Quirkless Midoriya Izuku - Blog Posts

Love this little guy

My version of a vigilante Izuku au !! Love this little guy

my baby boyz

they heal me foreber

(I live vicariously through fanfics of them working things out on the remix)

I just posted the last chapter of my fic on AO3. As such, I wanted to dump some of my sketches of my story with character design and scene drawings.

If you feel like reading it, you can find it here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/59395036/chapters/151471747

So I have a vigilante Deku fic I have been posting on AO3 for a bit. Decided to share one of the drawings I did for it :)

Unknowingly Mysterious But Funny

Quirk analysis was something Izuku did the moment he learned how to write. He’s always been in love with heroes and quirks abilities, so he decided to combine the two.

With each year that passed, Izuku filled 1-2 notebooks full of hero analysis. As time passed his abilities sharpened. He was better at reading battles, comprehending moves, and determining the difference between calculated fighting and quick reflexes.

Putting his analysis to use was nothing more than a dream Izuku had. Of course, that’s all his life could be without a quirk. He’d never be able to investigate what he’s capable of or think about how his quirk would work against different quirks. He was quirkless, the baseline of human capabilities.

Then the unthinkable happens, he meets the underground hero Eraserhead. It was completely by accident, but upon revealing his accurate hero analysis to the underground hero, it was hard to convince the adult that.

No one he’d ever met in his life had told him that he would be a good hero. So, imagine his surprise when the underground pro hero Eraserhead told him that he had great potential.

It was a dream come true.

The moment he shared with Aizawa was enough to motivate him to train to near perfection. When the entrance exam came, Izuku felt confident of his performance in all aspects. As he walked home, he knew he aced the written portion, and he did manage to destroy a handful of bots before saving a girl stuck under rubble.

Still, saving the girl was no easy feat and Recovery Girl handed him some gummies to replenish his strength. As Izuku finished enjoying the stamina gummy from Recovery Girl, she slipped a note to him. Raising a brow, he opened it up slowly. Inside contained a small keycard and a room number written on it.

Initially confusion plagued Izuku. He was an average applicant to UA with no special ties to the school. He had never met Recovery Girl before either, so it was shocking that she approached him for the sole purpose of slipping a note.

It felt like a set up, but he had to put his trust in the heroes. Maybe the applicants that were going to be accepted all got a secret note? Still there were a lot of successful people within his group alone who haven’t gotten a note.

Marching his way to the front doors of the main building, he was shocked to see the card worked. As he entered the corridors of the building, excitement filled his being. He was walking inside the number one hero school in Japan: the notorious UA. Being able to see his dream school in person was nothing short of a dream come true.

The corridors were tall, wide, and painfully long. The doors that led to rooms were just as big as the rest of the building. So much so that Izuku wondered how many individuals with gigantism-based quirks attended UA.

When he reached the room, he happily opened the door only to be greeted by a white… mouse?

“Welcome Izuku Midoriya, I apologize for the inconvenience. I am Principal Nezu,” introduced Nezu fondly, wearing a small smile with his paws resting on the table top.

“Oh! It’s a pleasure to meet you, mister Nezu sir!” squeaked Midoriya as he violently bowed.

“No need to be formal. I simply couldn’t resist meeting the person who caught the attention of Eraserhead,” revealed the adult charmingly.

Midoriya rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “Really? Did he tell you that?”

Nezu nodded slowly, closing his eyes as his smile grew, spreading across his face. “Yes, he did. He told me everything. I must say, from what I’ve heard and with what I’ve seen today. You’ve made me want to do something I haven’t done in a long time.”

Swallowing the lump in his throat, Midoriya barely mustered the courage to ask, “What may that be if you don’t mind me asking?”

“How would you like to take the final test to become my personal student?”

Midoriya became the first student in ten years to become Nezu’s personal student. While Midoriya wanted to be in the hero course, Nezu promised that his curriculum was nearly identical, but the difficulty level was higher and there was more focus on the analytical and craft behind detective work for heroes.

Midoriya quickly became a hot topic in the school within the first month. No one knew who Midoriya was and apparently, he was hard to track.

Most students only knew who was in their classes and people in their grade. So, the only people who had a good chance of figuring out who Midoriya was were the first years, still they could mistake Midoriya for an upperclassman.

It didn’t take long for the attention to fall off Midoriya when UA found themselves in hot water. It became a recurring theme which caught the attention of Midoriya.

After spending two weeks analyzing class 1-A in secret, Midoriya determined he wanted to be their friend. He didn’t want to be the one to approach considering Bakugo was in the class and had bullied Midoriya up until they no longer saw each other.

Midoriya planted himself near Aizawa a lot more often. Class 1-A were constantly in close contact with their homeroom teacher so it didn’t take long for word to spread about a mysterious boy with green hair and freckles to spread among the group.

Kirishima and Kaminari were the most vocal about their curiosity and had gained the confidence to ask about it.

“Mister Aizawa,” called out Kirishima quickly.

“Yes, Kirishima,” sighed Aizawa, already knowing the red head was up to something judging from the look on Kaminari’s face.

Kirishima sucked in a breath before asking the question that plagued class 1-A’s minds. “Who is the green haired boy that always talks to you?”

Aizawa raised a brow, seeming rather indifferent to the question. “That’s Midoriya, Nezu’s student.”

The entire class erupted into chaos. They were the first people to know the identity of the secret student. Bakugo remained still in his seat, fuming at the reminder that Midoriya got into some special program of UA. Despite his irritation, he reminded himself Midoriya still didn’t make it into the hero course.

It was Wednesday and class 1-A was heading to the field for their two-hour gym session. Everything was progressing as normal until Aizawa waved to someone from behind the group.

Midoriya rushed past in a gym uniform wearing a bright smile. One by one, jaws dropped and eyes widened. No one could believe Midoriya was joining them for class.

“Everyone meet Midoriya. Today he will be joining us per Nezu’s request. He will 1v1 each of you for five minutes to analyze your quirk. This is a serious assignment for him compared to what it if for you all so do not mess around.”

As the sparring began, Midoriya made it clear he meant business. Everyone watched as his eyes concentrated on everything his opponent did and how they utilized their quirk. A common theme became clear. He’d grasp an understanding of the quirk and then use said quirk against its user.

In the end, he’d force his enemy to fight without their quirk which led to quick victory. Midoriya struggled with Tokoyami, Bakugo, and Todoroki. The quirks were overpowering, and only extensive use would lead to his ability to win. Still, Tokoyami was weakened by the sunlight. The blast and smoke residue from Bakugo’s explosions created blind spots that could be taken advantage of. Todoroki only used his ice side so Midoriya could take advantage of the unused left side.

By the time Midoriya went through everyone in the class, he was exhausted but pleased. He made his way over to Aizawa and pulled out his notebook.

“I got everything I need. You can resume normal training,” informed Midoriya bluntly, waving his pen at the group before him.

Aizawa grinned, peaking at the notes. “Send me your analysis whenever you finish. I can use your notes for future training ideas.”

“I can do that. I’ll put an emphasis on weaknesses then for you,” chuckled Midoriya, scribbling down on the page as he talked.

Midoriya sat on the ground, writing for the remaining thirty minutes as the class ran laps on the tracks. It was a rather peaceful moment for Midoriya.

While he’d never regret accepting Nezu’s offer, he wondered what all he missed out on by not following the typical hero route. Nonetheless, he was content. The class ended and he returned to Nezu to finish his analysis.

If class 1-A hadn’t already been hooked on Midoriya, they were now. Not only was he super smart, but he was incredibly powerful despite never displaying his quirk. Never once did he make a big show about winning or overpowering everyone. He was humble.

It became a mission for the class to catch Midoriya when he was alone. After spending an additional week trying to track him down, Momo had gotten an inside scoop that he frequented the rooftop to eat on Fridays.

When Friday rolled around, a small group was to greet him on the roof. Everyone knew it would be dumb to overwhelm him and risk missing their shot.

Uraraka, Kirishima, and oddly Todoroki were selected to go. Uraraka and Kirishima were selected to go because of their friendly and calm nature. Apparently, Todoroki had a fascination with Midoriya after their fight. No one knew they had been talking to one another during those five minutes, but it was enough for Midoriya to change Todoroki’s life.

When they spotted Midoriya on the roof he seemed to be doing an assignment. His back was facing them to avoid the sun messing up his laptop screen.

As they approached, they realized he was talking to himself. To be honest, it was not talking, but rather mumbling.

As they got closer to peek at the screen like a bunch of stalkers, they saw he was watching a video about categorizing quirks by eye color.

Right as Kirishima went to greet Midoriya, the boy spoke a bit louder than before. It was clear Midoriya was exasperated when he remarked, “Pink must mean… teleportation. And not that someone farted in both their eyes.”

Uraraka couldn’t hold back her laughter despite doing her best to quickly cover her mouth. It seemed that Kirishima was on the same page as he stepped back to laugh as well, grabbing his stomach.

Meanwhile Todoroki was standing there with a blank face. He thought Midoriya was being serious in his analysis, so he thought nothing of the comment.

Yelping at the sudden laughter coming from directly behind him, Midoriya whipped his head around. Initially Midoriya had been scared he was going to be bullied, but quickly relaxed upon seeing the familiar faces.

“Bro has anyone ever told you that you are super funny?” sighed Kirishima, trying to catch his breath.

Uraraka was wiping her tears from laughing so hard. Still, she managed to suck in enough air to agree. “Yeah, that little comment you made was hilarious.”

With his face blooming a bright red, Midoriya waved his hands violently. “No! That’s so crude of me! Please ignore that!”

Kirishima went to sit with Midoriya, flashing a charming smile. “Nah man, that was amazing!”

Todoroki smiled, sitting down as well. “Hello Midoriya.”

Turning to look at Todoroki, Midoriya flashed a soft smile. “Hi Todoroki.”

Uraraka looked back and forth between Midoriya and Todoroki before smirking. There wasn’t much there currently, but she felt a romance blooming.

“Oh, are you two close?” questioned Uraraka knowingly. It was clear Todoroki knew something more than them when it came to Midoriya.

Midoriya shook his head. “No, I’ve only talked to him the day I joined your class for training.”

Never once taking his eyes off Midoriya, Todoroki narrowed his eyes. “Why aren’t you in the hero course with us?”

Kirishima gawked at Todoroki’s audacity. He knew Todoroki was rather blunt, but this was a new level.

“I applied for the hero course! Uraraka was in the same group as me,” chuckled Midoriya, closing his laptop.

“Yeah, you saved me from the giant zero-pointer,” gasped Uraraka, bowing her head. “Thank you again for that. I wouldn’t be here right now if it hadn’t been for you!”

“Nonsense! You proved that you are a hero by earning all of those points! Either way, I know it may be confusing why I’m not in the hero course,” chuckled Midoriya awkwardly.

Flashing a charming smile, Kirishima pressed a bit. “So, what’s your story?”

“I accidentally met Aizawa in middle school. I managed to impress him, and he recommended me to Nezu. I passed Nezu’s test and accepted his offer to be his student,” revealed Midoriya swiftly, not one to enjoy talking about his achievements in front of others.

Todoroki looked into Midoriya’s eyes, laying it on thick as he announced, “You are truly amazing. I think my dad’s homophobic so dating you would be perfect.”

While Midoriya looked a mix of flattered and mortified, Uraraka and Kirishima fell into another fit of laughter.

Their conversation moved fast and didn’t make a lot of sense, but it felt right, nonetheless.

Despite the different path Midoriya took, it seems that he was still a part of the normal hero course. He made friends with the class, and even found a potential love interest.

Who would’ve thought showing off analysis and joking about pink eye would’ve been the two leading causes of his wonderful life.

silly little story that was in my drafts that I just posted un edited and with Midoriya’s name spelt like midoryia for most of it

so i saw some posts about how izuku too easily overcome his quirklessness after receiving ofa, right? mostly people in and under those posts say that it's a shame that we don't see the difficulties of re-thinking his identity and this situation is kinda unrealistic. well i can understand the upsetting feeling of not receiving an interesting point of character's self-discovering and stuff but i have a thing to say about how this thing will make sense (possibly).

so let's make an assumption that quirklessness in the world of bnha is some kind of disability. as far as i know we don't have clear statement in canon but it make sense, right? like if you search the word "disability" you will find something along the lines "the experience of any condition that makes it more difficult for a person to do certain activities or have equitable access within a given society". sooo in REAL world quirklessness isn't a disability because... well non of us here superpower, right? BUT on bnha world quirks are seen as an extension of human being like leg or hand. so it will be logical to assume that person without quirk can't be seen as fully capable as quirked one within society.

let's not bring the paranormal liberation front stuff because it's a topic for different post and I'm already getting far from point of this one.

so izuku is disabled in the beginning of the story, yeah? then why the hell he overcome his disability with a simple snap of fingers and why did it make sense?

now i will be coming from my perspective. I'm disabled and was like this for good chank of my life. and what usually come with it? disability becomes a part of person's identity. not only for people around disabled person but for them too.

now my rambling make even less sense but wait I'm getting to the point.

from interaction between izuku and bakugo + tone of voice of izuku's teacher in aldera we know that deku suffered from bulling BECAUSE of quirklessness. moreover when izuku asked all might can he become a hero, all might didn't ask him about his skills or why he feel a need to be a hero, no. all might just write him off solidly because of izuku's quirklessness and let me be honest: i believe that that wasn't the first time deku was given such "reality check".

can you smell that? oh yeah the good old ✨trauma✨

why did i wrote that i'll view this situation from perspective of my personal experience? well, i was bullied because of my disability back in school and guess what? most of the adults in my life didn't give me a chance to prove myself before they decide that I'm useless.

and that's the main reason why my disability become the thing that I'm activity trying to hide and don't let this abomination become a part of what make me who am i now.

can you see where I'm getting? izuku viewed his quirklessness as a thing that made his life harder and what made other people see him less of a human. so when The Miracle happened izuku just signed with relief and went ahead leaving behind the thing that made him miserable.

the last part of this ungodly long post: why do i believe that izuku doesn't let quirklessness become part of his identity and rather ignored it? well this is the part where i stop pretending that i have some Absolutely Logical Conclusions and become delusional. so we all remember that for the good part of plot izuku keep telling that he's gonna be hero like all might. well make sense because of ofa and all this razzle and dazzle with all might's successor, right? BUT this also can be applied to quirkless izuku. he WANTED and WAS GOING to become hero like all might, and i see it as if he didn't come in terms with his inability to become Just Like All Might. according to this statement izuku was ignoring differences between him and other (quirked) people. this make me believe that deep down he refuse to accept disability as part (or ex-part according to canon events) of himself.

is it healthy? no.

does izuku have a healthy image of himself? probably not.

did i just come up with unshaped pile of thoughts at night before bed and decide to vomit it straight into the internet? yes, i did.

I have no idea when and why I drew this but here we go

I'm so glad people actually talk about this!! The whole first episode is spent building up Izuku's backstory just for it to never matter outside of him not knowing how to use his quirk.

The worst part is that 1) mha isn't known for having shitty backstories, many of the characters are known specifically for their well written stories (the todorokis, most of the league, even the relationship between bakugo and izuku before and throughout canon) so it's incredibly frustrating to see the main character's hardly affect him after a while

and 2) that the original plot WAS that Izuku would stay quirkless and use weapons to become a hero. I'm not sure how true this part is, but I've heard that the reason it was changed is because one of the editors convinced horikoshi that the main character not having a superpower would make it boring.

MHA: Izuku Midoriya

I know I'm kicking a hornets nest here, but I feel like Izuku was more interesting as a protagonist before he got a handle on One for All. Like, way back when he was still breaking his own bones on the regular. It just feels like he got super powerful and it doesn't have a cost or stakes for him anymore. (I'm not saying it doesn't, I'm saying it doesn't feel like it.) It also kind of undermines who he started off as.

Like, he was a smart and goodhearted kid who wanted to be a hero, but didn't have a Quirk. On that premise, I would have expected him to Batman or Iron Man his way into heroics. Instead, they kind of Green Lantern/Blue Beetle it. Which is fine, sort of. Except GL and BB origins are usually good people going about their business and suddenly granted power they feel obligated to do good with. It vibes differently for a kid who desperately wants to do good and is suddenly given the powers of Superman (and later everyone else in the justice league). Comparison is getting away from me.

Giving that power to an untrained, unprepared child feels like Izuku is being taken advantage of. And he kind of was. There were better options, for both passing on the Quirk and training the recipient. But narratively it also helps give Izuku seemingly impossible expectations to live up to and a very short timeframe to do it in. It keeps him an underdog, even with access to unholy levels of power. And we were introduced to MHA as an underdog story.

As Izuku struggles to become the hero we (the audience) know he can become, we also watch him lose the rose-tinted view of heroics. The system is corrupt. Its not just a few cowards who don't help because of a bad quirk match-up (I have strong feelings about the sludge villain incident), its built into the system. If the story had stayed more on that, I think I would have enjoyed where it went. You can have the most powerful hero in the world and a corrupt system will still leave them the underdog.

But instead they make it more of a legacy 1v1. All Might v All for One, then Izuku v Shigaraki. Which might be easier to illustrate and finish, but it less narratively satisfying. I get that this is battle shounen, and they're all about their big power-scale-shattering fights with their arch enemies, but was it weird I was sort of expecting better by a certain point?

Au where Deku and Bakugo are actual friends, Deku remains quirkless and gets into the hero course.

Class 1A: BuT hOw CaN yOu Be A hErO wItHoUt A qUiRk

Deku: who needs a quirk when I have Kacchan

Class1A: who’s Kacchan

Bakugo bursting in from down the hall: Deku you’ve summoned me - who do I get to kill!