This idea is a carryover and expansion of a Reddit post that I made a few months ago, and it's something that I thought I'd share with you all here.
It's my own take on a genre that I have a lot of deep-seated feelings towards, most of them in the negative.
It's the Villain!Deku genre, or more specifically, it's a deconstruction of the entire premise of that particular type of story!
Yeah, this is going to be a fun one, isn't it?
How Useful are You?
(Inspired by possibly every single Villain!Deku fic out there.)
I've seen so many Villain!Deku stories out there in the wild, and almost all of them seem to simply have Izuku gradually slide into being okay with doing villainy and hurting others to get his way, and almost all of them like to portray Izuku as being in the right and using it as an excuse to bash other characters, at least a lot of the ones that I've read.
I've seen so many of these Villain!Deku fics, and they all seem to blend together after a while, so I'm asking you: what about a deconstruction fic on the Villain!Deku genre?
Like, what if we take all the tropes that go into a fanfic where Izuku becomes a villain, and completely take them apart? I have no idea how something like this would go, but I think that it would be an interesting thought experiment.
So, let's go over what would realistically happen if Izuku became a villain, and deconstruct all the possible routes that he usually takes:
Instead of being a successful villain, I can't really see Izuku going that far in life.
To start off with, he isn't some conniving, evil mastermind. He's a fifteen year-old kid. He wouldn't get respect and the adoration of all the villains around him, he'd be disrespected and laughed out of every villain hideout that he tries to enter into. He's a kid, not a fully-fledged villain, and he's still quirkless at that. Villains are all about the rule of the strong. There's no way that they'd ever accept him.
Secondly, his notebooks wouldn't make him a progeny or genius: turns out that a lot of podcasters and YouTubers make a living off of analysing heroes and their quirks (I got that idea from the fanfic Cain by aconstantstateofbladerunner), and Izuku's notebooks actually have a few things that are wrong and inaccurate about the heroes that he's taking notes on.
Thirdly, he doesn't have any meaningful connections to build any sort of criminal connections with. He's a fifteen year-old quirkless kid who lives with his mother in an apartment complex. There's no way that he's swimming in money.
Soon enough though, he is able to make contact with the League of Villains... and he is instantly laughed out by them. Again, not to beat the dead horse, he is a fifteen year-old quirkless child, dressing up in a tuxedo (the common Villain!Deku outfit) and calling himself a 'Mastermind'. There is only so far that anyone is going to be able to take that seriously, and Izuku is treated as a joke, being seen as no better than any of the thugs that are going to be sent into the USJ. Hell, he's treated even worse because of it. Apparently having a quirk is just as important in villain organisations as it is in heroes, and he is treated no better than when he was in Aldera for it.
Soon enough, the day of the USJ arrives, and Izuku is thrown into the fray alongside the rest of the USJ thugs, and he eventually comes across Bakugo. Here, we get an internal monologue from Izuku, revealing how much he has dreamed of taking down Bakugo, how much he is going to relish getting his revenge on his bully-
But that never happens. Bakugo, upon seeing Izuku, takes him down easily. Worse yet, Bakugo realises that he has a legitimate excuse to beat down Izuku, and proceeds to wail on him, venting his frustrations out onto the quirkless boy and reducing him to the state he was in back in Aldera once more.
And soon enough, Izuku is abandoned by the League alongside the rest of the USJ thugs, and is completely forgotten by the likes of Shigaraki and All for One. He is taken away to be processed by the police. There, he is approached by his mother, who came to visit him in custody, and is absolutely horrified by what her child has become. Izuku explodes at her, releasing his pent-up anger and resentment towards her over his being born quirkless and without anyone to support him, but it is then revealed that Inko has actually been protecting him from others for the longest part of her life, and while she definitely wasn't the best parents, she still loved her son and tried her best. It is also revealed that Inko has been facing harassment and receiving death threats over Izuku becoming a villain.
Izuku doesn't care. He's too lost in his own anger and resentment to see past his own nose, and Inko leaves in tears, remorseful for what her child has become.
And that is when Izuku is taken away, looked at by the heroes and policemen carting him away not with respect or fear, but with pity. Izuku is treated not as a villainous mastermind, but as a dumb child who decided that the world owed him something and trying to take his anger out on the people around him.
The final scene of this story ends with Izuku in a minimum security juvenile correction hall, looking back over his short criminal career, and finally realising that he has destroyed his own future, curling up into a ball and regretting everything that he has done...
This story idea was written as a response to all the Villain!Deku fics out there, alongside a few ideas gathered from both the responses to my original Reddit post and a few other scattered comments and threads on the site. Honestly, a deconstruction of the typical Villain!Deku fic is something that I feel like is long overdue in the fandom, and would be an interesting take on the genre to explore.
Honestly, one of the few good Villain!Deku fics out there, in my opinion, is Villain Notebook of the Future, and that's only because Izuku doesn't act like a dark and edgy criminal genius who always outsmarts his opponents (a Mary Sue, in other words), but a goofy kid who's trying to improve the heroes through challenging them. Also, it's funny. It'd made me smile more than once, so that's nice.