"This fic is a deconstruction story. Meaning it's supposed to be showing what would happen if Luz had All For One. That would entail her being influenced by not only a Quirk that makes you think and shapes your belief structure to assume that everything belongs to you, including other people's lives, and having a manipulative asshole living rent-free in her head without a way to get rid of him without her dying, effectively makes it impossible for this story to not be dark."
— The author on the story's premise.
All For Luz is an effective deconstruction of more than a few tropes, particularly the role that the appearance of superpowers would play in society at large.
Revised Work
- Asshole Victim: Murder is still murder in the eyes of the law, even if the victim in question had it coming. Not to mention that Even Evil Has Loved Ones can be in effect and the killer question might not enjoy it as much as they thought it would.
- Ax-Crazy: Luz is suffering from serious PTSD from the Death Camp that causes frequent hallucinations, bringing back memories of her traumatic near-death experience and put in a "kill or be killed" situation. Thanks to this, she often react violently, especially to her enemies, striking down anyone in her path and believing it to be in self-defense when Blinded by Rage.
- Bad Powers, Good People: Luz inherits the All For One Quirk, a power she hates as the idea of having a Power Parasite Quirk, because she's always wanted to be special, and All for One revolves taking what makes other people special. However, Quirks influence the user's mind and Luz is no exception to that rule with its Addictive Magic properties. While she hasn't lost her humanity, she has loosened up her moral code over time and not above doing some Kick the Dog moments herself.
- Boxing Lessons for Superman: Luz notes the problem with invoking this for Unskilled, but Strong is that some point you can become too strong to practice your powers, due to few people being your equal willing to so and make you a better fighter.
- Bullying a Dragon: This is a really bad idea that people find out the hard way if they try it. Assuming they survive long enough to learn so, especially with Luz, the wielder of All For One.
- Cape Busters: The regular police and army are meant to deal with villainous superhumans. Though they're meant to enforce government authority over Quirk users, in practice against the powerful ones, they function more like supervisors and have very limited experience in fighting superhumans that aren't afraid to become a Cop Killer, especially if the superhuman in question is a Person of Mass Destruction. In fact, the few times the police squads are used to take on a powered threat, like against Magneto Girl or Luz, they’re brutally slaughtered when they stop holding back.
- Coming-Out Story: Unfortunately, not all kids have Open Minded Parents as Julia found out the hard way. Her first girlfriend didn't fair much better who was Driven to Suicide by her homophobic parents' abuse.
- Conveniently Empty Building: Horribly Averted. Many people in the buildings die as the superhuman attacks cause them to collapse on top of them, during the Battle of Gravesfield.
- Cop Killer: Turns out not very many people like them even if the cop in question is a Dirty Cop. And that's not even taking into account there's a Cop Killer Manhunt that will follow.
- Corrupt Politician: There's only so much you can get away with in your position with money and connections before you hit Karma Houdini Warranty. With Governor Maxwell you can get charged with corruption,stripped of your position of power and spend the rest of your life behind bars with the legal process, with Tamashiki Shigaraki a supervillain like All For One might get sick of your shit and kill you for that.
- Discard and Draw: When giving a witch Quirk via All For One, they lose their ability to perform any sort of magic. One example was Alador which included the creation of abomination for his inventions, seeing his quirk as a Power Up Letdown. It took giving it away and 3 years for his bile sac to show signs of recovery and then a further decade to it full return to its its former glory for him to get back to business.
- The Dreaded:
- Luz has gained this status after her actions at Summer Camp come to light. While a Card-Carrying Villain like the League of Villains would want this, an aspiring hero like Luz ceratinly doesn't. Even with her immense powers and brutality, her reputation takes a nosedive as the media demonize her and becomes Persona Non Grata in nearly every facility in Gravesfield.
- All For One's power, resources, imaginative cruelty and sadistic enjoyment of tormenting others makes him a fearsome enemy to all and his stated goal is to be the world's most feared and reviled villain much like the Demon Lord in the comics he read about as a child. However, his reputation as can end up having the opposite effect as rather than run, people like Eda, Lilith and Belos all team up to send him packing.
- Drowning My Sorrows: After Manny's death, Camila took up drinking to cope with his death and being a Struggling Single Mother. However, Camila can be an angry drunk (which has only gotten worse since she got older with reduced tolerance) that led to her being estranged from her sister, brother-in-law and niece after a Thanksgiving party and Luz being concerned and resenting her for being an Alcoholic Parent. When Luz and Camila have a massive argument, she throws wine glass at her daughter and reveals herself to be a Resentful Guardian towards her. Luz is so hurt by words (not helped by the fact that she seems to have forgotten about it much less apologise for it) that now she actually wants to go to Reality Check Camp just to get away from her and has considered running away from home altogether if her mother doesn't get her act together soon.
- Equal-Opportunity Evil:
- When he was alive, All For One adopted this rhetoric in his speeches to his followers, and sought out those on the fringes of society to bestow his "gifts," but his kindness is transparently false. In reality, he only recruits people who were the victims of prejudice or who failed to fit in because they're vulnerable and more willing to buy into his beliefs, much like how real cultists seek out new members. He did this tactic on the witches and demons in the Boiling Isles who were dissatisfied living under Emperor Belos's rule. A villain like All For One, fully aware of the world's injustices but, instead of doing anything about it and become a Politically Correct Villain, intended to take full advantage of it for his own purposes. A useful pawn is a useful pawn regardless of their race, gender, sexuality, etc., after all.
- Tyler Wittebane has hired assassins that include a teenaged girl, a witch, a transporter who's genderfluid, a convict with gigantism and a female former MMA fighter. However, he's certainly not a Politically Correct Villain, quite the opposite in fact. Despite hating the idea of witchcraft and superpowers as a whole, Tyler isn't above hiring such users if it benefits him, especially to assassinate others of their kind or his opponents. This only serves to show him as a Hypocrite.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: All For One genuinely loved his little brother, but being a psychopath could only do so in a possessive way. Even his newfound compassion for Luz doesn't make him reconsider pulling a Villain Override on her.
- Evil Mentor: Since All For One is essentially the only one who can help Luz use and control her Quirks, she's forced to accept his offer of guidance to become his successor. However, under his wing, Luz slowly becomes as cruel and uncaring as her sensei. On the flip side, All For One needs to act not too evil towards her, as his whole Evil Plan will be completely ruined if she loses all trust in him.
- Explaining Your Power to the Enemy: As Luz lampshades, telling your opponent your abilities makes it easier for them to figure out your weakness and how to beat you. And when you're fighting against someone who's Power Parasite, it gives them a better understanding of the Quirk they're stealing without going through too much trial and error to figure it out.
- Glass Cannon: All of the Wittebanes' assassins fall her this category, due to One Person, One Power at work. While many of their Quirks give them massive offensive power to varying degrees, they don't have Super-Toughness, so they're all just as durable as any other human being and don't have a Healing Factor to compensate. One direct hit from Luz's more powerful attacks and they became as good as dead.
- In fact, a lot of Quirk users fall into this category. The story in general has a healthy respect for conventional weapons and a few characters with powers that lack Super-Toughness or a Healing Factor are badly wounded or even killed by them.
- Godzilla Threshold: Even this does succeed, it can still result in a lot of Collateral Damage that could you ask yourself Was It Really Worth It?.
- Going Cold Turkey: This almost never works in practice when it comes to addiction, be it alcoholism, drugs or stealing superpowers.
- Imagination Destroyer: All For One paints the real Reality Check Camp as this to Luz, noting that stripping away one's creativity isn't the answer to their behaviorial problems, as it would be better to give them guidance and direction for it instead. He even goes as far as to compare the place to a conversion camp. In fact, the original Reality Check Camp was supposed to be this according to the Camp Counselor, before The Governor came along and turned it into a Deadly Game.
- It's Not You, It's My Enemies: A platonic version occurs with Luz and Camila. The teen realises that Wittebanes are targeting her with assassins and decides to distance herself from her mother for her safety. The Kindly Vet is under no illusion that Luz ever going to be coming back home, because of this and the town of Gravesfield won't let her due to recently becoming a Cop Killer and is heartbroken by this decision. Unfortunately, the Arc Villain in question is petty enough to order his most brutal assassin to go after Camila out of spite against Luz for not dying and succeeds in murdering the poor woman. It turns out even if a hero distances themselves from their loved ones, the villains still might come for them. Especially if they still know you care for them and will be just as likely a target as ever, only now they wouldn't have an awesome, powerful superhuman around to protect them.
- Mass Super-Empowering Event: When Quirks first began appearing in the Human Realm, the transition is not smooth, especially since nobody knows why or how it was happening in the first place. The cultural backlash, prejudice against the people who first got Quirks, and resulting violence was so profound that it lead to a Superhuman Registration Act after a month.
- It's not helped by the fact those that received superpowers are aged between 7-19-years old where Kids Are Cruel and Teens Are Monsters are in full effect, with Gravesfield's sheriff going into detail about stories of power-hungry children attacking people on the street and using their powers to go full Supervillain. Kids who won the Superpower Lottery can be particularly monstrous, due to having power but little emotional maturity or empathy, believing that they can do whatever they want.
- Mole in Charge: Darius infiltrated the Coven system to take it down from the inside after rising to a high position, having officially becoming a Coven Head. However, given his position and what duties he has to do, it makes things a lot hard on the man to carry out his role with so many eyes on him. After all, he had less time in the day to meet up with Perry Porter to report back on any useful information when he could. His tight schedule already made that difficult, so tasking him with something else, like tracking down Luz/Toshiko, just seemed too cruel to his boss to task him.
- Morality Pet: Unfortunately, this doesn't always equate to Morality Chain. Rikitasu cared about his brother Yoichi a lot, but because of the Crapsack World they lived in he was forced to commit crueler things for his sake, which caused a wedge in their relationship. Just because Rikitasu loves his little brother, doesn't negate the rest of his actions as a supervillain.Rikitatsu: You’re my brother, Ichi. I would never leave you behind. I—Yoichi: My point exactly. You care. Granted, it’s only about me, but if you just spread that care out to others…
- Necessarily Evil: Luz sees having All For One as her Evil Mentor as this. He's trapped in her head with no way to kick him out and he has over a century's worth of knowledge and experience in using Quirks, as no one else in her world is an expert on them. However, that doesn't change that he's still evil and acts as a corrupting influence on girl over time all for his own agenda.
- Obviously Evil: Before Luz even exchanged words with All For One, he set off her "Warning: This man is clearly EVIL" alarm the moment she lays eyes on the scary-looking man with a Slasher Smile. Because of this Luz initially and rightfully doesn't trust the man believing him to be a Manipulative Bastard. Shigaraki has to rely on Villain Has a Point, Villains Never Lie and a dose of Necessarily Evil to gain some level of trust from the girl.
- One-Man Army: While Luz is certainly badass to be one of these, the sheer amount of killing she's done has caused her to end up having a significant amount of psychological problems, including PTSD.
- Person of Mass Destruction: Luz gets so powerful that not only can she defeat almost any enemy she faces but causes a fuckton of Collateral Damage in the process making people fear and hate her.
- The Promise: Some promises just aren't worth keeping. Especially if someone is trying get you to do something immoral or illegal to fulfill it.
- Regretful Traitor: Riley Stewardson is a teenage mercenary with a Dark and Troubled Past who was forced into working for a Corrupt Church that employs teenage superpower mercenaries. She reunites with her little cousin Luz, whom she generally loves. Then Riley learns that one of the bounties of who she has to kill is her cousin Luz. Riley is heartbroken and horrified by the fact that she has to kill her little cousin but ultimately decides to do the deed; she justifies it by saying that if she doesn't do it, she'll eventually be killed, and Luz will eventually be killed by someone else. While Riley is generally regretful and wants to make at least sure that Luz's mother, Camila Noceda, is spared, she does ultimately betray her cousin in an attempt to kill her, and no amount of remorse makes what she did better. It's implied that Riley has been desensitized to all the killing she previously done and is too afraid to do the right thing and protect her cousin. Ultimately, her betrayal of Luz backfires and adds to another one of the traumas Luz experiences, turning her from a Nice Girl into a hardened villain-in-the-making. When Riley realizes what she has done, she's genuinely remorseful and wants to make up for what she did. It's too little, too late, and Luz does not trust her. Luz kills Riley with her own Quirk, and she dies a traitor, remorseful for her actions, but it's too late for her to make things right.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Luz's quest for vengeance takes a psychological toll on her; that's to say nothing of the Collateral Damage that accumulates around her. Not to mention Julia, the person she's trying to avenge, doesn't want her to commit murder in her name.
- School Bullying Is Harmless: Averted Hard. Luz being a social outcast that keeps getting picked on by her peers hasn't done her self-esteem any wonders, something All For One takes full advantage of to manipulate her into a darker, angrier version of herself that's more prone to violence.
- Smug Super: As powerful and competent some Quirk users and magical beings are, they're not as invincible or infallible as they think they. This blows up in their face when they get completely blindsided when he learn too late that they're Not So Invincible After All.
- Superior Successor: After Luz awakened her Quirk, something All For One couldn't achieve in his lifetime, the Evil Mentor considers the girl to be this and congratulates her. This is NOT a good thing as he intends to pull a Villain Override on her instead of his original target, Tomura.
- Superpower Lottery: Luz has the All For One power, an incredibly strong Quirk that made her become a target by each Arc Villain out of Fantastic Racism due to her immense potential. Despite being the World's Strongest Woman of her realm, Luz remarks to herself that ever since she woke up with her Quirk her life has pretty much been ruined and can never go back to normal.
- Superpowerful Genetics: Quirks being genetic has led to people to try and produce a child with a desired power. All For One recreate One For All through Amity via giving her parents one the two replica Quirks that made it each prior to her conception. When Amity discovered this fact, she is unhappy to know she wasn't born out of love, not helped by the fact the Quirk experiment cost her any chance of a normal life as a witch due to having no magic which she's discriminated against or Alador finds it difficult to look at her due to implied Questionable Consent being involved.
- Takes One to Kill One: Tyler Wittebane sends various superpowered assassins to kill Luz, another Quirk user. What Wittebane doesn't seem to realise that with Luz's Power Parasite Quirk she not only has more options to beat them but to take their Quirks as her own, strengthening her with each battle.
- Targeted to Hurt the Hero: Tyler Wittebane orders Jonah to kill Luz's mother to break her. He then goes the extra mile and tricks the girl into thinking she killed her with her Deadly Force Field. This was done to invoke a Heroic BSoD in the teen girl to create an opening to finish her off. This almost works until All For One does a Get A Hold Of Yourself Man speech to Luz, giving her a Heroic Second Wind fuelled by The Power of Hate and brutally kills the Giant Mook and his comrades. If a hero can't protect their loved ones, they will make sure they're avenged.
- Unskilled, but Strong: Despite having multiple Quirks, Luz never really had the time to formally train with her 10 initial Quirks in the month she has had them due to the Superhuman Registration Act. This isn't usually a problem due to everyone else in her realm being this too with her being much stronger by mainly mashing Quirks together for destructive combo attacks. This backfires on her when she fights the Golden Guard who is Strong and Skilled, as in he trained with his Quirks for a decade is more than capable of holding his own against Luz, despite being slightly weaker than her. Not to mention that lack of finesse leads to a lot of Collateral Damage in her fights with the Wittebane assassins.
- Vigilante Man: After her experience at the Death Camp, Luz decides to become The Cowl in order to protect the people of Gravesfield. While liked by the locals, gives her an outlet for her violent streak and some relief from her All the Other Reindeer status in Gravesfield, it unfortunately has put her on the cops' radar and gives them a reason to arrest her. Vigilantism is still a crime, regardless of your motives or what good you do.
- Villains Never Lie: As much of a Manipulative Bastard he is, All For One rarely lies to Luz. He also especially invokes this, if it concerns an Awful Truth, simply out of delight with her trying to deny the awful revelations whilst he's being completely forthright with her. Despite hating his Brutal Honesty initially, Luz does gain a level of respect in All For One because of his At Least I Admit It attitude compared to the Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist and Knight Templar mindset foes she constantly fights. Unfortunately for Luz, just because her Evil Mentor "doesn't lie" doesn't always mean he's being completely honest with her either and tends to withhold vital information from her e.g. her cousin is plotting to kill her, what Quirks Hunter has, oh, and he (potentially) plans to pull a Villain Overide on her.
Original Version
- Indy Ploy: Governor Maxwell to took a huge gamble turning Reality Check Summer Camp in a Deadly Game for superhuman teens, most notably, making Luz a target when she's potentially the most powerful person there. He does this without having any real long-term planning skills, without considering that most people wouldn't be on board with Final Solution and without speaking to his collaborators, like Tyler Wittebane. He ends up being despised, arrested and dies in prison.
