So, there are a lot of fics out there that follow the typical harem genre/overpowered MC archetype, specifically the ones in which Izuku is an extremely confident and overpowered badass who is always in the right and always gets all the girls in the cast, and has a constant bone to pick with Bakugo for his childhood bullying and Mineta for his perviness.

There are also fics that portrayed the League of Villains as misunderstood good guys, and the HPSC and hero society as hopelessly corrupt and evil. Not to mention how there are a lot of other tropes such as bashing on certain characters, Dadzawa, Mineta being expelled from U.A., you get the gist.

A lot of these tropes and fandom-specific cliches are quite typical in a lot of MHA's fanfiction stories, and there are just as many people who are exhausted from them as there are those who enjoy them.

So, why don't we play around with those tropes?

Why don't we create a typical harem/overpowered fic, but we investigate the tropes and cliches, examine them, and see what happens when we play them with any sort of realism or nuance.

So yes, this would be a deconstruction of harem fics.

What More Is There?

(Inspired by every harem/overpowered fic in existence)

For starters, Izuku is overpowered from the start of the story, and starts out in Aldera surrounded by students.

However, they're not bullying him. They're celebrating him, much as how Bakugo is celebrated within fanfics as well.

In many fics the staff at Aldera are said to be grooming Bakugo to be their shoe-in for U.A.. Now, a lot of fics tend to have Izuku still being bullied despite having a powerful quirk, not to mention Bakugo still bullying him as it is in canon despite his having a quirk, somehow leaving him either meek despite his powerful quirk or extremely confident despite his bullying (a bit of a contradiction, I know, but there typically isn't much of an in-between for them).

But, if we actually apply that kind of logic to a fic with an overpowered Izuku in it, in which Aldera wants Bakugo to get into U.A. because of his powerful quirk, then there is no reason that they wouldn't do the same for an Izuku that has an overpowered quirk as well. In fact, this Izuku gets his confidence from always bouncing off of Bakugo's abrasive attitude.

However, this confidence comes at a cost, as since Izuku was born with a powerful quirk, then that means that he's been getting the exact same treatment as Bakugo, meaning that he's got a hell of an ego and is incredibly abrasive, due to having both grown up with an equally abrasive attitude and also constantly being praised by others.

In essence, he's become like Bakugo.

The next thing is that he meets All Might... however, instead of being impressed by his quirk and supposed kindness and offering him One for All as like most fanfics, All Might reasons that One for All would be redundant on someone with an already extremely powerful quirk, and is put off by Izuku's attitude, seeing as he's been praised since the beginning of his life and it's installed a bit of a complex in him, making his confidence seem like arrogance much like Bakugo.

After all, if a society favours strong, powerful quirks above everything else, then this Izuku would benefit from this kind of society more than most.

Next, he gets into U.A. alongside Bakugo, and his 'confidence' ends up not endearing him to the rest of his classmates, but instead they're put off by it, and react to him the same way they do to Bakugo, in that they don't really like him and make fun of him for his attitude. This isn't help by Izuku and Bakugo's constant arguments with each other, as Izuku's confidence leads him to butt heads with Bakugo, on top of the vast amounts of hatred that Izuku feels towards Bakugo in most overpowered Izuku fics.

This part is generally a response to all those 'Confident Izuku Midoriya' fics, as they tend to translate Izuku being confident to mean Izuku being an asshole to everyone.

Added onto this, later in the fic Izuku comes across Mineta perving on the girls, and delivers the typical beat down onto him and gives him a speech similar to a typical bashing fic...

Except, instead of being thankful for him, the girls are instead put off by Izuku's actions and make clear to him that they don't need him to protect them. They're training to be heroes; they can handle themselves and don't need someone else to protect them, finding his desire to protect them from all the perverts in the world and treating them like they can't defend themselves to be incredibly sexist.

Added on to that, when the possibility of a harem forming around Izuku is made, all the girls immediately turn it down. Not only do they not have that kind of attraction to Izuku, but they have no desire to make themselves secondary lovers to a single man, and find the entire idea of a harem to be sexist, hurtful to their own feelings, and undesirable.

But there are women who will engage with Izuku, however, Older women, much like in most harem fics as well. In this fic, however, instead of being treated as a sexual conquest, it is instead rightfully treated as creepy and uncomfortable, as Izuku is a teenager, a fifteen-year old, who is engaging with women twice his age and older, and said women are either predators looking for an easy mark or women who are manipulating the overpowered, emotionally unstable boy for their own benefit.

Not only that, but Izuku's speech to Mineta, instead of convincing him to double down on his behaviour, goes off to do some soul searching, and ends up talking with members of Class 1-B and the girls there about his behaviour, with them making clear what is wrong with what he's doing and how he's improving. In doing so, Mineta begins to improve as a person and ends up finding a confidant in Class 1-B, with the girls there even becoming his friends as he works on his perverse attitude and become a better hero.

Instead of being expelled from U.A., instead Mineta goes on a spiritual journey and comes out of it as a better person. When the overpowered Izuku hears of this, he is unable to comprehend the idea that someone like Mineta can change, leading to him doubling down on his behaviour.

Then comes the League of Villains, and Izuku meets Toga, whom he is convinced that he can change for the better. However, it's quickly pointed out to him that Toga is a confirmed murderer who has an extremely skewed perception on love to the point of obsession, has attacked and killed those who she thought got in her way of her perfectly normal life, and is ultimately part of a terrorist organisation who's leader wants to kill everything that he doesn't like, on top of a general willingness to kill children considering how young the U.A. students are.

It's then pointed out the hypocrisy behind wanting to help Toga, a confirmed unapologetic serial killer, whilst also hating Mineta, a reformed pervert who wants to become a hero.

In essence, this is a harem fic with a clear amount of nuance and self-awareness injected into it.

I could go on and on, but essentially, the point of this fic is to point out all the inherent flaws and double standards that exist within harem fics and a lot of typically cliché fics within MHA's fandom.

If this sounded like it was being bashy, then I apologise. This was something born out of a lot of my frustrations with MHA's library of fanfics and the common threads that tend to run through them, much to their detriment. I can't begin to tell you how many times I've come across a cool premise for a story only for it to be ruined by harems and Izukus so OOC that they come across as completely different characters with identical names.

I got into MHA through its fandom, but man can it be a pain sometimes...