#noooo i'm supposed to hate myself and my primary!!! I'm burned!!

[the-phoenix-heart]

How do Deku and Bakugou interact with both being double Lion ?

Oooh boy here comes my rant about platonic Bakudeku and their double Lions! (I also just finished watching Heroes Rising so my BakuDeku feels are stronger than usual-cause I’m a multishipper)

First of all, I feel the need to double down on Deku’s primary. He is a Lion primary. Does he want to save people-yes, but there are things about his character you have to consider. Mainly, he’s more focused on the goal of becoming the number one hero and saving people, than the people he wants to save. He doesn’t bond with communities, he bonds with the individuals he meets. But, he does think it’s the right way to live, so Badger primary model. 

And boy howdy do they interact with their double Lions. 

Bakugou for the longest time was a Glory-Hound Lion. He wanted to be the strongest there ever was and he wanted to be on top of everyone else. But, deep down he always felt like he was missing something. What he was missing was that Paragon Lion that Deku had. He liked his Glory-Hound Lion and he didn’t understand that you could have both. And he saw not naturally having a Paragon Lion as a weakness in himself, which is why he bullied him (doesn’t justify it but y’know it’s called character development. 

Deku meanwhile admired Bakugou’s Glory-Hound Lion. He saw Bakugou’s hunger for power and love of strength, and how it made Bakugou powerful and strong and he loved Bakugou for it (platonically! possibly...). 

But they couldn’t understand each other. Bakugou at the time couldn’t let go of his Glory-Hound Lion out of stubbornness and Deku couldn’t understand that his Paragon Lion was causing Bakugou to lash out. Notice, Bakugou only started to grow as a person when Deku left him alone more. 

Now, Bakugou did become friends with Kirishima-another double Lion with a Paragon Lion primary-but it was not Deku’s Paragon Lion. Bakugou grew up with Deku and his Paragon Lion and so he couldn’t accept it at the time, but Kirishima (who is has a small dose of Glory-Hound in him) was able to get through. 

And their secondaries, ever since the first scene of the show they’ve been standing on opposite sides facing each other down. Bakugou did not like how similar he and Deku were despite their differences, which is why Bakugou burned Deku’s secondary. Once Deku’s secondary was burned Deku turned to a Bird secondary model, which ironically Bakugou probably saw and thought, ‘I can do that better.’ Bakugou then used his Bird secondary model to bolster his own Lion secondary. 

And of course we have to talk about how their relationship with All Might relates to their sorting. Bakugou looked at All Might and saw a Glory-Hound Lion primary. This vision was wrong. While seeing that All Might was not wrong, he was wrong in assuming that’s whole All Might was. Deku saw All Might and his Badger primary, and copied it. 

And now we get to the Sludge Villain incident, where Bakugou is in trouble and Deku’s secondary unburns all in one day. This is when Bakugou starts to vaguely respect Deku, and it’s because of his secondary and how he just rushed in. It’s also because he doesn’t want to be in debt, but he still has some respect for him. 

Except what little respect there was shatters when he thinks Deku has lied to him. Lying is very important to Bakugou, in that he refuses to lie and if you lie to him he’ll kick your ass. Bakugou is pissed and immediately rushes in to fight him about it like the Lion secondary he is, and gets stopped. 

Then the first fight in Ground Beta happens, and we see their Lion secondaries really colliding with each other for the first time, they yell at each other and throw punches. Their first fight was not a pretty fight emotionally at all, it was ugly and taxing for both of them. 

We see it clearly on Bakugou’s face that his primary took a hit. He’s literally having a panic attack over losing. His primary isn’t burnt, but it has not escaped the fight unscathed. Failure goes against everything he knows about himself (as a gifted kid I relate), if he has failed who the fuck is he?! He gets over this by using his Lion secondary to drag himself out. If he just proclaims that he’s going to be the number one and surpass All Might then it’s gotta be true. 

And you see it even more clearly in the Sport Festival. At the beginning of the arc he proclaims to the entire country that he’s going to win. I can never get over this because it’s basically him forcing himself to win. If he fails then he’s a hypocrite and no one wants to be a hypocrite. Once again he uses his blunt Lion secondary to drag himself along. The idea that you can rely on you secondary to keep your primary from burning...that’s kind of beautiful, but I think you can only do that with an improvisational primary. 

And in the Sports Festival you see their secondaries on clear display. Especially Deku who breaks his body and yells at a guy until the guy faces years of Mommy and Daddy issues and severe trauma. Bakugou meanwhile fights everyone until his match against Todoroki. 

Todoroki is a Snake primary, who’s unsure what his quirk means to him since he’s just now faced his trauma. Bakugou, a Double Lion, gets pissed off when Todoroki ignores him because he’s his opponent and he deserves his attention. Bakugou proves just how un-Snake he is by telling Todoroki that his family and feelings don’t matter and all that matters is the fight. It almost seems like Todoroki has listened. 

Until the match happens and Bakugou fights and yells at him to use his fire aspect of his quirk. Todoroki only uses his quirk when Deku, house matched with Bakugou, does the exact same thing. Todoroki does it because it was Deku, someone he had bonded with told him. But, then he still can’t do it for understandable reasons. Bakugou finds out he won the fight, but Todoroki didn’t use his fire and that pisses him off more than anything. The idea that he didn’t win the fight fair and square is painful and pisses him off more than anything. He wasn’t more powerful than Todoroki, Todoroki just held back. That’s not a real win.

and then the school chains him to the podium and forces him to take the medal on national tv BUT THAT’S A TOPIC FOR ANOTHER DAY

(also All Might has no idea how to handle a Lion primary that isn’t modeling Badger. “Take this medal as a wound,” no All Might you’re just gonna mess him up further! He’s not SUPPOSED to be wounded!)

Then there comes the fight against All Might where they have to work together. This is after the internship arc, where Bakugou had a Snake secondary pushed on him (which he did not accept) and Deku finally got control of his power and leveled up. Bakugou sees this and it terrifies him. Why is Deku’s Double Lion loved by all but his is hated? For a while Bakugou doesn’t even try to get along with Deku and just beat All Might himself. Then he accepts defeat because he doesn’t want to fight alongside Deku-to him that would be admitting that he is weak. And Deku does the only thing he can think of to get Bakugou to listen-he punches him and says “LET’S WIN THIS KACCHAN!” Because fuck my emotions. 

And then they yell at each other, Deku trying to hype up Bakugou and Bakugou because LISTEN UP WE ARE GONNA WORK TOGETHER MY WAY! And even as they are fight/running from All Might they’re yelling at each other, but it works. They think on the fly and Bakugou fights All Might with all he has until he’s broken. And then Deku, about to win, turns away for a moment and sees Bakugou nearly passed out under All Might and does the most badass thing ever and PUNCHES ALL MIGHT RIGHT IN THE FACE!! HIS OWN MENTOR!! Just so he can save Bakugou. It’s beautiful. 

(Now is a good time to mention I’m writing this to the soundtrack for Heroes Rising and IT FUCKING SLAPS-or that’s just me loving instrumentals)

Then Bakugou gets kidnapped, and a little detour, Deku fully understands that he cannot be the one to reach out to Bakugou. Kirishima has to be the one because Bakugou trusts him. Kirishima and him are friends and Bakugou will let him save him, and Deku recognizes that. 

And then Kacchan vs. Deku part 2 happens, and it is the most Double Lion fight ever. Bakugou is literally venting his feelings at Deku by screaming and exploding him. Deku in turn is explaining how he has always admired Bakugou by yelling back and punching him. And this is another reason why he think he’s a Lion primary: Deku admired Bakugou not because he was kind or cared about people, but because Bakugou was strong and determined-those are Lion traits he admired.

He also says he starts to talk like Bakugou when he gets really into a fight-which makes sense since his Lion secondary was burned for so long and Bakugou was his main example for years. Rip me. 

By the way, Bakugou’s primary had officially burned before this fight. He literally asks if he was wrong to try and emulate All Might the way he did, why he had to be the one to destroy All Might. But, the fight with Deku and winning helps him unburn, or at least recover.

And then pretty much nothing happens in the show for season four but EVERYTHING happens in Heroes Rising and the manga and I can’t TALK ABOUT IT BECAUSE SPOILERS BUT TRUST ME THESE DOUBLE LIONS KEEP DOUBLE LIONING IT UP (and also possibly falling in love idk i’m an equal opportunitist with Kiribaku and Bakudeku)!!