#one where bakugo saved Uraraka during the entrance exam and she had a crush on him (though it was kiribaku)

[writer-rider-flirty-thirties]

There are so many good Villain!Izuku fics on AO3. Man! Mastermind and Regenerate, Fate have been the ones bouncing around my head the most lately, but I've read like ten in the last two or three weeks and I'm just 🤯🤯🤯 by the varying but also similar themes and what all the side characters are like/would be doing without Izuku.

I really wish I'd been a part of the fandom when these fics where mostly being written (around 2018/2019ish). Well, I was starting to watch the show but I wasn't reading any fics at the time.

[deathgasm00]

Then, so be it. - Izuku Midoriya

Izuku Midoriya x Fem!reader

Warnings: Suggestive themes

Word Count: 3811

A/N: This is my first drabble thing, so i apologize in advance if it’s terrible 😅 I can only get better with practice right? I’m also interested in doing a part two if this gets any attention!

It is a reader x Izuku but i don’t like Y/N so i will name the character.

Mizu Iyashi

Quirk: Hydrokinesis. The ability to control, manipulate and alter the molecular state of water, freeze water, or evaporate water into clouds of mist, steam or fog. Also able to heal wounds using water.

~

“Okay! How do I look?” Uraraka asks, tugging her pink shirt down a bit to accentuate her...assets.

You examine her from your seat on her bed, a twizzler hanging from your mouth. Tonight was movie night in the common area, more specifically, the last movie night of class 3-a. Three tough, long years have gone by and you loathed not having everyone around anymore, as being with them has become second nature to you.

“Spanks?” You question her outfit of choice, pointing your twizzler at her pale buttcheeks poking out from under the skin tight shorts.

“Yes, why? What’s wrong with it?” She asks you with worry laced in her tone, her hands touching the exposed parts, turning to look in the full length mirror.

“Nothing. It’s just more showy than anything you’ve worn before, I bet he’ll do the thing where he gets all red in the face and stiffens up. But you have to hold his arm. Put it between ya tiddies.” You laugh into your hand at the thought.

“I hope so! I’ll be offended if he doesn’t. I’m gonna go plus ultra tonight!” She grins, puffing her chest out in the mirror.

“Alright love birds, movie is about to start!”

You look at the doorway to see Mina peeking into the room with a smile on her face.

Everybody would be lying if they said they weren’t sad that this is the last movie night. You all had grown so close together, became a family. Sure, it’s not the last time you’re going to see each other, but it’s most likely the last time everyone will be in the same room. Hero work is busy work.

“Alright, we’ll be down in a sec.” Uraraka chirps while sliding on her socks.

“Are you going to make a move tonight?” Mina whispers excitedly, shuffling into the room with her hands clasped in front of her.

You slightly frown to yourself, looking to Uraraka for her response even though you already know what the answer is. But a girl can dream sometimes, right?

“I plan to. If everything goes good!” She giggles, grabbing onto Mina’s hands while bouncing in her spot.

You loved Uraraka. She was your best friend. The first friend you ever made at UA, so of course you wish her nothing but absolute happiness. And if her happiness was Izuku Midoriya, then so be it. But you can’t help but let the thought of them together tug at your heart strings.

You felt a spark with Midoriya the moment you first healed his fingers the best you could, after his fight with Todoroki during the Sports Festival. The way he stared at the glowing water in wonder, then stared into your eyes and told you how grateful he was and how amazing your quirk is. It almost made your heart explode, never having anyone be so sweet to you like that before.

But you know Uraraka felt something for him the moment he saved her life during the entrance exams. And she saved his life in return, albeit smacking him across the face, but you gotta do what you gotta do.

“Alright Iyashi, are you ready?” Mina turns to look at you as you stand up, adjusting your leggings further down your ankles.

“Yup.” You smile and loop your arms in theirs, walking down the hall side by side. “What about you, Mina? Are you going to make a move on Kirishima?” You tease her, leaning your head onto her shoulder.

She huffs and shakes you off her shoulder, her pink skin darkening at your question.

“No! i-i mean...i don’t know?” She sighs “i think so. I don’t want to miss the opportunity and regret it.”

You nod at her answer, understanding completely. Missing your opportunity is one of the worst feelings, and you would know considering you’ve been missing opportunities for three years.

“I know you can do it. He obviously likes you, so. Nothing to lose at this point…” you grumble while stepping into the elevator and pressing the first floor button.

“Iyashi, is there something you want to tell us? You know what’s weird, every girls night we have ever had, you’ve never admitted to crushing on anyone.” Mina points out, looking at you smugly.

“Are you asexual?”

“Maybe.” You shrug at her with a blank expression, biting back the smile threatening to take over your lips.

“Are you serious?” Uraraka touches your shoulder, her eyebrows furrowing, upset that you may have been hiding your sexuality from her this entire time.

You’ve been attracted to others besides Midoriya, but they never seemed to last. Todoroki for example. You were gonna shoot your shot with him but he was too oblivious to notice your advances. So you gave up.

Smiling, you shake your head, putting your hand on Ochaco’s. “No, i’m not serious. I did try to get Todoroki’s attention a few months ago, but he didn’t notice.”

“He’s so clueless it’s embarrassing.” Mina says, rubbing her forehead in thought. “You should try again tonight. I mean look at you, in your little tank top and leggings, are you even wearing a bra?” She squints her eyes at your boobs.

“No, I hate bras. And honestly I’m not that into him anymore. We’re better off as friends.”

“What about Bakugo? He’s easy on the eyes.” Ochaco says with a laugh, the elevator doors opening to reveal the man in question.

“Took you extras long enough. Hurry the hell up already!” He shouts, his signature scowl on his face. You stick your tongue out at him, ready to push every single one of his buttons before tonight is over. “Shouldn’t you be babysitting Kaminari?” You tease him as you walk out of the elevator, preparing yourself for an explosive smack to the side of the head. “Tch...Idiot.” He mutters, a smirk on his lips as he walks away, Mina following behind him to get to Kirishima.

“No.” You respond to Uraraka. Trying to date Bakugo would be like trying to tame a wild rhino. Impossible and a waste of time. “He’s got a temper that’s only good in the bedroom.”

“Not wrong there.” She agrees, eyeing his retreating figure. “I always wondered what that would be like.” She admits to you with a small laugh, a blush dusting her cheeks from the confession.

“I feel like we all have.” You also eye his figure before smirking at Uraraka. “But at least he’s not nearly as angry as he used to be…” You point out, remembering how bad his temper was the first time you met him.

“Well hello ladies.”

You look to the side then down, searching for the voice. Mineta coming into your view as he leans against the wall, a smug look on his face. “Lucky I ran into you, I put on a special shirt today. Wanna know what it is?” He looks up at you and raises his eyebrows. “Boyfriend material.” He answers, not even giving you a chance to speak.

“Oh really? I thought it was a size T3 from Baby Gap.” You retort, popping the P.

“So mean!” He whines, gripping the shirt in his hands.

“There he is. Wish me luck!” Uraraka whispers and rushes past a snot nosed Mineta, making her way to Midoriya who was standing in the kitchen, having a conversation with Sero.

You lean against the wall beside the elevator and shoo Mineta away as you watch their interaction, watching as she grabs his arm and grins at the two boys.

“What are you doing?” A quiet voice mutters by your ear.

You glance behind you at the face hovering over your shoulder, also looking at Midoriya and Uraraka.

“Just lookin’ around...What’s up Iida?” You ask, looking back over to your two best friends. You frown at how red his face is from his arm being in between her breasts, jealousy wafting off of you.

I wonder how his arm would feel between my boobs...or lower.

Shaking your head as if it will make the dirty thoughts disappear, you turn to Iida who’s staring at you with curiosity.

“You like Midoriya, don’t you Iyashi?” He murmurs, a frown tugging at his lips at your messy predicament.

It doesn’t surprise you that he asked. What does surprise you is that he’s the only one that’s noticed. You’ve never been caught gazing at him during training, watching how strong and skilled he is and practically drooling over his muscles. Or how you’re the first person to run and help him during a battle, ready to heal his wounds and watch his back.

“I do. But i can’t.” You whisper, glancing at Uraraka. “She liked him first...It’ll just be easier to get over him once we graduate in a few days...” you explain, your heart dark and heavy at the thought of trying to get over him.

“I’m truly sorry, Iyashi. Why don’t you come sit down with us? Have an amazing time on our last movie night!” He beams, pushing his glasses up his nose.

You smile at him brightly, warmth blooming in your chest. “Of course.” you whisper, walking beside him to the vacant couch. “Time went by so fast, It’s hard to believe this is the last movie night.” You say, watching everyone grab their snack of choice and make way to the living area.

Flopping down on the couch, you hug a pillow to your chest and scoot over, making room for him. He sits beside you, a solem look on his face as he glances around at his classmates. “Perhaps we could plan a reunion of sorts further down the line. Maybe try to have one every couple years or so.” He suggests.

You nod your head in agreement, relief washing over you at the thought of reunions. “Great idea Iida! That would be amazing, we’ll have to bring the idea up to everyone.” You grin at him, squeezing the pillow tighter in excitement. You’ve always been a very sentimental person so the idea of having small get togethers every couple of years makes you jittery. Every so often is way better than never.

Soon enough everyone gathers around the TV, blankets and pillow forts all around, people stacked on top of others. Kaminari had squeezed himself between you and Tenya, forcing you to just throw your legs over the both of them. The movie menu sat on the screen but nobody moved to press play, chatter and laughter bouncing off the walls.

“I never did that! No I didn't! BAKUGO DID THAT!” Kirishima playfully defends himself, leaning forward and pointing at the stunned blond across from him. Laughter leaves your mouth making him chuck a pillow at your face.

“BECAUSE HE ANNOYED ME!” Bakugo shouts, a vein protruding out of his neck.

“You blasted him so hard his p-pants flew off!” You cry out, holding onto your stomach for dear life as you recall that day. Kaminari had pissed Bakugo off so badly by saying “get rekt” during training over and over, he eventually blasted his ass.

Kaminari blushes at the memory, moving around uncomfortably at the attention he’s receiving. “Come on, guys. It hurt…and Midnight saw my bare asscheeks...” he mutters in embarrassment, covering his red face.

“I need a picture of all of us. Everyone get closer!” Mina demands, setting her phone up in front of the TV and setting the timer to ten seconds. “TEN SECONDS! PLACES PEOPLE!” She shouts, running towards the couch and jumping on Kirishima’s lap, much to his surprise.

You quickly jump to your feet and run towards Uraraka and Midoriya on the floor, squeezing in between them you wrap your arms around their necks and shove their cheeks to yours, a giant grin on your face.

Her phone snaps the picture as the timer hits zero, a flash lighting up the room. You turn to look at Midoriya to make sure he smiled, your eyes meeting his. You gasp in surprise at the close proximity, close enough to see the freckles scattered across his cheeks and how his eyes always seem to glimmer even in the dimmest lighting. You blush deeply and jerk your face away from him, muttering a small apology while removing your arm from around his shoulders. “You two better have smiled.” You joke, shaking off the awkward moment and give Uraraka’s shoulder a playful squeeze.

Suddenly feeling a little too hot, you stand up and rub your chest to try and calm your rapid heartbeat. “I’m going to get a drink, does anybody want anything?” you ask, walking around the couch and set your hands on the back of it.

You hear a mixture of no and no thank you’s, and a small “you” from Mineta, which you ignore.

You walk to the fridge and open it, a smile on your face while you listen to the shouts and explosions going off, sounding like a normal night to you. You grab a bottle of water and shut the door with your hip before spinning around coming face to face with Midoriya.

You jerk back, slamming the back of your head against the fridge and grab it in pain. “You scared the fuck out of me!” You hiss out, repeatedly rubbing the aching spot for some sort of relief.

He grabs onto your shoulder and holds onto your hand that’s now stiff as a rock on the back of your head, goosebumps traveling all the way down your body.

“I’m sorry! I thought you heard me.” He exclaims, but his apologies fell on deaf ears, the only senses taking over being smell and touch. You’re still up against the cold fridge, eye level with his chest. You feel your heartbeat in your throat as you inhale his scent.

Cotton flowers and...bergamot.

You tilt your head back and lean it against the refrigerator, your hand fisting the bottom of your tank top that suddenly feels way too aggravating on your taut nipples which are centimeters away from his rib cage. You slowly open your eyes to meet his beautiful green ones, tears threatening to fall from the frustrating desire flooding your system.

“Did it hurt that bad?” He asks quietly, smoothing your hair on the back of your head in a comforting way, but he doesn’t realize he’s just making it worse.

Tears slide down your cheeks in frustration at your own weakness. You’d do anything to be able to press your lips to his. To run your hands through his soft tresses of hair. At least you think it’s soft…

It looks so soft.

“Yeah, it hurts. It really hurts. I’m sorry but i think i need to go lay down.” Your voice is barely above a whisper, cracking in some spots. He frowns deeply at you, feeling at fault for your pain.

“Let me walk you to your room.” He insists, gently tugging you away from the fridge but you place your shaky hands against his chest and lightly push him back. You can’t allow him to walk you to your room. It’s taking everything in you right now to not cuddle and ride him at the same damn time.

“No. Midoriya...enjoy the movie night please, i’ll be fine. Thank you though.” You say a little stronger this time, ignoring the way his saddened eyes looked you over. You walk past him and towards the elevator, stepping into it once the metal doors open. You click the second floor button before facing the wall and lean your forehead against it, gripping tightly onto the metal bar at your hips.

Finally letting the tears and sobs flow freely once you hear the door close, shutting away your friends laughter. You mentally curse yourself at how weak you’re being. One encounter with him basically had you on your knees. Pathetic.

“I’m so fucking stupid.” You whisper.

“You’re not stupid Iyashi.”

You freeze in your spot. Of fucking course he would follow you, what else would Izuku Midoriya do?

“What are you doing here Midoriya? I told you i’m fine.” Your voice is hoarse yet steady. You can’t slip up now, not after three years of trying not to. 

“You’re not fine. It’s not your head either Iyashi, now tell me the truth, what is wrong? You’ve been acting funny for the past couple months, did I do something to upset you?” He steps forward and places a hand on your shoulder to turn you around, his heart breaking at the sight of your tear stained face. How broken your eyes look.

“...You did nothing wrong but that’s all i’m going to say. You shouldn’t even be here you should be down there with Ura-“

“Is that what’s making you upset? Uraraka?”

You close your mouth in surprise, averting your eyes to your socks. What are you supposed to say? You can’t lie to him, he knows you too well.

“It is. Why?” He says it more like a demand, your eyes snapping up to his in shock at his change of tone. He takes a step towards you and grabs your shoulder before squeezing it. “Iyashi... Please tell me.” He pleads. His eyes look just as desperate as yours, just as desperate to hear the answer as you are to say it. To finally get it off your chest.

“Midoriya I-“ You take a deep breath before slowly releasing it, your body trembling. You feel like you’re betraying Uraraka by muttering these words. Nothing can go back to normal after you say them... “I’m in love with you. Izuku Midoriya.” You choke out, your blood running cold but your body felt like you just ran through the flames of hell.

His eyes widened in disbelief and confusion, struggling to swallow the lump in his throat. “Wait...Wha-“

“This is exactly why I didn't want to tell you! I knew you’d never feel the same. So I stepped back and cheered on Uraraka to go for it...for years I did! But I...I can't anymore Midoriya, it hurts so bad…” You sob, biting the back of your hand to try and silence the pitiful sounds. “To love you, and watch her make constant moves on you, to listen to her say things about you that I could only dream of saying out loud. It kills.”

His eyes fill with tears at the sight. He had never seen you look so broken and it made his heart ache. The need to hold you in his arms grew with every tear that fell down your cheeks and every sob that echoed in his ears.

The elevator doors open and you quickly walk out of them, hastily wiping away your tears, hearing his footsteps follow behind you. You shakily open the door to your dorm room, stopping by the balcony window to stare outside. You wait for him to enter, knowing he’s not going to drop this anytime soon, but terrified to hear what he has to say.

You hear the door click closed and the shuffle of feet getting closer to you. You take a deep breath before speaking up, ready to tell him everything.

“I never told you, because Uraraka, Yes. But also because you work so hard. You’re always occupied with becoming the number one hero, I never want to get in the way of that. You wouldn’t have time for me.”

“How could you possibly know that? Why would you just assume that, Iyashi?” He asks, grabbing your hand gently as if he’s afraid he’ll break it. Caught off guard by his bold move, you turn to him. He’s angry. That much is obvious. His eyebrows scrunch at your silence, reaching forward he grabs your chin between his thumb and pointer finger, forcing you to look into his eyes.

“Answer me.”

“i don’t know Midoriya.” You pout in frustration, knowing you shouldn’t allow him to touch you, but you can’t seem to shake him away. You’re just craving more. “I just do, okay? Am i wrong?”

“You are…-“ He leans his face down to yours, the tip of his nose brushing against yours. “Absolutely infuriating.” He mumbles, his voice low and dangerous as he stares deeply into your eyes, a deep blush across his nose and cheeks at how confident he’s being.

You tremble under his gaze, feeling so open and exposed without having to take a single piece of clothing off. You raise your shaky hands to his chest and fist his shirt, your lips parting in a silent plea to be met with his own.

You stand on your toes and try to lean towards him, tired of waiting for something you’ve wanted for so long. “Please Zuku…” you whimper softly. 

He tilts his head back slightly in surprise at the nickname, his eyes softening as he admires your beautiful features, your half lidded eyes staring into his own with matching desire but also matching fear. This is so new to the both of you, and deep down you’re still thinking about hurting Uraraka. Neither one of you wanted to hurt her, but you can only ignore your true feelings for so long. And if he didn’t have feelings for her, why push him in that direction?

He grabs your face in his shaky hands, goosebumps igniting along his skin when you grip onto his back in an attempt to bring him closer to you.

“For years we both have done the opposite of what we want, just to please everyone else. Just so we don’t hurt anyone else. But we’ve been hurting ourselves the entire time…” He says quietly, eyebrows furrowed in frustration. “You think I didn’t notice you always staring at me? The way you’d always run to fight by my side before anyone else? Or how your hands always got to my wounds before I even noticed they were there? I’ve always noticed you...you’re the only one I’ve ever noticed.” He admits, his eyes searching your face for any signs of anger for him not saying anything sooner.

“I just didn’t want to say anything...I was scared I might’ve been wrong, but now I’m starting to regret not speaking up when i should have.” He adds, a coy look on his face as he averts his eyes from yours, his confidents slowly fading every second you stare at him.

You blush deeply as he spills all the things you thought nobody noticed and at his confession of you being the only one he’s ever noticed. But of course he would notice. He’s the most observant person you have ever met. “I was hoping you hadn’t noticed. I figured you wouldn’t or maybe just think I was being a good friend...” You let out a small laugh, your hands absentmindedly rubbing circles on his back.

He smiles softly at you, his thumbs stroking your cheeks. “Why wouldn’t i notice a beautiful woman giving me special attention?” His voice is shaky. He’s nervous, yet so excited to hold you like this. To have you want him as much as he wants you.

Your breath catches in your throat at his words, tears filling your eyes again. You can’t believe he knew everything. You can’t believe he thinks you’re beautiful or that he likes you too. You feel like you’re floating on cloud nine as the wall that you built to keep your feelings for him held inside crumble down around you. With just one touch, he destroyed years of hard work. Maybe you could have him…maybe Ochaco would understand. You’ve understood and kept your distance for years. You always put her first. Why can’t you come first?

“You’re right. I want to put myself first for once. I want you, Zuku.” You say gently, pressing your body closer to his. The feeling of his chiseled body pressed against yours was pure heaven, molding together in a perfect fit. But it still doesn’t feel close enough.

He sets his forehead against yours and gazes into your eyes as he gives you a small nod of confirmation, slowly pulling your face closer to his.

“Then just for once...let’s be a little selfish.” He whispers, the feeling of his breath across your heated cheeks making butterflies erupt throughout your stomach. He runs his hands into your hair, fisting it softly as he leans down to your height and lightly brushes his lips against yours. He smiles softly against your mouth before fully pressing his lips to your eager ones.

You sigh into the kiss, the tears that had built up rolling down your cheeks as you close your eyes and pull him closer to you. Your lips move together in a sensual dance, the taste of salty popcorn salivating across your tongue as he gently strokes his tongue against yours. The softness of his lips mixed with the eagerness of his kiss makes you dizzy with lust and deaf to the sound of desperate knocks on your door.

For once it’s just you two together, in your own little bubble. For once you feel absolute happiness...and if your happiness is Izuku Midoriya.

Then, so be it.

[ba-responds]

Catharsis (Villain!Deku x Fem!Reader) Chapter Four

A/n: Guess who got bronchitis and can’t fucking breathe, but also isn’t home because she took a train 4 hours away, while sick, to visit her friend for a week? This dumb bitch. Anyways here’s chapter four, I guess.

Summary: An unexpected death of a loved one can lead to a sudden influx of emotions. Those same emotions can become repressed, as denial and disbelief comes into play. In this time, one would seek a means of catharsis, a release from those strong, repressed emotions. But what would you do if that means of catharsis, the same release you sought so hard for, becomes addicting? To the extent, that you feel you can not live without it? What if it can’t live without you? **WARNING: This story MAY contain; bullying, suicide, depression, torture, manipulation, mentions of sexual assault, and MORE! You have been warned.

Masterlist

Prologue II Chpt 1 II Chpt 2 II Chpt 3 II Chpt 4

Chapter Four: Mangled Legs and Psionic Explosions

U.A. seems much bigger when your standing in front of it, wondering where your classroom is. Fellow students poured into the school, prompting you to follow them. You looked around curiously, wandering the halls in an attempt to search for your class. Not long after, you saw the 1-A door sign, making you sigh in relief. While there was still 10 minutes before class was supposed to begin, you were happy to be able to sit down, fatigue already taking over your body. Last night was filled with nerves, as you wondered how your first day of class would begin, thus you only got 3 hours of sleep. However, that wasn’t much of a change from your usual sleeping habits, where you barely got 4 hours of sleep every night.

Finally opening the large door, you glanced around the room. It was half full, with a variety of different types of people sitting in their seats, most talking quietly to each other. Walking to the podium in front of the class, you looked at the seating chart, scanning it for your name. Spotting it, your lips turned down in a frown, growling lowly when your realized that your seat was right behind Bakugo’s. Rolling your eyes, you turned to your seat, sitting in it as the door banged open. Bakugo stood there confidently, not bothering to take in the class before he strolled to the podium, eyeing the seating chart. After seeing where his desk is, his eyes swept around the class in distaste. When he spotted you, he bared his teeth, growling as he stomped over to you.

His dramatic entrance had caught the attention of the rest in class, who watched worriedly as he stomped his way over towards you. You tilted your head, raising an eyebrow at him almost tauntingly.

“What the fuck are you doing here, dumb bitch?!” He yelled, small explosions popping out of his hands. You looked at him for a moment, trying to decide if it was worth replying as you sized him up, before deciding that it wasn’t. So, instead, you turned your head away, looking out of the window. Bakugo roared in rage as you ignored him, his hand raising to grab your collar.

“Fuck it.”

 A red haired boy shot up, ready to try to help the situation, but Bakugo suddenly tumbled backwards when you swiftly punched him dead in the center of his chest.

“I’m not here to play your fucking games, Bakugo,” You hissed, settling back into your seat with a calming breath, gritting your teeth.  The class gasped in shock at the power your one punch held, the redhead blinking dumbfounded, before continuing forward, stepping in front of Bakugo just as he was about to pounce at you. 

“Whoa dude, calm down. You don’t want to get in trouble on the first day, do you?” The redhead said, holding out his hand as if that would stop Bakugo. Bakugo clicked his tongue, sending you a glare before flopping into his desk in front of you. The redhead glanced between the two of you, before sending you a bright smile, holding out his hand.

“My name is Eijiro Kirishima,” He introduced as you shook his hand.

“(Y/n) (L/n), but please just call me (Y/n),” You muttered, slightly taken aback at his wide, childlike grin. The sight of it made your heart clench slightly, memories of Izuku smiling like that coming to the forefront of your mind. You forced a smile, slightly quirking your head to the side slightly, forcing yourself to seem amused. It wasn’t hard to do, since you’ve been doing it for so long it became almost instinct. You’re happy expression seemed to attract some of the other students, who were still eyeing the situation curiously. A blunette stepped forward, moving his arm wildly at Bakugo, who had his feet propped up on his desk. 

You talked to the boy named Kirishima for a few more minutes, before the door opening caught your attention. A brunette walked in nervously, with a small smile as she took in the room. The blue haired boy, who you’ve overheard name was Iida, suddenly cut himself off, stopping his lecturing to walk over to the girl.

“Ah, I see you are fine after the Zero-pointer crushed you. I apologize for not spotting you in time to help,” He said pretty loudly, thus, most of the class listened in on the conversation. The brunette blushed deeply at the attention, her rosy cheeks turning even darker.

“Y-Yeah, I’m fine. Both of my legs were completely mangled, but a few kisses from Recovery Girl fixed that. A-and it’s fine, there was so much happening, that it was kind of expected that I wouldn’t be noticed in time…” She trailed off, looking shyly at the ground.

You frowned, remembering overhearing that someone was crushed by the Zero-point robot while in your battle center, but during that time you were a few blocks away and didn’t see what happened. Looking back at Kirishima, he turned away from the girl, looking down as if he felt guilty. 

“He must have witnessed it, and not have been able to do anything to save her,” 

“If you’re here to make friends, get out,” A husky voice said, shifting the attention of the class to the yellow sleeping bag that stood at the door. Unwrapping himself, the scruffy looking man looked to the class before speaking again.

“I’m Shoto Aizawa, your homeroom teacher,” He introduced, before producing a pile of clothes, holding the uniform up. “Put these on, and head outside.”

The girls gleefully talked in the locker room, deciding to get to know each other since there were so few females in the class. While making light conversation, your eyes drifted over to the girl named Uraraka. Her legs seemed heavily scarred, probably from the entrance exam, but she didn’t seem to be self-conscious about it, joyfully engaging in a seemingly interesting conversation with Mina. Your gaze lingered for a moment, before looking away, finishing getting dressed by putting on the U.A. gym uniform’s jacket

Once outside, you continued the light conversation you were having with Hagakure, who was extremely excited about whatever activities the class would be participating in. With a slight smile on your face, you stood along with the rest of your classmates, waiting for Aizawa to begin. After a few minutes, when everyone was accounted for, Aizawa explained what he planned for today, earning a lot of complaints from everyone. After shutting down the complaints, he turned his attention to Bakugo.

“You scored first on the entrance exam…” He uttered out, continuing on to asking Bakugo a few questions, then told Bakugo to throw a ball with his quirk. Bakugo stepped up to the circle, muttering to himself for a second before hurling the ball with a loud ‘Die!’. The class gasped in awe at the distance, while you turned your head away from the explosive boy, still not completely over what happened between the two of you, not even 30 minutes ago.

Aizawa went on to explain the hardships of real life, and casually mentioning that who ever came in last place would be expelled. Your eyebrows furrowed in disbelief, before a determined face replaced it, intent on not getting last place.

As the Quirk Apprehension came closer to an end, it was your turn to pitch the baseball. Walking closer to the circle you were to stand in, you stripped off the jacket, flexing your arms as you caught the ball Aizawa threw to you.

“Whoa, she’s ripped!” The purple-ball haired boy drooled, repeatedly tapping the leg of a boy you recalled being named Kaminari. Kaminari nodded wildly, his jaw slightly dropped as well. 

“That’s so fucking hot,” he muttered. You shot him a disgusted glare, before taking a deep breath, closing your eyes and activating your quirk. Light crept up under your skin in thin lines, traveling up your arms, and under your clothes, the light emitting a faint glow from under your clothes. Snapping your eyes open, you reeled back, launching the ball into the air; waiting a moment with your arm still outstretched, before sending a controlled psionic explosion after it, sending the ball even further with a loud ‘Crack!’. The explosion caused your arm to jerk back, making you wince as your shoulder became a little sore.

“983 meters,” Aizawa said, as he turned his phone for the class to see. You nodded, grabbing your discarded jacket off the floor, tossing it over your shoulder as you made it back to your classmates, most who congratulated you on your high score. You smiled politely, thanking everyone who congratulated you. Your gaze shifted over to the fuming blonde, feeling a smirk creep onto your face at his distressed look.

It was finally time for everyone to see their overall scores, and most of all, who would be expelled. Aizawa talked even more about how everyone was ranked from best to worst.

“And now, it’s time to see your scores.” As he said those words, he pressed a button, a projection of the scores suddenly appearing in front of the class. You quickly scanned the names, finding yourself at 9th place. Letting out a small sigh of relief, your attention was drawn towards the sound of a loud cry.

The purple ball haired kid cried loudly, falling to his knees. Your eyes snapped back to the projection, finding the name Mineta Minoru in the last place spot. Assuming that was him, you gave him a sympathetic look, as Aizawa began to speak.

“Mineta Minoru, you have been expelled from U.A.. Pack your bags and go home,”

The class gasped in shock at the bluntness of his voice, Momo covering her mouth with her hand in disbelief.

“Y-You can’t be serious!” she called out, her eyes wide as she glanced towards the crying, shorter boy. Aizawa rubbed his eyes boredly, before looking at her.

“Of course I am. I’m not going to waste my time on someone who has no potential. Now that we’re done here, there are handouts on the curriculum in class, I expect you to look them over,” He muttered before walking away. The class remained frozen in their spots, only being able to watch in pity as Mineta stood up, running away while sobbing. 

You awkwardly looked at the people near you, all who looked around at each other, as if asking the same question,

“Did that really just happen?”

It was a few hours after classes had ended, and Aizawa slowly made his way towards the meeting room, where the rest of the U.A. teachers were. He carried his sleeping bag over his shoulder, using his free hand to open the door. All of the seats were filled, except one next to Yamada Hizashi aka Present Mic, his self-proclaimed best friend. Aizawa plopped down in his seat, before sliding a file over towards Principal Nezu.

“This kid is expelled,” He muttered simply, before sitting back in his seat, waiting for the official meeting to begin. Principal Nezu quickly leafed through the file before putting it off to the side.

“Okay!” Nezu squeaked out, “Today’s meeting is about a villain, who as of recent, has been causing trouble in the surrounding areas. While this doesn’t particularly involve the school, the police wanted us to discuss this as heroes, plus some interesting suspicions the police have on the villain,”

Nezu clicked a button on a remote that sat in front of him, right next to his cup of tea. In the middle of the conference table, a projection appeared. It showed a display of destroyed buildings, before the image shifted to a dark figure standing in the middle of a crater size ditch. From the grainy photo, it seemed as if the figure wore a white dress shirt, with a black dress tie, black suit vest, and black pants. While the figure’s face was covered in what looked to be a purple-black shadow, turfs of dark green hair poked out, along with bright glowing green eyes; and behind him, long, pointed spear-like tentacles emerged from the ground under him.

“While this villain had first been spotted over a year ago, it has only been recently that it seems like this person has came back, and even stronger than before. The reason is still unknown, as well as much about the villain themselves. However, the police has come to suspect this young man,” 

The grainy picture of the figure shrunk, another picture popping up next to it. It showed the smiling, young face of a boy who seemed to be no older than a junior high kid. The kid had a bright smile, his wild green hair and freckles prominent in the photo.

“This is Izuku Midoriya. Almost two years ago, he was thought to have commited suicide; a body had even been found and identified. Though, this information hasn’t been released to the public, the body the police found, soon turned up missing after Inko Midoriya confirmed the bloated body as her son. Because of a mix up, it was first thought to have been mistakenly cremated, due to ignorance of a morgue tech. As such, the last police chief attempted to cover this up to avoid a lawsuit being filed, and convinced Ms. Midoriya to have a closed-casket funeral, thus not being able to see the body after confirming it. In replace of Izuku Midoriya’s body, a John Doe was buried,” Nezu explained, his usual cheery tone, being toned down.

“Absolutely disgusting,” The Pro-hero Midnight muttered, shaking her head, feeling pain for the poor women who unknowingly buried the body of a stranger in place of her son.

“Furthermore, it is believed that the entire incident was a planned scheme to have Izuku Midoriya announced dead, so he’d have an easy path into villain-hood,” Nezu continued to explain, before being cut off by Vlad King.

“What does this have to do with us?” He asked gruffly. Nezu, raised his hand dismissively, before continuing.

“We, as heros, should look out for this boy. He is dangerous, and is believed to have killed more than 100 people in a single attack. Not to mention that he is the same age as our high school students, so it may be possible for him to temporarily pass as one of our own students. While this is unlikely, it is still a possibility. The police are currently looking further into Midoriya’s previous life, but don’t want to officially announce him as the villain, while there is still not much evidence. Telling us was just a precaution, as the police may later need our help.” 

The room was silent for a few moments, as everyone stared at the innocent looking face of Izuku Midoriya. Aizawa’s eyes shifted back and forth between the innocent face, to the dark, slightly blurry picture. Taking a deep breathe, he shook his head, tearing his eyes away from the projection, muttering to himself.

“Villains are getting younger and younger these days.”

[ice-cream-nekogirl]

I just wanna make you feel okay But all you do is look the other way, mm I can't tell you how much I wish I didn't wanna stay I just kinda wish you were gay ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bPEjcgytN8

Amy and Midoriya:

Believe it or not, Midoriya just might be another one of Amy’s most complex and complicated relationships, second to her’s and Fiona’s, which is saying something. The only thing Midoriya and Fiona have in common at all though is their closeness to the young witch and the fact that they both ended up breaking her heart. Midoriya is also living proof of how Amy can go from intensely loving someone one moment, to intensely hating them the next...

They didn’t always have a rocky relationship though, it just... got strained along the way but don’t worry! There’s a happy ending!

Amy met Midoriya as a child, and ironically, she ended up saving him from Bakugo when he was bullying him. She attacked him because he was picking on a defenseless Midoriya, which really surprised the latter since no one’s ever attempt to stop Bakugo from being a jerk. Amy took an immediate liking to Midoriya as they ran away from Bakugo and his friends at the time, and even already gave him a nickname ‘Greenie’. She sympathized with him since he was quirkless and although she didn’t tell him that she was really a witch and that her powers just emerged, she still comforted the boy when he said that he really wanted to be a hero. Amy expressed her faith in Midoriya, and said that he was going to be a great hero some day because he’s a nice guy. Their friendship was short-lived when Amy moved to New Orleans, but they reunited when she returned to Japan and met him again at the UA Entrance exams.

Excited, Amy happily greeted him and asked if he remembered her, and once he got a glimpse of her powers, he remembered her as the girl with the teleportation power much to her delight. Amy instantly clung to Midoriya and declared herself as his ‘new best friend’, which rather annoyed Shinsou, who she had also reunited with beforehand. In truth though, Amy’s fondness of Midoriya was actually a crush as she notes that he got ‘cuter’ 4 years later and was happy to see that he was still the determined and kind-hearted boy she met in the past. Although this ended up in her being very jealous of other girls, but especially Uraraka, who Amy often secretly pushed with her telekinesis whenever she got too close to Midoriya. Although she was perfectly fine with Hatsume and Toga whenever they were getting close to Midoriya, and she even happily chatted with Toga about how cute he was. 

On his side, Midoriya was both happy to see her and have her as a new friend but was also extremely flustered by her physically affectionate and hands-on attitude as she frequently hugged him and held his hands, arms and shoulders and overall made him very nervous. Nonetheless, Midoriya began to view her as a good friend and someone that he can rely on despite her flightiness as Amy proved to be a good help whenever she gave him emotional support and cheered him up by being her silly self especially when she hung around him, Uraraka and Iida.

Midoriya became used to Amy’s personality and knew that she could be relied on to lighten up the mood since she was almost always smiling and being funny, which he admired. Midoriya notes that Amy is a good person and good in a tense situation because she can bring the laughter and smiles back on people’s faces. But Amy also ends up surprising Midoriya though during the USJ incident and when she showed up to help him, Iida and Todoroki fight off the Hero Killer Stain as he was amazed by her fighting spirit and skills with magic. Midoriya had and still has a lot of respect for Amy because of her skillset in witchcraft and the power she has, although he is also bewildered by her tendency to be lazy and preference to goof off. Despite this, Midoriya’s respect for her grows when Amy proves to be reliable both in and out of battle and Amy was amazed by his strength and kind heart. 

Sadly, their relationship slowly began to skew as Midoriya began to grow as a person and start prioritizing his new goals to become stronger above most of everything so he can become a better hero. Amy was aware of Midoriya’s goals but was oblivious to his gradual maturation as she continued to joke around and entertain him which only made her look much more immature in comparison and she ended up becoming clingy. She slowly became grating towards Midoriya because of this, but he was too polite to turn her away and merely humored her because he liked seeing her happy and still regarded her as a good friend.The Kamino Ward Arc is where their relationship began to slowly sour when Amy gets captured with Bakugo, and discovers that he, Kirishima, Todoroki, Iida and Yaoyorozu went to rescue them on their own without any knowledge of the pro-heroes. While Amy was impressed that he broke the rules, she was also irritated with the fact that his main priority at the time was Bakugo, and that he didn’t think far ahead given that Amy and Bakugo were trapped with 7 dangerous villains at the time and Midoriya and his friends were still merely novices at the time. She irritably chides him for being reckless and when she was rescued by Madison instead, she also asks him if he even knew that she was alive. A shocked Midoriya doesn’t answer, and Amy leaves without a word. 

Amy did want to forgive Midoriya for unintentionally forgetting about her, and as she spent her time interning with Mallory and Madison she expressed the hope that maybe confessing her feelings to him would improve on their relationship. And when she returns after the Internship arc and expresses pride in Midoriya initially for taking down Overhaul and rescuing young Eri, but that pride gets instantly dissipated when she hears more details surrounding the entire rescue operation. When she hears how it resulted in the death of a hero, several heroes getting injured and some of their friends, including their teacher, getting injured all for the sake of one that they didn’t even know well Amy gets very upset. To the point where she starts yelling and calls Midoriya an idiot for his recklessness and states that he has no idea what he’s doing, and the two of them get in a verbal fight as Midoriya tells Amy that she has no place to speak since she’s just as reckless, if not more so than he is. But Amy remarks that she’s not reckless to the point of sacrificing her friends’ lives for a stranger he just met, only for Midoriya to point out that it’s a heroes job to protect the innocent lives. 

However, Eri’s rescue also negatively enlightened Amy as she compared her own rescue to the former’s less than meaningful and positive one, and the witch realizes that she never received that kind of care, nor did the heroes showcase that kind of determination to give her a better life as they did for Eri, which greatly angers and hurts her when she recollects what kind of harsh life she had ever since she was rescued by the heroes and later given away. Amy rants this newfound knowledge to Midoriya, who although is sympathetic to her plight, can’t understand her on an emotional level and instead urges her to let go of that since she is here now as a hero-in-training and needs to be above all of that. But Amy doesn’t want to hear it as she laughs off his words, and then callously disregards Eri, as Amy says that she herself matters. Disgusted and horrified by Amy’s lack of empathy, he chastises her for being cruel and calls her out on her selfishness and reminds her of the ‘kind, sweet girl’ she used to be, which shocks the young witch when it becomes clear that Midoriya isn’t happy to see how she truly is behind one aspect of herself. And when Midoriya ends the conversation Amy is left unhinging and hurt from having the boy she likes speak to her like that and point out her flaws. 

Amy acts much colder and emotionless during the Culture Festival, which her classmates noted and likened her to Todoroki, who was more concerned than amused by her strange and distraught behavior. To make matters worse Amy refused to join the class dance out of spite towards Midoriya and also Aizawa; who she also began to hate since he started to take care of Eri, something she begged for him to do for her, but he didn’t when he could have. And when Midoriya pleads with Amy to be a team-player and help them she refuses and tells him to go to hell. Instead, Amy goes to the General Studies to be with Shinsou, who’s well aware of her anger and does what he can to ease her. Unfortunately, when the Culture Festival comes to an end and she sees her entire class looking happy without her, and especially Midoriya, she starts hallucinating Fiona, who reminds her that she has no place in Hero Society, which causes her to suffer a mental breakdown.  Incensed, heartbroken and now bubbling with rage, Amy sets up a plot in motion for the next day and attacks Aizawa and UA. The pro-heroes fight back, but Amy planned ahead and instantly defeated them with her telekinesis and Concilium, and also put her friends to sleep with a sleeping potion to spare them from her wrath. Midoriya notices this and quickly steps in to try and stop her, and the two of them engage in a fight when the insane and hostile Amy mocks and unnerves him with her psychosis. 

Midoriya attempts to calm Amy down by saying that their friends and shouldn’t be fighting each other, but a pissed off Amy angrily tells him that she’s not in the mood for his ‘hero speeches’ and continues to attack him. He has no choice but to fight back as he tries desperately to remind her of their friendship, only for her to say that he isn’t seeing from her point of view. But as Amy goes on tirade about how Hero Society has abandoned and failed people like her and points out all of the flaws, Midoriya tells her that she’s starting to sound like Stain. Amy doesn’t heed this though, only further angered, but when Midoriya gets the upperhand and pins her down, she breaks down crying. Feeling guilty, Midoriya gently requests for her to stop what she’s doing, but Amy tearfully begs for him to let her go and to listen to her, and confesses that she’s only doing this because she loves him. However, Midoriya was extremely taken aback by her confession, and because of his insecurity with girls and belief that Amy doesn’t truly mean it, he angrily yells at her to stop playing around and that she really is crazy if she’s doing this out of some twisted idea of love. He then goes on to say that she can’t blame Hero Society for her own shortcomings since he himself didn’t despite the system being against him, and harshly reminds her that only she’s to blame for her what’s happening because she let it get to her instead of rising above that. 

Midoriya had good intentions, but those words are what served as the final nail into the coffin and Amy’s Sentio Compassios awoke into a stronger, more enraged form ‘Sentio Furia’ which both surprises and scares Midoriya. Scorned and heartbroken, Amy’s power fueled by her unbridled fury overwhelms and dominates Midoriya as she tosses him around like a ragdoll and grabs him with her enlarged form and prepares to crush him. Horrified, remorseful and frightened by this new rage that he realizes is caused by him, Midoriya begs for Amy to stop and apologizes for what he said, but Amy says that she hates him and attempts to crush him. At least, until Shinsou arrives and sadly looks up at Amy, which she notices and upon seeing Midoriya’s tears, Amy remembers her human heart and memories with him as she slowly comes down from her high and lets him go but leaves him to writhe in pain with broken ribs. She heals his internal bleeding but backhand slaps him one last time with a scowl, much to Midoriya’s dismay when she leaves with Shinsou.  

At the end of the battle and destruction she caused, Amy is pardoned by Cordelia and she’s freed of any punishments that would have been planned for her. But because Amy felt too upset and hurt by the pro-heroes, she quits UA which shocks all of her classmates but especially Midoriya, who feels partially responsible for her departure. Amy isolates herself in her mansion in an attempt to numb the pain of her heartache caused by both the pro-heroes and Midoriya as she thought about him, both positively and negatively as she frequently ranted to Shinsou, Madison, Mallory and Coco (who took care of her) about her newfound hate for him. In truth, Amy didn’t really hate Midoriya, but still didn’t like him nor was she able to feel any affection for him for a long time. Even as Midoriya visited her at her mansion and attempted to apologize to her with an All-Might gift (suggested by Shinsou), Amy was still upset and rejected his apology, dismissed it as garbage and crushed it before she menacingly told him to get out. Hurt, Midoriya would continue his school life sadly and upset with himself for failing Amy and not being able to get through to her.

Amy’s newfound grudge against Midoriya remains for quite some time even when she eventually returns to UA as she treats him coldly and refuses to speak to him. Although, she did end up having to talk to him during their internship with Endeavor, but many of her words were unfriendly and she even punched him in the stomach for innocently, but insensitively dismissing her when they talked about Todoroki, which highly amused Bakugo, who liked her new attitude towards Midoriya. After Natsuo is rescued, Amy and Midoriya finally have another conversation after he asks for her to talk to him, and Amy confesses that she’s not mad at him anymore, but doesn’t look at him the same anymore. She confesses that her confession was real and that her feelings for him were real, which flustered him a bit, until she said that she related to him and felt a connection to him since they were both outcasts. But then she expressed her disappointment in him for no longer being able to be on the outside and look in as he has forgotten his former quirkless self in favor of his new power, while Amy embraced the things that made her different from society. Shocked but also regretful over this new realization, he apologizes to her oncemore, but Amy sadly says that ‘sorry’ isn’t going to change anything.

While Midoriya does keep his priorities, Amy remained in his mind and he couldn’t stop thinking about how he failed her, and there were many times where he did try his best to repair or at least patch up their relationship once Amy slightly lessened her grudge. Todoroki and Shinsou offered him advice by telling him to not push it and to let her forgive him on her own terms, but Midoriya was still willing to do whatever he could to get to forgive him. Later, Amy takes 1-A (plus Shinsou) to New Orleans as a field trip since she felt guilty for what she did to UA and the class was ecstatic to visit America. However, an ambush by witch-hunters takes them by surprise as they are forced to fight and when Amy is killed by one of the hunters Midoriya is crestfallen and cries for her. At least, until she is quickly revived by Misty Day and Cordelia, and Amy happily hugs everyone, including Bakugo, but doesn’t do the same for a very dismayed Midoriya. Sensing their tension, Cordelia sends both Midoriya and Amy on a mission to infltrate and stop a cult of Satanists in New Orleans who are framing witches and killing innocent people. Amy isn’t happy to be with Midoriya, but takes her mission seriously to protect her coven and Midoriya is more than happy to help.

The mission is rather awkward as Amy tells Midoriya that they’re going to be disguised as an illegally married teenage Satanist couple which greatly flusters the boy and amuses Amy. Throughout the entire mission though, Amy does most of the heavy lifting and uses some very underhanded tactics to take down the cult from the inside out and just tells Midoriya to stay out of her way even when he’s trying to help her and is constantly on edge by her brutality. And when he yells at her for not letting him help and for her savage murders, he is quickly intimidated by her cold glare as she reminds him that he shouldn’t be getting mouthy with the girl who’s not above murdering people. However, when Amy starts to get overwhelmed by the amount of power and Satanists, Midoriya rescues her before she can get killed and he kind of scolds her about letting her anger cloud her judgement. 

And Amy reluctantly agrees that she shouldn’t have silenced him but then tells him that feeling ignored and dismissed isn’t a nice feeling and Midoriya reflects on how he made her feeling. Amy then tells him that she’s not going to be the kind-hearted girl he wants her to be. Midoriya tries to assure her that he’s not asking for her to be that girl, but Amy doesn’t believe him. Although, Amy does still express her concern and worry for Midoriya when he gets injured by the leader of the Satanists and she lets go of her negative feelings towards him momentarily. Together they both put their differences aside and they are both able to destroy the cult together, although Amy’s way of going about it is more brutal but Midoriya says nothing on it.

As the cult is destroyed and later killed by Satan himself in a very gory fashion, Amy is amazed but not fazed upon seeing Satan as he gives both her and Midoriya an impressed nod at how they defeated the cult that failed him. A horrified and blood-soaked Midoriya asks her if that’s really what she grew up with and she casually says ‘yes’ and that there’s more blood than normal. But later Midoriya goes into shock upon having several other people’s blood on him, and Amy finally shows her gentler side and takes him back to the coven so he can recover both physically and emotionally as she stays by his side the entire time. Midoriya tells Amy that if that’s truly what she’s grown up with, then he can understand a little bit more why she is the way she is today and she awkwardly smiles and says that it wasn’t easy and she tells him more of her past stories. Sympathetic and also shocked by what she went through, Midoriya nonetheless expresses more respect and awe towards Amy’s resilience and reassures her that while she’s more ruthless than she used to be, that he knows she still has a sympathetic heart despite all of that. Touched by his words, Amy finally forgives Midoriya although she breaks down in tears as she apologizes to him for everything she’s done and for how she’s acted, but he quickly forgives her as she tightly hugs him, and for once Midoriya returns the favor and hugs her back as the two of them cry together.

That’s... their relationship. Rocky, complicated but also close because while Amy and Midoriya have had a fairly shaky journey together, they learned a lot from each other nonetheless. Midoriya learned to remember where he came from and Amy learned to be more forgiving towards others and he ended up inspiring her to make her own place in society since that’s what he did when he made his mark and showcased himself as no longer weak. For better or worse Amy’s new goal is to make her mark and further integrate both witches and heroes, but Midoriya believes that she’s still heroic at heart despite her issues. So in the end... Amy and Midoriya patched up their relationship, and while she’s not in love with him anymore she still has real love for him. 

Likewise, Midoriya still holds Amy in very high regard and cares for her deeply, although he is a lot more afraid of her anger now and secretly admits that he doesn’t ever want to fight her again. And also, he still gets flustered by her especially when she goes back to the way she was by hugging him and holding his arm as Amy begins giving him affection once again. It’s implied that there’s a mutual attraction between the two, but overall, Amy and Midoriya have fixed their rocky relationship and are back to being good friends, even though she still likes to tease and prank him, and there is still some awkward moments since Amy started a relationship with Bakugo, and the latter is still very jealous of him whenever he’s even close to Amy, much to her amusement. 

I didn’t intend for Amy to have this kind of friendship/relationship with Midoriya but he IS the protagonist of BNHA so... it only makes sense that she has a unique and impactful relationship with him right? XD I think so... and they’re still friends thank goodness, and will continue to be friends even if they come from two different worlds, they do maintain their close bond. 

I just kinda wish you were gay...

[mysterylover123]

My thoughts on Izu/Ocha: Meta

cue frustrated shipper screams

by mysterylover123

At the end of the day, irrespective of any shipping wars, I just want HeroAca to have a good ending. Many manga/anime/franchises have been utterly destroyed by a bad ending, while others are elevated by a great one. And a very consistent element in Bad Endings is poor handling of romantic subplots. Exhibits include: How I Met Your Mother, Naruto, Bleach. Horikoshi has listed both Marvel and Shonen Jump as his major influences, and BNHA is published in the latter. Both companies have a history of terrible Romantic Subplot decisions: Selling Spider-Man’s marriage to Mephisto, the IchiHime vs IchiRuki debate, the awkward Staron and Brutasha subplots in the MCU, and the fiery pit of controversy that is the Naruto ending pairs - all of it ultimately harming the narrative’s integrity and preventing audiences from enjoying the story. While a badly handled romance subplot doesn’t have to tank the ending of an action series, it’s still a thin line to walk.  

On the surface, BNHA’s main pairing of Izuku Midoriya/Ochaco Uraraka, or Izu/Ocha as it’s called, seems to avoid the obvious problems. There’s no More Important Girl in Deku’s life, there’s no coding on his rivalries, and no melodramatic love triangle to annoy people. In fact, I can even say that Izuku and Ochaco’s dynamic is pretty fascinating. But not yet as an endgame pairing. My feelings on Izu/Ocha are complicated. I simultaneously ship it and don’t. I ship it because I enjoy them both as characters, I think they’re good friends, and they seem to like each other; I don’t ship it because the execution so far has been rather awkward, the romance lopsided on Uraraka’s side, and the nature of their relationship struggling to get to the levels of intimacy I’d expect from an endgame pairing. I’m afraid, in short, that Horikoshi will do what other Shonen manga have done: have a supporting female character become defined by her love for the Lead, have the lead spend the whole series ignoring them to obsess over their rivals and villains, and throw the two together at the last minute without properly developing their romance, leaving both fans of the pairing (because of the lack of onscreen development) and non-fans (because of the weak storytelling) alike disappointed and frustrated. 

There are several options for what could happen besides that terrifying prospect. Izu/Ocha could spend lots of time developing their romance, correcting the problems I’ve spotted and outlined in this meta - I’ll mention a few areas where I think they could change these problems as I go along - and become a great Official Couple, like some of the success stories in Shonen romance writing (Ed/Win, Vegeta/Bulma…erm, that’s all I can think of). Alternatively, they could grow away from their crushes on each other and set them aside, ending as friends instead of lovers, possibly with no Official Couples (One Piece, and in the west, Gravity Falls, do something like this). That could work too. They could both end up with other people. They could end up having a tragic falling out and become enemies. At this point, anything’s possible. But what I do know is that they need to change something about their dynamic, and change it fast, or else the story is going to go barreling into the problems of it’s predecessors - the flaws in Shonen manga the series is so well known for avoiding, like pacing issues or Power Scaling. And I don’t want that.

I wrote this meta mostly to contextualize/analyze the Izu/Ocha dynamic for myself. I find their relationship interesting, and most meta on Izu/Ocha barely scratch the surface of their relationship, only going so far as to say either “I don’t like it” or “I like it, and you all are stupid for not liking it”. My feelings on Izu/Ocha are complicated, and I wanted to do a meta on them. Both their relationship, and as two of my fave characters in BNHA. What I want from a storytelling, meta-narrative perspective is a good story. What I want from a character loving POV is for my faves to be happy. If the series shows me they’ll make each other happy, I’m good. It’s just that so far, their relationship doesn’t seem to work that way.

So I’ll go through each arc of the series, and try and detail their interactions from both Deku’s POV and Uraraka’s. I’ll highlight the moments I like and find shippy, and the things they need to work on as a couple. Hopefully this’ll be an enjoyable read (it ended up really, really long), and I’m sorry if Izu/Ocha fans reading it get mad at me - I have nothing against it as a ship, I just want more from the relationship in canon.

Without further ado:

Entrance Exam Arc:

Deku’s POV: Deku’s first impression of Uraraka is great. She’s a cute, kind girl who stops him from tripping over his feet. 

He does, however, think of her as “a girl” (“I just talked to a girl!”), which is a pattern with how he often reacts to her - as “a girl”, rather than “Uraraka”, later on down the line. When Deku shows attraction to Ochaco, it’s to her as an exemplar of the female, rather than as a person. 

Compare Deku’s attraction to her uniform and costume, or responses to talking to ‘a girl’, to say, Naruto saying he likes Sakura’s “large charming forehead” or Darcy in Pride and Prejudice thinking of Elizabeth’s “fine dark eyes”. Big difference in terms of how romantic the attraction comes across. 

Iida stops Deku from talking to Uraraka before the test, saying he’ll just distract her. Take a shot every time someone frames Ochaco’s potential interest in Deku as being a ‘distraction’ that she has to do without.

Deku notices Uraraka pinned under rubble and jumps to save her. He compares this mentally to doing the same for Bakugo in the previous arc, from the sludge villain. But there’s no All Might here to save Deku, and when he jumps he breaks three limbs. His decision gets him into UA, but he thinks he failed. For weeks, Deku feels miserable about this, wallowing in despair because he threw away his chance to get into UA. He gets the news from All Might, and learns that Uraraka went to offer up some of her points for him. Now this is sweet, but let’s look at what we know of Deku’s character now and talk about why I don’t think he appreciates this all that much, and why it wouldn’t have been good for their relationship if that was what got him into UA.

Deku doesn’t believe in himself. He has huge issues with personal security and confidence because of his past. He wants to be there for other people, to be “able to smile, while doing something good for them”. Deku wanted to get into UA on his own merit. So had Uraraka actually been the one to get him in, out of gratitude, it really would have done a number on Deku’s self-esteem. It would have told him that he wasn’t good enough to get in on his own, that someone else had to sabotage themselves to bail him out because of his mistakes. Fortunately, that’s not what happened - he got in because Rescue Points - but from an Izu/Ocha standpoint, it doesn’t seem calculated to cause Deku to fall in love with Uraraka. He doesn’t want someone to take pity on him and sabotage themselves so he can do well. 

That’s why he doesn’t seem all that moved by Uraraka’s gesture here - we could have had many close-ups and reaction bubbles of him thinking about how wonderful she was for doing this, how generous and kind of her it was, but nope, nothing like that happens. Deku is only ecstatic once he learns that he made it in on his own merit. As he should be, of course, but ultimately this first encounter doesn’t do a lot to set up Izu/Ocha.

Ochaco’s POV. Ochaco is a nice girl who saves people in trouble. She’s also very, very insecure. I’ll get into that more later, but despite Uraraka’s cheerful exterior, she’s even more insecure than Deku is. She saves him when they first meet, then walks off after talking at him for a few minutes. 

He doesn’t respond to her at all out loud and she quickly moves on. This is a small microcasm of their entire  dynamic: Ochaco often talks at Deku rather than with Deku, and he rarely talks to her about anything. We’ll get more into that later.

Ochaco gets saved by Deku during the exam, saves him in return, and later on offers him her points. When she brings him up to Mic, she calls him “plain looking” and “didn’t stand out at all”. Lovely first impression. Of course, it’s not impossible for a romance subplot to start with the love interest not finding the hero attractive. The aforementioned Pride and Prejudice, for instance, starts with Darcy calling Eliza “tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me.” But within two chapters he’s gushing about her “fine eyes”. 

200+  chapters later, and Ochaco still hasn’t said a word about finding Deku more attractive now. Now, she could, hopefully some day, realize that she no longer finds him plain, and that she’s grown to find him attractive. Say something about those big green eyes or his fearless smile. Something personal, like he has yet to say about her, to express that she finds him appealing. But nothing yet.

Uraraka giving Deku her points, from her POV, is I think motivated just as much by pride as it is by gratitude. She got into that scenario because she was pinned down, and she probably feels like it was her fault. It would be kind of creepy, actually, if she was willing to throw her own chances under the bus for someone she just met because she liked him or was in love with him - Misa Amane levels of love-at-first-sight co-dependency. Uraraka doing this because of her own pride seems more fitting to me, more in line with the character we get to know later on. 

EG:

She feels she messed up, and took someone else down with her, and as such has to make things better. Thankfully, Deku pulled through on his own. This is one of many sweet scenes where Uraraka offers Deku a great deal of love and support. But sadly, it’s a very lopsided bond in that regard. Outside of this moment, Deku never does anything crazy to protect Uraraka again, and rarely shows her the same kind of support. Not because he doesn’t want to, per se, but because she won’t let him (if you want the full details on that imbalance, skip to the Sports Fest arc section).

Quirk Apprehension Test Arc:

Uraraka’s POV: We continue the pattern of Uraraka’s crush on Deku being something she’s told to drop here, with Aizawa telling her if she’s “just here to make friends” she can go home (take a shot). 

She’s happy to see Deku and supportive of him when he does OK, worried for him when he’s hurt, and in general a good friend. At this point in the series, we’re not privy to her inner thoughts, so there’s not as much to say about her feelings here. The only thing of note is the other general pattern of their relationship, wherein Uraraka gets to be supportive of and worried for Deku, but not him for her. Her revising of the name Deku is more important from his POV.

Deku’s POV: Deku shows continuing attraction to Uraraka here, thinking that she “looks good in her uniform” and blushing around her. However, he quickly moves on to overcoming the Quirk App Test and doesn’t think about her much throughout the rest of the arc. 

She comes up to him later and calls him ‘Deku’, like Bakugo did, and reframes the nickname as a positive thing. The setup seems clear: Ochaco is to be the friend to Deku that Bakugo never was, the kind and supportive ally he lacked back in middle school. This scene makes me smile.

Which would be fine if that’s what they went with, but…

Battle Trial Arc:

This arc starts out so well for Izu/Ocha, then goes down hill fast.

Deku on Ochaco here: Deku thinks she looks good in her uniform, blushing around her, and expressing a desire to impress her when they’re put on the same team. 

They’re up against Bakugo, and he’s nervous. When Ochaco asks, he starts talking about how Greatamazingawesomesuperspecialwhatever Bakugo is and how he wants to beat him. 

He then apologizes to Ochaco for getting her caught up in his problems, indicating that he doesn’t see her as being part of them. Even though Ochaco proclaims them to be a team, he doesn’t do much strategizing with her ahead of time. He gets very caught up in his match with Bakugo, and doesn’t bother working with her until Bakugo has him cornered and nearly drops him with the MegaBlast. Then, he calls her and comes up with a plan - but imagine if he’d actually worked together with Ochaco to beat Bakugo.

 If he’d guessed, as he says, that Bakugo was planning to “come at him first”, then why not get Uraraka to grab Bakugo while he’s distracted and zero G him out of the building?

Because Deku wants to beat Bakugo to prove himself, plain and simple. He’s known Bakugo longer, so it’s only natural he’s more interested in beating him than working with Uraraka. But this could have gone so much better for him if he took the time to work with Ochaco instead - if they’d tag-teamed Kacchan, Deku might not have had to break his arm. 

He does salvage this a little by taking the new version of his name Uraraka came up with. But then Deku spends the rest of the arc ignoring her instead of working with her. 

There’s even an oddly placed panel sequence where she blows off a flirtatious Kaminari to worry about Deku, and he then blows her off to go chase after Bakugo and clear up their misunderstanding. It’s probably just a coincidence, but it’s still a weird parallel.

And speaking of this scene, let’s talk about a bigger concern with Izu/Ocha (from Deku’s angle) that I have. Deku has a secret identity. He has a past as a quirkless kid, a history of insecurity, and a secret chosen one destiny that burdens him greatly. He needs his future partner to be someone he can talk to about all this. If I were him, and I had to choose among the kids at UA who I’d tell my troublesome secret ID to, who I’d want to confide in, I’d probably say 1. Uraraka, 2. Iida, 3. Shoto, 4. Literally every single other character Deku is friends with and finally, bottom of the list, Bakugo. Yet Deku chooses to tell Bakugo his secret identity, not Uraraka or anyone nicer who would be presumably more trustworthy. Now, in hindsight (SPOILERS IF YOU’RE NOT CAUGHT UP YET), Deku doing this has paid off. Bakugo knows his secret and he’s kept it. He’s been a supportive friend to him since then, especially post JTA, everything a good secret keeper should be. But Deku - and especially the audience - didn’t know that at the time. (SPOILERS DONE).

And Deku can’t be with Uraraka if she doesn’t know his secret identity. That’s one of the Laws of Superhero Romance Comics. Spider-Man could never be with Gwen or Black  Cat, for instance, because they hated his alter ego. He married MJ because she liked both. And Horikoshi is a big fan of Spidey, so he must know this. Deku has to tell Uraraka about OFA if he’s going to be with her. But he hasn’t, and he hasn’t shown any inclination to. 

The setup is there for him to tell others; Todoroki asked about his powers, Tsuyu compared him to All Might. They could figure it out, they could tell Deku they know, or he could tell them, like he tried to tell Kota his personal stories, to make them feel better. There’s a mechanism in place for him to tell either one of them. But not Uraraka. She’s never asked about it, he’s got no interest in telling her. And as long as she doesn’t know the Secret, she can’t be with Deku. This isn’t, BTW, me making a manifesto for any of those ships over Izuocha. I don’t think for a second that any of those pairings will happen in the series. Only that if Deku is to be with Uraraka, he has to find a reason to tell her about OFA, or their relationship will be all kinds of messed up.

Also, FYI, Tsu, Todoroki, Bakugo, and even Iida have looked at and noticed enough about Deku to guess at least this, the most fundamentally important thing to know about Deku: That he’s close to All Might and his powers are similar. But not Ochaco. Does she honestly know anything important about Deku? Like how he grew up quirkless for so long, how All Might inspired his dream, how he wants to live up to the expectations of others and save people with a smile? No, not yet. He’s never told her anything personal, outside of this one little anecdote in this arc about wanting to beat Bakugo.

Uraraka’s POV:

Uraraka is happy to be working with Deku, but initially not all that excited about winning the fight. She just wants to relax, and is surprised to see how stressed he is.

 Then Deku talks about how he wants to beat Bakugo, and she becomes more proactive. Nonetheless, she still basically just follows his lead this arc. 

She takes no initiative on her own: She doesn’t go to grab Bakugo when he’s attacking Deku, she stands around giggling on the phone while trying to sneak up on Iida, and Momo criticizes her for it. 

She thinks to herself about Deku wanting to win when Iida outfoxes her. She doesn’t seem like she wants to win the Trial for her own sake, just Deku’s. And this is a problem for Uraraka. (take a shot)

Momo criticizes everyone but Iida in this match, and all three characters who messed up did so because they were too fixated on someone else. Deku on beating Bakugo. Bakugo on beating Deku. Uraraka on impressing Deku. Iida, for instance, also admires Midoriya - but he’s able to concentrate on the match and fight Uraraka anyway. That’s why he’s MVP, as Momo and All Might put it.

So we set up Uraraka’s over-fixation on Deku as being a problem she has to overcome, a flaw - like Bakugo’s obsession with beating Deku, Iida’s obsession with killing Stain, Todoroki’s obsession with hurting his father, or Momo’s feelings of inadequacy next to Shoto, it’s framed like a flaw she has to overcome to do better. Of the dynamics here, only Deku’s admiration of/determination to beat Bakugo is not framed as a flaw per se, since he still has it to this day and seems to benefit from it. I’ll elaborate on why I think that is later on in the essay - it has to do with the “Imitation is the Sincerest Form of Tragedy” theme - but overall, this doesn’t paint a good picture of Ochaco’s feelings for Midoriya. They’re framed as something she has to put away in order to do well. (take a shot)

Class Rep mini-arc:

This is another score for Izu/Ocha. Ochaco voted for Deku as class Rep. She never tells him about it, though. I’m not sure why. Iida told him. Todoroki tells Momo later on that he voted for her. Ochaco could be gearing up for telling Deku herself, dramatically, later on, but what would that prove? 

Deku already knows she admires him, he turned down the class rep role later anyway. This isn’t like Momo and Shoto, where Momo stayed Deputy Rep and never heard a compliment from Todoroki before he told her he voted for her. In that case, the Class Rep thing showed Momo Shoto believed in her, helping her get her confidence back. But Deku already knows Ochaco believes in him. Iida telling him also helped him out - it showed him he had friends who believed in him. Ochaco’s given reason for keeping her vote to herself is Bakugo’s little temper tantrum about it. But Bakugo wasn’t at the table when Iida told Deku the truth, so why couldn’t she have told Deku then? I really don’t get why she keeps her vote to herself; I don’t see how this will do anything for Deku later on down the line, or for Uraraka. It shows she’s supportive of him and admires him, but we already knew that. I’m just not sure how to parlay this into future developments with them.

USJ Arc

Deku and Ochaco don’t talk to each other at all during this arc. They get separated quickly and don’t reunite. They don’t worry about each others’ safety during the battle. After it’s over Ochaco asks after Deku because he broke his limbs, but during the fight she doesn’t worry about him or look for him. There’s only one moment I find noteworthy for Izu/Ocha during this arc: Deku wondering “What would Kacchan do” before jumping off the boat. This type of remark, like Iida’s “What would by brother or Midoriya do” during the class rep arc, is about a platonic friend (well, rival in this case), not a love interest. So Uraraka’s “what would Deku do” being code for “I like him” doesn’t really add up. I’ll get to that later.

Sports Festival Arc

Deku’s POV: Deku asks Uraraka about her motivation at the beginning of this arc, in Chapter 22. Uraraka admits that it’s for the money, and while Deku mentally thinks that this is admirable, he doesn’t say anything complimentary out loud, or anything other than “it’s surprising”. Contrasted with Iida’s loud, uproarious applause of Ochaco’s motive, this doesn’t come across as all that supportive of his friend, even though he does not, in fact, think the less of her for it. 

On top of that,  Deku at this point in the arc is struggling to get motivated himself. Later on he’ll call Todoroki out for not trying his best, and he’s clearly thinking of people like Uraraka, Shinso, Bakugo and Iida when he does so. But at this point, he does the same thing towards her that he calls Shoto out for.

He doesn’t get inspired by her words, or All Might’s, or anyone’s, until he overhears Bakugo make an offhand comment about ‘aiming for the top’. Then he gets into the  competitive spirit. This kinda creates the impression that Deku is more inspired by his rivals than his love interest. Common issue in Shonen romances, of course; a higher emphasis on the importance of the hero’s main rivalry than his Official Girlfriend.

He’s overjoyed when she joins his team, but not because it’s Uraraka - because it’s anyone.

Deku is the person no one wants to team up with here. He would have teamed up with anyone who asked him. It seems odd, knowing Uraraka’s capabilities and quirk, that he didn’t just go up and ask her himself to join his team (Like he does with Iida, and then Tokoyami). 

(Edit: I’ve recently rereaed this chapter and found I made a mistake: Deku does say he was planning on asking her. I was just reading a weird translation. Sorry for the mistake - good on Deku!)

During the battle, while he mentally thinks that Uraraka is great, he doesn’t say anything out loud to her. He does, however, loudly compliment Hatsume and Tokoyami, in front of her. This hurts Uraraka’s feelings, but I’ll get to that in her section.

Deku gets busy with his rivals for a while until his first match is over. While watching the rest, he mentions to Uraraka that he wrote about her Zero Gravity in his notebook. But he doesn’t say “I think your Zero Gravity is cool too” or anything complimentary, just “I wrote about it” like everyone else’s. 

To Deku’s credit, he seems to realize that he hasn’t been very supportive to Uraraka. The anime cut this from the Manga, but the manga has a scene where Deku notices her leaving, and her pensive expression. This leads to him going to the prep room to offer her his strategy to beat Bakugo. 

I think this is a big deal for Deku, because at the end of the day, this is his entire motivation. Helping people. Being there for others. Deku is a wonderful, supportive friend, used to feeling weak and inadequate and wanting to help others the way they helped him. He needs a partner he can support and compliment, someone he can help, someone who needs saving. 

But Uraraka denies him this. He offers her his help and support, and she rejects him - for her own reasons, but this still leaves Deku feeling lesser. 

“She’s the one supporting me,” he muses before his match with Todoroki. He wanted to be there for her. He wanted to help her break down the wall that is Bakugo - even if she didn’t use his strategy, she could have listened to his knowledge of Bakugo, who he’s known his whole life, to pick up some tips on his weaknesses. 

But she doesn’t. She also refuses to let Deku be there for her when she loses. He can tell that her cheerfulness is just hiding her disappointment. But since she’s refusing to let him in, he can’t be the shoulder for her to cry on. He wanted to. He was willing to be that person for her - to be the friend she can talk to about her issues, to cheer her on when she fought and help her up when she’s feeling down.

But she rejected his support, just like everyone else does. 

Bakugo rejected his helping hand as a kid. Iida rejected working with him earlier that same day, and rejects his support later on with his brother. Todoroki declares he ‘isn’t here to make friends’ and spends most of the sports Fest rejecting Deku’s attempts to help him (“You’re helping your opponent? Now which of us is screwing around”).

 Deku clearly wants to be that friend. He wants to be there for the people in his life and offer his boundless love and emotional support for them. And I think he needs a partner in life who will let him be there for them. If Uraraka is to be that person, she has to let him in. She has to put aside her pride (yes, I think it is pride) and accept Deku supporting her, just as she supported him. She has to open up to him and cry in front of him. The others I mentioned have - Bakugo cried in front of Deku twice, Iida accepted his help during the Hero Killer arc, Todoroki accepts him in the very next episode. Three characters far crustier, prouder and more antagonistic towards Deku have all put aside their pride and let him help them with their issues. It’s Ochaco’s turn.

Speaking of: From Uraraka’s perspective. When Uraraka admits her motivation to Deku and Iida, she’s looking away, scratching her head, and apologizing. She says, in the dub “You two have such admirable motivations. I hope you don’t think less of me now.” Uraraka feels ashamed to admit her motivation to Deku and Iida. 

When the obstacle race ends, she announces “I’m so jealous of you!” to Deku, after he comes in first. And I think she is - jealous of him. 

She teams up with Deku for the  Cavalry Battle, and later admits that she “Might have been relying on (him) to get by”, meaning that she sees Deku as being better than her. 

She gets very jealous of the attentions Deku gives Hatsume - as I noticed before, Deku compliments  everyone but Ochaco. He even found the time to compliment Bakugo in front of her during the Battle Trial arc - but to her face, nothing. And this plays on Uraraka’s insecurities. Deep down, despite her cheerful demeanor, Uraraka isn’t very self-confident (at least, not yet). She doesn’t believe in herself, she doesn’t have faith in herself to succeed. She’s even more insecure than Deku, and often tries too hard to be “just like him” to her own self-detriment. Watching everyone else’s matches, she admits to being ashamed of herself. She realizes she needs to try and succeed on her own, not by relying on Midoriya.  (take a shot)

But at the same time, her goal is still essentially to be “Just like Deku”. What’s the one thing Ochaco knows Deku wants to do, besides be a great hero? Beat Bakugo. No coincidence she was fighting him in this tournament. To be just like Deku, she has to beat his rival, who she’s seen him fight before. Uraraka wants to be good enough, she wants to beat Deku - in a way, her motive and behavior here is not that different from Iida’s, Bakugo’s or Todoroki’s. Deku makes her insecure, so she tries to do better than him. 

She declares herself a rival to him. She refuses his help - seriously, a few pointers on how to beat Bakugo couldn’t hurt, she even thinks about Deku’s earlier moves while fighting him anyway! - and tries to win it all by herself. And although her plan is great, it doesn’t work. 

The minute she thinks “I’ll be just like Deku” is the moment she fails. The moment Bakugo blows up her debris and beats her.

Uraraka is devastated by this. She was crying for so long and so hard that her eyes swelled shut. She could have really used a friend, someone to talk to about her family problems - someone outside of her family drama, a kind and understanding ally like Deku, who can commiserate with her and tell her things’ll be ok. 

But she hides her feelings from Deku and pretends she’s fine. I think she doesn’t want to look weak in front of him - she wants him to think she’s cool, to compliment her like he compliments Hatsume and Bakugo, and she’s deeply insecure about appearing anything other than strong. So she shuts him out and cries on her own, with no supportive friend to help her. If she is to be with him, she needs to be able to let him into her life and her heart. 

She has to cry in front of him, like all three of his other rivals have done despite their immense pride and far less amiable relationships with Deku. Even Tsu has cried in front of Deku and confessed her feelings (to him and the whole Rescue Squad), and she’s not as close to him as Uraraka or Iida. Why doesn’t Uraraka confide in Deku about her feelings? Again, I think the underlying problem is her hero-worship of him. She thinks he’s amazing, she won’t admit to his flaws (she sees him, one ep/chapter later, destroy his body and lose his match helping Todoroki; you’d think she’d cotton on to his lack of utter flawlessness then, but nope), and she’s still essentially insecure about herself. She needs to learn to believe in her own strengths and admit Deku’s weaknesses. Then she’ll be willing to cry in front of him and listen to his ideas.

But until then, she’s just like all of Deku’s other rivals: Too proud and too envious/afraid of him to accept his love or friendship. 

No wonder she was so easily able to spot why Bakugo is insecure about him and guess how he’d feel about being rescued; her complex about Deku is rapidly becoming just as debilitating as his is. 

Difference being, Bakugo had his “Deku vs Kacchan 2” moment ,where he and Deku talk out their feelings and move on, recognizing that Deku isn’t looking down on him and never has been, etc. Ochaco needs that moment too (probably without the big fight scene, though).  

Hero Killer Arc:

From Deku’s perspective, he chooses his hero name based on Ochaco’s advice. This is something we see with other characters too - Eraserhead and Mic, Mirio and Tamaki - who are friends, so it’s all good. It seems to have a nice spin: Ochaco taking Deku’s flaws, the traits Bakugo mocked, and turning them into a positive. Ochaco supporting Deku. Nice. She smiles about it. 

He seems surprised that she took an internship with Gunhead, confused that she’s more into action now (I guess he’ll have to revise his notebook!). 

He talks to her on the phone after the Incident goes down, having texted all his friends for help and worried her. He again (for the last time) get’s excited over her in a sexual/romantic way, and once again it’s “I talked to A GIRL on the phone” instead of “I talked to Uraraka on the phone”. He’s attracted to her as a girl, but not excited about talking to the girl he has a crush on. Following this arc, Deku stops responding to Uraraka romantically, even when CamieRaka loses her clothes. I’ve got a theory about why he stops, I’ll discuss it next arc.

Uraraka, for her part, looks pleased when  Deku takes her name. She interns with Gunhead because of her match with Bakugo, to get stronger, which is good for character development - I like that this isn’t because of Deku, because I don’t want her arc to revolve around him solely.

She calls him, concerned, after the Stain incident, and tells Gunhead that they’re “not like that” when he teases her about it being a boy. This is the first of many people telling Uraraka that she has something going on with Deku, rather than Uraraka figuring it out herself. Uraraka’s denial is not really defensive or Edward Elric Style “She is NOT my girlfriend” levels, so honestly at this point I believe her. Up until this arc, she doesn’t see her feelings for Deku as romantic. She sees him as a friend who she admires and is often jealous of.

Final Exams:

This is where things get weird. So far, Izu/Ocha has been pretty nicely built up - but then the series decided to go for it in a way that I personally find rather strange and confusing.

So first, let’s take this arc from Deku’s POV. The scenes of Izu/Ocha watching the fights are Anime Only, so we’ll skip those. In the Manga they all take place at the same time. After Deku and Kacchan v All Might, Deku goes to watch the other battles, including Uraraka’s. He doesn’t have any onscreen reaction to Ochaco’s fight, even though we get to hear him mentally exclaiming about how awesome Iida is, or Tsuyu is. Ochaco’s his friend too, why can’t he spare a moment to fanboy over her martial arts skills?

 Anyway, later on they’re left alone at the mall, though not by choice. Deku starts making small talk and Uraraka runs away from him, saying “Have to keep the pests away” or something like that. Deku asks “I’m a bug?/“You mean me?”. So from Deku’s POV, Ochaco flat out called him a pest right here. To him, it must have sounded like she was rejecting him, rejecting the idea of hanging out with him one-on-one (which in the Manga they haven’t done before).

 He’s immediately attacked by Shigaraki; when she returns he does his best to prevent her from getting hurt. Nothing really advances, from Deku’s POV, in their dynamic at this point. The only real notable thing is the “I’m a pest” line. Since Deku never reacts romantically to Ochaco after this, I’m assuming that he thinks she’s not interested in him that way. That right here, she shut down the idea of dating him, and he just accepts it.

Of course, it’s Ochaco’s POV that’s important here. As she’s about to get sucked up by 13, she’s thinking “What would Deku do?” 

Now, we’ve heard these lines in a non-romantic context before. Iida wondered what Deku or Tensei would do when he helped disperse the crowd. Deku wondered what Kacchan would do during the USJ arc. He wondered what a “hero” would do when he saved Bakugo from the sludge monster. This sentiment is not exclusive to romance in the show.

 But Aoyama then chooses this moment to ask Ochaco if she ‘likes him’. This is completely out of nowhere. Aoyama is later revealed to have a bit of a friendship-crush on Deku, but why is he asking this of Uraraka, in this situation? It’s not like her girlfriends later on teasing her about liking Deku, it’s a guy she doesn’t know who doesn’t know Deku very well either, all of a sudden asking her if she has feelings for him. I don’t, for the life of me, understand what his purpose was in doing this. How does this help them win? Why is he painted half-in-shadow when he says this? It feels like it happens because we need Ochaco to realize she likes Deku, because the audience needs to be shocked, not because it makes sense for the  characters. Which is so strange, because it’s one of the only times that ever happens in HeroAca. For the most part, the characters always act in ways that make sense, no matter how extreme they are.

Uraraka freaks out, and thinking about liking Deku nearly gets her killed fighting 13 (take a shot). It isn’t until she re-focuses, on something she attained free of Deku’s influence, that she gets to win. Trying too hard to be like Deku, for Uraraka, leads to nothing good. 

Then, at the mall, she runs away from him. She refuses to spend time with him - which seems strange if she’s meant to fall in love with him. If she wants to be with him, why doesn’t she want to, you know, be with him? Well, because she does’t want to be with him. If she did, she could easily ask him out (they are friends, after all), spend time with him, see if there’s something there. But she doesn’t. 

She runs off, almost horrified at the mere thought of having a crush on Deku. Of having a perfectly harmless, cute crush on one of her best friends. That just seems strange to me. Yes, love can be intimidating, but this is so extreme.

Another odd thing about this sequence is that it’s juxtaposed with Shigaraki holding Deku hostage. We flip back and forth between the Big Bad nearly killing the Hero, and the Romantic Subplot.

 Imagine if that scene in Fullmetal Alchemist where Winry realizes she loves Ed was crosscut with scenes of Ed fighting Gluttony or something, and you get the idea. It’s a tonal mishmash. Unless - unless you theorize that the idea of liking Deku is as terrifying to Uraraka as being nearly murdered by Shigaraki is for  Deku. But if that’s the case, I don’t want her to be with him! I don’t want her to be in a relationship that scares her that much. (I also don’t get why it would scare her that much - like, girl, Deku’s a sweetheart, what do you have to be afraid of?). The series could salvage this, but it already kinda tainted their romance in my eyes - and to many readers as well, since it seemed like such an odd way to introduce the love story into the occasion. Instead of a joyous moment of romance, this is what we got.

Training Camp Arc:

There isn’t a lot in this arc between Izu and Ocha. Izuku includes her in his list of classmates he’s worried about, popping up in the anime second after Bakugo (who is immediately in danger because of kidnapping) and along side Todoroki.  

He works with her and Tsu to save Bakugo - or at least try. Other than that, there’s nothing (the scene of them blushing is only in the anime). 

On Ochaco’s side, nothing happens until she fights Toga. Toga starts interrogating her about her crush on Deku, in her Hannibal Lecture style - villain getting into the hero’s head and provoking them with their insecurities. Himiko Toga is Uraraka’s villainous foil - her counterpart, the evil version of her. 

Both do develop a crush on Deku, which is very disturbing if Deku and Ochaco are meant to be a couple, as well as her adoration of Stain. It’s not like Toga is going to marry Stain or whatever; so the comparison of their two brands of love is odd (at least, if Izuocha is meant to be endgame). 

Toga’s words are right on the money: Uraraka admires Deku and wants to be just like him, but to be just like someone you have to do as Toga does - kill and replace. This gets to Uraraka, because it’s true. Her  crush on Deku then, is not being framed as genuine love, but as a similar obsession to Himiko Toga’s - a desire to be just like someone she admires, rather than be together with a good friend she adores. Which is frustrating, because the latter is the kind of relationship I want from Izuocha, not the former. I don’t want Ochaco to get with Deku because she hero-worships him and thinks he’s amazing - I want her to get with him because they’re good friends and she loves him. But that’s not what the series is doing with them, and with the parallels to Toga, it’s starting to really creep me out.

One route they could take with all this foreshadowing, of course, is perhaps one similar to what happened in Gravity Falls, with Dipper and Wendy. In that series, Dipper like Ochaco has an evil villainous counterpart Yandere - Gideon Gleeful. Toga and Gideon both stalk and harass their crush, who clearly says no and means no. Dipper and Ochaco both harbor a crush on someone who’s a close friend, but who seems to be for whatever reason romantically unavailable to them. (Wendy is older, Deku is…I’m not sure why, Ochaco just won’t ask him, it’s frustrating). Dipper eventually reveals his crush on Wendy, who lets him down easy and stays good friends with him. Dipper later uses that understanding of himself, and of Gideon’s obsession, to tell Gideon he can’t make someone like him. This helps Gideon reform. The whole thing is beautifully healthy and positive. 

So if that’s where we���re going with this - an ending where everyone’s just friends, and Ochaco’s crush on Deku is being used to develop her character a bit regardless of romance, then this would make sense. If not then I don’t get it.

Hideout Raid Arc:

There are two interactions between Ochaco and Deku (indirect ones) during the Hideout Raid Arc. One is Kirishima relaying Uraraka’s worries about saving Bakugo, the other is Uraraka getting the Rescue Squad to apologize to Tsuyu. Both of them are really bad warning signs for their future relationship.

The simple reason is: Uraraka thinks Deku and co did the wrong thing, Deku thinks he did the right thing. Deku has never apologized for or expressed any regret for breaking the rules to save Bakugo. Uraraka, however, objected to them doing this. This is very interesting for both of their relationships with Bakugo, and their thoughts on heroism. But let’s talk about why this is a problem for Izuocha. Uraraka didn’t agree with Deku’s decision here. She has her own reasons for it - “Bakugo wouldn’t want to be rescued” -but she doesn’t bring them up in front of Deku. The thing is, Deku was on the fence about going. If Uraraka had brought up her objection, I think Deku might have actually listened to her. It’s the best objection to persuade him, because it takes Bakugo’s needs into consideration. But Uraraka didn’t bring it up to him. She didn’t say anything to Deku. From Uraraka’s POV, that’s a problem for her relationship with him, because it means she doesn’t want to say something that will upset him. She’s never had a serious argument with him, never objected out loud to his choices, even when she disagrees with them, and never had an argument with him where they came to a compromise or understanding about an important issue. Instead, she brings up her objection out of Deku’s hearing, and he hears about it secondhand. Uraraka doesn’t want to upset Deku, even about something important to her.

From Deku’s perspective, even though he knows Uraraka, his love interest, disagrees with what he’s doing, he does it anyway. He doesn’t care. He keeps Uraraka’s objection in mind, but only as it pertains to saving Bakugo. He never thinks about how Uraraka will feel about him going against her wishes, never considers her at all. He does consider his mother’s objections, even Tsuyu’s. But Uraraka’s objection, ultimately, only affects him insofar as it means he thinks of Bakugo’s feelings when saving him. And he never apologizes for doing so. 

Later on, when Uraraka gathers everyone together to apologize to Tsu, Deku is the only one of the five who never actually says sorry (going by the anime here, since the manga is ambiguous about who’s speaking). Uraraka’s speech makes it clear that she didn’t agree with their choice and thinks they screwed up, but just wants to forgive them and go back to normal. But Deku doesn’t apologize for what he did. Iida, Kirishima, Momo, Todoroki - all people Uraraka is less intimate with than Deku - all apologize to Tsuyu, as Ochaco asks. But not Deku. Because Deku doesn’t agree with her. He doesn’t think he was wrong.

The question of whether or not to go charging in, even against the rules, to save someone, is a big one hanging over the heads of all these characters. It’s Captain America Civil War style big. Something that could split people apart permanently if they can’t agree about it. And not only do Deku and Ochaco not agree on this issue, they haven’t had any conversation about it with each other. They need to be able to discuss this and find common ground before they become a couple.

License Exam Arc:

This one is obviously important for Izu/Ocha. It ends with Ochaco deciding to ‘put her feelings away’.

So let’s start with this Arc from Deku’s POV on Ochaco: He talks to her casually at the beginning before Hatsume explodes out of the shop, but focuses entirely on  crafting his ultimate move from there on out. 

We don’t see Uraraka inspiring his move, that’s Hatsume and Iida, or his realization that he’s imitating All Might (that’s All Might himself). 

Deku does, however, recognize TogaChaco as not being Ochaco, showing that he knows her well.

 He rescues TogaChaco because she’s a person in danger, thinking about his inability to rescue Bakugo from the villains and his general motivation, not how much he cares for Ochaco. 

He knows Ochaco well enough to tell the difference, but this is Deku we’re talking about - he’s very attentive to details about others. I fully believe he would be able to tell a TogaIida from the real one, or Todoroki, Bakugo, Tsuyu, Hatsume, All Might…the list goes on, but there are very few characters who Deku doesn’t take  detailed notes on or amass details about, and therefore couldn’t recognize the difference. What I’m saying is that Deku would do the same for any friend; he doesn’t distinguish Ochaco here. 

He works with her and Sero to win the day, and spends the rest of the arc focused on his goals, with no thoughts to spare for Ochaco, and no interest in the cute girl pursuing him (Camie) outside of her quirk for studying. It comes across like Deku has put away any interest in romance in the name of pursuing his goals. He doesn’t distinguish Uraraka at all, as anything more than just another one of his friends. 

From Ochaco’s POV, she becomes jealous of Hatsume once more - but fails to notice, for instance, that Hatsume’s behavior is making Deku uncomfortable. She’s jealous of Hatsume for being more confident, driven, and demonstrative than she is, but if she was paying closer attention to Midoriya, she’d probably notice that he’s freaked out by Hatsume feeling him up; there’s no real reason for her to be jealous of Mei in regards to Deku, because Deku isn’t any closer to Mei than he is to her. But Ochaco, here and many other places, doesn’t really take the time to observe and notice Midoriya, outside of a surface level. That’s why she hero-worship’s him so badly.

I’d recommend any HeroAca fan to check out this fascinating fan essay, “Imitation is the Sincerest Form of Tragedey”, (link: https://www.reddit.com/r/BokuNoHeroAcademia/comments/5n21a9/imitation_is_the_sincerest_form_of_tragedy_a_boku/ ) to get a good understanding of what’s going on with Ochaco in relation to Deku, without ship bias getting in the way. It’s an excellent read, touching on many characters and plot points. The key takeaway about Uraraka is that she has a pattern of imitating Deku, and screwing up because of it, without getting that narrative punishment that will act as a kick in the pants to motivate her to stop hero-worshipping him. 

I think that, since we do see Deku imitating Bakugo and Gran Torino’s moves for Full Cowl with no problem, and other smaller instances, the secret is not that you can never admire someone and strive to learn from them - but rather that you can imitate someone, as long as you don’t hero-worship them. Ochaco’s issue, along with Deku’s, Shoto’s, Iida’s, etc, is that she sees the person she wants to be like as perfect and refuses to acknowledge their flaws. Ochaco admires Deku and wants to be like him - even though she’s seen first hand how Deku’s brand of heroism lands him in the hospital more often than not, how Deku can be overly analytical, deeply insecure and makes mistakes like anyone else - but we don’t see her acknowledge this. She thinks Deku’s amazing, perfect, like he admires All Might, Iida Tensei, Shoto his mom, etc. The reason Deku is able to imitate Kacchan and Gran Torino’s moves without being harmed, like every other imitator, is because he thinks Gran Torino is kind of weird, but skilled, and Kacchan is a jerk, but awesome. He can admire their strengths, and acknowledge their flaws. Therefore, he can imitate their moves without striving to be Just Like Them. Uraraka needs to recognize Deku’s flaws, if she wants to imitate his strengths without feeling bad about herself. 

Once again Ochako’s feelings are brought up to her by someone else, and cause her a lot of distress. This time it’s Mina, who acknowledges that she wants to MAKE it be about love.

Just like with Gunhead and Aoyama telling Ochako her feelings for Deku are romantic in nature. Mina admits she’s trying to make a romance happen, rather than just letting one develop on it’s own. Her words cause Uraraka a lot of distress, and Momo and Tsuyu point out that this won’t help her (take a shot).

As she watches Deku from a distance, (the anime adds the Admiring All Might music track to this scene), her feelings for him are paralleled with Midoriya’s admiration of heroes, specifically Iida. Keeping in with the Imitation theme, Ochako’s feelings for Midoriya are once again paralleled with admiration of famous heroes people want to imitate, not romantic love. It’s Mina, Aoyama and Gunhead who are telling Ochako she likes Deku, not Ochako figuring it out for herself. 

Uraraka once again gets jealous of a girl who Deku doesn’t want. Deku gives lots of signs that he’s creeped out by Camie’s attentions - when Kaminari and Mineta ask him about it, he says firmly that he found it creepy. If Uraraka was really paying attention to Deku’s feelings, she’d realize that he’s not interested in Camie. 

 Imagine, for instance, this scene with the genders reversed. Our heroine is getting felt up and creeped on by a male villain. Her fellow superhero boyfriend arrives on the scene; the male villain leaves, speaking ominously about the connection between the two of them. Later on, other girls get jealous about the hot male villain waving at our heroine, and she makes it clear that she’s uncomfortable about it. 

The boyfriend ignores her discomfort and gets jealous and possessive about her being around another man. Doesn’t something seem wrong here? It’s the setup we see from many ‘Nice guy’ narratives, but gender flipped. The guy seems to see the girl like a possession that belongs to him, angry that she’s daring to be touched by another boy, not that another guy is refusing to respect her space. Uraraka’s jealousy is not routed in love for Midoriya, but insecurity about herself. She feels less than, when she sees other girls around him, and doesn’t bother to observe whether she’s actually in danger of losing him to them.

This scene is more than a little weird, since it seems like Camie is setting up her future to prey on the trust between the two to her own advantage. Again, Izuku and Ochako’s bond is being framed in a negative light. 

Uraraka decides, upon seeing Deku psych himself up to win, that she needs to put away her feelings for him. This is part of the pattern in Uraraka’s story. (take a shot) Focusing on Deku leads to her losing. Uraraka says here, that she doesn’t think she can have a relationship with Deku and be a hero. She puts her feelings away, because she feels they don’t help her. Unlike other duos in the series, other romantic parings from other narratives, Uraraka feels that her feelings for Deku don’t benefit her goals. If they’re to be a couple, then, Uraraka needs to feel like she can be a better hero by being with Deku, than by being away from him.

Internship, Culture Fest, Pro Hero arcs:

From the time Ochaco ‘puts her feelings away’, until recently in the JTA, Ochaco’s crush on Deku is not mentioned. The internship arc teams up Tsuyu and Uraraka with Deku and Kiri to save Eri. But instead of letting Deku and Ochaco fight and bond together over this shared experience - we’re given nothing. Deku doesn’t tell her anything about his issues with Mirio and Nighteye. Or even Eri. Ochaco doesn’t talk to Deku, outside of group scenes with exposition, about much of anything. 

The ending of the arc has a good setup for an emotional bonding scene with Izu/Ocha - Ochaco was the one to rescue Nighteye, but he still died, and he’s Izuku’s mentor. We could have had a scene of them bonding over losing this guy, which Ochaco blames herself for and Deku blames himself for. Similar to like, Deku and Bakugo fighting over feeling responsible for All Might’s End, or Iida and Deku bonding over Stain. But, you know, more romantic in nature.

But nope, we get nothing. Ochaco angsts over Nighteye dying, and goes on this emotional journey without Deku’s input. She chooses to confide these feelings in Aizawa and Tsuyu, but not in Midoriya. Deku, at least, has the excuse of being unable to talk about OFA with other people, but Uraraka could have told him about her problems, and he an abbreviated version like he did with Kota about being quirkless. But instead, we get nothing. No bonding between our official couple at all.

The other thing of note in the Internship arc is Toga!Deku. Toga impersonates Deku and decoys Team Ryukyu into the fight. If Toga’s intentions had been harmful, instead of getting revenge on Overhaul, this could have been really bad for the good guys, and for Ochaco in particular. She doesn’t realize that Toga! Deku is not the real Deku, even though Toga does give her a clear ‘tell’ - calling her ‘Uraraka’ and not ‘Uravity’. But unlike Deku, who realized Toga!Chaco wasn’t the real Ochaco, Ochaco can’t tell the difference.

 If I were to read this as deliberate, it seems to be implying that Ochaco can’t tell the difference between her idea or image of Deku, and the real thing. But since they’re supposed to be a couple, it’s just plain weird. It’s a brief moment, but if Toga had been trying to hurt them, Ochaco’s feelings for Deku might have gotten her in trouble - again. (take a shot).  

Then, from the end of the Internship arc to the Joint Training Arc, Deku and Ochaco don’t talk to each other at all. They go to Nighteye’s funeral with the internship kids - and no conversation about their respective issues with him at all. 

They’re in the group hanging with Eri during the Culture Fest - but no one-on-one interaction at all. He hangs with Mirio, she with Tsu and Nejire. No interactions during the Pro-Hero arc. 

At the start of the JTA, one quick reminder that Ochaco is jealous of Mei still, which she punches herself to  get rid of. That’s it.

Joint Training Arc: So Close Yet So Far

Reading this arc, I thought “Finally, we’re finally getting the ball rolling with putting these two together.” It’s such a familiar setup, so common to action romances, straight from the ATLA playbook: The hero’s powers go out of control, the love interest is the only one who can reach them, and with a cute hug they calm the hero down. When Ochaco grabbed on to the out of control Deku, I was expecting something like that in the next chapter: Ochaco saying something like “Come back to me” or “I know you’re in there somewhere” or “I’m with you to the end of the line” or something like that. Ochaco reaching Deku when no one else could, establishing her as his love interest and showcasing their romance.

But that didn’t  happen. Ochaco grabs onto Deku, sure, but then she asks Shinso to snap him out of it. It’s Shinso who grabs Deku’s attention, Shinso who does the ‘important trigger phrase to snap hero out of superpower meltdown mode’ thing. 

Shinso, who has talked to Deku like 3 times before this scene, not Ochaco, his official love interest and close friend. Once snapped out, Deku protects her briefly before they split up and go their separate ways again, to fight on different turfs.

Afterwards, it looked like Deku was blushing at Ochaco holding him, like she was after Mina’s comment. But on closer inspection, I find that nope - he’s not blushing in the panel after this comment, but does go red when Shinso compliments his prowess. And Ochaco doesn’t  get self-conscious about holding him until Mina points it out to her.

 She wasn’t thinking about how much she loves Deku when she held him, she was thinking about her parents and her failure to save Nighteye, and her “Who watches the watchmen” ideas.

So instead of a great big Izuocha ship moment, that finally set the romance in motion, we get…I guess, a Shindeku moment? It’s all very confusing. For Uraraka, this moment does seem to show that she’s now capable of being around Deku in battle, without thinking about him or obsessing. It comes across like Ochaco is trying to put her crush away (Like she said before), like she’s gone on this whole personal journey outside of Deku and changed as a person on her own. We have this recurring idea that Ochaco fights better as a hero without Deku around, or without fixating on him, which isn’t promising for them as a couple. (take a shot) 

Compare with Todoroki and Momo vs Aizawa, for instance, where they work brilliantly, together, to overcome an opponent neither could face alone. Or the insistence on Deku and Kacchan putting away their rivalry and Deku reaching 8% by competing with Bakugo or helping him. Or Ochaco and Tsuyu making a perfect team fighting others. The narrative is angling Uraraka away from Deku, if she wants to be a good hero, not towards him.

Also, once again, her romantic feelings for him are something she’s told she has by someone else, instead of something she figures out on her own - Mina again. 

But earlier this arc, we saw Mina assume that Midnight and All Might were a couple, because they were standing together. Earlier, she said it could be Iida or Deku, because Ochaco hangs around them. I love Ashido, but she’s not the world’s greatest expert on romance, or particularly close to either Uraraka or Deku. So her words, like Aoyama’s, can’t be taken as gospel truth. It really feels like Ochaco is being pushed into feeling romantically for Deku, regardless of her actual feelings towards him, by other people instead of her own heart. I mean, I’m rooting for them, but I want Ochaco to realize she likes Deku because she likes Deku, not because Aoyama and Mina are telling her she does. 

Deku shuts Ochaco out of his personal problems - he won’t confide in anyone but All Might and Bakugo about OFA - and doesn’t explain to her anything about his quirk going out of control. And she doesn’t ask. Even Todoroki asked Deku about his quirk going out of control, as did Aizawa and Bakugo. Todo and Baku are Deku’s rivals, but they both asked about his quirk meltdown. Uraraka didn’t. She’s supposed to be his friend, she’s supposed to be in love with him, so why doesn’t she ask about his problems? 

Same with her personal journey towards becoming a hero who saves people, the Who Watches the Watchmen hero - Deku isn’t privy to this. She only told two people, Aizawa and Tsuyu. Uraraka has also had this whole personal journey, outside of Deku, which she won’t tell him about or confide in him about. And she doesn’t show any inclination to do so. 

Final Review:

The series isn’t over. There’s probably still time to fix all these problems. But the series needs to get started on it right away, because so far we’re just not seeing the elements we need to get Izu/Ocha together.

On Ochaco’s end: We need  her to be attracted to Deku, to let him be as supportive to her as she is to him; to see her crush on him as a motivator to be a better hero instead of detrimental to her success, to stop hero-worshipping him and acknowledge his flaws, to talk to him about her problems and cry with him, let him be there for her; let go of her desire to be just like him, see him romantically on her own unprovoked by other people teasing her, enjoy spending time with him one-on-one, have a fight with him that gets properly resolved, defend him from unwanted attentions from girls instead of getting possessively jealous of him, and show at least some curiosity about his life, his secrets, the real him beyond the Great Hero.

On Deku’s side: He needs to show attraction to Uraraka as Uraraka, not just ‘a girl’; to work together with her as a great team to take down an opponent side by side, to loudly admire her for her skills and capabilities like he does for his other friends and rivals, to tell her about his past with OFA and being quirkless and such, to be inspired by her to do better as a hero, to show the kind of crazy, unconditional concern for her he shows everyone else in his life, to actively seek after a romantic relationship with her, talk to her about his problems, to distinguish her in his life from his other friends.

If all that stuff happens, I’ll be happy. If some of it happens, I’ll be ok, but not thrilled. If they stay in this status quo, they’ll fall apart, because this is not the stuff good romance is made of.