#Already played too much so I'm too tired to actually do the crusade and see what happens-

[cloudsrust]

EDIT: Heads up, this is fake. I just really wanted to do a funny bit with my fanon character since I thought the edit had come out quite good-! So uhh I think I found a new character? I finally got some free time and since I missed playing CotL I started a new save file (too stressed to do the final boss on the other rip). All normal until I get to when I should see Helob open their uhhh- "shop". And- So uhh I think I found a new character? I finally got some free time and since I missed playing CotL I started a new save file (too stressed to do the final boss on the other rip). All normal until I get to when I should see Helob open their uhhh- "shop". And-

Excuse me who the hell are you?? Also damn they're tall-

Still! The shop is there, empty but there. I tried talking to them and apparently their (her? Might be a she but not sure) name is Crede. They offered to watch over my cult while I crusade- I mean I'm curious and this is a side file sooo- sure, knock yourself out sister mantis-! Also after I accepted I couldn't really interact with them anymore so I do be lowkey worried- maybe I should've saved before accepting.

[bbq-hawks-wings]

Chapter 316: BBQ is capable of critiquing BNHA and… Oh boy.

Let's start this off properly, Horikoshi's typical quality of writing has been diminishing in recent chapters, but this week it was so different that it didn't even feel like Horikoshi was the one who wrote it.

To be clear, I'm not blaming Horikoshi for the issues I'm about to bring up. The man is criminally overworked, usually doesn't even get the final say in what makes it in the final drafts, and even in his other rough patches he's still produced decent chapters that hold up amongst the grand scheme of things. This feels like something else is going on behind the scenes, and while I have my suspicions on who/what might be the culprit behind it, I choose not to share it at this time because if I name names some people might go off on a crusade, and that's not what I want.

I just want to be clear that I'm not blindly firing off shots in the dark, but despite my frustrations I want to wait to see if this gets resolved down the line, and while I do I can complain about the specific reasons this chapter left such a bitter taste in my mouth.

Buckle up, buttercups, because we got a lot of points to cover.

Where's the Gun?

Not a literal gun, but I mean Chekhov's Gun. It has always been a staple of Horikoshi's writing and the reason so many of his long-standing plot lines have paid off so well.

Chekhov's Gun is a writing principal that if you see a gun on the table in the first act of a play, it will be used in the murder that happens in act 2. Basically, the author should include details that are relevant to the story and not betray the audience by leading them in one direction and at the last minute pull the rug out from underneath them to go in another direction.

Horikoshi has done this to phenomenal success in the past. Just as one example, he dropped hints about Nomu being human experiments early in the series but held off explicitly stating it for a while. He hinted at the loss of Shirakumo in the main narrative and that he was important to Aizawa and Mic as well as approved it for Vigilantes so when it was revealed that Kurogiri was Shirakumo's body, not only did it narratively make sense but it also pulled in Eraserhead and Present Mic's emotional stakes into the battle with the Doctor, and then when Ujiko reveals he was after Aizawa's quirk the whole time it made the payoff for Mic punching him in the face all that much better and brings the weight of his crimes and the impact they have on the victims full circle.

That's 3 different guns paying off in the long run: the Nomu, Shirakumo, and both Mic and Eraserheads' personal arcs past the loss of their childhood friend and that they could finally finish processing their grief and avenge him in full righteous fury instead of chalking it all up to cruel chance.

He has left details, some particularly innocuously, in plot lines like the Touya Todoroki reveal, Hawks' backstory, Shigaraki's blood connection to Nana Shimura, even with Mr. Compress's backstory, and more. When re-read, these details become more obvious and usually leaves us with a greater sense of satisfaction in the plot knowing that twists and turns were not only planned, but built up to and hinted at for us to find so the payoff is that much better and it feels purposeful instead of just shock factor.

None of that happened this chapter.

Lady Nagant has zero business being in this plotline. She was never hinted about before this arc, and her existence does nothing to tell us about the plot moving forward or the world that they're trying to change. Nothing her existence provides actually has any bearing on the universe or tells us anything we don't already know. But that's not how she was presented.

In the beginning we're given a glimpse of her helping Overhaul escape from Tartarus. The focus on her was odd enough to begin with as a new character, and the fact that she didn't look like she fit the profile of someone who belonged in Tartarus was like a flashing neon sign saying, "Pay attention! This new character is important!!!" She then shows up later with Overhaul in hand to attack Deku out of the blue. We get her talking about how she thought Overhaul might be useful and her disillusions with Hero Society. We catch her mannerisms with eery similarity to Hawks only to find out immediately after she was a senior colleague in the HPSC. Never once to my knowledge has Hawks referred to any of his senior colleagues as a "senpai" - not even his fellow heroes - and when he catches her in midair, he uses the words, "Don't die on me, senpai!" as if she's near and dear to his heart.

The entire character arc is set up for her to have known about Hawks and grapple with her desire to help people and her fear of re-creating what she hated, and this also set up Hawks to be the successor who succeeded where she failed and helped bring her to a place where she could be a hero without guilt again. What actually happened?

They're strangers.

They have never actually met before, and while he seems to know a lot about her, she doesn't even seem to have any idea of who he was - at least as far as being another hero under the thumb of the HPSC. So ALLLL that setup, all that gesturing, and all of the potential themes that would be right at home in an arc like this goes completely out the window.

Her story doesn't tell us anything new. The HPSC bad. We knew that. They're not above throwing innocents under the bus to achieve that goal. We knew that. They preyed upon young hopefuls with powerful quirks with the intent to maintain the status quo. We knew that even if the fact that Hawks isn't the only one now makes more questions than answers. We know that these young heroes can never say no under threat of steep, life-shattering consequences. We knew that already.

So what does Lady Nagant even bring to the table?! The entire "you're just a puppet doing what you've been told" angle is a little tired and out of place in this point and time with actual anarchy in the streets (not to mention hypocritical considering she was a blind puppet following orders and offers zero actual solutions that supposedly fall in line with her heroic nature), and it could have been left to any number of other villain characters who could have executed on the theme better - you know, like Shigaraki who's justification this entire time has been, "hero society doesn't make people safe, it just makes them feel safe" from the moment of his inception.

So from that angle she's unnecessary.

Her presence messes with the continuity of the series as well. If Hawks is supposed to explicitly replace her, that would mean that he wasn't just a fluke find on the commission's part and grabbed to mold into their own special superweapon; and that also would mean that her killing of the former president was before he was discovered which should put her at least in her forties. If this isn't the case, and he was meant to simply replace her in a "special agent" case, that still begs the question of how many more gifted children the commission preyed upon and are still out there.

And maybe the worst kicker for me is that something stinks. The way the art in this chapter is presented, if you completely blanked out the speech bubbles, is the same setup I had before - Hawks reaches out to his former mentor and pulls her from the brink of despair with a moving message about why he never gave up hope in being a hero who could actually make a difference.

Again, this is not what we got. He claims he knows her, and it's implied to have been a deep, personal character witness; but at best he only knows about her from secondhand sources. Even his reasoning as to how he never lost hope doesn't vibe with his character.

We have gotten so many cool one-liners for Hawks, but there has always been a consistent tone and imagery with them.

"Those who can fly, should."

"I don't belong in a cage."

"I'm free of my shackles."

"Can I be a shining light, just like him?"

What we got was, "I'm an optimist to a fault" which was the wording the official release went with and was by far the best iteration I have seen, but even this falls short of being truly in character for him and answering her question properly.

@mikeana made an edit of the titular panels for us Hawks stans this week with dialogue we and a few other friends felt was more fitting not only with the imagery of the chapter itself but internally consistent with the specific expressions Hawks uses in his heartfelt, personal dialogue. I just tweaked it a little bit more to fit what I was going for in our original conversation.

Which brings me to another concern.

2. What's the point?

There was no use for Nagant in the series as she's been presented so far. But more than that, Hawks has no business in this fight to begin with. He literally did nothing to earn this emotional moment, and this should have been Deku's moment.

We were teased in an interview with Horikoshi that Hawks was going to get a special moment as an important end-game character as a "shining light" of hope for others to follow as well as promises for Ochako to have another moment in the spotlight to make a difference.

If this was Hawks' shining light moment, it wasn't necessary, and it does nothing to move the plot forward or develop characters in any true or believable way. It just happened because plot. This should have been Deku's victory through and through, and even he is the reason BOTH Hawks and Nagant made it out alive instead of painting the street below them.

Deku's victory was stolen from him, too. It sours the other promises made to us about other characters moving forward, as well, if this really was Hawks' "Shining Light" moment.

By the way, did you forget about Overhaul? Me too!!! What was the point of getting our hopes up about reintroducing this beloved character with the implications this was a major arc setup to have him scream about pops and then get detained with no clues about what's going to happen to him besides, "Say you're sorry to Eri, and you get to see pops"?!

All this posturing and clumsy narrative flailing only actually succeeded in getting Deku in front of AFO again for plot when we already know Mr. Potato Head could summon, show himself to, or find Deku at any time he wanted. But instead we get this time skip with a bunch of heroes completely mended walking into a big, spooky mansion for AFO to evil monologue at Deku for… *counts*

FOUR PAGES!!!

Only to then give him the "I want YOU!" point over a pre-recorded message and the final nail in the coffin to me that something is off.

3. Ex-pu-LOOOO-SHUN!

It's become almost a game among friends to count how many explosions have happened since the end of the war arc - and specifically fake-out explosions. In the end of 311 we get All Might's car attacked via explosion and Deku cornered by Nagant only for All Might to be fine in the next chapter. In 315 Lady Nagant herself explodes in a blaze of glory to once again not be dead.

Gee! I wOnDeR if aLl the heroes were AcTuAlLy cornered and KiLlEd in that explosion in the mansion!

None of us do. They're fine. We're going to see it first thing next week. The shock has worn off, and it's repetitive and annoying at this point. There is no cliffhanger despite how the framing might try to tell you otherwise.

It's BAD WRITING.

The writing has been moving far too quickly and clumsily with no explanation in sight, and even character interactions are being cut short to the point of them being meaningless and empty.

This doesn't even feel like Horikoshi's bad writing. It feels like someone else is trying to call the shots and rushing him through these final bits of the series, and he's run out of things he's previously set up for months and months to reappear so someone is trying to get Dabi-reveal levels of attention with arcs and storylines that don't have the build-up to result in a satisfactory payoff.

4. At least it can get better... I hope.

Maybe those who share my suspicions or know what particular suspicions I have are with me in believing that this is a temporary disappointment and we haven't seen the last of the writing that's captivated me for years. I don't blame Horikoshi for these glaring faults that all came to a head in this chapter.

It CAN get better later, and I think it WILL- we just probably are going to have to wait for it. Until then, I'm going to enjoy the Hawks panels we got, maybe edit the last few chapters to be more in line with something more like the BNHA I know in a "fix it fic" fashion so I don't groan in anticipation of how long it might take us to get there.

See you all next week, hopefully on a much brighter note.

[mistaeq]

Multiple Character Work: an s/o Pulling them into Dancing

TW // none

This was a request by @memory-mortis , I wish I still could answer to it directly but Tumblr is a dick. Enjoy the answer hun, hope you like it! <3

Kujo Jotaro, Higashikata Josuke, Narancia Ghirga, Leone Abbacchio with an s/o who pulls them into dancing, fem!s/o

WORD COUNT: 2.3k

You felt incredibly good. The music was something you had needed for so much time, considering all the bad events that had happened lately. You kinda knew that all the eyes were on you, there was who was smiling, who was following the rythm of the music. And then there was your boyfriend.

May it be because he was tired, may it be because he was too focused on your moves. But he wasn't absolutely dancing. It was funny to finally dance after all that time. But after you had fell in love with him, you felt like dancing with him could have been even better.

If you could only convince him...

KUJO JOTARO

You approached him, with a sly smile on your face. Jotaro willingly ignored you. You were in the middle of the desert and had found a working radio which was playing good music? It all looked too weird, to him. An enemy stand user who was try to make them let their guard down? It was night, and the six of you were getting ready to sleep, after a long day. But the music was inside of you, right now.

You started dancing around, jumping around Joseph and Polnareff, who were laughing, twirling all around Kakyoin while Avdol was clapping his hands. They also looked incredibly pleased, thanks to the music. But Jotaro, your boyfriend, was a mixture between kind and shocked. He was so stressed, poor boy, and you could tell by how he was staring at the radio.

"A... A radio enemy stand which makes people go crazy..." he was mumbling, while you were getting closer to him, wanting to take his hands in yours and pulling you into dancing with you. As soon as you were close enough to be in his range of action, he suddenly summoned Star Platinum, scaring you to death. You fell on the soft desert sand, looking at him in shock.

"J-Jotaro...?" he just stood there, angrily staring at you.

"Y/n. Are you being possessed by this enemy stand?" Star Platinum was just right in front of you, as you shook your head and swallowed. The crusaders were as shocked as you were. Jotaro was too stressed. After all, his mother's life was in danger and all he could think about was defeating Dio. After he understood what was going on, his stand disappeared, and he hid his face under his black hat. "Nevermind. Sorry."

You stood up, getting closer to him again. This time, instead of grabbing his hands, you took off his hat, putting it on your own head. It was too big for you, it fell on your eyes. You smiled to him.

"It's okay, JoJo. You can never know where an enemy might be. You've been careful, and that's always good." you wrapped your arms around his torso. "I just really, really wanna dance with the boy I love." The ordinary Jotaro would have never done it, but this Jotaro, so nervous, maybe needed it.

You took him by the hand, and pulled him away from his thoughts, gently moving his arms on the rythm of the music. His hands moved directly on your waist, and you smiled. This caused a bunch of whispered comments from the others.

"Oh my god."

"Ooh la la."

Jotaro killed Joseph and Jean Pierre with his gaze, but then went back at watching you. He held you closer, and you swore you saw a smile on him.

"Didn't know you were this good at dancing." You commented, caressing his neck.

"This is not... good." Jotaro snorted. "It's just dancing, y/n."

"Mind letting me decide whether this is good or not, Kujo?" at this answer of yours, he answered with a smirk. You broke the perfect dancing pose, to hug him tight and stand on tiptoe, leaving a quick peck on his lips.

"Thank you for dancing with me, JoJo."

"How cute, a kiss~" Joseph teased his grandson.

"Oh, l'amour." Jotaro killed his grandpa and his french friend, afterwards.

HIGASHIKATA JOSUKE

The slight pain of an elbow on his arm and the sound of a raspy voice woke him up from his daydreaming. He'd never tried to go in a dance club. It was quite a mess.

"Oi Josuke." the boy huffed. "Your girlfriend over there is staring at you. She's totally hot, you should go, she looks like she wants to dance, huh Josuke?" you were, in fact, dancing around, kinda staring at him. But he was there with his best friend. You would have annoyed him, maybe?

"Okuyasu, are you hungry?" Josuke asked, staring at you from afar but talking to his bestie.

"Yes, like a lot."

"Fantastic." Josuke smirked. "I am not. How about you go eating something? Mh?" his best friend's eyes widened.

"Oooh... I understand, Josuke." unbelievable. "Have fun Josuke, okay Josuke? Bye J o s u k e e e ...."

As soon as he left, you kinda decided it was your time to shine. And he was slightly smiling, too.

"JoJo!" You approached your boyfriend wiggling your hips around - more or less like the iconic Suzi Q approaching Joseph -, and then rested your hands on his chest, right on the heart shaped unbuttoned part of his uniform. "What are you doing here all alone?"

"Ah..." Josuke tried to play the victim, to make you baby him. "My best friend said he had better things to do and left me alone..."

"Yeah, right..." you teased him and gently kissed him, ignoring the voices of jealous girls behind you who would have wanted to be you. "You don't like it here?"

"I've never been in a dance club... 's pretty chaotic."

"Yes, but the good thing is you can be yourself without getting judged. Just dance, Josuke." you grabbed the hands he was resting on your back, and brought them to your hips.

As soon as you pulled Josuke with you, not in the middle of the crowd - you still wanted your intimacy with him -, but not too far, you felt someone pushing you, making you stumble on Josuke's feet. Luckily, he caught you just in time not to make you fall. You decided not to turn around. You just smiled, pissed off.

"Who pushed me, Josuke?" the boy watched. He saw a girl, he didn't know her, though.

"Someone jealous, I think." he just answered, giggling and holding you tighter while moving with you on the music.

Nobody in the dance club saw it coming, but Josuke knew pretty well what you were doing, seeing your stand pop up behind you and punching that girl. He laughed, and that made you the happiest. "Maybe we should look surprised?" he suggested. You shook your head.

"Nah, nevermind..." your hands moved to his shoulders, and you kissed him again, while you were dancing.

The only ones to dance, to be honest. Everyone was being shocked about the girl who had been punched by your stand - nobody could see it -, and everyone's eyes were on the couple who was ignoring her. You two. Josuke blushed a little, but he had to admit that night with you in the dance club was priceless.

NARANCIA GHIRGA

You were shocked. Bucciarati had asked to put such a cute music at Libeccio's purposely for the gang to relax a bit. Even Abbacchio was quietly humming on the music. But Narancia, a known music lover and great dancer, was just sitting at the table, his fork wandering around his plate, not wanting to eat.

Probably wanting to dance, but holding back. Why was he holding back? Even you, his girlfriend, were dancing, and he was just there, almost sad looking. From afar, you gestured him into joining you, but he just tried to avoid your gaze.

You then got worried and curious about what was he thinking about, and you reached for him.

"Oi... Nara?" you kneeled down, next to his chair, and kissed him on his cheek. "Won't you join us? Won't you join me?" He looked at you. You could tell he wanted to dance, too.

"Y/n... why do you want me to dance with you?" you got a little taken aback by his question. "I'm still trying to figure out why did you choose me over someone like Bruno or Abbacchio..." your expression softened.

"I chose you over them..." you hugged him to make him stand up from the chair. "...because it's you who I like, Narancia. Very easy. And I'd rather dance once with you than a million times with them. Understood?" you kissed his forehead, cheeks and nose. He smiled shyly.

"Are you sure we can dance together, then?" Narancia asked. You noticed how Bucciarati was actually listening to your conversation. He was thinking about how to thank you later for making Narancia happy and confident about himself again.

"It's you the real dance machine, come dance wi-" you saw Aerosmith flying over your head, and as you noticed it, Narancia had already disappeared.

You turned around and saw him dancing like he had wanted to do that for hours, Aerosmith flying all around him happily, hitting the rythm of the music with its user. You immediately joined him, but you were more focused on looking at how happy he was. Narancia was your ray of sunshine, you couldn't hold back from hugging him while he was dancing, so he could lead you and do the same dance steps with you.

As you two danced together, your two stands could be seen having fun together on the rythm. Bucciarati was laughing, Giorno was happily smiling, Fugo and Abbacchio humming the music along with the radio. Mista tried to stand up to join you and Narancia, but Abbacchio grabbed his blue turtleneck, pulling him back on his chair.

You couldn't understand if it was because he didn't want another idiot to dance or if he actually wanted you and Narancia to enjoy your moment together. Trish was sitting on the table, yelling for a good cause.

"Won't we get to see a kiss between you two?"

Narancia had never felt comfortable in kissing on your lips in front of the gang, but he was so excited thanks to the music, that he just got closer to you, pressing his lips on yours. You felt your cheeks go on fire, but you were happy that Narancia was happy, too.

LEONE ABBACCHIO

Narancia and Mista were dancing, their music so loud everyone even outside could hear it, you dancing along with them. Too many times you pretended to stumble on your boyfriend's foot, slouched on the couch, with his eyes closed and his headphones on, just to get his attention. But he just ignored you.

You grew tired of waiting for Abbacchio to care about you stumbling on his foot, and just did what you knew he hated. You didn't actually do nothing weird, just sat next to him, without him noticing. The two boys who were dancing immediately understood what you wanted to do.

"Oh, Mista, try to put your hands around my waist, so we can dance better." Mista and Narancia were quietly giggling.

"Mmmm." was the only sound Abbacchio produced, angrily opening an eye, just to see you were sitting next to him, luckily without Mista's hands around you. You laughed.

"Hi, love."

"Mmm." you got closer and took off his headphones, since you were the only one who could do this without risking an immediate death. He opened both his eyes, and looked at you. Then he managed to put together two words. "What is it, amore?"

You stood up and grabbed his hands, pulling it to make him stand up. He's heavy, and won't stand up.

"Please?" you puppy eyed him, shaking his hands a little. You understood you had to use your trump card. "I would be so happy if you danced with me... Leone." he just couldn't say no, when you called him with his first name.

He huffed, standing up and blushing.

"I'm... fine with it, but... please, change the song... I like something more classical."

"Mh..." you hummed. "We getting romantic?" you just succeeded in making Abbacchio blush even more. You should thank God that you're yourself, or Leone would have scolded you several times for exposing him like this.

"Kinda." he said, as Narancia changed his music to something slower. Abbacchio posed to start dancing, and you looked at him, confused. He smirked. "You want to dance with me and don't know how to dance what I like?" Leone giggled. "This means I'll have to teach you." He put a hand on your waist, and moved a hand of yours on his shoulder.

"Try to stay closer to me... our chests have to be close, our heads don't." he said, as he guided you in your dance steps, under the amused eyes of Narancia and Mista.

"What do you mean our heads don't... what are we, Transformers?" Abbacchio snorted, smirking a little. Okay, that had been so sudden and funny, not even him could hold back a laugh.

He suddenly pulled you up and kissed you, leaving the two boys that were watching you in a complete state of shock. You caressed his cheek, and smiled in his sweet kiss. "I'm not an expert, but I'm pretty sure this wasn't implied in the dance step..." you whispered, smirking.

Abbacchio bit his lower lip, and smirked back. "Are you sure about this? Looks like our dancing was pretty... impressive." he gestured towards Narancia and Mista's shocked faces.

"I wouldn't mind dancing another time, would you, Leone?"

"No, I wouldn't surely mind."