#just stating my own personal opinion that canon is way more interesting than an au where Ashley like. doesn’t hate Julia

[juniperhillpatient]

I love MY special side characters but some side characters who get hype confuse me not even gonna lie like sometimes the whole point of a character is that they fulfill a certain limited role & it’s literally fine lol

[benis-chillin]

IDW's Fang the Hunter and the failure of Neo-Classic Sonic

(In case you're stupid, this is an opinion piece made for discussion)

Greetings, boys and goyles. I'm Benis, otherwise known as Benis Chillin, Sonic lore enthusiast and fanfic writer. I say the latter part because I want people to know that I'm well aware that many of my criticisms are based in the fact that I'm a writer, and unlike most people, I try to run more by objective canon than my whims. I explain it more here.

And per those standards…The current state of Classic Sonic SUCKS.

Now, I am a Modern Sonic fan through and through. I LIKED the 4 main Classic games when I played through them, but Sonic Adventure was the one that truly hooked me in. The world established by that game, and the ones that followed, just have my interest more, and I would prefer things be made in service to THAT.

However, to the greater detriment of society, Sonic Generations happened, and Classic Sonic was reestablished as part of the brand after years of Modern Sonic being THE face of everything, with even collections of Classic games using Modern Sonic artwork. And with the environment of the internet in the 2010's, it's no surprise that they decided to let Classic be its own sort of "brand" with Sonic Mania(bleh)and Forces(less bleh).

But they had a fun spin on it: A split timeline.

As explained above, Classic Sonic was given his own little mini-continuity to run around in, which is actually a brilliant idea, from a brand perspective. Original Classic Sonic had the creative freedom to do whatever the heck he wanted to, since he was the main Sonic. However, new Classic material, or Neo-Classic material, as I shall now refer to it, if left in the main timeline, inherently has the “prequel” problem where things HAVE to have some kind of hook for it to really be worth having another branch of the brand available. I wouldn’t say EVERY brand has this problem, but even the most masterful uses of that format have to deal with the fact that the future is predetermined, and Neo-Classic Sonic material just does not have the leg room to work around that problem.

So, split the timeline, and just do whatever with it. It’s an AU, go nuts! Let a part of the brand reset and grow in a different way for that audience who isn’t into that Modern stuff!

And we had a promising enough start with the 30th anniversary comics! Full of interesting returns that you didn’t really see in the mainline books. Heck, we got an actual look at the design of Metal Knuckles, that was pretty rad!

Bark, Bean, and Fang also had an appearance that made their old Archie team somewhat canon, after they only appeared as illusions in Mania.  Sure, these characters were neat in the Archie comics, but getting a proper form of that in a continuity free of that Satam Stank was nice. This particular comic being a separate thing from my main love, while not diving into the weird stuff that would turn me off from it, inherently made the comic more interesting, even though I’m not much of a Classic Sonic fan.

And so this sentiment continued through the next specials, but something else began to shift on Sega’s side. The dumbassery of single timeline was stated to be the new status quo, and they started acting as such with new Sonic material.

Sonic Superstars came out, too, and my feelings on that are known. Now, after his appearance in the comics had been a bit of a treat, even if you didn't like him, Fang was in an official Sonic game again, with 3D renders to boot!

...But he was still the same jackass with barely any personality that he was before. Because Superstars was TRYING to be like 3&K with its storytelling, while lacking basically every element that made 3&K's storytelling work. Combine the lackluster story and music, both of which were caused by the idea of it being a Neo-Classic game, with the fact that the graphics were 3D, and now the question is being raised of, "Why wasn't this just a Modern Sonic game?" 

Cause from an outsider's perspective, it being a Neo-Classic game only served to hold it back in a ton of ways!

For example, the character of Trip. She seems well liked in the Sonic fanbase, but Sega's kinda funky with how they handle characters being both Classic and Modern. Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Eggman, and Metal Sonic seem to be allowed to exist in both parts of the brand, but that's it. 

Knuckles Chaotix is said to be canon, but the Classic Chaotix are unlikely to appear anytime soon since Sonic Heroes soft-rebooted them. Mecha Sonic was allowed to appear in the Modern "Scrapnik Island" mini-series, but I suspect it's seen by Sega as a "modern reboot" rather than a character being allowed to co-exist between the two brands again. Heck, they didn't even have the guts to show the Classic versions of the characters during the flashbacks, even though logically, they were still referencing 3&K.

 So will Trip be allowed to appear in any meaningful way in the future? Probably not, the way things have been going.

So, if all Classic characters can only appear in Neo-Classic material, then the Neo-Classic material has to be as good as it can be, right?

Well, that's where the Fang mini comes in.

Written by Ian Flynn, who has very much been showing how utterly stretched he is across so many Sonic projects lately(even if I would still regard him as a fairly decent writer, just...Has his limits), the Fang mini is the epitome of BORING! 

The basic story is that Fang and his gang are seeking out, "The eighth Chaos Emerald," visit a few people who tell him it doesn't exist, and then Eggman sends him to deal with the Hardboiled Heavies going rogue.

Along the way, Fang is just randomly a dick to his friends, and they end up abandoning his ass at the end because this comic is, for some reason, a direct prequel to Sonic Superstars, and we apparently needed an explanation of why they weren't there?

If my summary didn't sound that bad to you, it's because you don't have to go through the grueling wait that being an IDW Sonic fan entails.

Seriously, the wait between issues of IDW Sonic has become a real problem the past few years. Ever since the Metal Virus ended, the main book has had a massive problem with pacing. 

And sure, there are arcs and ideas I like there, I AM a fan, but not a lot HAPPENS in each issue compared to earlier in the book's run. Even re-reading them, the pace is oddly slow for a book about a fast character, and the issue especially persists here...On top of the main book being paused for a bit so THIS shit could come out.

(Current arc is doing better, though, so hope they keep that up)

Issues 1&2 are wasted with Fang harassing Sonic and Knuckles for a bit that, guess what? Goes nowhere! And then we briefly divert to Fang and co. in a watery old Eggbase so Eggman can capture them and actually get the plot going…3 issues into a 4-issue mini! Then, we finally get to the main event, where all will be revealed! And…

It's the Warp Topaz from the main book. The Hardboiled Heavies found it in a cave, where nobody ELSE knew it was, so it can't be the source of the 8th Chaos Emerald rumors.

Like I told ya, that went NOWHERE!

So they fight the bland-as-shit Heavies, Fang adds the Warp Topaz to his hover bike thing, and the airship is wrecked, leaving Sonic and Tails to have no idea what just happened, their involvement being a complete wash.

And our story ends with Bark and Bean rocketing off in little hovercars that just raise the question of why they didn't use those when Fang threatened to kick them off in Issue 2, since he has no say in whether or not they launch.

I actually managed to ask Ian Flynn about this on the Bumblekast, and this was his response:

Worth noting that the final issue has an additional editor that didn't work on the previous issues. Not saying EVERYONE'S blameless in this, but if I had to choose a weak point…

This mini-series encapsulates every little issue the Neo-Classic line has had since they officially eschewed split timeline.

 It feels the need to go out of its way to explain shit that doesn’t matter, like where Bark and Bean were during Superstars, Fang having the Warp Topaz, but not using it during Superstars creates a gaping plot hole that will not wash away, and it not going away at the end brings up a lot of timeline issues that I can only hope that Knuckles special resolves! 

In fact, why didn’t HE get the mini!?

Even in his Classic state, Knuckles has a LOT more to carry a story with! From the secrets of his island, to the mysteries of his people(which Adventure and the Frontiers promo animation hinted at), to even just doing his own treasure hunts! Heck, you could even pin him against both Fang’s crew and the HBH, and you’ve got enough of a banger to hold 4 action-packed issues right there! 

But no! Instead, we get a book that seems written to depend on the personalities of the protagonists…When said protagonists barely have any personality.

Like, let’s consider Team Chaotix from Sonic Heroes ALONE. Vector is the loud, bombastic leader with a love of music, and true detective skills, as showcased by him figuring out that their employer was Eggman on his own by Rail Canyon. Espio is the disciplined, if a bit full of himself, ninja, taking down the bad guys with stealth and precision, while also being somewhat melodramatic. And Charmy is the excitable ADHD kid of the group who may occasionally want to go off-track and play around in the giant casino area.

These characters are simple, yet so full of personality that you immediately like them(unless you’re a 2010’s YouTuber). THESE guys can hold a narrative.

By comparison, what do Fang’s gang have after 3 comic appearances and Sonic Superstars?

Fang is a hired goon who has goons, Bean is “funny” bomb man, and Bark is the silent strong guy with a soft spot.

That is really it.

And this was FINE back when they were still in “Sega forgot us” territory. Being obscure oddities that we would rarely get in stories actually did a lot of heavy lifting for their more limited personalities. Despite what the current writers seem to feel about such limits, judging by Silver and Blaze's current "vacations" in the main book, characters being rarer can actually endear you to them.

But now, these guys aren't really that rare. In fact, I’d say they’re about equal to Team Chaotix in terms of mass media exposure within the past 5 years, and they’re considerably lacking in comparison. 

Hell, even compared to the characters created RECENTLY in IDW and the Modern games, they're pretty lackluster. Yet I'm supposed to care about these assholes just as much as those guys?

Which, really, is how ALL of the Neo-Classic media feels these days.

Look, I get that Neo-Classic Sonic media doesn’t want to step on the toes of Modern Sonic. I do. But I really think it needs a good shake-up.

Quit treating it like it’s this special thing, because it isn’t anymore. Find a more solid identity for this branch of Sonic if you want it to survive, cause THIS doesn’t cut it anymore.

AND ACKNOWLEDGE THAT TIMELINE SPLIT ESTABLISHED IN A MAINLINE GAME, DAMNIT! THERE’S A STORY IN UNDOING THAT! TELL IT, OR I WILL!

[nordickies]

I have a question, are nations seen as ordinary people or are they seen as famous, like they are celebrities?

How unhinged do you want me to get about this topic? I have so many thoughts but no skills to write them down in a comprehensible manner. I have a lot of ideas on how Nations could potentially work in their universe, so exploring ideas like this is fun. The canon gives us some hints about it, but I love deep-diving into stuff. As a warning, this is how I view the situation and use it in my interpretations. I tag my thoughts on the nationverse as Nordickies Nationverse AU - so just to clarify, I don't even try to explain the canon with this! This is, once again, just my own thoughts and ideas. Feel free to implement them in your work.

The way I think Nations work, it would be impossible to see them as totally detached from the public consciousness. After all, they work for their government - their job description is to represent their country, domestically and internationally. But, how they're supposed to represent their state is a bit different than, say, a Head of State (like a president) would. They're not political personas; in fact, they would probably be pressed to be excessively apolitical. Their political rights would be almost certainly stripped away. They're not equal to their country's citizens in that regard.

While a Head of State would represent a country in diplomatic and political settings, a Nation would represent a country in entertainment, so to speak. These immortals don't hold any authority, so the only purpose they would have is to entertain people - Be the symbolic figure for people who share a national identity. This also makes Nations more people-oriented, easily approachable, and relatable. They regularly visit schools, hospitals, and ceremonies, work as a spokesperson for humanitarian organizations, appear at national celebrations or major events, support their athletes in international competitions, do interviews, etc.

And, of course, a massive part of their job is to uphold relationships with fellow Nations, which is a form of entertainment in itself. That's what the World Meetings are all about, for example. They're not political meetings, and they don't decide anything there. It's like a massive corporate party, just a chance for all the Nations to gather in one place for half a week and have fun. Keep up appearances, meet coworkers, and do networking. It's almost a facade sometimes, but the intentions are good. I think the Nations enjoy that particular side of their job more than anything.

But it hasn't always been like this, and I think the role of Nations has changed a lot throughout history. This sort of "celebrity" status only developed through celebrity culture and expectations of the modern world. Every Nation views their role differently, primarily based on their culture, personality, and even global status. The USA is far more famous than, say, a micronation. Some Nations love the luxurious celebrity lifestyle and genuinely love to meet and work with their people. But others prefer to keep to themselves and avoid publicity as much as possible outside work hours. I don't think there even is an agreed standard on what kind of role a Nation is expected to serve, to be honest - it's all determined by the local culture and government, not to mention Nations that don't even have an independent state! To summarize, some are far more public and famous than others.

But, this public role does come with a heavy burden. Being the representative of potentially millions of people means that Nations are not individuals anymore. They're not supposed to have needs, desires, or opinions - especially if those diverge from the masses or conflict with their state's interests. They don't even have an individual name anymore, and they just carry the name of their land. Their personal experiences don't matter because they're not a person anymore.

Every single thing they do can be praised or criticized (especially nowadays through social media). When their people are divided, whose side are they going to take? Do they serve their people or their government? Who do they really represent at the end of the day? Their government tells them that they represent the people, the nation. But their people may see them as the face of the system. And maybe, in their heart, they don't feel a particular connection to either of them. But that's a scary thought because if they're not here to serve their nation, then what is their purpose?

They didn't exactly ask for this role; they were just put into this situation. Nations don't know what they're doing or why they are here, but they feel this sense of duty and responsibility to be here for their people. Their personal needs, feelings, or even opinions don't matter. They have grown up thinking that they're here for humanity, not for themselves. But sometimes, they catch themselves thinking how unfair it is. They're expected to be perfect, to conform to the norms others have assigned to them. They can't disappoint people, but always put their best face forward and be the picture-perfect representative. But let's be real here, it's always going to be impossible to please everyone. They probably have loud critics, and what would entertainment be without scandals and controversies? It's such a fascinating and complex part of Nations' existence that I love to explore in the Nationverse.

Ah, I got off the rails, but I seriously have so many thoughts on the whole concept. I love developing this AU. I'm a logical person, and I must make sense of everything. I adore overanalyzing media, especially silly media like this. So, figuring out the small details of Nationverse is always fun for me. It really gets my creativity going because I'm curious about worldbuilding overall. If you didn't get it, I apologize. But if you did, I applaud you.

TL;DR: They're celebrities/public figures, but their level of fame and willingness to interact in celebrity culture is totally dependent on their personality and role in society. Some bathe in the public light, and some avoid it like the plague. It's a source of fluff and angst in this AU; I love it <3

[bluegekk0]

Hornet (for the character ask thing)

oooh hornet my beloved <3 i'll do this with my au hornet in mind, though i suppose most of it still applies to how i see her in general

Sexuality Headcanon: lebanese. in all seriousness, she's definitely not straight in my eyes. i see her as a lesbian, although with how angsty she is and how she pushes away the idea of close relationships out of fear of losing them, it would be easy to assume that she's not interested in anyone

Gender Headcanon: she's canonically female, but i personally see her as quite gender non-conforming. she holds no attachment to gender, though at times she seems to reject femininity (for example, she would react negatively to others calling her old cloak "a dress", which is why in my au design she has a much more gender neutral outfit). i wouldn't go as far as to say she's enby though, just that she prefers to present herself in a more neutral way. i like to think that this could be one of the results of pk raising her on his own. throughout her childhood, she would mostly look up to him and grimm, whenever he visited the palace (i love the idea of baby hornet seeing him as a role model). that, and she hated all the royal dresses that the white lady forced her to wear, so that certainly had an impact on how her dressing preferences now hahah

A ship I have with said character: at this moment? none. lacenet seems tempting, but i want to wait for silksong to release first. there is a very good possibility that they continue their rivalry with no possibility of anything else, but if by any chance they're on good terms by the time the game ends? yeah i'd be very open to exploring their relationship further, since i do think there's good chemistry there

A BROTP I have with said character: ah, my hornet is a bit of a shadow the hedgehog kin and doesn't really have many friends. she's afraid of becoming close with anyone since she fears that they'll leave her or die, so it's difficult for her to open up to anyone. as of now, i actually see grimm as the closest thing to a best friend. now, before you ask "but doesn't she find him annoying?": she does. he can really get on her nerves, but it's all banter. whenever he's not teasing her, he can be incredibly fun to talk to if you share interests, and i love the idea of both of them being fans of reading. that, and there's still some attachment she holds for him from her childhood. so their relationship is a mix between "good friends that like to annoy each other" and "dad and daughter but they won't admit it". outside of that? i could see her becoming friends with bretta, mostly because holly spends a lot of time with her, so hornet tends to hang out with them. though i'm very tempted to have bretta develop a crush on her, so that could be very interesting. other than her, maybe myla? that could be a fun friendship, if hornet decided to cheer up and stop being so moody, that is

A NOTP I have with said character: for reasons stated above, and because i see them as having a dad and daughter kind of relationship: hornet x grimm. grimmnet or whatever that ship is called. it's always had weird vibes to me so i was never a fan, but now i actively avoid it as it makes me uncomfortable

A random headcanon: she would be really good at bowling i think

General Opinion over said character: my beloved shadow the hedgehog core blorbo. pretends she doesnt like anyone but she desperately wishes to be loved. 10/10 would take a bullet for her. would also take a bullet from her if she decided i'm too annoying

[v4nnyzzz]

How do you feel abt Vanny turning out to be Vanessa

hrmm ( = ⩊ = )

I appreciate you wanting to hear my opinion! it's a small gesture to most other people, but means a lot to someone like me.

y'know, i guess i never cared. my approach towards the media i enjoy is simple; i understand it as best as i can (i tend to love doing lore dives in my free time), then i take what i like and the things/characters that could use more development, and develop it myself. make my own version of it

i was certainly around to see the hype/confusion in the initial days of vanny and vanessa being possibly two different characters. i remember it pretty well. i liked the different interpretations, i still do. i like seeing vanny and vanessa designs, though i don't really care to ship characters in canon. or canon at all, honestly.

[ this is going to be a whole ramble that's longer than i epxected, so under a readmore for convenience's sake + SB:DLC spoilers ]

canon doesn't affect me much, if at all. i only refer to it to cherrypick things i like and want to use for my own interpretation. liking things for me can turn into a bit of a thought exercise bc i do my own thing, so vanny and vanessa being revealed to be the same person never bothered me >_>

however, because of the nature of fnaf's lore, i'm...not really inclined to care? fnaf's lore is convoluted and i gave up caring a long, long time ago. it's why it adds to my frustration towards how absent Vanny is as a whole, and i *really* hate that Steel Wool isn't really doing much with her. whether she's two separate characters or not, i likely would've been fine with it if only the character actually had writing. vanny doesn't.

The therapist CDs and the endings of SB (i hate them) and Vanny's small cameo in SB's DLC aren't enough to me. Not even the in-game video game parallel. Vanny just feels like a character tossed to the side in BOTH games and i find that infuriating. What does it matter whether vanny is 2 different people or 1 person? Steel Wool is doing nothing with it, neither is Scott.

When it comes to Vanny, I always get angry when I remember how little SW and Scott seem to be doing with her. I'm not the biggest FNaF fan who knows a lot of lore or something, but it still infuriates me that she was initially set up as this one big part of SB then gets cut out. Then having like 3 seconds of an appearance in the DLC which is as cryptic as anything else but ultimately amounts to nothing.

I don't feel anything about Vanny turning out to be the same person, because I'm not invested in canon Vanny. I'm invested in my own version of Vanny, and when it concerns designs, the fandom's as well. Scott and SW has done nothing about Vanny to incentivize me to give a single shit about her canon personality and self (that's confirmed, not hinted at). In my humble opinion, she HAS no personality and self. She's just there for the fuck of it and might as well have not been added at all if they are actively choosing to do nothing with her. You get what I'm sayin'?

Such an interesting character and premise that they could explore psychologically and even socially, and in the end nothing was done with her.

It's not like I care enough about FNaF to rewrite its entire plot (I do not care about other characters beyond appearance; and even then I only like some animatronics) or even have an AU or anything. I just like crazy fursuit lady. That's it.

Right shame I happen to like a character that has nothing to her name besides some hints and theories and some confirmed facts that barely mean anything compared to other characters in the same series.

I would've enjoyed an exploration of Vanny within canon of her mental state and her origins. With how vague they are about her, it could've gone any one way and I might've enjoyed it - though maybe not if they decided to go with the shallow fangirl route (something akin to Nina the Killer). Personally, I would've liked something to chew on, something that encourages you to dig deeper into her personality and reasons for doing what she does.

But that idea is going into fan interpretation territory, and treading close to my own ideas of what I would've wanted Vanny to be, and therefore not relevant to this thought vomit. So I'll end it there.

Anyway, if you (or anybody else actually) got it this far, have Evan giving you a thumbs up. Have a good day :3

[troutfur]

Um what’s the “proship debacle” thing?? When did that happen???

I am foggy on dates, so I cannot give you a more precise timeframe than "last year", but basically:

Because of a grooming situation that came to light, the fandom rammed their foot on a proship moral panic. Me and my friends, who all had before stated our stances as being very much in opposition to the whole dichotomy of anti/proship, and generally very much more open and permissive to using the source material of Warriors to explore very dark or taboo stuff, were caught in the crossfire. We even made it to a widely circulated blocklist.

My own personal crime list basically amounted to: guilt by association, failing to denounce nasty shipping to their liking, and the below risqué prompt submission to a collection.

[Image ID:

An Ao3 prompt with the tags: Brambleclaw/Hawkfrost (Warriors), Breezepelt/Hollyleaf (Warriors), Breezepelt/Jayfeather (Warriors), Mothwing/Tawnypelt (Warriors), Brambleclaw (Warriors), Breezepelt (Warriors), Hollyleaf (Warriors), Jayfeather (Warriors), Lionblaze (Warriors), Mothwing (Warriors)

The prompt itself reads: What happens when you find out your partner is secretly your half sibling? Do you let it redefine your relationship in spite of the fact you're not actually related in any way that actually matters? Does it change anything if one of you already knew coming into the relationship? Does it matter that your love was already forbidden?

Feel free to add your favorite secret half sibling ships, I just listed the ones I knew off the top of my head/had an interest in. Because of the restriction on using canon tags only I couldn't add them but I'm still really interested in reading about: Breezepelt/Lionblaze, Brambleclaw/Mothwing, and Hawkfrost/Tawnypelt.

/end ID]

For someone who hadn't been in the fandom for even a whole year it was certainly a formative experience. Moreover because as a fic author I was also pretty new to the scene.

To this day I very much stand by all I did and my opinions. But I'll spare you all my apologia. It would take me quite a long essay to fully lay out my stance on what constitutes portraying something in good taste and why even content that falls short of that when portraying something upsetting or "problematic" is allowed to exist, especially in fandom spaces.

Also, the prompt above, the closest to an actual crime I can be charged with, is at the very worst kind of an edgy thought experiment. In the context of my other works like augur AU (FRIENDLY REMINDER FERNIVY IS MEANT TO HAPPEN THERE, AND FERNSONG AND IVYPOOL ARE NOT ONLY STRAIGHT UP 1ST COUSINS, IT WAS PART OF WHY THEY WERE EVEN ARRANGED TO MARRY!), it's not even the best piece of evidence to point to if you want to say I am an incest condoner.

[pink-strawberry-kissess]

You don't want links but you have to see this bullshit, this person believes Leon is having an affair with both Ada and Claire 😂 https://twitter.com/Valenfield_/status/1685682791676260352?s=20

(just clarifying my opinions on other re ships because i feel like some of my opinions have never been stated on here before iirc. skip if you don't care) (also spoilers for death island)

okay i don't wanna stir the pot that much- but i do wanna clarify my stances

i do not enjoy valenfield. i HAVE read fics where valenfield is like- a background ship to aeon. (they're friends or whatever, the the two couplings and i GUESS i don't really mind) but i don't actively seek out valenfield. i think that you have to be on crack if valenfield is more canon than aeon imo. (like jill and chris do not seem like lovers to me in the canon re universe. they seem like partners at best. BUT IF YOU WANNA WRITE FICS FOR THEM THAT'S FINE.)

you can like valenfield!!!! the ship name is pretty1!!!!

i'm not gonna shit all over the ship, i just- kinda don't care for it? it's fine if you ship it, also don't really care if you don't.

now i will admit i do like valeveira. i think they're very cute and i like fanart of them. but i don't actively ship them (like i don't seek out fics, but if i see a cute fanart piece, i'll reblog.) i also like clairejill and it's honestly the only way i find claire interesting lol (i also don't see jill ending up with anyone to be frank)

but tbh i like jill on her own and it's a disservice to use her "trauma and healing" movie to be used as a shipping thing. i wasn't thinking about shipping her with anyone during the movie. sure some moments can be cute i guess, particularly with claire and jill. and i guess??? jill and chris's fist bump is cute??? jill seems annoyed with leon at best lol but yeah

now onto the topic of the actual ask lol

i feel like fanon has leaked into the fandom so much that people think that leon and claire are actually canon. it doesn't help that that one fanon page keeps saying that they end up married but it's literally a fan wiki with fan aus. in no universe do leon and claire end up together

the rift between leon and claire is still present in death island. they aren't friends imo

i dunno if you wanna ship leon and claire, i don't care- it's a boring ship lol that's all my thoughts ever were about it tbh. and if you like boring ships that's fine ig- but the better question is why you'd wanna ship two people who don't even like each other- i never understood this. in every single universe leon and ada fall for each other- and leon and claire don't. i just don't get it lol

but i guess there's always gonna be people who like the boring stuff *shrug*

[sillygoofyqueer]

AFTER AN ACCIDENTAL SLIP OF MY FINGER, I POSTED THE RESPONSE TO AN ASK FROM @/veigascc WITHOUT FINISHING. SO. UH. THE ASK WAS ALONG THE LINES OF: 'Have you ever thought about having Cross as Hercules? And what Greek gods would Fell sans and Swapfell (purple) Sans be?' First of all, thank you so much for sending this ask in, I really appreciate you showing an interest in my headcanons! Anyway, onto the good stuff: - Until you mentioned it, I didn't really think of Hercules (Heracles in Greek mythology) as a potential for Cross seeing as he is most famously known for being a Greek hero more than a God. But, through some further research, I've learned that Heracles actually did become a minor God after his death, and now I do believe that Cross would make a great Heracles, based on the fact that they both (in my opinion) have had to face a great many trials just because they are alive and wish to stay that way. Heracles was hated by Hera because he was a son of Zeus and evidence of one of Zeus' many affairs, and Cross has to fight back against X-Gaster because he wishes to be his own person and is going against the path meant for him - which is very poetical. The fact that Heracles was once driven into a state of madness that was induced by Hera and killed his family in that state kind of reminds me of how Cross ends up killing almost everyone in Xtale in timeline X after everyone turns against him and he realises what the X-event demands in the comic. Of course, they both realise what they've done and hide in different ways (Heracles being tricked into performing the 12 labours to repent for his 'sin', and Cross still trying to convince himself that his world is still there, despite the fact that it's clearly not). So, I think Cross would make a really good Heracles, the only issue is I think I'd need more development of Heracles as a god to want to fully switch up my headcanons. - Fell Sans as a God was a difficult thing for me to discern due to the fandom's perception of him compared to the canon perception of him, but I think he is best linked to the Greek goddess of death, misery and sadness, Achlys. I know, how joyful, lmao. I believe this because in canon, Fell is presented as an emotionally broken guy who was attacked by Asgore to the point where his magic (or powers) are uncontrollable. In all honesty, he seems like someone who radiates misery even with his façade of a sarcastic guy who doesn't care about anything - shown through self-deprecating jokes and a lack of regard for his own safety. So, linking him to the goddess of misery makes a lot of sense to me, because she is presented as someone who radiates misery and hopelessness, said to be the 'mist that fogs or blinds mortal eyes', often in death. I could take a more violent approach to Fell's characterisation due to the nature of his actual AU, but I find this much more interesting to think about. - Swapfell Sans was also super hard to characterise as a god - mainly because there's so little information about his canonical personality, which makes it hard to link him to a Greek God. However, I have learned enough about him to know that he's like Swap, but he's much more violent and reckless, so the idea of excited, frenzied violence, if you will. So, after some research, I can link him to the Greek Goddess of violence - Hybris (also spelt Hubris). There isn't much about her, but she was quite literally known as the personification of violence and reckless pride; she can be linked to Swapfell through the idea that he is so reckless and sure of himself that he will attack anyone and he is seen as feared by those in Snowdin. He shows no concern of violence and also seems to revel in it, much like Hybris! I would love to elaborate on this more, but due to the lack of information on both of them, this is the best I've got right now. I hope this was interesting for you to read!!! (you can find what is basically a masterpost of this headcanon series here)

[zenodreemurr]

Killer!Sans and Murder!Sans. A comparison of the two

It is a very well-known fact that Murder!Sans and Killer!Sans are often compared to each-other due to some of their actions as well as their names, yet while having that, they’re still pretty different. I will compare the two in this post and progressively give my opinions on them.

Origin story

Murder!Sans and Killer!Sans have both been actively killing everyone in their respective AUs. To be fair, this part isn’t much different. It is just shown in different ways in the respective stories (even if the story of Dusttale is only semi-canonical). The main difference lie in their reasons to do it. Murder!Sans dit it because he eventually remembered all the timelines, and wanted to stop the humans. We don’t know how he remembered, and we will never know how, because the point of not revealing is for people to make headcanons about it. Killer!Sans had his Chara argue with him in multiple timelines until he eventually accepted to kill everyone to feel “something new”. Honestly, I prefer Killer!Sans’s reasons to kill everyone, mostly because there were some thought put into it. The main reason I have for not liking Murder!Sans’s reason will be explained when I will come to the personality.

Personality

Talking about the personalities, here we are. A point they share both is that they were like Classic!Sans. Murder!Sans became a murderer that kills everyone to get stronger, but eventually ends up enjoying doing it and hating himself for doing it, while still being full of regrets. Killer!Sans does everything he does because he likes how he feels about it, and eventually ends up losing most of his emotions, Now, here’s something interesting some people may have a hard time to believe. Regardless of what he claims, Killer!Sans hasn’t lost all of his emotions. If he had lost all of them, he wouldn’t have waited for Blue to try to convince him just to mock him afterwards. He also wouldn’t have a thirst for killing, and also wouldn’t even care about anything, including his own survival after he freed himself from his universe. He is in fact much more similar to Flowey, though he may feel less things than him. However, I may just give it to his ignorance and Chara’s ignorance on the matter. Plus, his personality is pretty fun to watch in action regardless. Murder!Sans is not as funny to watch. I also have more reserves about his personality. While Killer!Sans had pretty okay reasons to give credibility to his killing, Murder!Sans does not have any. Let me explain. Like I stated, Murder!Sans was like Classic!Sans at some point, except he ended up remembering. Remembering all the timelines would give a good reason for someone to stop the human even if it means by any way, right? Well, not for Classic!Sans. By that, I mean that he wouldn’t even try anymore. According to everything we can see about Classic!Sans, he is nihilistic. The fact that he is nihilistic would have made him give up if he had discovered about what happened in the previous timelines, or even and maybe even more likely kill himself. Don’t even give me the excuse that he gets determination, since as far as the lore of Undertale goes, while it was named after what determination actually is and is not that bad of a name, it has nothing to do with the mindset and is a soul-based thing itself, and considering the red soul isn’t actually confirmed to be determination, it shouldn’t change his personality. Even if he hadn’t abandoned or killed himself, killing everyone is a very stupid decision. It makes the timelines more unpredictable, and in fact just doesn’t change things for the monsters, but makes them more interesting for the human, making them want to continue to do it. Considering Sans seems to be very intelligent, it is a thing he should have understood, and at this point, killing himself would probably prove more fruitful (one interesting fight lost for the human) than everything Murder!Sans actually does in Dusttale. I can’t even give it to his ignorance because while it is the case for the present Murder!Sans, he had no excuse in the past. Killer!Sans, due to being influenced in many ways and due to his new given goal, actually has more reason to kill everyone. However, I must give to Murder!Sans that his personality is technically more developed than Killer’s.

The lore of their respective AUs

Both their AUs have their respective lore, though I shall say that it isn’t that much for both. Dusttale has all the things going on with the different timelines, LOVE calculations and the human. Something New has more of a lore based on Undertale headcanons, like the fact that it is indeed Chara that does the genocide and that they’re indeed much like Flowey. There’s also all the lore concerning the timeline, but I won’t talk much about it here, since it’s a very interesting part I’d recommand looking at by yourself (and Something New overall too).

Conclusion

My conclusion is that I definitely enjoyed Something New much more than Dusttale while I read it though it was short, though Dusttale definitely has more things to read about. I also definitely prefer Killer!Sans over Murder!Sans, due to the reasons stated in personality.Have a good day you all.

[rubykgrant]

having au brainrot today and I want ur hot opinions on the theory/concept thingy that the ai base their ‘human’ names off their hosts… like O’Malley being a combo of Omega and Allison, Gary being a mix of Gamma and Reginald etc….

cause…. I know we don’t know the freelancers names but…. Please imagine a universe where epsilon calls himself Eddie or something…. Cause pls I’m 🥺

anyway hope ur having a good day lmao

Oooh, OK so, I have several ideas about this!

For the obvious canon in the show, we know that Alpha initially thought his name was Church because of some left-over thoughts regarding the Director, and Epsilon also liked using that name (I think because Caboose gave it to him and he just kinda liked how it sounds, but not in the sense that he was "the same Church", y'know?). As for the other AI, we never know FOR SURE why they picked certain nick-names/personal names (except the combination of the Meta, but that was a whole other situation). The idea that they kinda want to use different names together to make something of their own is really cool though! I'm not sure what they would all pick for themselves, but it would be really sweet to see them have different names they liked~

The awesome @leonardalphachurch once made a post that stated Gamma named himself after the snail from Spongebob, and honestly? Yeah, I totally accept that as factual. The thing about RVB is; sometimes the meanings behind what the characters do is very deep... and sometimes, it's just because of Spongebob haha. My thoughts behind that though; at some point, Gamma was finally allowed the chance to watch TV, and he genuinely enjoys cartoons, it just supremely vibed with his sense of humor (for a long time, the AI weren't allowed to experience much within Project Freelancer, so just being able to watch TV was actually a really important thing... what better way to get a glimpse of humanity than to see what humans create, and just enjoy it like people do?)

Personal thoughts about the Omega/O'Malley name (and why it continued with Doc); in sort of an extra/deleted backstory, there was a bit in which Omega left Tex and temporarily was in the head of some other dude... she got him to return, but the AI commented on the man's name being "O'Malley", and that he liked how it sounded. This isn't technically canon, but it is interesting. Caboose also seemed to imply that his name WAS O'Malley, but everybody was calling him Caboose, so he went along with it to avoid being difficult. That is VERY up in the air, what with all the confusion going on at the time. In my head, I imagine that maybe Caboose's parents didn't take a shared last name , and his father's last name IS O'Malley. If I want to include that little bit of the backstory, perhaps the person Omega was talking about was Caboose's father! Thus, the name stuck (and it didn't even seem too weird for Caboose at first, because he knew that name). As for Doc... I have a whole thought process that he has actually had his O'Malley since childhood; it was extremely traumatic after his brother died, and unfortunately the people around him decided that the best way for Frank DuFresne to "get over it" was to just STOP talking about the things that made him sad. Basically, keep acting happy until you are happy! Which is NOT good... also, his family listened to a lot of alternative medicine advice, which is why Doc thinks that drinking orange juice is a cure-all. As he grew up, Frank DuFresne ignored the part of himself that needed to vent his frustrations and express his needs, while also avoiding anything that reminded him of his brother...so he totally forgot that they used to watch a cartoon show together, which had an over-the-top villain named Malloy (this is why when Omega became part of Doc for a while, he was EXTREMELY more excitable and talkative; that was always Doc's O'Malley, he had just been denied an outlet for too long)

Last thoughts about AI names; I once thought of a "slightly more normal" High School AU, in which Church is indeed still a system (with his own fragments being named after the Greek Alphabet, as the AI are named in the actual series), but he also has extended family members who share certain traits; Dillon (Delta), Thaddeus "Thad" (Theta), Emmet and Isaac (Eta and Iota), Gary (Gamma, obviously), Owen (Omega, though his dad is the one with a genuine rage problem. Owen has anger issues as a result, and Church doesn't care much for that uncle), Silas (Sigma). In this AU, the Director is Church's older brother, and they were both named after their grandfather Leonard; the elder brother is Leonard L Church, and the younger is Leonard A Church (the A is for Allen, but this is also symbolic of him being Alpha. Epsilon is who comes forward when Alpha is no longer there... he's obviously not "dead", like the actual series, but he's dormant if that makes sense, so Epsilon is there to kinda be The Guy now. He doesn't legally change his name or whatever, but for his own purposes, he chose the middle name Elliott for himself to differentiate). LL Church was married to a woman named Allison, who had a younger cousin named Bethany. LA Church and her met on their own, not even realizing that their families already had a connection (Alpha HATES his older bro), and then they found out they were technically cousins by marriage, and went EWW WE CAN'T DATE GROSS (they were teens at the time). At some point, Allison and LL had a child together, whom LA never met; he was literally in the hospital with a head injury. By the time he woke up, he had memory loss, and Allison was dead... Beth was there to try and help LA recover, and this was where they actually started their own relationship, as well as calling each other Church and Tex. Church has several more problems with getting hurt and losing memories (just bad luck!), and down the road Epsilon finally reconnects with his niece, Carolina. Tex actually met her as well, but never knew this was her cousin Allison's daughter.

Sorry that was A LOT, haha. Thanks for asking~

[traincat]

I’ve been trying to piece together a few things from your Twitter and Tumblr posts alike and still can’t make heads or tales of things, so would you mind helping out a FF & spideytorch noob? 1) what is currently happening with Johnny in the comics? (I’ve fallen head over heels for this guy, largely all your doing) 2) when’s the last time he and Peter have interacted, canon wise? (And do you think upcoming interactions are likely?) 3) your thoughts on if they’ll have him come out in the near future? (has that ‘biggest change to the fantastic four’ teaser come to pass yet?) Love all your content, thank you!

I'd say no problem but then I started thinking about this current run again and got a headache. But yes, I can do that to save you from reading it, because it is very largely not good.

So I don't think it's unfair to just flat out say the current Fantastic Four run is not very good, largely due to writer Dan Slott's efforts. Slott was previously on Amazing Spider-Man for 10 years, to mixed opinions, but a large portion of Spider-Man fandom, myself included, blames him near singlehandedly for the decline in quality of Spider-Man books over those ten years. I will say, in the interest of fairness, that Slott as a writer has an incredible fondness for the Spider-Man/Human Torch relationship, and that a lot of the recent teamups and interactions between them have been written or co-written by him. So it's all not all negative here. But in general, I personally find Slott's more recent comics (the last seven-ish years especially) to be badly plotted out, messily characterized disasters that feature characters written with all the emotion of a cardboard cutout. That's me putting it nicely.

To explain this fully, you have to understand the position Fantastic Four comics were in from the years 2015 through 2018, both in the fictional 616 universe and in the real publishing world. Following the 2015 Secret Wars event (great if you want some Johnny angst in the background of your plot), the Fantastic Four were disbanded -- Reed, Sue, and their many biological and found family children were presumed dead but in reality were remaking the multiverse, unable, for a reason that was never clearly defined, to reach home. Ben and Johnny were left on Earth. They had an unspecified falling out, likely due to Reed and Sue's absence, and went their separate ways -- Ben joined the Guardians of the Galaxy and went to space. Johnny was featured on both Inhumans and Avengers books. What's notable about this period is that it's the first time since 1961 that there was no Fantastic Four book being published by Marvel. Now the real world reason behind this is both complicated and extremely petty: Marvel really wanted the Fantastic Four film rights. Marvel denied this explanation at the time, stating that the reason was sales motivated, but it was a thoroughly flimsy excuse and Jonathan Hickman, writer of 2015's Secret Wars and overseer of the current X-Men plot, gave an interview saying the decision was film rights motivated. This decision kept the Fantastic Four books off the shelves for three years, up until the Disney-Fox merger, which secured the X-Men and Fantastic Four rights for Disney's Marvel Studios. Marvel then announced that the Fantastic Four book would be returning. So that's a little bit of background as to the precarious place the Fantastic Four currently occupy in the Marvel universe -- it's worth noting that this year is their 60th anniversary, and Marvel has done very little for it. Compare this to the X-Men, whose film rights Marvel also obtained during the Disney-Fox merger, and whose books are currently dominating the publishing lineup. The Fantastic Four definitely occupy an unpopular position, one Marvel themselves is at least partially responsible for forcing them into.

But to move back into the actual content of the book -- the readjustment period Slott wrote reintroducing the Fantastic Four into the Marvel universe can be described as clumsy, at best. It's never fully explained why Reed, Sue, and the kids couldn't return to Earth, something that was explored in Chip Zdarsky's 2017 Marvel Two-in-One, which featured Ben, Johnny, and Doom on a multiversal roadtrip to try and find their family and which I on the whole recommend, despite it having an awkward ending due to being cut short by Slott's announced Fantastic Four main title.

(Marvel Two-in-One 2017 #4)

Instead, the Fantastic Four return to a Marvel universe a little different than how they left it, with the Baxter Building -- formerly the offices of Parker Industries, the company Doc Ock started in Peter's body during Superior Spider-Man that Peter inherited after his defeat and then lost spectacularly when he trashed his own company to fight nazis (good for him) -- occupied by a different fantastic foursome in a plot that goes nowhere and does nothing. This is somewhat emblematic of the early days of Slott's run -- he introduces ideas that fail to go anywhere, including Johnny's rekindled relationship with his other best friend and former college roommate, Wyatt Wingfoot, who he was seen being very cuddly with in the early issues.

(FF 2018 #1) A small group of Fantastic Four fans have argued for a while that if Marvel was to have Johnny come out, a relationship with Wyatt would feel very natural -- they're already close, with Wyatt being an important Fantastic Four supporting character since the '60s. I have some further analysis here on the conspiracy theory that Johnny and Wyatt were supposed to be in relationship at the beginning of this run but that that plot was, for whatever reason, nixed. I don't know that I entirely believe this theory, for the record -- but I do think the pieces line up remarkably well.

Anyway, that didn't/hasn't yet happened, obviously. Slott instead for the most part put Johnny on the back burner for the beginning of his run, up until the Spyre arc, which I have reason to believe is the main story he pitched that he credits with securing him the Fantastic Four title. The Spyre arc suggests that the Fantastic Four's failed space exploration during which they got their powers wasn't just to beat the commies to the moon, as Lee and Kirby envisioned (simpler days), but to reach a specific planet outside of our galaxy. When the team sets out to conquer this mission, they arrive at the planet, but are quickly captured. The planet, they find out, operates like a soulmate AU -- everyone has a fated person that they are matched to via a gold armband. Reed and Sue are soulmates (and Ben is confined to an underground subterranean with the other monsters, because this is a Fantastic Four comic) while it's discovered! Shocker! That Johnny is actually the soulmate of the one the planet's inhabitants, a winged woman named Sky, with the suggestion that this is both why Johnny's previous relationships have never worked and why he loves space exploration -- he was just trying to get to his Soulmate TM.

(FF 2018 #15) "What's going on here? Where are my clothes?" As you can see, this didn't start off super great, with Johnny being separated from his family, stripped naked, and put in Sky's bed with a soulmate armband slapped on him. Did I mention they're only removable if your soulmate takes it off for you? And that Sky has consistently refused despite Johnny asking her to? Yeah. It's bad. (I think it's important to note Johnny's long history as a victim of assault plays into this narrative, whether or not Slott is personally holding that in mind while writing, which I don't believe he is. cw in the linked post for discussions of sexual assault.) There's an additional issue here in that Slott has a history of problematic writing regarding women of color, featuring characters he's created to act as love interests being oversexualized, infantilized, villainized, or some mix of all three, with two examples of this phenomena being Cindy Moon and Lian Tang, both of whom he introduced in quick succession in Amazing Spider-Man. Slott certainly didn't have to write Sky as manipulative or controlling towards Johnny, but that's what he chose to do, and that factors into the bigger picture of unfortunate themes in his writing.

Sky returns to Earth with the Fantastic Four despite Johnny appearing unenthused about the idea and initially generally reluctant to interact with her. Apparently they went on a few dates after this and kind of made up. I don't know because I stopped reading for about ten issues in there but I feel confident I missed very little. It's hard to talk about the Sky plot without referencing Johnny's previous interactions with a character named Lyja, a Skrull whose relationship to Johnny I have a long breakdown of here. It's doubly hard, because Lyja actually showed back up in Fantastic Four during this plot. Lyja's modus operandi has remained consistent throughout almost all of her appearances, which I guess makes sense, because she literally has no storylines that do not involve her being obsessed with Johnny, and this recent story isn't any different: Lyja shows up, Lyja disguises herself as another woman in Johnny's life to get close to Johnny, Lyja gets caught and claims it was all fine because she did it for love. This time she disguised herself as Sky.

(FF 2018 #32) Not gonna lie, kind of proud of him for this one. That's one of my problems with Slott -- very occasionally, he busts out good moments, only to undermine them with the rest of his narrative.

In the same issue, Alicia Masters, the first woman Lyja impersonated in order to get close to Johnny, uses her supervillain stepfather's radioactive clay to control Lyja's mind and send her back to space, and I do think she utilized girl power when she did this. Johnny, left reeling after Lyja's latest attempts to trick him into a relationship, ends this issue by sleeping with Victorious, Dr. Doom's right hand woman.

I know she pegged him. I know it. This scene was a little controversial in Johnny fandom, because a lot of people viewed it as Johnny cheating on Sky and thought that that action was out of character for Johnny. I'm personally of a little different opinion, which is that regardless of whether or not you view Johnny and Sky in a committed enough relationship that Johnny's tryst would count as infidelity when all Johnny and Sky are bound by are magic plot soulmate bracelets, I think Lyja's involvement changes things significantly when it comes to Johnny's characterization. All of Johnny's "playboy" periods, if we can call them that, coincide directly with Lyja having been in and then left his life again, which I think makes a certain amount of sense -- it's Johnny trying to wrest control back after a situation where he had none. None of this is explicitly canon, I have to note, but sometimes in comics you have to do the work yourself. So I think this is a case of something being accidentally extremely in character that Slott accidentally stumbled into because he had these love triangles in mind, not because he put a lot of thought into it.

Speaking of love triangles! Johnny sleeping with Victorious gets more complicated when Dr. Doom announces his intent to marry Victorious -- not because he has any romantic interest in her (this engagement caused a lot of uproar in Fantastic Four because Victorious had been previously referred to as being like Doom's adopted daughter) but in order to install her as Latverian regent in his absence. I'm not going to lie, I love a political wedding. Victorious, for some reason, thinks Doom will be deeply upset that she slept with some closeted blond twink and the member of the Fantastic Four he views least as an enemy and more as an annoyance. Johnny, who Sky is currently not talking to because she "felt" him sleeping with Victorious through their magic plot soulmate bracelets, also feels nervous about Doom finding out about this, which I guess is slightly more valid. Anyway, for some completely ridiculous reason, Victorious decides the best time to tell Doom about this little indiscretion is when they're standing at the altar, which coincidentally the Fantastic Four are also standing at, because Doom asked Reed to be his best man in a not at all homoerotic little setup involving midnight swordfighting and Reed slipping Doom's emerald ring onto his own finger. Sorry to sidetrack into DoomReed territory here but it's just like. It's just a lot.

(FF 2018 #33) Also, Ben walked the bride down the aisle. :,) Look at his gigantic hand.

Anyway then Doom decides he's going to kill everyone in a completely reasonable and not at all overblown reaction to Johnny and Zora having what was most likely both disappointing for Zora and weepy for Johnny sex. And that brings us up to where Fantastic Four comics left us yesterday -- in answer to your "big change" question, that's most likely coming up in the next issue, so it hasn't come to pass yet.

Having gotten all that out of the way -- the last time Johnny and Peter interacted canon-wise was in the recent Empyre Fallout Fantastic Four, at the end of the Empyre event:

It was cute! Slott does right good interactions between them. This is possibly the Stockholm Syndrome talking. I don't know if more interactions are likely imminent -- the Empyre event was fairly recent. On the other hand, Slott does like writing interactions between them. So I'd give it about a 50/50 shot. I was skimming the letter page in the latest issue and someone wrote in asking if Peter was likely to appear in the pages of Fantastic Four again any time soon, so there is definitely a demand.

As for Johnny coming out -- I don't know. It's not a call I feel comfortable making at this moment, which I guess means I wouldn't bet money on it. I'd like to say yes, especially because I think Slott set up, whether that was his intention or more likely not, several good places in his run where Johnny could have come out. The beginning, when he's implied to be living with Wyatt again and where he and Wyatt are paralleled against Ben and Alicia. Ben's bachelor party, where Johnny laments not finding the right person -- specifically person and not woman -- and where Ben tells him to "be brave, Johnny Storm." And the soulmate planet plot, where I think could have had a very different and much better ending if Johnny had told Sky that she couldn't be his romantic soulmate, because he knows he wants to be with a man. But those are just places that I think would have made good opportunities for a coming out story. Instead, Johnny's been involved (dubiously) with three different women over the space of the last 10 issues, which is more heterosexuality at one time than he's been confronted with in the last 60 years. So my thoughts are still that it's going to happen eventually, but quite possibly not anytime soon.

Hope that helps! And that my incredibly long answer about what's currently going on with Johnny in comics sheds some light on things!

[rivalsforlife]

Do you have anything you wished was different from Ace Attorney canon?

Hello I'm finally slowly starting to get around to answering some of these! Sorry for the wait.

Uh this ask got super long so a basic summary of it: narumitsu being canon in a well-written way would be nice even though I don't think it would ever happen, I stand by not bringing back Phoenix as a main protagonist in DD, and I'd also want to rewrite all of SOJ so that Apollo goes to Khura'in in place of Phoenix, to have more interesting character stuff going on.

So the longer answer is this:

Aside from some of the actually problematic stuff that I don't feel qualified to talk about, story-wise, I answered a sort of similar question about a year ago here. I have changed my opinions a little bit since then, particularly with regards to the canonicity of narumitsu... because while I do love narumitsu I feel like I don't trust Ace Attorney to actually do it properly. After all if this past November has taught us anything "making a ship canon" could actually be quite undesirable and I have no desire to see Phoenix and/or Edgeworth sent to superhell. (I literally know nothing else about supernatural sorry about that.)

If capcom were somehow able to make narumitsu canon but in an unobtrusive way and as a natural progression of the storyline, like oh hey, the court record profile for Miles Edgeworth's Obligatory Last-Case Appearance has Phoenix mention they're dating, and maybe there's a few lines suggesting they live with each other, but it's not like... taking the entire story to force them together and otherwise does not change the way they interact with each other and butcher one or both of their characterizations in the process? I'd definitely be happy about that. Not gonna lie even if they made narumitsu canon in the most terrible way possible I'd have a "holy shit I can't believe they did that it's the best day of my life" kind of moment before I could think about it critically. But I honestly see no chance of them ever actually making narumitsu canon, so that's quite unrealistic to hope for anyways.

Aside from that in that other ask I talked about basically the premise of an Apollo trilogy and not bringing back Phoenix as the main protagonist in DD, and I still stand by that, buuut in my other ask I did touch on making SOJ a different game where Apollo goes to Khura'in instead of Phoenix - and you know what I'm going to take some time to actually talk about my dream version of SOJ because there were a lot of little things about the one we got that I didn't like. And it's going to be very long. So it's under a cut.

SO yeah I talked about it a bit in the other ask. I think that Phoenix going to Khura'in is a rather weak idea both externally and in-universe. In one of the interviews, too lazy to find which one, Phoenix basically goes to Khura'in because the writers couldn't figure out how to challenge him anymore. ... And then they don't actually challenge him at all. Because oh well now we're going to this new country where they KILL DEFENSE ATTORNEYS WHO LOSE and then it's supposed to be *shocking* that Phoenix would risk his life for a kid or his best friend. you know the guy who ran across a burning bridge to save his best friend. you know the guy who got punched in the face, nearly killed by the mafia, and tazed trying to save his clients. This doesn't tell me anything new about Phoenix's character. His whole travel in Khura'in doesn't tell me anything new about Phoenix's character. Basically the only reason he's there is to see Maya - Maya who theoretically would be returning home in about two weeks. Maya who was still in her training for two more weeks when Phoenix visited so he wouldn't be able to see her anyways. ... And in the meantime Trucy had the biggest show of her life that was going to be on TV and Phoenix wasn't there for it. And of course Phoenix didn't return home after Trucy was accused of murder (yes he couldn't be there for the trial, but he definitely could have for the emotional support afterwards) and instead just sits for two weeks in Khura'in doing literally nothing after Ahlbi's trial.

(And yes I know about the anime prologue that has Phoenix think Maya's in danger... but that's not strictly canon since it's never mentioned in game, isn't technically a part of the game, and even still, why wouldn't he go home after knowing that Maya's safe and that Trucy had been ACCUSED OF MURDER. Honestly that's what makes me angriest about this whole thing is that it makes Phoenix out to be a terrible dad. We really don't need any more takes like that, especially not from canon.)

And what about Apollo, you may ask? Well, given case 5 of SOJ, Apollo actually has a personal link to Khura'in and ends up staying there afterwards... after being there for like a day or two. I should note here that it has been a while since I went through SOJ in its entirety so I am fuzzy on many of the details. But both through what I remember and some conversations with people who actually played the game recently, the motivation for Apollo to actually stay in Khura'in isn't that great. It mainly seemed like guilt about his dead dad who he hadn't been in contact with for years and had completely written off until a few days ago but oh he died and then went to go visit him so... better take up the law office!

If Apollo had gone to Khura'in in place of Phoenix and spent more time there, reconnecting with his childhood home and actually getting passionate seeing how corrupt the legal system is there (even though we have a corrupt legal system at home) and being driven to fix it, that would make for a stronger story, I think. The Khura'in plot is more personally focused around Apollo than it is Phoenix. Phoenix's connection to Khura'in is through Maya, but Maya doesn't really have much of a connection to it aside from "it's where spirit channeling is from and she trains there". But Apollo, I guess, grew up there. So it's so strange to me that they force all of Apollo's connection to Khura'in in the last case while Phoenix is running around doing who-knows-what for the rest of the game. Phoenix spends more time getting to know the state of Khura'in and the Defiant Dragons and case 3's whole thing but he isn't the one who in the end decides to sit down and fix it; that's all on Apollo. It almost feels like they forced one of the two plots in to everything. And it was probably conceived as a Phoenix story that they needed to fit Apollo into last minute because oops he's supposed to be a protagonist too.

Some other strengths to Apollo going to Khura'in include that it would shake up the character dynamics a bit. Instead of Phoenix defending Maya, it's Apollo defending Maya, and that's a particularly interesting thing to look at in the context of Khura'in's "we kill defense attorneys" system. Of course, Phoenix would risk his life to save Maya, 100%, every time. But what about Apollo, who hasn't met Maya, who only knows her as "Mr. Wright's former assistant" - would he risk his life for her? And I feel like Maya would argue more against him defending her because of that. "We're strangers, you don't know me, you don't have to risk your life defending me." (Sidenote that I was always upset that Maya didn't protest much when Phoenix offered to defend her, knowing his life was at risk - sure she knows him better and knows he's always been able to get her out of these situations, but at the same time, the fact that there was no "what about your daughter?" conversation sucks. I really wish SOJ wouldn't have like. completely forgotten about the phoenix-trucy father-daughterisms.)

Let's say Apollo goes to Khura'in. Phoenix stays at home. Phoenix gets a call from Apollo that's basically "uhh hi Mr. Wright you know your friend Maya, she's been arrested for murder, if I defend her and I lose we're both dead," then you can tie in to that moment in 6-2 where Phoenix (who can't make it in time for the trial!) believes in Apollo and his skills as an attorney, not just to save Maya's life, but also his own. It ties in a bit more to the overall challenge of defending someone at the risk of your own life. Again, Phoenix would have very few hesitations, if any, risking his life to defend Maya. Apollo may have more defending a stranger at the risk of his own life.

Then if you can actually have Apollo and Maya talk together that would be neat - Maya can tell him embarrassing stories about Phoenix's rookie days, for instance. Their dynamic would be quite a bit different from Phoenix and Maya's, and that would be an interesting thing to see, unlike what we have in SOJ where all of Maya's substantial interactions are with characters she already knows or brand new characters.

(It would also be pretty neat to know more spirit channeling politics and dive in more to Maya's perspective on Khura'in and also her role as upcoming Master of the Kurain Channeling Technique and where she plans to lead the village in the future and also reconcile with her family's bloody legacy, but I'm not quite sure how to fit that in right now.)

And how about Phoenix, back home in Japanifornia? Evidently he'd end up being in charge of defending Trucy. Now, I did love the siblingsisms in canon 6-2, but I feel like there is still potential for Phoenix defending Trucy. All of Apollo Justice has a bunch of good moments between Apollo and Trucy, and she's co-counsel on all his trials, but we've never had any substantial Phoenix and Trucy investigation or co-counsel moments. I feel like AU 6-2 would be a great opportunity to dive more into Phoenix and Trucy's relationship and how it may have changed after Phoenix got his badge back. Plus, Phoenix being "the only one who knows how she really feels on the inside", he'd have unique insider knowledge into some of the Gramarye stuff that comes up in the case and Trucy's personal connection to the Gramaryes, which Apollo knows a bit of, but Phoenix knows more of. ... Or at least, should know more of, given that he raised Trucy for nine years at this point and they're very close, and Phoenix knows her better than anyone else does, even if capcom has forgotten this.

... Of course having Athena defend the case would also be great because more Athena spotlight is never a bad thing, but it's hard to come up with a reason why Phoenix wouldn't be there to defend her. And doing more switcheroos in terms of role in the plot is a bit beyond the scope of what I have in mind right now. Sorry Athena.

Aside from that, Athena still gets Storyteller, Apollo still heads Turnabout Revolution, and Phoenix still gets the DLC case. Apollo stays in Khura'in in the end with a bit more to his motivations. Rather than it just being about carrying on Dhurke's legacy, it's also something Apollo is passionate about after all he witnessed here. While we're at it I'd still rework a lot of Turnabout Revolution to make it so that Phoenix genuinely believes in Atishon because that makes for sooo much more interesting of a plot and actual character development on Phoenix's part than "Maya was kidnapped again and Phoenix is only wrong when he has no other choice", but that'd require some more detail and this post is long enough already.

And in terms of other details that need to be sorted out, there's the question of why Apollo would need to go to Khura'in in the first place. I'd probably say something to do with Dhurke. Maybe he comes back a bit earlier - actually alive, maybe, though crossing borders would be a bit of a challenge, or he reaches out to Apollo remotely somehow and Apollo goes to yell in his face about abandoning him (or at least that's what he thinks he wants.) Then we could have some more Dhurke and Apollo bonding time, potentially? Idk, if you switch up Phoenix and Apollo you're pretty much writing a whole new game and obviously I have not worked out all the details, but I think if Capcom had tried to go with this route from the outset they'd have a stronger game. At least stronger character motivations.

So... yeah. Those are my opinions. If you read through this whole thing I'm very impressed because it got very long!

[silkhy-john]

HEADCANON:

Nico saying "I smell like death and animals fear me for it" is incorrect. Here's reasons why:

1. It's really no secret at this point that Nico is the most powerful demigod alive in-canon. He's so powerful that he has enough reserve strength and vitality (after recovering as much as he possibly could from Tartarus, starvation, and using the seeds in the state he was in. You don't ever fully recover from things like those) to constantly have his fear aura and cryokinesis emanating low-key, kind of like his wavelength.

But, it's at its lowest when he's with Will/Jason/Hazel/Reyna/Gleeson/whoever you ship him with, but never fully off. The fact that he emanates an aura puts him one step closer to god than mortal by the way.

ANYWAY, the constant emanation of the fear aura definitely makes animals skittish, but as he doesn't really let it off when he's alone with animals, they crowd him and glomp him whenever he's alone with them.

2. A lot of the animals he interacts with are probably animals tied to gods who don't have the best of relationships with Hades.

This one should be pretty self-explanatory. When you make an enemy of a god, you make an enemy of practically everything they represent (imagine permanently pissing off Hygeia or Asclepius... yeah, let's not).

Think of Annabeth and cows. Her Bovine Majesty, Hera, that goat skin gal, Queen of the gods, doesn't like Annabeth, and cows, by extension, do not (why are there so many commas???). The difference here is that Hera actively does things to screw around with Annabeth, and the only thing stopping her from screwing up Annabeth's relationships and (eventual) marriage is Athena giving her the look. Enough about my Annabeth|Hera head-canons though.

So whenever Nico interacts with a horse and equine creatures, or an eagle, or a cow, they get skittish and violent because of the gods they're tied to not liking Hades, and by proxy, him (exception here is Zeus, who genuinely dislikes Nico and would kill him if that didn't mean dying at Hades' hands, quite literally btw).

3. Animals don't really fear death (itself), which Nico represents.

Here's an important distinction for you and a head-canon from me (one I might write a piece on): Hades' children are representations of death itself, while Thanatos' children, as children of the god of death, represent it's causes.

I don't want you to think of to confuse it with him repping death by old age (that would be children of Geras).

Anyway, all creatures seem to take comfort in death, and thus Nico. And when an animal is comfortable with you, it tends to either leave you to your business, or seek your attention.

This one is cracky and feels like something I'd write a piece for at 3AM when I can't sleep.

4. This one is about Artemis|Nico.

Basically, as a sort of apology to Nico cause she knew what it meant to take away the only person he had at the time (and for a long time, really), I head-canon that Artemis has marked Nico with one of her blessings (a boon for my Hades players out there).

This specific mark is the one that numbs wild animals'/animals with violent dispositions' instinct to attack creatures they perceive as "dangerous".

Animals aren't daft. They can tell a dangerous individual, and some attack on sight to get the upper hand. Of course, Nico is too powerful for a non-mythical beast to so much as scratch him (he wouldn't kill them, just scare them off).

Anyway, with the mark, wild animals basically act as their domestic counterparts would around Nico.

I head-canon that when he first started shadow-travelling and would wind up passed out on totally different continents or in different places, he woke up one day in Tsavo East National Park with man-eating lions (look it up, fairly interesting) curled up around him and purring.

Anyway, now that we've dived into my mind and swam steadily downwards, we've finally reached the bottom where one thing is left: SHITPOSTING. Let's do it.

Animals when nico's fear aura is on: I do not know this man. I could see him walking down the streets and I would not recognise him. Sorry to this m–

Animals when nico's fear aura is low: cuddle time. Time to cuddle. Yup. Did someone say snuggling? Come here, boyo *glomps said boyo*

Nico:

Nico: so do you like me or not???

Zeus [on mount olympus]: I think it's about time I sent an eagle to pluck his ey–

(ground rumbles)

Zeus [nervously]: *clears throat* –to pluck the twigs out of the boy's hair, why is he so bad with maintaining his hair?

(Will is doing some stuff for a Veterinarian son of kymopoleia. Nico accompanies him to the vet's like the supportive boyfriend he is)

Will: why are you covered in cats???

Nico [covered in cats and enjoying every second of it]: cause you're giving the dogs a check-up, doctor

(Will got turned on when nico said doctor, guys, don't blame me)

(Hades and Hera get into a cat fight. It's for a very petty reason; their pet peeves with each other's children)

Hades: time-out! Can't we just try to get along now that our boys are dating each other?

Hera [pensive; the expression looks fake]: *adjusts goat skin on shoulders*

Hera: . . . no

(Cat fighting continues)

(Snow-white!Nico AU with Reyna and Hazel as main supporting cast, Percy as prince, and Hera as misunderstood evil queen with her own character arc? Closer than you'd think)

Reyna: stop singing nico

Nico: why?

Hazel: You're covered in birds nico. BIRDS, PLURAL!

Nico: makes me even more fly :)

Percy: omg literally so hot *swoons*

Hera: *strokes cow behind ears* can we skip to the part where he eats the apple and gets trampled by my trusty cow?

(The story falls apart. Not even the Apollo kids can save it. Lesson is not to let the aphrodite cabin do storytime at the campfire).

Hazel: oh, I didn't know you had pets, Nico

Nico: I don't

Hazel: why all the random animals, then

Nico:

Nico: you're not trying to kick out my other visitors, are you

That's it, guys. Deuces. Yes, some of the head-canons here might feature in my next nico-centric (ooohhhhh, *interest sounds*).

I'd like to do more posts like these, but they're a bit time-consuming to write up. It's still so worth it though.

Should I do more like these? (The "head-canon/opinion dump-into-shitpost" format). You tell me. I mean, I'll still make them, just more frequently if yes is the answer.

[roguishredaxion]

My BnHA AU List

Sorry for the length. Fics that are currently available to read have links. To those of you mentioned in this post, I wanted to make sure people knew where the ideas originally came from. (And you’re all awesome anyway!)

Can't See The Forest For The Trees - Genderbent Midoriya Izuku who became a vigilante known as the Forest in Musutafu. Has been operating for five years dealing mostly with information gathering and dispersal and some smaller situations that crop up on the streets. Todoroki Shouto is on patrol in the area and takes an interest in the unknown vigilante after she helps out with a situation where he got in over his head. AO3

A Piece of Patchwork (Improperly Placed) - AU where Izuku and Aizawa swap places in canon. Izuku fights the hero system to become the first quirkless hero, graduating alongside Present Mic. He gets called in to help in a situation where the villain has the ability to steal quirks, five years before the start of canon, providing part of the back-up team for All Might. Part 1 is the battle against All for One, part 2 is an alternate ending to the fight. Part 3 is Izuku learning to use One for All, which was forcefully given to him by All Might at the end of the battle. Part 4 is the other half of the role swap, where Aizawa grows up alongside Bakugou and is trying to get into UA. AO3

The Fallacy of Greatness (AKA Tenth, in my files) - AU where the whole first year class of UA in canon is born 4 years later than in canon. All Might encounters a 10 year old Izuku who asks if he can be a hero. Even after rescuing Bakugou and proving his heroic spirit, All Might elects not to give One for All to a child as young as Izuku. Izuku, desperate for someone to believe in his dreams, realizes that he has to be his first believer and decides to take matters into his own hands and prepare for a future in heroism on his own. AO3

The Capture Scarf Caper - Based on an idea from @terrible-my-hero-academia-aus Izuku finds Aizawa's capture scarf discarded in an alley and takes it home. He figures out how to use it and becomes so proficient that it accidentally gets mistaken for a quirk. Deciding to capitalize on the strange bias he's come up against, he uses the capture scarf to get into Class 1-A. Unfortunately, this means his teacher is the original owner of his scarf. Suddenly his deception is a lot more desperate and precarious. Meanwhile, Aizawa is trying to figure out why his instincts are telling him to pay such close attention to this anxious kid. AO3

The Better Part of Valor - Suspected Traitor Izuku AU a la @gentrychild. After Aizawa discovers one of Izuku's hero analysis notebooks, he drags Izuku to an interrogation room trying to get him to confess to being the traitor in UA. Izuku comes to realize that several of his classmates were also made aware of this theory and have been feeding information on his movements to their teacher for a while. Betrayed, he starts to pull away from class, falling back into some of the same habits from middle school to go unnoticed and fall off of people's awareness. At some point, his classmates realize that he's no longer staying in the dorms, they only ever see him in class, and All Might is the only person he will voluntarily interact with.

Civil Disobedience - All Might doesn't track Izuku down after the slime incident, but Bakugou's parting words cut far deeper after the day he's had. Realizing that everyone talks about how great of a hero Bakugou will be, Izuku comes to the conclusion that he wants to be the exact opposite of what Bakugou is. He elects to become a villain who goes after and exposes corrupt heroes. Adopting the username Wasureta for his villain work, he collects information on heroes who aren't performing their job as they should and releases it to the court of public opinion, taking away the support that has kept them from being exposed before this. As he digs deeper into the cesspool of rotten heroes, he manages to collect enough information to rake Endeavor over the coals and ends up with an interesting new follower. Dabi, meanwhile, is shocked by the ruthless but polite teenager he found when he tried to find Wasureta and he's not sure if he's impressed by what the kid has accomplished on his own, or horrified by the scope of what he controls.

Hunting Prometheus - There is another quirkless student attending Aldera Middle School, but she wasn't born that way unlike Izuku. When she was seven, her quirk was stolen from her by a man with a smooth voice and a forgettable face and she's been existing in a state of carefully cultivated rage since that day. Before, she never even considered becoming a hero. Now her only goal is to become a hero so she can find that man and punch him in the face. (OC fic, obviously)

Lost Stars in an Indifferent Universe - Leverage AU, five parts, origin for each member of the team. Izuku is told to be realistic and he tries to be following his disastrous encounter with All Might. But realistic means that he has already exceeded the life expectancy of quirkless individuals, acknowledging the fact that no amount of studying or work will let him join a remotely helpful career, and he is stuck living with his mother while he wastes away as a janitor at a nearby middle school following the completion of his high school education. When he returns to a tall building he hadn't managed to convince himself to jump off of yet, he finds that the abandoned space has been taken over by a black market of sorts and gets folded into a world of grey morals and an underground economy based on merit instead of quirk. When he becomes aware of an illegal quirk experimentation operation and tries to blow the whistle, several attempts are made on his life in order to shut him up. Instead of disappearing, he gets angry and decides to collect a team to strike back and prove the shady shit the lab is up to. (Izuku=Mastermind, Shinsou=Grifter, Hatsume=Hacker, Shoji=Hitter, Eri=Thief)

Love and Other Things Not Bound By the Laws of Time - Mr. Peabody and Sherman AU. Nezu adopts a young Midoriya Izuku whose mother died shortly after he was diagnosed as quirkless. Determined to show his new son that one's quirk or lack thereof means nothing in the grand scheme of things, UA's principal develops the WABAC machine to travel through time and prove just how capable people were before quirks manifested. He indulges Izuku's passion and curiosity, encouraging him to look into as much or as little as he wants on any subject. It becomes clear that, while not supernaturally intelligent, Izuku is a genius whose ability to make connections and strategize is by far his greatest asset, especially as he still holds onto the goal of becoming a hero.

The Quiet Revolution (collab w/ my sister) - The Todoroki siblings need therapy. Instead of getting that therapy, they decide to meet up for dinner every Saturday night, begin a tradition where they burn their father in effigy each week, accidentally start a highly successful Minecraft YouTube channel, and generally cause the downfall of the existing hero system through the power of networking.

You Can Tell What I Am By The Lines In My Skin - BnHA/Naruto AU. Naruto dies in his own universe and is reborn into the My Hero Academia Universe as Midoriya Izuku. He remembers who he was, but his chakra, which followed him into this life, is always out of reach. He trains as best he can to keep up his regular ninja skills but can't break through the barrier separating him from his chakra. He still meets and trains under All Might. When he receives One for All, however, the sensation that fills him is entirely familiar. It breaks through the barrier as though it isn't even there, and settles inside like it's always been there. Honestly, he had been missing the angry furball anyway, so he was glad Kurama managed to follow him to this world. With access to his chakra again, the world is about to discover just how effective one shinobi can be in a world of heroes.

War Games - (Inspired by RogueDruid's Hero Class Civil Warfare and others similarly inspired by it.) A year-wide hero class exercise is announced. Bakugou is announced as the Hero leader while the villain leader's identity is kept secret. Izuku knows it's him before the letter appears in his room. The students are allowed to pick whichever side they want, but most choose the hero side, which has won the exercise every time it has been run. This year is no different. Todoroki realizes that Izuku is the villain leader and signs up with him. Izuku goes and recruits Momo and Monoma to his side. Then, after consulting the rules, he folds in Shinsou and Hatsume as well. Monoma plays decoy villain leader and attempts to collect a few more people, but they've already signed up for the hero side. Izuku, without explicitly saying that he's signed up with the hero team, gets folded into the hero strategy sessions since no one expected him to make a different choice. He proceeds to get "taken out" in the first villain assault, and most people don't realize what's happening until it's far too late.

Life's A Game (And I'm Player One) - AU in which Izuku realizes that he does have a quirk but can't tell anyone about it because a) he can't prove it and b) it could be dangerous if he talks about what he can see. His quirk, which he privately calls Stat Check, freezes time just for him in order to open up what looks like a video game character bio that explains a person's quirk, as well as containing vital statistics. It only works in person or on unaltered photographs with a person's face or a distinctive enough feature to identify them. As he gets older, more tabs are added to the bio, and he starts to notice signs above certain people's heads telling him what level he needs to be to fight them (he stops seeing these after receiving OfA, until he sees AfO in Kamino Ward). In pictures, only the first tab is available unless he took the picture while time was frozen, in which case all the tabs are accessible. Because of this, he has accordion folders filled with photographs of people instead of analysis notebooks.

Of Unpainted Fences and Raw Ingredients - Smart Izuku AU. He has been writing essays about hero society, morality, and several other issues since before UA, but he doesn't realize how much people are paying attention to them until the essays start becoming required reading for certain classes. Meanwhile, the teachers are desperate to get in contact with him, not expecting that the essayist they have been gushing over is sitting near the back of the class, trying not to blush.

In A Mirror Darkly - Aizawa is out on patrol with Shinsou and Midoriya when they are attacked and the boys are apparently obliterated by an enemy quirk. The rest of the class attempts to help Aizawa, but he blames himself for their deaths. It doesn't help that he keeps seeing flashes of them in the mirror out of the corner of his eye and could swear he heard one or both of their voices in the middle of the night. Meanwhile, Shinsou and Midoriya are stuck out of sync with the rest of the universe and can't communicate with anyone except Aizawa, and only through mirrors. Izuku figured out that they have maybe two weeks before they waste away since they can't interact with anything being stuck in this in-between space. The only way they can get out is for Aizawa, who was there when they de-synced, to touch them and bring them back in sync with the rest of the world.

Guerilla Tactics - Vigilante Class 1-A AU. After the slime villain debacle, Izuku runs away from Bakugou and the heroes. He literally runs into Todoroki Shouto and they commiserate about how the heroes have failed them. Realizing a bit late exactly who Shouto's father is and why he's trying to run away, Izuku offers to come up with a plan to help him get away cleanly. (This is sort of the worst timeline, where most of the good teachers aren't employed at UA, Nezu is not the principal, and the HPSC is in charge of almost everything.) The plan they come up with involves Shouto failing the recommended exam, then disappearing the day results arrive home. Izuku, meanwhile, attends the regular exam and sees how the whole points system benefits those with flashier quirks and easily aimed egos. He gets to talking with a lot of hero hopefuls and sort of steals them out from under UA when their applications are rejected. They move into an abandoned sector of outer Tokyo and start working as vigilantes. Dadzawa makes an appearance, as if summoned by the horde of teenagers with no form of parental guidance to speak of.

No Rest for the Wicked (Or The Damned) - Person Of Interest AU. Instead of apologizing to Izuku when he asked if he could still be a hero without a quirk, Inko points out the other ways he can be a hero, by building the things they would need to fight crime. Figuring that one of the main problems with villains is that no one knows when they're going to attack, Izuku creates an intelligent program that can assess a high volume of data and extrapolate when and where a villain attack will take place, and who the villain will be. When his mom is killed and he's badly injured in an attack his AI predicted, Izuku realizes that no one is taking his information seriously because he's quirkless. He decides to take matters into his own hands and reaches out to an unlikely helper. Dabi doesn't know why this kid decided he was the best option to stop a lot of the more violent crime he somehow knows is going to happen, but he promised and then delivered Endeavor's fall from grace, so he's willing to see where this goes.

Binary Stars - Slight Megamind AU. Before their respective planets were destroyed, Izuku and Bakugou were placed in small space pods and sent towards Earth. Bakugou's people were warriors who looked enough like humans that they intermarried (unbeknownst to humans), thus bringing about the first quirks. Izuku's people, however, are survivors. Their planet was populated by predators so their greatest asset was their ability to camouflage themselves. As Bakugou's people often hunted Izuku's people, they gained a sort of sixth sense for them, which is why Izuku's very presence pisses Bakugou off. (All for One is from Bakugou's planet. He was exiled for stealing power. The last power he stole was what he gave his brother, and the brother always resented him for getting them both sent away.) Izuku still receives OfA, and is the first of his species to have a quirk/power like that.

The Wings of Icarus - Spy AU. Todoroki Shouto works for Yuuei, an espionage agency run by his father. He's been training practically since birth, no thanks to his father, and is second in the spy business only to a person known as Icarus. When something goes wrong on a mission, he is rescued by a short man with freckles and deep green eyes shortly before he passes out. He is found at one of the entrances to Yuuei with a note from Icarus to the tune of "I think you lost this", making Shouto the only person to have actually seen Icarus. Meanwhile, Nezu is running a small but successful info brokerage out of a bakery with three kids he picked up off the streets years before: Izuku, Shinsou, and Hatsume. Codenames: Icarus, Psyche, and Daedalus, respectively. Nezu is known as Zeus.

Dark is the Night (Momo is Batman: version 1) ​ - Based on an idea from @terrible-my-hero-academia-aus​ . Momo loses her parents in a villain attack when she's eight. She throws herself into her studies in earnest, determined to be a hero. In the meantime, however, she has a hard time ignoring all of the hardship she sees on the streets, all of the crimes that go unanswered.  However, to duck the vigilantism laws and disguise her identity, she wears a suit that covers every part of her body (think Cassandra Cain as Batgirl) because no one would assume that someone with a creation quirk that needed exposed skin to function was under it. She produces everything she needs at home. Aizawa notices that there's someone off about Yaomomo, something fake. It isn't until he runs into her on patrol that he figures something out.

Used to the Darkness (Momo is Batman: version 2) - Based on an idea from @terrible-my-hero-academia-aus​ . Bruce Wayne was reincarnated as Yaoyorozu Momo. She remembers everything about her previous life, but she has adapt all of the fighting training she knows to her new female body. The intelligence and detective skills are useful in this new world, especially since a good portion of logic and deduction has fallen by the wayside for the majority of those in law enforcement. The quirk is something else to get used to, but it's highly effective at producing materials of various things needed for vigilantism. She's interested to see how far she can take the limits of the superpower this universe had given her. At the very least, she's more than capable of recreating the gear she had. Even though her parents haven't died in this universe, she still ends up going out at night and trying to help in whatever way she can. Upon meeting and befriending Todoroki Shouto, she realizes the good she can be in this universe. She attacked the corruption in Gotham wherever she could. Why shouldn't she be able to do the same here? The night is still dark and the people who hide in it are the same cowards they've always been. It's about time someone reminded them that the dark hides more than just their actions.

A Rose By Any Other Name (AKA the Haruhi AU) - Based on a prompt found on @rayshippouuchiha‘s blog. Midoriya Izumi is having trouble staying in uniform after starting middle school because her bullies have decided to step up the abuse a little bit and keep burning them. She had three sets of uniforms, and all three are burned by the third day of classes. What's more, the nurse doesn't have any spare girls uniforms and her teacher insists that she needs to be in uniform and not in her gym outfit. Since the nurse does have a boys uniform that would fit her, Izumi elects to follow her teacher's instructions and shows up in a boys uniform as she doesn't care as much about the clothes she's wearing as she does about following what her teacher said. Cue a gender identity crisis. AO3

Nothing But The Truth - Izuku is hit by a truth quirk while out on patrol and Aizawa is made to babysit him until it wears off. Although he tries to avoid more sensitive lines of questioning, Aizawa asks about his analysis notebooks and ends up accidentally learning about One For All, Izuku's life prior to receiving it, and what his Problem Child's true goals regarding heroism are. (Might become a series with this as a oneshot, or a multi-chapter story as originally planned.)

Panacea - Izuku has a hidden quirk his whole life, one that people didn't even consider could be a quirk. He has a super-powered immune system, and it can and will treat damaging quirks as an infection to fight. His burns from Bakugou's quirk heal faster and faster, emitter quirks used on him start to be less effective after the first couple of times until they don't work at all. He has the ultimate cure in his blood and no way to share it. And then he receives One For All, a powerful stockpiling quirk with a secondary aspect that makes it capable of passing from person to person regardless of heritage. Izuku doesn't realize it, but his invisible quirk got a free pass to start changing the world, one touch at a time. (Possible Dad For One) (Just had the stupid thought that Izuku's quirk is basically Cure For All)

Prototype - While getting scolded after the Slime Villain incident, an underground hero known as Prototype shows up and forces the other pros on the scene to back off. They then walk Izuku home (accidentally forcing him to miss All Might's offer). During the walk, Izuku confesses that he is giving up on his dream of being a hero since everyone says it's impossible. Prototype points out that Izuku was the only one on the scene who was thinking about a solution from more than one angle, which is a useful skill for an underground hero to have. They offer to take him on as their apprentice in the underground, promising that if he still wants to be a hero, an apprenticeship would be more flexible and faster than trying to become a hero through one of the heroics schools. They advise Izuku to think about it and discuss it with his mom, since he would probably be spending a lot of time training out of the house and not every parent is willing to let their child basically move in with someone they barely know. Izuku, after talking things over with his mom, decides to go for it, embarking on a totally different journey to being a hero than he ever expected.

Yesterday's Sunshine (A Storm On The Rise) - Based on @hey-hamlet's End of An Era AU in which the mind of a 19 year old Izuku fighting a losing battle against Paranormal Liberation Front and the League of Villains is sent back to his 14 year old body, a mere month after he started training with All Might. He is traumatized and trying to hide the fact that he is shocked to see the people he knows died walking around again, untouched and whole. He's determined to make everything better this time, to keep his loved ones from dying or betraying him in the worst ways. He also needs to try and stay ahead of the people around him, who are trying to figure out why this child who shouldn't have encountered many villains in his life, is so terrifyingly good at putting them down hard. (I'm considering adding an aspect of DFO.)

Searching for Tododeku - Or Five Times Shouto Tricks Midoriya Into A Date and One Time Midoriya Asks Him Instead. Featuring semi oblivious Izuku, Shouto stealth-competing for the title of supreme memelord with Kaminari, and a cameo of Endeavor's crippling addiction to tabloid magazines.

Planar Shift - An All For One-Izuku body swap just weeks prior to a fight that would have left AFO and All Might both greviously injured. Izuku is quick to realize that the person he ended up in doesn't seem to be a nice person (and he tries not to think about what it would mean if the person is in his body around Kacchan) and has a lot more quirks than a person should have. His childhood doctor is there, as is a strange boy with delicate skin, a disintegration quirk, and a love of video games but little else. Then there's the purple mist person who reads as both alive and dead to one of Izuku's new quirks. When he figures out that All Might is trying to track this villain down (and will probably think it's a trick if Izuku tries to explain his situation), he decides that he should get himself, the kid, and the not-dead-but-not-alive person out of there. He doesn't know how long he's going to be in this body, but he wants to be the hero those two need, even if he's technically a villain.

Environmental Damage - Hitman Izuku AU. When Izuku's mother is killed when he's young, he manages to track down the killer but the police won't take him seriously because he's quirkless. Neither will any of the heroes he approached with it. So instead he goes back to the criminal underground where he found most of his information and talks to an assassin who had a soft spot for him. Izuku agreed to become the man's apprentice so he can take out the person who killed his mother himself. After that, he starts selling his services to people who can't get out of bad situations, offering a much reduced rate compared to other contract killers. Then a kid his age with red and white hair approaches him about killing the Number Two hero.

Summertime and Seaglass - Aizawa keeps running into this mute homeless kid on his patrols. He's not sure what to make of him, except that he needs someone to care for him, especially as the nights are getting colder. Treating the kid a bit like an abused and feral cat, he starts taking food with him to offer the kid when they meet up. It's more or less an accident when he learns the kid's name is Midoriya Izuku, a child thought to be dead and burned three years before when he and his mother were caught in a villain attack that was ended violently by Endeavor. Aizawa wants to give Midoriya and all of the other victims of Endeavor's carelessness the justice they deserve, and maybe by the time he's done the kid will let him bring him in from the cold.

The Importance of Being Batman - (Based on an idea from @terrible-my-hero-academia-aus​ .) Izuku spends a lot of time on forums for quirkless people, getting support and advice from other people like him who don't have a quirk. He gets the attention of an old Admin, Toshinori, and they talk about heroics, pre-quirk comic books, and the importance of representation and symbols in modern media and culture. After failing to get into heroics in the entrance exam, Izuku shifts his focus slightly. Batman didn't have any special powers in the comics, but he was one of the best heroes in his universe. Izuku decides that if he can build the skills, knowledge and (most importantly) money to become his own version of Batman, that would be almost like being a hero. It's time that society learns that 'useless' is a matter of choice, not birth, and even someone who doesn't have a quirk can do incredible things.

[no-gorms]

Speaking of regret filed Steve, in a slightly less dire circumstances then CW, how does a penitent Steve go about winning Tony back? Maybe is a branching timeline, maybe it’s a no powers AU, but in a similar sequence of events where a more quickly invested Tony pulls the heck back after Steve not only proves he doesn’t care as much, but does SOMETHING to cause a huge rift with Tony, only to realize that oops no he wants what Tony wanted (or wants?)

Slightly less dire, because I think at a certain point (such as CW and then the verbal barrage at the start of EG) Steve doesn’t try and fix anything because he feels he can’t even ASK for Tony’s forgiveness, never mind try and make it up to him (Steve post CW is forever watching Tony raking leaves) he just kinda goes, the best I can do is not breath near his air and not remind him of me.

>> Steve post CW is forever watching Tony raking leaves

Anon, you're just coming for the jugular aren't you! 😭 That is exactly it, and I am in agony at your making that comparison.

Okay, so, my opinion is that Steve is, at that point time (whether in the canon timeline or an equivalent AU) in a mental doldrum as caused by the awful rift with Tony that spiraled out harder than he ever guessed it would, and his inability to immediately try to fix it. Basically, their separation period caused Steve's thoughts to stagnate, spiraling in onto themselves with regret, guilt and self-recrimination, without a direct outlet to actually do something about it. This means, that by the time that he and Tony are in the same space again, Steve's mental state is so calcified that he's convinced himself that there's nothing he can do to fix it. It's too late. Any chance he had existed in the period immediately after their fight, and too much time has passed. That is why he has no fight in him and Tony can say whatever he wants, etc.

SO. The only the way that Steve will even start to want to make up for it, is if Tony takes the first step by showing that that's something that he wants. I know, that puts the burden on Tony after everything that happened, but I personally cannot see Steve wanting to open out his hand unless he's absolutely sure that that hand won't be unwelcome, or would be making things worse. In canon, Tony has that little speech about resentment being corrosive, but IMO that's his asking them to wipe the slate clean for the sake of the job that needs to be done. It's not actually addressing what went down between them.

I think it would be interesting if Tony, having already made peace with it all, is able to bring up those old issues (without anger, but for the sake of closure) with Steve and ask him hey, what actually happened there? And that is the opening Steve needs to let it all out, everything he's thought about over the past x years and what he should have done, the choices he wouldn't change but wish had done differently, and an actual acknowledgement of all the issues so that they close than book properly. Tony, I think, would be impressed by all that reflection, and offer his own, and they can together look back to the very start of their relationship and how it went wrong. The validation alone would be so satisfying, where Tony would realize that he finally got what he wanted from Steve, and Steve would realize, oh -- all Tony wanted was to be seen and understood. That's all.

And they can build something new from that.

[mashi-sims]

6 Popular tropes that fit #Cooliver

1. Friends to Lovers. Duh

This is the most obvious one, and I wanted to start with this one because if Cooper and Oliver ever become canon, this is what their relationship would be.

In my head, Friends to Lovers is always problematic because it’s easy to lose a beautiful friendship to a mediocre romantic relationship, as has happened to many LGBT couples on TV, but if done correctly, it warms my heart and makes sparks of joy fly all around.

The journey of their friendship not only as a partnership but as a mutual beneficence that helps them both grow and develop as their individual selves, helping each other find their own path, confidence in themselves, inspiration and motivation to fulfill their dreams, ultimately becoming better individuals aiming to transform into the best versions of themselves they can be, *voice intensifies* all while being together and offering each other’s company and support, becoming accustomed to being next to one and other and not being able to imagine a life without the other, slowly developing emotional ties that make them consider if a different kind of love exists, and them exploring it and realizing that, in fact, THERE IS. That type of slow build that transforms into a romantic relationship because they both agree they are each other’s most treasured person and they want to stay in each other’s lives forever, that’s some GOOD STUFF.

2. Fake Dating

The reason why I believe a good fake dating au can get so popular, is because it can offer a pretty natural transition between “Not having any kind of feelings”/”Being unaware of their feelings” to “Oh, my gosh I am in love with this person what do I do”, and it can be so heart-wrenching it’s addictive.

In a beautiful world, Oliver is totally in love with Cooper and he just doesn’t know it yet, and there’s where this trope comes in handy.

There’s a number of reasons why two characters may start fake dating; getting someone off their backs, making someone jealous/angry, needing a date for a special occasion, or getting some odd financial benefit from it, if you’re willing to take it as far as getting married and having to pretend to be actually married so nobody know their marriage is a scam.

They agree to start fake dating or to start introducing each other to other people as their boyfriends, because Cooper wants these interested girls (and boys) in his money to go away, or because Oliver is the only single one at his ballet and he doesn’t want to go to after-show celebration alone, and after one or many fake dating moments, they start realizing they don’t need to act or pretend to act a certain way at all, because there’s stuff they’d normally do with or say to each other, or at least the trust or the reliance is already there. 

Think about the inevitable time where they do have to stop acting like fake boyfriends and they start missing it, or when they mid-date realize there’s something real between all that pretending and now they don’t know what to do about it, imagine the conversation they’d have when they realize they can’t go back to being friends anymore.

3. N Things

This one is more like a writing strategy than an actual trope, but it still works. We’ve all read the “4 times they almost kissed, and one time they did” or the “3 times they said I love you to someone else, and one time they said it to each other”

Okay, now hear me out- how about, “3 times Oliver said Cooper wasn’t his boyfriend, and one he didn’t have to”, or “5 times Oliver said he wasn’t gay, and one time he couldn’t”? I’m down for that.

The heart of this trope is the repeatability of a certain joke, a comment or an unfortunate event and that’s obvious it’ll turn itself around, and it’s that one moment that finally comes which makes you want to dance under the rain.

To me, the amount of times Oliver’s had to tell other people that he isn’t gay or that Cooper’s not his bf (Cooper also said it once) is the perfect starter to this “n things” strategy.

Come on, American Housewife! You’re making it too easy for me to expect that one moment when it all turns around!

4. Babysitters

Neither of these boys is ever shown to be a kid-person nor to have a soft spot for babies, or anything like that! Like, at all! Their whole characters are based around the facts that they are both money-driven, superficial, and self-absorbed (although in the process of becoming better than that), and we barely ever get to see them pouring their hearts out or letting their guard down.

Therefore, imagine a day where Oliver is forced to babysit Violet (or another baby if there comes to be another one), and he’d undeniably be annoyed at the situation because this baby/toddler has ruined his plans, but Cooper obviously stays and helps him out because where else would he be?

It’s the times driving them both crazy when they don’t know how to make a baby stop crying, or when they’re deciding who should change the diaper because neither of them wants to; it’s the time when they’re both a mess because some chaos happened with the food or the paint while they were trying to come up with an activity.

Then it’s Oliver slowly coming down with baby fever as he’s trying make them laugh or when he’s walking around the room trying to make them fall asleep, and Cooper is in awe because he had never seen that side of his friend, and he had never expected it to look so damn cute, and Oliver had never expected Cooper to stay with him for a whole day just taking care of a baby.

It’s at the end of the day when they’re tired as hell but they agree that they had fun and that they’re glad they had each other to help out, and although they don’t say it, maybe it wasn’t so bad their original plans didn’t end up working out.

5. Hurt/Comfort

This is not a trope for everyone, you may love it, you may hate it, you may be indifferent, or you may be like me; somewhere in the middle but with some strong opinions. If done right, it can be a beautiful addition to the story of two characters in process of falling in love. If done wrong, it can victimize the characters in unnecessary ways or show them in a light that doesn’t suit them, thus making them feel out of character, which is every true fan’s worst nightmare.

Although, let’s focus on the small things; like characters holding on to their emotions for too long until they really can’t do it anymore, and they need somebody to help them out, even if they resist it, because in the end they’ll acknowledge they’re thankful for having them, and it also makes their relationship inevitably grow and develop, because there’s something really special about having someone you can truly be yourself with and knowing that they’ll stay, and they’ll help you through everything and make you feel like you’re going to be okay, even (and especially) during your worst moments.

(Although really toned down,) we’ve already seen this kind of comfort between the two; like when Cooper found out Oliver lied about his vacations, and he told him he didn’t need to lie to him out of all people, and that he could come on vacation with him whenever he wanted, or when Cooper’s parents ditched him and he confided in Oliver, who believed he had become tired of hanging out with him, and Cooper had to reassure him that wasn’t the case; those were small moments where we got to see them somewhat upset and being comforted by the other, and that’s when it feels like their friendship is strong and real.

The reason why I believe this trope fits them so much is because they are barely shown in a vulnerable state that allows them to have a sad plot where they’d need to be comforted, and it’s during times like these where you can really see their relationship grow.

Also, I want to point out that it’s not about romanticizing or sexualizing sadness, at all! It’s about using these moments to slowly build and give consistency to the relationship- don’t even get me started on how much I hate seeing and reading characters making out after having a breakdown.

6. Mutual Pining

Some people like to suffer, okay? Some of us like a good tragedy, and there’s nothing more tragic than two characters who are deeply in love with each other, but they’ve resigned to keeping it hidden deep down because they’re convinced the other doesn’t feel the same and they don’t want to lose them nor their friendship, even if it means having to live with a painful secret for the rest of their lives.

When you start having feelings for another person, you may be brave enough to let them now or try and see where things go, because you have nothing to lose, right? But what happens when it’s your best friend you have feelings for? There’s a lot there to lose if do things go wrong, and there’s no certainty that they won’t, so you might as well leave things as they are, because nothing would be more painful than to lose the person you love the most for making things weird because they don’t feel the same way...

And it’s completely frustrating to see two characters with the same internal monologue, because you know what IT COULD BE, but THEY don’t know that- and I love it.

There’s a million different ways this trope can play out, and it’s always so interesting to see where things go after both characters have resigned to never let the other one know how they feel, and then we get to see these destructive actions like dating other people because they think their feelings are unrequited, but they have no idea the other is in deep pain because of seeing the person they love with someone else... yes, a good tragedy!

Anyway, thank you for reading this rant and feel free to add to the list or make any of these come to life.