It was on sans' list of clues!

By current arc I’m going to assume that you mean this war arc - possibly the ‘final arc’ of the story; and more than hopes (at this point, the only real hope I have is for the villains’ redemptions to be handled throughout in a detailed manner) and expectations (because let’s be honest, my expectations are all likely to fall through), I have things I would like to see addressed that in my opinion would give more nuance to the story and give Hori back a little of the dignity he started losing in the last arcs (some chapters were plainly terrible).

Playing a little bit on foresight, I’d say that two are the things we are very likely to see in this arc (on which I hope HK will not disappoint): 

The Villains’ Resolution/Redemption, or better yet, the talk between the main trio and their hero counterparts, in this order: Toga, Dabi, Shigaraki. It might seem obvious (because the main, last and most dramatic and difficult part will likely go to the main characters - in this case Midoriya and Shigaraki, while the most prone to even listen to her counterpart is Toga), but in here are factored two different variables: Toga has Twice’s blood, which she will almost certainly end up using as a way to counter Hawks (currently with Endeavour, but likely to have an encounter with Dabi as well) - from which we can deduct that or Toga is going to have time on her hands after talking to Ochako (which seems unlikely) or that before that, the heroes and the villain will be going to be shuffled around a bit, mainly because of lacking support in certain areas or another events (my guess is there are going to be a lot of evolutions in terms of Quirks, leading to many of the current active pro Quirk-users to either lose their own or to evolve past their own capacity to manage the quirk - a bit similar to what we see happening to Shigaraki in this chapter with his hands); and AfO’s consciousness is still mingled with Tomura’s, and that will be a hard bundle to dissect (people with whom I discussed this with know on what my hypothesis on how this one is going to go, but I am ready to throw it around just yet, just know that Eri will probably be involved).

Change in BNHA Quirk-Supremacy Society. Well, I am probably the biggest advocate of ‘BNHA’s real villain is its rotten and elite society’, which is why I am also surreptitiously waiting for Horikoshi to finally address on how exactly he plans to implement the ripple presented by Midoriya’s change in perspective about the villains and their reasons, on a bigger scale. Certainly, saving the villains is a first step for it, but it is also not nearly enough: the public at large is distrustful at best of the villains, and disillusioned about the heroes, therefore things will not be certainly going back to the status quo, but there have not been steady steps made so that a change could be implemented (Dabi’s broadcast could have been an extremely good basis for that to happen, but it feels as if after the Hospital Arc it has been forgotten, so I am hoping for this point to be picked up again when Shouto will reach out to Touya for the umpteenth time, until he accepts and we will likely get to see Touya’s missing years and Dabi’s birth). In this perspective, this process will be slow and will have a steady pace (and also the point which makes me assume that we are going to get a time skip during the last chapters of the manga, in which we are shown the spoils of war and how society has adapted to a new truth: that there is ugliness in it, and there will always be people who are affected by it more than others). 

I think it would be nice to see more about Bob dealing with that too, for sure. With the level of care the alcoholism is handled as a story element I would be genuinely surprised if he didn't deal with any alcohol withdrawl.

I remember looking into alcohol withdrawal symptoms shortly after really getting Into Thinking About The Old People and something that stuck out to me in particular is how alcohol withdrawl sympotoms could start manifesting just hours after the last drink. We see a jump in time in terms of where Bob's at from "throws the distillery out" to "planning in the nerve center" so there's an inbetween spot where he might've needed help with that.

A brief mention by Lucy during a cutscene

Honestly, we don’t really know for sure! Most of what’s been gathered is just speculation, but one thing we do know for sure is that Akane featured very heavily in some of the earliest (around August 2011) concept art for sdr2. Here are a few examples to show what I mean:

Not only is her design a little different in the early design sketches (her hair is a bit shorter and seems much wilder overall), but what stands out the most to me is that she was the first character to be shown in a rebuttal showdown, with a noticeably different blue background from the usual red one. She’s also featured very prominently behind Hinata in the promotional poster, in a way that suggests she might have been intended for a more important role at the time.

In my personal opinion, I think it was very likely that she was meant to be a rival character/narrative foil for Hinata before they finally settled on making it Komaeda instead. Where Hinata’s first name, “Hajime,” means “the beginning,” Akane’s last name, “Owari,” means “the end.”

This could have very well played into more of sdr2′s themes regarding “future” and “past,” since the future often represents a “new beginning” for people, while Akane herself arguably has one of the more horrific pasts out of any of the DR cast (though it’s true we don’t find out almost anything about her past in the main game, only through her FTEs).

I find this theory pretty credible, especially considering how antagonistic some of Akane’s sprites look. Between the wild nature of her design, the rebuttal showdown concept art, and the naming sense, it seems extremely plausible to think she may have initially been meant to parallel Hinata. Even their personalities arguably clash, since Akane largely acts on pure instinct and emotion, while Hinata is much more down-to-earth and rational.

If the theory really is true, then it’s sad they decided to scrap this idea. Sdr2 suffers the most from what I would consider having the least developed survivors out of the main trio of games--even when there were plenty of opportunities for characters to change based on their relationships with the victims in other chapters, most of the survivors sadly don’t quite get a lot of focus or growth, other than Hinata and Kuzuryuu.

thank you so much!

here’s the floofty clone fic!