#i really tried to not undermine this in my most recent bkdk fic but

[anjumstar]

For me, Deku is not a crybaby. He doesn't cry at every little thing. There tends to be a distinct difference between him crying openly over something that makes him happy:

And trying (sometimes failing) to hold back tears when he's sad.

And this is not only an important distinction, but also much more interesting! Especially because we see it ever since he was five years old, desperately not wanting to let his mom in on how devastated he was--and in fact, I think that moment is exactly what this behavior (the sad behavior, at least) goes back to. (The happy just seems to be the Midoriya genes, lol.)

There's an argument for an All Might factor in this. That All Might saves with a smile, and Deku's already thought enough about that that he thinks that a smile is the only really appropriate forward-facing emotion to show, but I don't really think that's the case.

Honestly, it's on Mama Inko. We find out that Inko saying "I'm sorry, Izuku," instead of "It's okay," or something to that effect really affected him. She demonstrated that something about him wasn't okay, and that it made her sad, and that was the beginning of Izuku internalizing that he can't inconvenience others with his negative feelings, because that will just make them feel worse.

Flash forward: that's exactly the mindset that leads him to go it alone in his vigilante phase. He can't make anyone feel worse over something he should be able to handle internally. And, with One For All, there shouldn't be anything that he can't handle internally. He's only beginning to undo this mindset for the first time ever upon coming back and trusting his friends to take some of the mental load from him.

I even think that's the mindset that allows him to explode his own bones for the sake of mastering One For All. He can't inconvenience All Might, he can't fail, and he already has years of experience of hiding his own pain and deciding it's not important.

In characterizing Deku in fic, I think this is an issue he'll go back and forth with for the rest of his life, and it's why I believe that he'll continue to have poor communication issues. Really, I think it's a feeling most of us have to some degree and that we go back and forth on as well.

@animaatra