I am a picky reader

I will try to write this in parallel with Deku’s side, but for spoilery reasons, just know that this whole post is filled with manga spoilers. If you are comfortable with that, continue reading, otherwise skip this one!

This “manifesto” is divided in PART 1 “Deku’s real feelings for Kacchan”, PART 2 “Bakugou’s feelings” and PART 3 “Two sides of the same coin” where I will summarize how the manga, anime and openings/endings treat these two characters’ as complementary.

I also want to premise that everything listed here is canon, and I believe is intended by the narrative to show us the progression of the friendship between Deku and Bakugou. Of course, some people (like me) decide to ship them together, but this doesn’t change the importance of their friendships and their hero journeys.

1) The bullying: what and why 

I already talked about Deku’s point of view, so here I will only talk about Bakugou’s, his “reasons” (definitely not rational) and his own character journey. This, of course, does not condone his actions, and Bakugou himself firmly believes that… later on, as soon as he gets some self reflection.

Deku and Kacchan used to be friends, as kids, playing together with Deku in the clear role of the follower and Bakugou being the little leader of a band of kids. While it’s clear that Bakugou was always arrogant, the real bullying stars when Deku finds out he is quirkless. I suspect Deku was just one of the others, before, for Bakugou. Bakugou is the leader, he has some friends, Deku among them. They play heroes, they catch bugs (if you believe some part of the Smash manga is canon), they go to kindergarten together.

When Deku finds out he is quirkless, while Bakugou has this amazing quirk, the next step is simple. In Bakugou’s mind he is better than Deku. He is destined to be a great hero, and Deku is not, Deku is useless. Bakugou defines himself with strength, and he had always done so. This is why this scene is so important:

We know that Bakugou admires All Might because heroes win. While Deku admires All Might because heroes save. Except, that Deku is quirkless, so, in Bakugou’s mind, he is beneath him. When Bakugou falls in the river, Deku is acting like a hero, “saving” him. This has two implication: that Bakugou needs saving and thus he is not strong enough, and that Deku is strong so he can do the saving.

We get this confirmed by Bakugou during the later Deku vs Kacchan art 2:

Such a silly interaction (falling in a river and an offered hand) had enormous consequences in Bakugou’s view and hatred of Deku. I think it’s safe to believe that Bakugou’s arrogant behavior turned into bullying right here and was exacerbated every time Deku acted like a hero.

We have a significative flashback scene where Deku acts as the hero who saves, and Bakugou wants to win against him and beats him in submission to show him that he is not a hero.

The one shot “Deku & Bakugou rising” implies that the bullying turned more towards indifference up to the second year of middle school, where Deku, once more, shows his hero’s capabilities by tracking a villain. This is enough to worsen, once again, Bakugou’s feelings towards Deku. He imagines that Deku must look down on him, because again and again Deku shows him that he has the heart of a hero, which means… that Bakugou does not, or at least he is worse than Deku.

Another example of this is this scene, where in Bakugou’s eyes, Deku tries, once more, to put himself at his same level:

 In Bakugou’s mind, Deku’s place should be behind him, because of their difference in strength, but deep down, he is afraid Deku is not only better than him, but knows about it and looks down on him for that.

I’d say Bakugou is unchecked. He goes too far many times, and you can see here that Deku is mad at him, not for the booknote but for Bakugou being an idiot. Deku is probably quite used to this kind of treatment, so much that his thoughts instead go to Bakugou’s hero future quite soon.

This is the lowest point of their relationship. They are about to go to different places (in Bakugou’s mind) and this would be around the point Bakugou would finally get rid of Deku, and the world would return to normal: Deku, quirkless, in “his place”, and Bakugou, oh so strong and amazing, to become a hero.

2) Dismantling Bakugou: not everything is about you!

I believe, from this point on, the narrative starts punishing Bakugou for his behavior. This is a way for the narrative to show us that, yes, there are consequences (authorially decided) and yes, Bakugou is important. The first punishment is getting saved, this time for real, by Deku; the second is seeing Todoroki look at Deku and finds him worthy to be a rival instead of Bakugou; the third is the kidnapping; the fourth is the failing of the license exam which all culminates in Deku vs Kacchan part 2.

Let’s go with order, and this time let’s talk within the narrative.

Bakugou believes Deku is lesser than him, and yet, Deku saves his life.

Today I was taken by nostalgy. I remember reading fun ships manifesto on livejournal and I honestly loved them. They summarized the main reasons people shipped a character and the important events.

So, I decided to write one for BakuDeku, this is part one, which will be the story from Deku’s perspective, as I feel Bakugou and Deku lived through the same events very differently.

This “manifesto” will be divided in PART 1 “Deku’s real feelings for Kacchan”, PART 2 “Bakugou’s feelings” and PART 3 “Two sides of the same coin” where I will summarize how the manga, anime and openings/endings treat these two characters’ as complementary.

I also want to premise that everything listed here is canon, and I believe is intended by the narrative to show us the progression of the friendship between Deku and Bakugou. Of course, some people (like me) decide to ship them together, but this doesn’t change the importance of their friendships and their hero journeys. 

This list will touch on some manga spoilers (pre chapter 257, but after season 4 of the anime), and I will indicate the point you should stop reading if you don’t need spoilers. I also added information from the novels.

Deku’s real feelings for Kacchan

1)The bullying

Deku and Kacchan used to be friends, as kids, playing together with Deku in the clear role of the follower and Bakugou being the little leader of a band of kids. While it’s clear that Bakugou was always arrogant, the real bullying stars when Deku finds out he is quirkless. I will not talk here about Bakugou’s side of the story, just about Deku’s.

Deku never really knew the real reasons for the bullying. In his mind, Bakugou looked down on HIM for being quirkless, even gifting him with that cruel nickname. The bullying seem to take mostly a sense of indifference, from Bakugou, later one. We even have a scene where Bakugou’s minions bully Deku, and Bakugou tells them “let him dream at least”, regarding Deku’s dream to be a hero. (this is from Deku & Bakugou rising one shot).

It’s only when Deku shows (in the second year of middle school) that he doesn’t just have a dream but he has the mind and intelligence of a hero, that Bakugou turns even more bitter.

Deku recognizes Bakugou’s actions as something born of hatred, probably, and resentment, and superiority but he does not know they were born out of Bakugou’s belief that Deku felt himself superior to him till later on. Look at Deku’s baffled and surprised face when Bakugou finally tells him why:

We, of course, know Deku has a decisive tendency to minimize the dangers, he throws himself into danger, he sees behind the pain/danger to reach through with his need to save. And this is definitely a problem (but I will talk about it with the new manga spoilers and chapters), but also a fundamental side of the way Bakugou and Deku’s relationship is described and written.

2) Deku’s real feelings

Going back a little, let’s go back to Deku’s feelings for Bakugou. Deku never stopped calling Bakugou “Kacchan” and never stopped wishing or hoping to be able, one day, to walk side by side with Kacchan. Here is what we have in the first novel:

You know what. I am gonna rat her out to the actual kinksters. 

What she is doing is irresponsible in so many ways and this is not about the recent twitter stuff, mostly

plus in most of her recent audios the men have been significantly aged up. kuroo and hawks both have beards at this point and hawks says we’re older than him.

1) Trigger warnings = no, I said warnings or triggers and specified I meant trigger words. Triggers words are not trigger warnings in the hypno kink bdsm communities, but hypnotic words and repetition that always have to be written outside and given beforehand. It’s clear that YY knows nothing of this, so using hypno-like dialogue can be pretty dangerous.

2) Most recent audios = good for her, but you just cited me two characters that are not minors. Hawks has never been a minor in the current arc, and Kuroo is currently not a minor. So? Where is the visual or audio clue of Bakugo, Izuku, Kirishima etc. being adults? Do they have beards too? I’ll wait.

3) As someone who used to be one of her patreons for about two or three months: yes. Most of her explicit videos are literally like a normal porn. Minimal preface, and then the rest was porn. There were exceptions of course, but I am not sure why you think this is bad. She works in the sex industry, she sells porn. So? Never said there was anything wrong with this.