Using 'said' Is Not Inherently Bad. It's Only When It's An Overabundance Of It That It Becomes Stale.

Using 'said' is not inherently bad. It's only when it's an overabundance of it that it becomes stale.

If you can't think of another word or can't find a way to express the tone, just use 'said'. Refusing to use it isn't "top-notch writing skillz", it's just a burden.

Ignore all those posts that say 'said' is the worst thing ever. It's literally part of a huge saying, "he said, she said". Screw anyone who tells you otherwise.

DON'T FEEL BAD ABOUT USING SAID. A LOT OF PEOPLE DON'T TAKE NOTICE 90% OF THE TIME.

Now, I hate to say I told you so...

But I knew MHA was a travesty and the ending just proved it.

Normally, I respect writers/mangakas, because it's such a hard thing to do.

But Fuck Horikoshi

I need Bakugou stans to realise that it's not that I hate him as a person. It's that I hate him as a character.

A lot of my favourite characters are unrepentant assholes, or assholes who are set to or have already been redeemed. Vegeta from DBZ, Ouma Kokichi from DGR: V3, Dio from JoJo, Laxus from Fairy Tail, Greed from FMA: B, Bill from Gravity Falls, and the list that goes on.

If a character is a terrible person, that's fine by me. But if the author tries and fails to redeem them, yet still acts as though they are suddenly this amazing person, that's when I have an issue with it.

Bakugou was originally written to be a minor antagonist, and that would have been fine, if Horikoshi didn't suddenly go "I drew him crying so imma fix him".

Redemption is such a complex yet simple thing to do. So when you try to do it and fail spectacularly, um, yeah, I do not enjoy that character or your writing.

That is my main issue with Bakugou. I do not think he deserved any redemption, not because he's a bad person, but because there is nothing to convince me that he could change.

He gets one scene where he goes, "boohoo I lost and everyone is stronger than me" then cries, and that's supposed to be enough for him to become a better person? That is nowhere near enough.

There was no moment that made me believe he genuinely regretted and took accountability for the abuse he put Izuku through in middle school.

"He changed!" That's not my issue. I don't care that he's changed. I care that I don't believe in it. If there was a plausible reason as to why he changed, then I would be fine with it. Maybe I'd even enjoy him!

The fact that he's changed doesn't mean shit if it's not believable.

"That was in middle school!" Okay. This one pisses me off the most. That was a year pre-canon? Oh, wow, I guess that's completely fine! It's not as if characters are the way they are based on their past. Oh, Itachi killed the Uchiha clan before canon! Okay, maybe comparing a massacre to bullying is a bit unfair. Still, just because it happened a year ago, it doesn't mean it never happened. It doesn't mean that he's changed considerably.

"Izuku doesn't have any lasting damage and forgave him!" And? Just because your friend forgives their bully, it doesn't mean you have to forgive them. And, again, I do not believe Bakugou's apology was good in anyway. He was trash-talking Izuku, blaming All Might for Izuku's behaviour, and didn't accept any culpability for what he did to him. He didn't tell anyone else what he did to Izuku. Also, if Izuku really didn't have any lasting damage from the bullying, then why did Bakugou's apology make him calm down? If he didn't care about the bullying, then why is he so relieved by the apology? BECAUSE HE WAS AFFECTED.

"Bakugou was being abused!" ... NO HE WASN'T!! Mitsuki is not abusive. Yes, she hit him round the back of his head. After he threatened her. Anyone with Asian parents can tell you that her hit does not hurt. Not only is it somewhat normal in Asian families, but it also doesn't hurt. We have no evidence that she is abusive. Horikoshi knows how to set up abusive families, as seen with the Todorokis. This not that. Either way, even if she was, being abused doesn't mean it's okay to abuse others. You can hurt without hurting others.

"It's the school and teacher's fault!" No, it's not. Part of the fault lies with them enabling him, but Bakugou is already fifteen when the series starts. His mother clearly doesn't agree with his attitude. The school is only partially to blame. Bakugou should have learned by himself what is right and what is not. In fact, he clearly does know considering he doesn't want any of that stuff on his records in case U.A. rejects him.

Again. I don't care if he's a terrible person. I care that he's a terrible character.

So the next time someone says that I'm stuck in Season One, take a moment and think about what you're saying. Bad people in fiction are entertaining. Bad characters are not.

Here's some non-controversial Voltron takes:

Admiral Sanda is a bitch

Hunk is an angel in disguise

Shunk is a great ship that needed more screentime

Season Eight was an awful mess

Shiro should have been the one to kill Sendak

Playing the Voltron formation sequence every single time was unnecessary and just wasted time

The elemental ascept was underutilised and I wish bonding with the Lions gave the paladins the element of the Lion

Allura should not have died

man. spinner and shoji were two characters that i really enjoyed and wanted to see more of... until i did get to see more of them and horikoshi stomped on my dreams...

spinner goes from being one of the best characters to being ridiculously one-dimensional. the heroes don't do jack shit, until it's revealed at the last second that they did, meaning that everything the 'bad guys' did was ultimately useless. kurogiri being in a hospital made no sense; the guy is a high-ranking villain who is far too useful to the villains to give up, he should be in a highly secure location like tartarus. shoji goes from being someone who i really enjoyed to being someone with ignorant beliefs, despite him accusing his friends of being such people.

seriously, shoji's rant on how the 'people from the city' wouldn't understand because they 'had it easy'. NEWSFLASH: discrimination happens everywhere. yes, it's a lot more rampant outside of cities, but it still exists within a city. heck, i had someone scream racial slurs at me while i was walking home, and i live in a big city. to say that someone had it easy just because you had it worse is a horrible thing to say, especially when it's coming from someone who is supposed to be empathetic.

this is not shoji's beliefs. this is horikoshi's beliefs. he could have easily had shoji say something like 'you have had it hard. that being said, people are more willing to turn to extremes outside of the city'.

also, shoji's whole 'violence to get what you want never works out!!' is wrong. i'm not saying from a moral standpoint - that's perfectly fine. but it's historically wrong. yes, there are such a thing as peaceful protests, but they have never worked out as well as those that fight violence with violence. blm riots, for example, were the thing to force the government to take a closer look at why people were rioting and do things to prevent more property damage.

another thing i found troubling was how the mutants became enraged at a person of colour, specifically black, for trying to intervene and empathise with them, screaming that he could not understand. it's supposed to imply that racism wasn't a concern after quirks emerged, as people found other things to discriminate.

which is... very idealistic. if that were something people would really do, then racism wouldn't be a thing after sexism came to light. and neither of them would exist after the lgbt or the neurodivergent. but that's not what happened.

if someone else arises that people could discriminate upon, people would just add that to the list of things to discriminate on.

horikoshi could have drawn anyone for the mutants to yell at. he chose to use a person of colour. it comes off as very tone-deaf and it was just another sign that the mini-arc would screw up.

spinner losing his mind was bad. as in bad-bad. as in, there were so many ways to write this fight, and he chose this? instead of being a battle of ideaologies, it's shoji convincing the rest to step down, then trying to beat a mind-less spinner.

it could have been one of the best fights, with shoji's belief that using violence to solve your issues will only make it worse, and spinner arguing that using violence is the only way to do it with the state of their society.

no matter who won, in that case, it would be ultimately up to the readers to decide who truly won. who had the stronger argument, who made the more sense, all that jazz...

instead, shoji yells at a bunch of people about how 'destroying property isn't good' and 'violence is never the answer', all the while using violence to subdue him.

that could have been could, if it was commented on. if there were some sort of self-awareness.

but it's not and there is none. it went from being an arc i was really looking forward to reading, to something i can no longer stand.

shoji. spinner. you were both done so dirty

And that is the end of Season 1, folks! Ahh, it's been such a good time! I loved writing this season, setting things up for later seasons. I want to thank everyone who has been reading my rewrite, and for all your support!

Special thanks to CatGirlBeast09 and Username1232 for commenting so frequently! It really helped me find my motivation to continue it!

As of now, this is the first long fic that I've ever completed, and the longest! So I really am grateful that people have been reading and staying tuned for so long.

Now, I am planning to rewrite the rest of it, so fear not. This is not goodbye - I have a lot planned out. Season two is where we'll really see the canon divergances, where more new things are introduced, further character development, and things I just felt were missing from VLD.

I am planning to go back and edit the past chapter, specifically the ones written two years ago, so if you see that I've updated anything past chapter 20, that is why.

That's all. Thanks for tuning in and I'll see you in the next installment!