It Was About The Little Boy That'd Do Anything For His Best Friend. The Boy Whose Only Wish Was To Be

It was about the little boy that'd do anything for his best friend. The boy whose only wish was to be a hero with his best friend. It's about Izuku's inner child standing in the river waiting for Bakugo to take his hand.

It's not about the ship.

A majority of us BKDKs never believed the ship would become canon. That was never really on the table.

What it is about, is 10 years of character and relationship development completely nuked for the establishment of a different relationship that had faded into the background at best for a lot of that time.

Izuku and Katsuki are important to one another. There's zero denying that. Katsuki died for Izuku. All of his scars come from protecting Izuku in one way or another. Katsuki was devastated when he learned of OFA's loss. He worked for eight years to make sure Izuku could live out his dream.

Izuku has looked up to Katsuki since they were children. He lost the plot multiple times when Katsuki was insulted or in trouble. Shigraki himself said Katsuki was closer to Izuku than anyone else.

And all of that development brought us zero discussions about what they've been through. No talk about the impact of Katsuki's death. No talk of Katsuki's apology. No talk about Izuku's feelings about the demise of his dream. Instead, we got Izuku rejecting the idea of being partners with Katsuki, something his character for the entirety of the series would have undoubtedly loved.

Yes, people can grow apart. But show me that. Give me background on why. Give me something, anything that would explain why the Izuku at the end of the epilogue is in diametric contrast to the Izuku we saw at the end of chapter 430.

These two characters mean so much to me. I don't see myself in their story, but the love (whether platonic or otherwise) and care that they show for each other speaks to me so deeply. Katsuki's growth as a person and Izuku's acceptance of and willingness to forgive Katsuki no matter what speaks to me so deeply, and to see that thrown away stings.

It's not about the ship. It was never really about the ship.