#if it's a ''the heroes defend X / the villains destroy X'' kind of exercise? sure. it's a competitive environment

[racke7]

Villain Izuku

Reading through the “Villain Izuku”-tag is so weird.

Like, you have a bunch of different approaches:

“The League were the good guys actually” (UwU they’re just misunderstood)

“Society was mean to me, so that means it’s fine if I murder thousands of innocents”

“Izuku is a Super Mastermind and all the crazies among the Villains are totally fine with following his orders, since he gives them Results and would never betray them because he’s so smart and cool”

“The useless quirkless kid with no value was kidnapped by the Villains and forced to do Villain-things (instead of them just... you know, recruiting an obviously-useful Villain), but he secretly wants to be a Hero“

“Morally grey means that I can tell everyone that they suck, and they still have to be nice to me, because I’m so cool”

And having a bunch of different types is great, but like... I’m sorry, what?

Izuku is a molotov-cocktail of suppressed rage, and I can easily see him getting in trouble with the law simply because he used lethal force against someone he shouldn’t have (because he considered them a threat, and other people disagreed).

I could see him growing heavily disillusioned with the Hero Industry, and the way that they’re “enforcing the status-quo”, up until he finally snaps and tries to force a revolution.

I can even see him becoming a Vigilante pre-UA, and using enough violence that he falls into the category of “Villain who attacks Villains” rather than being referred to as a “Vigilante”.

Or have him try to reach out to help people through internet-forums until he accidentally creates an organization that’s technically-illegal, and he defends it to the death on behalf of how it lets him help people.

But like... those two sets of “Villain Izuku” don’t have a lot of overlap, do they?

The League is an organization led by an egocentric man-child, and funded by a sadistic monster who thinks that human experimentation is actually totally okay (since he’s the one doing it).

Izuku buckling to the pressure of society and deciding to murder innocents (for the lolz), rather than drag society kicking and screaming through a revolution (with some unfortunate innocent casualties)? Lame.

Setting up Izuku to be BBC’s Moriarty? That kind of character-story was doomed from the start (because it doesn’t make any fucking sense), and trying to follow in BBC’s deranged footsteps isn’t really a good look.

Kidnapping a quirkless kid because they won’t be missed? Sure. Forcing them to do “Villainy”? Nah. Quirkless kids are worthless (everyone knows that) just recruit someone with a properly Villainous-quirk instead. If you just want to write whump, have them rescue him from some kind of sadistic cage-match set-up instead, at least that would give the Villains a good motive to traumatize him (nobody would bet on the quirkless kid, but holy shit look at the violent little bastard go).

And “morally grey means that I’m just better than you people”? Ugh. I get that trying to write an “and our hero swoops in and saves the day”-fic is difficult to do when the problem is a societal one instead of someone trying to punch people in the face, but geez.

It’s just... I really don’t understand this fandom sometimes.