Spoiler: a couple of thoughts I agree Bakugo's mom is abusive, and honestly, I hate that people seem to think hitting him and all that is WELL-DESERVED. like, no, hitting your kid is never deserved or acceptable, that's abuse, and it remains abuse no matter what your kid is doing in other areas of their life. also, even if she wasn't clearly physically abusing him, the things she said are still, imo, definitely emotional and verbal abuse. but I don't think he would have that defensive posture around her that we saw in like MOST of the scenes between her and Bakugo if she wasn't smacking him a fair amount of the time. I also highly doubt all of it is even in RESPONSE to something Bakugo does--but again, even when it is, hitting your kid isn't a justifiable thing to me. ever. and she is slapping him. that's not spanking. this is not remotely close to the spanking debate. that is h i t t i n g, and it is not okay. and I also agree that what she said was very....pointed. like, she lives with him. whether Bakugo tries to hide everything he feels from her or not, she has to have picked up on some of it, and that comment was....very on the mark to try and hurt him, if you ask me. and this is clearly not a NEW thing, not with the way Bakugo behaved around her, imo. yelling back doesn't mean that it's a new thing he's not used to her doing--it probably means that he's used to her doing this and because it's Bakugo, he's disinclined to be quiet and cowering, but you can yell and be afraid at the same time. not that I think Bakugo would ever admit to being afraid, or probably even admit it if his mother makes him anxious and he thinks she herself is scary, but the way he acted suggests to me that he's yelling back out of a combination of fear and anger, among probably other feelings. and being able to yell at your abuser doesn't mean they're not abusing you. I used to yell at my parents too. while they screamed right back at me. it doesn't mean the things they were doing weren't still having a very lasting impact. it also doesn't mean that their yelling didn't feel threatening or scary just because I was yelling too. and also, like tinyhydra said, I doubt she's unaware of how he treated Izuku. I also do think she's probably the type to believe ripping someone apart and bullying them 'builds strength'--she's not exactly nice to her husband when he interrupts the two of them, but you know what else I noticed? Bakugo wasn't nice to his dad either in that moment, and she didn't do anything about that as far as we know. which to me, reads as "my husband needs to be able to hold his own against our kid", which imo is another facet of 'bullying builds character'. I don't think that she's really inclined to stop Bakugo hurting kids who aren't 'strong enough' to stop Bakugo themselves--I just think she's also got this idea that Bakugo needs to be stronger, so she's going to keep bringing him down until it stops hurting him or something, but that's not how that works. I also think she might actually believe she's trying to teach him respect for his BETTERS with what she's doing--to her, his teachers and herself are probably his betters and he should just listen to them without yelling or backtalk--but if she manages to teach him ANYTHING with what she's doing, it's going to be fear. obey the people who you are scared of because otherwise they will hurt you. and that is not good. I DO think Bakugo abused Izuku, though. you can be abused and an abuser! there are plenty of examples of that in the world and again, one does not cancel out the other. I am sort of hoping that at the dorms now, Bakugo will learn that his behavior wasn't acceptable, was abusive, and will start trying to unlearn a lot of the shitty things his mom has probably taught him--but I agree that I am not sure where Hori is putting Bakugo and his mom's relationship. I hope he realizes it's abusive, but I also can't tell what he thinks of most relationships beyond...Todoroki and his dad, which I feel has been explicitly expressed as abusive. so I'm like....I'm warily waiting to see where this will go and if it will be handled well. ....honestly there's a FEW things I'm nervous about seeing handled well. the jury is out on several things right now, for me.
Spoiler: on that note Being in the dorm and away from her is giving him the distance necessary to unlearn that and see how other people interact. Poor kid still needs a good therapist though. (.... quite a few of them need a good therapist)
@tinyhydra Spoiler Ok, so what I'm getting from this is I guess it's an example of 'retroactive deserved punishment'? Where the reason people are laughing and cheering for someone is that they're 'calling out' a sharper blunter character, but rather its more likely the behaviour is at least partially caused by this mistreatment in the first place. And the context for it is weird, regardless, because it's Bakugou's mom who we haven't seen until now and this is actually during one of Bakugou's more brittle vulnerable moments. (And of course, the fact you shouldn't hit your kids aside, Bakugou's mom definitely says a lot of things Bakugou doesn't deserve to hear in any context immediately after his kidnapping.) Your PoV actually makes me really curious how Mitsuki views Deku and I kinda hope it comes up. @chaoticArbiter Spoiler Strong relating. As someone who also yells back in the fact of yelling, it's complicated. For me, there is a lot of competing factors as for why but part of it is not wanting to be weak, sitting there and taking it, and wanting to change it up or push back when someone pushes me. Realistically it's as much of a pattern as 'sit back and take it' because it leads to yelling back and forth. Even if someone who is abused is made consistently angry I'd agree its abusive, like constantly putting a person into a situation you know will upset them emotionally, as if to purposefully gain that reaction. That's why him just sitting there was noteable to me, because its like his mom goes out of her way to upset him which is. Hm. In Bakugou's case though, he's being humiliated by his mother in front of his hero, as someone who is disinclined to show emotions and vulnerability. It's... hmm a lot. His mom yells, so he yells, there's a circle. Spoiler: That aside, another quick comment about the episode's situation One of the best quick reads/rebuttals of the situation I've seen.
Spoiler I hope Izuku and Mitsuki interact too! I dunno, I think a lot of people in Izuku's life so far have been pretty content to let him handle the bullying situation on his own, and I'm wondering how they feel about him not just turning the tables and kicking Bakugou's ass now that he's got a powerful quirk and all. I want him to interact with somebody who has that kinda mindset, yunno? Cause Deku clearly doesn't have a vengeful bone in his body, and it might be nice to see him sorta think about why that is or if he's maybe tempted to change that or something. That might be kinda incoherent.
I hope Uraraka and Bakugou work together at some point, or like fight again in a doubles match or something where Bakugou's focus won't be entirely on Uraraka. Cause if Bakugou's unaffected by gravity than he can basically be a rocket, and that's fucking sweet. Potentially really cool and also potentially really hilarious. also, i really really like that Uraraka's decided she's gonna be a hand to hand combat sorta guy, cause fuck there's some really cool shit she could do with her quirk in a fist fight.
Spoiler: Bakumom You gotta remember that kids usually get their quirks from their parents. I would not be surprised if Bakugo got his quirk from her, and that the way she raises her son is the same way she was raised - cycles of abuse and all. She is obviously not a successful pro hero, so it's possible that there's like, displacement feelings going on too. Sort of similar to Todoroki and Endeavor.
Spoiler: re: this Bakugo's Quirk is a combo of his mom's and his dad's. and his mother is NOT the one who provides the already-explosive part of the Quirk. his mom excretes glycerin. apparently, it keeps her skin nice. his dad has oxidizing sweat, which lets him make fire. put together, you apparently get Bakugo's Quirk. but Bakugo's mom has 0 explosion ability on her own. she is probably not a pro hero at all, and likely never stood a chance at being one. I can still buy the concept that she got some of how she is raising her son from her parents, but excreting a liquid with a moisturizing effect--which is all her Glycerin Quirk is noted as doing--does not seem like a thing that would lead into being a pro hero at all, even a failed pro hero. jsyk.
dang, what a sweaty family. It's never not gonna tickle me that the fact that Bakugou's able to use his quirk like he does means we have to assume he sweats like a pig. Or maybe he just has excessively sweaty palms, cause he doesn't seem to be able to blow up anywhere else. Maybe he just doesn't want to. also, knowing that people in the BNHA universe sometimes marry for the sake of producing kids with cool new quirks, it's kinda interesting to me that they're both folks who excrete half of an explosive mixture from their skin. not in like a serious theory way, more like a "huh, that'd be cool in a fanfic or something" kinda way.
hmm. you know, given that Bakugo's dad's explosions are reportedly made by him rubbing his hands together, I....I have to wonder if maybe Bakugo just CAN'T explode anywhere else and maybe his dad can't either?? seems sorta weird though.... I also personally like the idea that Bakugo just fuckin'. sweats on will. like, he also sweats normally--but if he isn't already sweating? he can make it happen.
I feel like it's probably not that weird if it's a localized effect. You could just say something like only the sweat glands on his hands make boom juice, and everywhere else is just normal sweat. I dunno a lot about how this kinda shit works, but I'm pretty sure mammary glands are modified sweat glands, so it's not like shit like that doesn't happen.
what if everywhere else just makes glycerin sweat like his mom and Bakugo's skin will be smooth and lovely for the rest of his life ....in addition to the exploding hands, of course.
Now to question if there's fanfic out there acknowledging the fact that bakugo probably never smells like human sweat so much as he constantly smells like either a diesel power generator or fireworks going off in the worst possible way.
i havent read/watched bnha yet (i need to.....) but one of my fav artists on insta does bnha fan characters i realized and i thought yall might like he has like, a whole cast of aquatic-themed characters based on all sorts of animals w really cool quirks, these are the teachers and i love them
Spoiler: new episode wow mineta's really bad in this one, huh? also, i don't understand what went down between Kaminari and Bakugou. Like, how did Bakugou not get fried when Kaminari did a zap? Ain't that an indiscriminate AOE?
Spoiler: Manga spoilers, most recent chapter I've been feeling really anxious about this arc, but the latest chapter has shown to me that this subject is being covered in more intensity and more thoroughly than I thought it would be. I really like all the Todoroki kids. Also Hori's just teasing us with the Dabi shit isn't he? Also also... how would Hawks, a kid who was groomed into hero society and (appears) to have grown up in a neglectful environment, feel to learn the truth about his hero Endeavour? Honestly it smart to think about it!
Spoiler: Season 2, Episode 22 Spoilers and also a terrible joke I've been watching this a lot more lately and wound up in a rewatch. Currently on the episode where Todoroki and Yaoyorozu are trying to fight Aizawa. So there's this scene where Momo's jogging along and the camera's all focused on her from a pretty gratuitous front-view where it shows her very open costume putting in, uh, some work And the commentary from Aizawa is something along the lines of, right at this moment, "...but emotionally, she's still a child" and at that moment I just thought to myself "it's as if millions of boners suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced"
