The short version is, I'm rewriting this story, and intend to have it relaunched some time in the second half of may. I don't want to give a date in case I miss it, but I will say it absolutely will be out in May.
(In the meantime, please maintain your follow here if you're interested in keeping up with the rewrite. I'll post a another announcement to this fic when the new one's up)
(Also, just to reassure you all, I already have a decent amount of the rewrite ready, and know almost entirely what I need to do with the rest. By the time the rewrite's out, I'm hoping to have pretty much exactly the same amount of content ready to go as exists in the current version of Hero High.)
For a longer explanation of why I'm rewriting this story, I'm going to copy over the author's note from the end of last chapter in case you missed it:
This story needs to be rewritten.
The fundamental issue is this: I want to write a story about a superhero school. That was what I set out to do in 2022 when I started this story. I did a bunch of worldbuilding, planned out characters I became very fond of, and put down a vague roadmap laying out how I wanted this story to proceed over a rather long period. I was excited to write it.
Then people started saying it was too similar to My Hero Academia, and I panicked. Marquise and the simmering tensions within the school were very much supposed to be a background element, something that would be hinted at but wouldn't come into play until Emmett was several years into his school life. My original plans included no sabotage during the tests. The practical test wasn't meant to be some big deal that dragged out for 15 chapters; in fact, the format was meant to be completely different. There was going to be no divide between the teachers. Hell, the shit Marquise was up to wasn't even supposed to be directly related to the goddamn school at all.
Marquise would have been comparable to Danzo from Naruto--though she wouldn't have been responsible for everything bloody wrong in the world lol, but I compare them to illustrate just how late on in this series she would have become directly relevant as an antagonist. She would've operated in the shadows, an enigmatic figure who Emmett encountered only rarely and left those encounters feeling confused as to her intentions.
I don't mind Marquise's outsized influence in the second arc of this story, necessarily. My problem is, fundamentally, that I don't want to write this scenario where Aegis Academy is basically running a fucking anti-hero program alongside the main hero one. Or, well, I don't want it to be such a huge thing that it's causing blatant tensions between the faculty, and I definitely don't want to write a scenario where Emmett and co are explicitly aware of what's going on from so early on.
One of the main reasons for that is it makes it so much harder to write Emmett. The Emmett Shaw I planned was meant to be more like the one you saw in the opening sequence on the train, a superhero nerd who loses himself in the high of adrenaline, luxuriating in the feeling of finally feeling like he's doing something as a hero. Placing him in this situation where he's trying to reform the school completely fucks with his motivations, goals, and character. It forces me to write him in such a way that he's not showing the best side of himself.
That's not even mentioning the other characters who currently only exist in my head, and how I'd also have to write them differently from how I want in this scenario. You guys haven't even had the chance to meet them yet. Eugh. 150,000 words and you haven't even met my favourite character in this story yet :(
If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
If I were to continue this story, the next arc would involve Emmett finally attending Aegis Academy, learning how to be a superhero... but the whole thing would have the stuff from the Practical Exam and those implications hanging over it like a dark cloud. I could probably push through and force myself to write it, but I'm not sure how long I'd last. I've been powering through to this point, trying to come up with an angle that'll make the actual school arc enjoyable for me to write, but I haven't managed that yet.
Ultimately, I wanted this story to be some kind of mad amalgamation of the parts I like from My Hero Academia, Raildex, DC/Marvel, and Worm. It can't be the way I want it to be in its current state, as far as I'm concerned. So the only realistic way I can continue this is if I rewrite it. In that scenario, it would be best to relaunch it on Royal Road. The point of this screed, I guess, is to try and gauge how many people would follow me to the new version of the story?
Also, I guess I should apologise for springing this on you guys just when it's finally starting to look like Emmett's making progress and stuff lol. Tbf, quite a lot of stuff about this story would remain the same. Much of the opening dozen~ish chapters and almost all second arc would need to be tweaked, but they wouldn't fundamentally change that much. The biggest edits would come in the Practical Exam, which I'd be changing up to better resemble what I originally planned, without all the sabotage and whatever.
Beyond what's listed there, I also intend to include a bunch of quality of life stuff, shore up the worldbuilding, flesh out characters more, and snip a few loose or fraying threads that were irritating me. I'm excited to get to it, and hope you guys will be excited to read it, too! See you in about a month's time...
... or will I have to wait that long? I do have another story that I've been posting for writathon. It's sitting towards the top of Rising Stars right now, and people seem to be enjoying it well enough, silly as the concept of the story is. I'd love it if you guys checked it out, too, and maybe it'll get a little boost up the rankings. :) See below!