I've seen so many different iterations of Shinsou's quirk in fanfiction. Some are nightmarish (watching your body move against your will), some are cathartic (immediately silences a busy mind and stomps panic attacks instantly), and others claim you're totally unconscious under its effects and thus don't remember a thing. What's your take on Brainwash, specifically for Trial by Fire? (Is it reasonable to look forward to Shinsou using Brainwash to help Kacchan ride out an anxiety attack?)
Honestly, it’s a difficult question, because it’s not like we really know all that much about Brainwashing. We know how it works in general (people being affected after responding verbally and doing what Shinsou tells them to as long as it doesn’t require actively thinking/accessing knowledge or memories they have to do it), but not much about how a person affected feels. There’s only two accounts we really get of how it may work.
The first is, of course, Izuku.
He’s under Shinsou’s Brainwashing here, but he’s very obviously thinking clearly. He’s aware of what’s going on and is trying and failing to control his body, although he notes that ‘his head is fuzzy’. However, considering the involvment of OfA’s vestiges shortly thereafter, this seems to be an exception to the rule. Every other person affected didn’t remember what happened during the time they were brainwashed. Izuku does.
The other account we have for certain is Ojirou.
He says after he ‘snapped out of it’, he was ‘suddenly aware of what was happening’. This implies that unlike Izuku, he hasn’t been aware before. He was basically knocked out and his body was a puppet. And that’s how it seems to work in all cases except for Izuku’s, who had the nightmarish version of being aware, but not in control of his body.
Since that is how I interpret the Quirk to work with the current, available information (I don’t seem to recall anything more specific on the subject being given in the joint training arc), this is how I will be portraying this Quirk in any fics I write in which Shinsou might be present. For ‘Trial by Fire’ specifically, I suppose it could be used on Katsuki to forcibly calm him down, since it would immitate him ‘passing out from panic’ without the actual passing out. Question is, how will Shinsou use it on a boy who can’t verbally respond to him? Because thus far?
Yeah, seems like it really has to be a verbal response. Can’t get around that XD
