sorry but i love this kid sfm

mha has a lot of really interesting characters but bakugou is just so /fist clench

and i don't want to look for things on tumblr or twitter because........the fanbase is so..............................mmmgrh

BUT i rewatched the ep where everyone goes to retrieve deku from his shounen vigilante arc and THAT WHOLE SCENE WAS JUST

AND MIDORIYA'S FACE, AND

UGH

SITS HERE

this is the thing

there's this common....not headcanon exactly, but like, people LOVE to imagine that bakugou's younger childhood was rough

as a way to idk explain why he was such a fucking piece of shit all up through middle school

like, his mom was abusive, or people were envious of his skill and were shitty to him on the sly, blah blah blah

LIKE, NO

that did not happen

bakugou was raised with love from his parents and he is just Like That

he was just a fucking SHIT ASS BAD KID who bullied a poor boy who didn't deserve it in the least

THAT'S WHY HIS APOLOGY and his sacrifice(s???) for midoriya are SO IMPORTANT later

also!!! sometimes a person who is being a shit heel doesn't have a tragic past!!! sometimes they are just a shit heel!!

on the flipside: i do not think bakugou should be put to death because he bullied midoriya!! was he terrible? yes!!!! and it wasn't caught and/or corrected by ANY of the adults or other kids!! it was awful!

do i think there was probably some nuance that just didn't get explored in this shounen show? maybe???? does it matter, because at the end it IS in this shounen show

there are people who are FROTHING AT THE MOUTH even NOW like "bakugou should be DEAD and anybody who likes bakugou is an ABUSE APOLOGIST" and i'm like girls and boys, first of all i hope you get some help for what's going on with you

second of all, this is fiction

i understand why horikoshi ended the story where he did, but i do kind of wish we got to see some of the second and third years at UA to see how bakugou and deku interact THEN, with a cleaner slate

maybe we'll get some spinoff movies or smth, who knows

WOW anyway this became a fandom rant

unfortunately i cannot go into the bakugou tags on Any Webbed Site without seeing either a) really weird vitriolic hate about the character, b. ice cold takes about his characterization or c) extremely cringe and uncomfortably descriptive "bakugou x fem!reader/y/n imagines" or whatever the kids are doing these days on tumblr

BACK TO MY RAMBLING

bakugou's such a contradictory character and i think that's probably why he lands so firmly in my bag

he's loud, destructive, impulsive, and mean

BUT

he wants to be the number one HERO. not even just that he wants to be the strongest guy in the world; he wants to be the best HERO

and as the canon progresses, he fleshes out what that means more and more

it used to be mostly just "i want to be the strongest, i want to win every single fight, i want to surpass the greatest hero, all might"

there was some throwaway line at the beginning about getting rich, but considering bakugou never mentioned it ever again i think that was more hori still finding his footing with the character

you find out later that he was BALLOONED by praised from his peers and the adults around him

in a society that values the usefulness of quirks, he had a really good one. combined with the fact that bakugou was just one of those people who not only was fairly good at whatever he tried to do, but he was also TENACIOUS AS A MOTHERFUCKER, he was insanely capable

not only that but despite him being a hotheaded scream boy, he was thoughtful, observant, strategic; he got some of the best grades in his class because he studied

he yelled at his middle school friends for smoking

GIRL, HE GOES TO BED AT 8:30 PM SO HE GETS GOOD REST

in every way but how he presents himself, this kid is a fucking geek

something that I think gets looked over a lot too is bakugou is a smart kid
like
in battle, he's a genuinely smart fighter too, he just doesn't get all the exposition deku gets explaining his processes

YUP

people usually have to pry the reasoning out of him because he doesn't find it "worth it" to explain himself (early on, at least)

because he's a little asshole bitch boy

plurk didn't update so I see now you also mentioned he's strategic LMAO clasps hands

i like to headcanon that a lot of his hyper aggression at first and earlier on in the school year is a result of frustration

he probably wanted to get into UA like RIGHT NOW so he could start working on becoming a hero. one thing that gets pointed out often is how single-mindedly dedicated he is to his goal of becoming the number one hero in the country (or hell maybe the world) so being stuck in a normal school and not being able to get stronger or smarter

was probably frustrating for him

he also didn't have friends or peers who felt the same way he did; they followed him around and were his typical bully yes-men, but they were clearly coasting from what little we see of them. they didn't have any intention of getting into a difficult school like UA and claw their way to the top like bakugou

bakugou clearly didn't respect his "friends" either. i doubt he'd even call them that

and of course, the way bakugou treated midoriya all through their childhood and middle school was DEPLORABLE

from his current canon point i want to play him from, that's probably his greatest shame is some of the stuff he did to him

that's a whole other plurk, my god

the point about that is though, bakugou couldn't accept midoriya for what he was because midoriya clearly understood something that bakugou simply did not

he understood the empathy part of being a true hero

he understood standing up for weaker people, he understood helping even when there was no benefit to yourself. he understood the kindness part of it

bakugou didn't understand it as a kid (everyone is telling him that he's so great, so why doesn't he get it???) and so he was just a FUCKING MONSTER to him

he HAD to conclude that midorya was just inferior to him, and reinforced it with the bullying, because he couldn't accept that there was something bad or wrong with him that wasn't conducive to being the greatest hero

midoriya loved all might just as much as bakugou did, but they loved different perspectives of all might

bakugou spends the entirety of the canon unlearning some of the horrible things he'd convinced himself of, because nobody had bothered to stand up to him or set him straight before

honestly, bakugou's a masterclass in what happens when you love a kid way too much

spoiled, short-tempered, and convinced of his superiority

that's why it's so good that he gets absolutely obliterated when he gets into UA

the teachers don't tolerate his shit, the other students for the most part aren't scared of him in the least and talk back to him or tease him all the time

midoriya is loved by everyone else, and surpasses bakugou in MULTIPLE ways, very early on

the above and the things that happen to bakugou force him to re-evaluate himself

whatever other complaints i might have about the canon itself, i have to say that horikoshi handled bakugou's character PERFECTLY, in my opinion

bakugou gets praised and embarrassed in equal measures, i think

maybe embarrassed more than praised, which is deserved

he also goes through things that no kid should ever have to go through

and because of everything he finds out and learns, his world expands from beyond the end of his nose and he painstakingly starts to learn empathy for other people

it's not like, obvious

or will ever be prominent or a main driving force for him

but he learned more about right from wrong, about how to behave, how to control himself, and that kindness ISN'T the failing he'd always thought it was

when he apologized to midoriya i was so PROUD of him

he even says "i know just saying it like this isn't going to fix everything all at once, but this his how i feel" and then bows and apologizes, says izuku's name and persists in using it afterwards

he takes obvious and measurable steps to UNLEARN those horrible behaviors

and this is the thing!!! nobody SPECIFICALLY makes him do it!!

nobody, as far as we know, sits him down and tells him he needs to stop or needs to reconsider or needs to apologize to deku!! he does that himself!!!!

that's so rare

that someone can take complaints of all kinds from around him, re-examine his failings, and determine that he'd been wrong and bad AS A PERSON and that he needs to atone

and then very specifically takes HUGE STEPS to do so!! he follows through!!!!

IT'S SO GOOD!!!!!!!!!!!

i love bakugou thanks bye

bakugou is a GOOD BOY
he's jsut also a NASTY ROWDY boy

he is SO nasty rowdy, that is just who he is

but he becomes SO GOOD

he'll never be gentle sweet boy but he's thoughtful and he DOES have a kind heart

it just smells like gunpowder LMAO

he will still go "YOU WANNA FUCKIN DIE" when someone tells him his hair looks like trash

sometimes you're a nasty rowdy boy AND an extremely sweet boy doing your best

anyway I am clapping like a seal in this plurk you are right

/popcorns.

I remember when I went to AX in... I think it was 2017 or 2018, it was shortly before or after endgame came out and when the MHA movie (the first one) premiered and they were doing all these special avengers/MHA promos and shit and ANYWAY

Bakugo and Tony were always paired off with each other because they fly/shoot with their hands and are assholes

And at the time I was like “no fucking way” but now looking back I’m like “fucking way”

blitzkreig: i feel like "extremely sweet" is ur kiri talking LMFCAO

kiri: he's so cute
the rest of class a:
kiri: and so sweet sometimes

LMAOOOOOOO OK TRUE but again he can be very considerate when he wants to be

kiri: and he's kind of considerate
kaminari: is this code?? do you need help??? blink twice if you need help

god they're so funny

kiri proving that having a crush is the strongest drug on earth

WHY IS KRBK SO GOOD THO

you should app kiri at lab haha who said that

IT'S TRUE theyre really complementary

god idk if I have the brain for games and I have been so in and out with bnha.... I'd have to reread

fuck that be canon noncompliant with me

epigrammatic: I COULD SEE THEN HATING EACH OTHER SO EASILY THO

they are such ego maniacs

THEY WOULD KILL EACH OTHER but also have very interesting conversations

that's true, their threads would NOT be dull

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA god I don't even know anything about this game and I truly have been so fried but lemme take a look

if nothing else I'm always in psl land

I've been rereading our psls bc they are far and large so much better than 95% of the fanfic out there rn

i'm also v down for psl

GOD I believe it..... shonen fanfic is rough

are you on discord or do you want my to send you a pp we can plan

i have disc but i am balls abt checking it

understandable lol

Best jeanist said “I want the problem child”. #bestj...STOP LMCCFAO

ALMKBJHVRSAO

I'm back here at 4am because ngl there's a percentage of bakugou fans who annoy tf out of me and this is why

a specific example: that clip i linked just above where bakugou is chained and muzzled to the 1st place podium

PUTTING ASIDE the fact that it's mostly for laughs, i see so many stans be like ITS DEHUMANIZING!! THE TEACHERS ARE HORRIBLE FOR DOING THAT TO BAKUGOU

1. it is not that deep, babes. this is not that kind of show.
2. i promise you that bakugou is not TRAUMATIZED by being forced to receive a medal he didn't want
3. the way bakugou was behaving was COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE

the stans are pretending that this fictional universe can be directly grafted onto ours as what we deem is acceptable and its just

so annoying

its that whole "my fav can't do anything wrong bc look at all the wrong stuff that happened to him" that is so dimensionless like. to the point of completely making shit up

BAKUGOU WAS GONNA BEAT THE SHIT OUT OF AN UNCONSCIOUS TODOROKI BC HE PERCEIVED HIMSELF SLIGHTED. girl, them chaining him to the podium was GRACIOUS. the kid was acting psycho

grabs your hands

this is literally why i had to bounce from mha fandom

the kids have trouble with nuance, epi

they so do

i was an iida stan from the start so like. I ACTUALLY GAVE A SHIT AND PAID ATTENTION when stain was like "yo this place sucks actually"

and it feels like very few other people did

IIDA IS A PERFECT GOOD BOY i'm glad he got a morally gray murder arc deserved

YEAH the whole thing with stain going "compensating heroism destroys it" was FASCINATING

god yeah fandom wants bakugou to be more traumatized over things is so wild, there's already enough actual trauma going on you don't want to look at that huh

this reminded me of one person I knew who had different insane bakugou thoughts, which was that bakugou was perfect from the jump and seemed to be, almost uncaring of his growth and I was like wow your takes are insane, actually