Recap: My Superhero Academy S02 E01 The Queen Of Iron Capes Tournament
First Post: 7 April 2018
Short Synopsis: Technically called the SAINT ACADEMY BRAWLFEST 2017, in Saint's own words, the tourney is:note The students of Class One start off in an Amazing Race and begin to fight through preliminaries before facing the prospect of dueling Saint himself. As happens in these things, the tournament is more than mere sport. Several students vent their frustrations, succumb to psychosis or despair, and a few get plain broken in so many ways.
Tropes
- Aborted Arc: The tournament does not actually conclude due to infiltration and an attempted kidnapping, but plenty of drama happens before it ends. It isn't resolved as too much of it is tied up in the Cosmic Reton, which also cancelled several transformation subplots.
- Break Them by Talking: Played With. Fiona lost the match against Victoria and badly lost, but her parting words hit Victoria hard. She spent the rest of her screentime all but broken and put up a miserable fight against Sam.
- Determinator: Deconstructed in Lucy's fight with Liam, which, for her was becoming a Self-Destructive Charge, and she spent a good chunk of the battle psychologically tormenting him by playing possum in nightmare fuelerific ways. The referees called the match before she could go on, and Liam developed a grudge against her for it.
- Dark Horse Victory: They didn't go on to win the tournament but there were some upsets. Vincent put Mike to sleep in the ring and Rachel hulk-smashed Andrew right out of the tournament. Although, that first one foreshadowed Mike's Chuck Cunningham Syndrome.
- Just Between You and Me: Morgoth tells Mikael about the Lethal Legion's earlier plans, yet another proof of Leon's poor staffing choices.
- Love Confession: 'Inkwell' beats Lucy to the punch in confessing Lucy's love to Hei Lin. It Makes Just As Much Sense In Context.
- Mushroom Samba: Rebecca finds time for one in between the trials and dramas of the tournament. (She didn't do it on purpose).
- The Rival: Mikael and Liam become a very bitter version of this to each other, a somewhat shocking outgrowth of the prior friendship. Heck, the rivalry is largely motivated by their prior friendship. Liam thinks Mikael is suffering from The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body and Mikael thinks Liam has been shellshocked by events and has finally cracked.
- Sanity Slippage: Lucy and Liam both continue to tumble downhill. Lucy embracing combat by
Nightmare Fuel (for one thing) and Liam bounding between a Nervous Wreck who, as Ever Green pointed out with annoyance, never acted on his ranting to someone ready to join random shady groups and launch a crusade against anything involving transformations. - Sanity Strengthening: By contrast, Matten at the very least is less energetic with her madness, and goes out of her way to help and encourage, still in 'unique' ways. Andrew snaps from rage-zombie (in many senses) to a somewhat more stable druid. Mikael continues his trend of being far more social and well-adjusted post-transformation.
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Screwed by the Network: The much anticipated Mikael vs. Liam fight fell victim to the twin hits of a RL posting stall and the Retcon. This also prevented the GM from exploring filler arcs for a while thereafter. - Ship Tease: Briefly between Mikael and Matten (yes again of all people). Ellie and Mikael hardly bother with a tease and end up together almost as soon as they meet. The teasing between Lin and Lucy continues, really only held back by the [Retcon Event].
- Split Personality: Beyond 'the entity', another personality using Lucy's codename and looking visibly different emerges and gets rather upset when Morgoth tries to abduct her and drag her into the Abyss for brainwashing.
- There Are No Therapists: Averted. The first thing several members of Class One do after the Lethal Legion battle is see the therapist. And Lucy gets worse anyway.
- Took a Level in Kindness: Matten makes sure people eat before the tournament and events thereafter, and gives Omega (her opponent in the first round) a rousing speech.
