deafmic:

i know the fire icon is for unpopular opinions, but my god do i love shinsou. he’s probably my favorite student. i think it’s definitely implied that aizawa’s training him and preparing to move him into the hero course because holy shit, that kid downright deserves the world and has a lot of potential to be a hero. i can’t wait to see more of him.

i hope u dont mind headcanons, but i hc that shinsou was brought up in the foster care system and passed from foster home to foster home to group home. a lot of people ended up being afraid of his quirk, especially since, like everyone else, he couldn’t control it as a kid. he was never nefarious with it, but accidentally used it when he wanted his caretakers to do innocuous things, like let him stay up later or give him snacks or let him go outside. still, though, it scared his caretakers so much that shinsou switched hands a lot.

i also headcanon that shinsou is a big fan of eraserhead. shinsou was probably like 5 or 6 when aizawa was first starting out his solo career and probably accidentally got caught on camera by forgetting to evade the media while doing a take-down. i’d imagine that seeing him on the news probably blew shinsou away, because he’d never seen a hero without a physical quirk before? and that was probably when he started idolizing aizawa. i’d imagine that when he got old enough, he probably found forums talking about underground heroes and followed eraser’s activities through that. 

so finding out that aizawa was 1-A’s teacher nearly made him choke. he probably didn’t talk to aizawa right away and probably tried to–i don’t know- convince himself that eraser wasn’t actually this great, idol person, but then aizawa went and nearly killed himself at usj fighting for his students and shinsou went “oh no he is a really great hero/person”. and then aizawa approached him after the sports festival and shinsou nearly fainted talking to him.

like i said, i definitely think aizawa is training shinsou. going along with my headcanons, i also think that aizawa has become a sort of parental/adult figure to him because shinsou hasn’t really had anyone in his life ever pay attention to him like aizawa does.

sorry i turned this into headcanons but i love shinsou so much.

metronomeihear:

Ahhhhh, how to answer this? Well, with regards to spoilers, you should be okay as Shinsou doesn’t really show up outside of the Sports Festival arc (unless something’s happened in the recent chapters. I’ll admit, I’m a bit behind as well), and I’ll be using that as my basis for my explanation.

Now. I can’t speak for everyone, but for me, I love Shinsou because Shinsou is a symbol.

Shinsou, to me, has always been a person who lives in his head. He smiles when he doesn’t mean it, keeps his reactions subdued, and is always watching the world. He is bitter and he is proud. He is always thinking, constantly wrapped up in his thoughts, and it is only when he is forced to confront parts of himself that he doesn’t like (such as his pride), or faced with unfair odds, or struggles he has no means of competing against that these emotions bubble over and show.

This is what happens during the Sports festival arc. His frustrations, his anger, and jealousy–they all swirled up, amplified with the force of his adrenaline, and resulted in the outcome we saw.

He is sharp tongued and strategic. Smart, most certainly, and sort of listless with that intelligence. Sort of like Shikamaru from Naruto, if that gives you any idea of what I’m talking about there, though the comparison doesn’t really do it justice. He isn’t lazy, at least not mentally, but rather forcing himself down with his own doubts and the constraints thrown upon him by society. He is held down by labels, not unlike Izuku is, though his label is Villain rather that Quirkless, and it is simultaneously a heavier and lighter burden.

Mind control, Brainwashing… Those terms are terms he no doubt hates with a passion, and there is self depreciation there as well, because those are words he and others associate with himself. He hates himself for his abilities, and hates the world for making him feel that way and strives to prove them wrong.

It is this aspect, I think, that draws people to him the most. He is forced down with a burden that he never wanted, bullied (as we saw in the flashback) because of something he has no control over. He never asked to have a Brainwashing quirk, never wanted it, and yet is blamed for having it regardless. This is a struggle that is experienced by so, so many people. I’d compare it to discrimination in the real world, be it racial, sexual, gender discrimination or some other type of discrimination entirely. We didn’t ask to be born the way we are. We just are. And yet, people still push us down and expect horrible things regardless of that fact.

It’s one of the reasons people like Izuku as much as they do, as well. BNHA, at its core, is a story about a boy trying to succeed in a dream that he has always told was impossible. He has grown up his entire life being told that becoming a Hero is impossible because of his lack of quirk, only to finally get the chance to do just that.

The difference between Izuku and Shinsou is that Shinsou never had someone like All Might come around and tell him he could be a Hero. He never had some miracle quirk perfect for Heroism that could be passed to another person given to him, like a cheat code almost (though Izuku certainly earned it), that lets him bypass all the hate and pain and obstacles that are stacked up before him. And while Izuku still has to struggle to achieve anything, still has to work for it, he can see the end of the road. Shinsou can’t. There is no certainty in the future for him. There is no one to support him, unless something happened in the chapters I haven’t read yet. He’s entirely on his own, and floundering and he has no idea what to do. But he’s still trying. He still entered the sports festival. He still fought. He fought with everything he had, and while it turned out not to be enough, he made his stand.

He showed that he wasn’t going to take it. He wasn’t going to stand for being told “No,” and for being labeled as something that he is so clearly not. And that makes him a symbol. Not a symbol of peace, like All Might is, but a symbol for those who are oppressed, a symbol for those who are bullied, a symbol that it is okay to fight against what is not fair.

And that makes him really, really cool.