#ofa1x2

[pikahlua]

Funny question, but do you ship any of the one for all users with each other? I really like Yoichi/2nd user and I know it’s slight popularish in a certain crowd of people. I love the idea of the 2nd rescuing Yoichi and thinking he’s a bad guy to rescuing him and then falling in love

Yes, I've made memes to this effect, and I am literally dying for more OFA flashbacks.

[pikahlua]

[pikahlua]

Yoichi Shigaraki‘s master plan to get OFA #2 to accept Izuku was basically to say, “We used to hold hands, you big gay tsundere,” and now I need angry paternal OFA #2 refusing to accept Katsuki as the one who gets to hold Izuku’s hand and petty-as-fuck Katsuki being like “CURSED! YOU’RE CURSED! CURSED QUIRK!” as he grabs a massively confused Izuku’s hand all the damn time just so OFA #2 gets cosmically annoyed in the vestige world.

[pikahlua]

I will pay money to get people interested in 2nd OFA user being a platonic slow burn protective mentor to Izuku. I want tsundere OFA #2 almost as much as I want more 1x2 crackshipping fodder backstory.

Like for whatever reason OFA #2 refusing to let himself care too much about Izuku just like Katsuki

Not realizing he already subconsciously cares a lot just like Katsuki

Living in denial even as other people (vestiges) have picked up on how he does care just like Katsuki

Not noticing his own little protective/paternal/fraternal behaviors:

Pulling Izuku out of the way and exuding an intimidating aura whenever Banjou tries to rough house

Covering Izuku’s ears whenever Yoichi someone says something inappropriate about their past love lives

Getting competitive with All Might because he’s subconsciously jealous for Izuku’s hero worship

Backseat driving and telling Izuku how to use every single one of his quirks because he knows the best way to use them don’t listen to the others just listen to me kid and you’ll be the strongest hero ever

Stoically congratulating Izuku on his victories while on the inside he’s smirking and all super proud of their little broccoli boy kicking major ass, all thanks to his amazing mentorship

Ruffling Izuku’s hair when Izuku grins back, which melts his war-hardened heart just a tiny bit

And being amazingly petty whenever Katsuki’s around because he’s so uncomfortable with how similar they are:

Whispering passive aggressive (and fully aggressive) assholery about Katsuki in Izuku’s ear (which Izuku immediately ignores/cheerfully dismisses)

Doing whatever he can to let Katsuki in the real world know he’s watching and not to let his guard down or he’ll kick the little gremlin’s ass

Pouting when Izuku knocks him down a peg for being a jerk to Kacchan when they’re so similar and should understand each other better (with Yoichi and OFA #3 laughing in the background)

But most of all...

Protectively hugging a still-not-quite-materialized Izuku and bodily shielding him (and Yoichi) from AFO/Shigaraki’s next attempt to invade the vestige world, especially because All Might’s vestige hasn’t taken on a form that can help at all

Taking the big hit for Izuku as AFO attacks just like Katsuki

Izuku returning the favor and defending the fallen OFA #2, fighting to protect all his vestige mentors with the powers they gave him

I need Ni(2)-san-niisan content like AAAAAAAAAAAA-

[pikahlua]

Since we’re all shipping OFA 1x2 so flagrantly now, I need to ask the big question:

How did OFA get transferred the first time?

If Yoichi didn’t know he had the ability to pass on quirks, he probably passed it on to OFA #2 by accident. But those are some very specific activation requirements.

At some point Yoichi probably thought “I’m such a weakling, this quirk is wasted on me. If only I could get rid of this quirk/give you this quirk, you’d be able to do something amazing with it.”

...and then somehow put his DNA in OFA #2 while thinking this, but not knowing what would happen???

...

KISS?

[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!