sakura_no_miko

Rating: PG-13 (maybe mild R for violence?)

Pairing: none; gen fic (background Midoriya’s parents, I guess?)

Warnings: canon-typical violence, off-screen torture and aftermath, injuries, kidnapping, psychological horror, discussion of child endangerment, mentioned child death, human experimentation,

Other notes: mystery, family, imprisonment, gen fic, character study, world-building, social critique

Length: Long; 70k + ongoing sequels

Summary: The man was over a century old. There had to be more to it. In hindsight, it hadn’t been one of Izuku’s better ideas.

My thoughts:

I spend a lot of time thinking about how I rec fics. Mostly when I'm procrastinating from writing fic recs.

And one of the more meta things I always go back to is, okay, I've got this long fic, and I loved it. Do I need to read it again before I write the rec, or can I just go off my memories? Because I've had experiences with fics like Sansûkh,which is at 500k words and still climbing; the Not Part of the Plan series or the Infinite Coffee and Protection Detail series, both of which I read over the course of three years as they were posted. Like, they are good fics, but looking back it's sudden really daunting to try and re-read them.

So this fic — I admit it, I passed it over the first time I saw it. I'm primarily a summaries reader. I don't usually pay attention to tags or titles. That's just my quirk. And for some reason I saw“cryptid” and thought, eh, something with supernatural creatures? Eh.

Ah, who knows how any great fics I've passed over because, in a single moment, I thought, “eh.” Kind of a sobering thought. I do try and re-visit fandoms every so often. Sometimes I go back and think, wow, how did I skip this fic the first time?

But, anyway. I went back and I read this fic and I am so glad I did. I made the mistake of starting it at some point before I went to work, and then subsequently, ah, pulling my phone out once or twice or possibly half a dozen times at work because the story was stressing me out so badly — in a good way. This is heavy on the psychological horror. It's a bit of a Silence of the Lambs AU, and every chapter I was imagining up with some new horrible thing I thought was going to happen. The tension is insane in this fic. Our intrepid hero is interviewing a very dangerous criminal mastermind, and I'm trying to figure out the villain's angle. I was bouncing from, is this villain going to manipulate him? Blackmail him? Hurt him? Kidnap him? Body-snatch him? (I was really attached to the last one for a few chapters). And then it became obvious what was going on, and suddenly you switch to, oh, god, when is the hero gonna put it together? How's he going to react?

The most shocking thing of this was that I didn't immediately dive into the sequel. I was emotionally worn out. Apparently a third part is in the works. I can only say, yes, please! Continue doing the good work and giving me heart palpitations as I read.

Structurally, this fic is amazing. So, crazy high tension and growing horror and a slowly unfolding mystery on your first read. Subsequent reads, though. I started my first re-read as I was writing this rec, because now I'm certainly going to read the sequel, and then suffer as I wait for part 3. But more importantly — now I know what the answer to the mystery is, so I can go back and see how the author set everything up. Even on the first read-through, the set-up is there enough for the reader to start to suspect the answer before the main character does, and it just ups the tension and horror so much, because you get that nasty realization in the pit of stomach that,oh, that is what's going on, and oh, when Midoriya figures it out it will hit him hard.

Actually— you know what, if you haven't read this fic yet, stop here. Here is the end of the spoiler-free section. Because I kind of need to gush about the ending, but it's definitely a fic I would read blind. Enjoy the journey.

Oh, wait, one last thing: I have some other fic recs, if you enjoy this one; however, some of them relate to spoilers, so those will be down with the spoiler review. There was one fic that jumped to my head, though — another mystery fic that has a nice sense of tension and growing horror. It's for the Phoenix Wright/Gyakuten Saiban games: One of Every Color. A bit less on the violent horror, but definitely high on the emotional pain.

Ideally I'd also rec something from the Hannibal fandom, but I need to do some re-reading there. Definitely if you enjoy this fic, the original Silence of the Lambs film or the Hannibal tv show would be right up your alley.

Spoiler-filled review starts here:

So back to the ending. I did really think All For One was gonna breakout a body-snatching/switching quirk, because the author kept emphasizing his injuries and his interest in Midoirya's health, but, nope. I forget exactly where I started to twig on to the fact that All For One was Midoriya's canonically missing father. I'm, uh,actually not caught up on this show, despite reading fic that is full of spoilers. I knew Midoriya's father was gone, because I'd read a few other fics theorizing as to where/who he was. Maybe I missed some big obvious flag other people might have caught.

Like this part in chapter 2:

“A logical conclusion. Admittedly, it stung more than some of my other losses.” A twitch that could have been an inclination of a scarred head and the beginnings of a frown. “I was rather more fond of some of my elemental Quirks. One in particular had substantial value to me.”

Which is, in hindsight, a fire quirk. A fire-breathing quirk, that he was so fond of.

I think by the time he started arguing the finer points of “negligence” and “right of care” I was getting there.

Midoriya is a bit more cynical in this fic than most depictions — in fact the entire world is more cynical. Granted, whenever you read manga, you kind of take for granted that, yes, these are all teenagers. I'm old enough now that I look at a high schooler and go, “oh, child.” There was — actually, sorry, quick break for another fic rec, but there's a scene in Play It Again where one of the teenage protagonists is surprised that he can turn to an adult for help. (Excellent fic, highly recommended)

So,to an extent, you can see where All For One is coming from — but at the same time, child murder. This author really understands how to write a charismatic villain. I suppose that's as good a summation as any for a sympathetic villain — “I get where you're coming from and I even agree with some of your ideas — but, child murder.” You can't brush aside child murder, no matter how charismatic someone is.

Um,the humor in this story is also spot-on — this cold, deadpan sarcasm and just flat, dry tone. I try to use this kind of humor in real life and too often it flies over people's heads. Like chapter 3:

The revelation never went further than those present and Detective Tsukauchi. Izuku for reasons of his extra-curricular research, All Might for a similar reason, Todoroki for privacy and Kacchan for plans involving pre-meditated murder. Another secret in the dorm as the police investigated.

It's such a nice list — gets a good rhythm from repeating 4 times, each one successively more serious, yet outrageous. And it's a quick, but defining moment for Bakugou — his tendency towards rage, in this case deserved, because they just found out about the aforementioned child murder, but also the sudden shift from, this is kind of comically over-stated, because Bakugou is just raging; but also he kinda might actually commit murder with this kind of motivation; and maybe he'd be justified? Because innocent child murdered; but wait,right, real world rules apply and you can't just murder someone, no matter how heinous the crime; so yeah, let's make sure Bakugou cools off on the pre-meditated murder thing.” You get all of that from, like, six words in a phrase, and it's not even the entire sentence.

(You can tell I'm an English major, yeah? Born and bred, scouted by English teachers as far back as middle school. But also I don't know how to make any of this into a coherent fic rec for the actual authors.)

Oh, dear me, I am really getting into it in this rec. Much too long. And yet, I'm still telling myself to stop pulling out quotes from every single chapter just to gush over them.

Okay, humor is spot-on, tension is spot-on, excellent foreshadowing, what else? The violence is horrific — in a good way? I mean, like I said, the tension is excellent, and I probably got stress and heart palpitations from worrying about the characters. There is just nasty, visceral descriptions of injuries. All For One, like All Might, is disabled, dying. Midoriya — Midoriya gets horrifically tortured, and, again, you get to that point where you sympathize with All For One, and you're again trying to balance him out morally —he'll absolutely destroy the men who tortured his son, but he kidnaps and experiments on other people. That lack of empathy makes him more horrifying — that he will justify his actions and use a completely different sort of morals towards other people. All For One can be seemingly incredibly kind to the people he favors — to Midoriya at times; to Eri when she's useful to him. But you know that ability to torture and murder people could come out at any moment, whenever he decides he no longer favors them. But, back to the main point, the injuries are described in really gross, gut-churning ways, especially with regards to their long-term effects.

Actually, I don't think I want to quote any of those passages.

Oh, dear. I'm one page 3 of this document. Read this fic. That's all I needed to say. Also I need to stop typing and start reading the sequel.

Wait. Other fic recs, right. There were two other fics dealing with Midoriya's missing father I enjoyed:

Thicker Than Blood is another fic where Midoriya is dealing with the revelation that his father is a villain; Pater proelium takes the opposite track and gives Hisashi more noble reason for being away from his family. I enjoyed both fics.

Oh. Wait. Wait, one more point: while this fic does mostly center on the father-and-child relationship, or perhaps the absent-father-and-child relationship, I’d like to point out that Midoriya’s mother doesn’t get the short shrift at all. She gets an entire subplot devoted to just how she caught the eye of a two hundred year old super villain — by being a corporate shark. We get a couple of scenes to how Midoriya’s parents met, and it’s amazing how much development you get in such a small space. Inko Midoriya is a badass business shark. I mean, I’ve seen badass Inko before, but —usually more as a dragon mama (heh, that phrase, given her husband….) or as a crack-y thing, or both.

…I am done now. For reals.

Actually. PS: I just finished reading the sequel. Go read it, obviously, but my quick thoughts: viva la revolution, I still really like Bakugou being the uber-asshole and that literally being his source of motivation, and why did we not get to see Inko and All For One on screen together? Why. I need this in my life.

(Looking for more fic recs?)
Originally cross-posted to tumblr and pillowfort on 10/09/18