#i know this isn't relevant to the piece but in my mind (my headcanon if u will) he is playing against sokka. and losing badly

[noctvrnal9999]

Got a private message asking me to comment on the whole Neil stream thing so I guess here goes. Excuse my thoughts, they are never coherent.

What I liked about the stream is not what Neil said, but what he didn't say. I'm not big on watching streams, his or anyone's, but I watched some and I noticed Neil is very very careful when discussing Astarion. If anyone is aware how deranged the fandom can get - it's definitely him. I saw him dance around the topic multiple times either in streams or in clips I've seen all over the internet. I highly respect him for that because unlike someone (cough cough) he's not telling people what to think or what narrative they should take for any reason. A true professional unlike someone (cough cough).

So while he addressed operatic vs theatrical and there's no arguing that he delivered it wonderfully, what we really have is Larian saying "yeah, AA is still same Astarion, just with his most awful traits amplified" and then we have Neil saying "oh yeah, the mask is off". And that's... extremely important. I said this in tags before - what Neil doesn't say, to me, is important as well. He doesn't tell that Spawn is maskless just as AA, he just... skips over it, emphasizing that AA is the complete mask-off version of Astarion. I'm not going to cling to this because this is just something I immediately noticed and might not have been intentional on Neil's part, but... I don't know, I personally think it was done for a reason.

Anyway.

But this is what I've been saying too. Astarion is a bad person from the very beginning. I got people insult me over this take, I got told I'm a horrible garbage person for this take. But I stand by it. And even without personal interpretation you have proof of that within the game. You have a very good-aligned character (Karlach) and Astarion is at the opposite end of that spectrum. Every other companion (sans Minthara) fall somewhere between the two.

What Ascension allows Astarion is not only to live his life fear-free - it allows him to be himself. As Spawn he's constantly acting. To either get protection or simply not to turn into a mind-flayer. And Tav can take the route of trying to convince him to be better and he starts aligning his views to Tav along the road but he's still the same person. Just going to say this - nobody changes this drastically in just couple of months without pretending (which is presumed timeline for entire BG3). And people don't immediately get all better from major mental trauma in 6 months only (just sayin').

Point I'm trying to get at is this - to me Neil confirmed what I have been saying all along - Spawn is coping and still lying. Because he has no choice but to adapt. Maybe he's not lashing out or yelling, but seeing the epilogue he came off to me as grieving for things he will never have.

And then we have Ascended - a fully unleashed Astarion, who's confident and not apologetic for being himself.

That is true Astarion.

Astarion who isn't guilt-tripped or chastised into needing to change, Astarion who does not need to listen to people telling him how he's awful, Astarion who can do as he pleases without needing to explain himself to either his master or houlier-than-thou Tav.

Astarion who he was always meant to be.

Because he's a vampire. There's a reason why vampires in every single media piece are portrayed as evil. As a Spawn he's evil, as a Vampire Lord he's just doing what vampires do best - gain power and exploit that power for his own benefit. He's not just some cute boytoy with fangs, he's a vampire and he will never not be a vampire in BG3 (you can headcanon whatever you want in what happens after but that's not relevant here).

Ascended Astarion is true Astarion not because it's one of the routes we can take and headcanon that way, but because he's a vampire, and as Vampire Lord he's his own man at last, not needing to rely on anyone or to be defended by anyone. He has power now, to be whoever he wants and be true to himself while he does it. Without the fear of judgement, without the fear of being discarded if he's "too much" or not "good enough".

And with Tav at his side - he has everything he ever wanted: vampiric power that has never been witnessed before and a beloved who vowed themselves to be by his side forever, giving him ultimate assurance that there's someone there for him and will be there for eternity.

[skyedancer-rae]

Mind sharing some of your TGAA headcanons?

I've had this sitting in my inbox for a bit because when I first saw it, my mind went blank and I couldn't think of anything lol. Full disclosure: I feel like I don't have very many concrete headcanons. A lot of the time, if there isn't much canon evidence to support a headcanon, I tend to be more flexible and may change how I depict things depending on what suits my drawing/comic/story.

But I did think of a few to share, so here we go!

While Mrs. Hudson probably provided a lot of the meals for Sholmes & Iris before Iris got older and discovered a love for cooking, I believe that Sholmes CAN cook. He just has to make sure that he sets timers and follows the recipe to the letter. Because as soon as he gets distracted or turns the recipe into an experiment, it becomes inedible.

Because he did help uncover the truth about all of Stronghart's conspiracies and he ultimately did not kill anyone nor intend to go through with the assassination exchange, Kazuma is given a royal pardon after the game, allowing him to continue his study tour in Britain. However, that pardon also comes with a strict warning of "We'll be watching you and if you do something like this again, there will be consequences." I also believe there would still be a long probationary period where he can only help with Barok's cases at first. Then he can only lead the prosecution with Barok supervising his work before he finally earns the right to lead a case by himself.

Oddly enough, I have very strong headcanons for Rei's parents. I feel like they're both pretty chill and liberal. When their daughter came home one day like "I want to study dead bodies like Susato's dad," they were just like "Unconventional career choice, but we'll figure out a way to make it happen."

I guess I also tend to headcanon that Rei and Susato are childhood friends and that Rei fell in love with medicine/forensic science from listening to Mikotoba's stories.

Genshin does not particularly like Sholmes. He is grateful that Sholmes has been such a good friend to Mikotoba and helped to pull him out of his spiral of grief, and he appreciates Sholmes' commitment to the truth and justice. But every time they interact, he is constantly fighting the urge to throw Sholmes out the nearest window and/or into the Thames.

Since it is my understanding that traditional Japanese cuisine does not use a lot of (if any) dairy, I wonder how many of the Japanese cast would be lactose intolerant. I headcanon that Ryunosuke, at least, can eat dairy with no issues. Because he apparently has an iron gut.

Regarding Susato's all-knowing British encyclopedia she carries around, my thoughts are that either (1) she made that book herself, carefully copying down any piece of information she thought might be relevant, (2) her kimonos sleeves are the gateway to a pocket dimension where she can access her entire library, or (3) she has photographic memory and just has all these facts memorizes. But because of her super-humility (which she needs to work on because she's awesome and she should own her talents and abilities), she pretends that she's just looking it up in her book.

Susato and Kazuma lost a fight to a frog when they were younger, and they are both still mortified by that memory to this day.

On Gina and Kazuma's first case together post-game, Sholmes showed up to offer his assistance. They allowed him to stay because it annoyed Barok.

They have kicked Sholmes out of every single crime scene since then.

[mister-eames]

So, apparently this is another day to let my mind wander and wonder...

Do you think the inception crew has degrees? Or went to college in some capacity? I ask this about Arthur and Eames in particular (but I'd like to hear if you have any headcanons about the others too) since we know about Ari, and Cobb too since he was introduced to lucid dreaming by professor Miles. We don't know for sure about Mal of course either despite who her father is, though I think she did some studies, curious as she was about it, maybe something like philosophy or psychology though... As for Yusuf I think he at least started college, since one doesn't become so good at chemistry with no background.

Arthur and Eames are more mysterious though, and I headcanon them as having been involved in dreamshare by means other than the academics, but that doesn't mean they couldn't have attended college too. Like maybe Eames started studying art and started copying famous art pieces just for fun but then he and some friends got the idea they could try stealing something, or maybe he studied acting, or something completely unrelated because his father wanted him to. And maybe Arthur attended some courses he thought would be relevant for his dreamsharing career after leaving the military. Or maybe he went to college after school and studied something like physics, or maybe architecture as well, or something else like law. The possibilities, as always are infinite.

Ahaha I love these questions though, and I love hearing your thoughts!!!

I think as you say, the others, Yusuf, Cobb and Ari, are formally educated/have degrees, I could go either way with Mal - either her going down the starving artist route in protest only to end up in the same field as her father or being just like him, alma mater and all.

I tend to go either way on Eames. Perhaps he has a degree in psychology, or a masters in child/early education or maybe he went straight into the military out of high school. In either case, he definitely has scores and scores of degrees from various universities which can be produced at any time, because references are something of a speciality for him. The legitimacy of these degrees, uhh..... is up for debate. Definitely not counterfeit certificates. No. Never. Not Eames.

Arthur, I'm fairly solid in my headcanon that he doesn't have a degree, nor has he ever gone to college as a student. I adore the theory that Arthur has never had formal education, that everything he knows has been learned through independent study. I get the sense that, even if he could have afforded it at the time, that the learning environment of college isn't for him. I think he maybe worked at a college, and that's maybe how he met Dom, but yeah, the headcanon that he learned everything he knows through passion, sheer stubbornness and, I don't know, osmosis, is one that resonates with me most.

As you say, the possibilities are infinite, and every last one of them is delightful! I love each and every iteration of these characters!!

[flecks-of-stardust]

expanding on the shipping thing, especially since i made that shipping tagging request recently, like. i don't have an issue with shipping, whatever that... even really means, because to be honest i don't even fully know what people use it to mean. like seriously, when someone says they're a 'shipper' i literally do not understand what exactly they're referring to, because there are so many ways you can 'ship' something.

romantic relationships between characters can be interesting and incredibly so. artihunter, as an example from rain world, has a lot of interesting directions you can take narratively, irrespective of whether you take it in a romantic direction or in a platonic direction or a familial direction or what have you. the tragedy of loving someone you know you're going to lose; having to confront the idea that despite all your flaws, someone still loves you for who you are; mourning and grieving and ultimately moving on with someone who just Gets It at your side; etc etc etc, artihunter can be so interesting, and it's nice to see when artists tap into that. and the same can be said about a lot of other ships probably, rain world or otherwise.

and this isn't to say that shipping—romantic, platonic, whatever, but let's be real we're mostly talking romantic here—that isn't narratively weighty, ie stuff that's just 'these two characters are invested in each other lives and there's nothing more to it,' that's not Bad. that's not boring. sometimes that too can have narrative weight, and i like it. like, i'm not opposed to shipping, if that's how it comes off sometimes. i just like stories, ones that explore concepts and themes, regardless of what the medium may be. if it's told from the perspective of characters who are romantically invested in each other, sure, cool. i am okay with that. just in general, shipping doesn't have to have. like. story, or narrative significance or whatever to be 'good.'

i just. i don't fucking care for a lot of it. it's not interesting to Me. before i started mass blocking ship tags i would see a lot of art that was kind of just the same thing over and over again, like character A doing some classic romantic thing with character B and it's. that's it. it's not new and there's no story and the point of it is that these two characters are romantically interested in each other and i don't. care. i really, really don't. some people enjoy it! it's really interesting to other people! and that's fine! i can't say i haven't occasionally looked at ship art and smiled at the characters being cute. it was made with care and passion and it shows.

my problem with ship content in general is the oversaturation of ship content in fandom. i can't say how much there is since i have so many tags blocked, but i'd be willing to bet that it's at least 50% of all content made for a particular piece of media. which... is disheartening, you know. especially as an aromantic person. i have to sift through so fucking much shit that doesn't interest me and has no relevance to me to find something that's actually interesting. to an extent it makes me kind of bitter because it feels like most people just run to make romantic headcanons of the characters for the sake of shipping, and then devote their time into doing just that. that's probably a gross exaggeration of how a lot of people are, but at times that's really how it feels. there's so much fandom content, so much community content, that just... is not relevant to me at all. it gets alienating.

i don't really have a point to make with this post, a lot of this is just me rambling because i'm up way too late, but. i dunno. just thoughts. i don't actually mind shipping. i just wish more of the ship content i could see has more. story weight to it i guess. because then i actually have something to be invested in.

it makes me sad having all these tags blocked, honestly. i miss out on so much art. which is part of the problem. do you get it?

[ghostflowerhotpotch]

Hi! I have a few points about dates and such, so I'll just get to it:

- Miles' quiz says Decembruary 2, 2018 (but a poster later in the film says December, so that's just him playing dumb in front of his teacher).

- Jeff says Miles has been at the school for two weeks when he drops him off at the start.

- If you count the days as the movie progresses, it's about 6-7 days. There might be a few unseen days between Peter's body being found and his funeral, but if we assume he's buried immediately after, it takes place in about one week.

-The security cameras when Spot tries to steal the ATM seem to say it's July 2023. Consistency!

Anyway, the date on the quiz plus the fact that the film was released in December 2018 makes me think it also takes place then.

Thanks for your notes! I have some things to point.

I actually knew about the Decembruary detail! I watched the ITSV video from CinemaWins.

Actually, what Jeff says is that Miles needs to give it at least 2 weeks, not that he has been there for that long.

The week reference is interesting! Thanks.

Huh, I didn't notice that detail previously.

Now, with these details out of the way, what we can say?

I was right on the money about the creators not paying too much attention to dates. My original theory was that they avoided putting anything too concrete to don't run into timeline problems.

Is good to keep in mind that both the test (Miles could have easily put the wrong year too, considering he put Decembruary;) and the Security Camera are all little details that aren't really relevant to the plot; like this isn't an "if we don't do this before X date the world ends. I consider Miles Saying "And for the past year and four months" heavier proof of the time passed that what the security camera and the test had written on aren't as valuable as that. After all, if this ITSV happened on December 2018 but ATSV was on July 2023, that would mean it has been over almost 5 years for them, which has obviously not been the case.

So with the pieces of this new puzzle, what do we end up with?

New Dates

If we weigh the test Miles failed on Purpose vs the Security Camera, I think believing the Security camera makes more sense. Miles putting 2018 on a test that already says Decembruary can easily be chalked to him wanting to mess up even more.

If it has been a year and four months since he became Spiderman, and in July in ATSV, this would mean that Into the Spiderverse is happening around March.

This would mean Miles having this birthday fall between March and July, and Gwen's possible Birthday months to move from June to October.

If we continue to go with my theory of the outfits they use in the movie can count as a measurement of time, I would say March and June are very likely.

Headcanon dates for the new timeline

While I may or may not go with these dates in future stories (Which I will explain my reasoning later for those who like my fic writing.) I thought it would be fun to give some new headcanons to these dates.

Since the anomaly situation hasn't been done, my alternative number for Miles would be 24. Why 24? Because the number 42 plays a big role in his life (is the number which he won the "lottery," his spider is from that dimension, and is seen around in ITSV a lot too.) And since 42 can't be a date, 24 it is.

For Gwen, I thought it would be fun that since her universe is 65, and the month of June seems like a good lead, her birthday could be June 5 (since 06/05) I know this means there isn't an example of 15 months of difference between them, however, I think everybody goes more with the month than the exact day for these things.

I have a cousin who is roughly, 20 days older than me, but we always said "a month" while mentioned in passing because why bother with semantics.

Will I ignore this in my writing? Probably

Now, this next section is mostly there for those who like my writing, since usually, the headcanons I have here tend to translate into my works.

I will probably go with my original dates.

Here is my situation; I could believe Miles is in school in July because of the alternative universe (it seems traditionally it ends in June.) I could believe they use fluffy jackets in July because, in Miles' universe, July is colder than our own; heck I was joking with my partner that Miles probably didn't have coronavirus in his universe and the reactions to other spideys who dealt with that,

What I can't deal with, is Miles starting school in March.

While students can move to other schools all year around, the fact that the lottery part is mentioned as well as the test, makes me think this has to be at a reasonable timeline for the school year. After all, why they would host a lottery for a student when the school year ends in four months? Why Rio and Jeff would try to make Miles change school if nothing prompt them to?

Granted, this could be explained with the school year working differently, maybe they start in January, and is still early enough to do this, or start in March.

However, I disqualified the December bit (which I also discard because NO ONE HAS A STUDENT START CLASSES JUST BEFORE WINTER BREAK UNLESS THEY ARE MOVING OR SOMETHING SIMILAR.) I wouldn't be surprised if they decided to put imagine it was in December just because.

Again, this is not an important detail. Gwen's dad is different between ITSV and ATSV, as well as the fact that the situation and Peter's look are different.

(You could make the case it looks like this because Miles is imagining everything instead of being a faithful adaption. However, I firmly believe they didn't put too much time into it or stick with those concepts because it wasn't necessary. Also, this will mean Peter B maybe wasn't eating pizza instead of pushups, and I will NOT give up that.)

Why not have a different way the calendar works? Too many details to keep track of, and fics are supposed to be fun; I will not try to bend backward my writing to adhere to the canon if is not enjoyable.

Is not the only time I do this, Noir should be around 19 because of comics and stuff, but if you think I will give up the idea that Noir is in his 40s, you are dead wrong.

This part will be edited into the original post (since people don't tend to reblog reblogs, I prefer people will have the chance to see the corrections.) And queue for tomorrow so more people can see it.

Also, I made a mistake in my original post, I said Gwen's Birthday would be in June, when in reality it should May, sorry for the confusion!

If you read all the way, thank you for your patience! I know this is long.

[allterrribleideas]

TADC Ep 2 Rampant Theorybaiting

Is this all spoilers? I guess I'll just spoiler it all. It's probably not even relevant though!

So the fun theorycrafting discourse from this episode that isn't centered around whether the purple psychopath rabbit is redeemable is who in the cast may or may not be an NPC. Caine seems to suggest he has no method of determining this, and I'm willing to accept him at his word since he doesn't ever seem actively malicious. With that in mind here's my absolutely straw grasping theories on who may be an NPC. It should also be said that since we don't know what magic technology this world runs on, there might not BE any difference between a 'human' and an 'npc' beyond like, I dunno, admin rights? They might all get simulated the same way but humans only get so and so treatment while npcs get this and that, I dunno, it's episode 2, let me have my fun damn it.

Pomni: Seems very unlikely to be an NPC owing to her knowledge of the outside world and ability to curse. Caine also explicitly identifies her as a human, so if she's an NPC, she was created by some other entity and we haven't really gotten any evidence there's anything 'above' Caine yet apart from whatever originally built the world. So she's pretty likely human.

Ragatha: Technically I feel like she's confirmed human via Kinger, who I didn't talk too much about but is my favorite character. Also she got obliterated by the abstracted Kaufmo and I feel like an NPC wouldn't have survived that? I get the idea (from Gummigoo exploding) there's not actually any blood or gore, and everything is censored like German TF2, so when NPCs 'die' they just turn into confetti or some other kind of fun prop, and Ragatha definitely had a bunch of times she could have 'died' but survived, so she feels pretty safely in the human camp.

Kinger: My gut says it's unlikely because of the existence of the Queen human character that was seen briefly in the first episode (well, her room, at least). NPCs don't abstract as far as we know, and it would be weird to have a king and queen chess piece but one is human and one is an NPC. It also wouldn't make sense to me that a character that's been around for 'years' who is considered to be 'old' would be advanced enough AI to pretend to be human for this long. Then again Caine is (probably) an AI and is pretty advanced. I also don't think Kinger being an NPC really changes much for him, it wouldn't be a super important reveal without more backstory for him.

Jax: I've already gone over most of the evidence for why I feel like Jax could be an NPC, but my gut again mostly says he's not. This is more for narrative reasons though, I think his character 'works' better as a cruel and hateful human than as a one-note poorly motivated NPC. Wouldn't surprise me if there's a reveal but he's got enough bits and bobs pointing in that direction I could see it happening. I don't think it'd be good for the story, though.

Gangle: My number 1 NPC pick! Gangle exhibits a lot of strange behaviors that are NPCish. She has probably the weirdest body of the cast apart from maybe Zooble. Her gimmick doesn't make sense- we haven't seen anyone else be 'affected' by changes in their appearance, why does her mask control how she acts? That's how an NPC would behave! Jax TREATS her like he treats NPCs too (though Jax treats everyone like garbage so maybe not a big point there). I think it's worth keeping an eye on her! My FORBIDDEN HEADCANON that I will believe until it's definitely proven wrong is that Jax dragged Gangle out of an adventure because she's specifically so easy to bully and abuse. Like he seems like the type of person who would keep a pet just to have something to take his urges out on. That is INCREDIBLY unlikely though, I'm just throwing it out there because it's particularly cruel and interesting to me.

[raeloganthesonic06fangirl]

Is any headcanon you make up for Quackerjack not just you projecting on the character yourself or is it all "Since I like this my fav likes it too" "Since I suffer from this kind of thing my fav suffers from it too" kind off deal?

Suffer? From what? I'm confused...

Quite a bit of headcanons that have nothing to do with me, actually. They're really fun to do because I have to do some deep dives sometimes to get an understanding of what I had in mind. Hyperlinked ones are ones I could find the exact posts

QuackerJack has rubber based superpowers but doesn't know it

QuackerJack is Gosalyn's bio-dad and he was Professor Waddlemayer's son-in-law Headcanon/Theory

QuackerJack had a bad bout of pneumonia as a kid and his strong attachment to toys began because his parents bought him a lot of toys during recovery

QuackerJack has a perfectly normal twin brother named QuackerZachary that lives in Duckburg and isn't relevant to the plot

QuackerJack unintentionally messed with his own memory while testing the HypnoDisc/Mr. Relaxatron

QuackerJack is one of the strongest mortals in St. Canard

QuackerJack is 2ft 9in tall

QuackerJack has rubber based superpowers but doesn't know it (explained further)

The Lawn Darts Theory

Load Bearing QuackerJack Theory AKA: QuackerJack's consistency in his alternate counterparts is keeping the multi-verse from collapsing on itself

QuackerJack saw "Five Characters in Search of an Exit" when he was 11, and it messed him up for a few weeks in 1961

QuackerJack's in-universe actor in DT17 is named Mike Bill, and he retired from acting to be a pediatric dentist because he broke his leg on set, presumably what Jim Starling was referring to when he said "one little boo boo and they fall to pieces

QuackerJack was a Flower Child

Lots of short headcanons

His "Origin Story" begins with a series of mundane bad luck

QuackerJack caused a bullet ant infestation that resulted in St. Canard being fumigated, which is probably one of the reasons he was sued

QuackerJack collects LaserDiscs

QuackerJack's weird eating habits includes, but not limited to: Eating Mac and Cheese as a scoop in his hand like an apple, eating coleslaw out of a paper bag with his fingers, drinks ranch dressing straight out of the bottle, chomps down on a soda can to shotgun it, etc...

QuackerJack's plumage is underdeveloped, and better resembles down instead of guard feathers. They're very fine and fluffy, and not very waterproof, hence why he can't float like other Ducks. This gives him the Duck equivalent to being "baby faced", which he finds embarrassing. Part of why he wears so much attire is to draw attention away from that.

QuackerJack went to the Duck-verse equivalent to Woodstock when he was 19. Yes, he did have a VW esque van, and yes, it was a pretty awesome time.

QuackerJack is a licensed nail technician, but business for such a salon in a predominantly avian city is pretty non existent. The reason for this is because he took college courses in fashion and cosmetology in order to better design dolls that would appeal more to customers.

Aforementioned fashion classes were very helpful in his costume design skills as well.

QuackerJack checks the dump regularly for discarded game consoles and controllers so he could gut them for parts to repurpose into his mechanical creations

Pertaining to the "QJ is Goz's Bio Dad" theory, him being so is why Taurus Bulba targeted him in the comics during his time working at QuackWerk.

QuackerJack is canon to Super Smash Bros (something I've been working on for a while now, with some posts linking the ideas via connecting game appearances and all that, but basically, because he's in "Disney Heroes Battle Mode", he's effectively linked to Wreck-it Ralph, which includes links to specific game franchises that would be in SSB, as well as linking to Kingdom Hearts and Minecraft, both of which were added to SSBU after I'd half-joked about those being the missing links)

The only things I really project would be a few quirks and similar things I always related to that I would know how to write about properly because "write what you know". 👀

Also, I just want him having amblyopia to be reasonable because I never see that get represented and Nega-QuackerJack having those thick crafting glasses at least gives me hope

[silkhy-john]

HEADCANON:

A smaller one this time, cause bebby needs sleep guys (I'll probably just play Radical Red instead of sleeping though lolllllll)

Anyway, I HC that Nico does a lot of quests, way more than the number any of the seven have done.

A good number are normally requests from his father, Demeter, and Persephone, stuff like helping the cthonic gods, or helping Triptolemus and his pursuits (Trip and Nico got past the corn thing. They binge Carmen San Diego after work and discuss stuff), or looking for a rare-ass flower to add to the underworld garden with all relevant sources as very dangerous creatures.

Some are from Chiron, I wrote a piece about one of those, you can ask for the link of you're interested. He doesn't really like the Chiron ones, because it's usually a quest that's too complex for even the seasoned camper's kit, or is an odd quest that relies on the aspects of his powers that Nico isn't completely comfortable with.

The last category is quests that Nico takes up out of the goodness of his own heart (which he insists to anyone who so much as suggests that said goodness exists is "cold and dead").

Nico has made himself a reputation as a helpful individual, and many minor gods reach out to him, basically. It's gotten to the point that the combination of the Persephone/Hades quests + his general reputation as helpful has made him actively interact with MANY other pantheons. He and Walt are good friends, and he helps Anubis get a grasp on powers over death and the limits of the human body.

Whenever he helps the minor gods, they impart blessings on him without his knowledge (boons for my Hades fans out there. Yes, I think Zag and Nico are very similar. Yes, I think they'd be very good friends. Hades (from Hades) would probably tell Zagreus to be "more like that Pluto-Boy" (yes, Hades knows Nico is a son of Hades, but he says Pluto for the distinction)).

The blessings definitely boost Nico's status from most powerful demigod to something closer to a minor god who can die. Zeus isn't comfortable with this. This is sorta like the plot to The Second Life on ao3. Go read that, real good jasercico with Apollico on the side.

Jason uses Nico's acquaintance with minor gods to get help knowing who to build shrines to.

The reason Chiron sends Nico on the most dangerous quests alone (at Nico's request). Nico catches on to how strange it is that he's the only exception the biggest camp rule: absolutely no questing alone. Confronting Chiron about it finally makes him aware of the many blessings he's been given. He becomes more powerful for it, being able to incorporate small aspects of other gods powers to his own. Zeus doesn't like it.

Cupid definitely asks Nico to be his champion. Nico declines.

He also does quests in record time and is a better "quest library/advisor" than Annabeth, simply for the fact that he has more experience than her or anyone else and has interacted with more of the mythos than anyone else. Athena considered offering him a mantle as one of her champions... but she decided not to ask.

And uhhhh.... yeah. That's it for the actual HC. Shitpost time.

Perspehone: Nico, could you get me something?

Nico: what?

Persephone: Lively daylight, the sister-flower to deadly nightshade

Nico: lemme guess, I'll have to go to Eos for this *groans*

Eos: don't start complaining yet, there's sphinges involved

(Sphinges is the plural of sphinx)

(Demeter, Hades, and Persephone are discussing Nico like a good and healthy parental unit. This is definitely not gossip or gloating).

Hades [proudly]: Nico has been looking really healthy lately. I believe all the travelling's helping.

Demeter [conspirationally]: the farm has helped him put on weight and muscle. You should see the way the Ares boys eye him up and the fantasies the Aphrodite and Hermes kids cook up when they get together. And for what? The boy doesn't look in mirrors

Persephone [feeling a bit left out]: he can make a mean cup of tea

Hades and Demeter [simultaneously]: *exchange look* *twin doting faces at persephone*

Iris: I just need someone who won't get trapped and turned into a guinea pig to deliver these for me... you've cross-dressed before, right?

Nico: once. It was literally just once because I was helping Butch–

Iris: yes, yes, so about the cupcakes...

(Butch was fitting skirts for purposes unknown to the shitposter. Something something Jake Mason something something I ship it).

Chiron: I hope this email finds you we–

Nico: I don't like it when the first thing people do is lie to me :/

Chiron [embarrassed]: *clears throat* it's leukrokottai and a single succubus

Nico: cool *face-plants into nearest shadow*

Sadie [puts down burger]: and the goddess in my mind was extremely manipulative and her plans almost fell apart

Isis: *indignant spluttering*

Nico [sipping choccy milk]: yep. Sounds a lot like a certain goat skin gal I know, except she prefers cows to birds

Hera: boy, I will smack you into next century

Hades, Demeter, Persephone [in sync]: *glare meaningfully*

Hera [teeth gritted]: and by that I'll ask Hebe if she can get you to see the next 100 years without being trample by cows

Cupid: so yeah, could you be my champion?

Nico: we've moved the incident, but not that far past it. No.

Hades: *smug*

Athena: I was gonna ask, but I like to avoid embarrassment and the answer no.

And that's it. I wasn't planning to do the shitpost part since I actually want to write something for this idea? So yeah, deuces.

These tags are wild, wild, wild. I didn't need to tag like that LOLLLL. Anyway.

[oumakokichi]

Sorry to play devils advocate, but isn't it possible that Kokichi was actually referencing Miu herself when he made that morbid joke? Him, Gonta, and Miu were always working together in the background, and I think it's very possible that Kokichi probably held some affection for them, platonic or otherwise. I personally think it's strictly platonic, but I still think Kokichi did love Gonta and Miu, and the idea of that joke being a reference to his feelings for Miu lines up too...

See, I could potentially see that line referring to Miu--if Ouma didn’t explicitly talk about Saihara “rejecting him” and “what a shame it was” right before the rest of the line.

Don’t get me wrong anon, I do absolutely think you’re right about the fact that Ouma did care about both Gonta and Miu. As I discussed in a meta piece I actually posted yesterday, I don’t think Miu and Ouma hated each other nearly as much as they pretended to on the surface, hence their ability to collaborate together and make inventions that were meant to end the killing game.

Not only that but Ouma didn’t want anyone to die, let alone Miu. It’s not until chapter 6 that we really see full proof of this with his motive video, but he held very strong convictions against murder and violence, and he hated the fact that he broke that moral code so much that he refused to do essentially the same thing in chapter 5, even when he would’ve had every opportunity to let Momota and Maki die in his place.

As someone he partnered with and as one of his classmates, I do 100% think Ouma cared about her, and that he resented himself for orchestrating her death, even if it was partly in self-defense.

However, that doesn’t mean that it makes any sense to say that the “person I fell in love with” part of the quote refers to her, particularly when we lack any other context that would suggest that. The second half of the quote certainly foreshadows Miu’s death, but nothing about the rest of the quote, or even their interactions throughout the rest of the game, suggest at all that they felt romantically about one another.

Ouma repeatedly, consistently remarks on Saihara throughout the game. Not only are there the lines in his FTEs, love hotel, and salmon mode, but even in actual plot-relevant scenes like investigations and trials, he constantly singles Saihara out, making comments about how he’s “always thinking about him” and therefore wants him to be happy, or how “Saihara is his favorite, so he’ll tell him anything he wants to know.”

He doesn’t make these types of comments, with this degree of frequency, towards Miu or anyone else. In fact, the only time he ever “confesses” his love to someone else is when Momota pretends to be him in the chapter 5 trial (which is pretty amusing in its own way).

It feels completely unfair to take the line completely out of context and ignore all the other many, many lines prior to this scene which already indicated how Ouma felt about Saihara and say that they’re unnecessary or don’t matter. These lines and scenes are shown to us for a reason: we’re supposed to get the sense that Ouma is clearly playing favorites with Saihara in a way that he doesn’t with anyone else.

If Ouma had gotten jealous and made a cute nickname for Miu in an earlier chapter, if he had her picture singled out on his whiteboard next to a line implying that he couldn’t figure her out, or if he were constantly calling her his “favorite person” or saying that he was “always thinking of her,” then I do think anyone, myself included, would have to admit that he probably did have romantic feelings for her.

But as it stands, most of their interaction involves the two of them insulting each other and tearing each other down in the trials, or Ouma just telling Miu to shut her mouth entirely. I think he cared about her as his classmate and even as something close to a friend, given that they collaborated for so long to try and stop the killing game, and he did not want to see her dead, at all. But none of their other interactions really indicates that either of them felt romantically about each other.

I hope I don’t come across as harsh, but I do have to wonder if nearly as many people would try to argue with me about this line or about Ouma having canonical romantic feelings for Saihara if saiouma was a m/f ship. Ouma’s feelings for Saihara are laid out in such a clear-cut way in the original dialogue of the game, even downright identical to Maki’s own love confession towards Momota, but people only seem to want to accept one of these as being “canon” while people argue with me about Ouma’s every step of the way.

I’ve stated multiple times that I’m not saying that saiouma as a ship is canon--only that Ouma’s feelings for Saihara are. If people don’t like the ship, or don’t think Saihara would reciprocate even outside of the killing game, that’s perfectly fine. But having a gay character canonically, explicitly confess their romantic feelings for another character is unfortunately still rare and hard to come by in mainstream games and stories nowadays, and it makes me more just a little tired that there are so many people who immediately want to write it off or else ignore all the other context in the entire game that backs up the idea that, yes, Ouma is in love with Saihara.

In short: I do think that Ouma cared about Miu, and Gonta, and all his classmates, as he’s stated multiple times that the lengths he goes to are “for everyone’s sake,” and we know for a fact that he didn’t actually want to see anyone die or get hurt. But given all the other context from the entire game, it’s pretty clear that he’s not talking about being in love with Miu--particularly when right after this line, he continues to compete with Momota for Saihara’s attention during the investigation repeatedly.

Keep in mind, I’m also not saying people can’t ship Ouma with any other character besides Saihara. I personally enjoy a few other ships with Ouma, too, and shipping is a matter of personal preference and headcanons anyway. People’s feelings change all the time, and crushes usually don’t last forever anyway. I just think it’s important to not erase the fact that he does have these feelings for Saihara, canonically, and that his romantic interest in Saihara is an important part of his motivations for a good chunk of the game.

Anyway, I hope I was clear enough in my response. Thank you for your question anon, and I hope you have a good day.

[dabistits]

thank you for your answer! i think my most pressing question is at what point am i trying to salvage a bigoted mess that isn't worth "promoting" by creating AUs for it. if a piece of media has potential but the author is too much of a centrist to ever fully realize it and ends up promoting a lot of things i really disagree with, is it fair for me to create different scenarios and tell other people "yeah, this piece of media is a bad take but it could have been like this instead"

I know tumblr makes a big deal out of no-platforming certain creations and creators, and this is a legitimate strategy and one that I agree should be applied at the very least, no exception, to TERFs and fascists and people who are legitimately bigoted. I think there’s a strong argument to be made for no-platforming certain exploitative creations, such as KS, and exploitative fanworks.

But.

1) for all the mess that BNHA is, I don’t think it’s equivalent to KS, and

2) what is “promotion,” even, really?

“Promotion,” when it comes to these discussions, I think usually refers to introducing a creator or creation to someone who didn’t know about them in the first place. This is actively dangerous when it comes to bigotry, and it’s part of TERF and fascist strategy to post ‘reasonable’ ideas (ex: about feminism) or innocent-sounding memes in hopes of drawing the ‘uninitiated’ back to their blogs or forums to ‘convert’ them (as an aside: I think pro-fetishizing fandom types do this as well, to be honest, and they do it by portraying their concerns as ones of free speech or misogyny so that people who aren’t aware of the root of the issue are easily led into agreeing with them). On this basis, people who have bigoted opinions should be no-platformed so their ideas can’t be spread.

I don’t think fandom participation is this insidious though. People make fanwork because they transparently enjoy a canon, not because they’re necessarily trying to insidiously “promote” it. Of course, there’s still a snowball effect where the more people are talking about a canon, the more buzz it gets, and the more people check it out, which makes buzz an important thing for small or new canons (but rarely is this contingent on one person only, and especially not if that person only has a small following). With BNHA specifically? It’s already huge. One person doing anything for it is a snowflake in a blizzard, and if anyone is checking out your fanart or fanfic, it’s incredibly likely that they’ve already heard about or are already into BNHA. Is it really fair to yourself to, uh, think about writing AU fanfic as you proselytizing to non-BNHA fans somehow, rather than you seeing better ways to do BNHA and sharing it with other fans? Rather than you writing something for the sake of your own catharsis?

As I said in my previous answer, there are still a lot of ways for you to decide how you participate. When I mentioned “AUs and dumb headcanons,” it was really just a group of my friends on a fairly insular forum and group chat, fairly self-contained. Even though we were fans of a ‘problematic’ canon, I wasn’t all that worried about “promoting” it, because it was a small group of people who I trusted could be respectful and critical, and other than that, we were just doing our own thing, having pretty much zero impact on anyone outside of us. You could say that liking this canon means we have questionable tastes (and that’s fair lol), but it’d be pretty hard to argue that we were promoting it, rather than just... adapting the canon into something we could semi-privately enjoy together.

Now, I’m running a BNHA blog with a few hundred followers. I guess that could count as "promoting” BNHA (though most of the people who found me were already BNHA fans in the first place), but I’m personally quite comfortable with that. I like to think, and I hope lol, that even though I’m giving BNHA a platform, I’m also giving platform to myself and my critiques. I’m unlikely to prevent people from reading BNHA by deleting this blog, but by continuing to run it I’m much more likely to engage people to think critically about the way the narrative treats issues like sexual assault, and abuse, and criminality. I hope I don’t reach the point where I’m hate-blogging about BNHA, but at this specific point in time, I’m happy with talking about the things I like and hope for, in addition to the places where I think it fucks up.

That’s all to say that you really do have options. If you can’t stand to think that you’re “promoting” it? Maybe just talk about it with a group of friends or a server, rather than posting about it. If you want to post about it, but don’t want to feel like you’re ‘justifying’ it? Maybe reblog more critical posts, or write your own.

While I agree with many of the posts on tumblr that say we should probably distance ourselves from some creators and creations—and the worse their issues are, the more all-consuming their issues are, the more relevant this position is—I also think there’s some leeway for people to say “this canon is bad, and I acknowledge its flaws, but there are parts of it I still really like.” Yes, while liking certain creators and creations will make you highly questionable and untrustworthy, we also have to resist the temptation to inextricably link our morals to our consumption (I mean this both about media consumption and the consumption of material goods), because “there’s no ethical consumption, etc.” and also because there’s no work without flaws. Being hypercritical toward ourselves for having imperfect tastes in an imperfect society will just make us obsessive with hypervigilance, tirelessly questioning ourselves and our motives like we’re waiting for ourselves to fuck up, and that’s not a healthy way to treat our own being.

(If you read the above and were like, “no, I’m capable of enjoying things without overinvesting in the perfection of its morals, there’s just something about BNHA that ticks me off,” then, good, it doesn’t apply to you. I thought I’d mention it in case this is a recurring issue.)

The final thing I have to reiterate is: if you’re grasping for reasons to stay, and ways to interact with BNHA that don’t impinge on your values, then this is my insight. If you’re grasping for reasons to go, then go! You don’t need my permission nor my insight to say “this canon makes me so uncomfortable that I don’t think I can interact with it happily anymore.” If you think leaving BNHA behind is for the better for yourself, if it will give you more peace of mind to do so, then you probably already know your decision.