History Fanfic / WhenReasonFails

* DidYouJustRomanceCthulhu: Played with since it was one eldritch being doing it to another. [[spoiler:Malice genuinely managed to outplay Mankind by hiding Asa's existence when Mankind and Desire negotiated the rules that led to the birth of Godlings, allowing Asa to potentially become the Godling of Malice in spite of being the Godling of a dead Power.]]

* AFormYouAreComfortableWith: [[spoiler:The Outsider of Existence, also known as Aiko, takes the form of a human child specifically to prevent Izuku and his friends from going mad from her true form]].
* ARareSentence: When Katsuki clarifies with Izuku that the latter wants the former to bring the "mobile pile of nightmare fuel and childhood trauma all the way to the UA, just so you can feed the Frog Face with them and get free frog gacha rolls?", Izuku can only be stunned at the absurdity of the sentence before confirming he wants Katsuki to do just that.

* AdaptationalJobChange: Masaru quits the fashion industry in favor of starting a gardening business.
* AdaptationalSuperpowerChange: There are no Quirks. The characters have magic instead.

* InternalReveal: In Chapter 115, Saiko and Momo find out about the divine parentage of Izuku and his siblings.

* FateWorseThanDeath: Asa's foster mother is kept alive while he slowly removes body parts piece by piece. After over a year, her suffering is still on going.

* ChekhovsGun:
** The identity of Izuku and Aiko's father that Nedzu told Aiko to keep secret in Book 1 is revealed in Book 2. [[spoiler:He's the actual Ancient of Malice.]]
* ChekhovsGunman:
** Early in Book 2, there are several references to a group called Inalco, which is stated to be a group established by the Nazis that had escaped to {{Argentina|IsNaziland}}. [[spoiler:The Mankind Liberation Front hires Inalco's mercenaries when they assault U.A.]]
* ChekhovsSkill:
** Aiko reveals in Book 1 that she has the ability to undo an Initiate's corporeal damage by taking out the spells that caused the corporeal damage from their mind, which she uses with Shoto. [[spoiler:When an Inalco Magister threatens to kill Ko, she instinctively does it on him, causing the guy to fall apart because magic is ''everything'' to a Magister's existence.]]

* DeityOfHumanOrigi: [[spoiler:The Archon of Defiance was once a human, having become a Power through the very act of triumphing over Malice. Nedzu suspects several more Powers, excluding the Ancients, were also once humans.]]

** [[spoiler:The final chapter of Book 2 reveals that the power of a Godling comes with the price of being warped to have personality and behavioural traits similar to their parent Power. Izuku the Godling of Desire has all sorts of sexual interests ranging from acceptable, more exotic, and outright wrong. Asa the Godling of Malice is an actual sadist who likes inflicting pain and seeing others in pain. The only thing stopping them both from being threats to society is due to growing up human and having enough attachments to keep them grounded.]]

* DeityOfHumanOrigin: [[spoiler:The Archon of Defiance was once a human, having become a Power through the very act of triumphing over Malice. Nedzu suspects several more Powers, excluding the Ancients, were also once humans.]]

* NoodleIncident: Izuku has a new escapade that is referenced without any details being provided, his trip to Shikoku.

* SeenItAll: The security staff at the American airport have seen all sorts of things and Izuku being married to a Stalker and a ''Ghoul'' didn't get much if any reaction.

* DidYouJustRomanceCthulhu: The Magister head of security at the American airport Izuku's family went to is shocked when they realise All Might is sleeping with a Demi Power.

* DeityOfHumanOrigin: [[spoiler:The Archon of Defiance was once a human, having become a Power through the very act of triumphing over Defiance. Nedzu suspects several more Power, excluding the Ancients, were also once humans.]]

* RealityBreakingParadox: A human beating a Power is literally impossible. If a human succeeds anyway, such as when Malice was slayed, reality has to find some way to resolve the paradox. [[spoiler:It does this by assuming the human was an entity that could have done it to begin with, like a ''Power''. The Archon of Defiance was born from the human that defeated Malice when reality resolved the paradox by making him a power.]]

[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/39704244/chapters/99399003 When Reason Fails]] by [[https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mirrond/pseuds/Mirrond Mirrond]] is an NewWeird AlternateUniverse fic of ''Manga/MyHeroAcademia''.

The world of When Reason Fails is a world without Quirks, but that does not mean there are no Powers. Magic and the supernatural abounds, and when Izuku discovers the truth of the world, he's going to need all the help he can get. Luckily for him, he meets Himiko Toga, who is both a ghoul and has experience in this world. Even more luckily for him, she decides to actually help him instead of ''eat'' him.

** Ibara Shiozaki's power is in the upper end of Dryads as a whole, and even Shoto says that you'd be hard pressed to find someone better at forest management from Dryads thrice her age.

** After the group defeats Geten with Izuku's plan, Katsuki notes how Izuku is prone for this.
-->''Bakugou has long ago realized that Deku is fully capable of performing the impossible for as long as no one told him that it was impossible. The nerd just proved it to some additional people.''

** Spider from the Forest of Red is a Greater Aberrant that is described as trying to look like a spider but getting it wrong. It is however spider enough that things a spider is vulnerable too can be used to greater effect against it than normal bullets.

** Magisters are the pinnacle of what mages can be, being able to more freely use magic due to being resistant to most of the potential downsides overusing magic.

** Demi-humans in general suffer less drawbacks from using compatible magic, but they suffer different downsides in general. They may be targeted because people fear their powers, or to use their body parts as materials. They also have different biological needs which makes it hard to live in human society, and their overall different biological mechanisms can be taken advantage of to defeat them.

* BluffTheImpostor: Played with. Izuku on separate occasions try to check if someone he never met before is dangerous to him by asking them misleading questions:

** Early in the story, there's a mention of Izuku and Katsuki transferring to U.A. after a car accident killed several students, hurt Katsuki and left Izuku hospitalised for two months. [[spoiler:This is the incident where Ochako died to something supernatural, came back as a Stalker, and due to the Censor, Izuku and Katsuki not only could not see her, but forgot about her, causing her to rampage (and injuring Izuku so hard he was put in a hospital for two months) until an Initiate stopped her and explained the situation.]]

** Himiko killed Chikuchi Togeike, Tsutsutaka Agoyamoto, Mashirao Ojiro and Bibimi Kenranzaki in retaliation for an attack the group initiated.

** Shoto expected Himiko to kill Izuku after she takes him to her lair. Izuku not dying is something no one expected and draws attention to him from UA's Black Course.

** Nightmares are individuals at UA who are responsible for numerous deaths of Black Course Candidates and even full Black Course Students. Himiko is the Nightmare of Blood and Izuku's association with her protects him from most other students, and she's on the ''lower-end'' of the power spectrum for Nightmares. [[spoiler:Shoto implies Uraraka could join their ranks as the "Nightmare of Love".]] At the top of them all is Soma Michiko, the Nightmare of Frost, a powerful Cold-One even by the general metric of the World of Initiates and antagonizing her is considered a creative form of suicide even for the Warlords.
** Magisters are this as well, because they are not so much people as forces of nature. Decay (formerly known as Tomura) is one of them, and is a difficult fight for Izuku's Cabal that they barely survived even with Decay choosing to handicap himself a lot for their fight.

* EvilLaugh: Todoroki has a mechanical laugh that everyone finds super-creepy.

** Shoto offers Izuku tips on how to deal with Himiko. Izuku accepts hoping to learn something to defend himself. Shoto suggests him to use protection.

* FamedInStory: Among U.A., Izuku is well-known due to something about him causing Himiko, a known killer, to not kill ''him'' like her other victims. Later feats, such as being the first person who Tsuyu spoke to, only boost it. [[spoiler:Turns out that even Decay's sensei knows of him and his strange nature (granted, it's because Izuku's his son).]] [[spoiler:Izuku becoming one of UA's Warlords by discovering and claiming the Special Exclusion Zone three weeks into his Candidacy, a frankly ludicrous feat when even if one is successful, it should have taken a lot more time than that, cements it.]]

** Setsuna has gotten some grief over her refusal to learn any magic and is surprised that Izuku is understanding over her refusal to risk any side-effects of learning magic.

** Ochako tells Izuku they went to the same school, but neither Izuku nor Katsuki remember her. [[spoiler:This foreshadows the fact that Ochako was Izuku's and Katsuki's childhood friend before a monster killed her at age fifteen and she transformed into a Stalker, which caused the Censor to erase her from the latter two's memories.]]

** Several small and big things added up to foreshadow [[spoiler:Hatsume Mei being a spy. Her being incredibly spiteful towards the other artificer students, something Izuku explicitly noted to himself, is indicative of a less than pure morality. The pick-up mission she sent his Cabal on resulted in them encountering an unknown Magister. She was one of the few people outside Izuku's Cabal to know about the Gunga Mountain trip, and Shoto saw ''that same Magister'' there. She also prioritised keeping in contact with Izuku over profit margins, indicating she knew her merchandise and contribution points would soon be useless to her]].
* FreakOut: Toshinori has an epic-level freak out when [[spoiler:on the way back from the Summit, Shoto reveals that Aiko is Izuku's sister and their mother is the Ancient of Desire]]. Toshinori gets out of the Katsumobile, drops to the snow and rolls around while yelling incoherently for a minute.

* GoodBehaviorPoints: A Black Course student, either full student or candidate, can earn Contribution Points by various deeds. Roughly, any deed that positively reflects on a student's ability to survive the magical world, or doing something to the benefit of UA, earns contribution points. Aizawa gives Izuku the examples of killing something supernatural, learning a new spell, and surviving a danger-zone, but that is far from an exhaustive list. Izuku earned contribution points by successfully convincing Yagi in his personal capacity to investigate a mystery of personal interest to him, his Cabal earned contribution points by ''surviving'' an unexpected danger U.A. was not aware of that is far above their weight class, and bringing a potential attempted hacking to the attention of U.A. also earned them contribution points. After their [[spoiler:Elsewhere]] trip, the Cabal earns so many points that the teachers [[ObviousRulePatch have to lock most of it]] for [[spoiler:"Special Exclusion Zone development"]] to keep them from ''crashing U.A.'s internal economy''.

** After the encounter with the [[spoiler:Dragon of the Desert of Bones]], Himiko is completely shocked and left with terror for several hours. [[spoiler:She's so shaken that it temporarily brings back her pre-ghoul self, who is horrified of all the stuff she's done since her transformation.]]

* ImprovisedWeapon: Shoto uses a Coca Cola can combined with his ice magic as an improvised grenade.
* InSpiteOfANail: Shoto still has a strained relationship with his father despite the fact there is no competition for the Number One hero spot in canon that was the root cause of all their problems in canon.

** Himiko is very flirtatious with Izuku, and this applies even when they're texting to each other.

* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Katsuki is abrasive, kind of a jerk and prone to come up with insulting nicknames for everyone around himself. He's also very loyal to his best friend, Izuku, to the point that one of the main reasons he becomes a Candidate is helping to protect his friend.

-->'''Katsuki's Thoughts:''' He still remembers the delighted grin on his face when Deku announced to the group that the mimic they just destroyed was actually the mission end treasure chest that the BBEG, in the last gesture of defiance, enchanted to appear like a mimic.
* LanguageOfMagic: There are many different supernatural languages, and one of the most particular is Unspeech. To write it, you have to deface other scripts. To read it, your eyes have to be closed. To speak it, you have to use silence. And the supernatural effects it has kicks in not when it is read or heard, but when it is forgotten.

* LeonineContract: Before the story started, Shinsou needed to join another, strong Cabal because Himiko was killing off the members of his current one due to them provoking her. Intelli's Cabal was willing to accept him, but took advantage of his desperation to make the terms rather unfavourable for him.

** Defied. After Ibara announces her long-term goal of being impregnated by him, Izuku makes sure to tell his Cabal to not kill Ibara in any way, directly or indirectly, or he will be mad, and makes it apply as broadly as possibly to cover potential loopholes. When Himiko remains silent, he realizes his oversight and also adds injuring Ibara in a way that prevents her from either having sex or getting pregnant to the list. When Himiko expresses frustration, he knows his order is ironclad.

** Ibara's manipulations of her Cabal involves getting them to do what they want to do anyway, just with slight adjustments to their exact methods so that she gets protected, and that they don't realize she's a Dryad.
* MugglesDoItBetter: Played with. Magic ''is'' useful in combat, but because of the risks involved, Initiates are advised to use conventional weapons when dealing with supernatural threats and save magic as a nuclear-option.

* MutuallyAssuredDestruction: Cabal politics operate by the idea that to attack a member of a Cabal will get the other members to retaliate against the perpetrator, which is why students try to join or form one in the first place. Lone agents are, in theory, free game.

** The magic spells available to an individual tend to be based on the Quirks they had in canon. Shoto has Ice and Fire magic, with a preference for Ice, where in canon, he had Half-Hot and Half-Cold. Ochako has gravity magic, and her first spell shares the name of her Quirk in canon. Hagakure has invisibility magic like how in canon, her Quirk makes her invisible.

** Mind-controllers tend to be resistant to mind-control due to evolutionary pressures. Yagi is, thus, surprised when Izuku mentions that his Charm affected Ibara, who, as a Dryad, can control minds through spores and should have been resistant.

* {{Polyamory}}: Himiko decides to solve the love triangle of her, Ochako and Izuku by suggesting to Ochako that they share Izuku.

--> '''Izuku's Thoughts''': Fucking realism. Couldn't Powers make some arbitrary, Harry Potter worldbuilding-level consistent rule that initiates couldn’t use advanced technology? His sense of magical decorum keeps flying out of the window.

* PropertyOfLove: Ochako is perfectly happy being Izuku's love-slave, down to wearing a collar declaring her his property. [[spoiler:By her own words, this is better than the alternatives, as no one outside the cabal who knows she is an undead Stalker will treat her as a human being, and Izuku promises to treat her well to the best of his abilities.]]

** After [[spoiler:destroying U.A's communications, stealing the school's private data and shooting Mr. Maijima]], Mei has the gall to claim she has earned Contribution Points for following the school's teachings about [[spoiler:"looking out for number one" by making a deal with the MLF]].

* SchoolIsMurder: UA's education strategy for their student Initiates is to simulate the world of Initiates in miniature on campus. This involves not ''simulating'' danger, but having ''real'' danger. A very significant portion of students die as a result. Part of the reason for this is due to the Principal liking watching people struggle.

* ShamelessFanserviceGirl: Ibara goes around naked completely uncaring of this fact. [[spoiler:Komori joins her after becoming a dryad.]] Dryads in general shun clothes because their bodies can photosynthesis and they want to maximise the sustenance they can get from it.

** And it continues during [[spoiler:the Mankind Liberation Front attack. When Izuku and his friends take refuge in the Labyrinth, Decay revives just in front of them after being killed by All Might, forcing Izuku to once more block his Desire influence to defeat him - only, this time doing so causes him to catch the attention of the Ancient of Desire. And then he avoids being turned into a demi-human due to his primary influence, which stops the transformation - and then disappears in exchange of Desire only turning Izuku into what the Principal coins a "Godling", the first of his kind]].

** Ashido Mina's magic is that of the Primordial of Water, which is why Shouto is confused she throws ''acid'' around. He has various theories on how this is possible ranging from her receiving a blessing from a Demi-Power or Gift from the Primordial in question, to suffering from some combination of corporeal and sanity damage that altered her perception of her own magic.

** The UA Expedition to the Desert of Bones Elsewhere reveals that the significance of what Izuku's Cabal accidentally achieved in their Elsewhere trip is so much deeper than initially thought in Book One. [[spoiler:The Ziggurat they entered was once dedicated to the ''Ancient of Malice'' and horrific things happened in there before his death. The room with the altar they found Aiko in? It contained ''the declaration of war of the First Dawn War''.]]

** Katsuki is ''very'' upset that all the political manoeuvring for the wealth of the Special Exclusion Zone became retroactively pointless when Nedzu extends the reality warping features to the other exclusion zones during the time-skip.
** [[spoiler:The Mankind Liberation Front did a lot of horrible things out of a belief it will all be worth it when they free humanity from the Powers. Book 2's various reveals however shows that what they are doing is in fact not just pointless but ''counter-productive''. They cannot make every human an Awakened Human, and in fact, they are being manipulated by the Incarnation of Malice to help him revive the Ancient of Malice.]]

* BecameTheirOwnAntithesis: The Celestial demihumans as a species have this as a problem. At their base, they are intelligent, focused, confident, charismatic and with a tendency to be kind and empathetic. However, after suffering any trauma, no matter how small, their virtues flip into Flaws. Kindness flips into cruelty, patience into rage, and so on. A Flawed Celestial can be more dangerous than a ''Ghoul'' under these circumstances.

** The identity of Izuku's and Aiko's father that Nedzu told Aiko to keep secret in Book 1 is revealed in Book 2. [[spoiler:He's the actual Ancient of Malice.]]

* DarkerAndEdgier: Where Book 1 has a lot of light-hearted stuff and things working out for the best with no on-screen deaths of named characters, Book 2 reminds the audience that the setting is still lovecraftian and people ''can still die'' even in the best-case scenario, such as [[spoiler:Asa's Cabal losing Juggernaut during the Jakku Hospital Incident]]. [[spoiler:The final chapter of Book 2 reveals that there is an InUniverse metaphysical reason for this. The climax of Book 1 was Izuku becoming the Godling of Desire and the foreshocks of that resulted in the indulgence and fulfilment of desires, including the desire for things to work out for the best. The climax of Book 2 includes Asa becoming the Godling of Malice and the foreshocks of that caused spikes in hatred, anger, and general malice.]]

** Asa's Cabal ran into a ''Terminal Warlock'' in their first dungeon run, something not even Aiko, Izuku or All Might saw coming as they all thought the stories of Tokoyami was just rumours.
** The student operation to subjugate the Blood Hornets was well planned. When submitted to the teachers, they only had to make minor corrections. The operation goes sideways when Spider from the Forest of Red shows up and attacks their supply lines.

* DramaPreservingHandicap: Invoked. Nedzu tells Aiko that she can do things around UA, but not to the point where people realise she's a Demi Power. She has to maintain the cover story that she's only a talented mage of the Lore of Mercy, severely limiting her options for obvious action. Subtle uses of her abilities as a Demi Power than people don't notice is fine though.

* FantasticLegalWeirdness: Supernatural bodies are completely at liberty at using chemical weapons against supernatural threats. After all, the supernatural threats are not signatories to any treaties declaring their use a war crime.

** Post time-skip, UA implements reforms, which includes the Green Course, where attempts are made to integrate demihumans of more adjusted species into human society and address the mutual prejudice to defy this trope. Demihumans that actively prey on humans, like ghouls not named Himiko, are still kill-on-sight though.

** Several things big and small foreshadowed the Chapter 105 reveal that [[spoiler:Rini is actually Asa's LiteralSplitPersonality. When Aiko first met saw them together, she immediately realised something special about them. When Asa describes how they first met, he mentions something deep inside him broke right before the Serpentine Hound could eat him and Rini appears out of nowhere to save him in the nick of time, with Asa never connecting the dots. Aiko also outright says Rini's claim of being a demihuman are completely false. There's also their overall interactions where Rini simply hates being apart from Asa, is fiercely loyal to him to lengths considered extreme, and her own moods are highly dependent on Asa's.]]

* TheGadfly: Hanako and Avalon have a lot of fun freaking out Asa's Cabal with rules based of creepypastas when they first arrive at the Green Tower.

* HelicopterParents: Discussed. UA has a solution for students with overbearing parents. Telling them to fuck off. UA manages to get away with that because they're not financed by the families of the students, but by the Principal's own assets and support from the SPSC.

* InternetSafetyAesop: The SPSC's online video on Internet Safety for children Initiates is a double-layered version. The basic lesson covers basic Internet Safety as well as the threats that Initiates specifically need to watch out for. The hidden lesson is for parents. Rai, Asa and Tagawa were creeped out by the puppets used in the video and had nightmares, but Takei who had also watched the video does not remember the puppets and the former three are dumbfounded when Ko informs them that the video never had puppets after she looks it up. Aiko who saw the entire conversation suspects that the SPSC let something scary (but not dangerous) infect their webpage and the SPSC has a link explaining the situation as a test for parents, who were supposed to check the video ''before'' their kids watch it because that's the kind of world they live in.

* NewTransferStudent: During the TimeSkip, UA receives hundreds of transfer students. Most are due to the destruction of the other Magic schools. Others are due to the establishment of the Green Course allowing demihumans to attend. Inasa transferred from Shiketsu right after its announcement for which All Might suspects is him scoping things out for a young demihuman relative of his.

** [[spoiler:The final chapter of Book 2 reveals that the power of a Godling comes with the price of being warped to have personality and behavioural traits similar to their parent Power. Izuku the Godling of Desire has all sorts of sexual interest ranging from acceptable, more exotic, and outright wrong. Asa the Godling of Malice is an actual sadist who likes inflicting pain and seeing others in pain. The only thing stopping them both from being threats to society is due to growing up human and having enough attachments to keep them grounded.]]

* ProtagonistCentredMorality: Lampshaded and played for laughs. Izuku is very upset that people are trying to frame the mother of his child and one of his girlfriends of murders, forgetting that the former, Ibara, has killed a Warlord and his cabal (in self-defence) and the latter, Himiko, is a SerialKiller who killed and ate many students. All Might and Kan just look at each other in silence after Izuku's statement.

* PutOnABus: During the time skip, Shouto, Momo and Saiko have all graduated from UA and are no longer a major part of the story.

** Aiko references ''Literature/CandleCove'' when Rai, Asa and Tagawa are shocked to learn the SPSC Internet Safety Video that they watched, that had creepy puppets, doesn't actually have puppets, at all.

* SimpleSolutionWontWork: On the face of it, letting Yoshihiro leave the mixed human-demihuman Cabal would solve their internal problems, but Aiko doesn't allow it on the grounds that getting the son of the head of the SPSC's anti-demihuman death squad on board offers so many potential benefits. So, Aiko is making him stay unless she determines the situation is unsalvageable.

** Chapter 75 is full of major reveals. [[spoiler:To start, there used to be more Ancients and there were no Archons, Primordials or Shapers. The first Dawn War started when Malice's own clergy revolted and led the rebellion against the Ancients. The climax is the reveal of the ''Principality of Mankind'', the Power that supports humanity against the Ancients and is the source of the Glyphs.]]

* MoodWhiplash: Chapter 110 is mostly lighthearted (with some angst on Ibara's part), before it ends with [[spoiler:Malice making a kidnapping attempt on All Might.]]

** When Yagi asks Izuku if he can tell something is weird in his family, Izuku mentions his father thought that ''Film/{{Morbius}}'' wasn't that bad a film. Yagi nearly chokes from laughter.

* BabiesMakeEverythingBetter: [[spoiler:Izuku's children, Yoichi (with Michiko) and Yagi (with Ibara)]] are born during the TimeSkip.