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junosswans · 2 years

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The many times of Midoriya Izuku rejecting Bakug*u Kat*uki & what it means to them

Again, not exactly anti-bakug*u but I'll tag it like so and hide his name so that people who potentially don't want to read it don't have to

(contains: mha comic spoiler, antibkdk but it's really complicated, in general critical of a certain blonde character but I don't think there's anything mean spirited here and my point isn't to shit on him, but to theorize where he's heading towards)

Thinking about how over and over izu chose the other option as opposition to bak*gou and feeling a moment of hope for a liberating ending between the osananajimi but then also grim cause hori probably won't do that (or the jump editors won't let him do that)

It's a thought that only came to me after the comic apology scene, which so many 💥🥦 shippers screamed over, and it led to me contemplating the progression of their relationship & how they were positioned in the story as archetypes.

I kept on thinking about how in the apology scene, Izuku never directly replied to bkg's apology. Bkg said I'm sorry for everything I've done, and Izuku's immediate action after the shock was to apologize to everyone for being inconsiderate in his previous words.

I'll have to say this first, I don't ship them at all and could never see myself doing so (for apparent reasons), and as someone who endured bullying and abuse I hate bkg a lot, but thinking about their character development is really interesting and as far as angst goes, they probably have the most dramatic mutual-but-also-not-mutual pining relationship ever and its honestly kind of fun to think and read about, lol.

And after they have returned to UA, and bkg accidentally called him deku as usual instead of Izuku, his reply was a smile and "you don't have to force yourself", which...

Like, can we stop a moment and think about how Izuku never directly addressed bkg's apology? The way he said "you don't have to force yourself" as if he's given up on hoping? If I am the author and I wanted the apology moment to be the salvation the two needed, I'd definitely let Izuku accept the apology then move on. There's no point in dragging things out unless I'm preparing for a greater moment of enlightenment. Unless the reply Izuku had in his mind was not what we are expecting (acceptance).

From my pov, I think he was hesitating. He was having second thoughts and he was unsure. If it was set before the final arc, Izuku would probably immediately accept the apology, or say "I've never blamed you/been mad at you"-- no matter how we view their relationship, we can agree on that, right? But why the hesitation now??

I think we're close to the reveal of the reason for the change of mind for Izuku, judging from how the story has been building up. And I have a theory which is an unlikely one but I also really want to see if anyone else feels the same.

One of the main theme of this story, or of most stories, is the discovery of self-identity. To establish your name and develop your personality & world view and find where you belong. It's a very common theme, yeah?

MHA is a story that's defined by choices instead of predetermined fate-- todoroki chooses to use his power to neutralise but not harm (unlike what he's been taught), midoriya chooses to save eri despite nighteye telling him he couldn't do it, the LoV thinking bkg would be good villain material and him rejecting them, and the dichotomy between the heroes and the villains? It's "I choose to become what I want to be not what others (eg my father, society, etc) want me to be" versus "society called me a villain so I will be one as my revenge".

For Izuku, I’d argue that his journey of becoming himself relies on the rejection of his childhood, in which he was repeatedly told that he had no right to choose (quirkless people can't be a hero, you should kys instead, you need to become the next symbol of peace, so and so), and he needed to defy those voices and choose his own path. And as someone who played a big part in those negative voices, bkg was someone who Izuku needed to reject. (By reject, I don’t necessarily mean cut off. What I mean is that they both need to reevaluate their view towards each other and stop seeing the other as someone more/lesser, which had been a constant in their dynamic until very recently; Izuku needs to reject what bkg used to say to him and the labels that he had given him. Only with this could they achieve a healthy & balanced relationship.)

It started with him reclaiming the name deku by choosing ochako’s interpretation over bkg’s; and then cheering for todoroki when td and bk faced off in the sports festival;

And Izuku did, repeatedly. It was small but it was there, how he was trying to push the influence & shadow of bkg (his abuser) out of his personal narrative, in a passive way. It was unintentional statements and outbursts at first, and it was kind of a one step forward two steps back situation (which is common for abuse survivors who are trying to make amends), but I think he was coming to the realisation that it’s what he needed to be the hero he wanted to be.

Tbh, I really really didn’t expect this line. Like I was so so so bracing myself for midoriya to cheer for bkg but then he DIDNT and it was insane and I screamed. Anyways--

Then it escalated into deku vs bkg 2 and well, that was definitely a lot of emotional baggage to unpack. It was an incredibly painful read for me because well… the level of mental gymnastics you’d need to do in order to view the world like bkg…. bro needed the psych ward not a hero school. There were definitely a lot of moments that shippers would swoon over, but if you’d allow me to go blue curtain a bit I’d say the most important line is this one:

There was also the “it has to be you kirishima who goes to save bkg because if I was the one who’s holding out a hand he would rather die than catch it” in which, yea it was accurate assessment. But like. Anyway I don’t feel like getting into that today...

Wtf bkg? You thought of me like that?

Judging from how it’s been emphasised over and over by bkg and AM lately, Izuku changing from someone who has no regard for his own well-being will be a major plot point in this last arc, and this will likely include his relationship with people. In order to grow from being overly self-sacrificial, he will need to distance himself from people who hurt him or at least, acknowledge that people who would hurt him doesn’t care for him and move on from there. And this leads us to this line:

Prior to this, I don’t think Izuku gave too much thought to their relationship. He likely attributed all the bullying and namecalling to his quirklessness and “it’s bkg being bkg” and this was the moment when he was like, ah, so you hate me on a personal level, you pick on me not because you look down on quirkless ppl (Izuku probably internalised a lot of the shame & discrimination regarding that) but because you really hate me, midoriya izuku, specifically. You THINK I look down on you, and you THINK I get beaten up by you because it’s fun for me or something. All the while I've idolised you and looked up to you and believed so earnestly that you will be a great hero. It’s through this fight that they finally get a glimpse of what the other thinks of them and it’s when Izuku started to contemplate the definition of friendship, affection, and relationships in general. I feel like after this was when the distance between the two really showed, even though the air between them became less tense. Bkg had learned the truth of OfA, but in terms of plot progression it didn’t seem to do much for the two. The “helping deku to train” acted as a plot device to explain how he got stronger, but aside from that, how did this part contribute to Izuku’s character development?

And really, I think we are seeing bits and bits of how Izuku is mentally distancing himself from bkg (he still cares but not as much and as extreme as before), although it could just be my wishful thinking. one of the notable instances is this frame from the apology scene:

When I read this, I was like...??? So you actually know that friends aren't supposed to beat you up??? On one hand, the IRONY but on the other hand, there's a part of me that's holding out for the possibility that this is hinting at something bigger in the future. Could this statement mean that he will learn to draw a better boundary between himself and people who don't treat him fairly (which is very often)? I definitely hope so.

To be fair, I didn't remember either, so I went back and had a look:

He didn't remember. oh. my. god. You would have thought that he definitely would, but he didn't remember at all. (I ugly laughed, for a moment) Whether it was because he had too much on his mind or that he didn't exactly care is left for you to determine.

The other reason for this theory of mine was Todoroki's development after the license exam. We got to see how Izuku told Shouto it's ok to not forgive his father, but because he's "a caring person," he was waiting for an opportunity. In which, kinda a wack argument but it was indeed very much in character for him to say so.

...ok.

It was said before by many others, but the two really have a lot of parallels as well as opposites, like childhood trauma, refusing to use his quirk to the point where it hurts himself vs forced to cope with a quirk that hurts himself, and of course most importantly, learning to come to terms with your trauma and making peace with your abuser.

What Midoriya said above irked me a little, because no, you are 100% allowed to not forgive him forever and that doesn't make you a bad person, but then in the next chapter we got this:

And then we get to know exactly what Shouto was waiting for:

He was waiting for endeavour to change before deciding whether he should forgive him. In which on this aspect I really think Todoroki was coping a lot better than...... anyone else in this series even though he's often depicted as a dense & slow person. So with the parallels in mind, could this be what bkg and deku are heading towards as well? Would Izuku's mind change after witnessing the conversation between Natsuo and Enji? Could we expect more of the dirty laundry between the two will be revealed to the other characters and they will be forced to face it? Will Izuku need to do the same thing, to hold off his judgement and possibly decline the apology until bkg really has proved himself?

On bkg's side, we have been seeing a lot of references to him being the one who knows Izuku the best, even bkg himself said so. There seem to be this shift of power balance where it used to be izk chasing after bkg, and now bkg might have to chase after izk who's less interested in him now. (If this is the case, imagine the angst. The role reversal. The pining. Oh my god hori would be insane to pull this but it would be so delicious--)

In the latest chapter, we saw shigaraki declaring that he was not interested in bkg at all, aside from his relationship to Izuku. Shigaraki demonstrated his unrivalled power which gave bkg a great shock. By the presupposed logic of “the characters of mha need to learn to be something other than who they’re told to be,” for bkg who’s always been told that he would be the greatest, the most powerful, the protagonist in life, it’s probably his moment to learn how to step aside and support others (which he evidently hasn’t mastered yet, since he burnt hadou’s hair again). If I am to maximise the dramatics in this plot, I might even force him to renounce his status as a hero because I crave the poetics and the internal struggles, but that’s unlikely. However, since right now we are having two people facing off, one of which rejected Izuku’s help in their childhood, and for the other one Izuku wanted to save his childhood (The visual parallels were so blatant that there’s no way it’s not intentional) so I’m really, sincerely looking for a role reversal between Shigaraki and bkg, between a “false hero” and a villain (label wise).

Anyway, I think this is it for me today, I read the lastest chapter yesterday and there were so many thoughts on my mind and needed to vent a little (a lot)...

But then, these are all just theories and most of the time, manga theories remain to be just that. If this really happened hori will probably go to god tier author for me, but I really don't think that's gonna be the case, haha

#anti bakugo #anti bakudeku #anti bkdk #anti bakugou katsuki #lia speaks #bnha #mha #mha theory #my hero academia #mha spoilers #midoriya izuku #midoriya izuku centric #mha deku

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bakugoukatsuki-rising · 4 years

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So, my friends continue to get vile, unsettling and upsetting hate from individuals who don't like bkdk.

Normally we would call you antis, but I don't really like being known as 'a bkdk' because it just sounds off putting, so I don't think it's fair to do it the other way around, either.

I just want to know something, and I'm not here to debate why you don't like the ship, I don't really care if we're being honest. You are allowed to dislike or hate whatever you want, and you're valid in that, but where you become wrong is when you take that hate you have toward a fictional universe and fictional characters, and place it onto real people.

These are living, breathing, people. Just like you. Just like your parents and siblings and family and friends. The person writing about all their interests and ideas for the characters you don't ship and possibly even hate are REAL PEOPLE. They have feelings and lives and experiences just like you do. They get hurt and cry and happy and angry and experience all the same emotions that you do.

So what makes you think it's okay to berate and belittle and abuse someone over your distaste in characters that ARE NOT REAL? They don't breathe the air you do. They don't experience emotions like you do. They are fake. When you turn your computer off and go about your day, those characters aren't around. They don't exist. They can't be hurt or exploited or anything, because they are not real.

But the person you just told to kill themselves is real, and now they're contemplating what you just said because you think it's okay to blur the lines of fiction and reality.

You hide behind an anonymous symbol and abuse people while saying you're against abuse and toxicity. You call them horrible names and make them feel like garbage, and for what? What have you accomplished by making another human being feel so terrible about themselves? And you make them feel that way over a simple interest they have. Some silly drawn characters they enjoy seeing happy together. That's it. That's your motivation for possibly driving a person to suicide.

I won't lump all people who don't like bkdk into the same category, because I've seen plenty of good people coming out to say they don't like the ship or don't ship it but they respect people who do, but for the percentage that are aggressive and nasty, I wish you the best.

I wish that you experience a kindness in your life that makes you sit back and recognize all of the disgusting parts of yourself, and I hope you recognize how wrong you've done people you might have reached out to in your aggression.

I hope you look back on yourself when you're older and wonder why you would have thought acting that way was ever the right way to do things.

Hate is a gross feeling. It makes you feel heavy and miserable, and I hope one day, for all the people suffering with it right now, that you can let it go. You can look at yourself and realize that those kinds of things, fictional characters and ships, they shouldn't settle your heart with hate, and if they do, then they aren't worth your time.

But before you go onto someone's page and lose your mind in blind rage because they ship bkdk, think about it for a second. Ask yourself, is the person I'm about to send this disgusting message to real? Will they be hurt by these words? What effects could this have on the person I'm about to send this to?

Think about it, and I hope you would choose not to send that message.

#antibkdk #anti bkdk #anti bakudeku #bnha #mha #my hero academia #boku no hero academia #kacchan #deku #bakudeku #bkdk #midoriya izuku #bakugou katsuki

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