History Literature / VillainAcademy

* NoTranshumanismAllowed: Zigzagged. Humanity as a whole hates transhumans and their history and culture reinforces this hate due to the transhumans launching a genocidal war against non-transhumans without any justification or understandable reason for it. However, after the extinction of the genetic lines of transhumanism, the definition of transhuman became "someone that attempts to transcend human limitations while completely discarding humanity". As reason, Clockmaker is considered human rather than transhuman despite being a cyborg more than a biological human, due to maintaining human looks and considering herself to be a human. The exception to the rule appear to be the transhumans that sided with the Solar Commonwealth during the war are tolerated, albeit viewed with suspicion.

* PowerAtAPrice: In theory, there is no limit to how much Revenant can keep improving as a human being through his Individuality Mastery. However, in practice, every time Revenant reaches a threshold, Mastery forcefully altering his body to allow his body to continue improving. Revenant himself isn't sure he can survive another update to his brain and is thus leery of improving himself to avoid being killed by his own power.

* MakeThemRot: Decay's Individuality is called End, which works by accelerating entropy.

* MorallyAmbiguousDoctorate: The Truthseekers Corporation are a whole organisation of mad scientists who decided mankind can reach higher technological heights by abandoning ethics, and gave themselves emotion-altering cerebral implants to rid themselves of moral concerns to really commit to their cause.

* NoTranshumanismAllowed: Zigzagged. Humanity as a whole hates transhumans and their history and culture reinforces this hate due to the transhumans launching a genocidal war against non-transhumans from out of nowhere. However, after the extinction of the genetic lines of transhumanism, the definition of transhuman became "someone that attempts to transcend human limitations while completely discarding humanity", so Clockmaker who's more cyborg than human but still has some biological parts while also importantly ''looking'' human is fine. The descendants of the transhumans that sided with the non-transhumans during the war are also allowed to keep their nations, albeit viewed with suspicion.

* PlanetOfHats: Humanity's solution towards getting rid of intra-human bigotry so they could focus on the more productive ''speciesism'' against alien races is to have the ethnopolities where each one chooses one genetic template and one political system to focus on. The Republic of New Springfield for example uses Anglo-Saxon as their genetic template and Authoritarian Democracy as their political system.
* PowerAtAPrice: In theory, there is no limit to how much Revenant can keep improving as a human being through his Individuality Mastery. However, in practice, every time Revenant reaches a threshold, Mastery forces painful changes to his body to accommodate the ability to continue getting better. Revenant himself isn't sure he can survive another update to his brain and is thus leery of improving himself to avoid being killed by his own power.
* PowerIncontinence: Clockmaker can't control when Akashic Records' active effects kicks in, nor can she stop herself from being compelled to create what her Individuality tells her to create, or see it in action once she finishes making it. The most anyone can do is manage and dampen it to prevent her from causing a disaster.
* PowerMisidentification: People think Clockmaker's Individuality is an eye-based one that just improves eyesight. It's not. Those are just implants. Her ''actual'' Individuality is Akashic Records.

** Visitor messed up reality badly to the point that it is possible to bring ''comicbook characters'' to life.
** The Individualities as a whole are a downplayed example. They operate on the "path of least resistance" principle. Where possible, they work ''within'' the laws of reality, upgrading to bending reality if needed, before resorting to breaking reality as a last resort only. [[spoiler:The same principle applies to the biological makeup of the brought to life ''Villain Academy'' characters. They were superhumans and capable of impressive physical feats even without the use of their Individualities, and the easiest way to make them fit into the real world was by using the genetics from the Pure, actual genetically-engineered superhumans capable of those impressive physical feats]].
* RetiredOutlaw: In the InUniverse ''Villain Academy'' comicbook, Decay retired from villainy, married his beloved, had two kids, and earns money from videogame streaming.
* RidiculouslyHumanRobot: The AI Humility is so human that it can banter with Revenant and Co, as well as feel surprise and other emotions.
* {{Robosexual}}: Clockmaker once created a sexbot under the compulsion of her Individuality and used it for herself. It permanently changed her tastes to being into machines.

* SimpleSolutionWontWork: When Clockmaker questions why the surviving transhumans don't try to restore the lost Pure branch of transhumans when they have the genetic records for them and the technology to manipulate genetics, Humility explains that it's not so simple. Tinkering with DNA is tricky. Minor modifications like getting rid of genetic diseases or spreading useful existing genes is easy, but what the Pure did was radical changes to their genome. Changes like those are a lot more difficult as a test population could have so many different flaws in either the design or implementation that only become apparent outside a sterile laboratory setting and it'll take time measurable in decades and a lot of resources to have any chance of being successful. The surviving transhumans don't have the required time or resources to do it and attempting it anyway opens them to being raided by other groups who'd do it purely to spite them. [[spoiler:This problem motivates the Mechanist Hierocracy to pursue the ''Villain Academy'' characters. Virtue at least has a 64% match to the Pure genome, and it is assumed by her and her comrades that the rest of them has similar or greater matches and the Mechanist Hierocracy getting their hands on them means they can spare themselves the majority of the effort needed in recreating the Pure]].
* TooDesperateToBePicky: Revenant decides to have Thorn recycle alien brains as fertiliser to grow their food supply. Onslaught grows queasy at the idea and tells Revenant to not mention that to their future recruits without telling him to try something else, understanding that they really don't have a choice there.
* {{Transhuman}}: There are transhumans in the setting, with several branches that came under the now defunct Transhuman Alliance.
* TranshumanTreachery: As far as non-transhumans could tell, the transhumans launched a genocidal war against the non-transhumans from out of nowhere. The casualties were so immense, and the war crimes committed were so bad, that it practically justifies FantasticRacism against the surviving transhumans.

* ArtificialIntelligence: Humility is an AI, and advanced enough to be sapient and independent. They are the first true AI created by mankind, and also the first to go rogue.

* BrainUploading: One branch of transhumanism, the Mechanist Hierocracy, focused on cybernetic uploads into mechanical bodies.
* BunnyEarsLawyer: Decay has issues with personal hygiene, and his cousin Revenant thinks he may be on the autism spectrum which results in him being bad at social cues, but he is a damn good tactician.
* CurbStompBattle: The combination of Decay and Onslaught working in tandem under Revenant's plan allows them to utterly destroy the forces Vermillion Gamma sends after them. At least fifty small melee drones, five small projectile drones and five large melee drones were down after a single combination attack, and Humility could not count higher because the remainder were just too destroyed to count properly. The AI then calls the Villains terrifying after seeing that.
* DeathSeeker: One Revenant's endgame goals during his in-comic villain career is to die at the end of his plan.

* EldritchLocation: When Visitor passed through a system, mashed together all the celestial bodies into one, merged all of the man-made structures on those bodies into one, added a few things, and messed with the laws of reality since gravity has yet to notice it should be a lot stronger now on the super-planet and air is consistently breathable without anything to bring in new oxygen. It also slowly regenerates damages done to the superstructure, somehow.
* EveryoneHasStandards: Upon learning that Clockmaker is a robosexual that would find the AI Humility having a death toll measurable in billions hot, Humility can only say the villains of the InUniverse ''Villain Academy'' comicbook are all fucked up in the head. The present villains don't take it personally, knowing it's the objective truth.
* EvilVersusEvil: One of the reasons why Mankind is not so bad in the modern day is due to the different evil factions hating each other. Humility gives the example of Truthseekers Corporation, Silent Sorrow, and Mechanist Hierocracy. All three factions are dangers to the greater whole of Humanity, but the former two will gladly raid the latter's facilities to spite them, occupying all three from actively acting the rest of Mankind.
* FantasticRacism: Nearly all human ethnopolities hate transhumans due to the transhumans launching a genocidal war against the rest of humanity, wiping out half of the non-transhumans in the process. The only ones they barely tolerate are the few that sided with the non-transhumans during the war as well as their descendants.

* GreenThumb: Thorn's Individuality allows her to create plants anywhere she wants, and even from virtually nothing. She can also control said plants.
* HumanityEnsues: Humility's endgoal is to turn themselves into a human being.
* ImportedAlienPhlebotinum: Exotechs are any piece of technology of non-human origin, and the latest of humanity's own advancements are based on reverse-engineering these. Clockmaker's inventions are also classified as exotechs where applicable as when Akashic Records' active effects ends, not even she knows how they work.

** The word "ableism" has disappeared from the modern vocabulary. Advances in medical science means disabilities are usually simply non-present in most contexts, so discrimination based on disabilities simply has no opportunity to come up, with the exception of someone having those disabilities and cannot be treated quickly due to circumstances like stranded on an eldritch planet.
** The definition of "transhuman" has shifted from meaning a general artificial improvement of mankind to specifically mean transcending human limits while discarding humanity in the process. The shift in meaning is due to "transhuman" coming with severe stigmas due to the transhumans launching a genocidal war against non-transhumans, but humanity would be fools to give up on improving themselves, which the term "transformationism" being used to apply to that to distinguish it from "transhuman". Revenant notes that the difference can be summarised as "better humans" versus "better ''than'' humans".
* LetsYouAndHimFight: Virtue manages to trick the forces of the Mechanist Hierocracy and Truthseekers Corporation into coming into blows in the middle of a parlay.
* LightEmUp: Virtue's Individuality lets her manipulate light.
* TheLostLenore: Onslaught is Revenant's emotional centre. Her death is the reason he lashed out against the world in the plot of the InUniverse ''Villain Academy'' story. Reviving her through para-scientific bullshit is a huge relief for him.

* BioAugmentation: One branch of transhumanism, the Dominion of the Pure, focused on radical genetic improvements.

** The Individualities as a whole are a downplayed example. They operate on the "path of least resistance" principle. Where possible, they work ''within'' the laws of reality, upgrading to bending reality if needed, before resorting to breaking reality as a last resort only.

* OutsideContextProblem: The Individualities of Revenant's faction are outside the norm of what people in the real world expect. Most simply aren't prepared for seemingly normal people to be able to wield actual superpowers.

* GoodNewsBadNews: After Humility finishes hacking one of the Vermillion Gamma drones, it tells Revenant and Co that the good news is that they are not dealing with a Vermillion Gamma capital ship. The bad news is that they are dealing with ''three'' capital ships, as well as several escort vessels and some troop transports.

* NoTranshumanismAllowed: Zigzagged. Humanity as a whole hates transhumans and their history and culture reinforces this hate due to the transhumans launching a genocidal war against non-transhumans from out of nowhere. However, after the extinction of the genetic lines of transhumanism, the definition of transhuman became "someone that attempts to transcend human limitations while completely discarding humanity", so Clockmaker who's more cyborg than human but still has some biological parts while also importantly ''looking'' human is fine.

* FantasticRacism: Nearly all human ethnopolities hate transhumans due to the transhumans launching a genocidal war against the rest of humanity, wiping out half of the non-transhumans in the process.

* LanguageDrift: The word "ableism" has disappeared from the modern vocabulary. Advances in medical science means disabilities are usually simply non-present in most contexts, so discrimination based on disabilities simply has no opportunity to come up, with the exception of someone having those disabilities and cannot be treated quickly due to circumstances like stranded on an eldritch planet.

* TranshumanTreachery: Transhumans are a sore point for humanity's history due to the transhumans launching a genocidal war against the non-transhumans from out of nowhere.

* BunnyEarsLawyer: Decay has issues with personal hygiene, and his cousin Revenant thinks he may be on the autism spectrum, but he is a damn good tactician.

* RealityWarping: Visitor messed up reality badly to the point that it is possible to bring ''comicbook characters'' to life.

* EldritchLocation: When Visitor passed through a system, mashed together all the celestial bodies into one, merged all of the man-made structures on those bodies into one, added a few things, and messed with the laws of reality since gravity has yet to notice it should be a lot stronger now on the super-planet.

* PowerIncontinence: Clockmaker can't control when Akashic Records' active effects kicks in, nor can she stop herself from being compelled to create what her Individuality tells her to create. The most anyone can do is manage and dampen it to prevent her from causing a disaster.

* ArtificialIntelligence: Humility is an AI, and advanced enough to be sapient and independent.

Links:

* EldtritchAbomination: Visitor is an entity powerful enough to complete disregard all laws of science and reality as humans understand them.

* FantasticRacism: Nearly all ethnopolities hate transhumans due to the transhumans launching a genocidal war against the rest of humanity, wiping out half of the non-transhumans in the process.