#suiko

Summary

Let's start with a flashback. A little bit earlier in the day, when the Neo Heroes debuted, Suiryu made an unscheduled stop to try to help out a hero in trouble, only to see a certain speedy baldy slay the monsters as he hurried to some appointment. That was chapter 224.

Saitama had arrived somewhere outside the Hero Association headquarters to meet up with the rest of his new group, and had been handed something.

Right. It's now chapter 226 and we get to find out what that is. It's a protest! The grand idea is to hold a sit in and protest until the executives give in and let them pick new names. Maybe give them compensation too.

Two problems with that. First, what's the guarantee that the Hero Association executives will listen? Saitama wonders if he won't just end up called The Bald Complainer instead. Second, they are rather far away from the gates of the building. How are they actually going to be heard? Just as they get started, the monster alarm goes off, drowning out any sound they might have made. Ah, well, I guess that's three problems then.

Just ahead of the sirens going off, we see the inside of the Hero Association board, with most of the executives in attendance. They too have been watching the Neo Leader debut and it has filled them with despair. It's like their heroes are chopped liver: the media is all Neo, Neo, Neo! Jinzuren points out that notwithstanding the Neo Hero coverage, pro heroes are actually doing very well -- they're holding their own against the increasing horde of monsters. The problem is that when it comes to presenting an image of competence, the Neo Heroes are just too good at it.

Their methods aren't all for show either: rather than toss single heroes out into the field to fend for themselves as best they can, they have grouped their members into multi-talented teams and then headed them with excellent leaders. Added to that, they actively support their heroes with good equipment, training, transportation and logistics. Of course the results are better. They can't not be.

The worst of it is that not only has the Hero Association not taken any interest in developing leaders among the heroes enrolled, but when a few heroes, such as Sweet Mask and Child Emperor, have tried to suggest improvements to their organisation, they've ignored them.

Walrus Moustache (one day he'll have a name) asks if they don't have someone like that in the Hero Association, a rough diamond that can be polished up. Sicchi, recalling how dismissive they were of Sweet Mask's suggestions, thinks that it's a bit late to be asking that question. Proceedings are cut short by the emergency broadcast of multiple dragon-level monsters simultaneously showing up in five different cities.

McCoy doesn't lose his head; in the midst of the mass consternation around the room, he wastes no time in demanding that they get in touch with Neo Hero HQ to request back up. The heroes might not win this and there's no point in putting pride before human life.

He has a point: dragon-level threats are a lot worse than the varied demon-level threats the Neo Leaders had been flexing on. If these aren't stopped quickly, the death tolls will be horrifying. So, where are the monsters? And who is fighting them? Well, the first we saw that Blue has already hared off to tackle.

The second is being faced by Tank Top Master in City N. Heavy Smoker couldn't be more of an antithesis to the clean-living hero, the veritable symbol of a filthy life ill-lived. The smoke is toxic and is poisoning the life out of the city. Nevertheless, he shoulder barges the monster, only to find that it breaks up into clumps before reforming and punching him. He's nearly at his last gasp already.

In City D, Tatsumaki faces the most disgusting mass of bugs she's ever seen. They swirl into an aptly named Aggregation, and as she watches, they go charging off in all directions.

Looks like distributed threats are in fashion. In City T, Genos has a horde of monsters of his own to deal with. The Extended Family of Darkness may sound like your least-liked neighbours are holding a cookout but no dragon-level monster is ever a joke.

Undaunted by the prospect of being on their menu, Genos backflips into their midst, and as they come charging in, activates his scorching core.

And the fifth? Never ask for whom the bell tolls: it's the Hero Association headquarters itself. Machine God Mirror has an important assignment and wants King, stat.

Suiko takes it upon herself to attack the robot, jumping down through the hole it made to drop kick it.

Fight's on!

Meta

One more time and this guy is going to feel he's been personally cursed

What are the chances that monsters send you flying, not once but twice, in the supposedly safest place in the world? Poor rich boy.

Astute webcomic readers have noticed that Machine God Mirror is no longer at a random city (aka I can't be arsed to look it up but it's nowhere important) but has come to a stragetically vital location, somewhere King is very likely to either be, or be rapidly summoned to. Nice!

Saitama may be fast, but Wisdom is a persistence hunter

It gladdened my heart to see Saitama not plunge mindlessly into another thing that catches his attention but think a bit for once on whether the method makes sense. He's finally learning.

Sadly, it won't take too much annoyance to tip Saitama into committing full-heartedly. And given the way things he forsees end up coming to pass, we could be looking at the preview of his new hero name.

The best lies are half truths, the best traitors are the apparently resonable

What McCoy says sounds reasonable. Indeed, in the webcomic, his call for the Neo Heroes was initially written for Sicchi. However, coming out of his mouth and in combination with his knowing little smirk, we realise that this monster irruption is no accident, but most likely an attempt to undermine the crediblity of the pro-heroes.

When we look at which heroes have been sent to deal with the monsters, and how utterly unsupported each of them is, we must shake our heads. They're all going to struggle with the match ups. Which brings me to something else...

The Culture Clash

There is a genuine culture clash between the pro-heroes and the neo heroes. Through no fault of the Hero Association's, the landscape of monsters has changed. Back when the HA was established, the idea of a hero as someone you could reliably pay and support to protect people from the random attacks of monsters was an untested idea, they pioneered and proved that system to great effect. And when monsters were few, far between, and generally weak, rigourously vetting hero candidates for their morals, then letting individual heroes make up their minds about how to tackle disasters made a lot of sense.

It's always been a brutal system if one wasn't already a very strong hero, or lucky enough to work with a strong one and now, with monsters more common than ever and strong ones no longer rare, it's a system that's been in desperate need of change.

The system proposed by the Neo Heroes, which doesn't depend on one strong person but systematically trains, equips, and organises groups of heroes to fight monsters makes sense. It's very professional and isn't one that can be dismissed out of hand.

Whether the two systems can co-exist remains to be seen.

Here are the prompts for each themed throughout October!!!

As we are in June, you have this month, July, August and September to start preparing for fanworks for whatever prompts you choose. Posting can start as soon as October 1st. If you still have other creations you make with the calendar after October 31st they will be reblogged as well

When spooky month arrives all you have to do is post your work here on tumblr with the tag #PunchtoberFest to be found and shared on this official blog! If you post your work on a different platform you can submit the link in DM for a sneakpeak post to share your creation, or you can make the seakpeak post yourself and it will be reblogged here like other posts!!

Remember to review and ensure what you make follows the rules and guidelines!!!

this is inspired by @bottomgenosfest who hosted an anonymous fanworks exchange event in 2018 for June

I've seen a few posts mention how OPM fandomers and works not having enough visibility/engagement (and I want to isolate this to the creative engaging side not the meta side) due to unknown reasons even as there's definitely more than 100 of us scurrying around Tumblr, AO3 and Twitter in their own activity cycles (and im using them as reference cus I use them the most)

So I want to try hosting something for the general fanwork enjoying members to engage in and enjoy + find each other better and discuss about. Fandoms in general have been struggling in the past few years but regardless it is engagement, discussion and encouragement that keeps them doing, not a simple like and reblog is enough just to show someone looked at it and enjoyed it silently

BUT the original BotGenos host had planned theirs as early as March, and we have less than a month to Pride month....

so I've considered: maybe if it's too short a time I can instead host something for halloween/concept-tober instead? As that will give everyone time to plan and prepare what they can do for the event

It will also be open to any ship!!!!!! Cus this will be to bring visibility to any and all works out there, no matter how niche or personal they are (you could make up your own ship of two in-universe characters that catch your eye and i will encourage it)

no Xreader nor OCs tho. Only in-universe character ships (Manga and Webcomic) will be accepted

poll will be just one day to hasten up incase anyone does want it for June

Suiko Quest | Chapter 4, pages 4-5

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