#plot not power levels

[justatalkingface]

Oh I am EXCITED to hear your thoughts about the war arc and the post-war arc because that's when everything went from decent to shit.

From random ass characters getting introduced and killed off

To the HORRIBLE confrontation of 1-A vs Izuku where it feels like Middle School all over again where everyone gangs up on him.

The mistreatment of Izuku where he's treated to be in the wrong for leaving even though it was to protect everyone.

To everyone basically gaslighting him.

To the HORRIBLE apology Bakugou gave which was more justifying his actions and victim blaming.

And not to mention the rushed Aoyama Traitor reveal and Izuku refusing to connect or relate to him because as we know as soon as he got a quirk, his quirkless past was erased!

You know, between how big this ended up being, and all the things I had to do, this response came later than I would have like. Hopefully it lives up.

Ah, The War Arc.

Also known as 'The point where everything went to shit'. Oh, those were the days. It's even worse because, as it was building up, The War Arc seemed like it was going to be awesome. It was where a bunch of plot threads, from Shigaraki to Hawks to Dabi's 'surprise' were all lining up to collide, and oh I, and probably others, were so excited to see it all go down.

Such naivety. Honestly, I think I blocked out so much of this beyond pure scorn that I had to reread it just to do this justice. If I seem particularly biting or sarcastic... that's probably why. This is basiclly me rereading and commenting as I go along, so it'll probably be a bit all over the place, before I move onto the post-war arcs which are still fresh in my mind.

Where to start, where to start.... well, the beginning works, I guess.

The LOV, after absorbing the MLA in a... kind of shoehorned way (Re-Destro basically ceased being a person after Shigaraki beat him, but for all that it's shown as, 'Wow he's so cool let's follow him!', I wonder if he surrendered just so his movement and army wouldn't be annihilated more than anything, and how he feels about all this, since he has no legs and seems generally depressed even though his stress has 'disappeared'. And wow, isn't funny that, if you just give up on everything you ever stood for or care about and your will to live, your sheer crippling depression would probably get rid of your stress temporarily?) becomes the PLF (so many acronyms!) and an army large enough to need a serious intervention, and so an army is needed to oppose them.

Thankfully, they get information from Aizawa's friend from the spin off manga to help figure out where everything is! Thank god they gave us flashbacks as this was happening to explain to anyone who didn't read it what the fuck was going on!

Sigh. Introduce your shit better, Hori, especially when it's some illegal move beyond science you're trying to sell us.

Anyways, that, combined with Hawks's information (back in those days where his arc was great), lets them get a grasp on the PLF and launch a two pronged attack on them, while also dealing with moles. All of this? All of this was actually pretty great, Kurogiri as the exception. Like I said, that build up was great.

Also, can I just add that Present Mic losing his shit was actually pretty awesome and hilarious? 10/10, would watch Crazed Mic again.

Anyways, here's one of the first things that, and maybe it's just me, is just kind of off: the fact that Garaki can duplicate Quirks. Not with a Quirk, or even with multiple Quirks, but just with science, somehow? I know that he's in the best position to do it, with AFO and vast resources to support him, but still; the closest to 'manipulating' Quirks like this, beyond OFA and Garaki himself, that we've seen in this manga? Is fucking Endeavor with his Quirk marriage. Quirks, in this story, are some black box bullshit that no one understands, and attempts to control them are on the level of Mendel and his peas, and often prone to failure to even get a 'basic' change happen (like, Bakugou was another 'basic' pairing, but he easily could have gotten something useless for heroics if he wasn't born lucky), and yet this fucker is just... so far beyond them it's OOC for the setting.

Everyone else is mashing lego pieces they can't see together to see if they fit, but this guy has copied Quirks, hundreds of them, and they just sit in jars everywhere? How? How?! In retrospect (and I'm kind of afraid of how many times I may say that here), his existence is just set up for the massive escalation that's about to come at us like a truck. How are there multiple AFOs active? How is Shigaraki's new body so strong? Where does the retroactively impossible rare old age Quirk come from, that was never a big deal before now because AFO had decades to hunt one down?

All of it? All of it is this guy. He's actually kind of interesting as a character, and a mad scientist fits AFO's organization to a T, but his purpose in the story is to hand out deus ex machinas for the villains on demand, and I honestly kind of hate him for it.

Meanwhile, Mirko bursts into the lab with Tomura in it and, ah, Mirko. In retrospect (seriously, someone count this and get back to me) this is the start of Hori just... ripping off all her body parts off like she's a cheap toy that he wants to see how much it'll take to break. At the time, I didn't think much of it, at worst it was a cheap way to prove how Serious Shit Was(TM) without killing off anyone named, but once it started happening again, while it just continued to focus on her in fetishy ways as she fights, it started to be a disturbing trend.

I've got some mixed feeling about her in general, because she's.... basiclly Bakugou? But with better limits on her behavior? Like, she's what the fanfic versions of Bakugou tend to end up as, somewhat cruel and crude and definitely violent but channeling it towards acceptable targets rather than, like, everyone around her. I actually like Blood Knight characters, but in this setting, as a hero, it just doesn't fit right, you know?

Still, she's a cool character and definitely deserved better than than being turned into a human stick for whatever kicks Hori seems to be getting out of it.

While I'm at it, let me mention that it's hard to take 'Super Strength Quirks' as a whole seriously sometimes if 'Rabbit' is enough for her to tear through the Semi-High Ends with some early Full Cowl level feats, and Endeavor can be punted through buildings and shake it off. In retrospect (fucking sigh) Endeavour vs the High End and Mirko's big Nomu fight were warnings that, yup, we're going all in on the power levels now, and it's kind of frustrating when, early on, they were trying to take the 'physicality' of Quirks seriously, that they were just human bodies plus this one specific thing, and now Hori's taking the seriousness of his own setting so loosely, just to make BIGGER, more DRAMATIC fights that last a lot longer than they should.

But I digress.

On a different note, while it was nice to see 1A given a time to shine, the fact that they're in this fight, the fact that some of them were essential members of this attack, is just wow. This, making so many of the adult heroes seem so useless that the need to depend on literal high schoolers, is in retrospect a big warning sign of just how accelerated the timeline became. In a more 'normal' situation for something like this, these big, dramatic fights would have happened years later, giving 1A the chance to grow up and make it all less... child soldier-y. There's plenty of shonen settings that have this kind of thing happen, sure, but they're always generally dystopian hellholes in the first place. Naruto the sixteen year old being important is a lot less of a reach when they put ten year olds in life or death situations on the regular anyways. MHA, though, is a modern setting, and they're in an actual, semi-normal school, where they get, like diplomas and shit and learn normal school things, rather than some military academy focused on pumping out ninjas or sorcerers or whatever to fight and die and kill for the cause. Which, UA kinda actually does anyways, but UA and how it doesn't actually make sense as a whole is really getting off topic.

So. Anyways....

OK, fine, Re-Destro being, like, the 'This is Fine' meme as a person is both iconic and deeply understandable and I wish we had more focus on that, but I need to focus back up on this!

Midnight's actual combat tool is a non-combat fan that exists just to fan the air. It kind of makes sense with her power but it's just so... shallow seeming, just playing to her fetishy theme, and I honestly think her doing this, fanning the air dramatically, is one of her more impressive showings in canon? I already know Hori has never taken Midnight seriously but still.

I've already talked about how wonderfully horrible the whole Twice Hawks thing was, so we're just going to ignore that and try to save some space....

Now I think it's time, so let's talk about one of the biggest issues of this arc: Shigaraki.

I've said it before, but him powering up makes sense, especially when he starts taking on the mantle of AFO's replacement. The problem is how much he powers up, and we can lay that at the feet of Garaki, Doctor Power Up, you jerk. He was always going to be one of the top beings in the setting once he got one of the most broken Quirks in the setting, but the fact that he can walk around without a Quirk active, blatantly ignoring all the people actively trying to murder him, refusing to simply kill Endeavor because his character is too important to write off yet, still incomplete and still be so dangerous...; in other words, the fact he effectively has several Quirks even without having a Quick is way too far. The heroes nerfing his development was an elegant solution to this problem, something that was handled a lot better than AFO, both as a person and as the Quirk itself, was. Even with Shigaraki escaping at the end of this, and making the 'final confrontation' energy of this arc fall completely flat*, the fact that he was permanently damaged by this still makes it have more meaning... you know. Until they tossed that out to fix him up anyways, somehow.

*This, actually, is one of the things that made the war so bad for me, actually: the build up was so... This Is It. There was all this hype for this being the Ultimate Fight, because if they don't win here, they'll have no way to meaningfully counter Shigaraki, he'd just be too hard to fight. Maybe if it was later, if Izuku was stronger, them losing could work: there would be a somewhat reasonable way out if they lost, involving a (probably bullshit) power up/training arc with Izuku frantically trying to even begin to match Shigaraki somewhere on his level as a 'transcendent one beyond humanity' before it was Too Late.... but him reaching his full potential at this point was years away, far too late to stop Shigaraki. It didn't sit right, because it was too early, but the way it was set up this was the do or die moment. Then the heroes lost, and that was the moment the story just... went to shit because Hori decided to solve the problem of Shigaraki being too strong by just making everyone else stronger as well.

And sure, a lot of it (most of it) is just Izuku, just Deku getting power up after power up, mastering them all near instantly when before each level of strength he gained was hard fought, requiring time and practice to being able to use them well, even with the new, largely out of nowhere addition of Black Whip, but it's also all the super moves everyone starts breaking out left and right in the final arc. It's Endeavour somehow beating AFO. It's all the big, increasingly dramatic and flashy attacks, all of them being no-selled by SFO because they're not allowed to be a meaningful threat. It's the one scratch on SFO by Bakugou (of fucking course) being, not because he's that strong (thank fuck) but because of some weird PTSD flashback on AFO's end. It's Deku, The Main Character, finally showing up and being the only person able to anything. That moment, in retrospect, is the moment when the power levels became the most important thing for a character above anything else, beyond strategy and planning, beyond how a power even works; any of it, all of it, they all paled before how strong is this character, how hard can they hit, how much damage can they take. It takes the idea of everyone being a hero, of the lesson Izuku had started to reject from the very beginning of the story, that people aren't born equal, being proved right all along, despite how the story trying to tell us otherwise.

That Izuku was only ever special because All Might graced him with his Quirk, and nothing else.

Oh. I can't believe I didn't mention that one second later retcon of Shigaraki awakening 'because of his hatred' instead of the far more reasonable electricity zapping him. With the delicious irony of it only happening because a hero was doing the 'heroic' thing of not minding his own business, no less; that would have been the cherry on top of the sundae of him coming back, as the perfect symbolism of how the heroes keep creating the villains they fight.

Don't get me wrong, his awakening itself is epic, you can almost hear the epic dark chorus singing in the background as he destroys everything, but... it's flashiness for the sake of flashiness, the way he officially wakes up. Not for any logical reason, but because his hatred is so immense it breaks reality, just like Izuku magically defies Nighteye's prediction, even though MHA pretends it's 'grounded' and that all it's super powers are biologic instead of anything more metaphysical that would help explain that off. It's just empty hype just for the sake of hype, no matter how little sense it makes. In this situation, it's relatively harmless, sure, but it's easy for it to become less harmless, like, perhaps, power ups just to make Shigaraki, Izuku, Bakugou, or whoever else is in focus at the moment look better, even if it doesn't make sense for them to actually happen. Or dramatic, meaningless 'deaths' and equally dramatic and ridiculous 'resurrections' that couldn't possibly result in a drastic increase in a person's abilities.

*looks meaningfully at the final arc's bullshit*

But surely, surely, Hori wouldn't do that, right? Right?

But anyways, back to the War Arc and... 'booty incoming'. Really. Really? Must we? Must we do this? Can't we have a woman on screen for five minutes without something sexual being referenced?

And then Bakugou's back, still speaking to everyone he can like they're trash, and still with people surprised by this, somehow, like this isn't a long established character trait for him, or that he would actually have any respect for old people. And then everything's being Dusted, people are panicked, and the heroes are full in crisis mode and yet his comment on the situation is "I'll wreck him". Not something about teamwork, not something about saving people, not even that he'll stop him, which has connotations of protection, but wreck, which screams aggressiveness and destruction. And it's just... so completely ignoring the seriousness of the situation, where everyone else is concerned about the city vanishing into dust, and Bakugou just wants to crush the enemy just to crush them.

It has all the energy of someone slapping their edgy OC into a scene by saying a meaningless line that can be somewhat reasonably ignored by the actual characters because it's so out of place. And then next chapter he just screams about killing Izuku instead of the actual threat when Izuku wonders why he's even there. Look, I get that, for some god forsaken reason, that Hori wants to play Bakugou's violent, abusive tendencies as 'comedy', but even if it was comedy, actually comedy and not thinly painted over abuse, there is a time and place for comedy, and this situation is not that time.

And, oh look, Eraserhead is finally fulfilling his true purpose: not being a teacher, but desperately acting as a bandaid to try and salvage the plot after Shigaraki contracted Madara Syndrome! And yet we still get shit like, 'The worst case is losing the teacher who watched over us all this time!' You know, the person who 'watched over you' by systematically destroying your ability to trust that anything he says or does isn't just another lie 'logical ruse', instead of the already unstoppable villain being even more unstoppable, because that is the context of the worst case scenario here, just so we're all clear: losing Aizawa would be worse than Shigaraki getting OFA.

(I mean, you could make a case that losing Erasure, the Quirk, is worse than him getting OFA, because Erasure can counter OFA so in that respect, Shigaraki getting it wouldn't change Aizawa's utility, but that's not the argument that's happening here; it's not Eraserhead, the tactical asset, the would be a loss, it's Aizawa the asshole of a person, who would be a tragic loss worse than OFA, the only hope anyone in this story has.)

Hori, if you could just throttle down the overhype of your Kakashi proxy and the angry fan favorite for five minutes while the shit gets real that would be great, thanks.

"If we can't stop one person, what is the point of this hero-saturated society?" You know what... Burning(?), that's a great question; I'm just going to leave this quote here on it's own merits.

And then Midnight is merced off screen by a meaningless mook, basiclly never to be mentioned again. You know, I didn't like how hollow her characterization was, but the answer to that is not to just off her and move on.

Meanwhile, Gran Torino is torn into by Shigaraki, but still manages to shrug it off. And, while we're on this topic...

Momo: is a genius.

Also Momo: makes a drug that is administered by injection instead of in a gas form.

Still Momo: doesn't think to make anyone else some extra knock out vial... things.

Still Momo: the sleep drug she makes take so long to take effect that this entire exercise is almost pointless.

Ashido: has the toss.

Also Ashido: fumbles the toss at the last minute out of surprise so that a man can do it for her, in a reversal of a situation that she had handled better before than he did, as an excuse to show his growth at her expense.

Classic Hori. Why let a woman actually be helpful when they can just try and fail to meaningfully improve the situation for the better?

And, ah yes. After just going on, with all apparently seriousness, about how he'll fight Izuku if he dares question why he's following him around, 'Bakugou Rises', and 'has his body move on it's own'. You know, heroically. Even though by all accounts he did and still does think and act on his instinct to just attack other people. And his dramatic 'sacrifice' is just going to be shrugged off and he's still going to be able to fight in anther couple of minutes. And, despite how it's presented like he comes to a big realization, he still acts exactly the same after this.

Riiiight, I buy that. Oh, and the person to notice something off about All Might's notes? Who was that again? Was it Izuku, who started off the series by analyzing Quirks a lot, and took the notes seriously, or is it Bakugou, who instantly insulted everyone in the notes off a surface level impression of them?

...Well. Now that the Bakugou simping portion of the war is finally past us, let us continue with Hori writing off one of his most interesting villains, just to replace him with the one he's refused to develop, just so we can start undoing all his wonderful development.

Thankfully, we come to one of the few parts I like about this mess: Dabi's Dance. Fucking glorious it is; the man is just vibing about the mayhem he's causes, the wonderful little psychopath. And let me tell you, 'The Past Never Dies' hits a lot harder than anything AFO has ever said.

Say what you want about him being a crazed murderer, beyond all hope of redemption, or blindingly insane? I'm not going to argue with you (though the story might, the way things are going) but you can't disagree with me about this: for all of his many, many flaws, the man understands Megamind's lesson about Presentation.

Oh. And Lemillion's back, I guess. If I seem unenthusiastic about it, well, that's about as much enthusiasm as Hori seems to have about that, so don't blame me.

Wait, the Bakugou simping is back on, or should I say, the Great Explosion Murder God Dynamite simping is back on. Fuck, Hori, remember what I said about a time and a place for comedy? Remember that?

Sigh... And the perfect place to end this clusterfuck of an arc off: 'You look like you needed saving', in reference to one of the greatest villains in the series, a mass murder who has spent the last five minutes trying to kill you, Izuku, what the fuck. But, it's over, right? Now that the War Arc is over, it can only get better, right?! Ha, if only!

Welcome to Post War, suckers: AKA, the point where Hori just stops giving a shit.

You see, for all the many, many, many flaws of the War Arc, Hori at least spent time on them, fleshed out dramatic moments, character reactions, and the lead up to those moments. But after? Hori has a checklist, somewhere, of all the major points he wants to do before the manga ends and he's checking things off, sure, but that's all he's doing: checking off the major plot points, one after the other. We've reached speedrun manga hell, where no character gets time actually think about anything anymore, or hold a conversation with someone that doesn't involve violence, or even break down in a proper hysterical cry.

Oh, look, a new character! What's that, an interesting character with deep ties to previously untouched worldbuilding you've been curious about? You want to know more about the corruption of the heroic society, or a country that isn't Japan for once?

Well, too bad, because they're gone. Where we're going, we don't have time for the current characters, much less new ones. If you see someone you've never seen before, enjoy your handful of chapters before they're thrown away like trash.

What's this? Izuku is finally getting some new character development? He's doing something new, different, and exciting, with potential to make him think about his future and heroism? WRONG! Class 1A can't have that! They're going to hunt him down like a dog for daring to leave them, and beat the living shit out of him to prove their friendship.

Just like Bakugou does! Good thing he's leading them, just like the old days in Aldera! And wow, that's some top tier Karma Houdini bullshit there, isn't it?

Pop Quiz: according to Bakugou, what does Deku mean?

Useless, you got it!

Next question: what does Bakugou still call Izuku, the same way he has since they were young, young children up to the present?

Deku!

How about this? How long has All Might actually interacted with Izuku?

Oh, maybe two years or so, you say? That's right!

During this time, has he ever once called Izuku either useless or Deku, beyond as his hero name?

Not once, correct!

So, taking all of this into account, final question: if Izuku considers himself Dek- I'm sorry, useless, what one person is the most reponsible for that?

All Might!

Hmm. Hmmm. Something seems wrong with that last answer. Gee, I wonder what seems wrong about that last answer, I'm so confused.

So, yeah, after Izuku leaves, not runs away, mind you, leaves, because UA isn't a prison and he has every right to leave, Bakugou explains how Izuku's complete lack of self respect is All Might's fault, before whipping all his classmates into a frenzy to go hunt him down.

Then, after finding him, already exhausted from constantly fighting for his life, all of them gang up on him, attack, try to knock him out, and after he gives up on making his own choices against the sheer amount of peer pressure being thrown his way, Bakugou apologizes.

For what? Well, if we didn't read the manga, we sure wouldn't know, because Bakugou didn't want to talk about that! No, it's just how Izuku, weak, helpless Izuku who idolized him, and had no Quirk, somehow made him feel inferior, and that's why he was so angry all the time. How dare Izuku have hopes and dreams?! And then we end it up with the absolutely touching message that this won't change anything.

Wow, Great Explosion God Dynamite. I'm moved. You truly are beyond us mere mortals, to know how an apology can only be truly sincere when you explain how utterly worthless it is! Brilliant! Truly, this is that Post War quality we know and love!

Oh, and the Traitor arc. Think back, everyone, back to the days where this manga was about being in a school, and think about the traitor that ratted out the class to AFO. Remember that? Well, it's Aoyama. What, the last chapter made you think it was someone else? Psych!

Anyways, Aoyama was actually the traitor the whole time, and it just... never came up again; AFO never saw a use for someone inside UA since they attacked the summer camp, I guess, and there's no possible way he could have used that asset again, no sir. Well, now that we've all yelled at him a bit, I guess we're all fine with that now; let's use him to ambush AFO! With loopholes to get around his lie detector Quirk! Surely, after giving him one Quirk to help him infiltrate one of the most important places in Japan, there's no way AFO could have planted, say, a second Quirk in Aoyama, as a way to deal with possible treachery; no we've never seen him do that recently. Or just observe him, or really do anything to make sure he stays loyal.

Oh wait, he was Quirkless? A dark mirror to Izuku, you say, both of which got a Quirk from two of the most important characters in the series, in a way that drastically changed their lives and tied them together antagonistically?! What does Izuku think about that? Don't you know better than to ask that kind of question; we don't have time to reflect on things, much less Izuku's Quirkless past that has basiclly been retconned out of existence at this point.

Was any of that too fast for you? Maybe too confusing? Did you want me to maybe break up that last section a little more, spend some more time on each major plot twist as it happened, how people felt about it? Well, congratulations, that's exactly what it feels like to read MHA Post War.

*screams in fury forever*

Hori. Hori, why did you do this to me? This story started off so good. What the fuck is all this?

[presiding]

How you'd rewrite Dishonored death of the outsider if it was fully fledged game with 10 missions? (like Dishonored or Dishonored 2)

Oooh!! Enrichment in my enclosure - thank you for asking! Thinking about a total rewrite was a great exercise. Fair disclaimer: I haven’t read the books & their canon-status can’t hurt me. To me, the Dishonored games stand out due to their immsim design philosophy, and thinking about some of the industry reasons for DotO’s departure from that, if I could make a standalone game with ~ten levels I would, but with the same budget I’d also happily make two DLCs made slowly over a longer timeframe with greater attention to detail.

Game structure

Finding Daud // Billie’s past

The fate of the Outsider // Billie’s future

Game story

Setting & Characters

Billie: What has Billie been doing since she’s returned to Serkonos? Knowing the Dreadful Wale will sink, she’s sold it for scrap & has set up an agency in Lower Aventa. She’s something of a detective/odd-jobs man (& assassin when it suits her). Business is booming, life is good. I think a long-running implication that she's becoming Daud in some ways would make for an interesting subplot.

Karnaca: a city that unfolds. In the first levels, Billie feels like a forgotten woman, a ghost slipped through the cracks, but as levels progress there are hints & references to how her past actions have affected others & shaped the city

Alignments: Witches, gangs, religion, industry; missions for clients who can’t necessarily pay their way. Missions that allow the player to explore/understand Karnaca in a deeper way.

Daud: Billie is unsure if Daud again will bring her any closure. She’s been thinking of him since her time with Emily, and his name keeps popping up.

Deirdre: the charm is a more functional heart, similar to Jessamine, as well as her own character design. Perhaps she doesn’t see Deirdre until she chooses the powers, or until she’s in the void (see next point)

First arc: Finding Daud // Billie’s past

Powers: the Outsider offers Billie powers even though her life is finally, actually good, so she’s pissed off. A choice - she can take them, or play no powers mode.

Breanna Ashworth is this arc’s villain - she wants Delilah back, and knows that Daud has banished her before, wants to know how he did it. Grief & desperation has changed her, and she no longer has her high society veneer. The remnants of the Karnaca coven, now powerless, have stolen from the Overseers to arm themselves to the teeth, and to neutralise Daud’s powers, in addition to black bonecharms.

Billie’s in a race against time against Breanna to find Daud, but by the last level it becomes clear that Breanna *has* found Daud, and has been torturing him for information about the void. Her dynamic with Billie is complicated by their past.

I think betrayal would be an interesting theme, so maybe one of the levels gives you the option to ally yourself with Breanna under false pretences.

Second arc: choosing the fate of the Outsider // Billie’s future

Delilah is the core villain, but she’s obsessed with killing the Outsider so she can take his place, having been violently ripped from her perfect world in her own painting by Breanna (who meant well), & knowing the Empire doesn’t hold her interest... but a perfectly mouldable void & infinite power does take her fancy.

As remorseful Daud is obsessing about preventing Delilah from taking power, Billie’s doing some detective work and learns more about the Outsider (he’s not showing up and monologuing - she’s finding this out herself. A level idea could be a raid on a ‘haunted’ houses where the void is thin)

Delilah succeeds in taking the Outsider's place, leaving the Outsider dead or mortal depending on if you are able to save him. Delilah has split her soul from herself before and she’s very much clever enough to learn the Outsider’s name to render him mortal.

Daud knows he’s dying, though, and it might be an ultimate sacrifice to save both Billie’s life, and the Outsider’s.

So during the final battle, there’s an option to make Daud the Outsider, because Daud wants Billie and the Outsider to have a shot at a normal life, and his life was forfeit in his own mind…

… or, reluctantly accepting the Outsider’s help, Billie finds a way to cut the void’s access to the world, rendering Delilah an all powerful god over a dead & silent world.

Because of the past/present focus of this you could even have levels set in the past - missions with Billie & Daud. Perhaps Billie as POV character, and Daud dropping by the way that Billie did in Knife of Dunwall. That’d be neat.

A heap of ideas here, hope there was something you liked :)

[galecgun]

Thinking abt Zarbon . You guys know Zarbon? From Dragon Ball Z?

Yeah

[asofterepilogue]

the funniest thing about akatsuki no yona is that every few chapters some idiots will forget that hak routinely annihilates armies, and decide they can take him on. please, by all means, go get wrecked. it'll be entertaining.

[class1akids]

Aside from the fact that 6 pages on these reporters is not what I want to see in the endgame, I'm getting kind of troubled by the message HK is sending - probably totally unintentionally - about the role of the press.

Let's start with the business student, who a couple of chapters ago basically are saying that their job would have been to "damage control" and "spin the narrative" in the favour of the heroes. And specifically mentioning Endeavor which is a whole can of worms in itself.

Since they are studying to be PR managers for the hero firms, I'll let that slide - it would be their real life job to try to protect the image of their bosses regardless of the truth.

But that's not the case for the journalists. When their country gets destroyed in a few hours, in a para-military action that brewed in the shadows, when an entire population is being told to move into emergency shelters and thus, inevitably giving up part of their freedom, it is not their job to sing accolades to the government and the heroes, but to ask the hard questions.

This journalist lady was already used as a "strawman" in the press conference, to make the journalist seem like a hysterical, unreasonable mob, and to give Endeavor the chance to appear noble and sympathetic.

And now, this chapter again makes it seem like she has to "atone" or "undo the damage" because she asked uncomfortable questions instead to putting faith in the heroes.

Sure, she should tell the story - the full story with the heroes still working and fighting.

But I just find it so jarring that again and again, HK is unable to show any kind of nuance when it comes to the civilians or non-hero institutions like the press.

The civilians are blamed for "complacency", "inaction", "apathy" when they are told all their lives that the heroes will take care of it, and more importantly, they are told that the heroes are "others". They are also blamed if they take up arms and try to defend themselves.

They are painted as an ugly unfeeling mob when they question UA after Bakugou's kidnapping. They are painted as irrational after the PLF war had way more civilian casualties and injuries than heroes dying. It was their cities that Machia trampled on.

Any civilian asking questions is treated as a bully, while the only civilians painted sympathetically are the furry fox lady because she believes in Deku and the lady who risks her life to scrub the All Might's statue's manboobs clean and shiny every day.

These are the hero-hearted among the civilians: the people who keep idolizing the heroes unquestioningly.

Idk, balanced reporting is important and all, but the narrative making it seem like the only valid job for the press is to make propaganda videos of the heroes, making everyone who questions what we as readers see as a failed system full of cracks seem like villain makes me feel very uncomfortable about this part of the narrative.

And especially having Endeavor be held up as the hero somehow personally wronged for people asking questions or losing faith in him, when literally we do not see a single person even call him out for what he did to his family, only for losing... man. Idk. This chapter made me deeply uncomfortable, and the less time HK spends on this topic, the better.

I guess the good news is that the press arrived on time to show the villains turn and help the heroes, which will help with post-war society sentiments.

But it is still totally unnecessary to give a "redemption arc" to the lady who yelled at a press conference.

[i-bring-crack]

Haein: Yeah I can take on the Shadow Monarch

Antares: Oh I never through anyone apart from me could take him a fight.

Haein: Who was talking about fights?

[mihrsuri]

I haven’t read Austen, so what does Robert do during their annus horribilis that is ‘Captain Wentworth’ like?

So Persuasion is probably my favourite Austen novel (a plot summary from Spark Notes here) and basically (spoilers)

1546/1547 is a garbage dumpster of years in the OT3 verse for a whole number of reasons but one thing that happens is that Robert and Elizabeth have a huge fight blow up* They both say some fairly awful things to each other and at a certain point they are living apart. And Robert, who has been trying to apologise and getting rebuffed is just…he’s spending time with a younger woman (I might make her up) and I want to be clear - nothing happens. They aren’t flirting (the young woman in question is very much in love with someone else), they aren’t ever alone or anything but he is hurting and he is trying to hurt Elizabeth/make her show she does care about him/hurt her because this is AWFUL.

*This happens for a variety of reasons - mostly like, Elizabeth getting in her head about whether Robert wants a more conventional wife/what if she doesn’t give him a son (still got that lingering trauma - just in a different form) and Robert getting in his head and the two of them being extremely uh, Tempesty.

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

Lord of the Empty Isles

sci-fi/fantasy

set on a supposedly utopian planet recovering from a climate crisis, where bonds between people are able to be seen and manipulated (by some people)

follows a young man whose brother was cursed and killed by an infamous outlaw 5 years ago, and he’s finally able to curse him back - but it rebounds, as he’s somehow fatebound to the outlaw

to find a cure and save them both they have to team up, and he quickly finds out that the resources the outlaw is stealing go to the thousands of people neglected on prison planets, and he has to go against what he thought was right to help them

no romance, aroace MC, focus on platonic relationships

arc from netgalley, out june 6

[raspberry-gloaming]

I very much doubt there's much chance of this, but is there anyone out there who is a fan of both Doctor Who (and especially/possibly the Gallifrey audios) and the Nevermoor series? As I have many au thoughts but no-one to share/discuss them with.

(if you are please message me)

[justatalkingface]

Do you consider analyzing the villains one day (the main trio or in general) ? It seems that I saw somewhere that you wanted to. If that's the case, I would like to read your thoughts. This manga does not bring me joy anymore (it's quite funny for a story which is supposed to be optimistic to a fault), but I keep a close eye on the villain trio's evolution who are the only characters who make me stay, even if I have some problems with the way the mangaka wrote them recently.

Hmm. I did this big post on Shigaraki awhile ago, so let's ignore him, but let's talk about.... Himiko, Dabi, which are the rest of the big villain trio of the series, and then a bit about AFO and how the villains in general lately. I did a LOV post awhile ago, but that was more focused on how Hori was showing them, so there's still something to talk about.

So... Himiko. I've said this before, but I think there's wasted potential in how her character could have been spun, not as someone totally crazy but someone in dire straights being actively corrupted by her situation, but, it's not like the crazy serial killer archetype is bad.

The problem with Himiko isn't that she kills people, the problem isn't even that she likes it, the problem is she, by the time we meet her, is fully into it, fully living in a world all her own where things work different for her than everyone else, and this is never really... explored satisfyingly.

If we met her someplace before that, where she's, maybe, addicted to the killing, but not committed to it, there would be this interesting contrast where we see her morals, her old morals, conflicting with her finally unleashed desires, and they eat away at who she was over time, like we see in Tokyo Ghoul with Kankei.

But there still plenty of ways to work off a truly crazy character; I think what Himiko could use is a couple of good conversations. It's too late now, but what her character could have really used is a conversation, or better yet multiple conversations, about what she thinks about the world, with people who don't share her viewpoint. And she does that, but... she actually doesn't. A conversation, you see, is two sides talking to each other, and that never seems to happen with Himiko.

One side is always stonewalling the other, either the hero just blanket labeling her as a villain, without really acknowledging the depth of the issues there, or that there's a method to her madness, or that she has some good points mixed in with her crazy, or with Toga ignoring everything that doesn't fit with her world views with all the energy of a child going, 'La la, I'm not listening!' One sides shouts 'Killing is wrong', and the other shouts something about love, or how she wants to live with her friends, and nothing is happening.

The manga wants for this to happen, and acts like it has occurred sometimes, but it never follows through: Toga is stunned that a hero will kill, and that she could die? Where the hero pointing out that she has killed their friends?

Hori has been setting up this dynamic with her and Ochako as this sort of light and dark versions of each other, off the fact they both love Izuku? (And for the purposes of this, let's ignore that, A, that reduces their relationship to a giant chick fight over a guy, and B, we don't even know if Ochako actually still has a crush on Izuku anymore.) Fine. Then talk about it. Have them talk about what love means to them, compare and contrast their views, develop it. Hell, delve more into what Izuku thinks about it, even, that this child who has been stomped down on his entire life has someone who wants to be with him now, even if it's a crazed villain.

All of this and more could have been interesting things to talk about, develop, but it never happens. Himiko is made out of this wasted potential, a theoretically interesting character that never got to live up to what she could have been.

Dabi, meanwhile, is almost the opposite: Dabi, character wise, is good. He has depth to him, but fundamentally he's a simple character with simple goals, narratively and as a person, and he's meeting them.

Dabi wants revenge. Dabi wants to destroy his father, everything he's built and everything he's ever loved. Dabi is a hollow shell of a human being who lives for a single purpose, and defines himself by his abuser. He knows this this fact, and accepts this; there's no illusions with him about who he is. Dabi is a monument to Endeavor's sins, nothing more, and that's all he really wants to be.

There's more to him to that, of course; he cares for his friends, and mourns Twice's death, even if he is physically incapable of crying, even if he refuses to admit it, but Dabi, as a person, has been made for that one single purpose. Literally, by both the writer and the character himself, his entire life is designed to revolve around vengeance.

And on that point, he's doing exactly what he's supposed to. Dabi's problem is that, at some point between the original plan and now, the world he lived in has changed, and Endeavour's story is different now, cleaner, than it should have been. Everything about him is a testament to Endeavour and what he's done, and it's just... no one seems to care. The way the characters talk about him now is either, A, 'God damn it stop burning everything', or B, 'Touya, stop whining about how hard your life was and have some soba with Shoto already'.

Dabi is a monument to Endeavour's sins, but when no one cares about those sins, his entire purpose starts falling flat. He's doing the right things, he's saying the right words, but it doesn't matter if Hori won't allow him to have a point.

And finally, let's wrap up with something about the villains in general; this is something I touched on when I talked about Shigaraki (although ironically it was about how he got past that point at the time), that a good villain is one you're afraid of. A villain drives the plot, in many ways is the plot. You can think they're cool or stan them, but to really sell them as a character, there needs to be one simple ingredient: fear.

When a villain does something, you should be afraid of them, even if only the tiniest of amounts. It needs to make you tense, concerned, make you wonder what are they going to do next? What is their next move? What damage will they cause? Is someone going to die?

The patron saint of showing how much Hori has dropped with this ball is AFO: think back to Kamino. Remember how the students risked their lives to go and rescue their classmate, remember when this man in a mask appears and his mere presence is enough to make them freeze in place. It was tense, gripping, because we didn't know what was going to happen. We didn't know if everyone would make it out of there.

We didn't know if All Might would win.

All For One's simple, gloating speech in Kaminio was enough to fill the manga with more uncertainty than there ever has been.

Let's look at AFO now. He... he plots. He schemes. He chortles, constantly, about how brilliant his plans are, even as they fall apart around him, only to pull out yet another plan to be toppled.

I'm not afraid of him. I'm not worried about him, or what he's going to do. I don't doubt for a minute that Deku is going to beat him, and honestly I'm not concerned he's going to kill anyone we're supposed to care about. I'm just pissed off that he won't shut up for five minutes and actually do something. AFO, as of this manga chapter, is technically a lot stronger than he was in Kamino. He's whole and healthy, for the moment, while in Kaminio he was literally on life support, yet it was only in Kamino that I was truly worried.

This is what has been happening for awhile now, and that's why the villains seem to be worse than they used to be. And I think I can see why: Hori wants to make his heroes seem better, so he's putting them against stronger villains, but he seems to be operating under a misunderstanding.

You don't make heroes great by making their villains pathetic, true. But you don't make them great by making them strong, either; at the end of the day this is a story that is trying to be sold to us, and all the power levels in world don't make a story. You make heroes great by making their villains great. When a villain is great, threatening, gaining victory over them is triumphant. The hero has earned that victory, and that's what we yearn to see: the struggle. That is what we want, that is what we cheer for. Izuku has more genuinely struggled more training for UA than he has fighting against the power of AFO; beating up SFO doesn't make him great, just over powered. Hori makes great fight scenes, but it's more than just fight scenes, is the thing. It's a thousand smaller pieces before, during, and after the conflict, supporting reality of both sides, what they've done and what they're doing, and all of them adding up to make an atmosphere that draws us in, that makes the story seem real. And that's just not there anymore.

[strixcattus]

if you wouldn’t mind, could you share the class system and magic workings of your stp dnd au?

There's a worldbuilding side to this and a game mechanics side to this. I'll start with the game mechanics, since that part's quicker.

I've made the general decision that the game the characters are playing is something that on the surface looks pretty much like D&D (same d20+ability score+skill system, for one, and pretty much all the terminology is the same), but if you poke into the mechanics of character creation it's not like D&D at all. Which is to say that classes in-game aren't quite the same as classes in D&D.

It's like college, you know? Eventually you have to declare your major (class), and you'll have to take a certain number of courses (skills) in the major (class), but that doesn't stop you from exploring courses outside of it (taking other classes' skills) as long as you can still meet the requirements for what you're trying to do.

(I imagine there are a few skills that are locked to specific classes, and others to specific patronages—a divine cleric and warlock both get to dip into a list associated with celestial magic, while their demonic counterparts have access to an assortment of more infernal abilities.)

This is how the party can have three bards who each have an entirely different relationship with magic. Contrarian is (ironically) the only one playing a normal bard, while Smitten has been almost exclusively taking non-magical bard skills, and Opportunist poured half his points into taking progressively higher ranks in a single non-bard skill.

(Most of the party is playing a single-class character. Skeptic and Broken are the primary exceptions, with neither of them having a class yet—Skeptic has a single, very expensive sorcerer skill and everything else isn't attached to a class [think extra proficiencies], while Broken has been using a level 0 character sheet the entire time, with his real sheet being held by the Narrator until the party reaches the point where all his level-locked skills become available.)

On to the worldbuilding/magic system side of things. I'll break this down by spellcasting class.

ARTIFICER: The line between artifice and wizardry is extremely blurred, and generally it's just a matter of identification, with casters on both sides being extremely uppity about their personal definitions. Generally speaking, artificers create magical effects primarily through mundane tinkering imbued with magic. They can't really take spell slots through their class, but they can create reusable magic items.

BARD: In this world, music is inherently magical, but there are some who put genuine effort into increasing the magical output of their music. Their magical repertoire is mainly limited to healing and support spells—even focused magical training can't summon fireballs by the power of music alone. There are a few bards who can manipulate other's actions or even take over their minds entirely, though...

CLERIC: Clerics can gain their magic either through actively being granted a higher status from the god they worship, or passively absorbing some of the powers of the Sleeping Gods through faith and luck. Either way, it's a pretty lax contract—their power is drawn from their god, so they'll lose them if they taper off in worship or start going against their god's morals, but all a deity ever really asks from a cleric is their faith.

DRUID: Druids draw their power from the interconnected network of living things called the Networked Wild, tapping into it momentarily to summon storms or communicate with plants. Their powers are, of course, stronger when there are a lot of living things nearby, but it's hard to cut them off from the Wild entirely. Druidic magic usually uses a one-way connection with the Wild—giving it a command to produce a spell—but some more powerful druids take the risk of opening their mind to the Wild entirely, gaining immense awareness with the danger of losing their individuality.

(Paladins and rangers exist in this system, but they don't have their own systems of magic. Paladins are essentially martial classes who tap into clerical magic, while rangers are martial classes who tap into druidic magic. They do have some class-specific skills, but most of what they can do comes from a combination of other classes.)

SORCERER: Sorcerers' magic is innate—less powerful, but more readily available and often more customizable. Some sorcerers can trace their magic back through their bloodline to a demonic, divine, or otherwise magical ancestor, but just as many gain their powers seemingly at random. Generally speaking, sorcerers have their potential from birth—it's not unheard of for someone to be struck by lightning and walk away with powers, but anything granted by an outside force with any measure of awareness will probably come with a clerical or warlock pact.

WARLOCK: Warlocks are similar to clerics, and can actually have any patron a cleric might (though they can also have patrons a cleric could never dream of). The difference lies in the terms of their agreement. While all a cleric's benefactor wishes for is some form of worship, a warlock is expected to provide some sort of service to their patron. For most, it does pay off in the benefits—innate abilities that don't drain from a finite pool of spellcasting energy.

WITCH: Witches deal in curses—similar to spells, but more permanent, sometimes more powerful, and more difficult to resist. The catch is that every curse has a condition that breaks it, usually tailored to the target—and the more powerful the curse, the easier it has to be to break. The condition generally falls into one of three categories: personal growth, giving up something of value, and a fetch quest. Witches can also control nature spirits, with each having their own specialty—local lakes or animal species, or even (if they're ambitious) a section of the Networked Wild.

WIZARD: The academics of the magical world, wizards gain their powers through study. They have the potential to be a jack-of-all trades (more so than any other single casting class) or to narrow in on a single field of magic and attain incredible magical abilities. There's some overlap with artificers, but generally wizards are considered to rely more on magical power than mechanical contraptions, and they have more ready access to spells.

(Making magical items, especially potions, is within the domain of both wizards and artificers, but the skills involved all technically belong to the Artificer class. Likewise, if an artificer wants to fill out their spellbook, they'll have to buy spells from another class's list—usually Wizard's.)

[izartn]

The thing with DouWata in Holic is that it would be bittersweet either way because of two reasons, even discounting Watnuki choosing to stay forever on the shop bc he's waiting for Yuuko in a kind of sunk cost fallacy way by the end of it.

1. Watanuki origins as O!Syaoran of Tsubasa substitute/not-exactly-a-clone in their world, which also means sharing the price for getting C!SyoSaku feathers out of that void he ends up with O!Syaoran at the end of Tsubasa, and paying for his anomaly continued existence. Syaoran has to keep jumping between worlds for an indefinite mount of time, and Watanuki also has to stay in one place for the same time.

Now, by Rei(I think it was Rei? Could been Rou who knows) we discover that the price was too heavy bc Watanuki was baby wish shopkeeper (and also a masochist who believes he doesn't deserve to have happiness or have a right to exist deep down), and that at some point he grows powerful enough that his existence is no longer so precarious he needs the shop interdimensional stability.

This means at the end of Holic he would have had to enter the shop as essentially a prisoner anyway; Yuuko did the most to bring his power up and to give him connections with the living world so he would keep going on, but she did set Watanuki as her successor bc it was necessary for his continued existence.

And this brings us to...

2. Watanuki grew powerful enough to physically the shop without repercussion (his dream-wandering doesn't count bc his body is anclated on reality I guess) about 100 years after entering it. By then our Doumeki has been dead for at least a decade or two minimum, if we think he lived a long life.

By being the wish-shopkeeper he has enough power he can slow down his aging to the point he's frozen in time a la Eriol of Cardcaptor. And that's when he just took the role at the end of Holic.

And given Eriol is half of Clow's soul and powers and still ridiculously powerful and Yuuko was said to be almost as good, good enough to keep up with whole Clow Reed and Watanuki is her heir and of the line of Clow himself, and his parents did something to make him look more like Clow and not like SyoSaku which may had implied effects on his metaphysical existence bc Tsubasa and Holic go on ridiculous paradox territory...

Watanuki is the kind of powerful magician who, in just being heir to Yuuko's shop, without needing to tie himself to it to the point he cannot go out like in canon, (which meant he needed to develop his power a huge amount just to be able to exist as a paradox bc Fei Wang Reed) would have outlived Doumeki by a large large large amount of years anyways. Think of Fai "has lived already many times your lifespan" Flourite re: Kurogane.

The point of Fai keeping the vampire blood and prey bond with Kurogane, even after he gets his eye back from C!Syaoran and his magic suppresses his bloodlust (bc vampirism isn't the only thing keeping his old ass going anymore lol) is that Kurogane now gets to live the long long lifespan of Fai's life with him, bc otherwise he would have died in a fraction of the amount of time of Fai's existence.

Doumeki and Watanuki don't have that kind of plot handed pass to long-lived married bliss. Which sound pretty 'wtf' bc KuroFai lives were terrible (specially Fai's) in a way DouWata backstories don't go near bc they're more grounded on modern Japan, ghost, witches and wish-shops included. But they get to be together for the next centuries or so they have left.

At best, DouWata could have kind of the Wish deal of Kohaku finding again Kudou after he keeps reincarnation, which the end of Rou plays with anyways, only we know Haruka and Shizuka weren't the same soul, and so Sayaka is just the next link of weird generation xeroxes of the Doumeki family...

Disgressing.

Going back to the start of this post. Holic would have had a bittersweet kinda ending regardless of if Watanuki keep on wishing to see Yuuko again and so keeping himself trapped on the shop (and that's just tragic not bittersweet bc even Watanuki must know by then, 100 years after everything, that's kinda impossible) bc:

1. Tsubasa's plot being intertwined with Holic demanded Watanuki to pay a price for a wish, and that made him sacrifice his ability to move out the shop and into the world.

2. He was powerful from the start but the way he needed to learnt how to use his powers so spirit's wouldn't follow him and reality itself wouldn't erase him, which meant, learning how to be Yuuko's successor made him measure his lifespan on centuries anyways.

I think he maybe could have capitalized on his fated (hitsuzen) connection with Doumeki, and the way they exchanged eyes and blood, etc, so if Doumeki made a wish to link his lifespan to Watanuki in a less tragic version of Holic where Wata learnt some healthy selfishness and wasn't keen on waiting forever for Yuuko trapped on the shop (that is, where he wasn't exactly Watanuki lol) it could been possible for these two to have a happy-ish ending.

The price would have been something awful or heavy, maybe both of them are trapped on the shop until Doumeki mortal family is dead bc he's severing his mortal links to follow weird powerful Watanuki to the sobrenatural so he's giving up any chance on a mortal life?? and he also takes on a bit of wata's existence price by result of the link?? So they may get out earlier than 100 years but not by much I think...

Watanuki in canon would never see the above as possible, bc he doesn't see it as worthy, himself as worthy, and also its pretty fucked up anyways bc Doumeki would be giving up almost everything. But Holic has always been about obsession, and the way Doumeki dedicates his life and family line to Watanuki amounts to the same in the end I think. I have a feeling Doumeki would make that bargain gladly if he could stay with Watanuki for the rest of their (now long long) lives.

It would also tie back to the "sharing burdens" (and thus wishes' prices) theme DouWata have going on until Watanuki pulls his, "I'm now alone and the shopkeeper and I must pay alone, and goodbye to any hope of a normal life, bc the only motherly-ish protector-type person I've loved who loved me back has left me all alone, and my existence was a failure of the universe bc space-time shaneaningans."

But yeah DouWata had no chance from the start on an uncomplicated happy ending, and it irks me when people point to Watanuki as the only architect of his misfortune. Like. NO. They would been fucked some way or another in the end. The two asholes don't make it better on themselves, and bear some responsibility for how they end up tragically star-crossed without making a fucking move, but they were doomed from the start.

You could say it was..

Hitsuzen.

[redladydeath]

Five bucks says that Lucifer is going to be written out of large chunks of season two because the power imbalance that'd be created by pitting the Vees (three former humans, only one of which has displayed any particularly impressive powers) against a team that includes the literal Devil From The Bible would just be too big to overcome.

[critical-thinking-is-mandatory]

I gotta be honest. Compared to the many many other teen superheroes we're familiar with...the Miracuclass doesn't really...add up.

Like can you even imagine comparing Ladybug and Chat to the likes of like, Spiderman, or the X men kids, or any of the Robins, or like the Young Justice kids or the Teen Titans??? Any of the many many super hero kids?

Like I'm sorry but if I had to put bets on who would win, it would not be Ladybug and the Miracuclass.

[mo-ok]

You look too much like me

To fight so much like him

Bonus friend typo that turned me into a lil chalk outline on the floor:

[hopeworth]

honestly if itachi refused to massacre the uchiha clan i think danzo would’ve just used shisui’s mangekyou on him anyways