On Bakugou and Enji

tw: abuse, bullying, internalized homophobia

A lot of people don’t like Bakugou, and honestly I get it - he definitely is a little shit in canon, and a lot of his behavior is pretty inexcusable, especially his treatment of Midoriya. A lot of people also point out that their dynamic is kind of unhealthy, which - again, yeah. A part of it is Horikoshi’s writing - he tends to use Bakugou as a comic relief character, and in the process, he puts Bakugou in a lot of situations where he’s, like, blowing something up and Midoriya is scared by it, and that seems kind of gauche given their history. Frankly, I did have to do a little bit of twisting when it came to Bakugou’s canon characterization - I honestly don’t think we’ll ever get a scene where Bakugou apologizes like I think Midoriya deserves, but - hey, I have a keyboard, and if Horikoshi won’t do it then I will, I guess.

I grew up in a conservative Christian household, and there were a couple years between the time that I realized that I liked boys and the time that I came out that I acted like a little piece of shit. I mostly grew out of it by the time I turned fourteen-ish, but I’m sure I hurt a lot of people in the meantime - I never told anyone to kill themselves like Bakugou did, but I was a short tempered and rude asshole, and my internalized homophobia externalized in a lot of really shitty ways. Looking back, I don’t think I’d forgive myself for some of those things that I did either, so - the point is, if you want to hate Bakugou (or me lol) go right ahead, the bitch fucking deserves it lmao. But on some level, I can’t help but root for the little fucker - I see a dumb, piece of shit asshole and I can’t help but think maybe there’s some hope for him, and that maybe someday he’ll wake up and beat some sense into himself and he’ll grow up and start acting like an actual decent human being. I kind of wrote his characterization and some of the story around that wish, which was admittedly a selfish choice, so I’m sorry for that.

The whole thing between Enji and Shouto is a little more complicated for me, especially because I ended up projecting a lot of my personal feelings about my relationship with my own parents (lol). If you’re an Endeavor stan - like, whatever. He’s not my favorite character (obviously) but everyone has their preferences, I’m not here to judge - I mostly dislike him for personal reasons, which is no one’s problem but my own anyway.

I know it was kind of weird of me to characterize Endeavor as relatively sympathetic even though I don’t like him - again, that came from some of my own experiences. I think a lot of LGBT kids have an experience like this, where family members who were initially shitty and rude eventually warm up and change their behaviors. For my parents, at least, it took them both a couple of years - years that weren’t exactly pleasant for me. It didn’t help that their relationship had completely broken down by the time I was born - my mom in particular had a lot of unresolved issues that made it almost impossible for her to competently parent a child. I’m hesitant to call it abuse, but I don’t really have a better word for it, honestly. Dad all but ignored both myself and my identity for eight years straight. Mom was...slightly more accepting about my sexuality - she came around to it faster, anyway - but she also did stuff like trying to set me up with my (female) cousin, accusing me of manipulating her and my dad to get them to separate, trying to use me and my older brother as leverage to keep my dad trapped in a relationship with her, and accusing my dad of cheating on her. She also outed me to our family in China against my will, which alskdfj;asldjfa;lsjkf I’m still really salty about that.

It’s a strange place to be, because I genuinely don’t think my parents are bad people - I think they’re flawed people who were in a difficult and stressful situation, and I just happened to be in the crossfire. They’re separated now, and both of them are better off for it. But do the circumstances really absolve them? I don’t think they meant to hurt me, but if their lack of intentionality didn’t protect me from the consequences of their bad choices, why should it protect them?

For reasons that I won’t go into online, I did end up forgiving my dad. My mom is a more complicated story - I don’t think I’m ready to forgive her just yet, if at all. It’s strange for me - on some level, I can’t help but love her, but even just seeing her now fills me with a sense of dread, and I don’t trust her to respect my boundaries or my autonomy as a person. I have to see her once a week still, and my family all treat me like I’m crazy and stupid for holding onto my anger and distrust towards her - but I just can’t let it go. I hurt for years because of her - I don’t want to just forget about it because she’s in a better situation now. I’m happy she’s healing and I wish her nothing but the best, but - the way am I right now, I never want to see her ever again.

As for Endeavor’s arc in the actual manga, I do vaguely like it for the most part, and I’m...mostly ok with how Horikoshi is handling the abuse stuff - actually, he kind of does do this arc himself with Natsuo refusing to forgive Enji. I made Shouto not forgive Enji in this fic, but truth be told, if Horikoshi writes that Shouto forgives him in canon - I guess I wouldn’t hate it, as long as he wrote it well. Still, there are a few things about it that rub me the wrong way - in particular, something about Midoriya’s line, where he says that Todoroki must be preparing to forgive Endeavor - I didn’t like that line for some reason. There’s a lot of pressure on me to forgive my mom, especially from other members of my family. I’m sure Horikoshi meant for the line to be a message of support from Midoriya, but I can’t help but read it as less “supportive” and more “pressuring” - or at least presumption. Maybe I’m projecting, though.

I’m not really one for “forgiveness culture” or whatever it’s called, where we have to forgive people who hurt us out of some desperate need for catharsis and healing - I’m sure it’s helpful for some people, but it isn’t for me. I’ve spent years pushing down my own feelings and anger because I was so scared and tired of everyone in my family fighting that I was too terrified to ever risk starting one myself - a lot of the dogma around forgiveness culture reminds me of those days. They have a point, at least, that letting anger and hatred and hurt consume me is probably not healthy. But I fundamentally disagree with their assertion that forgiveness is a requirement for healing - I think forgiveness should come at the discretion of the victim, and I think the pressure to forgive often manifests itself in ways that are harmful to the victim, like their pain and agency is being minimized. I guess that’s what I was trying to go for in the relationships between Midoriya and Bakugou and between Shouto and his dad - I wanted it to be really clear that both Midoriya and Shouto got to decide whether or not to forgive, that they were the ones with agency. And again, I know it’s really selfish and scummy of me that the character I project myself onto gets forgiven and the character I project my parents onto doesn’t, but - I don’t know adlj;alsfja;ls.

I know I’m overthinking something that probably doesn’t need to be over thought - I’m probably signing my own death warrant by even alluding to fandom drama preemptively but al;kdsfj;ksj idk. I’m going out on a limb and posting, because I did work hard on this fic and I’d like for others to see it - depending on how I feel later, I might end up orphaning or deleting it entirely though lol. I don’t know how good of a writer I am, and I don’t know that I approached the topics that I wrote about with the grace that they deserve.

Mostly, I’m tired - I want to look at my mom and feel nothing - and I want that to be an ok thing to want, I guess.