I'm Going To Cry SO Much If You Don't Tell Me Right Now That This Is Just A Headcanon

I'm going to cry SO much if you don't tell me right now that this is just a headcanon

These two babies, they are way to pure for the shit that happens to them 😭😭

So we're all aware of the running joke that Izuku does not remember the iconic river scene,

This one right here. The one that Katsuki is constantly referring back to as "the moment where it all went wrong" and being all dramatic about. His core memory of Izuku being a hero.

But I raise you this... Katsuki does not remember this scene,

This is the scene where a young Katsuki has just finished winning a fight against some older kids that were being bullies.

The scene that is Izuku flashes back to when thinking about Katsuki's heroic nature.

Because Katsuki does not remember a time when he stood up to Bullies instead of being one.

Tags

mha bye I'm going to ugly sob the rest of the night young izuku Young Katsuki Smol cuties being angsty

Does Izuku Think His Feelings For Katsuki Are Gross? (or, DvK2's Endless Emporium of Nuance)

This is a pretty common sentiment I see repeated, and we all know the source of it: Deku vs. Kacchan 2.

Original Japanese and official English translation.

Crunchyroll subtitles

In one translation, Izuku expresses discomfort over this topic; in the other, he outright declares it to be gross.

That is quite the difference. I gotta say, Crunchyroll’s direct “This is gross” kind of shocks me, because it functionally ignores the key adverb “sasuga ni” and translates the line the same as you would if he hadn’t said it at all. The official manga translator, on the other hand, clearly made a decision about what Izuku meant by that phrase and then dispersed that meaning across the line as a whole.

So I understand why people have this straight-forward interpretation.

I’m here to offer some linguistic nuance, because my main problem with “Izuku thinks his feelings are gross” is not that it is completely wrong. It’s that it isn’t the whole story.

There are two really important phrases to take into account: kimi ni wa ienai and sasuga ni.

To illustrate their meaning, let’s split the line into two sections:

Note: Grammatically, kara belongs in the first section. I’m lumping it into the second section for the sake of isolating the core ideas expressed in the first section and maintaining clarity in the second.

Now we’re going to break the sections down into their constituent parts. This looks like a verbatim nightmare of a translation, because it is, but trust me, it’s a useful exercise.

Kara links the two sections by showing that the first section directly causes the second. Something worth noting is that Izuku does not use past tense here—he uses present tense and indicates a continuous, unchanged state. He has not been able to before and still cannot tell this to Katsuki. I would argue this also suggests he thinks the circumstances will not change for the foreseeable future.

Important Phrase #1: kimi ni wa ienai

Ienai is the negative potential form of “to say,” which means it is not possible for him to say it. Iwanai, on the other hand, is the negative present tense, and if he had used iwanai instead, that might suggest that he has some choice in the matter. Examples in English might be, “That’s why I don’t tell you this,” “That’s why I’m not telling you this,” and “That’s why I haven’t told you this,” which all express intentional withholding despite opportunity. To use a form that specifically denies the possibility serves to center limitation, regardless of desire.

The combination of the two particles ni and wa are used to emphasize, compare, and contrast. This is extremely telling just on its own. Izuku is emphasizing the fact that, compared to everyone he could possibly tell, he cannot tell Katsuki this. He might be able to tell other people, but when it comes to Katsuki, he cannot. Ienai does not specify where the limitation stems from, but ni wa sure implies it.

Now let’s dig into the phrase that does the most heavy-lifting in the first section.

Important Phrase #2: sasuga ni

Sasuga ni is the adverb Izuku attaches to the adjective kimochi warui (gross or creepy). It is typically translated “as expected” because this kind of adverb sounds awkward in English. “This is expectedly gross” is not a sentence people say much. You might also see it translated “as I thought,” “naturally,” “obviously,” or “indeed.”

And there is something interesting here: Izuku uses a second word that means “as expected” on this page.

Yappari, which can also be translated as “in the end,” “sure enough,” or “after all is said and done.”

I researched the nuances of these two phrases, synthesizing definitions and examples from four different Japanese dictionaries/encyclopedias and two forum boards for language tutoring from native speakers. My conclusions as related to their usage here:

Yappari indicates:

an outcome that was expected (example: “I tried, but sure enough, I failed.”)

something that remains unchanged [in the state it was previously or in other circumstances]

a situation where, no matter how you think about it, you end up with the same result (example: “I was really torn over it, but in the end I gave up on going.”)

Sasuga ni indicates:

[you, the speaker] must acknowledge that this is the natural result of the situation up to this point (example: “they grew up in a big family, so naturally they are good with kids.”)

something exceeds the permissible range, or that it may be permissible under certain conditions, but not others (example: “no matter how nice a guy he is, if he was accused of something unfairly, he’s bound to get angry.”)

You can see the meanings overlap, but the sentiments are a bit different. I saw someone learning Japanese say that every time they used one of these phrases, native speakers told them they should have used the other one instead. Another learner responded that, from their observations, the distinction appeared to be that yappari is used when the speaker had personally thought about and expected this outcome, while sasuga ni suggests that everyone would agree with this statement.

I’m not sure this is true across the board; usage always varies, even among native speakers, so generalizations are only useful up to a point, but I have to admit, a bunch of little things I noticed in my research do support this line of thinking.

If yappari tends to be more reflective of the speaker’s personal thoughts and expectations, sasuga ni’s “acknowledgment of a natural result” could indeed imply external validation. This is true of the equivalent English words, at least: naturally and obviously both suggest that any reasonable person would accept it as fact.

In fact, permissible as an idea kind of hinges on social norms—what is reasonable for someone to put up with? What behaviors sit within the realms of welcome, allowable, or excusable based on your relationship?

In my opinion, Izuku feels like he cannot say this to Katsuki because it exceeds the bounds of what is permissible between them. If sasuga ni implies Izuku feels sure that anyone would agree with his assessment, Katsuki is absolutely included in that.

Izuku is not saying, “I alone think this is gross, so I can’t tell you.”

He is saying, “Considering everything that has happened between us up till now, you would obviously see this as gross, so I can’t tell you.” Its grossness is a natural result of the situation—their history, the way their relationship fell apart, the way Katsuki lashes out, how he can barely stand Izuku’s presence, let alone his emotional honesty.

Chapter 10, during Deku vs. Kacchan 1

But remember that this sentence is a fragment: the subject of Izuku’s sentence is revealed in the second half, and it is the fact that he runs his mouth when he wants to win more than he wants to save.

This is what is gross. Izuku acknowledges that the behavior itself is unpleasant, and that any reasonable person would agree with that. His whole identity as a hero is based on saving people, so he feels some real discomfort when he has to recognize that sometimes he just wants to win. In fact, he can want victory so much that it supersedes his desire to help people.

Izuku has intentionally emulated Katsuki’s practical tactics, but this is about instinctive response. He wasn’t standing there facing Muscular, thinking the winning move was definitely to scream, “shut up.” He was furious, so he wanted to win and make that guy shut up.

When the scale tips, he acts out. He talks shit. He screams at people and insults them, because that’s what Katsuki does. These are all unacceptable behaviors, socially-speaking. Katsuki constantly and intentionally acts the exact opposite of how he should to qualify as a Good Japanese Boy. Izuku, on the other hand, plays the part faithfully, at least until it demands he betray his core values.

Deku vs. Kacchan 2 showcases how neither Izuku nor Katsuki had fully accepted the heroism of their counterpart. Katsuki is uncomfortable with Izuku’s innate capacity to help others, to see their need and meet it without question. Izuku is uncomfortable with craving victory, with that indomitable drive to seek glory. They each admired All Might for the value they themselves embody, and they admired each other for the value they lacked, but that doesn’t mean their admiration was uncomplicated.

Katsuki is a loud-mouthed, aggressive jerk, but Izuku ends up acting just like him. He clearly feels conflicted about it. He’s annoyed and hurt that Katsuki pushed him away by being such a jerk in the first place. And, from his perspective, he fails every time he tries to wrangle their relationship into something less miserable. He might even be embarrassed over the simple fact that he has held on to these deep-seated emotions for years over someone who wants nothing to do with him. He wishes things were different. He doesn’t know how they could be, anymore. He wants to connect, but he can’t.

Izuku frames his inability to express this specific thought as natural and reasonable. Obviously, there’s no way I could do this. And honestly, he is probably right. After all, this is a very intimate, revealing thing to tell someone who seems to hate your guts and has for years.

At any other point in the story, Katsuki probably would have curled his lip in disgust and barked out Izuku’s exact words, “Gross.”

But in DvK2, Katsuki bears his heart to Izuku without restraint.

Katsuki confesses something painful and private to Izuku twice, at two separate moments.

Izuku has two confessions, too. Here's the first:

But the second he admits only to himself and the audience.

Maybe if Izuku had said his “image of victory” monologue out loud, Katsuki could have had his own moment of understanding:

Izuku’s reaction after Katsuki’s second confession.

Maybe Katsuki wasn’t ready to hear it, or maybe Izuku was too chicken to believe he was ready. Either way, he needed to voice both confessions, and he didn’t.

So the narrative punishes Izuku for failing to push past his own limitations.

In the battle of revealing their honne—their true feelings, their truest selves—Katsuki risked it all.

Izuku couldn’t do the same, and that’s why he loses.

Don’t forget that underestimating your opponent is one of the easiest ways to lose a fight in MHA.

But I want to reiterate, Izuku feels conflicted about this behavior and his own feelings, not ashamed.

Emotional conflict is borne from two or more simultaneous, contradictory feelings. Izuku admits that any reasonable person would see the way he unconsciously imitates even Katsuki’s bad habits as gross, but he also clearly tells us something else.

Izuku is directly expressing his own thoughts about it, and the most important phrase is nanoni, which according to online encyclopedia Kotobank, “indicates that the following is contradictory to the preceding matter” and specifically, “includes critical feelings about the contradiction between” those two things. The latter point is unique because other words often used for “but” (such as kedo, which he used earlier in the form of dakedo) do not necessarily do this.

In the final line, one little detail here is the orange highlighted nda. This is used to explain and correlate topics of discussion. The most obvious point of explanation is why he acts this way. But the use of nanoni to connect this thought to the previous one tells us that this line is also explaining why Izuku doesn’t hate it.

Katsuki is his image of victory, and that alone is the reason he does not find this part of himself unacceptable. Just like with sasuga ni, Izuku is telling us that he understands the way other people would see this situation, and he knows what he “should” feel, but then he tells us that he does not feel that way.

I know it is very easy to see “This is gross, so I can’t tell you” at the start of this monologue, skip right to “image of victory,” and walk away thinking that Izuku is ashamed of that specifically, but the details show that the opposite is true.

And let’s not forget the nuance of yappari, which implies that Izuku has personally thought about this fact over and over, but it has always been this way.

I have seen people say that Katsuki is the one letting Izuku set the pace of their new relationship and that Izuku holds back, with this presumed shame as the cause. But I don’t think that acknowledges Izuku’s perspective on their dynamic, nor the casual mutualism they build together.

Katsuki initiated DvK2: a unique, closed “event” wherein, for the first time, they each expressed their vulnerabilities as much as they were able. But immediately outside the confines of DvK2, Izuku is the one who reaches out, as a gesture of reciprocation towards Katsuki for having initiated this change.

He is asking Katsuki's opinion, but what this gestures means is, “I don’t want us being honest with each other to end there. I still want you in my life.”

And maybe for the first time in years, Katsuki actually understands what Izuku means, and reaches back.

Look at these fucking nerds.

Notice that Izuku responds to Katsuki twice. At the first response, Katsuki has offered his observations and given him valid criticism on his technique, which is a show of goodwill. But then, Katsuki continues even when the admission reflects a personal weakness, with Izuku's punch having caught him off guard. This is actual honesty, and it means that they didn't just resolve their aggression and reset to neutral peers, but that Katsuki wants to be close, too. And just like during their fight, understanding comes the second time around.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: from Izuku’s point of view, Katsuki’s shitty behavior was the only thing that stood between them, because Izuku’s core feelings for him never changed.

Izuku lets Katsuki decide what is permissible between them, because Katsuki is the one who pushed him away in the first place. He opens the door just enough to say, “Whatever you want to give of yourself, I will accept.”

After that, Katsuki is the one making the big gestures by taking time out of his own life to discuss OFA with Izuku and All Might and help Izuku by training with him, even inserting himself into situations when he isn't asked. At every point, we see Izuku receive Katsuki with warmth and then follow up with smaller gestures of his own.

Chapters 202, 209, 249, and 327.

The reason we see so much of Katsuki’s side of their relationship, especially after DvK2, is because his feelings are the ones that change the most: from dysfunctional to self-aware and accepting. He has struggled for years over Izuku’s place in his life. He didn’t understand Izuku or his own feelings, and he was wrapped up in denial. He tells himself again and again that Izuku is “beneath him,” when we know the truth is he always thought Izuku was better than him.

Comparatively, Izuku resolves his conflicted feelings about his admiration for Katsuki much quicker, because the source of his conflict was primarily external while Katsuki's was primarily internal.

Chapter 257

A little detail I love about the "I'm too blessed" moment is that Izuku thinks of his conversations with Katsuki as "normal(?)" with a literal question mark attached. Is this normal? He doesn't really know. But it's enough. Kacchan is Kacchan, explosive and outrageous and way too much, all the time. Maybe they'll never be what other people think of as "normal," but Izuku is happy just to have Kacchan as he is, and be there however Kacchan will have him.

Katsuki's ideal has always been Izuku; he tried to outrun that fact and failed every time. Meanwhile, Izuku’s image of victory has always been Kacchan, and he has just been waiting for Kacchan to want to hear that from him.

Everyone has been wondering if Izuku will ever tell him. Me, personally, I'm hoping their story will end with a mutual declaration of their shared truth.

"You have always been my hero."

Tags

bkdk bakugou katsuki izuku midoriya mah manga Can you tell I had to search up some shitpost of Deku for thay photo 'cause I had nothign else on my phone? sjdiajdjsjxbsjxjsj Any way I'm so gonna be overthinking about these two nerds again Nerds with emotional problems

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tess-sweirdstuff

2 years ago

Spoilers cap 4 Murder Drones

MURDER DRONE EPISODE 4, THEORIES AND EXPLANATIONS.

————————————————————————————

Yeva is not Dolls “real name”, Yeva is her mom.

MURDER DRONE EPISODE 4, THEORIES AND EXPLANATIONS.

Doll has had her absolute solver powers for way longer than Uzi. In fact I think she’s had them from the beginning. We know for a fact that the Murder Drones had never made it inside the colony before the pilot so I am sure Doll’s parents were killed in episode 1.

It’s easy to see V is inside the building in this scene look at the ceiling. Not to mention the fact Doll was hiding behind a door/wall. Whether or not Doll’s powers were activated before episode 1 is what I’m unsure of, Doll most likely had a much closer relationship to her parents than other drones. Because we’ve seen how nonchalant their attitudes are to the death of their peers or she wouldn’t have bothered to come after V.

The possibility of Doll being close with her parents leads me to believe her folks had discussed the Absolute Solver with her before and maybe even something about the Zombie Drones.(More on the Zombie Drones later)

I definitely think that another drone could’ve given Nori and Yeva their collars if they didn’t have them before. Numbers aren’t thrown onto things willy-nilly they’re put there for a reason. Usually to keep things orderly.

“048” and “002”. So far the highest number on these collars is 48. 48. That is a HUGE number. That means between Nori and Yeva there is a chance that there are 47 MORE drones with powers like them. And it goes up to triple digits so the number might even go up to the hundreds.

I’m not saying that if there are more Absolute Solver drones that they’re alive but they did exist.

So.. wait.. Who’s number 1? Nori is “002” so someone came before her, someone that we don’t know yet was the first experiment. The first Absolute Solver drone… The first Zombie Drone even.

Maybe we’ve been classifying what Uzi is all wrong. Yes, Uzi and Doll have the Absolute Solver and after they acquired those powers they needed to start feasting on other drones to survive. Like murder drones. But now I don’t think they’re turning into Murder Drones. Something similar yes but… not exactly.

Because this fleshy, boney and terrifying thing is NOT a murder drone. From what we know JCJenson just physically altered J, V and N to make them into Murder drones. Uzi is changing, growing into this thing. And it looks natural. Well using that word loosely, maybe biological would be a better term? Because it definitely doesn’t look like metal or anything robot-like.

(Exposure and Brightness is turned up in the first image)

Ribcage, flesh and flesh. Ok. So maybe JCJenson didn’t just physically alter them. That thing that crawled out of J definitely has muscle on it.

I don’t know if her ribcage is metal or not either. I tried taking another scene where the Murder Drones get badly hurt but these just look like metal parts more then bones. Because I don’t have enough information about this I’ll be dropping it and going back to the idea that the Murder Drones are just physically altered workers.

I don’t think J, V and N lost a member of their squad while they were Murder Drones. I don’t think that drone ever became a Murder Drone. I think the drone we saw in episode 2 joining the three in the flashback was the first Zombie Drone.

These are undoubtedly the same character. Also in the first picture that’s N looking them.

Oh and what’s that in their mouth?

Oh…

OH.

That is NOT the hand of a drone. That is a HUMAN HAND AND A HUMAN ARM.

The image is blurry but there is a hat or two on the floor behind them. Probably from their unfortunate victim.

Also this drone has the Absolute Solver too, you can see this clearly if you pause on this shot.

If the J, V and N’s lost friend IS the first Zombie Drone I think that means that Uzi (and Doll) are turning into Zombie Drones too. Maybe the reason that Doll had to eat such a ridiculous amount of workers to stay alive was because it wasn’t the substance she needed and what she needed she couldn’t get. (Humans/biological life to feed off of) I think that Uzi will start eating what Doll left over and will come to realize it’s not substantial over time.

Now… What the hell did JCJenson do wrong? How did they fuck up this bad and manage to make a drone with the desire to feast on HUMAN FLESH.. *cough cough* once again I don’t have any idea or answer for this so I’m moving on.

Now… what is this place? What ties does it have to the Absolute Solver the Zombie drones and what ties do Nori, Doll and Khan have to it?

Everyone in the group of Originals technically had ties to it. But I think Nori and Yeva were involved the most.

——————————————

I can’t add any more images to this is so I’ll keep it as part 1.

To the non-English Murder Drone fans using translators here’s an image translator for my images with text in them!

I’ll Link part two here when I’m done with it. Please leave your thoughts in the reblogs or comments too!

Tags

long post doll Theories of chapter 4 MD Zombie-drone Uzi nori murder drones Yeva murder drones I freaking love this theory it's so freaking good Prob going to post some my self Some day ":]

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tess-sweirdstuff

1 year ago

Cutie <3

(I love him so much it phisically hurts)