Fic summary: Twenty years ago, Midoriya Hisashi walked out on his wife and Quirkless child. Three days ago, Midoriya Inko received a phone call informing her of his demise and when his funeral would take place.
Sometimes you're a 25 year old war veteran, making a difference one day at a time in a post-All For One Japan that's still feeling the repercussions of your high school days. Other times you're simply the forgotten child of a deadbeat, left to clean up your father's messes because he was too much of a coward to take any responsibility.
And now, you're a full time big brother, because the biggest mess left behind was the child your father replaced you with.
Chapter summary: There is a tendency for parents to view their children not as their own person, full of depth just like anyone else, but as an extension of themselves. Of their legacy. Of their worth as a person. An infant is dependent on their parents for every facet of care, so it's easy to forget--easy to let that acknowledgement drift away in a sea of teaching this child the basic lessons on how to live in this world, how to talk, how to walk, how to participate in life alongside everyone else. Every lesson is the parent imparting their own wisdom upon the child in the hopes the child will become the vision the parent imagines of what a proper person is.
But, then, it always comes as a surprise when the child is no longer dependent on the parent for lessons. And the truth comes in the form of the child developing opinions their parents don't agree with.
And so, the cycle of conflict begins, with the rejection of those lessons being seen as a rejection of the parent. Despite the child wanting nothing more than to connect with their parent without feeling scolded for being themselves.
Fic Summary: Twenty years ago, Midoriya Hisashi walked out on his wife and Quirkless child. Three days ago, Midoriya Inko received a phone call informing her of his demise and when his funeral would take place.
Sometimes you're a 25 year old war veteran, making a difference one day at a time in a post-All For One Japan that's still feeling the repercussions of your high school days. Other times you're simply the forgotten child of a deadbeat, left to clean up your father's messes because he was too much of a coward to take any responsibility.
And now, you're a full time big brother, because the biggest mess left behind was the child your father replaced you with.
Chapter summary: People suffering from depressive episodes are assumed to simply be lazy, due to a lack of upkeep or care for themselves or their spaces. This is far from the truth. For a person undergoing a depressive episode, every second of their day and every ounce of their energy is being spent on the simple acts of just getting the barest necessities done while swimming through the fog of fatigue and despair in equal measure. This makes it so much harder to pull themselves out, or reach out for help, when the fog finally dissipates enough to see the mess that they've made, and are forced to ask themselves: How on earth am I going to fix all this?
Fic Summary: Twenty years ago, Midoriya Hisashi walked out on his wife and Quirkless child. Three days ago, Midoriya Inko received a phone call informing her of his demise and when his funeral would take place.
Sometimes you're a 25 year old war veteran, making a difference one day at a time in a post-All For One Japan that's still feeling the repercussions of your high school days. Other times you're simply the forgotten child of a deadbeat, left to clean up your father's messes because he was too much of a coward to take any responsibility.
And now, you're a full time big brother, because the biggest mess left behind was the child your father replaced you with.
Chapter summary: The stages of grief are not typically experienced in the order of the official listing. Emotions ebb and flow like the tides, illogical but all powerful as the brain and body processes the reality of the situation. Some stages repeat, or loop back around, lingering for far longer than the average person expects. Grief is not a linear path for any one person to travel. And thus, this is the tragedy of experiencing it. Not seeing the end in sight, because the pain continues on.
Fic Summary: Twenty years ago, Midoriya Hisashi walked out on his wife and Quirkless child. Three days ago, Midoriya Inko received a phone call informing her of his demise and when his funeral would take place.
Sometimes you're a 25 year old war veteran, making a difference one day at a time in a post-All For One Japan that's still feeling the repercussions of your high school days. Other times you're simply the forgotten child of a deadbeat, left to clean up your father's messes because he was too much of a coward to take any responsibility.
And now, you're a full time big brother, because the biggest mess left behind was the child your father replaced you with.
Chapter Summary: There is a certain guilt and listlessness that comes with not feeling useful in times of strife. The feeling of "I should be doing more" pervades through the soul and makes one feel as if they aren't contributing. Aren't adding anything positive. Aren't doing their part in relieving the pain of the situation at hand.
Most of those struggling with this feeling fail to consider that being useful is perhaps less important than allowing themselves the time to heal.
I know you wanted all of them but this got longer than expected. More to follow pending how well this lands.
1. Yuki-onna
An understated aspect of heroics as a business is that what school you attend to get your training really does have an impact on how your career pans out. UA’s strongest point isn’t their training facilities or staff—it’s their networking opportunities. Students at UA get to establish themselves with seasoned pros as early as first year, so when it comes time for them to leave the nest and spread their wings they have no shortage of professional connections to draw on.
Shiketsu isn’t as good at networking, but it does buff up their students combat abilities to match UA pace for pace, and instills a professionalism in its students that makes them stand out among other applicants to sidekick positions.
Ketsubutsu lacks the intense prestige of the country’s top two schools, but it maintains an intense connection to the community that allows its graduates to ingrain themselves with the ground floor, so to speak, and allows their alumni to shove their foot into as many doors as it takes for them to succeed.
Northern Tokyo Heroics Academy did not have any of these high points.
Yukimoto Yuri graduates at the top of her class with perfect scores all across the board. She worked hard all three years in that school to achieve her flawless record. And what does she get for it?
Her tenth rejection. Not even from a Top 100 agency.
It turns out, perfect scores mean jack shit if the school you went to can barely teach its students how to properly file their paperwork. Northern Tokyo Heroics Academy’s graduates are worth absolutely nothing to the greater industry, and none of its alumni have done more than middling sidekick work for heroes who never get past the Top 50. Yukimoto Yuri puts her best foot forward to break this cycle, to prove she has what it takes, but...well, she has nothing any agency wants. Her Quirk can’t even make the big ice blocks that would make for a spectacular finishing move.
She’s about ready to throw in the towel and resign herself to a life of mediocrity when a voice pops up to her left, from where she’s bent over in a chair with her head in her hands.
“Bad news?”
Yuri resists the urge to whine, keeping her head down so that her hair will remain a curtain between her and the world. “It’s not even news. I’m just a failure.”
“I doubt that,” the voice says.
“I just got rejected by Blubberman’s agency. That guy barely even keeps his numbers up and he thinks I’m useless.”
There is a small beat of silence.
“...okay, yeah, I can see how that would be disheartening,” the voice admits, and Yuri can hear a sound like he’s shuffling a bit on his feet. “But Blubberman is also an idiot with career moves so I wouldn’t take his words to heart.”
“You’ve worked with him?” Yuri asks.
“I’ve fixed his screwups. Can you believe last year he showed up to an earthquake relief operation and tried to light a cigarette next to a bunch of toppled buildings? He nearly blew all of us up and I almost threw my own license out the window via murder charges I was so mad.” Yuri laughs, despite herself. It’s wet and it’s gross but it does make her feel better, knowing Blubberman’s idiocy isn’t some kind of secret she’s supposed to keep. “Is that your application?”
The papers are at her feet. Crumpled a bit from where she dug her hands in trying not to cry after her interview.
“Yeah. I’ve just—it’s been months and I can’t get a sidekick gig at all. I don’t know why I’m bothering.”
“Can I look?” The voice asks.
“Knock yourself out. It’s worthless.”
She hears the papers being picked up. Shuffled. The person standing next to her is quiet as he reads, and Yuri can’t even find it in her to be embarrassed at how little information she actually had to try and entice an employer. How is she supposed to get any takers when she has no experience?
“...is. Is this Quirk information correct?” The voice asks, his voice suddenly a bit choked.
She knows, okay. She knows her Quirk is useless on paper. She’s done a lot of work to make it at least somewhat useful for fights, but the registry can’t exactly show off all that when at its core it’s still just a lesser Quirk of extreme cold.
“Yeah. I know, it’s a useless—“
“This has so many applications to it! Can you freeze just the epidermis of a subject or does the freeze go all the way down into their muscles? Have you ever experimented with the brittle nature of certain metals exposed to the cold? Oh man—if your Quirk can also lower your body temperature, have you ever been able to fool heat reading technology? You could bypass certain security systems for stealth operations that way and—“
The sudden onslaught of questions finally makes Yuri lift her head. Her eyeliner is definitely ruined and god knows how blotchy her face is but she doesn’t think of that in the face of confusion.
She wishes she’d thought of that, because when she turns her head to look at her visitor she’s met with the scarred and freckled face of the man who killed Shigaraki Tomura.
“Oh my god.”
Deku—All Might’s chosen boy, the man who gave up the power of a living god to save Japan, the ultimate pinnacle of selfless heroics—looks outright bashful at her wide eyed stare. “Ah. I came on too strong, didn’t I?”
“You’re Deku,” Yuri says dumbly.
“I am.”
“...you’re Deku,” she repeats, this time stressed beyond belief. “Why are you—what are you even doing here?”
Deku—holy shit holy shit holy shit—smiles. “Analysis consultation. But I’m not really one to ignore a young hero who needs help, am I?”
He lifts up her application, waving it a little.
“Your Quirk is perfect for heroics. Why the hell would you keep getting rejected?”
Yuri hiccups, despite herself. “My school sucks. I worked so hard—I didn’t want to beg my parents for tuition money, so I went to whatever place accepted me, and it turns out I shouldn’t have even bothered because a degree from a third rate school is worthless.”
Deku looks thoughtful at that. A little miffed. Extremely considering. And...intrigued, at the core of it all.
“...well now that just won’t do,” he says.
“What?”
“You know, all my friends keep yelling at me to hire sidekicks. But I just never saw the point in taking on the big go-getters in the new graduates. I don’t think any of them really need my help to succeed.” Deku says, ignoring the way Yuri’s jaw drops and her face flushes with both hope and extreme indignation if this is some kind of cosmic joke. “Northern Tokyo really is a bit of a crap place to learn. They don’t produce very quality heroes so nobody wants to take the gamble. But...I kind of really want to see just what your Quirk can do.”
“It’s not that special, though,” Yuri protests, because this is way too much credit for what she can do—she’s not the kind of hero who can stand shoulder to shoulder with someone like him.
Deku just looks outright offended. “Not that special!? Your Quirk is Absolute Zero—not even Shouto can drop down that low easily, the first time he tried subzero temperatures he wound up hospitalizing himself. And you can just do it casually!”
She hadn’t known about that, actually. She assumed he had way better control over the cold than she did.
“I can’t make big ice—“
“That’s not a negative. A small icicle with enough speed to it kills dozens every year. You just weren’t taught how to use your Quirk to its advantages,” Deku fires back before she can finish.
Yuri is left stunned. Deku just continues to stare at her like he’s daring her to keep putting herself down.
“...you’re serious about this.”
“I never joke about potential. And I can see so much in you.” There’s a shine in his eyes that’s so bright Yuri actually winces, and suddenly so many things click into place. No wonder so many heroes of the new generation seem to regard this man as the golden standard. Is this how he looks at everyone? Is this how he uplifts every hero he works with? “Actually, here—this is my agency’s card. I want you to come. I want to try you out in the training room. And when you absolutely blow me away like I know you will, I want to talk to you about hiring paperwork.”
The card given to her is worth double its weight in gold, and Yuri can’t stop her hands from shaking as she stares down at it.
“...are you even real?”
She only gets the worlds most blinding smile in response.
One week later, Yukimoto Yuri appears at the front door of the Dekiru Agency with a new application in her hands.
One month later, the heroics world is buzzing at the debut of Yuki-onna, Deku’s very first sidekick.
Summary: Twenty years ago, Midoriya Hisashi walked out on his wife and Quirkless child. Three days ago, Midoriya Inko received a phone call informing her of his demise and when his funeral would take place.
Sometimes you're a 25 year old war veteran, making a difference one day at a time in a post-All For One Japan that's still feeling the repercussions of your high school days. Other times you're simply the forgotten child of a deadbeat, left to clean up your father's messes because he was too much of a coward to take any responsibility.
And now, you're a full time big brother, because the biggest mess left behind was the child your father replaced you with.
I am a slow writer by nature. And part of this is because I need to rotate things in my mind for months on end to truly poke every single aspect of what it is I'm doing, to be satisfied with the final result. (The other part is that I'm either writing 50k in sprees or so stuck on something I'd rather swim across the ocean than look at my WIP). For a word for 'bad miracle' I rotated this story in my head a lot, and still do, and one of the most central things to rotate has been one of our main characters--Midoriya Hinata, second child to Midoriya Hisashi and probably one of the characters that's been the most fun to turn into a real person.
So let's talk about it.
Physical design
OCs tend to spring out of my head like Athena, fully formed and ready to get things started. Hinata was no real exception.
The very first time I ever postulated what a sibling for Izuku would look like I had this idea of a similarly doe eyed young girl, with short curls and a bow meant to evoke the bunny ears of his mask. When the plot for 'bad miracle' came to me, that concept was done away with entirely, and the image that came to mind was of a girl who was both Izuku's equal and opposite. Before I ever attempted drawing her I immediately ran to picrew.
And frankly. Knocked it out of the park. Hinata's personality was already in mind for me, barring some later tweaks as I got to know her better and think about how her character arc would progress, and I knew exactly how she had to look to match it. She and Izuku are both very alike and very different, visually.
Their matching components all come from their father.
Both of them inherited Hisashi's freckles, spotted all over and tripling in the summer months, and both of them inherited his curls. Different curl types, though. Izuku has a looser curl pattern that makes his hair very wavy, while Hinata wound up with a tighter spiral in the form of 3B hair. Hinata may or may not have inherited her more tan complexion from Hisashi's side, but given Hisashi kept a lot of secrets it's one more thing both children will never find out.
Their differences come from their mothers. Izuku has Inko's face--her large eyes, her nervous expressions, her coloring and disposition. Hinata didn't inherit her mother's face, but she did inherit the Umino coloring, taking her mother's hair and eye color and matching the rest of her maternal family with an oceanic palate. One feature I'd like to successfully draw one day is that Hinata's eye shape more resembles Momo's than Izuku's, because Hinata took many of her facial features from her mother's side.
Notably, Hinata is just as scrawny and small as Izuku was when we meet him at the start of the series.
The result we wind up with is that Izuku and Hinata look similar, but also different enough that most people wouldn't peg them as related unless they knew beforehand. When you do know they're siblings you start to notice the similarities--you notice how their freckles follow similar patterns, now they both have a curl in the middle of their forehead's hairline that tries to stick out like Superman's, how their facial expressions tend to be downright identical on certain emotions (if only with one set to maximum exaggeration and the other rather restrained).
These similarities and differences were very much cultivated on purpose, leading to:
Personality
I knew from the moment she emerged from the depths of my mind that Midoriya Hinata was going to be an extremely opinionated and strong character.
Which is why when her image came to me I sought out the most feminine princessy name I could possibly find. HeroAca is a series that never fails to use kanji for a gag or a character note and Hinata wasn't about to break the streak. The kanji for her name mean "Princess, noblewoman' and "kind, gentle, calm". Hinata's name was designed from the ground up to not match the child it belongs to at all, and reveal the folly of her mother's expectations.
Hinata's personality and character is made to play off of her brother's. They're opposites when it comes down to a few key traits.
Izuku is a selfless person who seeks to help others whenever possible, never asking for recognition.
Hinata is a selfish person. Sure, part of that is because she's currently 12 and all 12 year olds are self centered, but at her core Hinata does not have the endless sympathy that allows people like Izuku to constantly give his time and attention to other people. It's a trait she actually shares with her father, though while Hisashi was so selfish he harmed others for his own wants, Hinata practices a much less severe type of selfishness that's much healthier--she looks after herself first. She looks after her own interests. Her own emotions. Her own wants. It's genuinely helpful because it means she has firm boundaries and won't cave easily to guilt trips trying to make her compromise them. But it's still a trait to examine and hold accountable, because it means she has the ability to be extremely callous.
It also means she's liable to get so sucked into her own feelings that she forgets to think about how she may be affecting others. But that's a tale for later, leading to:
STORY ARC
Given that the fic is still. You know. Being written, I can't say much here. You gotta read the fic to see all that.
But I can say that the general progression of character for her is one that touches a lot on her brother's, in equal but opposing ways. This was ultimately the goal of creating her in the first place.
The story of 'bad miracle' is one about grief. About loss, about terrible fathers, about parents doing their best, and about family and the ugliness and beauty of it all. It's written for the ones with shitty parents they never want to see again and it's also written for me, who was made to handle the grief of my own parents on top of my own when I was just Hinata's age.
But the fun thing is the story arc for the Hinataverse as a whole.
Which is heavy contemplation on the very concept of legacy.
Fic summary: Twenty years ago, Midoriya Hisashi walked out on his wife and Quirkless child. Three days ago, Midoriya Inko received a phone call informing her of his demise and when his funeral would take place.
Sometimes you’re a 25 year old war veteran, making a difference one day at a time in a post-All For One Japan that’s still feeling the repercussions of your high school days. Other times you’re simply the forgotten child of a deadbeat, left to clean up your father’s messes because he was too much of a coward to take any responsibility.
And now, you’re a full time big brother, because the biggest mess left behind was the child your father replaced you with.
Chapter summary: The illusion given to Gifted children is one of maturity. Of growing older before their peers. But the truth of the matter is that Gifted children are still children, and maturity is something that can only be gained with age and experience. If a fourteen year old is seen as mature and wise, it is a trick of circumstances--what adults see as maturity is actually obedience and a false face created specifically for their approval.
More often than not, children who are seen as incredibly mature for their age become troubled adults who lack any of the real maturity their peers now possess.
