#this was before the war but after usj‚ he's not used to hero stuff yet and now there's explosions in the very place he KNOWS his friend is

[everypanelofizuku]

Chapter 50 - Kill 'Em Dead

[blacknovelist]

Yknow what? This post has been sitting in my goddamn drafts for almost a year, so I’m gonna step back into the BNHA Desolation AU stuff for a bit and do a spontaneous thought dump of timeline, plot, concept, and canon parallel stuff. Not necessarily in that order.

So the timeline of Desolation AU is a looooooot more stretched out than in Canon, bc everyone needs time to do pretty much everything (Adjust to moving to Musutafu, train for the military, practice with and learn about Quirk Replacement/Simulation tech and actual Quirks, etc.), and as a result of this, Izuku does actually go out on missions without One for All. Its necessary as part of his regime (since he’s to be All Might’s successor, presumably, and Toshinori had to do this stuff too), and it helps promote good bonding with the rest of his troops. Izuku spends a good few years out on the field without the Quirk before Toshinori officially declares him his successor.

Nana died in battle against AfO and his men (AfO himself was mostly watching, and was not part of the battle until the end of it, when he and Nana fought briefly before he mortally wounded her and ordered a retreat). Toshinori was with her along with a few others like Gran Torino, and though they successfully got her back to Musutafu, she died of her injuries some time later. By this point, Nana has already passed on leadership over to Toshinori, but that didn’t make things easier. A lot of people really loved her.

Anyway; most of the Desolation AU stuff I’ve already talked about concerns backstory and world building and is generally really dark and dry and stuff, but that’s not really how the actual plot is. Like canon BNHA, I really want it to be kind of hopeful, kind of bright, kind of optimistic of a story even though everything is shit right now (and will be for some time). I’m a sucker for that kind of stuff.

While the song (Cut Apart from the Transistor OST) is very empty and, well, desolate sounding, which is why I though of a wrecked post-war world, I like the eventual progression back into a brighter and happy world (which is why I mentioned elements of both Transistor and Bastion in Desolation AU’s original ask post, since Bastion is much happier of a game)

The plot itself is, more or less; Following decades of war, the two factions have finally reached a tentative peace. Both sides are looking for a way to restart the war and end it once and for all, but a secret third faction from a city called Musutafu is moving in to combat years of ingrained hatred against the other side and encourage peace and prevent war from erupting again. All Might is the leader of Musutafu and the face of peace between Quirked and Quirkless people, but he’s looking for a successor to inherit both his Quirk and the responsibilities of being the head like he is. So, more or less the same plot as BNHA, except instead of heroes and villains it’s military factions. Did I mention I don’t really know much about what I’m talking about like, 85% of the time?

For the Kamino Ward stuff (my honest to God favorite stuff to think about at all times), I’m thinking that what happens is Musutafu’s camps are breached for the first time by AfO, who sends Shigaraki to oversee the operation with everyone without taking part. Bakugou is dragged off, presumably so they can try and sway over to their side and, failing that, get info from him. Musutafu stage raids on the area they confirm he’s being held - the group who snuck out in Canon (Deku, Shouto, Creatie, Red Riot, Ingenium) are, in the AU, instead assigned the warehouse area to raid with several others, since at this point Izuku has inherited OfA (not that anyone knows yet) and they are all soldiers in their own right (due to timeline stretching, they should be in their early twenties or older at this point). I’m playing with the idea of this being when the world at Large learns that Toshinori no longer has the quirk that put All Might/Musutafu on the map and the Musutafu guys leak it that he gave it to his successor like all the other Musutafu leaders, to make him into the symbol of peace and sacrifice I mentioned in previous posts, but I’m not sure I wanna keep that. Either way, like in Canon, this is the end of his career.

The equivalent of the sports fest arc will probably end up being a rapid fire series of missions and raids that put them into the spotlight for a bit and garner attention from the big man Endeavor himself.

To steer my conscience back to the timeline itself though, here’s a rough draft of the timelines (canonically AfO’s reign presumably spans several generations, and the same goes for Desolation. Let me know if I messed up somewhere though, I did this half asleep):

–> The start: Quirks start cropping up. Later on, AfO makes his debut on the world scene. –> He publically goes too far, provoking tensions between Quirked and Quirkless and thereby instigating a slowly escalating war between these two factions –> What starts as one region of the world at war with itself turns into pretty much the whole world fighting against itself –> At some point, OfA slips off, rescues people, and founds Musutafu –> Timeskip at several generations: the treaty is signed –> A couple years later; Musutafu surfaces the world scene, and stays in the shadows –> Nana Shimura leaves her family behind to join Musutafu –> A couple years later, she joins the mission that rescues Toshinori’s hijacked convoy and takes them to the city –> About five to ten years later, when Toshinori is a teen, he joins the military –> Less than a year later, the news of her husband’s death reaches her. She spends months using her resources to look for her son before being forced to assume him dead –> A few years after Toshinori’s enrollment, Nana declares him her successor and gives him her Quirk to start direct training –> After two and a half years of training, Toshinori takes on his mantle of All Might and becomes leader of Musutafu. Nana conditionally retires and continues to work with their troops and go on missions. –> Over the course of the next fifteen to twenty years (give or take a good few years), All Might puts Musutafu onto the map and world scene as a radical declaring peace, and turns himself and Musutafu into symbols of peace –> Towards the 10-year mark (give or take a couple), Nana Shimura is mortally wounded in battle against AfO and dies to her injuries –> Several years later (anywhere from two to five), AfO stages a drifter attack to kill All Might, only to be mortally wounded. All Might is likewise injured but the city is saved, marking victory for Musutafu. Both are forced to temporarily fade from whatever spotlights they’d been under –> A few months after that, AfO finds Nana Shimura’s son being shipped off via convoy and spirits him away –> Toshinori spends his time looking for a successor when he’s not hiding his condition and going on missions, before the eventual mission to Izuku’s hometown –> Musutafu receive Intel about a series of drifter raids on a group of cities and set out to intercept them –> Following the First Episode-equivalent events of the drifter attack, Izuku and Bakugou’s families decide to move to Musutafu (for their own safeties) –> Izuku and Bakugou enlist in the military cadets program (not unlike cadets irl, except a little more intensive) for the UA corps (TBD if that’s the name I’m keeping) so they can join properly when they’re of age. –> Izuku is doing this on Toshinori’s recommendation, and they meet regularly to talk about pretty much anything –> *Insert several year training montage here* (the entrance exam, hero vs villain and USJ arcs all fall under here) –> They’re eventually enlisted formally (approx age is likely 18-early twenties), after this is prob the sports fest equiv. –> Toshinori gives Izuku OfA somewhere in here. –> That’s more or less all I got for now (chronologically at least)