Fanfic / Villain Notebook for the Future

You’ve all heard the story: Izuku meets his idol All Might, idol destroys his dreams of being a hero, Izuku becomes jaded and cynical, hates heroes, turns to villainy, and destroys hero society, sometimes with or without the aid of the League of villains. You know, Izuku became Syndrome.…Yeah, the usual crap.

However, people tend to forget that there are villains in this world… and that there are also Supervillains.

Written by Mean and Turf, and inspired by the likes of Megamind and Techno Queen, Villain Notebook for the Future is essentially an MHA fanfic, where it raises the question of What If? Izuku becomes a supervillain, but keeps his canon personality. Read the Fanfic here: here.

The fanfic spawned many side stories, including the one-shot Nedzu's Deal with Eraserhead, which can be found here, and a crossover with another MHA fanfic, by the name of My False Love Academia written by Darken Raichu, called False Notebook for Villain Love - An Interdimensional Exchange! which can be found here.

The main fanfic contains examples of:

• Actually Pretty Funny:
  • Ms. Joke laughs when she realises that the bomb Mastermind left after another one of his heists was in reality a simple volcano science project, with Mastermind literally telegraphically pointing it out by naming all the ingredients used, whilst making it sound like a threat.
  • All for One, The Dreaded within the criminal underworld, initially finds Mastermind hilarious once he first hears of him.
• Adaptational Badass:
  • Izuku in canon was just a quirkless kid with low self-esteem who was at the right place, right time, to be picked as the next symbol of peace. Mastermind, as Izuku goes by in the fic, planned and worked on being a supervillain since the age of 4, and because of it not only has he gotten smarter than those with intelligence-boosting quirks, formulating plans that are mostly foolproof, but is also able to take on several pro-heroes along the way, including Eraserhead, with his greatest example would be actually pulling off an Eraser quirk ray that worked and its opposite. Not bad for a still quirkless kid.
  • Inko Midoriya, whose only power is light telekinesis, ups her Mama Bear status by not only going after those whose kids tried to strangle Izuku back then, teaching her son how to give himself a death aura, but she’s also the only person Bakugo never swears in front of, and for good reason.
  • Melissa Shield, a quirkless child, is now the current wielder of One for All.
• Adaptational Early Appearance: Several characters appeared earlier than their canon introduction, including the Gentle duo, Melissa and David Shield, Shinso, Mirio Togata, and Sir Nighteye, to name a few.
• Adaptational Expansion:
  • The reason behind Shoto’s trait of being a conspiracy theorist was because of Endeavour, in an attempt to get Shoto to use his fire more often in his childhood, paid off his children’s romantic partners to say how cool fire quirks are, as well as paying for ads, specifically those that encourage the use of fire quirks, on Shoto’s phone, which resulted in Shoto believing that someone’s out to get him.
  • The 1-A traitor’s quirk origin is given a bit more focus, with one of Mastermind’s villainous colleagues having an uncle with the same quirks gone missing, likely by AFO, in the same vein as O’Clock. Jury’s still on whether he’s alive or not.
• Adaptational Relationship Overhaul: The canon League of Villains is mostly a Criminal Found Family type of relationship. Here, because of circumstances, the original members weren’t this friendly with each other, given that they’re now on two opposite sides.
• Affably Evil: Izuku is a textbook supervillain who loves to cause mayhem for the heroes, yet that doesn’t mean he can’t treat his enemies (the pro heroes and hero U.A. students) like friends who hang out on a daily basis, even leaving clues behind to the location of a hostage whenever he ever has one. This trope would extend to members of his own team. At worst, they’re all the Anti-Villain types.
• Asshole Victims: Mastermind’s, and by extension the league of SuperVillains’, victims did deserve being attacked by them. These victims dabbled in extortion, selling cheaper quality items at inflated prices, racketing, and/or offshore funding, amongst other things. And then there’s those like Endeavour.
• Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: Mastermind gets sidetracked whenever he meets a famous superhero (or supervillain, in the case of Gentle Criminal) and his first response would be to ask for their autograph.
• Armor-Piercing Question: Izuku(actually Shinji) gives one to Stain during their fight in Hosu, questioning, since he wanted to bring a society of real heroes, when was the last time he saved someone. This question actually sticks with him from then on.
  Mastermind Izuku/Shinji: To me, a Hero is somebody who helps others even when they’re not asked to! But you’re just a butcher! When was the last time you helped anybody in need?!
• Bait-and-Switch: Tenya, around the last match of the sports festival, received a call from his family concerning his brother, Ingenium. After what had happened in Canon, and after reading of Ingenium encountering Stain a chapter prior, Most readers will likely think this was about his brother being incapacitated by Stain again; what had happened is that Mastermind had actually intercepted the fight and caught Ingenium after fighting Stain.
  • And another of Tenya, when thinking about what nefarious thoughts lie inside his mind, Izuku, his real identity, only has one thought.
    Tenya: (internally) What inhuman thoughts lie behind that mask?
    Mastermind/Izuku: …I want katsudon.
• Because You Were Nice to Me:
  • Izuku doesn’t hold a grudge against Bakugou, even though he still treated him just like in canon, for this reason: he beat up those that treated him in a similar manner or worse. The reason Izuku became a supervillain is mainly to help Katsuki Bakugou become the best hero ever.
  • It’s also the reason why Twice and Kouro joined the league of SuperVillains. Both weren’t shunned away by Mastermind because no one else took their problems seriously, and he did help them out with said problems when they first met.
• Benevolent Boss: Izuku treats the members of his supervillain team as if they are all equals, even stepping down as leader temporarily if someone else wants to lead a mission.
  • As it turned out, this is the reason why Odd eye’s sidekicks put up with his antics, as he gives out good dental plans.
• Blatant Lies: Golden Grin swore that the training equipment ‘fell’ out the back of a passing lorry.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer:
  • Mastermind may be a Supervillain akin to a Saturday morning cartoon villain, but he has evaded and outwitted many pro-heroes at every corner, including the dreaded Eraserhead, as well as responsible for many of their team’s support items and robots at their disposal.
  • Shigiraki, a Psychopathic Manchild who speaks in gamer Lingo and at one point quoted Eggman’s memetic speech from the fandub, has nonetheless conjured many plans that his sensei approved of, including the notorious bomber Nomu attack at Hosu with a made up alliance with Stain so convincing, so well fabricated that those who had a legitimate connection with him such as Spinner still has a hard time trying to clear his name.
• Call-Back: During the police meeting, when briefly discussing the possibility of Mastermind being Quirkless, Aizawa recalls the time he met Knuckleduster, a hero who became a quirkless vigilante after an unfortunate encounter with a supervillain back in the spinoff MHA: Vigilante.
• Cassandra Truth:
  • Nobody on the internet believed Spinner when he tries to convince everyone that Stain was in no way affiliated with the League of Villains.
  • Apart from those really close to him, like Kurogiri or his sensei, nobody believed Tomura when he claimed that the League of SuperVillains stole his guild name.
• Cool Garage: Gentle’s Garage is repurposed into Izuku’s second lab.
• Deconstructed Trope: Mainly of the Villain!Izuku Trope, much like another:
  • Unlike other fanfic, Izuku didn’t become a villain instantly, and not even snapped because of how his classmates in Aldera had treated him. His Start of Darkness, if it was possible to even call it that, was when, at the age of 4 and being diagnosed as quirkless, he realised how supervillains help make heroes better, and so decided to become Kanchan's archnemesis, and all of this was long before the canon story started.
    • On that note, most of these stories have Izuku becoming either disgusted or downright offended by the hero society, particularly about how nowadays heroes are more for show than practicality, enough that he stops being a fan of them. In this, whilst he does see the flaws in the hero society, he’s still a hero fan, and another motivation for his supervillainous activities is to make them better.
  • Of the Evil Genius trope, even Izuku knows that no plans are 100% foolproof and that there will be outliers that’ll crash in that’ll prove to be too much to handle even alone (such as Eraserhead in the cake heist).
  • At one point, the fanfic deconstructed the whole concept of a perfected invisible suit. Even if they have Hakagure’s DNA, even Izuku and Mei said that they can’t realistically make it invisible at will.
• Deliberate Under-Performance: Izuku attempts this during the sports festival; emphasis on Attempts.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Stain targeted Ingenium in this world because he was, in his own words, whoring himself out for fame and the likes, whereas he actually just signed up for a juice sponsorship.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • The League of SUPERVillains don’t condone murder or otherwise unnecessary violence. They turned away any prominent recruits that are inclined to actually kill anyone. They don’t even tolerate notorious serial killers either, much like Stain or even Muscular.
    • On that note, they only attack those who deserve to have their dirty secrets exposed (regardless of how morbid or weird it might be).
  • Regardless of their differences, both Tomura and Spinner , who's going undercover as Splatter bond over their mutual hate and criticism of the All-Might character/players in League of Legends.
• Evil Is Petty:
  • Aside from their usual heist, Mastermind usually indulges himself in petty acts of minor villainy, such as walking on grass despite being told otherwise or creating a series of soup shops, with his only claim that the latter isn’t heroic being that it was never made official or deemed so by an official at any point.
  • In an attempt to get Tensei into joining them, the LoSV tormented him by playing with the brother’s shared OCD problems (pouring juice in the sink; throwing trash into the wrong receptacle, bringing in salty food… etc)
  • All for One’s favourite food is a baby porpoise steak.
  • At Ingenium’s (Tensei, not Tenya) Hostage plot, Izuku asks for ransom, aside from the usual amount of money expected in this scenario, the Hostage’s own signature^note  As it turns out, there’s a practical reason for such a demand, as the situation surrounding the signature would make it a collector’s item..
  • As it turned out, Dabi’s secret project, made with the sole intention of pissing off his father, happens to be a Musical based on his life. When he considers joining the League of Villains, he asked if there’s some backup dancers around.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing: At his second part-time job/scouting mission, Deku was serving what appeared to be at first glance a father-daughter duo sitting on a table in full view of his next target, with the father asking for some expensive tea. The two return later as Gentle criminal and Labrava respectively, robbing the same bank targeted by Mastermind.
• In Spite of a Nail: Most of the events and arcs from Canon still happen (with the possible deviation of the Gentle Criminal encounter, as it had happened earlier) with slight changes, as in:
  • Katsuki and Izuku's debut in the hero world involves the slime villain that All Might fought earlier.
  • They get admitted to UA Academy, even if they applied to different courses.
  • The league of Villain’s attack at USJ went into action, with Mastermind and the league of SuperVillains barging in by accident.
  • By technicality, Bakugo still won the sports festival (if only begrudgingly).
  • Tensei was still at Hosu when Stain attacked, and he’s the killer’s target.
  • The Hosu Bomber incident still happened with the only deviation is that Stain is actively fighting against the nomus, whereas in canon, he only stopped one when it caught Izuku.
  • Spinner still joins the League of Villains, despite going under a different name and having ulterior means of joining them.
• Large Ham: Izuku isn’t just this; as a supervillain, he’s the full hog! The same could be said about Mr Compress.
• Love Epiphany: Sometime after the internship, Izuku starts to realise that he’s in love with both Melissa and Mei, and asks Labrava for advice.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
  • Had Eraserhead not confronted Izuku early, Izuku would’ve never managed to get the potential to replicate his Erasure Quirk as well as reversing it to create a Force-quirk activation-ray that even nullifies Erasure.
  • Four on Izuku’s end:
    • His attempt to save a civilian caught in his own team’s debut gave Shinsou the opportunity to control him briefly; And even when that failed, this event gave way to Shinso becoming Aizawa’s apprentice.
    • His intervention in the USJ attack earned him Shigiraki’s hatred, getting him to amp up his future attacks in retaliation.
    • Him getting too caught up in posing menacingly before his fight during the sports festival after Mineta accidentally groped Mei Hatsume in their fight, gave enough evidence to Shoto to correctly deduce that he’s Mastermind.
    • Had he not intervened with Muscular’s fight this early, Kota would’ve gotten back his respect for heroes, nor would he go onto the path of supervillainy.
  • Had Endeavor not subtly pushed to great heights to convince him to use his fire quirk, Shoto wouldn’t be paranoid enough to become a conspiracy theorist. He even admits that it was a mistake.
    • Speaking of which, the whole family drama that Enji triggered snowballed into having two of his children becoming criminals.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • The heroes (Death Arms, Kamui Woods, and Mt Lady) get one when Mastermind, after saving Bakugou from the sludge villain, declares himself as a villain to the world. Mostly because it puts them in such a negative light, as they were all present on the scene longer than him and yet did nothing.
  • Sometime later, Izuku gets this when he encounters Eraserhead after his cake heist, knowing he’s way out of his head going up against him.
  • Aizawa gets nervous when he pieced together from Nedzu’s explanation that Mastermind might be Quirkless.
  • Hawks gets a little serious when he’s notified of Mastermind’s existence by his superiors; notably once he learns from them that Jin is in leagues with them.
  • Power Loader gets one, and by extension Present Mic even though his was Downplayed, when he sees Mei bringing an invention into the arena, one that he approved for Izuku ONLY.
  • Mastermind, and by extension his crew, gets one when they learn that Mirko is in the area.
• Refuge in Audacity: Most of Mastermind’s plots work like this:
  • In his first heist, using an electrical gauntlet, he faked an emp quirk, then went off and stole ‘‘Some’’ of their products, leaving behind some incriminating evidence of their shady dealings. Soon after, during the Slime villain’s attack on Bakugou, seeing that the heroes were doing jack shit, Izuku proceeds to save Bakugou whilst announcing himself to the public, humiliating the heroes on standby. Bonus for Summing it up in a single phrase to drive it down to the public.
    Mastermind : “It’s a bad day for heroes when a supervillain has to do their job!”
    • Finally, after disappearing using smoke bombs before finishing his grandiose speech, he left behind an audio tape that caps it off, revealing his (alter ego) name to the public conveniently right by a manhole entrance (at which point the audiotape dissolves so as to not leave any unnecessary clues behind), which Bakugou and another hero noticed. Cut to Izuku, who planted the items there during the diversion and instead quick-changed into his civilian attire and mingled in the crowd, correctly suspecting that no one would bat an eye at the quirkless civilian.
  • In his third Heist, he frankly stole 40 cakes from a high-end bakery. 40 cakes, that’s as many as 4 10s, the rotten bastard.
  • For the team’s first heist, they had planned something crazy: they FAKED Mr Compress’ Quirk, hiding his compress quirk with a smoke machine and passing it off as a smoke warping quirk and renaming him Mr Warp.
    • Even better, because of this, not only had they inadvertently stolen Shigiraki’s league name and member, but they also accidentally ripped off his most powerful ally, Kurogiri.
  • Mastermind’s most trusted contingency plan against All-Might: distract him with saving acat up a tree before he could get to the area of the crime. The fact that it works says something.
    • For added hilarity, the one time this was used, Izuku also had him sign a priceless limited edition item that was only available in the States. In short, Izuku just couldn’t resist being a fanboy.
  • Mastermind and his crew even roll straight into UA… as part of the Finals exams class 1-A will partake in, as arranged by Nedzu.
• Rule of Funny: Mastermind’s reason behind many of his half-baked plans, mixed with Rule of Cool.
• Running Gag:
  • Mastermind’s aesthetics, notably:
    • His thunder effect machine Kara-Thooom
    • Insisting that, despite his heroic goals, he’s still a supervillain.
    • And from there, Insisting that he’s a Supervillain, namely because of his standards, that being what he’s willing/not willing to do, or approve of other’s actions.
  • Todoroki's penchant for conspiracy theories; especially when it leads to said theory being true.
  • Comments on Mineta's body, especially after having a pervy thought.
• Shout-Out:
  • There are plenty of references to Megamind, with Shigiraki’s rant to Mastermind at USJ being similar to Tighten’s, and Mastermind’s use of a Frequent Kidnapping Card.
  • The third heist at the bakery, stealing 40 cakes, is taken straight from Lex Luther’s actions from the super dictionary.
  • Nedzu introduction at the police conference is similar to L’s.
  • Gentle’s fight at the Mei prefecture construction company came straight out of the first bar fight scene in Kingsman: The Secret Service, including the actions and phrases.
  • Izuku’s freeze ray is inspired by many ice villains' designs, including Mr. Freeze's from Batman & Robin.
  • Shigiraki’s speech during the Hosu bomber incident is taken straight out of the infamous Eggman speech from the Sonic Adventure 2 fandub.
  • This quote from Mastermind, after Eraserhead was fighting Inkblot:
    Mastermind: ‘‘I was not expecting that! But then again, I expected not to expect something today so it doesn’t count!’’
  • Mineta's move "Grapezone Grenade", was likely inspired by Piccolo's attack "Hellzone Grenade" from Dragon Ball Z.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Played With In-Universe, with everyone assuming that the League of Villains are piggybacking on the League of Super Villain’s success. It doesn’t help that both even have warpers with smoke-based teleportation.
  • In order to infiltrate the League of Villains, Spinner renames himself as Splatter; only Tomura and mon, who’re the only ones to have met him in person before, are suspicious of him, but let him in in order to appease the others.
• Springtime for Hitler: Izuku planned to not win the sports festival, only advance enough to gain legitimate recognition for his inventions. He breezed past the first round (which was the earlier one he had planned to win) but couldn't afford to fail the second round thanks to Kachan picking him to join his group and, thanks to the malfunctions on the gears he made for each battle, accidentally won against both Shoto Todoroki and Melissa Shield, the latter having already gained One for All in the single combat round.
• Squick: One of their heist on a company had led to them seeing the higher-ups in a… compromising situation.^note  they were indulging in acting like preschoolers, to say the least.
• Unspoken Plan Guarantee: A variation of it for both the first solo and team heist, as each step of the plan will be explained after it was executed. For the others, this trope is played straight.
• Wham Line:
  • Chapter 8: Midway through the chapter, after perfectly executing the heist and presenting most of his members, Mastermind then tells the audience, and readers, their team names with a hint of Refuge in Audacity:
    Izuku/Mastermind: Well, Heroes, here we are! Unfortunately... you will be unable to stop the devilish machinations of Mastermind-KRAKATHOOM, -and…
    Mastermind and his colleagues struck their pose
    Mastermind: THE LEAGUE OF SUPERVILLAINS!
• What If?:
  • For the Villain!Izuku Fandom, Izuku’s motivation stemmed from helping Bakugo become a better hero given that he treated Deku better than the other students, whereas it’s usually Izuku taking Bakugo down a notch or more.
  • The original League of Villains has their whole relationship between them changed with Mr. Compress and Twice joining Mastermind with the League of Supervillains before the League of Villains could even be formed.
  • Twice went to the League of Villains instead of the League of Supervillains, and that was prior to the Hosu incident as well, which was what inspired him in canon to join the League of Villains.
    • How he met them was changed as well: instead of Giran, who’s now the main recruiter for both camps, he had heard of them through their unofficial evil soup shops.
  • Mineta has toned down his perverted traits and is actually serious about being an actual hero.
  • Because of changes in canon, the ninth holder of One For All happens to be Melissa Shield.
  • Because of their intervention in the USJ, as well as stealing their name, Shigaraki’s hatred is now directed towards Mastermind instead of All Might, much to his sensei’s annoyance
  • Stain and Midoriya fought much earlier than expected, whilst the former was ambushing Tensei in an alleyway. In fact, his fight with Mastermind was what prompted him to go on a path to abandon his quest of attacking ‘false heroes’.
    • Speaking of which, Stain and Spinner met soon after, with spinner now actually working for him instead of a group of villains only using Stain as a recruitment drive.
• You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: Minoru gets this twice in succession when, during the Hosu incident, he learns that he’s the Only Sane Man to Tenya of all people, the latter wanting to go after the guys that were responsible for his brother’s predicament (Stain for injuring him, Mastermind and the League of Supervillains for kidnapping him).

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