#nix responds

[thenixkat]

hi hiiii its me again. i love reading ur jiji thoughts so i was wondering, do u have any predictions or hopes about the eventual return of the subterraneans in dandadan? im personally hoping jiji gets somewhat of a spotlight since now that we know what we do abt the kito family, they might look at him with a target on his back

to be honest, Dandadan's plot is really hard to predict for me? The different arcs feel kinda episodic, like they def build on and use stuff from the previous arcs but where this rollercoaster of a ride is going I dunno?

(Also how quickly some of the arcs happen back to back makes it muddy for me to parse as well)

I know that I do really want to see Jiji himself succumb to the hate and rage of Evil Eye and be 100% on murder time without Evil Eye taking control of the body and the Kito family coming back would be the perfect target for that. (Just that one panel after Evil Eye showed Jiji its backstory and Jiji was just so fucking pissed off to a concerning degree until Momo snapped him out of it is just so lovely)

Hell, even Jiji and Evil Eye mentally harmonizing so much via justified homicidal hatred for the Kito family/Subterraneans that they temporarily just go mentally kludgy/merge and try to do a murder.

Mostly b/c I love face-monster turns, friend fights, and 'I know yer in there somewhere's. And the best 'I know yer in there somewhere's do have a bitch in there, but they're doing shit of their own free will and thus will not be talked down. At least not talked down easily.

Like, Evil Eye *remembers* these fuckers and should want them dead specifically and the Kito's are also responsible for the most traumatic experiences of Jiji's life that we know of. It would be reasonable if he had something of an irrational response to running into these fuckers again especially if they were trying to harm his loved ones.

(And now that I'm thinking about the whole threatened with a gun to host and entertain them, we can't prove that none of the Kito family were sexually predatory towards Jiji at any point in the past. Jiji is canonically an attractive young man and we know that there are rapists in the Kito family, some of the rapists in that family could be into boys.)

Granted, I think the Kito family/Subterraneans probably have more smoke towards Momo for killing their worm after they spent centuries growing it big. I would assume that if they came back we'd find out *why* they wanted to have a worm kaiju.

[ohyeahmagi-nation]

I feel like Agram's manipulative nature isn't explored enough in the show. In the official fiction it seems like they do it a lot better, but in the cartoon it's never really showed to us only told.

I would have loved to seen more of Agram slowly chipping away at Strag. Convincing Strag to do more and more shady things in the name of protecting Edyn and Tony. Maybe even having a few moments where he realizes what's happening, but is unable to stop himself from continuing down the dark path Agram has laid down for him. Like being aware that a siren is luring him into the water, but his feet keep moving forwards until he is swallowed by the waves, powerless to stop it.

Idk, just a thought.

If I'm remembering right the show only gave us like? 3? major instances of Agram fucking with people's minds.

And very underutilized his ability to enter/communicate with people's dreams (the whole reason he's blind, he traded his eyesight for the ability) over all.

[Honestly, the cartoon kinda did Agram dirty in the looks and menace department compared to the game/og fiction version. But I will say the alternate explanation for the Core that the cartoon comes up with is fascinating and gives better potential for 'Dark isn't necessarily evil' type stuff.]

I do think the cartoon should have had Agram fucking with Strag more since it decided to make them related. Since, Strag is a powerful fucking magi, a multiply Chosen One, and is extremely sensitive to Void energy. Shit the Void is jumping at every chance to claim this boy.

I think I'd really love Agram attempting to corrupt Strag as a weak link in the Final Dreamer trio since he's the most susceptible to it from his connection to the Core. But while Strag gets corrupted he ends up being uncontrollable to Agram (much like Chur becomes after being returned into a shadow magi). Something like that would be fun.

[thehalfbloodedwitch]

HEYY HRU? I have a question, say y/n was a hufflepuff /muggleborn, and Draco had a REALLLY REAALLLY big crush on her. How’d you think he’d go about asking her out 🫢

-🍦

HEYYY!! I'M FINE!! What about youuuu??

Omggg, Y/n hufflepuff and muggleborn and Draco having a crush on her??? Tell me about it!

He'd literally be so scared to go and ask her out at all! Like, he would go in front of her and just stare at her for a minute or two until Y/n would be like "What's the matter?" And all he could say would be, "Uhh, well, so basically I " and by then Y/n would be fed up and would leave him and go when he stops her by grabbing her hand (Y/n gets major butterflies after this) and says it as fast as he can, "Ihaveacrushonyou" and Y/n would be a blushing mess, she would go like, "Could you repeat?" Even though she heard him clearly the first time, "I have a crush on you, I-I like you" and his hand still grabbing her hand tightly which she squeezes to assure him that she too likes him and he would grin the entire day like an idiot who won his prize which is of course, Y/n!!!

I could make a headcanons of this tbh

[thenixart]

[ID: A digital drawing of the pokemon Porygon Z with a background of yellow squares and rectangles on a grey background with pixel line art. Proygon Z has been interpreted as a stylized duck monster here with large Digimon style clawed feet with prominent veins. Its head floats detached upside down away from its body with pixelated bits coming off of the neck and neck stump. The monster is red and blue with yellow eyes. /End ID]

Porygon Z aka the porygons are really just lost digimon

vs the original:

[id: Official art of the pokemon porygon z. It is a red and blue vaguely bird-like monster. its head hovers above the rest of its body separated. /end id]

@kariachi​

[thenixkat]

Sorry random thought but Evil Eye and Jiji’s relationship and body sharing this is like if EE just barged into Jiji’s room like “Mom said it’s my turn on the Ebox!” It’s just a mental image I can’t get out of my head

Unfortunately for Jiji, he did not specify any particular rules when he agreed to play with Evil Eye as much as it wanted and whatever games it wanted to play.

Due to apparently the earrings also being part of Evil Eye!Jiji's transformed state and that Evil Eye could compartimentalize the bits of itself that it didn't agree with into its briefs and detach them... I visualize the Jiji and EVil Eye timeshare situation as

1- Evil Eye technicly riding shotgun in Jiji's soul and ready to take over at a moment's notice but napping a lot since it apparently doesn't give a single fuck about Jiji's day to day life. (Which would explain how post taming it frequently going 'where am i', 'what's going on', 'who are these people', etc)

2- Evil Eye just shoving Jiji's soul into one of his earrings while the spirit is in control and muting Jiji's mic in the Evil Eye internal group chat.

The xbox meme is also a funny interpretation

[thenixkat]

Also another headcanon I have is to why Evil Eye disappears when hot liquids are splashed on Jiji’s body. I think it’s a trauma response when he was burned alive when he was sacrificed, I’m not completely if the other kids or sacrifices were as well but EE seems to be the main spirit. So when presented with hot liquids he kinda probably unintentionally putting Jiji back in control as he metaphorically runs away from that feeling

Interesting hypothesis. I think I would have liked to see some foreshadowing to the temp switch thing. Like, at some point Evil Eye!Jiji woke up after its poisoning and concussion nap (I still think about how it very much can heal Jiji's bod if it feels like it) and got out of the basement b4 the lava over took it and the ground outside of the house was very wet from teh firefighters... something could have been done there rather than Evil!Jiji showing up out the blue to cause problems for Momo.

We do see at least one other kid get sacrificed and that kid was stripped down to their undies, tied to a chair, and left inside the house as the house was buried underground. If the worm didn't get around to eating the kid quickly enough the child most likely would have died dehydration (or suffocation depending on how much air was in the house).

[thenixkat]

sorry for liking so much of ur dandadan stuff, idk if that gets annoying or not, but i just finished the first episode and wish id come across ur posts first! nobody told me anything except that its good. i was not prepared. ive never heard literally anyone mention the SA or what exactly happens (especially in episode 1). so i guess im just glad i came across your posts because ive made the decision to, respectfully, not interact with the show/fandom further. thanks

Nah, it's cool. I really do not like that the fandom refuses to give people a heads up about the SA that happens in it. I've frequently seen people downplay how bad it is or lie about how its framed or even claim that ep/chapter 1 is the only place where something like that happens. And flat out ignore or joke about the SA that happens to the boys. Hell, I've even seen people in the tags bragging about ambushing their friends with the SA scene in ep one, which is yikes.

I read up on the series before I decided to give it a try, for me the skeevy shit doesn't outweigh the stuff I want to see. And mostly I have like read/watched worse since I'm a horror fan. But that doesn't mean I'm not gonna call out the skeevy (and also racist in regards to one character and the worldbuilding surrounding her) shit in Dandadan. Because it should be called out, even if the stans bitch and moan about anyone criticizing the series' 'fanservice' or as I prefer to call it perv pandering.

And I'm glad my posts were able to help you out.

[thenixkat]

Was revisiting a lot of BB movie fics in the last few days, a common theme in them appears to be Jaime desperately wanting to know why Khaji chose him

Which made me realize that I don’t think we know why he’s the first one who activated “full Infiltrator mode” in the comics? Not that he seems to care? lol

Anyway as Tumblr’s resident pre-Jaime BB expert I’m curious if you have any evidence or headcanons!

The most annoying issue with working with retcons, which the whole Reach and "full Infiltrator mode" thing is, trying to make shit jive with previous shit.

Huh, I've not really read much BB movie fic but that's an interesting theme for folks to be focused on. Cause like, as far as I recall comic!Jaime doesn't really do any navel-gazing about why he was picked by Khaji Da? More treats it as something that happened to him but not really searching for any meaning in it. (and I love that really, very emphasizes how Jaime is just some guy)

As far as I'm aware, and take it with a grain of salt b/c it's been a long time since I watched Young Justice and the other info is from Wikipedia and I know for a fact that Wikipedia can be flat-out wrong about things ie. Every fucking thing on Mr. Calhoun's wiki page where whoever did the article confused him with two other different characters...

But as far other things go... Jaime isn't the only one who unlocked the full power of Khaji Da? In at least 3 adaptations, one of which being Young Justice and another being the very same Blue Beetle movie if I'm recalling shit from the beginning of the film right, they had Dan being able to fully activate Khaji Da. Like, it looked different on him than on Jaime of course and folks were making it look like his og costume. But like they had Khaji Da fused with Dan's spine and it being removed from his corpse after he died in those adaptations. And what it did while bonded with Dan is why folks know shit for things later with Jaime.

-> Movie Khaji Da didn't choose Ted. But in the Young Justice and some fucking live action show I can't remember the name of, Ted was the one who refused to bond with Khaji Da, because he didn't trust the alien parasite tech.

-> I've not fucking found the comics to read yet but I know the version of Ted that exists in Kingdom Come, can and does use Khaji Da and has heavy plate Scarab armor with the 'beetle backpack' that Jaime's armor also had. Tho I dislike how the Kingdom Come!Ted's armor looks, mostly on the choices in coloring and how excessively bulky it looks for a character that's a gymnast.

And really... it seems less that Jaime is some chosen one and more just he was in the right place at the right time and Khaji Da liked what it saw of him and decided to move in. (WHich is interesting given how different Jaime is from Dan [Mr. Hot blooded world trotting slut] and Ted [kind, caring, but man does he have issues])

Personally, I go with:

Khaji Da has some kind of defect that means it can't fully override a healthy and mentally stable host. Be funny as shit if it was from ramming into another Scarab like the BB movie showed.

Khaji Da had many many Blue Beetles during its time on Earth (from what it told Dan in Dan's origin story). It's 'Champions' were given the mission to protect the Earth from evil forces and villains. Given that Khaji Da was not reformed back then it probably typically encouraged its hosts to be Lethal Protectors (not me shouting out Venom but like...)

Kha-ef-re broke this chain of Blue Beetles for 3000 yrs b/c he managed to damage/injure or drain Khaji Da of power while using it for his blood magic bullshit. And Khaji was clearly being used as a heart scarab for Kha-ef-re's mummy and interred with him in his tomb that people were forbidden from opening due to curse/fear of Kha-ef-re coming back b/c he was an evil ass fucker

When Dan loots Khaji Da from Kha-ef-re's sarcophagus it immediately bonds with him, gives him the mission it gave all the Blue Beetles it had b4. But due to it being damaged, Dan doesn't have access to Khaji Da's full power. The Scarab is healing itself while bonded to Dan.

Dan passes the title of Blue Beetle and the Scarab to Ted as he's dying. Khaji Da didn't agree to it but Dan passing it on of his own volition is as good as a magic contract so Khaji has to be bonded to Ted and hates it. For several years while Ted is heroing and has Khaji Da it gives him no access to anything but its most passive of powers (the warding against evil spirits) while its focusing its energy on healing Dan's body and then reviving him and siccing Dan on the 'unworthy' Blue Beetle

Ted manages to turn the tide of the fight with Dan in his favor which impresses Khaji Da who decides that Ted is worthy of being a Blue Beetle after all and tries to force Ted to accept its power and kill Dan.

After Dan's death Ted technically could access the full power of Khaji Da (what it has available at least as its still healing itself as well from what Kha-ef-re did to it) but refuses to do so given Khaji Da was a major dick and he doesn't trust it

Later Khaji Da gets more or less stolen from Ted by the Wizard Shazam who kept going on about Ted mucking around with forces he didn't understand and the Wizard puts Khaji Da in the Rock of Eternity.

Inside the Rock of Eternity, Khaji Da soaks up power and finishes fixing itself from the damage that Kha-ef-re did to it. It's bond with Ted gets broken (free choice why).

The Rock of Eternity gets broken and everything sealed inside escapes/is flung across the country. Jaime Reyes finds a neat looking beetle rock in the dirt at a construction site on the way to school

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[do not add undescribed images to my post]