butevensomharewrite

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WIP Wednesday - Reworking UA (and other schools) Prt1

So, I don't think it's super controversial to say that UA has some problems. Some of these are probably purposeful, some of these are because jokes were made at the expense of solid world and character building, some of it is because of the pacing, and some of it is because Horikoshi needed the school to be dumb in order for the plot to happen in the intended way. And, as I mentioned in my UA Entrance Exam post, I feel like sometimes people just fix these problems by completely removing them. Which is cool if that's what you want to do, but I want to work through a lot of these issues, see what they say about society, and how to work with them in a wider context. So, things I'm working through: the fact that UA is a school focused on climbing the ranks, that UA sucks at both protecting its reputation and protecting the kids, Aizawa in general (I don't hate him, but I think fandom often brushes over his flaws in favour of Dadzawa), the interplay of departments, society actually impacting UA and at least a little better protection for the kids you're exposing the (apparently) the entire world at fifteen (spoilers: we're not doing that). Long story short, UA is not some magical utopia where everything is perfect, even if they're trying to be, those societal issues will seep in, and I want to play with that.

This got very long so I've split it into parts. In this part, student safety, UA's philosophy, and that of other schools, inter-departmental cooperation, mock agencies, unofficial school hero rankings, and Mineta. So let's go:

As I mentioned in the Entrance Exam post, I talked about improving the safety precautions of UA. This starts from the entrance by having second years participate in the exam, as fake examinees to pretend to be in danger, and to save anyone in actual danger (Nejire would have been there to save Occhako and Midoriya if they hadn't managed to save each other). And to steal from Lyrical Nanoha, barrier jackets. Absolutely mandatory for first years, and then phased out at your instructor's discretion through UA, these are basically an invisible personal forcefield for training, made with some quirk tech magic (don't tell me it's not magic tech when you see the tech of the final war), that protects you during training. These are attuned to you, and protect you from the physical damage, but does make you feel it. For example, if an injury would break your leg, the leg is fine, but the device makes you feel the pain, so you still have the consequences during training. Obviously, it can't protect from everything. If a building collapses on you, you've still had a building collapse on you, but it will nerf a lot of the damage in training, leaving you with mostly just bruises and soreness. This also doesn't protect you from your own kickback. Midoriya would still break his bones, Bakugou's still getting massive recoil off of his gauntlets, Shouto is still freezing his ass off, and it does little for things like temperature changes, so Shouto could still freeze you to death, just not break your bones with ice.

In terms of UA itself, as I mentioned in the Entrance Exam post, I think UA has to at least look like it's all above board. I think the idea that UA is most interested in its reputation, possible through Nedzu not really liking humans that much and also just not getting human emotion, is an interesting angle, that syncs up nicely with the problems society has. So, to expand on this, UA has so many top heroes, because UA teaches you how to climb the hero rankings. That's not to say that you can do that without being a good hero, the rankings are a mix of personal approval and jobs accomplished, after all, but UA clearly was never catering to heroes who didn't want the limelight, given they were supposedly broadcasting them to the entire world within their first term at the school without any protection for their identities. UA is considered the best hero school because it has the most heroes graduate and hit the top 10, but has a heavy focus on things like combat because that's what's most popular (hence the exam), branding, connections, putting you out to the world as early as possible to make you a public figure, never mind the dangers. And this is where I want other schools to come in. Particularly Shiketsu. (I'm ignoring some of fandoms stupid ideas about Shiketsu based on a lack of understanding of Japanese society, I might talk about that in another post). For a start, I want to bring in other schools earlier, and maybe inter-school competitions more. If Shiketsu can rival UA, I want them mentioned earlier. If UA is focused on putting you in front of the public as early as possible, Shiketsu lines up more with Stains ideology in a way: heroics is its own reward, and you shouldn't care about climbing the ranks. If you do the right thing, because it's the right thing to do, then you'll be rewarded in time. There's no flashy displays, no putting on shows of under age students, just working towards helping people (and basic PR to stop you doing something stupid on camera of course).

Next, as I've mentioned a few times, I want more inter-departmental cooperation. Students at the start of the year are matched up via a complicated system of who you want to work with, who would suit you and some lottery elements: Support, Business and Hero students form a team and budget of UA Bucks or something, based on how well all three did in their entrance exam. The three of you then act as an agency. Heroes are paid based on selected heroics class missions. The heroes file a report for their agency, the business student then files a report based on that to UA, who then pays the agency based on how big the job was, how much they contributed and any fines for damages. Any upgrades and maintenance to the suits have to be made from they budget, and all three must pay themselves a salary from it too. Agencies are free to pool resources, or contract other agencies say if someone else's support student is better at the upgrade you need. There's also an unofficial school hero ranking, which is a mix of your grades and a school popularity vote, and your position on this ranking can get you bonuses in your payments, and it's the business course's job to handle that kind of PR. Again, all about preparing you for the real world. More popular heroes = more money = better resources = bigger jobs = more popularity = more money. There's a ranking by year, and an overall ranking. Because it is acknowledged that the third years are probably getting better results, doing better reports, have better equipment and handling PR better than first years, so they are allowed the small mercy of competition against their own year alone, as well as the overall rankings. And this is how the Big Three is actually ranked. They're the top 3 in the overall rankings.

Speaking of hero rankings: I'm going to talk about Mineta, sexual harassment/assault, and the way UA handles it because Horikoshi writes it as a joke, so if they makes you uncomfortable, skip over the last paragraph.

So, Mineta. I went back and forth a lot on what to do with it. I think Mineta is a great example of a joke that could say a lot about the world instead failing it, especially with the nods at sexism and sexualisation with things like Mt Lady and the Uraraka vs Bakugou fight. Which is a shame because, much like Midnight, Mineta has the potential to be interesting and have a look at sexualisation and harassment in a heroes world. In much the same way Midnight purposefully making herself a target for teenage cat calling and inappropriate behaviour because she can handle it and can punish them, and can teach kids how to do the same while also demonstrating the sexualisation they'll go through (tell me Kirishima doesn't have middle aged women sexualising him, you know what we used to call Twilight Moms), Mineta could be a great break down of the type of hero who goes into heroics for women. He almost gets it during the final exam, then doesn't really change at all. So, with our unofficial hero rankings, and with UA caring about not getting involved in a scandal, Mineta suffers for his actions. Every complaint gets him fined. And despite his good grades, his approval rating is even lower than Bakugou's. He doesn't understand. Heroes are cool, he should be popular, he should be getting attention from the girls, why do they seem to hate him? Why do they prefer even Bakugou (because you should never underestimate 'I can fix him' is the answer) and Izuku who breaks all his bones and can't even speak to girls without dying of embarrassment, so he has to actually face the fact that his behaviour is having the opposite effect of what he wanted. That his behaviour is actually making girls less interested, and even hate him.

[butevensomharewrite]

WIP Wednesday - Retooling OFA

So, one of things I've mentioned a few times in passing but never really made a post about is that for this rewrite, I want to retool OFA into mostly being one quirk. As I've mentioned, a lot of my rewrites focus on the world around Midoriya, because he himself is pretty good, I think, it's just the world around him that feels like it should be tweaked to support him better and OFA is one of those places, I think. This sort of comes from a few places. Firstly, I feel like it's more interesting to me the way I'm going to do it, and secondly, I feel like one of my major issues with the later half of MHA is how the more control Midoriya has, the more fights turn into a punching fest, which does kinda tie into it being more interesting. Midoriya as a one man army is kinda boring to me, and he's not even using his quirks in really interesting combos, so I'd like to keep that down to force him into more combos with others. I don't think him getting all of the quirks of OFA is bad, and I think it's better over three years, but I'm doing it this way anyway. So let's get into some details:

So, most of the early stuff would be the same. The basics of Midoriya meeting All Might, the Sludge Villain is mildly tweaked to involve Shouto and Bakugou, and then Stain, Dabi and Shigaraki making their early appearances, but the core of All Might being inspired by Midoriya and agreeing to train him, the only real difference there being Bakugou gets some training from All Might too, but see the notes on Bakugou's character for that.

Onto the more noticeable changes. To start, we change the workings of OFA ever so slightly. It sort of seems in canon that OFA just gives you a massive boost, and so All Might and Midoriya being quirkless just get the strength boost, but, the way I'm using it, would just boost your quirk and give you the strength boost, but for a quirkless person it gives you one of the quirks from the box. The first time you use the OFA, it manifests the quirk you need most in that moment. All Might doesn't really notice this, because he picked up Danger Sense. Which means Midoriya gets one of them from the start. I don't hate him getting them all, and I think it makes more sense for him to

I went through a few places trying to pick out Midoriya's base quirk:

Gear Shift would be ridiculously cool, and one of the most underrated quirks in the series, especially in combos with some of the others, but the kickback of not being able to breath is even more debilitating than early canon OFA breaking his bones, especially because there's no sign of being able to temper it. I'd have to reset it to its base form rather than OFA form, which I could, but I don't want to change things that much.

Fa Jin would also be really awesome, and fits well with the idea that OFA stockpiles energy. It stockpiles energy and then Fa Jin stockpiles in the moment. Cool synergy, and could be a way around the control issues early on, but does kinda go back to my issues on the lack of combos and punching harder issues I have.

Danger Sense, very cool quirk, but again, doesn't really solve my issues.

The first of the major contenders, Blackwhip. There's a lot of interesting potential here, especially if we're playing down Sero more, It's really versitile, and some creative thinking can quickly turn it even more offensive than Sero or Tsu. It's also great for more combo moves.

Smokescreen is a really interesting consideration. Despite canon saying it couldn't reach ultimate move level, with a bit of tweaking how much Midoriya can control it, it could be more like Mina's acid or Shirakumo's Cloud, it could be some really interesting potential for combat, especially in combo with people like Uraraka. It also has the bonus of plausibly being a mutation of his father's firebreathing, so less suspcious. And the more I think about it, the more I think this might be where I'm going.

(Sidebar: I have no idea if Horikoshi didn't think about it or Midoriya didn't think about it, or but how anyone thought Bakugou wouldn't ask questions about the quirkless kid suddenly getting a quirk that has nothing to do with his parents quirks. Like we laugh at Shouto asking if he's All Might's love child, but Bakugou overhearing that should have been connecting those dots a lot faster than he did. Because the way quirks work in the MHA world, a child not having a quirk that somehow relates to one of their parents could well be seen as proof of an affair. If your only options are your mother's quirk, your father's quirk, or some mix of the two, not even allowing for quirks being recessive and passed from a grandparent, then Midoriya having a quirk that is nothing to do with fire breathing or telekenisis in any twisting logic way should be seen as a sign of Inko having an affair and Midoriya being someone else's, something that is a huge deal in Japan and grounds for a divorce without consent of both parties, like if Endeavor had an affair it would have been the end of his career rather than the abuse just being welp these things happen.)

And Float. If you've seen my old draft of the cavalry battle, you notice Midoriya has Float, because this is my first instinct. It can conceivably be passed off as an evolved form of Inko's telekenisis. It's works well with the Shigaraki and Midoriya parallels, her grandson and her quirk successor, and extra angst for both All Might and Gran Torino. The only problem here is that it can overlap a bit too much with Uraraka's role.

[butevensomharewrite]

WIP Wednesday - Entrance Exam

So, obviously, when writing an MHA rewrite, one of the major things everyone wants to rewrite is the Entrance Exam, but tbh, I often feel like in rewriting it to make it "more fair" the point is kind of lost. Of course it's not fair, of course it focuses on combat and strong quirks, that's literally the problem with hero society that keeps coming up in series. Hero society focuses on strong, flashy quirks and combat. That's the point. If you "fix" it too much, you lose all the flaws in society we're trying to talk about, and UA becomes this perfect utopia, the only place where society's issues don't exist, even more than it already is. So, I'm not looking to change too much. And as part of my challenge in writing this, I also don't want to change too much about the basic building blocks, especially early on. So, if you're here looking for a total overhaul of the Entrance Exam, that's not this, but I do alter things, and since pre-UA is a much bigger part of this story, I do want to focus on it. Someone once asked if I was doing this as an anime, how would I pace is, and yeah, I'd have pre-UA training arc be S1 ending with them starting into UA. It's important. So, here we go:

First of all, a little housekeeping:

UA is likely a private school. Assuming that Japan hasn't totally changed in the MHA universe, all vocational/specialist school are private, even if they're owned by the government, that's just how classifications in Japan work.

However private doesn't necessarily mean expensive, or better. There are plenty of cheap private school, particularly vocational schools, and there are schools that are considered "the one you buy your way into if you didn't pass the exams for the public school".

They're also notoriously shady when it comes to entrance exams and who they let in. Everyone knows they don't have to apply any rules they don't want and don't answer to anyone (this is sorta important later). Did you know there are still some private schools that sort you by a picture of yourself before anything else about you, to make sure you "fit the school's images".

Lots of private school reward you for applying only to them, things like lower pass marks on the exam, or preferential treatment. This probably explains why so many UA students only applied to UA and so went into the GenEd.

OK! Moving onto the actual exam:

So, the sheer numbers on the entrance exam. Depending on which number you take (canon gives us a few) there's between 12,000 and 20,000 applicants, which would mean about 1,500ish students per battle ground, but that's kind of ridiculous, and I imagine that wasn't the intended take away (us writers are known for sucking at maths, after all). So, either the exams run several rounds in a day, or that's the first number of applicants, not the number than went to the practical exam. That's the one we're going with here. So 20,00 applicants send in application forms, probably very early in the year, given how the numbers.

Related to this, many students only apply to UA, as mentioned above. This is pretty common in Japan, because many private schools give you preferential treatment in exams if you're only applying to them, and a lot of school synchronise their exams so that you can't say you've only applied to one school and take an exam at a different school as well. This helps make sure you get first dibs on the best talent. So, in this version, UA encourages you to only apply to them, but you're encouraged to apply to more than course, and if you fail a specialist course, you're automatically considered for general studies. And if you fail the recommendation exam, you go to the general admittance exam (this is what we're doing with Iida, and what I imagine is the reason for an Iida Family kid to not be in on recommendation).

So, everyone has applied, and UA application process is basically a year long process. While Midoriya is training and Bakugou is recovering from Stain, they also have to be doing the application process. This starts local. Probably the nearest decently sized city, where a school or town hall or maybe hero agency welcomes in dozens of candidates under the watch of local heroes to do basic academic tests. These aren't advanced stuff, except maybe in things you actually need for heroics like languages and maths, but I think at this early stage the cut off is just slightly above average. Then basic fitness tests, the sort you have at school, again just to make sure that applicants are slightly above average, because even if you're a quirk based hero, you have to be on your feet and running a lot as a hero, and if you want to be a hero proving you've been preparing, and at least aren't unfit is important. These exams are just sort of the baseline of are you average and prepared for UA's hard course load.

Summer, this is when most schools in Japan have their recommendation exams, so we'll go with that here. Recommendation exams are even more shady than regular private exams, and everyone knows they're basically a farce. Essentially, recommendations exams are easier, because you have something the school wants, so they lower the bar. Recommendations are like 99% your vibes in an interview and 1% exam. If they want you, they will bend every rule, that they make and do not have to disclose, to have you at the school. Academic exams are easier, and the practical exam would be too.

So, I'm still considering having Inasa in UA, because I just kinda love Inasa, tbh, but that is kinda up in the air, because I also was thinking I'd just have schools interact more. But, as mentioned above, I want this to be Iida's backstory here. I'm pretty sure I'm going to actually show all this in Shouto's pov. So we can see the process and see Iida, Inasa and Momo, and actually see Tokage and Honenuki doing their thing, and maybe some others. And, I'm also pretty sure (like 99%) that I want this to be where Shouto throws his exam. He straight up tells Nedzu he doesn't want this spot and wants to earn it in the general admission exam (because fuck you, and your recommendation, dad!) maybe even giving Iida the recommendation spot through that.

The summer would also be when the more difficult exams happen for the general admission applicants, at UA since the school is out for the summer. This is more serious exams, doing assault courses and more difficult exams in things like languages and maths, and also essays on things like ethics and marketing.

This is where the recommendation failures merge with general admissions. Those who made it though get a video camera and a winter project to create their costume by hand, or by buying things off of the shelves, in the style of old fashioned heroes, and record themselves doing it and explaining it, and to write up course work on how they eventually want to look, what their hero ideals are, all that sort of good stuff. This is where those designs you've seen me posting come in. This is also where potential Aldera!Kirishima plans come in. There's an entire half formed plot here about Mina and Kirishima being split in their third year of middle school as Kirishima moves away, and being split at UA, meaning Mina hears all this stuff about Bakugou from Midoriya, while Kirishima is already friends with Bakugou, and some conflict there. Bakugou is already further along his arc, and Kirishima standing up for Midoriya gets him along his arc, and one of the best things for Bakugou at UA was peers he liked and respected (to an extent at the start mostly just respected their power but you know, it did the job) guiding him, so Kirishima being there to push him into better behaviours earlier would be nice. Some bonding with them working on outfits together, while Midoriya gets to show off his adorable best girl mom helping him making his. These costumes are then worn for the Entrance Exam, and their course work is given to a random Business Studies applicant for their exam, to explain how they'd market them.

The Entrance Exam. The big one! I'm not really changing anything major about it, more giving it more context and expanding it. I want to make it clear that the exam is not the same every year. I think if you fought robots every year, all you'd need is someone going "how was it" "yeah, we fought robots" to their family, and there will be internet rumours, someone online going "my brother applied a few years ago and he said they fought robots". I think it's more likely there's a handful of exams that they rotate through each year depending on what sort of heroes are wanted at the moment. This year it's robots because battle heroes are on the rise, but some years they've got more rescue orientated exams or speed focused exams. I want to show the candidates preparing and going through like rumours on the internet and old exams.

The rescue points will be there, but they will be flagged early. As mentioned, private schools are known to be sketchy about entrance requirements. I want UA to want to appear above board (one of my frustrations with UA is how they suck at putting their reputation above the kids, but also suck at putting the kids first, they just make stupid decisions that do neither thing well) so if people find out there's a panel of judges giving out secrets points based on someone's vibes that can get Midoriya into the top ten while failing the actual mission completely, that screams "we wanted him so just gave him lots of points" and adds to the bitterness of people like Shinsou because Midoriya has a flashy combat based quirk, of course they want him and bent the rules to get him in, and UA wants to at least appear better than that. So I want them to acknowledge at the start that there are bonus points available, but we're not calling them rescue points, or explaining how to get them, just there is extra credit decided by a panel. Transparency, or at least the appearance of.

This is also why I hate the idea of things like actors or mannequins in this exam. If the point is to test their spirit, putting obvious "save me I'm worth bonus points" things in the arena is stupid. The rescue points were secret, because it was a secret test of character. Secret. To stop people like Iida going "well obviously I would have saved Uraraka if I'd known we'd get points for it" doing just that. Of course if people realise they gets points for saving people, they'll all be trying to do it because they get points for it, not because it's the right thing to do. Then it's not a test of character, of who will go out of their way to save people, but a test of who can follow the exam's outline. So, to fix this, and also to fix the "what about Uraraka if Izuku hadn't been there" issue, second year students are in the exam as fake applicants. For this one, it would be people like Nejire, she's there pretending to be useless and afraid of the robots and constantly needing saving because she's so clumsy, but she's strong enough that she can take care of herself it she's not saved, and also could step in if someone else was in serious danger.

Midoriya's role here is basically the same, I don't mind his story here at all, (if you notice that's a running theme, it's because I think Midoriya in general is mostly ok and just need tweaking, and it's the world around him that needs the effort and time to help him).

I want to acknowledge Bakugou's actions here a little more, and that what he's doing is basically exactly what he does on a lot of missions: crowd control and suppression. It's most obvious in World Heroes I think, but Bakugou's role, a lot of the time, is to handle the weak, but many, mooks, something sidekicks probably do all the time. And this is what he does in the Entrance Exam, lure away the robots from the crowd, thins the numbers, and leaves the bigger targets everyone else is after to the others. That said, I do find it a little ridiculous, that I'm expected to believe Bakugou didn't go after the 0 pointer. Bakugou likes to prove himself, he likes a challenge, you really expect me to believe he didn't think that robot was there for a reason, he's hotheaded not stupid, and wouldn't fight it just because it's a big ass villain to fight and prove his strength? Really? So, either Bakugou does go after the 0 pointer, or I make a point that Bakugou makes a point of following the mission brief and not deviating (something with both good and bad points irl).

If I do have Shouto in the general admittance exam, this is also where he comes in. I want Shouto at the top of the exams, but only by a point or two, and also without rescue points. I think this nicely kicks off more of the Shouto and Bakugou rivalry, sees Bakugou properly challenged by someone his own age for the first time, but also highlights something we often forget about especially early Shouto: he's reckless and prone to overkill, in a slightly different way to Bakugou. While Bakugou mostly gets set off by Midoriya, think about things like Shouto freezing the entire building, threatening to kill the villains at USJ and almost freezing Hagakure, freezing the robots in a way that would have seriously harmed someone if it hadn't been Kirishima and Tetsutetsu they fell on, icing Sero and putting the audience in danger, his fight with Midoriya putting the audience in danger, everything about Stain and Kamino, this is literally why he failed the license exam. Shouto doesn't play by the rules and doesn't really think about the consequences, especially when emotional, especially early on, and I want to really look at that. He and Bakugou have the potential to be really interesting reflections of each other either side of Midoriya, and I want to lean into that more. Again, Shouto is very likely to also go for the 0 pointer, just to prove he can.

I have some love/hate for how Midoriya gets 0 villain points. I don't think I want to change it, but maybe I do want to explore it. These robots, especially the 1 pointers, they're flimsy. We see in the obstacle race, they're so flimsy they can break themselves with their own momentum. Dodging them can break them. So I do want to look at that.

Ok, I think that's about it for the Entrance Exam itself.

[butevensomharewrite]

WIP Wednesday - Designs Sketches

Extra designs today, far more sketchy than the previous ones, still very in progress especially Midnight and Fuyumi.

So let's get the obvious out of the way first: I finally figured out what Toga's role in the rewrite is. While rewatching FMA, I remembered how stupidly OP someone with shapeshifting abilities really is, and with how ridiculous Toga can be with things like speed and combat, lets put her to use as a UA traitor. So, with Hagakure's quirk being super confusing, it's not clear if it's mutation or she just can't turn it off, but for the sake of clarity, I'm calling it a mutation, the same way Shoji's arm are a mutation, rather than how Tokoyami has a bird hear mutation and Dark Shadow. So, no one has ever see Hagakure, and then boom, in walks Toga claiming to be her and who's to say she isn't? She just drinks a bit of blood when she needs to be invisible and the mutation does the rest.

Moving onto Midnight. As I said, I'm considering having her be Class B's homeroom teacher. Midnight's one of those characters that I like better on paper than in execution. Like the idea of her philosophy about forcing people to be who they're not is what causes villains, and saying "oh I was too much for your in a bikini, now I'm covered head to toe and even sexier", and someone to teach kids about the objectification they'll face as heroes and how to use/deal with that, but none of that actually came together in canon. I'm not happy with this current outfit, the longer I look at it the more I hate it, but it's more the vibes I want. I find her canon outfit to be really immature, like you told a kid to design something sexy and they went "skin coloured mesh so it's really just skin, boobs, corset, dominatrix" rather than anything an actually in control of her own sexuality type would wear. Honestly, the temptation to just put her in a Bayonetta type outfit (one of the rare examples where I think in control of her own sexuality worked well, and what it feels like Midnight was supposed to be and missed) is very strong. So that might happen.

And finally Fuyumi. As mentioned, I like Fuyumi's character. I know people get their backs up about her not being mad at Endeavor, but I like that the siblings all have different and valid responses to their environment, and it makes sense that Fuyumi as the only girl gets parentified and becomes more appeasing because of that. But, to take it a step further, I want her to be a hero too, possible a teacher at UA to keep that going. Fuyumi is invested in keeping her family together and fixing it, so it makes sense to make that she could become a hero, working on the mindset that if she could do what Touya couldn't, and what Endeavor wants so badly, maybe she could fix her family. I wanted to use a sort of ice skater design for Fuyumi. I know a lot of people get pissy about skirts, but at that length and looseness, she won't be impeded, and she's mostly a quirk based fighter. I'm not entirely happy on the shape or proportions but I think the vibe is right.

[butevensomharewrite]

Class Reassignments

So, been away for a bit, working on like actual in depth writing and such, but I'm here with some more thoughts. As the title says, a classes are reassigned (and tbh I'm still kicking around the idea of cutting the classes basically in half, or merging them into one class). Much in the same way that focusing on Midoriya, Bakugou and Todoroki being the main trio allows for others to feel less shoved aside, spreading out the focus across the classes means it's less jarring when Class B comes and goes, and having more background characters being background. I started this by randomising the classes and then sorta swapping people until they felt right for the story I want to tell. So, here we go with my first thoughts (still subject to change). Probably not changing to teachers, but also I do kinda like the idea of Midnight as the homeroom teacher for B, so we'll see as I write and plot. And yes, the most obvious thing is the removal of Bakugou, along with Kirishima and Kaminari, moving to Class B, running more with my vibe of untangling Midoriya and Bakugou a bit more, and letting them grow more on their own, and bringing some plot to Class B. (Btw I spent way too long trying to remember the correct order to seat these in, but yes, they are hopefully in the correct seating positions).

Class A

So yeah, probably still taught by Aizawa, I don't think I want to change that. And, as mentioned in previous posts, I want more cooperation across the school via departments and years, and the Big Three was something I was struggling to really place given the extended timeline, but I finally decided to have them as second years at the start, and Nejire will be in 2-A at the start, helping the new students settle.

Obviously, we get Midoriya here, along with his core gang of Ochako, Tsuyu and Iida, since they're the core of Midoriya's story. Aoyama has to stick with Midoriya to facilitate the traitor plot, or thought I'm still not sure if I'm keeping that totally intact. I kept the recommendation students where they are (although, there's potential for removing someone to put in Inasa and letting Shouto go through general entrance because he's fuck you and your recommendation dad). Tetsutetsu and Kirishima should always be separated, so here's steel boy. Monoma and Bakugou being in the same class is always great, but I feel like there's an interesting character relationship here with the difference between Monoma who will settle and Bakugou who is always aiming for total victory, and how that impacts Midoriya.

Class B

As mentioned, probably still taught by Vlad, but I might change it to Midnight. And, as mentioned above, a second year student as their student contact, in this case would be Mirio from 2-B.

And Class B. As mentioned, Bakugou, Kirishima and Kaminari move to Class B to spread the plot across classes, particularly because Bakugou gets his own kind of plot, as he and Midoriya figure out who they are as heroes on their own as well as together. You might also notice, the band (minus Momo) is all here, because I think the band is a really nice touch and these kids need hobbies to make them balanced people (I know why it happens in show but taking away clubs from the hero course was a bad idea in universe). Kendou, of course, has to stay around because someone needs to keep control of these rowdy idiots. I want to show more of the B recommendation students, since they mostly got left aside in favour of A, and they generally look incompetent in comparison. I mean, look at how A's recommendation students seem so much stronger, at least at the start, than the general entrance exams who have a massive range of experience and capability, so why do B's seem so weak?

And there we go, my rough plans for the characters and their class assignments, assuming I don't change my mind and cut it down entirely. I'm totally going to redraw these class shots in my style at some stage so I can update them as the story goes too.

[butevensomharewrite]

WIP Wednesday - Art

Something like cover art for the first arc wip (and gosh I hate those arms right now, gotta fix that) and here we see the difference between when I do character reference pieces and full art pieces.

[butevensomharewrite]

WIP Wednesday - Writing

Iida walks away and Izuku doesn’t know what to do. He’d thought through their strategy based on a combination of him, Uraraka and Iida. What now? He needs to think quickly and find someone to cover their blind spots. Who else? Who should he- “Izuku.” Izuku whips around. He knows the voice like he knows his own, but he still can’t believe it! “Kacchan?”

An actual preview of writing today. From the Sports Festival Cavalry Battle! Given I'm covering three years, there's going to be three Sports Festivals, or at least two, one might be ruined a bit by the war ect. so I'm not too bothered about changing things up too early on. Although, with the lack of USJ before the first Festival, I figure there will be a lot more mix of Class A and B, rather than A dominating almost entirely. I might change things up a bit more further on in drafting, but for now, the events are basically the same but with the main differences being team ups and fights and positions. Anyway, this is one of the earliest drafts. And you can tell this is an old draft because Midoriya is still using Kacchan while in more recent drafts they yelled it out and both agreed to just use Izuku and Katsuki. Obviously one of the biggest changes is that Midoriya and Bakugou's relationship is a bit further along than in canon, they've already been somewhat working on being civil under All Might's supervision since the Sludge Villain(-ish) to the point where Bakugou can decide he wants to kick Shouto's ass more than he dislikes Midoriya.

(Also, it took me until my most recent rewatch to realise Bakugou takes an injury off of the obstacle race. Like, we see him favouring his arm during the one on one's but it's actually as early as the end of the obstacle race after Shouto ices him. The maniac is just out here doing all this with an injury. Why does canon not talk to Bakugou more about his self destruction/sacrificial habits?)

Iida walks away and Izuku doesn’t know what to do. He’d thought through their strategy based on a combination of him, Uraraka and Iida. What now? He needs to think quickly and find someone to cover their blind spots. Who else? Who should he-

“Izuku.”

Izuku whips around. He knows the voice like he knows his own, but he still can’t believe it! “Kacchan?”

Katsuki is there, Kirishima by his side. It’s too good to be true. It’s like something out of a fever dream. But they’re right there. Katsuki watches him expectantly. He looks like he’s disgusted by the idea of standing in front of them, despite Kirishima’s wide grin. He can’t really be about to say what Izuku thinks he is, can he?

“We’re winning this.”

Izuku’s lip wobbles. Hot tears burn his eyes. “Kacchan-”

“Why?” Uraraka says.

“Ten million points,” Katsuki sneers. “Everyone’s gonna be coming for you. No running away. We’re gonna beat them all head on. Total victory.”

“Between us, we’ve got enough attack and defence to take on everyone, right?” Kirishima says.

Izuku blinks at them. Ideas quickly flash through his mind. Katsuki reluctantly holds out his hand and Izuku grabs it. He doesn’t think he’s ever been able to shake Katsuki’s hand before. Especially when Katsuki is wearing that wide grin that promises destruction. 

“Kirishima-kun needs to lead,” Izuku says, looking around at the groups forming.

“I’ll be your unbreakable horse, no problem,” Kirishima declares.

“Sparky’s will be the major pain in the ass from Half-n-Half’s team,” Katsuki says, and Izuku is so relieved that they can still be on the same page on this. Katsuki never spent hours going over quirks like Izuku, but his battle sense is second to none and that does involve understanding the strengths and weaknesses of quirks. “They’ll rely on Glasses’ speed but we can’t afford to get shocked.”

“Yaoyorozu-san will find a way to avoid damaging their own team,” he agrees.

“Sure, but Ponytail has no idea what she’s actually doing,” he replies with a shrug. He’s glaring out at the teams and Izuku follows his gaze. Todoroki’s team looks a bit unsettled by the pair of them together. “She’s good, but she’s got no real combat sense. All book smarts and ideas on paper. Sucks when things get out of hand. She’ll follow Halfie’s orders, and we’re already throwing off their game plan.”

“No one expects you two to be able to work together,” Kirishima laughs.

“They’ll come straight for us though,” Uraraka says. 

“Can you take it, Red?” Katsuki says, turning to him. 

“Got it,” Kirishima says, nodding enthusiastically.

“And when we need to fly, Uraraka-san will focus on lifting you,” Izuku says, “and Float will lift me, between us. And Kacchan’s Explosions can steer and get us up fast if you hold on.”

“Bakugou-kun’s the rider?” Uraraka says.

“It makes sense,” he says. “I think it should be him or you. You're the lightest, but I'm not sure you could defend well enough, then Kacchan, and he's got a more offensive quirk that he wouldn't be able to use against other people if he was lifting one of us. Our quirks are best for getting the team off the ground and Kacchan’s offense, paired with Kirishima’s defence, should keep everyone at bay and change our directions quickly. Plus with hi-”

Katsuki slams his hand over his mouth, with a furious glare that has Izuku shuddering. Alright, no mentioning that Todoroki actually injured Katsuki in their fight during the obstacle race. Figures he’d consider telling anyone that a weakness, even his team mates. Or has he told Kirishima? Kirishima’s on his left side, guarding his injured arm. Usually, Kirishima’s on Katsuki’s right, protecting him where he’s most vulnerable. Is he reading too much into this? And he probably won’t go to Recovery Girl either. Izuku holds his hands up in surrender and Katsuki drops his hand.

[butevensomharewrite]

Character Designs Line Up - Ver1

So, with all of the groups done with their details and my thoughts as I was designing them, here is the full line up side by side of what I'm calling the main cast of my rewrite. If you've not been following the WIPs as they go, the first versions of their hero costumes have to be made or bought off and altered. And while I love UA's uniform being so uniform in canon, I also like variations and this is my rewrite so I get sweaters.

[butevensomharewrite]

WIP Wednesday - Designs

It's the good bois today for the WIPs. Kirishima, Kaminari and Iida, the besties. There aren't big changes to any of the looks really at this stage, although as always the costumes are more noticeably different than the uniforms.

Winter Uniforms - Year 1 - Term 1

No massive changes here, although Kirishima gets a cute sweater vest, because I like a sweater vest. Let my boy be cute and cosy. And Kaminari looks a lil less smart, because yeah, I think he should be a little undone especially at the start.

Hero Suits - Year 1 - Homemade Ver.

Slightly more obvious changes, although still mostly in the details. As mentioned before, the suits start out homemade as one of their first little projects. Kirishima and Kaminari, especially Kaminari just grabbed stuff from their wardrobe (although, fun fact, Bakugou hand stitched Kirishima's gears as one of their first friendship bonding moments). While Momo could use her quirk to make her suit and that counts, Iida getting his suit through his family wouldn't, so he's got his entrance exam outfit.

[butevensomharewrite]

Character Talk

So, since I'll be posting the last of my major character design vibe things this WIP Wednesday, let's talk about the characters and the general arcs I'm cooking up. These aren't finalised but they are a general vibe as I'm plotting them right now. This got way longer than planned (and all this with the forewarning that it's in progress, so if you wanna give feedback feel free).

Midoriya Izuku: So, baby boy protagonist. I think in general, he's fine, and I don't mind where he ends up, but I do want to do more foreshadowing towards it earlier. Beyond that, his general arc is moving away from his idolisation of people like Bakugou and All Might (and also his weird possessiveness over Bakugou that canon calls out once in not even a joke and then never brings up again? ok), and taking ownership of himself and OFA.

OFA itself is going to be a little different, it still gives you the base power up to your body when it's passed on, but it also merges a quirk from the stockpile into your quirk, probably chosen by instinct based on the moment you first activate it. I think Float (probably), it's easy to hide as a mutation of Inko's quirk, it's got lots of angst potential in the whole Shimura feels side of things. I also want more interactions and time between him and Shigaraki. LoV has a delayed timeline, so I want to build the relationship between him and Shigaraki over a slower period. I'll be introducing Shigaraki probably as early as chapter 2 (the aftermath of the Sludge Villain) with Izuku still being quirkless when they meet and Shigaraki being a little interested in someone who actually does something rather than sitting around for the heroes.

I want Izuku and Bakugou's relationship to develop into something healthier earlier too. I think some of the issues with Izuku's character stem from this idea that him and Bakugou are rivals pushing each other, but they also sort of stagnate in that because Bakugou has no plot of his own, if that makes sense, and because Izuku gets so OP so quickly, the idea that Bakugou is actually rivalling him is laughable. So I want them to actually be able to push each other and let that rivalry actually develop properly. Bakugou is changing earlier, and also All Might (although only Izuku knows it's All Might not Yagi, All Might's assistant) is training them together like once a week, but it's a bit more like amateur therapy and he encourages them to be open and honest about their feelings even if he has to take them out to some forest clearing and let them yell and scream at each other (you know, like the should have done after the Final Exam arc where they both finally snapped and said enough, and then everyone just brushed it off and moved on. You know when Izuku finally got actually mad at Bakugou, and Bakugou actually said he'd rather lose, both totally ooc moments that should have had serious ramifications on both their character arcs? I really thought we were about to do something there Horikoshi, my bad).

Bakugou Katsuki: speaking of rivals. Every time I try to write about Bakugou it gets huge because he's such a mess, I'll try to keep this brief. OK! So! I think the biggest first point is the difference between making Bakugou suffer because he deserves it and that being his redemption, and Bakugou's suffering causing him to reflect. The two are different. If you've seen the rough design vibes, you know Bakugou has a prosthetic pre-UA, and it is that serious injury and the grief and realignment afterwards that helps spark Bakugou's redemption journey. And while he often frames it as a deserved punishment, as do various other people, I'm careful to make sure the narrative doesn't. Because if I have to explain to you why disability/trauma as a punishment is fucked up, I think there's a problem.

Bakugou is supposed to be a sorta monster society created and then abandoned when they realised what they'd done. Very Frankenstein. We need to show that. We need to see Bakugou in situ of people praising him to insane degrees, to society putting Izuku down because he's quirkless and it's for his own good. We need to see what built Bakugou to understand his position. We also need to see Mitsuki being a bad parent more (note bad, not Endeavor levels abusive, there's a difference). In trying to keep him grounded and disciplined she yells, she gives him the odd smack and she picks apart everything he does for even the smallest flaw or weakness and tears him down, and she inadvertently teaches him violence and yelling is the answer, perfection is everything and getting help is weakness that she will then tear into.

Bakugou's arc revolves around what is a hero and we'll use Stain to do that. His ideal of heroism is strength, a hero overcomes all odds no matter what, and he might suck at being a people person but he can make sure the bad guy is beaten even if it costs him himself. Stain, of course, takes offense at Bakugou, but at the same time doesn't see him as entirely without potential (self sacrifice, even framed in the way Bakugou does, is the kind of heroism Stain and All Might preach) and even canon Stain isn't thrilled to kill kids. They're going to explore heroism together, through their ridiculously high standard of All Might or nothing, to the true nature of Bakugou's glory chasing and morals, to frustration over public image heroes like Jeanist, culminating in moving up Bakugou's moment with All Might in the final war (although adjusted slightly) for a Bakugou and Stain team up against AFO.

I also want to expand on Bakugou relationships outside of Midoriya, another area where I think canon could have done more. I think one fo Bakugou (and Midoriya's) biggest problems is the pair of them just can't be separated and it sorta harms them both in and out of universe. He has Kirishima, obviously, but I think even that could use more. There's Kaminari too, who doesn't get enough credit as Bakugou's friend, he was next to him before even Kiri. I want him and Uraraka to interact more too, for both their sakes. I like the idea of the "Bakusquad" but I think it's a fanfic thing that mostly ends up being unhealthy either with Bakugou not caring for them and/or them just being Kirishima's friends, or them ignoring all of Bakugou's boundaries. Early on, I want more of an actual rivalry between Shouto and Bakugou, and I want to expand the Disaster Squad (because talented but awful at peopleing people thrown together is always a great dynamic). And, obviously, if we're keeping the ending, more from both Jeanist and Edgeshot. Edgeshot's sacrifice would have been so much more meaningful if we saw him and Bakugou interact, and/or saw how much Jeanist and Edgeshot liked each other before that one moment.

I also want to take more of a look at the creek scene because as someone with massive anxiety who's actually experience the whole thing where someone offering to help you makes you feel like they're looking down on you, that was fumbled to all hell. Also, for a while it felt like Horikoshi was laying the groundwork for Bakugou realising he was going to become Endeavor if he kept on as part of his arc, and then backed out the further we got into Endeavor's "redemption" so I think it'd like to work that in more.

Todoroki Shouto: family drama, yay! So, obviously Shouto's plot is his family and Dabi. It's another one that I think benefits more from minor changes than a total rewrite. I think the core idea of the Todoroki siblings manifesting varying forms of abuse responses (yes, Fuyumi's response to being in an abusive household is valid, stop acting like it's not, she is the conflict avoidant pacifier reaction) and their family drama spilling into country threatening levels is pretty ok.

So, minor changes, Fuyumi would be a hero, or at least a sidekick. The timelines sort of imply that the first three kids happened on better terms than Shouto, so maybe Fuyumi got training, she's a daddy's girl, she was going to prove herself, and as she grows she gets it into her head that if she can be a good hero maybe she can fix their family. Keep her as a teacher, maybe at UA, they do need more teachers. Dabi, gets ice powers to match Shouto. he's going to be a proper mirror. While Shouto rejects his fire to spite his dad, Dabi still wants Endeavor's attention so only uses his fire. Dabi is also a "vigilante" style villain more in line with Stain earlier on. He wants Endeavor's attention, after all.

Back to Shouto. So, I want to introduce Shouto early, he's in in chapter one, and involved with the Sludge Villain incident. Partly, because I want the main trio trioing early so there's less awkward character shuffling as Bakugou and Shouto seem to take Iida and Uraraka's places, a more even spread rather than ups and downs, I want clear synergy between the three of them in a tough spot so they can work together if they have to (for the record, Shouto is the leader of the main trio, for all Bakugou bitches even in canon he does follow Shouto's orders, Shouto takes control, Izuku is like omg information vomit and Bakugou translates for Shouto and ptoects current quirkless Izuku) (also note this is only allowed to go on as long as it does bc Endeavor is there doing his proud but douchey momager thing), but also I want to establish Shouto's "screw the rules, I'm a hero" attitude nice and early. Because I think we do forget the amount of time Shouto unapologetically is about to throw down with the law because "it's the right thing to do" to the point it makes Midoriya and Iida look law abiding. As mentioned, there's a bit more of an active rivalry between Bakugou and Shouto following the Sports Festival, and also some acknowledgement earlier on that Shouto can be very destructive and prone to overkill without thinking about the consequences.

Uraraka Ochako: my girl! So, I definitely want to give Uraraka some more plot time for a start. As I say, I want there to be a less drastic fall off from early parts to later parts. I want Uraraka involved and there.

So, for a start, we're going to actually deal with the sexism the Sports Festival brought up, Uraraka and Bakugou are going to interact more, be sparring partners, Bakugou is going to treat Uraraka as just another person rather than just a cute girl (the Sports Festival is the first big school event in this timeline, so it's the big turning point for a lot of these things). Since the internships aren't right after the Sports Festival, like in canon, Uraraka wants to work on her martial arts now, and turns to the one person she's sure will teach her properly.

I also think about maybe either swapping her away from Toga as her "main villain" or completely rewriting it. I think the fact that every scene Uraraka's in someone mentions her crush on Izuku, and the fact that her villainy with Toga is frame around crushes and love, doesn't help the idea that she's a shallow love interest, especially with how her money worries were just sorta shuffled away. They made a big deal of "girls can fight boys" in the Sports Festival, and then Uraraka basically only gets girl fights with Toga afterwards, and the whole yandere bisexual girl fight with sexual/romantic undertones isn't the greatest vibe. I'm thinking of perhaps keeping Mustard around, because A, gravity vs gases can be super badass (as anyone who read the original version of Dazai, Chuuya, Fifteen can tell you, not the anime hand holding bullshit) and B, because he's their age, and kind brutally merciless, the guy brought a gun with him, and potentially if we extrapolate from his comments about UA being "pampered" maybe we can assign him a similar background.

Kirishima Eijirou: short and sweet here, because Kirishima's whole thing is actually pretty solid but just need expanding. If I swap Toga out with Mustard, or someone else, for Uraraka, Kirishima is where she goes. Now, that doesn't mean I want the same romance angle. I'm not erasing Toga's bisexuality for a straight ship, it wouldn't be a ship, it would be two people dealing with their admiration and finding themselves by becoming like other people.

More in general, I want to focus a little more on Kirishima and Bakugou's relationship, while Bakugou definitely inspires Kirishima, we don't see much of it going the other way, although I think this is partly because we just don't see inside Bakugou's head nearly as often as others. I enjoy his role in the Overhaul Arc, but I also want to bring Uraraka in there more, so I potential Red Riot and Uravity vs Rappa and Tengai (maybe with Fat Gum, maybe not).

Yaoyorozu Momo: oh Momo. I definitely want to expand on Momo. She should be badass but Horikoshi needed her to be nerfed a lot because she solves a lot of problems. So, we play into the fact that's a naïve sheltered rich girl. She's had private tutors and is book smart, she passes tests with flying colours because she knows the correct answer for a controlled environment. We sort of see this in the Battle Trials, where sure, in the context of text, Bakugou was acting out, but as a villain? Half the MHA villains are acting on personal grudges and don't care about environmental damage. A lot of villains aren't rational around heroes, and lbr a lot of minor villains would get out of there when heroes arrived. So there's an interesting potential here that being sheltered as she is, she almost expects that textbooks are completely accurate and villains would behave as she's been taught by her tutors. And come on being flustered when shit doesn't go how you were taught is a common thing, so it's not out of the question.

There's also the Sports Festival, where we see her struggling with her quirk because she got stuck on her preplanned ideas and didn't adapt, and relied on her quirk. And in her suit. The idea that she first wanted nothing, and then went with a suit that offered very little practical defense, she believes her quirk is enough to protect her from everything. So this goes hand in hand with her self confidence issues, in a very similar way to Bakugou. She had confidence, was smacked down hard and realised that real combat isn't the same as lessons, but where Bakugou gets angry and aggressive about getting better, Momo withdraws and doubts, actually in a very similar way to Kirishima. I think her plot will most be entwined with Iida and Shouto as the other two legacy rich types, but I would like to see her with Kirishima doing his good boi stuff and building everyone up too.

There's also Iida, Tsuyu and Kaminari, but this got very long and their arcs aren't quite as solidly formed in my mind, so maybe I'll talk about them another day or maybe drop an ask about specifics and watch me think things through in real time. So this WIP Wednesday is the last round of starting UA character vibes, and then next Wednesday I've got one of my oldest drafts from the Sports Festival queued up.

[butevensomharewrite]

WIP Wednesday - Timeline Thoughts

So, taking a break from designs to talk about the timelines of the fic and canon. As I've mentioned, I'm going to be doing my rewrite over the three years of UA, but this isn't so much because I hate the idea of the current timeline. More so because it just suits my needs better. I generally think the timeline isn't so much an issue of it all being in just over a year, but that Horikoshi's writing style. Which isn't me being mean, all writing styles have strengths and weaknesses. And one of Horikoshi's weaknesses seems to managing the time and pacing. So let's dig into my timeline vs canon's timeline in year one.

To start off, like I said, I don't think the canon timeline is that awful. I've worked it out very roughly here for you. Black is canon events, red is thinks most schools do and likely happened, but we don't get much in the way of explicit confirmation of. This is very rough, and a lot of it is guestimates based on when Japanese high schools usually do these sort of things, and context clues. For example, uniforms change like clockwork in Japan, 1st of June and 1st of October, so you can place things before or after those dates based on their uniforms most of the time. This also mostly only covers the things the school is involved in.

As you can see, there are entire months with nothing really going on with 1-A. There is actually a lot of breathing room, but Horikoshi's style moves quickly through down time and onto bigger action pieces making it feel more rushed, which then also makes the Final War Arc totally slowing down to cover a matter of hours feel oddly paced.

So how does my very rough (still in progress, feel free to give feedback if that's your think, I love to talk) timeline for the first year look? More like this.

As you can see, I've eased up a little and spread out the timeline a bit to allow for more academia. Starting from the start, dorms straight away. Not super strict dorms, but dorms. I want them all in each other's space and bonding. Golden Week: it's an important national holiday, and it's semi-common for there to be some kind of training camp there, so I want to use that in year 2 for Kamino. For year 1, I might use it for the battle trials, or just a general training camp. The battle trials themselves would be a later class than canon, partly because All Might please, and partly because I want the tension ratcheting between Bakugou and Midoriya in a more similar way to the Ground Beta fight. I want it to build to it and be painfully tense when the trigger is finally pulled.

Moving into summer. Sports Festivals are usually held late May to early June, so this is a minor timeline change. I only put it in May in the official timeline because they come back off internships in winter uniforms. I want to tone down the ridiculous popularity of the sports festival. Lbr the "more popular than the Olympics" was kinda ridiculous, and I want UA to have some sense. Maybe for third years, it's broadcast and a big deal, but for first years, it's in person viewing only.

Finals, will be different. I'm still humming and hawing over the exact nature of the finals, but with them not having faced actual villains yet, we cant save vs the teachers for later. I was thinking maybe I would move the Joint Training Arc here as finals instead, but that's still a maybe. Summer camp is just a summer camp. It's very normal for Japanese schools to take their kids on a camping/training for club trip at the start of summer break.

Internships. I wanted to extend the internships to give them more time with their heroes and to let it settle a bit, but without taking too much from school, and summer is a great time. This also makes the internships voluntary, so you can really see who's taking this seriously or not. This is still where Hosu happens, but while Stain is still around, it's loosely Dabi who's the antagonist of this encounter for Midoriya, Iida and Shouto, because I want to extend Stain's stay in the story, and because I want them to lose and for Dabi to get away.

(Sidebar: Bakugou is still going with Jeanist for internships. Lots of people talk about Bakugou interning with Miruko being better for him so why didn't he? And so they "correct" that. But, even if we assume Miruko wanted Bakugou, all signs point to her not wanting an intern, it's Bakugou's character flaws that mean he never would. He put rank above all other considerations, because that's who he is at the time. And Jeanist is actually a good place for him to learn what he needs, once they stop being prickly at each other. Bakugou is already at passable sidekick level in combat, he needs to work on his image and people skills, we all know this, even Bakugou to an extent. Miruko would be more fun and "suit him" better, but she wouldn't teach him what he needs.)

Licencing exam. This is an early exam, recommendation by a hero only. The majority of the class won't be taking it. And this is here as a smack down for Bakugou and Shouto. Obviously, Endeavor shoves Shouto for it, and Shouto while he hates his dad is confident in his abilities. And Jeanist outright tells Bakugou that he knows Bakugou will fail the exam, but that he'll recommend him for it anyway. Obviously, they both fail, yay remedial course that I will actually cover. I'm still not 100% sure, but I think I might also throw Tsuyu into this. She had a good internship with a good hero who liked her, and she is a solid hero in training. It would be good to see her as the only one with a licence for a while.

USJ. I think if the first term is mostly basics like control your quirk, learn basic combat training and environmental awareness, term 2 is rescue training. You can control your quirk, you can fight off a basic bad guy, now lets rescue some civilians. Obviously, they've done some before that, but here it becomes more focused. And so the USJ. And LoV, mad because Stain stole all the credit for their Nomu attack, decided to make a statement by invading UA and killing All Might.

School festival: something cute and dumb and fluffy.

Finals: I might move 1-A vs Mirio or the Big Three here. Again, I want to save the vs teachers stuff. This is also where Bakugou and Shouto have their make up exam for their licences. I want to keep Bakugou and Shouto "ahead" of Midoriya to an extent. Midoriya very quickly stopped being any kind of underdog, while the plot still kind of tried to pretend like he was, so I want to try and keep Midoriya chasing Bakugou and Shouto (and Momo but her internship kinda sucked, sorry girl).

The run through the last term would be pretty quiet, but with Bakugou and Shouto having their licenses, and maybe Tsuyu, and everyone else preparing for the general admittance exam in March right before school ends. Maybe some strict, silly UA rule about if you can't pass your exam at the end of the first year, you're expelled, nodding back to Aizawa's expulsion happy teaching style as just more of a UA style.

February is also the entrance exam for new students. I sort of have mild plans to change the entrance exam, not too much because I mostly want to work with Horikoshi's blocks not totally change them, but I think the idea of current first years being fake applicants pretending to be useless and getting into trouble in the exam so applicants have people to save who aren't as obvious as a mannequin or fake civilians, but also so there are people who know what they're doing if something does go wrong. For example, having someone like Nejire in Midoriya's entrance exam, who would spend most of her time pretending she's scared of the robots and needs help, but who have stepped in to save Ochako or grabbing Midoriya out of the air if no one else was going to.

[butevensomharewrite]

WIP Wednesday - Designs

Continuing with the WIP designs for my the rewrite and moving onto the main girls. And like I said last time, the differences aren't so noticeable early on, especially in the uniforms, but I do want to see them grow over the three years. And more noticeable differences in the costumes, because, as I mentioned with the boys, they now have to handmake their own costumes.

Winter Uniforms - Year 1 - Term 1

So now huge changes really. Minor details. Again, I love that MHA's uniforms are uniform, but I also love uniform variation. It's a curse. But, I wanted Tsuyu's winter uniform to be warmer, and I like sweaters and cardigans so she can be extra cute and snuggly. Ochako wears her blazer too large because it was bought purposefully too big, so she can grow into it and not have to buy a new one too soon.

Hero Suits - Year 1 - Homemade Ver.

So, as mentioned, initial versions of their suits have to be homemade or off the shelf (it's entire thing about teaching them value and making them upgrade themselves like heroes of old).

Now, of course the obvious thing is Momo being basically the same, she created hers using her quirk in story. And I wanted to sort of give her character growth and arc via her suit. If we take Horikoshi's words about her, and ignore any outside universe stuff, her first design was basically nothing and she was told no, so settled on this. She is confident in her quirk and doesn't think she needs protection and hasn't considered the practicality. Anything she needs, she can make. And lbr sometimes teens just think they're way more mature than they are. So we're going to build changing her suit and realising the impracticality of it, and the impression people take from it fairly or otherwise, into her character as she grows.

For Tsuyu and Ochako, the changes are a lot more but also more reasonable. Their suits aren't the sort of thing you can buy or that are basically wardrobe staples like Bakugou and Todoroki. Ochako is tight on money. She's already devolving her colour scheme but goes with an oversized hoodie, snitched and folded with elastic at the sleeves for an oversized sleeve look that won't fall over her hands, tank top and leggings. She's looking for cute and bubbly without getting in the way. Tsuyu uses an off the rack wetsuit, nice and simple.

[butevensomharewrite]

WIP Wednesday - Designs

So, as part of my rewrite, I'm doing some redesigns, and I just like to have them drawn more in my style. And I suppose for WIP Wednesday, I'll share some of the small groups before I do I proper post of all the central cast. Especially since this is going over three years, and I want there to be noticeable changes as time goes. Starting, of course, with the main trio.

Winter Uniforms - Year 1 - Term 1

Most obviously, of course, more uniform variation. I love MHA's uniforms are so uniform, but also, I'm a sucker for slightly different designs. We know UA has a vest, and it's not uncommon for schools to have a matching sweater, and I love proto-Bakugou's cosy oversized lil cardigan, so I gave it back to him.

Hero Suits - Year 1 - Homemade Ver.

Again, the change is most noticeable on Bakugou, because he's the most extra at the start, but with the increased focus I'm putting on the academics of heroics, we have an increased focus on hero costumes. With that, one of the starting foundations is that your fist costumes is homemade, for everyone, not just Midoriya, and from there you manage you upgrades with a fake budget, with cooperation from other students in other courses, mimicking a real agency being built from scratch.

The other most obvious change, of course, is also Bakugou's arm. This goes with his slightly altered backstory to slap him with his character growth a little earlier this time around. At the time of the Sludge Villain stuff, Bakugou's own pride and confrontation attitude gets him in a mess he can't get out of, and now he's facing a serious injury forcing him to re-evaluate his position and choices.

[butevensomharewrite]

Introduction Post

Welcome to my sideblog (currently in hideous colours but I'm working on it, stick with me, they're temporary) for, as the title says, my My Hero Academia rewrite, But, Even So, because I need a place to put my ramblings and thoughts and sketches.

So, I'm never a fan of using the word "fixing" when it comes to rewrites, because that implies objectivity and also I'm not so arrogant I think I'm so amazing writer who knows best. I'm just doing a rewrite, not claiming to fix anything or be superior, to my specific tastes as a "what would I do" with hindsight. Like there's no way Horikoshi could foreshadow Humarise despite it being a really cool element of worldbuilding, when it was made just for the anime movie way later, and so the had to be backfilled rather than foreshadowed, and also knowing where arcs are going helps to plan for them. I'm just kicking over Horikoshi's tower, stealing his building blocks, and building my own tower with them.

That said, what's the overview and plan? Here's a few of the major points, feel free to pop in a chat about any of them or anything not on the list.

An extended timeline. Lots of things as less rubbing when over the full 3 years of UA rather than one. Izuku mastering all the quirks of OFA? Makes way more sense if he's unlocking them slowly over 3 years. Bakugou's arc? He makes alright progress for a single year, but over 3 he's got even more to grow. Academia? I want to slow down and focus on academia. Less jarring transitions? For example, Todoroki goes from "nah sorry I'm not over my trauma enough to use my fire Bakugou" to "ok sure I will against Stain a week later" when we could spend time unpacking his trauma and working through this stuff.

Bakugou in general. A big contentious part of any rewrite, which is why this section is so long, he and fandom's relationship to him is lot to grapple with but he has so much potential. As I said, 3 years gives him more time to grow, but also I want to start earlier. I think a lot of the issues people have with him are seeded very early on but also in some culture clashes, but it's a tricky line to walk between softening his actions enough to make his redemption believable without removing what he did or his responsibility for it. So, I think it comes two fold, at the start, then a third later. First, Bakugou is supposed to be a sort of "society made this ego monster" type but we don't see enough of that society beyond the supposedly perfect UA, so I'd want to expand that more. The hype everyone builds around him and Bakugou's pressure to be perfect inadvertently put on him by Mitsuki trying to reign in his ego (pointing out his every flaw to try and counter the hype but instead enforcing yelling and slaps and the idea that if it's not perfect, it's not worth anything to her), and so a better look at Midoriya's bullying. People often ask why Bakugou doesn't get detention or why the teachers cover it up, and that shows the culture clash. Detention isn't really a thing in Japan, it's just having a chat with your teacher or counsellor, or public humiliation where you stand there and your teacher screams at you. And bullying in Japan is often led by the teacher. They're not covering it up, they're the ringleaders, because Midoriya is the weird kid who needs to be corrected (remember, public humiliation as correction) and even refusing to join in will make you a target. I'm not saying this is right, but that's how it often is, Japan is very victim blamey to the point where I know friends who've been called difficult for not forgiving someone who assaulted them, publicly (this is why characters like Natsuo refusing to forgive are so important). Status quo is king and everyone else's comfort is more important than yours, and for goodness sake's never admit there's a problem because that means you're a problem and you're making your problem other people's problem, how could you??? So it should be less "Bakugou bullied Midoriya" and more "Midoriya was bullied, and Bakugou was the only one who stayed in the plot" which does double duty of soften, a little, Bakugou's role by showing more people involved, and expands the idea that Midoriya is bottom of the pile by being quirkless where everyone is involved. Especially since, even in canon, we have 10 months of Bakugou ignoring Midoriya and still see the teacher humiliating him and classmates picking on him, I want to expand that to make it more obvious for western readers, since they'll be the majority of readers of this, I'm sure. Second, Bakugou's actions having direct consequences earlier, rather than the karmic ones. I mean, the plot goes out of its way to humiliate Bakugou sometimes, but it's more often than not narrative and karmic rather than direct. So, I intend to kick off Bakugou's journey a little early, while still in middle school, but making it clear it's a consequence of his own actions. He got himself into a position because of his actions, and now he's messed up. And this also avoids the suffering for redemption trope, because no you don't have to suffer for redemption because that quickly leads to a narrative implying if you're suffering it's because you've done something to deserve it, you know, victim blaming, and the slippery slope into hurting yourself as penance for wrong doings. Instead it's a matter of a serious incident, or suffering, making you revaluate your position. There's a difference, and it's important to me.

Thirdly, and it gets its own point, Bakugou needs a plot. I'm keeping Horikoshi's blocks, so Midoriya, Bakugou and Todoroki are the main trio, but Bakugou's story is so tightly related to Midoriya's he's taking screen time but also not doing as much as he could. Having a character arc be the main focus is fine, but it's a bit jarring when everyone else is doing their own plot and Bakugou is just following Midoriya. Midoriya has AFO/Shigaraki, Todoroki has his family, and Bakugou has... his feelings. So he needs to be doing his own but entwined thing. And I'm giving him Stain, because they've got fascinating potential. They both admire All Might but took the wrong messages, they both want to be heroes but kinda suck at the heroic nature part, they both have impossibly high standards that only All Might really meets, both get frustrated by heroes being more interested in appearances than doing stuff, and both lash out violently, and would despise each other, but can culminate in a slightly altered final war confrontation team up against AFO to protect All Might.

A focus on the a main cast. While I appreciate Horikoshi's wide and varied cast, the attempt to give them all somewhat even focus leaves them all kinda shallow to me, and also leaves some important characters side lined for too long. So, instead the theory is by focusing on Midoriya, Bakugou and Todoroki clearly as MCs with their own paths early on, we don't have the problem of people like Iida, Uraraka and Asui dropping off as Bakugou and Todoroki slowly take over their roles by Midoriya's side. Instead we clearly have the main three from start, and then the secondary group of Uraraka, Iida, Asui, Kirishima, Kaminara and Momo supporting them, and then everyone else. And hopefully, by streamlining and focusing on the core group, they get deeper, and strong character defining entrances from the others make up for their falling to the side. Also, giving these guys things to do as well. With an extended timeline there's more time for them to have more plot important roles. Letting Uraraka develop her martial arts and actually fight, letting the girls deal with the sexism of heroics (capitalise on the fact that one of Bakugou's earliest redeeming moments was seeing Uraraka as a competitor not just a cute fragile girl, expand on that Horikoshi why did you make that point just to drop it?), take time on things like Momo's second guessing in situations she can't prepare for in advance, Kaminari also has massive potential that's never tapped into but retool him in time to be a human stungun, give the heteromorph plot to Asui, there was nothing wrong with it being Shoji but it did come out of nowhere when Asui was right there and a solid character.

Academia! With longer to spread the timeline, there's more time for actual academia. Lessons and fun stuff like that. More interaction between departments. Hero students are paired with a support and business student at the start of the year, given a mock budget and taught to run a mock agency, to file reports on heroics class to make money and use that money for support upgrades and have their management spin the story to get more UA Bucks or get out of paying fines and damages. Which also works as commentary on how the heroes at the top get more money = more resources = bigger cases = more fame = more money becoming a cycle you have to figure out how to break into if you want to get to the top. And things like the ethics of heroics. When is it right to focus on defeating the bad guy over rescue? Is it ever? What if they get away and hurt more people while you're evacuating? Is "my quirk isn't suited" and excuse? Publicity training, training beyond just combat as more than a cute OVA, hero law, community service, handling trauma and victims and mental health (you'd think heroes dealing with victims constantly would have a better idea how to handle traumatised kids beyond traumatising them more), there's so much academia that could be covered!

Brief Villain Notes. More mixing and overlapping for villains and arcs in general. I don't hate the AFO possession plot in concept, but I think it's great way to have Shigaraki doing his own thing and maybe taking some of the league with him. Mr Compress actually known as a master thief, lets drop some hints, have some kids tracking him during internships, that kind of thing. Earlier Dabi. I don't have the reveal like Horikoshi did, so I have to play other cards with him. Give him ice before the last second and make it matter. He's Shouto's inverse. While Shouto uses ice to reject his father, Dabi uses fire because he wants Endeavor's approval and attention even in his own messed up way. At the same time, give Dabi more of a reputation, he wants Endeavor's attention after all. More about the Kurogirir stuff rather than just a weak reveal. Strengthen the Shigaraki and Midoriya line. Have them meet more, talk more, Midoriya even meeting Shigaraki pre-UA and simply offering help because he looks kinda lost. Toga in general is just kind of messy and needs some streamlining and I need to really sit down and ponder what her core really is and how to apply it, so I'm not too sure right now. The MLA, much like Humarise, should be seeded way earlier. Especially with plots like Uraraka, who can't help her family because she needs a license to use her quirk to do so and their goal is free quirk use, and they have a political party, and Curious should be in the press scrum at the Sports Festival, Re-Destro has a support and clothing company, he could be providing for UA.

Ok, I think that's the broadest strokes.