#bak-u-go

[balaroo]

You're all forgetting the prime evidence against the Bak-u-go theory and it's that Deku would recognise Bakugou if he was stood 200ft away stood on a cloudy mountain top but he made no connection to the vestige. If the Kacchan sense didn't go off, it's not him sorry I don't make the rules that's just how the weirdos work

[bakugoukatsuki-rising]

It's not Bakugou.

Those things on his arms don't look like gauntlets. They don't have the metal part jutting out and they look more flat compared to Bakugou's gauntlets. Plus look how big that dude is, and his outfit just....doesn't suit what Bakugo would wear. The hair ain't the same, either.

It ain't him. I'm not even gonna think about it anymore. Horikoshi wouldn't do some weird shit like time travel when it doesn't fit into the story in any way, otherwise.

It's not him.

[dynyamight]

the second user: no seriously, i’m bakug—

izuku: yeah, okay. let’s just get you to bed :)

[makeste]

some follow-up thoughts about chapter 304

so now that the official scan is out, let’s revisit a couple of things really quick.

OFA

Viz makes a bit more sense out of All Might’s “I was able to hold OFA because I was quirkless” hypothesis, as well as the distinction between “souls” and “quirk factors.”

so All Might’s Vestige is unique, in that it’s the only Vestige who appears to truly be a part of the original wielder’s soul, as opposed to a piece of the wielder’s consciousness that was tucked away inside their quirk factor. this is all still extremely weird, but okay.

the Vestiges also seem to be treating OFA as a single quirk which just happens to coincidentally contain a bunch of other quirks within it. so to address a couple of asks I got about this, no I don’t think the whole SIXQUIRKS thing is going to affect Deku’s lifespan at all. they seem to all count as one big quirk. I agree that it doesn’t make much sense, but the Vestiges don’t appear to be too worried about it, so I’m still gonna assume this is the case. I’ll definitely be giving this one some more thought over this next week, though.

OFA the Second

so first off, the hair color thing has been debunked.

this is easily light enough to still be Bakugou’s hair (again, especially because in the wide angle shot the hair isn’t colored in at all).

second, now that the scan is clearer, we can see that OFA Two and Three are wearing near-identical outfits, aside from the color of the coveralls and belts, and the additional customizations like Two’s gauntlets, and whatever it is that Three is wearing on his head.

the belts also look suspiciously high tech, and I won’t lie, I immediately thought of Avengers Endgame and the special time travel spacesuits that they use. not saying the same thing is going on here, but I’d be lying if I said it hadn’t crossed my mind. again, my stance on all of this is basically just “we have no idea what’s going to happen” and trying to keep an open mind when theorizing. I’m not gonna pretend like my thoughts aren’t leaning more and more in this direction though.

also, as an anon on @class1akids​’ blog mentioned, Two seems to be wearing his pants lower and baggier than Three is, with them being tucked into his boots in a suspiciously familiar manner.

if it is him, leave it to Bakugou to refuse to wear his own fucking science fiction time travel getup properly, lol.

and lastly,

“tell me, can you kill Shigaraki Tomura?”

so for better or worse, this is the official Viz translation. now I happen to be on team “even if she really is asking Deku to kill her grandson, this does not make Nana a bad person”, as she’s clearly not happy about it (far from it, she looks like there’s no hope left at all in her eyes; it’s really painful to see actually), and I expect she views it as a necessary “for the greater good” type of thing. grandson or not, if he’s trying to destroy or take over the world then he has to be stopped, one way or the other. and even more than the destroying-the-world thing, I think the whole “AFO is now possessing him” thing is even more of a deciding factor in her decision. because AFO clearly needs to die. but AFO is now a part of Tomura. and so he’s gone and dragged her family into this, and now it may be that it’s impossible to defeat AFO without killing Tomura in the process. and there’s also the fact that Tomura is effectively AFO’s prisoner right now both mentally and physically, and so she may also see it as a mercy, idk.

however, several people have pointed out to me that she might not actually be asking Deku to literally kill Tomura. specifically, the fact that she uses “Tomura” rather than “Tenko” has led people to wonder if she’s asking Deku whether he can metaphorically kill Shigaraki Tomura, AFO’s Puppet, in order to save Shimura Tenko, Her Grandson. and this could be the case! so we’ll see.

either way though, it’s clear Nana is devastated by this latest development, and she’s just as much a victim of AFO’s fucked up manipulations as Tenko is. I’m very firmly in the “Nana did nothing wrong” camp just in general, and this chapter is no different. so again, even if she is asking for Deku to kill Tenko, it’s because she sees no other way out of this mess. TomurAFO has to be stopped, and it’s looking like Deku is the only one who can do it. she can hardly ask him to lay down his life and let the world be destroyed just to spare her grandson. so I’m thinking that’s what next week’s conversation is going to be about. because of course Deku, being a shounen protagonist, won’t accept either of those scenarios, and will naturally look for the renowned shounen Third Option. and will almost certainly find it somehow, too.

so that’s it! this has definitely been a very generous chapter as far as providing plenty of discourse material, and it sure doesn’t seem like we’re close to being out of the woods yet in that regard. next week should be pretty interesting.

[stuggles]

If this

Isn't him

Then this

Isn't him either

[class1akids]

Why do you think the time travel theory is more plausible?

Just to say first, that I’m not at all a fan of this theory (I’ve seen way too many stories falling apart with badly executed time-travel), so I try to look at all the clues with VERY critical eyes. Still, as someone who discusses the possible endgame of Bakugou’s arc, I feel that there are more and more little narrative clues that point in this direction. 

It’s pretty telling that Bakugou’s Origin chapter (unlike the other Origin chapters) ends with Deku in the centerpiece, using and augmenting Bakugou’s power. 

I think that this was an early pointer that Horikoshi planned for Bakugou’s endgame to be some kind of power-sharing with Deku. And this was confirmed in Heroes Rising, which used the originally planned ending with Bakugou and Deku sharing OFA to defeat Nine (who was the Shigaraki-proxy of the movie).

The movie was announced in early 2019, so at least a couple of months before that, they had to already make the main decisions about it, having Horikoshi’s permission to use that ending, and for him to try to set up a new endgame that fits with the earlier clues. So keep this timing in mind: 

The very Bakugou-esque silhouette appeared in the story for the first time in August 2018, so in time to set up the new ending.

The hair, the collar, the shape of the gauntlets - it’s uncanny.  

This is not conclusive in itself of course, but like really quite on the nose repeated from different angles just to be sure.

But then, Horikoshi didn’t stop dropping clues with the shadow figures. A few chapters later, Bakugou starts to take interest in OFA and soon becomes a full member of Team OFA, tying Bakugou into this plot, rather than giving him his own separate arc. 

He immediately displays a good understanding of the power and becomes one of the main drivers of the attempt to find out more about its history. 

Horikoshi also gives us these little panelling hints - they are the equivalent of *wink* - when All Might’s dialogue is displayed over Katsuki’s head whenever the second and third users come up. 

Ch: 202

and again in Ch: 257

The current arc kind of brought forward some things - like Bakugou’s sacrifice play and atonement - that could have been also endgame material consistent with his arc. He still - alone of the mains - has no villain counterpart, which suggests that he’s going to share with Deku the endgame boss. But at the same time, this arc is also giving us a sneak peek of Deku’s endgame power-levels and unless Bakugou gets some extraordinary power-up, it’s kind of hard to see them go side-by-side into the final fight. (The power-up is not impossible either - Bakugou being hit by the quirk activating tentacles could have triggered something inside him). 

So with no clear endgame role and endgame villain, his hero name arc set to be revealed soon - it seems more and more likely that Bakugou’s arc will focus on his atonement (protecting Deku) and getting deeper into OFA’s nature. Interestingly, Bakugou alone sees it as a cursed power, which is a pretty unique view on it since both All Might and Deku have looked on it as a blessing up until now. 

But in this arc, we have seen that OFA may be a power that is willing to break its users to fulfill its mission and Bakugou is set up now as someone who advocates for Deku’s interests even against the will of All Might (and OFA). 

The seeds have been sewn for an investigation into No. 4... which will probably reveal something about the power itself. 

All these little clues make me think that Bakugou is that No. 2. or if he isn’t yet, he will be.

The how is not very clear yet. It could be Eri’s quirk or one that hasn’t been introduced yet. It could be a power held within OFA itself (e.g. the power of No. 4), but it seems like it will involve probably time-travel shenanigans. 

The why is also unclear for now. It could be that a maxed out OFA won’t be enough for a victory against the power AFO amassed. After all, it seems that the past holders’ quirk are more utility than destructive in nature. 

And if we are talking of a top-notch quirk that Deku is intimately acquainted with - well...

But it could be a different reason. Maybe AFO gets hold of a time-travelling quirk himself and there is a threat that he’d change the past. 

Or maybe time-travel becomes necessary to figure out a way of stopping quirk singularity destroying the world.

Or perhaps, Bakugou figures out why OFA is cursed and in order to save Deku from being consumed by it, he sets out to change the parameters of the quirk.

In any case, from the current narrative beats, it seems to me that Bak-u-go is very much on the cards as a possible ending - which would be incredible bitter-sweet. 

It would allow Bakugou to lead the narrative in the uncovering of the origins of OFA and grow into the greatest hero in his own right in the past, to make a sacrifice without ending his life, to be Deku’s final ally in the endgame fight - standing with him inside OFA in the vestige plane, where I think the very last confrontation will take place. Like think about the visual of Deku being down and then vestige!Bakugou stepping out of the black mist of the last secret holder and helping Deku up and saying - no you don’t need to fight alone or something and BKDK + vestige!All Might charging in for a last time.... 

But all this, could be coming at the price of being permanently separated from his friends, unless they can travel him back into real time (assuming a closed-loop time travel, which then starts its own paradox) in which case, Bakugou could come back to the present too - but with Deku having his power through OFA, his aspirations as no. 1. are pretty doomed... And if he passed his quirk on in the past - would he still even have it? Quirkless Bakugou would be kind of a full circle ending, and we know Horikoshi loves his full circles. 

So anyways, this is what I have for now...

[pikahlua]

i know the time loop theory is out of the question now but I have a headcanon:

bakugou and Deku reunite, and Deku confides in him that he’s going to try to save Tenko. Bakugou ofc thinks it’s an awful and dangerous idea but he knew it was coming bcs he knows Deku like the back of his hand. Bakugou does the big apology and tells Deku what he said to all might:

‘I trust you with my life’ and he asks for Deku to trust him with his. Anyways Deku dies trying to save Tenko and bkg gets swallowed by OFA, OFA sends him back in time where it all began, and spends years looking for AFO. When he finds him, he’s grown into an adult and instantly recognizes him. He builds a relationship w Yoichi and reveals that OFA can be transferred. In the end, he takes on the burden of becoming AFO’s first arch nemesis, and dies knowing he’ll get to see Deku again within OFA someday.

Dear anon, I held onto this a little while trying to figure out what to say in response. No one has ever sent me a headcanon before, shipping or otherwise. I want to say first of all that I’m surprised and very flattered.

I should mention before anything else that I’m not steeped in shipping culture. I have every respect for it, but when it comes to the fluff/romance department...let’s just say I’m a Shouto Todoroki. It’s not my forte, and it can easily go over my head quite often. I’d call myself a multi-shipper in that I think all ships are valid and I’m not protective of any ships to the exclusion of others, but to any extent you may see me “ship,” it’s usually 50% crackshipping minimum. I’m just in it for the discussion or the lulz, not so much for the identification (mostly).

That said, I do absolutely understand the appeal of relationship dynamics (romantic or otherwise) and why people would become invested in a particular pair or set of characters. That is a sentiment I can very much get behind, and I will defend “shippers” in this regard until my dying day.

Okay, that’s all out of the way now.

I’m going to break your headcanon down for commentary, because I think that’s why you sent it to me. This is going to have some elements of criticism, but I want you to know before you read this that my criticism is in no way a judgment on you, your headcanon, or your feelings. This is about critical thinking, literary analysis, and writing craft. I want to help you develop your ideas by sharing the universal appeals, identifying opportunities for discussion, and offering suggestions of improvement. To that end, I’ll present my thoughts on the elements of your headcanon:

Element 1: The reunion I identified a few misconceptions I need to knock out before we get to the meat of what you’re really getting at here. Most importantly, there were a ton of translation errors in the fan translations for chapter 284 that I don’t think a lot of people know about. Katsuki never tells All Might “I trust Deku with my life.” I think Katsuki actually DOES trust him with his life, but he doesn’t say that in this scene. He says “Deku trusts you [All Might] with his life.” It’s meant as a line of comparison for the next thing he says, which is to call All Might out for not explaining everything he knows about OFA. Basically, “Deku trusts you, but you aren’t being completely honest with him.” The other thing I’ll point out is that you colloquially say Katsuki knows Izuku like the back of his hand. I’d just add a slight caveat and say Katsuki knows Izuku’s heroic nature like the back of his hand. This is just my opinion, but I don’t think there’s enough textual evidence to truly make the claim that Katsuki and Izuku know each other inside out and how the other thinks. They know each other as strategists, but if they understood each other as people that well, we wouldn’t have the conflict between them that makes up such a significant portion of the story.

As it turns out, those nitpicky things are neither here nor there, because what you’re really talking about is having them reconcile before the final fight. In the context of the MHA manga, I would expect that most likely these two would reconcile at the very end of the story, maybe even DURING the final fight, because most of their relationship’s development happens during battle, and a reconciliation would work very well as an endpoint in a story. What you’re doing is different: you’re creating the BEGINNING of a story. Having the reconciliation take place before the final fight resolves their relationship development before the story ends...creating a death flag. Thus the final fight ends in Izuku’s death, as you have mapped out.

And that makes sense, because as you said, this headcanon stems from the Katsuki time travel theory. What you have here is the beginning of Katsuki’s story, assuming his story is about a journey into the distant past. What I really like about this is how it ties into what we know about OFA #2′s character. You’ve connected who Katsuki is in his current iteration to who OFA #2 is in chapter 310. Their reconciliation, Katsuki’s acceptance of Izuku’s desire to save Tenko, and Izuku’s death, all tie over to OFA #2′s philosophy of survival = victory AND his unexplained, so-called “contradictory” decision to save Yoichi Shigaraki. You’ve turned OFA #2′s character into an endpoint for Katsuki’s character development.

Element 2: OFA/Time Travel Eh, this bit is underdeveloped, and I think you know that. And I also don’t think you or I care. This isn’t the piece that’s interesting in the scope of this dynamic. This is also probably the reason why so many people (myself included) didn’t find the time travel theory appealing. Time travel makes things messy, and it would just seem like a random plot device that isn’t properly foreshadowed in the MHA story proper to be a satisfying plot twist. By saying “OFA did it” we can sort of add a romantic element and do a hand wave to get past the mechanics here, because what you and I and everyone else are interested in at this point are the consequences of this event, not the event itself. So while I and many others would probably be mad if this happened in canon, that’s not to say its consequences wouldn’t be interesting to explore in fanon, which is the whole point of headcanons (and fanfiction 😉).

Element 3: Katsuki becomes OFA #2 Is it just me, or is OFA #2 really appealing as a character? Was he an instant hit with everyone else, or am I alone in this? (I don’t know. I’m old and don’t really understand the kids these days with their hopscotch and their cellular phones and their TikToks [waves cane]). I say this because Katsuki Bakugou is the #1 fan favorite character in the story, so tying these two together, into the same character or otherwise? I absolutely understand the appeal.

First of all, if MHA did involve time travel, I think the first pick for time travel would always be Katsuki. He’s so entrenched in the past (not in the way the Todorokis are); I mean I feel like it’s obvious why it would be him? He’s petty enough to jump in a time portal just to give his past self (at any age) an ass-whoopin’. At the same time, he’s also a character who centers around growth, so he should also understand the value of respecting any person’s journey from “who I was” to “who I am today.” For that reason, I actually think he wouldn’t want to ever change the past if he could help it. The growth since then is the reward.

The time period you’re sending him to is also super appealing for his character. Katsuki occupies a trope space that almost feels out of place for the era he lives in. His focus on victory and defeat come across as hypercompetitiveness, and the survivalist aspect of this philosophy gets particularly muted by the setting of a superhero-saturated society. OFA #2′s era truly highlights why Katsuki’s philosophy is extremely valuable for heroism. It shows us the difference between a hero and a martyr. If you want to stop a supervillain, you’d probably prefer the hero over the martyr to be on your team. For that reason, everyone’s probably a little excited to see Katsuki operate in the current canon environment. It’s the same logic that makes your headcanon appealing. Katsuki’s virtue would shine much brighter in a more dire setting, and he’d naturally fit into the role of a rebellion leader.

The last piece of this is the finale. In your setup, Katsuki gets both a reward and punishment, facilitating his complete atonement. He’s lost to the world he comes from, and he loses Izuku, but he gains a friend (or more ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)) in Yoichi, and he knows he’ll have something of a reunion with Izuku someday (or rather, Izuku will get to have that reunion even if the real Katsuki won’t have it for himself, not really). It’s a bittersweet ending for a true hero who made sacrifices along the way all for the greater good. (And also you’ve set up AFO as Katsuki’s archnemesis which I find really interesting because I haven’t been able to get into this yet but omg who is Izuku’s archnemesis in the canon? Is it Tomura? Is it AFO? Is it neither?? And who is Katsuki’s????????? SO MANY THEORIES!!!)

Conclusion Anyways, this goes to show how you could take a concept many people don’t find appealing and rework it into something they do, particularly if you want to explore certain dynamics that the canon itself probably won’t get the opportunity to.

So there. Go forth and develop your ideas and write fanfiction/meta, my friends!

[hikariposts]

Mha 305: ends on that panel

Me: guess I won't breathe until next week uh