A Hero's First Step (MHA)

[Lunaryon]

What is really good for Izuku's mental state is going to be this next event. Where he gets to go through Quirk Counseling, like everyone else does.

Something that normal children (and teens and even adults) go through. Something he never got to experience.

Something that was a point of breaking off his friendship with long fingers Mcgee and Tsubasa. They didn't have time to hang out with Izuku because after school they had quirk Counseling, and he didnt.

 

[Alectai]

I'll admit, the All Seven Fever should create some Interesting Vibes too.

Izuku is just a Very Good Boi, it's nice that he's having Good Things happen to him, though I'll admit to a little Concern about what the fate of One for All is going to be in this timeline. The Vestiges do have influence, and they know full well that it can't survive being passed down to someone with a Quirk anymore by this point.

I think there's only like, two characters who don't have a Quirk in the original material, and one of them is from a movie (Though it's a Canon one apparently)

 

[Winged One]

He's very much a victim of the same kind of societal edgelord bullshit that led to Endeavor being himself. Just that it gets caught early enough that he's able to get the help and examples he needs to unfuck himself before he does something unforgivable.

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Something Bakugo canonically told Deku "You wana be a hero so bad, I got a timesaving idea for you. Pray to be born with a quirk in your next life and take a swan dive off the roof of the building."

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Notably on that front, the Mangaka has gone on record saying that he really wishes he could redo the first chapter, and that he had Bakugo act far out of line for where he was supposed to be in order to shortcut getting the viewers to dislike him.

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Apparently he didn't actually want Bakugo to be an irredeemable piece of shit? Retcons aren't always bad. If he has spare time, he could even pull some George Lucas shit and actually do that redo. Anyway, that statement is... reasonably close to actually admitting he made a mistake with that scene.

Endevour isn't being called a Hero for practicing Quirk Eugenics.

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He isn't disqualified as one for it either, in the opinion of society or the narrative. Just from being a good father.

 

[Modus_Tollens]

Yeah, the one thing that the more sympathetic Villains have in common is that the society of MHA is incredibly fucked.

Admittedly, part of it is having a joker-tier demigod sitting behind the stages for most of recent history continually stirring the pot to feed his own desire to exert power and keep the boot down on everyone, but the population as a whole still had to consistently make those choices.

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Oddly, I'm not sure that All for One was half as influential within his golden age as he wants you to think he was: The man freely admits that he is a chuunibyou playing up a role for the sake of self-satisfaction... and he is the guy everybody is getting the story from right now. His works were undeniably terrible ones but, ultimately, he spent most of his century and a half of life as a local threat within the Honshu, Kyushu, and Shikoku and not much further. His actual actions, rather than the role he plays up, aren't even all that Jokerish. Unscrupulous, uncaring of human life and welfare, but mostly pragmatic villainy rather than the sum of all evil bullshit he pretends to embody.

Shit is seemingly fucked everywhere and, seeing glimpses of the period he grew up in, he was just a product of the even more fucked up times. Before his recent renaissance and metastasis society as a whole was marching past him mostly unaffected. He just doesn't want it remembered that way.

 

[Lunaryon]

I'll admit, the All Seven Fever should create some Interesting Vibes too.

Izuku is just a Very Good Boi, it's nice that he's having Good Things happen to him, though I'll admit to a little Concern about what the fate of One for All is going to be in this timeline. The Vestiges do have influence, and they know full well that it can't survive being passed down to someone with a Quirk anymore by this point.

I think there's only like, two characters who don't have a Quirk in the original material, and one of them is from a movie (Though it's a Canon one apparently)

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While that is true in canon, there are going to be additional quirkless people in this quest, because 80% of the population having powers means that 1 in 5 do not have powers. So counting Izuku as originally quirkless, that is 7 more people who would be quirkless just based on classes 1-A and 1-B. So you are likely to meet some others over time as well.

 

[Pittauro]

While that is true in canon, there are going to be additional quirkless people in this quest, because 80% of the population having powers means that 1 in 5 do not have powers. So counting Izuku as originally quirkless, that is 7 more people who would be quirkless just based on classes 1-A and 1-B. So you are likely to meet some others over time as well.

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mh.. when they say that 80% of the population has a quirk (wasn't it 90%), I'd expect MOST of the quirkless people to belong to older generation.

The younger you go, the less quirkless people there would be. It just makes sense, as quirks are becoming more common in new generations.

It could very well be that among people of Izuku's age there's far less quirkless people than the official % would suggest

 

[infinityDivided]

While that is true in canon, there are going to be additional quirkless people in this quest, because 80% of the population having powers means that 1 in 5 do not have powers. So counting Izuku as originally quirkless, that is 7 more people who would be quirkless just based on classes 1-A and 1-B. So you are likely to meet some others over time as well.

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From what I've heard, it's less that there's a one in five chance you're born without a Quirk, and more that the planet's population is 80% Quirked vs. 20% Quirkless. Most Quirkless are in their 40s and older, because Quirks are becoming more and more common and it's becoming rarer to be born without a Quirk. Quirkless children Izuku's age are far less common than 1 in 5.

Quirk no longer sounds like a word.

 

[Rovos]

also a heroschool is not going to get a representative number of quirkless people in it's classes.

every hero class will be all quirked minimum

the business, support and gen edd can be more diverse but we meet what 2 people from them so it's not like we know how many quirkless people are at UA

 

[SuperBigMac]

It could very well be that among people of Izuku's age there's far less quirkless people than the official % would suggest

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We can just hand-wave it as a statistical hiccough.

80% Quirked vs. 20% Quirkless.

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So what you're telling me is that quirked up white boys who can bust it down—sexual style or not—are a dime a dozen, and canon Izuku was still goated with the sauce??

 

[Lunaryon]

Yeah, it was mentioned in quest that it is 90% of children Izuku's age, so that would drive the numbers down even further, with there also being other places in the world where that number falls differently, that is true.

Izuku also kind of stands as something of an icon to them at the moment. A sign that maybe their own fates can be changed too. So there is a chance that some quirkless people will be seeking him out for different reasons.

 

[Pittauro]

Yeah, it was mentioned in quest that it is 90% of children Izuku's age, so that would drive the numbers down even further, with there also being other places in the world where that number falls differently, that is true.

Izuku also kind of stands as something of an icon to them at the moment. A sign that maybe their own fates can be changed too. So there is a chance that some quirkless people will be seeking him out for different reasons.

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if you're not already having Izuku mentioning it in his interview, I think he should mention something like "I'm sure the government will start some medical trials and research of Ideo Trigger on presumed quirkless people".

Simply because... Izuku is quite sharp. He'll probably realize, and point out, that if the government doesn't pursue this path, then many quirkless people will do it on their own.

That's a recipe for disaster. Unless the people in charge are all morons they should realize that they HAVE to start doing this under supervision to stop people from doing it outside of such supervision.

 

[infinityDivided]

So what you're telling me is that quirked up white boys who can bust it down—sexual style or not—are a dime a dozen, and canon Izuku was still goated with the sauce??

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...I have no idea what you just said, and frankly I don't want to know.

Izuku also kind of stands as something of an icon to them at the moment. A sign that maybe their own fates can be changed too. So there is a chance that some quirkless people will be seeking him out for different reasons.

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Well, this could get ugly. Out of all the ways to handle Quirkless discrimination, treating injecting the Quirkless with a dangerous drug to give/force a Quirk on them as a potential solution is probably one of the nastiest.

In hindsight, us doing this interview and doing so well on it is possibly one of the most important decisions and rolls in this Quest. If we had put it off or rolled poorly (especially given who is giving the interview), then people could have started seeing Trigger as a "cure" to the Quirkless "disease". I mean they're still going to be doing that because MHA is a shithole, but we have the chance to provide a counter to the narrative and try to prevent people from seeing Quirklessness as a disability.

 

[Pittauro]

Well, this could get ugly. Out of all the ways to handle Quirkless discrimination, treating injecting the Quirkless with a dangerous drug to give/force a Quirk on them as a potential solution is probably one of the nastiest.

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not if done under oversight, I think. I think there's potential in that approach to treat the quirkless condition.

The problem is that... kids are often morons and impatients. If an official program accepting volunteers doesn't begin soonish, then there will be many that will try to get their hands over Ideo Trigger, and risk both themselves and those around them when they dose themselves.

In hindsight, us doing this interview and doing so well on it is possibly one of the most important decisions and rolls in this Quest. If we had put it off or rolled poorly (especially given who is giving the interview), then people could have started seeing Trigger as a "cure" to the Quirkless "disease". I mean they're still going to be doing that because MHA is a shithole, but we have the chance to provide a counter to the narrative and try to prevent people from seeing Quirklessness as a disability.

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I kinda think quirklessness in this context kinda COUNTS as a disability. Relatively speaking, at least.

It just doesn't really deserve as much attention and discrimination as it gets, especially because... well, the difference from a quirkless and a very weak quirk is not that big.

On the other hand the difference between a super-quirk and a quirkless/weak quirk is considerable.

...Actually I'll say something potentially controversial: I don't think Quirk Marriages are inherently wrong, or at least not as wrong as they're depicted. It's hardly different from how wealthy people tend to marry other wealthy people.

The problem with Endeavour wasn't that he went through a Quirk Marriage. It's that he was a shit husband and father. Arranged Marriages are not exactly desirable to our modern morals/ethics/sensibilities, but they aren't evil, and while eugenics as a term and field has kind of been (understandably) poisoned by relatively recent history, it's not ALL bad.

To put it another way: if you could, would you "heal" quirklessness? If yes, I think you can count it as a minor (physical) disability.

 

[FictionPack]

The problem with Endeavour wasn't that he went through a Quirk Marriage. It's that he was a shit husband and father. Arranged Marriages are not exactly desirable to our modern morals/ethics/sensibilities, but they aren't evil, and while eugenetic as a term and field has kind of been (understandably) poisoned by relatively recent history, it's not ALL bad.

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You could also consider it wrong for the types of quirks involved though.
Inherently opposing quirks, as seen here with fire and ice, can be detrimental to any possible kids, see Dabi having ice quirk skin with fire generation.
Sure you can get the perfect mix you see in Shoto, but you can also get bad combinations of the opposing elements, which is bad for child health.

 

[Pittauro]

You could also consider it wrong for the types of quirks involved though.
Inherently opposing quirks, as seen here with fire and ice, can be detrimental to any possible kids, see Dabi having ice quirk skin with fire generation.
Sure you can get the perfect mix you see in Shoto, but you can also get bad combinations of the opposing elements, which is bad for child health.

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that'd a good point, though as we see with Bakugo (who got explosion powers) from his parents (acid sweat+ glycerin) results can also be somewhat unexpected, so in theory there's always a risk.

...also I think that we don't really see that many examples of quirks actually being harmful to the user if dealt with appropriately. When there's problems it seems to be more the fault of society for having pushed the children to be something they are not.

Like with Himiko, partially with Tenko Shimura/Shigaraki, and so on.

...actually, when was Dabi's "ice-quirk skin" ever mentioned? I thought his fire was simply too strong for him to control, I don't remember any reference to Ice. Also, if it matters, he kinda abused his quirk. it wasn't inherently dangerous to have, I think, he COULD have had a normal life with it.

 

[FictionPack]

though as we see with Bakugo (who got explosion powers) from his parents (acid sweat+ glycerin) results can also be somewhat unexpected

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Not that unexpected.
His dad's sweat is acidic yes, but it has combustive qualities and he can cause his sweat to explode with friction when he rubs his hands together(also he only has acidic sweat on his palms). As for his mom nitroglycerin is a step away from glycerin. Plus both are sweat related.
The most unexpected development for Katsuki was the forced secretion and exploding on command really.

 

[Red_Knight25]

It may admittedly be fanon, but the general consensus is that Dabi inherited Endeavor's fire power (but better) and his mother's weakness to extreme heat. Now admittedly, the kid was right in that he still had potential to be basically his dad's fighting style but with blue flames, except nobody remembered to mention to him that Endeavor tends to push the limits of his heat resistance to the limit and sometimes even still burns himself, or at the very least suffers heat exhaustion.

Not to say that Endeavor didn't mishandle the whole parental situation, he really fucked up the being a decent dad thing almost as bad as fanon Goku. But there was room in the situation for things to improve. But then they didn't, and now our heroes have to live with the consequences.

 

[SuperBigMac]

...I have no idea what you just said, and frankly I don't want to know.

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It's a bunch of Gen Z slang strung together as a joke. Someone who is quirked up is unconventional or weird yet compelling. Busting down sexual style takes two bits of slang—one for a promiscuous woman and the other being the physical counterpart to a "love language"—and combines them to mean something along the lines of "damn, that was better than sex!" Used in the same way as "oh baby, a triple!" from back in the olden days. To be GOATed (Greatest of all Time) with the sauce means that you are the absolute best, because you're not just a hunk of bread, you've also got the fondue/sauce—a complete package, in other words.

So, to put it in real American English (as oxymoronic as real American cheese): "an average looking dude who is actually unusually interesting has done something so cool that he is now considered amazing and everyone wants to get to know him better," which is kinda what happened with Izuku during the Entrance Exam, and again during the Sports Festival (and I think to a lesser extent the Nemu-interrupted training? But it's been a while since I last watched MHA)

 

[ChildishChimera]

Oddly, I'm not sure that All for One was half as influential within his golden age as he wants you to think he was: The man freely admits that he is a chuunibyou playing up a role for the sake of self-satisfaction... and he is the guy everybody is getting the story from right now. His works were undeniably terrible ones but, ultimately, he spent most of his century and a half of life as a local threat within the Honshu, Kyushu, and Shikoku and not much further. His actual actions, rather than the role he plays up, aren't even all that Jokerish. Unscrupulous, uncaring of human life and welfare, but mostly pragmatic villainy rather than the sum of all evil bullshit he pretends to embody.

Shit is seemingly fucked everywhere and, seeing glimpses of the period he grew up in, he was just a product of the even more fucked up times. Before his recent renaissance and metastasis society as a whole was marching past him mostly unaffected. He just doesn't want it remembered that way.

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Yeah thing about All for One is that he carved out a place when the world was in chaos cause no one knew wtf Quirks were and caused 200 years of instability as more and more quirks proliferate and become more common. As people understand them and move away from a X-men reaction his original charm losses its appeal and he just becomes another strong gangster. Honestly if he never found Shigeraki, A4O would probably goe the same route of the Yakuza.

 

[Lunaryon]

It may admittedly be fanon, but the general consensus is that Dabi inherited Endeavor's fire power (but better) and his mother's weakness to extreme heat. Now admittedly, the kid was right in that he still had potential to be basically his dad's fighting style but with blue flames, except nobody remembered to mention to him that Endeavor tends to push the limits of his heat resistance to the limit and sometimes even still burns himself, or at the very least suffers heat exhaustion.

Not to say that Endeavor didn't mishandle the whole parental situation, he really fucked up the being a decent dad thing almost as bad as fanon Goku. But there was room in the situation for things to improve. But then they didn't, and now our heroes have to live with the consequences.

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It was in chapter 301, where it was mentioned that not only did Dabi inherit flames that were far stronger than hotter than Endeavor's own flames, but that his body was more like his mother's with a notable weakness to high temperatures, but defended against low temperatures.

 

[zernoc56]

I kinda think quirklessness in this context kinda COUNTS as a disability. Relatively speaking, at least.

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To put it another way: if you could, would you "heal" quirklessness? If yes, I think you can count it as a minor (physical) disability.

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If you replace "quirkless" with "autistic", it's the same argument and I hate it. I am autistic. I do consider it a disability. But almost paradoxically, I am not disabled by my autism, but by the society that by and large refuses to accommodate my autism. If I had the option to cure my autism, I'd say "hell no", because it's part of who I am as a person. And the "cure" for both autism and quirklessness both boil down to a robust eugenics program.

 

[Pittauro]

If you replace "quirkless" with "autistic", it's the same argument and I hate it. I am autistic. I do consider it a disability. But almost paradoxically, I am not disabled by my autism, but by the society that by and large refuses to accommodate my autism. If I had the option to cure my autism, I'd say "hell no", because it's part of who I am as a person. And the "cure" for both autism and quirklessness both boil down to a robust eugenics program.

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Eugenics is more "prevention" than cure, technically speaking. I mean, you can't use it to "cure" people who already have the condition after all.

...well, maybe you could with sufficiently advanced genetic engineering, but that's a different thing.

Mental conditions/disabilities are a more delicate topic, I think. It's easier to point at someone born blind and say "curing that is objectively good".

With mental conditions... well, I don't know. I admittedly don't know any autistic people I think, and I agree that a big part of the problem is more in how society treats people with these kinds of conditions rather than in the condition itself... at least some of the time, and for some of the conditions.

Though if you consider it a disability, I find it a bit weird you say you wouldn't want to be "cured" of it. Then again, people are always scared of change, and especially of changes to something so... personal/intimate/Idonthaveagoodwordforit.

Ideally I think the best thing would be to have a way to experience what having AND not having any specific mental condition feels like, and then decide based on personal experience... but ignoring how that might just be impossible, then there's also the problem of "what if "me with autism" has a different opinion from "me without autism""? Who has the right to choose, there?


...I'm digressing a bit I think. And let me be clear I'm not trying to offend anyone, just in case.

With things like Autism specifically I think the topic is even more complex, because as far as I know people with similar conditions sometimes have special abilities/gifts in specific fields, so you can't even argue that it's an objectively worse condition. It's more of a trade-off, lower social abilities for better abilities in different fields.

I will at the very least agree with the "you can't force a cure on someone" though. No matter your opinion on their condition. Not unless they're explicitly a danger to both themselves and others, like in some kinds of insanities, which is a completely different thing anyway.

 

[Lunaryon]

If you replace "quirkless" with "autistic", it's the same argument and I hate it. I am autistic. I do consider it a disability. But almost paradoxically, I am not disabled by my autism, but by the society that by and large refuses to accommodate my autism. If I had the option to cure my autism, I'd say "hell no", because it's part of who I am as a person. And the "cure" for both autism and quirklessness both boil down to a robust eugenics program.

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As much as I agree with your statements about autism here, I do feel that I need to argue that being Autistic is different from being quirkless, and that Pittauro's comparison to being blind is a lot closer to what being Quirkless would be like.

Quirks are, with a handful of exceptions, a physical attribute and not an issue of the mind. So comparing the two isn't the most accurate.

 

[JoeHalo]

It's a bunch of Gen Z slang strung together as a joke. Someone who is quirked up is unconventional or weird yet compelling. Busting down sexual style takes two bits of slang—one for a promiscuous woman and the other being the physical counterpart to a "love language"—and combines them to mean something along the lines of "damn, that was better than sex!" Used in the same way as "oh baby, a triple!" from back in the olden days. To be GOATed (Greatest of all Time) with the sauce means that you are the absolute best, because you're not just a hunk of bread, you've also got the fondue/sauce—a complete package, in other words.

So, to put it in real American English (as oxymoronic as real American cheese): "an average looking dude who is actually unusually interesting has done something so cool that he is now considered amazing and everyone wants to get to know him better,"

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.....you know, slang used to be simple.

It was supposed to be easy to understand for others (most of the time).

But that fact you had to translate an entire sentence of just slang for everyone....shows how far we've fallen.

...

ANYWAY! I really hate when humans start looking at disabilities or anything 'different' in other people and say "We need a cure for that."

It really grinds my gears! It wasn't pleasant when the the X-Men had to deal with this! Everybody remembers the movie right? When a government official found a way to permanently take away powers with a serum?

Imagine that but MHA for the quirkless population! I wouldn't be surprised if the MLA started convincing/kidnapping people to "cure them of this disease".

 

[Valmond]

I had a long post about autism/aspergers and medication thereof, but it's largely not on topic so deleted it.
It's complicated, i would not take a cure for aspergers if i was offered one, i recognice others might choose to do otherwise.

That said, i do agree that being quirkless is not similar to autism or aspergers.
Quirks are so, varied, so random, that being quirkless and having a very minor quirk should be practically indistinguishable from not having one at all as far as wider society is concerned.
Even more so when quirk use in public is banned in most cases.