If You Call Izuku Deku, Consider Yourself An Opp

Come to the Entertainment District Club, and stay for the surprise! (piece for Modern Demon Slayer zine)

you probably already got an ask like this but do you have good fic recs of b4kv bashing? any will do like he gets 'redeemed' through consequences or just plain ol retribution

Here’s a great one where Izuku’s friends all find out. Also includes minor Shota bashing:

A one-shot series about Katsuki and U.A bashing:

My own one-shot series dedicated to Katsuki bashing (will update once MHA is over).

I also have fics where Katsuki faces consequences for his actions but it isn’t a major plot point. I’ll link both my AO3 accounts. If you prefer using FF.net, both my accounts are there under the same names as their AO3 counterparts:

A one-shot that has Katsuki be some D List villain, making far more sense than him in canon:

This fic has 1-A finding out about Katsuki’s bullying, Izuku learning some self worth, Katsuki feeling legitimate regret, and features a beautifully written version of Kacchan vs Deku 2 that actually develops Katsuki and focuses on his remorse/stupidity:

shipping renkaza fucking sucks because you either get people who hate real enemies to lovers and call it toxic or pr*ship because they actually are enemies who want to kill each other instead of friends who bicker sometimes (these people are the weakest link and will not survive the winter)

or you get people who do ship it but only in the gooner dumbing-it-down-to-hardcore-porn way where they romanticize and get off to abuse and r*pe (these people are just gross sick individuals and i hope they go extinct)

and the few people who do see the emotional depth in the homoerotic minutes renkaza spent together and the potential in that for top tier doomed yaoi are few and far in between and i rarely find good fics that aren't just insanely ooc porn

💠 here and I just realized something about mha’s narrative is that these kids have no down time whatsoever. Like the narrative gives them no time to breathe, it’s always something that fowards the narrative. They want to go to the mall? Boom! Shigaraki has to be there. Training camp to be better heroes? Let’s just have one of these kids get kidnapped and let 5 other kids rescue him at the downfall of a mentor. Not to mention THE ENTIRE WAR ARC BECAUSE THESE ARE STILL FIRST YEARS (iirc on the timeline that they were first years during war arc). While I get why the writing is like this, shonen jump could've cancelled it at any moment, it just kinda rushes everything and leaves most of the cast to be bland/forgettable (most of 1-A) if not outright have their writing thrown in the trash (I still will not forgive them for throwing the Tenya and Ochaco dynamic with Izuku away).

Like the most they get is the sports festival, some of the training camp arc before it gets thrown out, the cultural festival and maybe the internships but Tsuyu is the only one shown to get a reasonable break in the anime exclusive episodes.

Like let me see Momo trying “commoner’s food”/street food for the first time and seeing how hard people work on the streets, let them having a day to go back to the beach Izuku cleaned up (because I don’t think they ever mentioned it after the early series), or a day where they all talk about updating their hero costumes or Izuku mentioning things about their quirks (kinda like how you were sprinkling in for the rewrite). Just GIVE THEM AND THE STORY SOME DOWN TIME AND LET THE CHARACTERS DEVELOP AGH.

NAH BUT LIKE FOR REAL!?!?

People can say what they want about filler or the obligatory beach episodes, but they were great! Just seeing these characters having fun, seeing how they act outside of high-tension, high-stake scenarios.

Who organises hang-outs? Who comes thirty minutes early, who comes an hour late, (totally not me, sorry guys), who always brings painkillers or lip balm or plasters/bandages? Who brings out a deck of cards, who cheats, whose poker face is terrible, who loses every game?

It's great seeing characters, especially teenagers, act their age. Not only does it serve to make the bonds between them feel a bit more real, a bit more strong, but it also allowed the audience to get attached to them properly.

See, I don't have an issue with Tomura showing up at the mall episode. I would have just liked to see the kids actually have fun before the sprinkle of plot development.

Show me Momo or Tenya or Shouto buying that trinket Ochako kept staring at but couldn't afford. Show me Mina beating everyone on DDR, and Tooru trying to compete like a fool. Show me Izuku or Mezou nearly breaking the punching machine. Show me Denki or Hanta making Momo and Shouto try crappy fast food and them actually enjoying it.

The timeline of MHA is ridiculous. Like, pace yourself please?? At least, show me what the kids get up to in the spring, summer, and winter breaks.

Downtime and breaks are extremely important, even in plot-heavy works. It's not just the characters who need a break, but the readers too. It gets exhausting reading about all this tragic stuff, maybe a gag here or there.

I guess Horikoshi may have been afraid that the momentum would be killed, but curbing momentum is what makes final acts feel so grand!

To compare it to a song or a musical number, you never want the score to feel stagnant. If a songs starts slow, the end will be all-out, only going down at the very end. See: It's All Coming Back To Me Now. Starts slow, ends with a massive note, and Celine Dion is joined by other vocals.

If a song starts high and up-beat, what composers will do is drop the melody, either cutting out the vocals or the beat, then let it all go out. Like... Uptown Funk with the toned-down bridge, segwaying into a powerful ending.

Stories work in the same way.

If you continuously build that momentum, without a break, it's going to peak early and feel stagnant the longer it goes. Horikoshi refused to give characters more than a chapter to settle down, and it made it all feel so same-y.

That's part of the reason by the ending of the Final War doesn't feel impactful at all. You're not left thinking, 'wow'. You're thinking, 'finally'.

The Bakugou Experence(TM)

Bakugou: *punches Izuku*

Izuku, starry eyed: "Woow, Bakugou, that was so cool!"

Kirashima: "What a manly punch!"

Eraserhead: *grumbles, but is secretly impressed by how good a punch it was, even though he wants to improve his form a bit*

Shigaraki: *nods* "I can see why you're the one closest to Deku."

All Might: "What good friends they are!"

hey! let’s talk about teru’s relationship with food!

all three of us get the feeling that food is a love language for teru, or at least, we feel like it’s important to consider how food plays a role in his story arc when doing a character study of him.

okay so first off, right from his introduction he is a foil to mob.

[ID: four manga panels featuring teru getting ready for school. from right to left: the first panel shows his hand and a pan frying an egg. the second is his hand holding a remote. the third shows a tv of a meteorologist saying: “today’s weather.” The forth panel is teru pulling on his school blazer, watching the tv. the meteorologist continues: “a lot of sunshine through the country, though the air is a bit unstable. /END ID]

when teru first appears, we as an audience don’t know it yet, but he lives alone and has been living alone without his parents for several years. here he is cooking his own breakfast and getting himself ready in his apartment by himself.

[ID: five manga panels of mob being woken up for school. from right to left: the first panels is a shot of the roof of the kageyama house. the second is mob, asleep on his futon. his mom is talking from off screen. she says: “shige, get up! you’re gonna be late!” the third is mob yawning and stretching his arms about his head. the forth panel is ritsu opening the door to mob’s room. he says “bro. mom said breakfast is ready.” the fifth panel shows ritsu looking at mob. mob is putting on a pair of pants saying: “yeah ritsu. let’s go.” /END ID]

meanwhile mob, is woken up by his mom and is checked on by his brother to make sure he was up in order to get a breakfast that was more than likely made by their parents.

when mob plans on confessing to tsubomi, teru brings up how homemade things tend to make him feel happy when someone confesses to him.

[ID: manga panel of teru being offered a gift from a girl. it reads: “I tend to be on the receiving end of confessions, but…when someone gives me a handkerchief, or a letter, or homemade cookies or something, it makes me kinda happy, so…I was just thinking, there’s that kind of thing too.” /END ID]

also we see teru tend to overindulge when someone (reigen) is offering to buy food for him

[ID: panel from yakiniku omake. teru is ordering food. he says: I’ll have have 4 orders of top ribs, 2 orders of sakura yukhoe, 2 orders of choice salty beef tongue, the extra special zabuton-cut beef, the offal sampler, 3 orders of rice, a tomato salad, and the naengmyeon…and a green tea.” /END ID]

[ID: cropped screencap of official art. teru has finished two ice cream parfaits. the empty glasses sit in front of a third one, which he is using telekinesis to float the toppings near his face. /END ID]

this often played for laughs, but stick with us here…

in the fanbook teru is asked if he cooks for himself and he says yes, and mentions that he’s confident in his pasta making skills.

[ID: cropped screencap from the fanbook that reads: “Q1: do you make your own food? What are you good at cooking?” Teru answers: “I cook lots of different kinds of things! but what I’m confident in is my pasta.” /END ID]

at first this may seem like a very 14 year old answer…I mean, pasta is fairly easy to make. But knowing teru and how he tends to become and expert at the skills he learns, odds are pasta started off as something simple to throw together on a school night. Pasta is easy and convenient and kid friendly, but it is very easy to experiment with and eventually become a speciality.

and one thing we know about teru is that he has too many specialities to list.

this kid has been needing to make his own food 100% on his own since the start of middle school. we can infer he’s getting money from his parents, and we aren’t exactly sure how much or how he spends it regarding food, but the only time we seem him eating alone, he is making a meal for himself outside of something premade or takeout. he said it himself, he makes lots of different kinds of things! he knows how to cook!

but with all things teru something simple and silly comes with tragedy. while it’s nice fore a kid his age to know how to cook, he NEEDS to know because he doesn’t live with his parents. if he didn’t know how to cook he would be relying on others, and that’s just not what teru does. He is fully capable and learns for himself out of necessity. teru is responsible for all of his own meals.

so what happens when he is no longer responsible? it could be an issue with humbleness. it could also be just normal 14 year old boy hunger, but when reigen takes him out to eat there’s no limits. but here’s the thing…when’s the last time teru has had a home-cooked meal that was made for him by someone else? not from a restaurant, but someone making something for him?

this is why we have the omurice scene in backdraft. there’s a comfort in the domesticity of having food prepared for him in a familial setting that he has not realized he has been missing from his life.

we’ve focused on the fear of him getting cut off from his parents and how money scarcity turns into food scarcity. he’s always been in survival mood, it’s just that money was the breaking point for him.

going back to mob. he and his family are normally seen sitting at the dinner table together. a normal domestic setting.

[ID: screencap of the kageyama family eating omurice together]

something teru doesn’t have. he eats alone at a table in his apartment…one with multiple chairs around it.

[ID: screencap of teru in his apartment. In the background, he is getting ready, looking in a full length mirror. next to him is a tv showing the weather. in the foreground is a table with an empty plate, mug and saucer, and a basket with a single roll. two chairs are seen at the table. /END ID]

teru has not invited anyone into his apartment until mob got attacked by koyama.

who are those chairs for teru?

of course, in backdraft we have the restaurant scene that mirrors this. empty chairs for absent parents.

BUT ITS NOT ALL SAD

back to food being a love language and specialty to teru…imagine once he’s no longer in survival mode due to trauma. food as a comfort, not only receiving, but making it for others as well. tying into him wanting to be a teacher, sharing his skills with others…the fact it feels good creating and sharing something. no longer taking care of himself out of necessity, but learning what his skills and hobbies are and genuinely sharing them because they make him feel accomplished and happy! it just ties everything together with this dude.

in short, cooking is more than likely another speciality teru has developed due to needing to live on his own. since mp100 has themes that involve human connection and relationships with others, we feel food is something that brings people together and our boy teru here should experience that firsthand.

that is why it plays a big role in what we have so far in backdraft!

MHA Only Has Four Important Female Characters And The Rest Could Comfortably Be Removed With Zero Impact

You could remove almost every female character from this series and nothing changes. Rather than discussing who goes, let's start with who stays. The list isn't long.

-Toga, because she's one of the villain team's MVPs and removing her from the story leaves a massive hole where she used to be. -Uraraka, removing her takes away a major supporting member of Deku's cast. It COULD be done. You COULD just restructure all of the moments between Toga and Uraraka to happen with Deku instead. It would just be really janky.

If we stick to canon's story beats, you'd have a scene where Izuku watches Toga kill herself after their fight and then he rushes off to kill Shigaraki. Uraraka stays. -Nana Shimura, since she's All Might's trainer and also Tomura's grandmother. -And either Mei Hatsume or Momo to act as tech support. Objectively speaking, you don't need them. Momo's contributions in canon were making the tracking devices that led the heroes to Garaki's nomu lab during Kamino, and she made a gas that knocked Gigantomachia out...AFTER everyone got finished jumping him and landing their hits, of course. You could write Momo out by conveniently having Mei invent devices that the heroes use before they know they need them. Or you could scrap both of them. They find the nomu lab because the cops analyzed power expenditure rates in the city and saw the warehouse. They assumed this was either a hydroponics weed farm, or something shady was going on. It turns out to be a nomu lab. They beat up Machia just as they did in canon, except he goes down and stays down. -Eri, on the other hand, is an edge case. She contributes nothing but two things towards the end of the series: restoring Mirio's quirk and healing Deku's arms. She's underdeveloped as a character entirely. She's not a character. She's a trauma prop and a moeblob. She's a major plot device and a reason the Overhaul arc plays out the way it does. You functionally could replace her if the story was willing to have Aizawa get abducted and Overhaul figures out some means to create bullets out of the guy's DNA. You'd have Present Mic there to attack the Yakuza alongside Deku in this universe instead. It's messy and it turns the Overhaul arc into the Aizawa Rescue Arc but it could be done. You'd just have Mirio either not get shot, or he does get shot and we have consequences for once. Mirio in canon proceeded to do basically nothing after his arc, showed up later to defeat Mister Compress, then help stall Tomura. For the sake of not having to change much, we keep her. But I do think a story where Deku rescues his teacher has better bones to it, since Eri does nothing after her arc. They make her smile at a school festival and her years of trauma are fixed. -Recovery Girl is another edge case but the story doesn't care about her as a person. She's a tool to heal main characters and enable them to recover near instantly from their injuries. You could replace her with a talking healing pod from DBZ and get the same end result. We just replace the scenes where she complains with Nezu doing it. Nezu, to All Might and Midoriya who are both in healing pods: You guys really ought to go less hard, eh? But who am I kidding? Plus Ultra! The rest of them? You could functionally ditch and not much changes. I'll go through all of them in a lightning round. Mirko: Replace her with Gang Orca. You know, the really tough mutant guy who could fight Inasa and Shoto at the same time? The guy the story barely used after? Yeah, we dust him off and slot him in. Midnight: Even her two best friends didn't care about her after she died. If we have to kill a teacher who doesn't affect the plot, kill Ectoplasm. Hagakure: Besides discovering Aoyama, what does she ever do? Deku could have just as easily discovered Aoyama...when All For One orders him to capture Deku. It's REALLY OBVIOUS Aoyama is the spy when he's attacking! Tsuyu: She saves Izuku from a shark mutant at the USJ and then does nothing else until she becomes Uraraka's video game assist against Toga. Mina: Her arc is already shared with Kirishima. You just have him eat the rest of her screen time and story beats. Kyoka: Absolutely superfluous. She sings a song once, loses an ear to AFO, and then makes the quirks in him briefly rebel. Have Tokoyami fight alone and we end up in the same place.

All the girls in class B: Class B was a waste of space and shouldn't have existed. Nejire: The big 3 didn't need to exist. Clearly only Mirio actually mattered. The story wanted to show how great Mirio was at the time. Let him fight Nejire and Suneater's foes and show off his POWER. Ryuku: Her most notable scene was getting beat up by Tomura, then is MIA until the final war, where she fights a background character. Magne: She existed just to get brutally murdered by Overhaul. The author NEVER cared about this character.

Inko: If she was never seen and the story didn't bother to get into who Izuku's parents are, what changes? Nothing. So we have 5 essential female characters: Uraraka, Toga, Momo/Mei, Eri, and Nana. 4 if you're willing to do an Overhaul arc rewrite and ditch Eri. 3 if you decide Momo/Mei's contributions aren't needed. This isn't a problem unique to MHA, by the way, this series is just especially bad about it.

wtf?

Might try this!

So I found this comment in a poll asking which is more overrated: anime or videogames, and I think this comment applies pretty well to the state mha is in. Emphasis on the explosions part.