Heytemporary - Heytemporary

i don't like the growing opinion that people are being 'too hard' on deku for his failing to save shigaraki.

i've seen quite a few people complaining that a lot of the bnha-critical crowd are being too mean to deku for getting tomura killed, arguing that it isn't really his fault, and that hes a 16 year old child soldier who's been failed by almost every adult in his life, why should we be putting all of this on his shoulders? hes just a kid after all?

and the truth is, they're right. deku IS a 16 year old boy whos had the fate of the world thrust on his shoulders. but the story itself just plainly refuses to acknowledge this.

the narrative doesn't acknowledge how fucked up having a school that trains literal children how to be combo cop-celebrities is. it only tentatively acknowledges the fact that a universe having combo cop-celebrities is fucked up, and even then the only people who ever point this out are antagonists, who are portrayed and treated in-universe as untrustworthy. the narrative doesn't care how fucked up dekus circumstances are. the narrative treats deku like hes a fucking messiah here to touch the hearts of the evil depressed villains with his magical empathetic heart of gold before they get blown up or just sent to fucking superhell for daring to challenge the status quote.

deku isn't a person. he's barely even a fucking character at this point. he's a plot device, and a mouth piece for the objectively shitty themes bnha is trying to spout. the themes that tell you that if you're mistreated by society and want to do something about it, you're a villain. that disrupting the status quote and refusing to repent to some random teenage boy spouting empty platitudes at you means you deserve to get sent to fucking superhell. the themes that portray people fighting for civil change as mass murdering supervillains. the themes that look the audience dead in the eye and can call deku the greatest hero to ever live.

deku, who barely spared a second thought to lady nagant telling him the truth about the hero commission. who spouts meaningless platitudes about heroism and morality at nagant, and aoyama, and toga and shigaraki, when even the thought that he should question the world around him comes up. who's constantly talked about as this truly kind, empathetic person, but hasn't spared an empathetic thought to literally anyone who is classified as a villain. who listened to every authority figure around him except the ones who asked him to question his worldview. who saw la bravas tears, shigarakis various breakdowns, himikos plead for understanding, chisakis catatonic state, lady nagants truth, and barley batted a fucking eye. deku, who killed tomura shigaraki.

people don't criticize deku for failing shigaraki because they just hate deku. people criticize deku because of what he represents. because hes a mouthpiece for the atrocious morals and themes of this ideologically rotten manga. because any character he had was chopped up to bits in favor of the incomplete husk we have now. people criticize deku because hes the main character of my hero academia. theres nothing more damning then that.

Older and Wiser

I have a question, in a certain part of the fandom when it comes to criticizing characters like Bakugou, Endeavor, etc., an answer that is repeated a lot is that those who criticize don't understand the cultural context of Japan and therefore we don't understand the way in which Horikoshi wrote. But is this really true? I don't deny that there are aspects of Japanese culture in the manga but many actions of the characters feel very Westernized for the cultural issue to be an impediment in understanding the manga, more than anything when the idea of ​​the heroes and everything written by Horikoshi feels a direct reference to US comics, not just a comic but directly movies like the MCU.

For understanding any character or the world of BNHA generally, of course some knowledge of Japanese culture would help shed light on some of the narrative choices and themes. This was written by a Japanese man with an intended audience of Japanese manga readers.

And it's true that Japan overall does tend to have a more laissez faire attitude towards bullying and domestic violence.

However, BNHA also clearly depicted these actions as horrific early on in the manga. Beyond that, BNHA is a manga where that argument is weaker than usual because it is so heavily inspired by American culture and American media specifically.

If an author spells out how horrific bullying, systemic discrimination, and domestic abuse are in his work, it's not too much to ask for the characters who were the victims to get the panel time to demonstrate how they were affected by these actions. The atonement doesn't carry much weight without an understanding of the result of the wrongdoing in the first place.

What a good consequence should look like and how atonement should occur is going to be tied up in cultural norms. But there's no cultural excuse for sidelining the victims because the author feared it would make the atoning characters unpopular. Objectively bad writing decisions are bad writing decisions regardless of culture.

If I see one more person ship tanjiro with an adult I am going to go violent and feral.

he is a child stop shipping him with literal ADULTS.

Doesn’t matter if you “aged” him up ( which is disgusting just to then ship him with an adult ) , he is still A FUCKING CHILD TF.

you probably already got an ask like this but do you have good fic recs of b4kv bashing? any will do like he gets 'redeemed' through consequences or just plain ol retribution

Here’s a great one where Izuku’s friends all find out. Also includes minor Shota bashing:

A one-shot series about Katsuki and U.A bashing:

My own one-shot series dedicated to Katsuki bashing (will update once MHA is over).

I also have fics where Katsuki faces consequences for his actions but it isn’t a major plot point. I’ll link both my AO3 accounts. If you prefer using FF.net, both my accounts are there under the same names as their AO3 counterparts:

A one-shot that has Katsuki be some D List villain, making far more sense than him in canon:

This fic has 1-A finding out about Katsuki’s bullying, Izuku learning some self worth, Katsuki feeling legitimate regret, and features a beautifully written version of Kacchan vs Deku 2 that actually develops Katsuki and focuses on his remorse/stupidity:

Bruh, I haven’t used this account in forever 💀. Tbf, I’ve been way too focused on other things that I haven’t even thought about MHA since it’s ended.

Anyways, reason I’m making this post is to highlight that people on Twitter are waking up to the fact that Katsuki’s poorly written, so it looks like the honeymoon phase of MHA is coming to an end. Obviously he’s still got his stans, but the fact people are feeling more comfortable with pointing out his flaws is a victory in it of itself. Probably also helps that most of them have grown up. Also, keep in mind that the account I usually browse Twitter casually with hasn’t interacted with any MHA posts, so it’s not like I’m being recommended these posts due to prior engagements. These were found completely in the wild. I thought sharing this might cheer some of you up. With the crazy world we live in, sometimes the small and petty victories are worth celebrating 😂.

In other news, I thought I’d let you all know that I do plan on eventually writing one big, final review on Katsuki and MHA in general, but that’s something that’ll happen in the future when I get the time to do so. Same goes for answering all the asks that have built up and will continue to build up over my absence (sorry for that).

Hope y’all stay safe and healthy until then 😊🙌

How a typical scenario with Bakugo and Class 1A would go in cannon

Note: I thought this scenario was kinda funny in my head because judging by how everyone acts with each and around Bakugo, something like this would happen in the main series. If Bakugo is going to constantly have toddler like tantrums and get physical with someone(Ex. Blowing up the dorm and a card game after getting a tie in a match with Deku/ Attacking Deku immediately after he congratulates Bakugo for getting his provisional license/ Throwing his sharp headgear at Deku causing him to bleed), then he would definitely do this. Anyway feel free to add your introspection. Normally Bakugo would have a hissy fit over something that is either petty, stupid or outrageous to fuel his inferiority complex so let’s say that he got mad for getting the second highest score on a test.

How this scene would play out is that class 1A would get their results of a test they took. Bakugo would get pissed because that he got the second highest score meanwhile Momo Yaoyorozu got the first highest. While Momo keeps her pride to herself, Bakugo would make a baseless claim the she is making fun of him. So Bakugo would proceed to attack Momo out of jealousy.

- Momo would be in a lot of pain from taking an explosion to the face

- Jiro, Kaminari, Mina, Sero, Tsuyu and Ida would get pissed and try to intervene but it probably won’t amount to anything

- Deku would probably try to intervene but Bakugo find an excuse to fight him

- Uraraka would direct her attention to Deku if he got attacked by Bakugo; ignoring Momo’s condition

- Mineta would make another perverted comment

- Todoroki wouldn’t do anything in this scenario(Good luck Todomomo fans)

- Sato and Tokoyami would just comment on how Bakugo’s attitude is ridiculous and not do anything else

- Kirishima would probably stand up against Bakugo while at the same time convince the others that his actions are reasonable

- Aoyama, Hagakure, Ojiro, Shouji and Koda would keep to themselves and not intervene

- Aizawa would harshly punish all of Class 1A and give Bakugo a light punishment

In layman’s terms, All hell would break loose.

I had a vision

May I offer you a rarepair

Leaders that have scarred faces with wives who can stare into your soul

Speaking of staring…

As I have previously said, what Aizawa told Izuku during the quirk assessment was the worst possible thing he could have said to him at the time. Izuku feels the need to prove he is worthy - of existing generally - by being useful. And Aizawa added more fuel to the fire by declaring that Izuku would be useless after saving one person. It only lead to more self destruction because this just exacerbates Izuku's low self worth.

It's not even an accurate description of what happened during the forest training arc. The only person Izuku saved with his quirk was Kota. But Izuku's direct actions at a minimum saved Tokoyami and Shouto. Indirectly, he may have saved most of the hero course. Izuku was the one that made it in time to give Aizawa's permission to fight to Mandalay. Izuku's actions took out the members of the League's Vanguard Squad with the highest body count at the time: Muscular and Moonfish. Without Izuku, the kidnapping would have been the least of their worries. There would have been several deaths.

But all Izuku can think of is when the adults in his life told him that he was worthless because he was unable to achieve a perfect victory in an impossible situation as an unlicensed student.

Bakugou stans who hate Endeavor and Endeavor stans who hate Bakugou make me laugh.

Because when you get down to it, they both benefit from the same things: in-universe privilege, narrative advantages, and plot manipulation. Their arcs enable each other in a way, they're both abusers being given more exposure and grace than their victims. They're both constantly being propped and accepted by the other characters despite being horrible people.

Criticizing one and not the other is obtuse. They're cut from the same exact cloth, the issues with their characters are nearly identical. And the focus of both their characters contribute to the overarching problem of MHA; not only pandering to abusers but pandering to those born privileged and who knowingly abused that privilege. And neither had to face actual repercussions without being protected by the author.

The only difference between them is in the literal sense; Endeavor is a worse person morally while Bakugou is a worse character narratively.

They both still suck ass