okay so like I headcanon Bakugo as having BPD. I feel like a lot of his stuff fits that. and so I'm inclined to be....sorta understanding about him being a huge jerk. but Spoiler: spoilers for ep 24 HE FUCKING SLAMMED A GRENADE BLAST INTO THE WALL DIRECTLY NEXT TO MIDORIYA'S HEAD???? THAT SHIT AIN'T OKAY Bakugo needs to fucking level the fuck out. I'm losing patience for his total lack of improvement as a person.
Spoiler: Manga Bakugou He's sort of shown some improvement in the manga, but he's still very aggressive and still generally shitty to Deku. And Deku has just accepted this as a fact of life. So I mean at least Deku isn't bothered!
Spoiler mmmmmmmmmm that makes me....more uncomfortable. that reads to me as. accepting abuse as a fact of life. that's not okay. I am not okay with that especially after Bakugo did a thing that could have seriously harmed Deku if his punch was like an inch to the left like....an acknowledgement that was not okay in the slightest would be nice, thanks I wish Deku would be not okay with Bakugo being an asshole to him and I wish Bakugo would improve in terms of how he views and treats Deku like, the aggressiveness and general jerk attitude towards others I am more understanding of rn, and it takes a while to improve things like the current mental outlook he has but I am very immensely not okay with the 0% change in how he treats Deku, esp with the fact that he. could have seriously injured Deku like multiple times now he needs to chill and learn some restraint and at least stop treating Deku so completely like crap also maybe therapy
Spoiler: bakugou That was my attempt at dark humor, sorry. I cope with laughter. Deku gets a little better about at least distancing himself from Bakugou. Not trying to spoil anything but as of yet Bakugou doesn't have a therapist. But you're right, that might help.
Spoiler oH I didn't pick up on it being a humor sorry!! that's good. but yeah he needs a therapist like I appreciate why he is the way he is but boy oh boy
Spoiler: Bakugou no prob my humor is sometimes upsetting anyways so I gotta learn to knock it off. Bakugou having actual friends seems to be helping him too, so there's some good news!
Spoiler !!! my problematic fave has friends I'm so happy for him ;u; go my child. make friends. Become Better
Spoiler: minor final exam spoilers I haven't read the manga yet, just watched the anime, and I don't know if there's much difference between the two, but my take on Bakugo so far is that he's very at-risk for becoming a villain, and the teachers are concerned about that and are doing their best to keep it from happening. He never regarded Deku as anything more than a pathetic hanger-on and easy target, and now that he's suddenly become a huge threat to his goal completely out of nowhere, he's become obsessed. His entire vision of his high school career and future life has been turned on its head, all because of Deku. It's encouraging that most of his classmates aren't really afraid of him and don't take his shitty personality too seriously. He's like a super aggressive puppy that needs to get shaken by the ruff a few times and put in timeout to calm down. When it comes to his bullying of Deku, I think that it's important to keep in mind the teaching style at UA. Serious injuries aren't uncommon - Bakugo hasn't managed to injure Deku worse than any of the officially sanctioned teaching methods have so far, and during the final exam All Might punched Bakugo himself so hard that he threw up and went flying. I don't think the school would go that far if Recovery Girl wasn't there on standby, but it seems to me that they're trying to prepare the students as best they can for a profession that will have them risking their lives daily. They need to learn how to deal with that kind of pain, injury, and danger, or learn that they can't deal with it before going out (immediately after graduation!) and fighting for real. So, the teachers' main priority in this conflict isn't keeping Deku (or Bakugo!) from being injured in the short term, but rather trying to resolve the conflict without driving Bakugo into villainy. Bakugo shouldn't ever have a decisive victory over Deku, because that would just encourage his obsession, but he also shouldn't suffer a decisive defeat, because that would drive him further into resentment. So they're tolerating a certain level of violence in the short term while trying to resolve things for the long term. I don't necessarily agree with the teachers' decisions, but I can understand their thinking and their priorities in a bad situation. Also again this is just based on the anime, maybe Bakugo is much worse in the manga and I'll change my thoughts after reading it
also in case it wasn't clear from that post I Am Love Bakugo and would like my name to be added to the list of people who think that he and Deku should kiss on the mouth
Spoiler: Bakugo thoughts; spoilers for the last episode of the second season+stuff immediately after the second season so I've been thinking about something. namely, why Bakugo is so combative and gets offended when people treat him like a child of his age, like a hero in training. and at first I thought it was because he wants to be treated like a fully-fledged hero, but I don't think that's actually it. I think Bakugo wants to be treated, maybe even expects to be treated, like he's inherently going places, is impressive, and....tired, so not gonna words well, but it seems like he almost wants to be treated like he's somehow more than human. I mean, when he's kidnapped by the League, All Might and others show up to save him, right? and All Might says this whole thing must've been scary and he did a great job holding out, and Bakugo looks offended, like he's about to flip his shit. but the thing is, even a fully-fledged hero might be scared in that situation. just one hero, surrounded by villains, literally tied up at first? c'mon, that's scary shit. but Bakugo isn't scared, and he seems to think that the assumption he would be is somehow underestimating him, or an insult, or something. like....he seems to expect that everyone else will just realize that obviously he wouldn't be scared, because it's him and he doesn't get scared, especially not over THIS. but a lot of people, even some heroes, would be scared in that situation, imo! it's a normal human response. but Bakugo is treating it like obviously he wouldn't have that response--it's like he either doesn't realize that's a totally normal response to expect here, especially with a kid who's not even got a hero license yet, or he thinks that even if other people would be like that, he wouldn't, because he's just not prone to that kind of thing. he's better than that. but that's basically like saying he's better than having weakness. and that makes me wonder where he got that idea. like, the 'I'm the best'/'I'm going places' attitude makes sense. literally one of the first things he's told after he shows off his newly-developing Quirk is that it's going to develop into something special, that he's going to be special, basically. and it's clear that at least some of his peers as a kid look up to him a lot, and think he's impressive, special, awesome, all that jazz. so of course he grows into acting like he's the best. (whether or not he actually believes that he is the best, or feels like he's not the best but SAYS he is anyway because he thinks he should be, that's a thing I'm not sure of. but anyway.) but 'weakness makes you lesser'/'to be the best you can't be weak'/'emotions like fear are weakness', that I'm not so sure of where it came from. I mean, admittedly, his childhood hero was All Might, even if he doesn't seem to like All Might now, and maybe he took 'always smiling' as 'never afraid' and then put that into 'All Might is the best BECAUSE he is never afraid'. but I'm still just....curious about it. it just seems like a big message to infer from one hero? and it's not even accurate to All Might. and....it also seems a bit like circular logic, given that young Bakugo seems to think All Might is never afraid because he is the best, which leads into "he's the best because he's never afraid but never afraid because he's the best." so maybe it wasn't picked up from All Might, but that still begs the question of where that thinking came from, because I don't see 'I am the best'/'I will be the best' directly leading into 'fear is weakness, mistakes are weakness, I won't do those things.' ....and it also seems like an attitude he picked up VERY young, because he gets offended at young Midoriya's question of if he's hurt after falling from a log into a river--a perfectly logical question, imo, and yet the question of if he's hurt and if he wants help makes him very angry. so young and he seems to have already absorbed the idea that getting help makes him weak, and admitting to fear or hurt makes him weak, so OF COURSE he doesn't need help, OF COURSE he's fine and not scared or hurt. and just. where and when did he pick that up that he already seems to think that way even before the whole "I am LITERALLY the best" sets in? (cause imo, when he's that young, he's cocky, and loud, and mean, but he's not yet achieved the level of 'I AM THE BEST' that we see in CURRENT Bakugo.) I'm also curious of if he is actually afraid sometimes, but vehemently pretends not to be because that would be WEAK, he can't be AFRAID if he wants to be THE BEST. /shrugs I realize this is nothing new, probably, but I like to think thoughts out loud. eta: ....I just realized where my brain was trying to go with this: it's suggesting that Bakugo is literally not letting himself be on the level of 'normal person'. like, he won't let himself be hurt or afraid or in need of help cause he's BETTER than that. wow, ouch.
Spoiler No wonder he's like, mortally offended when Midoriya, very obviously terrified and very much powerless runs into the fray when the slime dude kidnaps him. Like, dude. You're supposed to be weak, how dare you act strong. One of the lessons Bakugo needs to learn is that fear is a healthy response, and that the heroes are afraid in certain situations, but act anyway.
Spoiler yeah, especially because like...not only is fear a natural response, sometimes it’s a necessary one. fear isn’t always useful, but sometimes it can make you stop and think instead of just charging ahead recklessly—and with hero work, I have to think that’s an important thing to not do. always charging right on in is bound to get you and probably others hurt at some point. admittedly being a hero will involve acting in spite of fear—but I have to think that sometimes the fear of who or what they’re facing pushes them to think about what they’re doing and plan or at least not just....blindly run in, which could get someone seriously hurt.
So apparently America (my country) had a D+ infrastructure. Which is... Pretty bad. So now I'm just trying to imagine a world with heroes set in this clusterfuck. Like, imagine two unpaid hero interns showing up to stop a rampaging villain. Intern 1: ugh, this is the third time today! Where is everybody else?? Intern 2: my boss is on his first vacation in ten years, flashbang and cyclone are probably at their day jobs, cutthroat just texted the groupchat to say he's trying to get here but he's stuck in traffic on the other side of town, lizard lady took an extra week off for maternity leave and got fired, hardwire's Mom is being moved to a different hospital cause he couldn't afford the one she was in and I assume he wants to be with her, and hard hitter is trying to stop a bank robbery downtown but all the criminals have really powerful quirks. Intern 1: wait, who does that leave? Intern 2: *looks at intern one then down at his own feet.* Intern 1: ... Fuck.
I'm now caught up on the manga and I want to sperg out so if anyone also wants to sperg out feel free to hmu
Depending on where you are it might take a while. No pressure - I'm gonna be up for sperging the fuck out for quite a while!
I'm surprised this thread is so hidden way back here, considering the immense popularity this series experiences. Might just be the kind of thing that isnt as popular here, here. I've found that finding nuanced convos on Bakugou are really hard! And how abusive him and Deku's relationship is. Like that stuff gets really heated in a way I haven't seen in a long time. Anyway as far as recent chapters... Spoiler I really like Gentle, that's all.
Spoiler: Recent chapters I like him, too. I think the somewhat-parallels with Izuku were a really interesting choice (the whole 'wanting to be a hero but continually being told you can't' thing.
Season three is in progress now, and I’m excited to see the rest of the WWP because canon trans character!
