i come and post here for the first time in weeks (months?) to risk the ire of a fandom that seems to be growing ever-shittier in the wings
but i’mma need y’all to take a step back when it comes to nayupollo. and i say this as someone who is VERY exposed to jp fandom, mostly on twitter, when i say: it is a very popular ship in japan because it falls very squarely into the childhood friends trope library, with backup from word of god that their relationship is like that of “old friends” with no mention of sibling-hood in sight.
listen okay, shipping incest generally Isn’t Good. i’m not about to pull a values judgement on the idea as a whole bc people exist who DO ship it for coping, and i refuse to be the one to pull that backstory out of someone. but yes, i agree, shipping incest is bad. this extends to non-blood-relatives, because it’s not fair on anyone to suddenly say that’s okay just because two siblings don’t share parents.
but this is where you need to pull up miles and franziska, who are definitely not blood related (like apollo and nahyuta) but who are treated as siblings in the canon and refer to each other as such on multiple occasions (UNLIKE apollo and nahyuta). i think there is a lot of worth in trying to figure out how canon and the creators themselves treat characters and their relationships, because it adds a lot of depth and forces us not to make snap judgements on these things.
in terms of other fandoms, i’m most familiar with ons and toz. mika and yuu constantly yell about family, but it’s probably the most popular ship in fandom. sorey and mikleo were raised by the same man and have been CALLED 兄弟同然 (just like brothers) BY CANON SOURCES and yet the English fandom calls them some of the greatest non-straight representation in video games in recent years. so i’m trying to figure out what’s happening here.
do i ship nayupollo??? no, actually, i don’t. i straight up like the family interpretation of them, because that’s what i’m a sucker for. but i also firmly believe that is AN INTERPRETATION of them, because the game itself has so little weight in that direction. in fact, i got blindsided when ga’ran straight up referred to them as brothers because it was the first time in the game--i had to stop and make sure she was actually referring to apollo and nahyuta. in a game that so carefully makes you feel the sibling bond apollo and trucy have without actually saying it (lmao spoilers), and in a game that paints nahyuta’s entire motivation in terms of his love for his own younger sister, i think it’s worth noting that this family relationship was NOT painted between apollo and nahyuta themselves.
i write all of this to say one thing: nahyuta and apollo’s relationship is, in my opinion, very up to interpretation. the canon as it currently stands paints them as reunited childhood friends (and believe me, they fall under that set of tropes REALLY hard), so a more sibling feel OR a more romantic one are EQUALLY PLAUSIBLE IMO. so just. stop being assholes oh my g od. why you telling ppl to kill themselves over a ship as vague as this one, i sure hope you don’t like suremiku or mikayuu ya hypocrites.
