Many fanfiction writers have made
Deconstruction Fic that deconstructed both the original show and its characters.
- As the name implies, the Anti-Quirkless Hero Series
deconstructs the Fandom-Specific Plot of "Izuku becomes a Quirkless Hero"- Keep Your Dreams Realistic deconstructs the logistics of a Quirkless Pro Hero:
- The idea of Izuku using support items to make up for his lack of a Quirk is shot down, since not only are good support items expensive, but they wear down with use, can get lost, malfunction, or be destroyed or stolen in the middle of a fight, while Quirks for the most part don't have such problems.
- Aizawa being considered "practically Quirkless" (often used as a justification for Izuku to be a Quirkless Hero) is torn down. Sure, Aizawa's Quirk is not very versatile, and while he Fights Like a Normal, the ability to depower his opponents as long as he keeps eye contact gives him a huge advantage in most fights, an advantage a truly Quirkless person would lack.
- The very idea of a Quirkless Hero is examined and dissected: the whole point behind the idea of Pro Heroes is that they can use their Quirks freely to fight crime; a Quirkless Hero wouldn't benefit from this privilege, yet they wouldn't enjoy the perks of other law enforcement bodies like the police, such as being allowed to carry a firearm or keep criminals under custody.
- While the fic does acknowledge that, despite all of the above, a Quirkless Hero could work under certain circumstances, it mercilessly tears apart Izuku's pretensions of becoming a hero as popular and well regarded as All Might while he's just a Muggle.
- Gratitude for a Gift deconstructs how All Might is treated in this kind of fic, namely raking him over the coals for telling Izuku that he couldn't be a hero without a powerful Quirk, and taking his offer of One for All as Condescending Compassion:
- When Izuku looks back at all the dangerous situations he got himself into (like the USJ attack or the confrontation with Stain) he realizes that he only got out of them alive because he had a very powerful Quirk, and realized that, even if he was a bit too blunt, All Might was talking from experience; he's Japan's #1 Hero with four decades of hero work under his belt, after all.
- The story points out that, for all of Izuku's amazing qualities, such as his intelligence and heroic spirit, they're completely useless if he lacks the power to make a difference. Sure, Izuku throwing himself against the Sludge Villain to save Bakugo inspired All Might to act, but that doesn't change that it was All Might, not Izuku, who saved Bakugo.
Izuku: When I tried to save Kacchan... I was unable to do anything. There was nothing I could have done not just to save him, but to make the situation even remotely better. And yes, it’s right, it inspired you to take action but... in the end, it doesn't change that somebody else, somebody else with a Quirk, somebody else with a very powerful Quirk had to save the day, not me.
- Blank Canvas deconstructs Bakugo's bullying personality and All Might's poor and reckless handling of his meeting with Midoriya. While the setup only happens during Part I, Part II - Convictions presents the payoff.
- Bakugo self-justifies his bullying by insisting that he's actually trying to protect Midoriya — all the emotional, physical, and verbal abuse is meant to discourage him from pursuing a dangerous career in Pro Heroics. This logic falls apart for three reasons:
1) He never considers any of this from
Izuku's perspective, only ever hurting him and moving on.
2) His motives are both not-so
Secretly Selfish and rooted in
Insane Troll Logic: Bakugo sees Midoriya's determination to continue pursuing his dreams despite the setbacks is somehow a sign that he's
looking down upon him.
3) Katsuki's
own conscience calls him out on his toxic behavior, especially the infamous
Suicide Dare, underscoring despite his attempts to justify it, he
knows that what he's doing is wrong and continues bullying Izuku simply because he enjoys doing it.
- After Aizawa finds out not only about the details of Bakugo's bullying but of how callously All Might handled their meeting, he internally and later externally points out all the mistakes made during and afterwards: Not only that All Might failed to present proper help to a teenager who was attacked by a villain, but that he also dismissed his dream and left the kid alone on a rooftop on the same day he was suicide baited by one of his classmates. Not that All Might knew about the last, but that doesn't change the fact that things could have gone horribly wrong because of All Might's reckless attitude.
- Branding the Hero picks apart the concept of Pro Heroes being marketed alongside the matter of Yaoyorozu's costume:
- Yaoyorozu's managers pressure her to make her already Stripperific costume Hotter and Sexier, while the other girls are forced to endure similarly minded adjustments, underscoring how this is less about "what's necessary for her Quirk" and purely about appearances.
- Said managers further illustrate that they don't care about her Quirk at all when a mission gone wrong leaves her practically skeletal. Despite her needing to put on weight in order to survive, her agents insist that she's only allowed to gain five extra pounds, because "chubby" superheroines don't get sponsorships.
- Breathe In, Breathe Out deconstructs three popular points that receive criticism from the fanbase: Aizawa's Sink or Swim Mentor tactics, Bakugo's Hair-Trigger Temper and Mineta's perverted attitude:
- Eraserhead's Scare 'Em Straight shenanigans were somehow bad enough in the school year before the story starts that UA narrowly avoided a lawsuit and some of the students outright dropped out to join other hero schools. While not fired, he ended up getting made Class 2-A's homeroom teacher, with Lady Nagant (who is still a hero and a U.A. teacher) taking his old position. Word of God has stated that even if Aizawa did re-enroll the students afterwards, no student or parent would realistically come back to a school where a teacher can kick someone out for simply not living to their standards, completely ignoring how much effort they put in to get in the school in the first place.
- The fic even goes a step further by making Nagant a far more concerned and competent teacher than Aizawa, such as when she advises Kaminari on how not to overload his brain during a fight by focusing his quirk on a specific spot, or when she finds out Iida will be interning on Hosu and promptly goes to talk with him and his parents, well aware he will be going there to take revenge against Stain, something Aizawa suspected in canon but never acted on.
- Bakugo's aggressive behaviour and Personality Powers received a red flag prior to entering the hero course. Therefore, his gauntlets, which amplify his Explosion quirk, were built with a safety mechanism that can only be disarmed by a teacher or if the student has progressed enough in his study development.
- Mineta also received a red flag for sexual harassment prior to getting into U.A. and was already on thin ice. Following his prank against the girls at the sports festival, he is promptly kicked out of the hero course. Whether he was demoted to General Studies or expelled is unknown, but for all intents and purposes, he is no longer a factor in the story.
- Cain tackles the matter of how Katsuki's issues have been treated by turning him into a Deconstructed Character Archetype for the concept of Protagonist-Centered Morality. Years of being permitted to do whatever he pleased at Aldera have left Katsuki convinced that he's destined to become a great Hero, and left him The Unfettered: as far as he's concerned, anything he does in order to achieve his goals is automatically justified by virtue of the fact that he's the one doing them. This causes no end of problems when he overhears All Might accepting Izuku as his apprentice, as he becomes hellbent upon ensuring their idol changes his mind and takes him as his successor instead... without understanding that the utterly vile depths to which he sinks are only serving to disgust and repel All Might.
- A Clear Pattern of Behavior deconstructs how Katsuki's behavior is treated canonically:
- One common method of defending Katsuki's Barbaric Bullying is insisting that he legitimately does not KNOW that what he's doing is wrong, as he was never punished or disciplined for it back at Aldera. Here, Katsuki is shown to be fully aware that he's getting special treatment and fully expects this to continue at U.A., misinterpreting Aizawa and Inui's efforts to warn him about his behavior as them offering up ready-made excuses and tacitly letting him know that he's free to beat the shit out of Izuku during battle exercises. In other words, he knows that it's wrong and that he should be punished but feels free to continue, seeing his ability to torment Izuku as a special privilege.
- Rather than throwing Toshinori completely under the bus and decrying him as a bad teacher, the story shows that he's simply inexperienced. The whole Heroes vs. Villains exercise turns out to be the result of a simple miscommunication — he received notes for what would be considered appropriate for second-year students rather than first-years and made his plans accordingly, unaware of the error.
- Toshinori also attempts to argue for the canonical approach of treating Katsuki leniently and accommodating his mistakes. Aizawa bluntly points out that there's a difference between "making mistakes" and "intentionally attacking classmates with lethal force", something that Katsuki had already acknowledged he was fully aware of and showed no remorse over, even beaming with pride when asked if he knew how much power he was wielding.
- Dandelions in the Wind deconstructs the UA Sports Festival's nature as a televised national event full of children in an era with social media, and the implications of that spotlight. The huge viewership means that the most memorable hero hopefuls instantly become nationally recognizable figures and temporary celebrities, and this fic shows how Bakugou's Sports Festival had all the ingredients to bring the negative side of that attention into play. As the last impression the public had of the victor was seeing him topping the podium in chains and a muzzle, this naturally sparks attention and speculation regarding what made such measures necessary, and since social media enables anyone to speak up, former classmates of Bakugou join the online conversation to provide what they know. The fame of the sports festival means Bakugou's and Izuku's past turns into a viral scandal. The fallout is that Bakugou is "crucified" over social media and expelled from UA (with no other high school willing to take him, hero or otherwise) and unable to get anyone to look at his job applications in lieu of school. He ends up with little to nothing to fill his days and eventually runs away from home, feeling he has no opportunities to build any kind of future there. The logical consequence of a nationally televised event filled with children identified by name is that it can make its most notable child participants internet-famous enough for Once Done, Never Forgotten to be brought into play on a national scale.
- evolutionary, endpoint deconstructs the common fanfic plot of All Might secretly being Izuku's biological father with Izuku becoming hurt when he learns that his idol is his Disappeared Dad, and the fact that All Might never told him during the months they've known each other makes it much worse. He is also plainly uncomfortable with the reveal and leaves most of his memorabilia behind as he finds it disturbing to be surrounded by images of his father.
- Heroics and Other Things That Don't Require Superpowers deconstructs the contrast between Bakugou's personality and behavior and his supposed role as one of the most talented upcoming hero students in class 1-A. Instead, his brash, violent, combative, uncooperative personality is met with standards and expectations that a famed school for an inherently public-serving role would more realistically have... and he fails at basically every turn to meet them.
- His raw physical and intellectual talents are suitable enough to get him enrolled in the class, but his values and priorities are so completely and obviously contrary to the actual purpose of the job he's training for and the interpersonal demands necessary to be good at it that he fails to impress anyone once the school year begins—not his classmates, not his teachers, not the staff. He crosses the line by refusing to cooperate with Izuku in the USJ when lives are on the line.
- After he crosses the line by refusing to cooperate with Izuku in the USJ when lives are on the line, the staff decide to hopefully prove a point by testing his qualifications as a hero student on his own terms; if he thinks he's more worthy of being in the Hero Course than Izuku, he should prove it with the thing he's best at: Combat. Per their predictions, he fails even at that—partially due to being controlled by his sadism and rage, but also partially because the rest of 1-A goes out of its way to help Izuku train to beat Bakugou, because Izuku is everything Bakugou is not on a social level and he's naturally networked himself into the supportive relationships the class has formed with each other, while Bakugou scorned his desired future coworkers and any attempts they made to support him.
- Bakugou also isn't given the leeway of his terrible behavior being ignored or tolerated until he finally decides to begin improving himself. After all, he's occupying a highly coveted place in a prestigious training course and there are other candidates more amenable to the goals and demands of the job who can take his spot. After failing to prove he can function as a hero to his teachers or even that he regrets and would be willing to work on the behaviors they find fault in, Bakugou is booted to Gen Ed because it's clear that, despite his talent, he is not prepared or willing to put his issues aside and do what is needed to function in the role of a hero at this time. Rather than work on his issues, he tries to get back into the Hero Course via the Sports Festival, and when that fails, withdraws himself from UA.
- It also deconstructs a reoccuring fanfic idea that Bakugou has to be handled gently despite his cruel behavior or he could become a villain and cause serious problems. We eventually find out that Bakugou did leave UA to become a villain, but the same flaws that made him a terrible hero student made him terrible at surviving villain society as well. All For One claims when asked that Bakugou was so loud, combative, and uncooperative when he tried to join All For One that the latter decided Bakugou was less useful than his quirk and simply took it and abandoned him. Bakugou never lasted as a villain or attained the greatness he desired because he couldn't even cooperate with others enough to get villainous support. He has no presence in the narrative after leaving UA and the fact that he tried to become a villain barely warrants a mention by anyone by the end of the story.
- Katsudon Warfare deconstructs the Midoriya/Bakugou pairing by showing it from the point of view of Izuku's mother Inko. She's outraged (though she manages to thinly veil it) and scared about her son dating the boy that pestered and mistreated him for their entire childhood and fears what a relationship with a man like that can become. It's reconstructed at the very end, where she realizes that Bakugou has changed, even if it's not that clear to her, and that Midoriya knows what's best for himself, and their relationship does seem to work, as unlikely as it is.
- King picks apart the concept of the Karma Houdini Warranty. When Katsuki does something that he realizes should void his warranty, U.A. steps in to protect him...and, more importantly, protect their reputation, as they're already invested in supporting him after the Kamino incident. Katsuki doesn't fully want to be shielded from the consequences of his actions, but is given no real choice in the matter. Making matters worse is how his peers mistakenly see him as complicit, as he clearly benefits from the cover-up.
- The story also deconstructs U.A.'s status as the most highly regarded Hero School, showing just how far they are willing to go to preserve that image. Much like Aldera Junior High, their reputation takes precedence over all else - and much like how Aldera's teachers ignored how Izuku was abused, U.A. punishes Todoroki Shouto for speaking out against them.
- Locked In Digital deconstructs the Quirkless!Izuku fic by having Izuku become an Empowered Badass Normal... at the expense of his optimism, mercy, and sanity.
- Not That Kinda Fired deconstructs a couple of Aizawa's teachings and how Quirkless are treated in general.
- It is common in fanfics for the Quirkless to be heavily discriminated against universally. This fic points out that Quirks are new enough for people to have had Quirkless relatives they were fond of. Endeavor had a Quirkless grandfather (and great-great grandfather) whom he loved and respected dearly, so prejudice against Quirkless people personally offends him.
- While the story is mostly comedy, there's a dark deconstructive detail briefly tossed out amongst the offhanded office small talk. This relates to two of Aizawa's personal teaching habits: that he uses his Quirk on his students to keep them in line and that he doesn't read his students' files. Through a combination of brief asides in the story and Word of God, it's told that Aizawa here wound up having a student in his class who needed their Quirk constantly active to stay alive due to past medical hardships. Having not read their file, Aizawa didn't know this, and so unintentionally killed his student on the first day of school. He was subsequently arrested on charges of abuse of authority, quirk discrimination, neglect, and manslaughter. It's not detailed what happened after that, but this incident is brought up in direct relation to a discussion on why Aizawa's no longer a hero.
- Ore No Hero Monogatari deconstructs a lot of the greater tropes within the world:
- The Animal-Themed Superbeing element of characters like Tsyuu or Gang Orca whose animal traits allow them to defeat powerful foes is deconstructed with the character of Andor Cauda. Despite being a Lion complete with enormous claws, he uses his police-issue sidearm to defend himself and struggles to work up the courage to face two villains armed with grenade launchers and assault rifles. And in contrast to police like Chief Kenji, he is cowardly, incompetent, and generally useless. The police are also shown to be far more willing to excuse incompetence among their own ranks and have a far less flattering view of their responsibilities towards the public.
- The Alas, Poor Villain tendencies of the series are deconstructed as well, with the school shooters simply being murderers using flimsy justifications for their actions at best.
- The Super Registration Act portion of the canon, specifically its justification as Necessarily Evil to ensure tracking of potentially dangerous people falls apart fairly quickly as well. Despite being totally unregistered and a foreign visitor, the police identify and locate Sara within hours of her actions in public because she was recorded on local cell phones by witnesses.
- Origin of a Non-Hero looks at a potential future in which Izuku has become the next Symbol of Peace. However, this comes at the cost of his family; despite his best efforts, he's unable to balance the demands of being Japan's most prolific Pro Hero with his personal life, and is completely out of touch with his son Shikinori. Including his utter inability to understand that unlike him, Shiki wants nothing to do with Pro Heroism — not after seeing it tear his parents apart.
- Our Hero tackles the invoked Fandom-Specific Plot of Class 1-A learning about Bakugou bullying Midoriya and daring him to "take a swan dive off the roof" and shunning him. Rather than being tearfully grateful for their support, Izuku is furiously frustrated by their efforts, as all of this is coming after both he and Katsuki have grown through their experiences thus far. Having his opinions dismissed as him "not knowing any better" or being a Wide-Eyed Idealist who supposedly doesn't recognize the abuse for what it was only serves to upset him.
- Peace's Apprentice has its own page
- Quantity of Quirks' first chapter, despite its nature as a Crack Fic, deconstructs the Comically Invincible Hero.
- First of all, Izuku's massive strength stops him from doing various everyday activities, such as sports. His only experience throwing a ball ended with the ball flying so far it could never be recovered.
- It shows how vastly unfair it really is to be one of the other characters in such a set-up.
- When Izuku turns into a dragon, showing that his Super-Strength and Super-Speed were both just inherent abilities, Bakugo falls down and yells in despair. He had hoped that enough training and then support gear could close the gap, but Izuku is literally more than a thousand times stronger than him while fighting quirkless. Even surpassing All Might wouldn't be enough for Bakugo to be Izuku's rival, and he can never compete against strength that vast, crushing Bakugo's dreams.
- Todoroki realizes that everything his father did to his family was completely pointless, as he could never surpass Izuku, leaving him sobbing.
- The Sleeper Hit AU tackles the invoked popular concepts of 'Dad Might' and 'Dadzawa' by removing the incident with the Sludge Villain, leaving Izuku Quirkless. While he still trains hard enough to pass the Entrance Exam and make it into U.A., Aizawa promptly expels him while claiming he 'lacks potential'. While Toshinori clearly sympathizes with his plight, he doesn't say a word against it, letting Izuku pass him by without offering even a shred of comfort.
- Aizawa takes the deconstruction further because there is a student he's formed a special bond with: Shinsou. This is, in fact, part of the reason why he expels Izuku — out of a selfish desire to ensure that there's an open slot in his class once Shinsou is able to prove himself worthy of the Hero Course. He also favors Hagakure over Midoriya, assuming that her Invisibility would be more useful and rigging the results of his test. This favoritism winds up hurting everyone involved; both Shinsou and Hagakure are heartbroken upon realizing that he nearly destroyed Midoriya's dreams in order to support theirs, and Hagakure in particular questions whether or not she deserved to attend U.A.
- The one-shot story They Were Listening deconstructs Bakugou's actions during just the first two days of school, concluding that, under realistic consequences—or indeed, even under the laws and standards to which UA and its student body claim they perform—his behavior during those days alone should have resulted in him being expelled. Bakugou's explanation of his gauntlets during the battle exercise demonstrates full and complete understanding and awareness of the possibility that he could kill Izuku and the clear sadistic desire and intention to try. Then he acts on it. As Jiro—who can overhear Bakugou's words through All Might's earpiece per her super hearing—points out, this is literally the legal definition of villainy and attempted murder. She then notes this isn't even Bakugou's first criminal offense at UA, because he also threatened and attacked Izuku the day before. The story takes pains to demonstrate that Bakugou shouldn't have been able to continue his hero career with the extremely threatening and violent behavior he was demonstrating. Had anyone in UA actually upheld the values the school supposedly teaches Bakugou would have kissed his hero career goodbye right at the start.
- To Be Anyone but Me deconstructs many aspects of the MHA world:
- Izuku's character is treated very differently. The bullying, abuse and discrimination he faces everyday has left him severely traumatized to the point where he has frequent panic attacks and insanely paranoid of everyone thinking they will hurt or betray him.
- Many of the points in the series where a serious issue is glossed over or not given proper consequences are called out.
- Characters inappropriate reactions, both physical and verbal, to serious and often deadly situations are discussed by Izuku to himself.
- Unforeseen Consequences tackles the implications of Recovery Girl declaring that she will no longer heal Izuku and the fact she appears to be the only nursing staff at Yuei.
- We're Not Friends Kacchan picks apart how Bakugo is treated in the original series. After 1-A learns of the Suicide Dare and how he bullied Izuku for years, they realize Bakugo never received any kind of discipline for his actions, which leads them to conclude that, after letting so much slide, they can't trust the adults to actually do anything now.
- The "Bakusquad" dynamic is also called into question: Bakugo's self-centered attitude means he takes their friendship offers for granted, uses them to vent about whatever problem he might have at any moment, snaps whenever someone else offers an opinion that goes against his, and it makes everyone exhausted when Bakugo keeps insulting them on a regular basis. Also, Kirishima and Ashido, who have a story of dealing with bullies in middle school, would feel Post-Support Regret after learning they openly supported a bully without knowing.
- Aizawa's teaching methods are shown to have cost him the trust of his students. His penchant for acting like a Trickster Mentor, regularly deceiving his students under the guise of 'logical ruses', has left them wary of anything he does or says. Plus, they also point out that he has never tried to address Bakugo's behavior even though Aizawa has expelled students for much less.
- Whispered Tribulation takes the invoked Fandom-Specific Plot of "Aizawa discovers Izuku's Quirk Research notebooks and assumes that he must be a traitor", dismantling many of the cliches commonly associated with such stories.
- While Aizawa and his co-conspirators believe that the ends justify the means and are willing to kidnap a student in order to interrogate them, Nedzu swiftly learns what's happening and prevents them from going any further, refusing to let them break the law in pursuit of 'justice' and securing a 'confession'.
- Rather than everyone leaping to the same conclusions as Aizawa and turning on Izuku en masse, the majority are appalled by his actions, which are treated more as A Tragedy of Impulsiveness that costs him dearly.
- Nezu does not mysteriously 'forget' that they can consult somebody with a Living Lie Detector Quirk, immediately contacting Detective Naomasa and his sister to get them involved as quickly as possible. He also does his best to block Aizawa's efforts to break Izuku and force a False Confession, preventing many of the brutalities commonly visited upon Izuku in such stories.
- The stress of having his class repeatedly attacked by villains causes Aizawa's paranoia to shoot through the roof as his sanity degrades. While this explains why he goes after Izuku so viciously, Nezu makes clear that it in no way excuses his behavior.
