Twice you meet him. First in a burning building, then in your little florist shop, one drowsy, winter evening.
(Or: a story in which Bakugou is absolutely terrible at feelings but finds himself trying, anyway.)
read on ao3 (18+ minors dni)
part two preview:
Bakugou comes in and his gaze darts around, here, and there, and there — and he’s scrutinizing, searching. He has to be. But you assume he doesn’t find anything, because the insult he settles on today is a low, grumbled, “Smells like shit in here.”
“I’m sorry?” you say, and you slip around your workbench toward him, incredulous, as though he hasn’t said something similar every other time he’s come here.
“Too fuckin’ flowery,” he grits back, watching as you tighten the strings on your apron. He looks so large and clunky in your small space. Amidst all your overgrown foliage, he is a dramatic stain of black and orange and military green, of ash blond and perfect pale skin. He belongs here and he doesn’t. Too big and too bold, not the best at being delicate.
“And in your opinion, what are flowers supposed to smell like?” You eye him warily, but his brow only deepens.
“‘M not sayin’ they gotta smell like anythin’. ‘M sayin’ they smell like shit.” And to insult you more than he already has, he flicks one of your poor flowers. The situation feels familiar all at once. You helplessly watch as the petal flutters through the air, then drops. Bakugou has another habit as well: he likes to flick things. Your things.
“Look like shit, too,” he doesn’t hesitate to add.
it's so sweet that you remembered that! but yes, I totally meant once you finish it. any time a fic I am looking forward to updates, no matter how far away it is from actually being done, it makes me very happy and renews my excitement. :3
it just makes me happy to see my fave authors enjoying themselves writing the content I am looking forward to. ♥
nghhhhh the emotional edgingggggg. i am so here for it. that moodboard is gorgeous.
also, is it ok to ask for the name of the artist that draws him with brown eyebrows? i am intrigueddddddddddd. everything is so pretty. ♥
tiph.......... tiph........................ i wish i could like, give you a gift or something right now. or a hug, i don't know. maybe an orange to peel for the both of us??? a peach? 🍑? your excitement is appreciated more than you know, thank you 🤲🍊
i'm glad you liked my mood board!! i whipped it up quick but i like it a lot too LMAO so i,,,,,, i may use it for a future chapter's mood board. we'll see.
the artist is @/rivanoia! their art is stunning, and i think they have a twitter, too. here's the bakugou fanart that always comes to mind when i think of him with brunet brows!!
I just wanted you to know I finished reading the first chapter of everything I wanted and I really liked it!! I love your protagonist, and I love how you characterize everyone! I would love to live in that little world 💜 excited for the next chapter!
anon hello!! and thank you!! i'm writing it because i want to live in that little world, too 🥺. being surrounded by flowers all day, having bakugou stomp through my shop doors unannounced, all moody and glaring — it is all very appealing to me 😌, and i'm glad i could bring you into that world, too.
the next chapter is very close to being finished! within the next week i wanna say. but probably within the next few days if i don't drag my feet on it so,,,, fingers crossed!!
i have no words to tell you how hard you just made my evening, willow. my heart is literally singing in anticipation. ♥ thanks for sharing the snippet, it's dskjfdsjfk. such a delightful cute interaction between them, I am so excited to get to read their story.
aaaaa, gruff, reluctantly soft bakugou. my heart.
tiph!! hello 🥺!! i remember you saying to me a while ago that you liked to read through things all in one go, start to finish — but this chapter will officially make everything i am break the 30k point, and there's really no ending in sight LMAO so,,,,, it's going to be a while before you're gonna get to read it — if you're still waiting for me to finish it, that is 🥺. but reader and bakugou are getting there......they're getting there (i swear), just…….in their own ways. they're still emotionally edging themselves, though. so there's that.
if you are holding off on reading it, tiph, i’ll leave you with this. some feelings/visuals of what you have a ahead of you, when you do begin to read 🌷✨💕
a crumb from everything i am ch 2 since i just finished it (i think). i still have to read through the whole thing, but it’s a lil big,,,, sitting at abt 18.2k rn LMAO, so hopefully that makes up for the long wait 🌷💕
Bakugou pointedly looks away from you. “‘M not into that shit,” he gruffs from under his high collar.
“Then how —?”
“Got it from another dumbass,” he says, and he tches before he mumbles, more to himself than to you, “Knew that shitty nerd would have it.”
You trace the lightning bolt over and again, through the man’s heart, then out of it. “Oh — well, thank you.” And you open up the book, begin to leaf through it. “Yeah, thanks — oh.”
Bakugou makes a gruff questioning sound, peering over when you don’t respond quick enough. When he sees it, he jerks back, grits out between his teeth, “Jesus fuckin’ christ —”
There are annotations everywhere. Inked in scratchy, rushed handwriting that you can’t really read. They’re squished into every margin, below and above the block of words, sometimes squiggled directly over the words —
“Whoever had this, they took a lot of… notes,” you say, tentatively, and as you flip through some more pages, you give a breathless and half-impressed, “Wow.”
“You owe me,” comes Bakugou’s rough voice.
You pop your head up. “What?” Why?
His shoulders are so tense that you have the urge to shake him a little, loosen up his screws. “That fuckin’ book,” he nearly growls, pointing at it. “Nearly went deaf from that dumbass yappin’ my ear off about it.”
That dumbass. You still cannot believe he addresses people he knows in that way. You wonder if this dumbass is his friend. They have to be, for them to lend Bakugou this book to give to you, for Bakugou to seek them out.
I didn’t ask you to do that, you want to defend, but you don’t. The look in his eye that tells you that won’t go down very well.
“Okay,” you say, and you shrug, because whatever. A part of you gleams at any opportunity to be helpful, that’s just what being Quirkless does. If your childhood had given you anything, it was that. “What do you want?”
[id: 1. a photo taken at night on calm water. the sky and sea are dark teal. there is a brightly lit cruise ship near the horizon. 2. a photo taken at dusk on a shoreline. the sky and sea are light blue-violet. there is a dark, craggy coastline and several lampposts. 3. a photo taken at midday. the sky and sea are very pale blue. a person is paddleboarding on the calm water. /end id]
yes please write essay about what fandom gets wrong about bakugo
remember that you asked for this okay.
i think the number one reason that bakugou gets deeply misinterpreted as a character is that a big portion of his character is written in subtext and action rather than told to us outright, the audience.
bakugous words do not always accurately represent his feelings or his state of mind. most of his true emotions come out in his actions, in his decision making.
bakugou also suffers from being a rival to midoriya, but not the main character. while bakugou is both integral to the story but also integral to izuku's character development, we are not experiencing the story from his perspective. so this means that, generally speaking - we as the audience cannot understand anything about bakugou minus the small snippets horikoshi tells us and his actions.
this herein lies the problem. i love bakugou, but canonly - he is insufferable at best. in the beginning esp. he's grown tremendously even in the last few seasons and we see evidence of that especially in the manga. but bakugou speaks and behaves rather harshly, not only to his peers but even to people he respects in high regards.
i think there's probably a plethora of reasons bakugou struggles to show his admiration for others, but i think his mom described it best. where katsuki's complex stem from.
there is an innate link in bakugous mind to his self-worth and his capability and it's probably one of the main axis of his character. bakugou is bakguous worst critic because he frames his ability to be the best to his value in a way that no other character in the series does. unrelated but i also think this why kirishima and bakugou seem to understand each other so well.
like mitsuki said to mr. aizawa when they visited their house, bakugou only used to get praised over shallow stuff. bakugou was praised because of his quirk, but only because of his quirk. not because of his efforts, or really any of his other traits. but he has a cool, powerful quirk.
while izuku is so obviously a representation of quirk discrimination in the bnha society, bakugou is representative of the other side of that. they both are meant to portray the inherent issue with valuing people for their quirk. for their innate abilities or lack their of. we see this theme consistently in bnha - with the league of villains, with hawks. it's one of the most prominent themes in the series
but people don't often apply it to bakugou, because bakugou has an innately powerful quirk. it's absolutely true that people are kinder to him because of it.
but it's also true that because of his quirk - he's been forced to maintain being the best and that his hard work in using his quirk has gone overlooked.
when aizawa recognizes this fact in bakugou, mitsuki is relieved. because bakugou is also working hard to be the greatest hero. when izuku says "kacchan is amazing." he is acknowledging that bakugou is not a guy who is naturally good at something.
but he puts in so much time, effort, and energy into being a hero because he has too. he puts in so much effort, always.
in that, and because bakugou's self-perception is based solely on his ability to perform as a hero - he struggles immensely to show humility and admiration. not because bakugou genuinely sees people as lesser than him, or because he has malice for his classmates
but because bakugou is terrified about acknowledging others and how that will reflect on him. when he comes to U.A. - he's essentially forced to reconstruct his entire self-worth from the ground up. forced to acknowledge others and confront himself in that.
bakugou has a lot of pride because he wasn't ever shown anything else about himself that is worthy. that's why it's so hard for him to open up, because he isn't sure how else to live.
aold habits die hard, so sometimes bakugous words can still come of as destructive, self-absorbed, and often downright sinister. on the outside, from the way he talks and interacts - it can seem like bakugou has it out for people but this couldn't be farther from the truth.
he doesn't know how to be, yet. now that he understands the importance of acknowledging others - he's trying very hard to reform himself and grow. almost everyone in 1A has not only understood bakugou through spending time with him, but has come to accept him for who he is but now that bakugou is healing, he is also trying desperately to make up for his past.
the fandom often potrays bakugou as this cold and angry character, when really - bakugou has suffered from an inferiority complex his entire life that he had based his whole existence around.
the thing that you can get most wrong about bakugou is to do what many others have failed to do - which is to not acknowledge that bakugou is learning and growing.
when ppl refuse to forgive him for that, it off-puts me.
he is, like all the other characters in the series, also a victim of quirk society. his position in the system caused him great internal suffering and made him lashout at others. the crux of his being however, is trying and is effort.
he has progressed so quickly because he is trying desperately to be better. so when people make him out to be this mean, callous, cruel bastard my heart aches. he isn't anything like that. he lacks experience in being soft with his actions.
but with his development - you can see it in his actions how much he is willing to acknowledge and help others. how helping izuku with his training is his way of showing kindness. how he encourages kirishima about his own abilities. how during his provisional license exam, he says to that kid that appreciating others abilities is important. if there is one thing bakugou can and will do consistently - it is showing people praise for real qualities they have and trying to be what he feels like he isn't, kind - because he is starting to truly understand what heroism means.
he makes it a point because he understands what it's like to have no one see you. he does it without intention because he is trying.
he is simply someone who is trying effortlessly to be worthy. that's really all there is to it
People nowadays are so obsessed with redemption arcs like. Give me a good corruption arc. Watch me go wild over my favourite characters going mad and committing atrocious acts against the very nature of humanity
a note before you read: minors, please do not interact with works marked as explicit. i cant keep you from wandering, but please respect that this rule is for my peace of mind.
i use #tweet tag for littler drabbles/thoughts.
⟢ ✿ ⟣ chaptered fics
• everything i am
Bakugou x reader | ongoing, 30k+ | explicit
Summary: Twice you meet him. First in a burning building, then in your little florist shop, one drowsy, winter evening.
(florist!reader x Pro Hero!Bakugou: in which Bakugou is absolutely terrible at feelings but finds himself trying, anyway.)
⟢ ✿ ⟣ one-shots
• Loverboy
Bakugou x reader | completed, 12k+ | explicit
Summary: When another man asks you out on a date, you’re ecstatic, giddy, and all too eager to accept. So of course you’ll say yes, right?
Wrong. Katsuki has other plans, apparently. Plans that did not include (both of your) hidden feelings rising to the surface
• Hurts Like Hell
Bakugou x reader | completed, 7k+ | explicit
Summary: Katsuki lets his anger out on you for the first time. It’s nasty and it’s cruel, and you don’t know how to feel. Neither does he.
Jenny Slate // Casey McQuiston, Red, White & Royal Blue // Pleiades, Anne Carson // Taylor Jenkins Reid, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo // @oriley42 and @earth167 (and a half) on Tumblr // Jodi Picoult from The Book Of Two Ways // The Night Vale, Episode 100, The Toast // Adam Melchor, I Choose You // Kierston White, The Chaos of Stars
