittensmorgul]

Do you think it's weird to have envisioned a character one way and he turns out utterly different when he finally appears on the show? Does that denounce the value of one's own headcanon?

Hi there! This is such an interesting question, and I’ve been sitting on it for a while so I could really think about it, because in a way, I think this is how we’re SUPPOSED to think about the characters. The fact we’re making up “headcanons” about them at all is a sign that they’re “real” enough for us to think about the in-betweens, to imagine greater depths than the surface-layer, you know? It’s the mark of well-written characters that they become three dimensional people with inner lives we get a peek at, and then extrapolate out our beliefs about them until they’ve almost taken on lives of their own.

But just like with “real people,” our opinions and thoughts about them can and SHOULD change if we learn something supposedly new about them. Just like real people, characters shouldn’t be static and unchanging, you know?

What may have seemed like a valid and true headcanon about a character up until they said or did something that makes us rethink that opinion, or challenges us to at the very least reconcile the current information with what we already believe about a character, we have two options: Either dismiss the new information is “ooc” and reject it, or revise our headcanons and search for meaning as we try to understand why a character is behaving in ways that seems to contradict our beliefs about them.

The first approach (yelling OOC and rejecting actual canon) puts an end to any consideration of the possibility that the character is not quite what we believed or expected. It’s often these “ooc” moments that in fact lead us to a much greater understanding of a character, because they should be moments that encourage us to step back and ask ourselves WHY this thing is happening. By definition, anything that happens in canon is inherently “in character.” The character did it in canon. Period.

(I mean, I reserve a few highly questionable moments for extreme judgment, because sometimes bad writing is bad writing and there is absolutely no defense for that… but overall I accept the fact that the vast majority of what we see on Supernatural is at least consistently written and not rug-pulls for no reason.)

This depth of character that leads us to think about these characters as if they were real people enough to even develop “headcanons” about them in the first place leads me to try and explain this using real people as an example.

When we first meet a person in real life, we don’t really know much about them. We know the “social face” they present in that particular circumstance. You’d likely learn very different things about a person if you met them at work versus meeting them at a party, you know? But that wouldn’t limit you from being able to get to know them better under different circumstances, to see other facets of their personality, to learn about their past and their hobbies and their hopes and dreams for the future. All of those bits of information have the power to fundamentally change how you think about that person. Because it SHOULD happen that way.

Meeting someone at work where they’re acting professionally in a business setting, if you later discovered they spent their free time volunteering at an animal shelter playing with kittens, or leading a girl scout troop, or if they have an etsy shop where they sell their hand knitted scarves, or whatever… it doesn’t negate that professional business demeanor, but it does EXPAND on your understanding of that person. What you already knew about them wasn’t the ENTIRETY of their character, you know? People are like that.

So are good characters.

I tend to think of this process as similar to how we engage with a mystery story, or even a police procedural. Starting with inflexible assumptions, rejecting “clues” that don’t fit with those inflexible assumptions, the detective would never get to the bottom of the case, you know? They’d never be able to put all the pieces together and suss out the facts, they’d never be able to sort out the red herrings from the actual clues, they’d never be able to winnow down the suspect pool or solve the case. Same goes for characters themselves.

(and the fact that I used this metaphor for explaining character development in general may go a long way to understanding why I tend to default into writing case fic in canon. I approach most fiction with the mindset that there are puzzles to be put together and bigger pictures to be revealed. Even in stories that aren’t inherently mysteries or procedurals, my brain wants to solve the mysteries anyway. I personally find the most enjoyment in exactly this activity, in looking for a larger, big picture coherent narrative “truth,” and by nature in an ongoing story, that ultimate “truth” is continuing to evolve and change.)

I would never be angry with a real human being for challenging my impressions about them, so why would I be angry with a fictional character for challenging my impressions? MY opinions of a character (or of a story, or of a real-life human being) are NEVER more valuable than the REALITY of that character– of that character’s (or story’s, or real-life human being’s) truth about themselves, you know?

I’m not married to any of my personal headcanons about the show. I don’t feel like I’m being personally attacked by canon if it doesn’t fit with my preconceived notions or expectations. I adapt my understanding to fit with what I see unfolding in canon. Because that’s how life works.

If we can’t adapt our understanding to fit the actual facts we’re presented with, we sort of lose touch with reality. So I don’t feel my headcanons are devalued by seemingly conflicting revelations, I see it as being challenged to come to a fuller understanding of what I’d assumed about things in the past.

If the show wasn’t pushing at the limits of our understanding and assumptions like this, the characters and story wouldn’t have become so dynamic or engaging or interesting. So I really enjoy having my assumptions tested like this. It’s the foundation of the depth of these characters, and what makes us care about them so much in the first place. :)

I mean, I’ve got a few pet headcanons that I’ve remained fairly invested in over the years. One that eventually did pan out in canon was that Jimmy had died in 4.22 and that Cas had been walking around alone in that body all this time. That’s essentially been my headcanon since I first watched s5 and Cas came back from having been exploded, but there was nothing definitive in canon until much later. If it was confirmed in canon that Jimmy HAD been in there all these years, I would’ve revised my theory, but we’ve been told multiple times now that he’s gone.

There’s also my pet theory that Adam was never in the cage– that in fulfillment of his deal to say yes to Michael, he was released to go to Heaven. Barring that, at the very least since Cas molitov’ed Michael with holy oil in 5.22 and effectively dismantled Adam’s vessel similar to how Jimmy’s vessel was destroyed on a “subatomic level” in 4.22 and again in 5.22, which is what Cas has said canonically was the event that sent Jimmy to Heaven in the first place, there’s no reason to believe that when Michael came back to Stull after reassembling himself there that he would’ve bothered to bring Adam’s soul back with him for the ride, you know?

BUT! If we later find out in canon that Adam has been in the cage all along, I’ll shrug (and side-eye the writers a lil bit for being inconsistent, but hey it happens), and revise my headcanon. The writers aren’t deliberately attacking me or my personal theories by revealing new information like this. Just like real people we meet aren’t trying to personally attack or devalue our assumptions about them by revealing other facets of their personalities as we get to know them better.. That’s just how human interaction works.