It’s Your Turn Next

So I was drawing Bakugou and All Might and I had a little bit of a thought. So correct me if I’m wrong but masks are pretty useless for heroes because there aren’t really any secret identities.

So what if Bakugou was trying to look more like All Might?

Pt 2. Not even Aizawa said a word about it. I can’t even imagine what they would have to do to even restrain him to that length. How many heroes did Bakugou have to defend himself against all because he said no to something? God it was just because he refused an award. I also question what that did to Bakugou’s mentality as well. Is he even able to refuse things? Do his wants and opinions even matter? Why is nothing like this ever explored? (Sif Rosae does a good job exploring his mentality.)

I think that the root of it is that no one (not even Aizawa who’s the teacher who probably understands him the most) understood the reason why Bakugou was lashing out. What they saw was a child behaving like a feral gremlin. And I mean, I don’t exactly fault them for this because Bakugou trying to hit an unconscious Todoroki is probably the lowest point Bakugou has ever reached. It’s even worse than the suicide baiting he did to Deku in chapter 1. I understand his frustrations and his inferiority/superiority complex, but taking out your insecurities on unconscious people is… pretty fucked up no matter how you look at it. What I do fault the heroes for, however, is what I always fault them for: neglecting proper mental health care and counseling. It’s the same issue Bakugou goes through over and over. 

The stereotype bnha society is founded on is that people with powerful quirks cannot have weaknesses. They work on the assumption that by virtue of having a flashy superpower, you also automatically become invulnerable to pain. In any shape or form. This is how no one questioned that All Might could shoulder the weight of maintaining peace on his individual back for more than 20 years. All Might is a brave man, but he’s also essentially a robot. When he became a symbol, he essentially gave up his right to be a human being. He is not allowed to stop smiling, because if he does, people associate that with him losing, and that gives way to fear and unease. He is not allowed to retire, because criminals would take it as the okay to reign terror. He is not allowed to be injured, or to reveal that he sustained a life-threatening wound that still impairs his full power, because that means that even superhumans can be hurt. He literally has to hide his disability and mask the fact that he can only sustain the muscle form for minutes on end before his inside become so fucked up he literally coughs blood, because the toxic mentality hero society is based upon is that strong people cannot have weaknesses. 

This fundamental toxic stereotype also affects how people perceive mental health. Over and over, Bakugou goes through traumatic experiences but no one bothers checking up on him to see if he’s faring well. You know, psychologically. Because kidnapping is an experience that can lead to ptsd. They assume that he’s fine because his quirk is flashy, which means that he’s strong, and since he’s strong he cannot have weaknesses. 

So when he wins the tournament but refuses the prize, all the adults around him dismiss it as him just throwing a fit instead of questioning the reason why he’s protesting the prize. They brush it off as Bakugou just being Bakugou. So they just chain him up on a podium and call it a day instead of addressing the issue, because brushing it off is easier. 

No one ever bothered questioning why he had a grudge against Deku either. They only stopped him when he went too far. But they never tried to get through to him, to make him talk about his issues. Worse yet, when the bad blood between the two didn’t show signs of “solving itself” on its own, Aizawa’s grand solution was… to pair them up together in a training excercise. Like. A bully and his preferred punching ball. Sure, let’s pair them together, what’s the worst that can happen, right? Midoriya is already used to feel pain anyway, what’s a little more.