Hey @simkjrs I love MSA and I know you’re interested in other stuff atm but, like, I had to draw that moment went Izuku basically said “whelp, I’m over this” and decimated his enemies. I took some liberties because I have no self control but hope you like! (Sorry if it’s blurred, I actually don’t know what dimensions to use on tumblr,, yikes)
One of my favourite parts about Simkjrs’ MHA fics is probably how every iteration of Izuku will always follow a pattern,whether it’s the vigilante AU, runaway AU, villain AU, or villain AU but with funnies. I like to call this pattern the “vicious cycle of Simkjrs”, or in layman’s terms, “trauma be like that sometimes”.
(Contains a low simmer of spoilers for Simkjrs’ fics, obviously.)
It goes a little like this:
1. Izuku accepts unacceptable circumstances. This is a thing everyone does because of how human brains work — we are pattern-seeking creatures. If someone parks a tank in your idyllic small town, you’re going to react first, but after a while, you’ll get used to it being there, and may even welcome a second one. It’s a normal glitch in our perceptive abilities, and thus a great jumping-off point for internal tension.
This is OPM!Izuku allowing himself to be emotionally abused by Bakugou, MSA!Izuku accepting that no one is to be trusted and he has to live in squalor to survive, afo!izuku thinking he has to undercut AfO’s entire organization, etc etc etc.
2. Izuku’s mental state decays. Even if izuku perceives his current circumstances to be normal, they’re more often than not extremely harmful and unsustainable -- that is to day, ‘unacceptable circumstances’. This is where a lot of the meat in Simkjrs’ prose comes from; the internal tension where Izuku has normalized his own suffering, but experiences steadily escalating levels of distress anyway, and doesn’t know how to deal with it.
This is OPM!Izuku’s distant attitude, MSA!izuku’s frustrated and angry episodes when pressured, AfO!izuku’s lack of direction after he’s Done The Deed.
3. Izuku breaks. His circumstances were unsustainable, and his ability to deal has been exhausted. He snaps back to Unacceptability, but with added stress on top. Izuku experiences a sudden surge of distress, and often lashes out.
This is OPM!Izuku being forced to confront the need to cut out a massive portion of his life (Bakugou), MSA!Izuku cutting himself off first after the temple event in his childhood and again after Kamino Ward, and AfO!izuku continuing to destroy everything by himself.ffffff
4. Izuku recovers. A light in the dark. No matter how drastic the Break, it gives him the clarity to actually act on his anxieties and find happiness and recovery. It’s what makes Simkjrs’ fics so cathartic to read; Izuku is constantly entering these periods of severe development, with releases as dramatic as the tension preceding it.
This is OPM!Izuku meeting Shinsou and trying to repair his friendship with Mitoki and AfO!Izuku allowing himself to trust other people with his objectives.
But wait! Where’s MSA!Izuku in that example?
Oh.
Uh-oh.
Know What I’ve Made By The Manic Episode On My Hands
MSA!Izuku seems to follow the same structure of internal conflict the other fics do, but instead of finding new footing every time he hits a break, MSA!Izuku will ride out the break as far as it will go, and his trust issues prevent him from diversifying his outlook. His circumstances thus get worse and worse with every single one of these cycles he experiences. Every time he approaches the “Recovery” section, he aborts it, causing twice as much suffering.
Thus when he severely undercut himself after getting caught, that bad decision was intensified by his reluctance to undergo the “recovery” stage, and true to narrative consistency, he suffers twice as much; he has his bodily autonomy violated, harshly, both body-wise and soul-wise.
Normally, this would be a very strong, robustly written tragic character, with airtight internal logic, but here’s the catch:
Eri.
Izuku, against everything he beat into himself after having his ability to hit the “Recovery” stage ripped away from him again and again, begins to reach out. At first it wasn’t much, just trusting Kirishima to respect his obsessive need for privacy, but when he meets Eri, he lets himself make a huge risk with her spirit.
And it’s euphoric.
After the constant reminders of how often Izuku has been deprived of his Recovery stage, how often his choice to distrust has been reaffirmed, how we see how this exact situation could go wrong, and if you’re a fan, the complete cycle Izuku has been deprived of that you know really clenches a Recovery Fic, he gives himself away and gets rewarded for it.
He shows kindness and openness and experiences this rush of working together with a spirit, and the sheer height of the reward compared to the amount of suffering he had experienced was a rush, it was sheer release, so dense with catharsis that you kinda wanna scream “FUCK YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” at every little good thing that happens.
I think the way these patterns are set up and executed indicates an instinctive understanding of how internal conflict in storytelling and tragic characters work, and being able to watch this coherent, well-framed tragedy unfold and have that happy ending to shift the crushing direction of the story is why Know What I’ve Made By The Marks On My Hands is my favourite MHA fanfiction.
