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Back again posting once in a full blue moon.
I’ll admit I am a fan of Hitoshi Shinsou. Always had been since the age of 16 (moreso crush; I shipped my OC with him), and now 5 years later after the series has ended my interest in mha has decided to resurface for whatever reason.
And I’m deciding why not reprise my OC and make a story of her journey with Hitoshi being the Deuteragonist + Love interest.
Obviously my crush on him is long dead, but for the story I’m making for my OC, think of it like a pay off for old time sake. Healing my inner teenager who was so critical of MHA that I ended up hating it and forgetting about it 2 years after I fell inlove with. Tbh I still don’t like MHA but I’m getting ahead of myself.
The following statement can be applied to any characters I favour:
I’ve always been okay with people hating on characters I favour, to the point I go out of my way to read critical rants of them. Sometimes I would find myself disagreeing, only if it’s from a narrative standpoint.
Take Muzan Kibutsuji from Demon Slayer for example. He is a character created to be hated, and heck even I was his biggest hater from the get-go before I eventually favoured him for reasons. When I see everyone slandering him I’d find myself joining in. Watching Muzans stans unironically babying him (especially on tiktok) annoys me to the point I reply to them with some reality check comments.
And where I’d disagree are the parts where fans, or rather outsiders, talk about how Muzan is an anti-climatic coward villain with weak powers who’d get nerfed by [insert overpowered villain].
It’s not exactly critical if that was the author’s intention all along. The episodes spell it out for you that Muzan is written to be an anticlimactic narcissistic coward, and compared to some villains I don’t think its fair to underestimate his powers.
What I’m trying to say is, reading critical rants of Hitoshi as a fan is refreshing for multitude reasons.
Again like I previously mentioned I’m okay with people hating on characters I favour, and when I read critical points of them it helps me keep an open mind and not allow my emotions develop a (parasocial) bias with them.
More importantly in my future fic it helps me keep my characterisation of him as canon as possible; he will be going through a character growth arc, and it will involve the story holding his asshole tendency’s accountable but giving him room to improve and grow. He will not lose his fundamentals and do this whole 180, he will still be a smug ass at times.
Secondly I’m not a fan of the dadzawa relationship in canon and fanon, and especially not a fan of how I last remembered the fandom portraying him as this kicked puppy that was trampled on in the past and follows midoriya / denki / neito around with heart eyes or is this attractive edgelord whos into 2020 grunge aesthetic and listens to soundcloud emo trap music. That will not be happening in my fic, he can kiss his pseudo-dad goodbye because he will be the one to help report him in the end (spoilers).
And I’m not saying this out of stingyness or thinking Im this hitoshi-bible enthusiast, but I genuinely do not get the appeal of shinsou x midoriya / denki / neito / bakugo.
Whos bright idea was it to ship shinsou with bakugo? Thats a recipe for disaster, theyll end up physically and mentally abusing each other what a horrible pairing.
I see Midoriya needing to be shipped with someone with a sweet caring heart who doesn’t dump their traumatic luggage on him (Oochako, no offense to midoriya x todoroki fans). Midoriya doesn’t need to deal with a smug winger who doesn’t know how to friend.
Denki doesn’t seem like the type of person Hitoshi would willingly befriend, especially because of his association with mineta (hitoshi canonically believes mineta should be expelled, read the link). The way how I see Hitoshis friendship with Denki is close approximately slight co-hersion. You’re friends because youre classmates, hes a friendly nice dude and you feel a little coerced, and its not like you’re in the right place to judge because you don’t know what its like to have friends and people will see you as a charity case.
If the two were not in close proximity Hitoshi wouldve avoided denki like the plague. Canon and fanon will not fool me otherwise.
And with Neito, aside from their quirk discrimination what exactly do they have in common? Ill leave that to your imagination but what I can think of as someone who is a genuine fan of Neito and side characters generally speaking is…nothing.
I understand there’s not much to work to go with his canon character but unless you’re able to give a reasonable in universe explanation as to why you want to portray him as such, 99% it just falls flat because of how blown out of proportion his portrayal gets. You can just tell the fanon version is done from an emotional bias point.
And if youre atleast able to admit that then fair enough, but the mha fandom does this thing where they like to cosplay as media intellects. Its sad to watch.
And if it’s one thing I find myself disagreeing with few of the critical rants about him (no hate or shade) is that how he seems to be completely remorseless of the actions he did. Or being completely self centred.
I’m only saying this because I just found out on his wiki synopsis he was shown to feel guilty over calling Oijiro a monkey or brainwashing him. (https://myheroacademia.fandom.com/wiki/My_Hero_Academia:_School_Briefs_IV)
And a summary of his further thoughts (https://notebook-13.tumblr.com/post/629545863925137408/oooo-what-do-the-light-novels-sayshow-about/amp)
Personally I see Hitoshi as someone who has a tunnel vision worldview, has an asshole skin with some insecurities on the inside. A little nudge of kindness and someone to challenge him he’ll soon come around to change, albiet slowly.
I’m able to empathise with where he’s coming from, as in how his canon character wouldve come to be like the whole primary & secondary influence and whatnot.
Yeah he’s a winger who threw a little tantrum who used his quirk with not so good intentions, and I won’t deny any of that. But unlike *some* characters it’s not like he really felt like he had any choice during that time, but it looks like his apparent guilt was there to chew him up. He cannot be compared to someone like bakugo whatsoever.
As for Aizawa I do see where everyones coming from, but the difference is Aizawa is a seasoned adult while Hitoshi is an unseasoned teenager. Tbh Hitoshi deserved a better mentor who wasn’t training him out of projected feelings covered up by logic, but that could be said for every other character.
And where MHA fails in having characters challenge him, my story will be there to pick up the pieces.