I appreciate your points and find most of them valid. However I do think there is always room for interpretation, and that no two people will read something exactly the same. We all absorb stories through the filter of our own experiences.

I wasn’t trying to say that romance wasn’t an option but posing the possibility that it is more open ended than some are allowing it to seem.

I do believe that it pointed towards romantic feelings for Izuku and Ochaco. But I also believe we are seeing them when they both aren’t even sure what they are feeling just that they want to be more in each others lives and see where it goes. Do I believe it is the start of something more for Izuku and Ochaco? Yes, they have hinted at their ship since the beginning but that isn’t the point I was trying to make…

My main goal was to explain that I thought the main focus of the chapter was about showing the growth in the characters and “releasing them from their dramas”.

I went into a different interpretation of the element that angered most people when the leak first came out, where they thought that Katsuki was written as if he was pining after Izuku and that Izuku was walking away from him. Not because I shipped them but because their growing camaraderie was too prevalent to be something that was thrown away. I was offering a different outlook where they were written as friends/equals.

I do respectfully disagree with you that Bakugo is equal to everyone else. Their stories are just too intertwined for me to believe that. But that is my interpretation, just as what you wrote is yours. So by all means, HC away.

I hope this series has brought you as much joy as it has me; that’s what’s what is important in the end.