5 Answers2026-07-06 20:00:38
Archive of Our Own dominates for any ship, but 'nomu x deku'? That's a really niche corner even in the 'My Hero Academia' fandom. You're gonna need to dig past the major tagging systems because it's often just a background element or a weirdly graphic horror tangent in a larger story.
AO3's filtering is your best friend here. Sort by kudos but also check the 'nomu' tag and then filter for 'Midoriya Izuku' characters. You'll find maybe a dozen fics that seriously center it, and half are from years ago. Wattpad is surprisingly active with it, but quality varies wildly—lots of edgy, dark reimaginations where Izuku gets experimented on earlier.
Don't sleep on Fanfiction.net either. Its search is clunky, but some of the older, weirder gen fics that dabble in this are buried there. The vibe is less romantic and more body-horror sci-fi, which honestly fits the pairing better. I found one called 'Symbiosis' there that handled it as a tragic fusion, way more interesting than most.
Overall, the 'collection' isn't on one platform. It's scattered. You curate it yourself by trawling all three with different search terms and being patient. The good stuff feels like finding a rare, slightly disturbing comic book in a bin.
3 Answers2026-06-22 06:41:55
Gotta admit, a lot of my favorite Deku x Denki stuff surfaces on Archive of Our Own these days. The tagging system is just unbeatable when you're looking for a specific dynamic or vibe—you can really drill down to find hurt/comfort fics versus the fluffier domestic stuff, which matters for a pairing like this where the character energy can go so many different ways. I find the quality tends to be higher there overall, maybe because it's where a lot of seasoned writers end up. Tumblr is still useful for finding those shorter, moodboard-heavy pieces and headcanon threads that really capture their potential chemistry, but for a complete, polished story, AO3 is my home base. The algorithm on bigger sites can sometimes bury this ship under more popular ones, so the controlled search makes all the difference.
I occasionally check Fanfiction.net out of nostalgia, but honestly, the newer material for this pairing is pretty sparse over there. It feels like the community for it migrated a while ago.
4 Answers2026-06-24 12:34:30
Finding good All Might and Deku fanfic really depends on how you read, honestly. I’ve been in this corner of the BNHA fandom for a while, and I keep three tabs open: Archive of Our Own for the curated, deeply-tagged longfics, Fanfiction.net for that classic, massive archive feeling, and then I lurk on specific BNHA Discord servers for the real-time, chat-feed style snippets and drabbles.
AO3 is unbeatable for the father-son, mentor-protégé dynamic—you can filter by 'One for All Legacy' or 'Hurt/Comfort' and find exactly the emotional weight you’re craving. I found a haunting series there where a retired All Might guides a struggling Izuku through the political mess of hero society, and it just nails the quiet pride in their relationship. Meanwhile, FF.net still has those epic, decade-spanning AUs from before the manga even finished, the kind that built whole universes. And the Discord snippets? Sometimes a writer will drop a 500-word scene of them sharing a bowl of katsudon after a rough day, and it’s more potent than a 50k epic. You gotta cast a wide net.
My secret weapon is following the authors, not the platforms. If someone writes a stunning All Might & Deku piece on Tumblr, I’ll track their AO3 crossposts or their Carrd for original fiction links. The good stuff tends to migrate or get mirrored.
4 Answers2026-06-24 03:04:50
Honestly, I don't really seek out specific ratings for that pairing anymore. The fanfic scene for 'My Hero Academia' is so huge that 'top-rated' often just means the most popular or most kudos'd on a site like Archive of Our Own, which can be skewed toward longer fics or certain tropes. I've found some real gems with fewer kudos by filtering for completed works and specific tags like 'Mentor All Might' or 'Injury Recovery'.
Sometimes the best stories aren't the ones with the highest numbers. There's one called 'Worth a Thousand Words' that's a photojournalism AU that just nailed their dynamic, but it's not in the top pages because it's a one-shot. I'd start on AO3, use the relationship tag, and then sort by bookmarks instead of kudos—it's a bit of a better signal for quality, in my experience. Then I'd just start reading summaries that catch my eye.