Shouto And His Adoptive Sisters, Part 1

Shouto and his adoptive sisters, part 1

I headcanon that Todoroki is especially protective of Uraraka (e.g. in Movie 1 he intentionally placed himself right in front of her) and Asui, because they remind him of his sister, who is both cheerful and caring, and to whom he couldn’t be close to in the past. Despite being the youngest Todoroki sibling, and the one who received the brunt of their father’s abuse, I think Shouto might still feel partly responsible for the distance between him and his siblings.

It seems like Todoroki joined Deku & co for lunch regularly, right after the back-alley trio returned from Hosu. I headcanon - especially since I've watched their background shenanigans in the BNHA stage plays (the plays are hilarious, go look them up on yt!) - that Uraraka started to uraraka-handle Todoroki around the place, just like she has been doing with Deku and Iida since the start.

And no, their friendship doesn’t consist of Todoroki buying her expensive shit with his father’s credit card. Todoroki was someone who rejected his father’s instructions for years, even though it would have benefitted his hero training greatly (makes 100 % sense from the emotional angle, and 0 % sense from a sheer utilitarian angle). I headcanon that he also refuses to ask his father for money for anything. Fuyumi took care of that, otherwise Todoroki might have just walked around in clothes that he's grown out of, just because he didn't want to ask the old man for anything.

I also don’t think that Uraraka would accept huge amounts of money/monetary gifts from her friends, no matter her own financial circumstances. Even - or rather especially - if she'd thought that Todoroki's spending his father's money on her to piss of the latter. I think Uraraka would have an outlook like, “Don’t do things mainly to oppose someone. Do things for yourself!” which redirects Todoroki’s actions away from his father but turns his focus towards himself.

Uraraka would grab Todoroki and their friends, and they would go to the nearest playground. Each of them teaches Todoroki how to play their favourite (and entirely free of costs) childhood games. The games he wasn’t allowed to play, when he was younger.

He will catch up on them now. Together with his friends.

...

In my mind, this was canon:

For sure, Uraraka's first impression of Todoroki is of him being an awkward oddball... which I headcanon is one of the reasons why she went out of her way to befriend him.

Iidachako friendship

Iidachako is a friendship that I like a lot. I understand why the New B3 overtook precedence over the original trio story-wise, but I would have loved to see more the original trio - and also more Iidachako.

Partly because more media portrayals of positive, platonic, and close friendships between guys and girls are always welcome, and mainly because I really liked their dynamic specifically.

In my opinion, Horikoshi could have easily included Uraraka in the Hosu incident.

... WHY DIDN'T YOU, HORIKOSHI?!!

Uraraka could've been there for Iida, just like how Deku had been. I don't think that her being there would have taken anything away from Todoroki bonding with the other two boys. In fact, he could have bonded with her too.

It would have been also interesting to see Uraraka dealing with the inner turmoil of facing a zealot who is so against heroes receiving renumeration for their work.

Petition: "You Say Run" for Fumikage and Kyouka in S7

Begging the sound designer, or whoever's in charge of matching the bgm to the frames:

Please, please, please, give Jirou and Tokoyami their “You Say Run”- music moment.

They deserve it.

Katsuki and Izuku are not best friends, part 2

Evidently Bakugou and Deku got closer over the course of the story.

Spilling your thoughts and feelings to someone, getting inducted into an exclusive circle of secret keepers, and gaining the ability to LISTEN, can foster closeness.

But this closeness is not defined by feelings of like. Bakugou doesn’t like Deku. For the most part of their acquaintance, he actively disliked him.

And in contrast to Deku’s explicitly self-admitted hate for parts of Bakugou’s character, it is also not certain whether Deku actually likes Bakugou or not. There’s no doubt that he admires the hell out of the latter. In terms of who Deku looks up to, Bakugou is just right behind All Might. But I wouldn’t be able to confidently state that Deku likes Bakugou overall.

Let’s look at three types of examples that, while significant for the development of themselves and their relationship to each other, are not necessarily proof of a close, or even existing, friendship:

Type A: Risking their lives for each other

Deku had been established as someone who wanted to save other people from the very beginning. Deku would even take huge personal risks to attempt to save people, whom he's discouraged from saving. Thus, I'll mainly discuss Bakugou’s POV here:

For the most part, to Bakugou saving people had been mainly a side-effect of living out his blood knight urges of competing, fighting, and winning.

Bakugou jumping in without any thoughts (of victory) and letting himself get skewered like a kebab to save Deku, was a major divergence from that.

However, it’s more of a signifier of Bakugou’s personal character development, than a signifier for a budding friendship.

It signals Bakugou’s ability to be self-less and serves as proof for his potential to become a “true” hero. It signals Bakugou gaining empathy for Deku’s behaviour. It reiterates Deku’s importance to him. Reiterate, because Bakugou and Deku have always been important to each other.

None of those aspects mean that you are automatically friends.

Type B: Being candid about themselves with each other

Deku has let Bakugou know repeatedly that he admires him. He told him that he got his quirk from someone else, even under explicit orders from All Might not to share anything about OFA with anyone. Bakugou broke down in front of Deku twice. He publicly apologized to Deku for all the years of abuse.

None of those instances occurred out of a desire to confide to the other because they trust each other.

Both of the times Bakugou broke down in front of Deku, didn't happen voluntarily, but because he couldn't keep it in anymore. They certainly didn't happen because, he was fine with Deku seeing him like that.

Both of the times Deku told Bakugou about OFA, he didn't do it for himself. If Deku had wanted a confidante to share the emotional burden of keeping that huge secret... I'm pretty sure, he would've picked someone else. It happened, because he felt the urge to do so for Bakugou's benefit.

When Bakugou apologized to Deku, it was him basically returning that favour. He thought that Deku really needed to hear those words (which he did), so he expressed them. In part, Bakugou may have also felt that he needed to openly verbally acknowledge his mistakes, in order to move forward himself.

One of the most beautifully written scenes of the entire series.

However, neither of them would voluntarily be candid about themselves, if there aren’t higher stakes involved.

It’s not surprising.

I'm not sure even our all-loving hero Deku would ever feel entirely comfortable with sharing his worries with a guy who used to torment him for years. And even if said guy has changed much for the better, he’s still much more abrasive than the average person - not exactly your primary choice for a confidante.

On Bakugou's part, his emotional constipation was so severe that he probably couldn’t even share his feelings with his own bathroom mirror. Character development notwithstanding: Casually showing “weakness” to the kid your humongous inferiority-superiority complex has been fixated on since your pre-school days?

Yeah, I don’t think so.

My point is: There's too much mutual and individual baggage, for either of them to be fine with casually showing vulnerability around each other, if it doesn't serve a higher purpose.

Both aren’t - and might not ever be - able to provide each other with unrestricted emotional safe spaces.

And is seems like both of them have sensed and recognized this.

The parents of class 1-A, and their favourite kids

Parenting is hard: Trying to keep their stupid impulsive kids from getting themselves killed.

Let's be real, while I can see parents usually loving all of their children equally, most don't like their children equally.

Iida and Yaoyorozu’s mutual favourite child is without question, Asui. She’s the kid who helps out with the other children the most, courtesy of being an older sister within her own family. Iida also listens to Tsu-chan-kun, whenever she tells/signals him smt like: ~Dad, it’s okay. The others aren’t toddlers anymore, they should do/know/learn it by themselves. ~

And Yaoyorozu always worries about her, whenever the weather turns cold - the memory of Asui collapsing in that frozen room during the license exam, remains fresh in her mind.

Parenting is hard: Both are parents, who would be tearing up themselves, when they see one of their kids being in pain.

Iida has another favorite child: Tokoyami-kun.

Class Dad went from telling his goth son off for sitting on, instead of at, the latter's school desk, to being in awe of him, telling him how he's "so wise" (ty, Michael J. Tatum for the awesome line delivery).

A couple of outings with Class Dad.

Not to mention, Class Dad internally praising Fumikage for being the only one out of his boys, who has proper sleeping manners. The light novels have a few stories in which Iida and Tokoyami are hanging out, and mainly interacting with each other within smaller groups (I think Iida might have been vocal with his praise, when Tokoyami “saved” a little girl from getting lost in the amusement park).

I don’t think there are many kids in 1-A (I can only think of two. Guess who?) who wouldn’t be able to hold some kind of at least semi-enjoyable conversation with any of their classmates, at any given time. However, I wouldn’t have expected Iida and Tokoyami to spent a noticeable amount of their very limited leisure time with each other. I found that dynamic to be a sweet little surprise.

Parenting is hard: ... but Iida definitely enjoys his role to a certain extent.

Yaoyorozu also has another favourite child. Although I picture it more as a favourite younger brother: Kaminari-san.

I might expand on this some other time.

Parenting is hard: The class reps totally deserve a vacation away from their children... but then they wouldn't be able to relax, because they would be away from them.

Sometimes, at the end of a long day, choke-full of classes, hero training, and whatever trouble 1-A members have managed to get themselves into, Yaoyorozu makes a large pot of tea to bring over Iida, who has already spread out markers and sheets of paper over the large table in the dorm's common room.

Class rep positions may not mean much in a lot of places in our real-life world, but UA is not a normal environment. Since moving into the dorms, Iida and Yaoyorozu’s (admittedly, many of them self-imposed) responsibilities have only been increasing.

Thankfully, there is a lot of trust and appreciation for each other between 1-A's co-parents class reps.

Which makes it easy to sit down and work out an elaborate plan of action for illnesses in their home, together.

Because having this many kids in such close living quarters, means being guaranteed an in-house germ factory when flu season inevitably arrives.

...

Where are the class 1-A during COVID quarantine fics? Gimme pls.

Tenya and the madwoman (or: The madwoman and her literal boy toy)

I ship Class Rep with Mei Hatsume. It's "uptight loves wild"-galore.

I don’t know how well such an extreme dynamic would work out in real-life.

But in fiction? The way to get there would be hella hilarious.

Guy meets girl. Guy is scared shitless of girl... don't all great romances start like this?

I know many anime fans like to shit on dub for sport. Honestly, I'm also not very fond of the majority of dubbed animes - simply because the Japanese do it so well. But in my opinion, MHA is one of those rare ones that has really good English dub.

I just love everything about how J. Michael Tatum had Iida saying: “My quirk is in my legs, you madwoman!”

The palpable indignation in his voice made me choke on my tea in the best way, and convinced me of Iidamei-dynamic immediately.

They have so many comedic possibilities.

And played out in a dramatic fashion? Bunch of misunderstandings, bunch of necessary adjustments to overcome their differences.

Even if they couldn't make it work: He could use some out-of-the-box-thinking himself and she would benefit so much from a bit more structure = so many opportunities for personal growth.

But if they made it work? The world wouldn't be ready for the indomitable Iida-Hatsume union.