The idea that Jin Guangyao needs more friends (and that would help solve things) is a misconception I think.
The world sucks for him and makes it difficult or impossible to make genuine friendships, but blorbo is nice. He's smiley! He's polite! He remembers people's names and interests with an obsessive efficiency! He uses this to buy personalized gifts and help people the way they need it most! He's committed to public service and shows affection by solving peoples problems! If you let him.
He is canonically a beloved president and uncle and boyfriend until the ruin-san-ge's-life-revenge plot shows up. Sure he has trust issues but given enough time and actual stability and space it seems like he would chill out! He wants basic respect, he wants people to like him, he knows how people work and how to create and maintain relationships (arguably better than most characters in the novel). In a less shitty world, he would be fine. He can make his own friends, and does so.
The actual interpersonal disaster who could be saved with the power of friendship is Nie Mingjue. My man has. A younger brother and basically one friend, the world's most friend shaped, Lan Xichen. He has. Deputies. Former deputies who occupy a strained and ambiguous relationship status. He's got. Trusted colleagues. I'm not saying he doesn't know how to people at all, it seems like on a purely functional level, he does fine. He's like your manager who shares absolutely nothing about his personal life and has no idea how to show affection or give praise, but, has very clear and set expectations and is literal as hell, and *at work*, that's fine! Great, actually.
But oh boy befriending that person is hard. Also. NMJ doesn't seem to let himself, want friends? Try to make more? Probably some mix of "don't know how" and "don't have time for, anyway (I'm so fine. Totally alright. Just leave me alone.)"
It's canon that his response to LXC being busy rebuilding the cloud recess is forbidding him from coming to play music for him, not because he's mad at LXC, but because he refuses to ask LXC to take time away from an important thing, for him, even as he's dying. He actually doesn't even ask, he tells LXC he's not allowed to help (and LXC obvs wants to and that's how we get JGY playing for NMJ to begin with).
JGY responds to people being nice to him by being really fucking nice in return. He responds to loyalty and respect really really well. Does he have a low threshold for what breaks that relationship off completely and puts him on the defensive? Yeah (and understandably so). But JGYs trauma doesn't manifest as an aversion to explicit kindness or affection! (Especially/so long as it seems genuine). Just look at how he responds to LXC.
NMJ responds to questions about his values by not answering them, and deflecting with anger. He deflects, most questions, almost everything, with anger. Or super formal work boundaries. He knows how to be the figure of responsibility but as soon as someone says oh hey let me help you it's "fine, grudgingly" and then "oh I see you're busy. Stop worrying about me immediately I am so fine leave me alone. I forbid your presence actually. As sect leader. Ha." When he's genuinely distressed his protests are "I know what I'm doing!" which. Given the context is fucked up but it also shows what he's scared of really well. That when he feels threatened he doubles down on insisting he's competent, he can handle it, he can be left alone, stop interfering, leave.
This is just my headcanon but I think part of that is. Terror that he's going to hurt people, that he tries not to directly acknowledge. But he also knows that even if he doesn't kill someone qi deviating he's going to die eventually, probably soon, so - obviously the answer is to push everyone away before that happens, because it'll hurt less when it inevitably does, right? It's fine. Nothing is going to change the end result. There's no point in asking for people to care when it won't change anything, it won't, and they have better things to do anyway, right?
Which is why Huaisang needs to hurry up and be prepared to be sect leader. Because, he's dying faster than he'll let on, but he can't let anyone know that, can't tell Huaisang "you will actually" when his brother says "I'm never going to be sect leader, you can have that, I don't want it", so instead he defaults to anger, and yells about needing to practice saber and storms off. Because actually trying to explain would mean admitting weakness, which might lead to concern, and attempts to care, which is not allowed. (Have you considered that watching you die actually hurts the people you care about no matter what, and pushing them away isn't the answer nor will it make them feel better for having never seen that it was this bad and never acted faster).
Nie Mingjue. Would not make friends, left to his own devices. I don't even think he knows how, or not very well. Lan Xichen was his friend early enough, and they can bond over having to be responsible to their sect/younger siblings really young. But since then, it's just. Not a priority. And it never made sense to make it more of one, because more friends now just means more friends do inevitably hurt and possibly harm in the process of dying, so why bother? It's better not to.
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Just finished reading Pez Dispenser Debris (I don’t even go there but I am fueled by Wiki articles and a love for your storytelling) and first of all—amazing!!! 10/10, I think I need to watch this series now.
Second, I noticed that (while very much distinct) Yuuta & Izuku have a lot of similarities in the voice you gave them—maybe it’s the constant panic attacks or perhaps both of them placing blame for everything squarely on their own shoulders, but ough it makes for the perfect blend of gut-punching angst. I’d love to hear any ramblings you currently have about either of them. I am currently obsessed with both of them now and am placing the blame on you <3
I’m gonna pretty heavily discuss some spoilers for my hero academia in this. I figured that was okay since you’d already read my fanfic and the wiki so the cat is out of the metaphorical bag. That being said, maybe wait to read this answer if you want to not be spoiled for more details in my hero.
Yuuta and Izuku absolutely have the most similar voices out of all of my narrators and it is 90% because they are both completely insane and in violent need of a Xanax and a nice soothing cup of chamomile tea. God I love them both so much. They should each be heavily medicated.
My hero academia is a pretty great watch through the Shie Hassaikai arc. The concept is entertaining, the characters are GREAT, and the world building is really cool.
Then the story sort of. Went to shit.
I tried for a while after that, but eventually had to stop watching. My friends and I have a group chat named “horikoshi just call us” because we got so despondent at the writing decisions after that arc.
Horikoshi. If you’re out there. If you’re reading this. Just call us. We just want to help.
That being said, my love for the characters maintains its death grip on me. I simply adore them. They’re delights.
Yuuta and Izuku, on their face, have a lot of similarities as protagonists. The aforementioned insanity and need of Xanax, of course, but the skeleton of the stories has a lot of common touchstones and themes, like:
Both characters have some kind of history with suicidal ideation or tendencies. In the second scene of JJK0, it’s established that Yuuta canonically tried to kill himself. In the first episode of BNHA, Izuku is told to kill himself by his bullies, in an act which appears to be common to izuku’s life, and the only reason Izuku comes up with to not do it is “then you’d get in trouble for telling me to do it.”
Both characters have severe self worth issues. Yuuta’s looking for a reason to be alive at the start of JJK0. He’s looking for a right to be alive. In a way, Izuku is too at the start of BNHA. At the open of action, he is told by everyone in his life that he is useless. His nickname is “Deku,” which uses some of the same kanji as “Dekunobo,” meaning blockhead. The most direct translation were given is that this is a way of calling him useless. He’s the powerless member of a society choked with superpower, and he’s been told his entire life that he can do nothing, that his dreams are pointless, and that he’s a burden who would be better off dead.
They’re both saddled with power they can’t fully control. Yuuta with Rika, and Izuku with One for All, a transferable power that’s too strong to be contained in his body.
They both have a close relationship with an impossibly strong mentor that they are implied to be the successor of. Yuuta with Gojo, as he’s second only to Gojo in the modern age, and Izuku with All Might (aka Toshinori Yaga), who he is more literally taking on the mantle of One for All from.
They both are chugging that Loving Their Friends Juice and have tried to kill grown men with their bare hands as a result
That all being said, they could not be more different characters and honestly aren’t all that similar.
I have this sort of lasting grievance with literary analysis when people take a list of common plot points or events and use them to make the argument that characters are similar or parallel one another. Like, that’s all facial. The real question is how do they substantively handle those events. How do their story arcs treat those things? How does their character react to them?
Yuuta and Izuku’s actual substantive characters don’t really react to those events in the same way at all. The analysis could go on all day in this respect, really, but the biggest difference is how their respective story arcs treat the cornerstone of their original conflicts.
Yuuta opens action with Rika as the cornerstone of his conflict. She’s who he wants to free, she’s who he’s chained to, and it’s her protection of him that makes him think he deserves to die. Izuku’s cornerstone, meanwhile, is his own Quirklessness. He desperately wants to be a hero, and everyone in his life tells him he can’t be because he is Quirkless. He’s useless because he’s Quirkless. He should kill himself because he’s Quirkless. He’s a burden and always will be because he’s Quirkless.
And while Yuuta’s arc reconciles him with his cornerstone, Izuku’s forgoes it entirely.
The story just. Forgets. That he’s Quirkless. They stop talking about it. It never comes up again. It doesn’t make any real big impact on his character or decisions. It’s one of my biggest axes to grind with how the story developed, and it’s actually one of the biggest reasons why I wrote pez dispenser debris.
Pez dispenser debris was actually inspired by this one piece of my hero academia art where Izuku is hugging his younger self. I don’t know if it was official art or fan art, and I have no idea where it is or where to find it because by god have I tried so I can find it and link it for credit/to boost it. I saw it literally years ago, thought “oh that’s cool,” wrote the original first scene of the fic (where Midoriya stops the bus and is hit by the Quirk), wasn’t feeling it, got distracted by other projects, went to law school, graduated law school, signed up to take the bar exam, and was suddenly electrified in the last fucking month of studying with this fugue state of feverish artistic inspiration. I have never written so easily or so compulsively in my life. I’d write for eight unbroken hours and it would be fucking magic every time. It was like an addiction. I was writhing with a need to create and had so much fucking anxiety about the test I was not studying for instead. The words could not be restrained.
Anyway I taught myself three subjects on the plane ride to the state I was taking it in and passed anyway so it’s fine we’re fine
The moral of the story is that this story has been cooking long enough for me to get two more diplomas than I had when I started it and I have no idea where to find that fucking piece of art that inspired it, but if I find it, I’ll reblog it so y’all can see it too.
The thing is, the narrative sort of forcibly excluding Izuku’s past as Quirkless would make total sense to me if it was used as something Izuku himself was doing.
Izuku necessarily had to hide the truth of his former Quirkless status at the start of action—he needed to keep the secret of One for All. Like, he could not let people find out that a Quirk was transferrable, but you know, just the most powerful one, and also he had it, please come torture it out of him.
But as the narrative goes on, that rationale becomes less important. He has people he can trust with it. And yeah, eventually One for All becomes more known, but the discussion is all about him being all might’s successor. Him being Quirkless and how that affected him and still affects him isn’t really discussed or treated as important. And Izuku doesn’t act like it’s important to him either. He never really thinks about it.
And I just hated that. Like. He spent almost his entire life as a member of society who was spit on. He’s had a Quirk for less than a year. How are his experiences with Quirklessness not important to how he interacts with the world?
The other point of contention I had was Mirio.
Mirio is this superstar of a senpai who takes Izuku under his wing. He has an extremely powerful quirk that’s only as effective as it is because he put in the work and learned how to handle it. He’s a perfect, eternally smiling paragon of heroism. He’s flagged early as the one out of everyone, including heroes with established careers, who is most likely to replace All Might.
He’s also the one who was supposed to get One for All.
His mentor had found him and trained him to be All Might’s successor. Before All Might could meet him, however, he found this feral raccoon child in a sewer and said “oh my god I can’t not offer him incomprehensible power within the first three hours of meeting him” and tripped face first into fatherhood.
During a rescue mission, Mirio loses his Quirk in a way that’s borderline irreversible. There’s no known cure, and the only possible one is dependent on a little girl learning how to control an extremely volatile and dangerous quirk and using it in a way she never has before.
So surely, they’re going to commit to that writing decision, right? He’s Quirkless. We’re bringing back having Quirkless characters. It’s going to be this sick as hell juxtaposition between Izuku and Mirio. We are at least going to force Izuku to reflect on his own times as Quirkless or have some kind of discussion about how Mirio is treated differently now that he is Quirkless.
But no. He gets his Quirk back by the next season. We don’t talk about it much. It’s more of a minor inconvenience than anything.
It’s almost as if the show accepted as an actual rule that you couldn’t be a hero without a Quirk. And then just. Forgot. Everything it had to do with its literal protagonist.
Anyway, I hated it.
In contrast, I fucking loved how yuuta’s storyline with Rika ends. That scene where Yuuta’s turning back to Rika, thanking her for loving him, telling him they can die together? I’m obsessed with it. I recently moved across the country and listened to that theme song on loop during the drive.
Yuuta and Rika’s love was unhealthy. They hurt each other. But it wasn’t malicious.
They just didn’t know how to love each other in a way that didn’t hurt.
They were in shit circumstances. But the love was there.
Yuuta felt guilty for Rika’s love for him and his for her almost the entire narrative. He thought he cursed her with his love. He wanted to kill himself because of how she hurt people out of love for him. It’s why I have moments in sea glass gardens where Yuuta talks about begging Rika to stop loving him—he didn’t know why love had to hurt so goddamn bad, and he’s sorry for that, he really is. He wishes he was better at it than he was.
At the end of JJK0, Yuuta truly is the last person who remembers Rika as she was and still loves her for who she is. He’s faced with Geto, who wants to use her as a weapon. Everyone treats her as a threat or a tool, except for Yuuta.
Like. Just that moment. Of loving someone so genuinely, and being the last one who does, and knowing that everyone else will just use them. I’m obsessed with it.
Yuuta reconciles with his love for Rika and her love for him, and they’re both finally freed. It’s this perfect moment of acceptance that I adore. He comes to terms with his past. It doesn’t hurt him so much anymore.
I wrote pez dispenser debris to sort of force Izuku to have that kind of reconciliation. As it is, he hasn’t reconciled with his own Quirklessness and how that affected him. I wanted to give him something he couldn’t physically escape and had to face.
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