#tagging this bc idk i feel sooooo emotional. i love him soojfgfjdlhgsdf much

[roobylavender]

sorry if you’ve been asked this before but could u explain ur bakugou truther lifestyle in a world where anime fans hate him lol

LMAO it honestly genuinely fascinates me how much people hate bakugou bc.. his arc does everything right. he starts his journey as someone so obsessed with expressions of power bc that's what he believes all might is emblematic of, that it drives him to bully others he deems weak and subsequently develops in himself a sheer terror at the idea of being weak. a terror that is then exacerbated into a truly ugly, volatile, festering self-hatred when deku gets an insane quirk that threatens to leave bakugou to the wayside after all of the years of effort. it is a very close parallel to the dynamic between naruto and sasuke as it develops at the outset but obv naruto and sasuke are part of an entirely different world. sasuke possesses the same complexes as bakugou not bc he's aspiring to be some revered hero but bc he lives in fear of losing everyone he loves, all over again. so in that sense i somewhat understand why people make fun of bakugou in comparison bc, well, his troubles really aren't that serious comparatively. he's lost no one and has no real reason to fear his own weakness. but i think to go about reading his character arc that way is a disservice to what it's trying to explore against the backdrop of mha's narrative as a whole, bc the point isn't to say that bakugou is justified in how he feels the way sasuke might be. quite the contrary in fact. bakugou is very much wrong and deku doesn't deserve a single ounce of his violence, but at the same time, bakugou is also a product of the society that they live in

i hate to make a comparison to endeavor bc i truly do not think they are anywhere near comparable (one is a child and one is an adult after all) so briefly bear with the reference here, but endeavor is not an anomaly. he's not the one unique person in this world's entire history who developed such an obsession with strength he was willing to put everyone else in harm's way for the sake of attaining it. if there can be one endeavor, there can be more, and i think it's arguable that bakugou is a brief glimpse of that. of someone who could grow up to become that same person, who cares for no one around him and views every person in his path as an obstacle or a stepping stone. but the difference here is that's not who bakugou actually is. his history with deku is complicated and rife with transgressions but there are multiple instances we're privy to of bakugou caring, of living in the world outside of pure achievement even if only for a spare moment. he has a capacity for kindness that others recognize in him and it infuriates him bc why should it even be impt when juxtaposed against strength. why should it matter. why should he even care. but he does care. about kirishima. about denki. about uraraka. about deku. and that's what all might really grasps onto and tries to pull back out to the surface with all of the strength that he can muster. he knows bakugou is better than what he's fashioned himself to be, and he knows bakugou knows it. if the parents in naruto largely go unaddressed for their failures, the crux of mha lies in its confrontation of the parents and their role in society. bakugou is always capable of kindness, but it's bc all might (and deku and uraraka and kirishima) constantly lets him know that his kindness is a strength in and of itself that bakugou starts to look inward. that he starts to evaluate how he's acted, who he's hurt, why he's done the things he's done. how powerless he's felt—not at the thought of not achieving #1, but at the thought of not being able to save the friends he cares about

it's bc of the fact that bakugou exists in this world, and not naruto's world, that he gets to do everything right. he gets the emotional support and guidance from a mentor figure. he gets to do the introspective thinking where his actions are evaluated and conclusions are made as to how he moves forward. it's precisely bc the end goal does not matter, in fact there is no end goal anymore. all that matters is the here and now and being able to stand alongside the people around him so that they can support each other. the parameters by which bakugou is allowed to receive closure and move on are clear cut in a way naruto's world could never have allowed them to be, and i genuinely believe that makes people angry bc if anything this is what they wanted for sasuke. not the relentless baggage and manipulation and lack of support. he didn't deserve not to have those things even though the point being made by naruto was precisely to highlight what a lack of those things in context of an exploitative military-industrial complex creates. no one seems to understand the point being made by mha, while somewhat analogous in nature, nonetheless goes the other way—not to highlight what a lack of emotional support and stability create, but to advocate for what their presence can constructively heal. mha is not so much concerned with addressing systems as it is with addressing individuals. hence why we even have an arc like endeavor's, where he in all likelihood will never be forgiven by the rest of his family, but his commitment to altering course will nonetheless be critical so as not to perpetuate further harm

and that's why bakugou interests me so much. i'm a sasuke truther too and i love him in his own way but i love that bakugou is in a series where personal accountability is so important bc it means he does all of the work himself. yes, he does receive encouragement and guidance from others but it's ultimately his choice to make whether or not he wants to change, and he does. he is repeatedly, consistently accountable to himself and to the people around him and to deku esp and i can't describe how monumental it is to see him not only put that sentiment into action but into words. the conversations he has with all might, with that one small kid whose name totally escapes me in this moment but if you've read you'll know what i mean, with deku. the fact that he takes a whole lightning strike or whatever the fuck it was (sorry. i haven't kept up with mha for a while it's quite sporadic) for deku bc his whole definition of strength has shifted on its access. talented. brilliant. incredible. amazing. showstopping. spectacular. never the same. totally unique. not ever been done before. etc. when they put him in the meat grinder and killed him i was so overwhelmed with joy bc yes on its face it's sad* but he's come so far. from someone who let so many civilians die on his entrance exam to someone who sacrificed his own life for the sake of others. it's insane! and i love him so, so deeply and he's one of my favorite deuteragonists in any shounen ever. i think everyone seems to be caught up not only on whatever i've been talking about so far but also on the idea that bakugou's a shitty deuteragonist bc he doesn't have his own personal villain the way everyone else does and it's like. hello. he never needed one. bakugou's own personal villain was himself. and he unequivocally beat him

*i really don't care that the death was a fake out.. he's still dead to me my sweet babie