#Niki (Baccano!)

[esperanzacboronial]

Me and the bad bitch I pulled by getting exploded

[lasersight]

[brbarou]

time and timelessness

[abyssalplein]

A Niki and Elmer all dressed up for a party in a hypothetical world where Esperanza got Niki fancy clothes (I am so proud of Niki's fancy clothes). Esperanza probably shoved his own old clothes at Elmer idk.

Elmer looking a little unnerving and unhinged is only partially on purpose. (This is the second time that I've drawn Elmer doing that expression. idk)

[idontthinkimokaymentally]

Hello there Niki fans.

[boundlss]

10, 13, and 17 for the Baccano! fandom meme!

10. Character you think is used too much?

i've said this before on other blogs, but i really think niki is used a little too much in the 1700's. i might be biased because i really don't like her very much, but because my enjoyment of the 1700s comes from the fact that we get to see tangible reasons for the characters behaving the way they do in modern times, she ended up feeling a little useless narratively; she didn't really have a lasting emotional or narrative impact on any characters who lived.

13. Least favorite canon pairing? Least favorite non-canon pairing?

haha. my least favorite canon pairing is maria and tick. i don't dislike it in theory, but i think maria didn't really need the implication of romance in her arc... plus, i definitely think she's a lesbian, so there's also that, but i just think it was a product of narita wanting to introduce romance wherever possible. i like most ships in baccano, but that one missed the mark for me!

i think my least favorite non-canon pairing aside from the ones that are genuinely deeply immoral is luck/eve, which i'm sure you know. even aside from their age difference, it feels really weird to me to shove them together considering narita actively went out of his way to not do that. idk. the dynamic is just bad to me.

17. How would you go about structuring a hypothetical season 2 or reboot of Baccano?

well, this is something i've said many times, but i would completely redo the drug and the dominos part of season 1; in an ideal world, that is. i'd really like to see a back-and-forth story of drug and the dominos and man in the killer, since they're both in the same year and pair together really nicely as stories, but i'd also accept a standalone couple episodes for drug and the dominos.

if i was rebooting the series entirely, i think i'd cover a lot of what the anime did, but i'd completely cut out the half-baked volume 4 adaptation attempt to give more room for development for the major players and plots in 1-3.

baccano questions! / accepting.

[gwaaaaar]

9 & 13 for the ask game!

9. If i said graham would you kill me. Okay but besides grahamie it would be niki :3 i need more of my queen I NEED HER TO FIND JUSTICE GRRRR

13. My least favorite canon pairing... IDK i cant bring it upon myself to hate anyone :,) i think all of baccanos ships are good... for least favorite non-canon it would definitely be romantic ricardo and chris what is wrong with people... theyre perfectly fine as friends tho.

[gunmeister]

b! ask game: 1 and/or 10?

regarding 1: i actually got into baccano! fairly recently, at least in comparison to most other people in the fandom. i think it might have been early to mid 2019, so about 4 years ago. i have a really good friend who i love dearly who was absolutely obsessed with it at the time, and they pestered me for about a year before i finally broke down and watched the anime. i fell in love instantly; i think i'd read most of or all of the novels by the time the year was done and i've been all-in ever since.

for 10, the character i think is used too much... well, this might be a little controversial but i don't like niki very much and a large part of why i don't like the 1700's as much as other people was because she had a pretty large presence in it. it's nothing against niki as a character, she just didn't appeal to me as much as others did. also, i didn't like how involved bobby splot was in the 2002 novels but then again i really don't like bobby splot in general.

[yeahthisisbaccano]

this might be niki from baccano

i'd be the prettiest head on a spike on the city walls

[agallimaufryofoddments]

When Huey tells Victor in Vol. 14 that his second-worst memory is "being unable to save my wife's life back in my hometown," and Victor musters a "...Hey.", that's him reliving watching Lucrezia's ship explode and conducting a frantic, futile search for Lucrezia afterword. 100% that. Even if Narita hadn't planned that part of 1711 yet.

Of all the things for Victor to have in common with Huey outside of their alchemic/scholarly mindsets, Narita chooses the most emotionally charged option via "long-dead lady loves" ...who remain the dead women in Victor & Huey's interrogation room because Victor has a job to do and Huey's not about to tell Victor that Lucrezia is, in fact, not at all dead.

Every. Single. Interrogation. Huey cordially indulges Victor while sitting pretty on the knowledge that he sent Lucrezia some sweet immortality elixir back in the day. (So did Fermet and Elmer, but who's counting?)

(Can you imagine Huey idly telling Victor as much in 2003 and Victor having to briefly contemplate the idea that Lucrezia is alive thanks to Huey? Victor's brain fries on the spot, already overheated with outrage that Huey's not only known but been in contact with Lucrezia.)

Huey could—if permitted to prove his claims—utter a few names, locations, and other details that might lead Victor towards a reunion with his 21X-years-deceased lady love within the month.

He doesn't do that since revealing he's connected to the Dormentaires would be a Stupid Thing to do. Sure, jeopardize 1935, why don't you.

He doesn't do it because I imagine that Lucrezia, at any point post-1711, would have reminded Huey to keep her a secret from Victor (should H & V meet again). Perhaps she'd even make that a petty stipulation in some deal.

He doesn't because watching an emotional man express complicated emotions over a long-dead, tricksome lover might be some sort of health hazard. Watching Mr. Emotions express raw anticipation of reuniting with his tangible, alive, never dead loved one might even be self-harm. Eh, but who says Huey still has a self to harm? Being immune to situations like this is his specialty.

(He doesn't because, hey, Victor already has the alive dame. Huey does not.)

Telling Victor about his desire to reunite with Monica is...not happening. Never mind any jabs Victor could make about Huey being loveless and unloveable; imagine what a waste of time it would be to trigger Victor thinking of Lucrezia and getting sentimental. Well, more than the "save my wife...hometown" line did.

Victor is sentimental about her. This is the man who signs off his reports to Lucrezia with "Yours alone" (LN17, Interlude II & III) while knowing he isn't "hers alone." In that second Interlude, he admits, "If I get the chance, I’d like to board that boat, too," but immediately quells Lucrezia's imagined fears by adding, "Don’t worry, I won’t leave for America on my own."

He probably wouldn't have, given his incentive to remain on Lucrezia's (much smaller!) continent. His love for Lucrezia gently tethers him and his scholar-adventurer's spirit. This is the man who came to Lotto Valentino "hoping to find was something out of some heroic drama, an evil secret society," and personally expose their dastardly deeds" (Interlude I). Szilard had mocked him. "What’s wrong with that, though?" Victor writes. "Alchemists can dream, can’t they?"

They can also go around picking anti-slavery fights with aristocrats, aka Victor's hobby. They can dream of exploring America, a land far from the immediate reach of said aristocrats, and conduct pioneering research, especially if they fancy themselves "a scholar by nature (with) a thirst for knowledge," like Victor still does in 1935-A, Ch. 2.

Victor's sense of justice presumably drove Victor into the employment of the federal government, whenever that first happened, but we've less information on when and why Victor became as patriotic as he acts. I think Victor has a longstanding need to be somebody with a cause, whether that's the dashing hero who liberates a town from an evil society, the activist who confronts pro-slavery aristocrats, the noble scholar who pursues and generates knowledge...

...or, in this case, an agent of a governing body who has sworn to support and defend (the Constitution) of the United States against all foreign and domestic (Huey) terrorists. Lucrezia will die of old age someday. Szilard is hunting us immortals down; so much for guaranteed eternity. This young nation is fragile—but what might it evolve into, in this land beyond the Old World's stuffy reach? If Victor perhaps becomes the Patriot for a sense of greater purpose, he may develop some genuine loyalty as he watches young America evolve over the decades, from rebelling against his former countrymen in the Revolution to choosing the path of emancipation.

(And perhaps he envies all the inventors and scientists who America keeps spitting out or inviting in from overseas. Patriot life nowadays is relegated to deskwork; Huey is busy tinkering with all sorts of contraptions and keeping busy with alchemy while Victor is reaming out some newbies in an office for the sake of a short-lived ego boost. This Victor has lived through wars and atrocities that the Victor who was ill one day into Lotto Valentino could never foresee.)

If Lucrezia still has (copies of) those reports, maybe she'll have remembered that Victor mentioned Niki in them and therefore decide to include Niki as part of the surprise, without any forewarning of Niki's inclusion. "Remember Niki? You mentioned her in your reports from Lotto Valentino, but that was so long ago." Niki was with her when they had that close shave with Victor and Jessica, which ~~along with some B! fics~~ means I have to entertain the possibility of a double surprise.) I mean, what if Victor had spotted them? It's not impossible.

If Victor sees Niki outright, that 'damnably ill' sickness he felt in Lotto Valentino may very well resurge.

He absolutely will remember Niki because he was impressed by the strength she had for a young person who endured what she did. "I think it was so painful that she had to maintain that distance to be able to speak of it at all," he writes to Lucrezia (LN17, Interlude I). He attempts a joke about Niki being no match for Lucrezia, but it's just a feeble coping method for writing about Niki's "revolting" account.

There's little doubt that Victor and Lucrezia will slip back into their romantic groove once the dust is settled, but I do...think perhaps this older, changed Victor ought to acknowledge the dust first. I'm not sure I want him to revert to 1711!Victor and react the same way he did when he learned that Lucrezia faked her death, nor react like Carla did, since Carla was similarly young. The timeframes aren't comparable.

(I'm vaguely reminded of Archangelo confronting Renee over the downright evil (his words) activities she's carrying out at Nebula. It's not the same level of badness, at all, but the "what are you thinking" approach has something to it.)

I am somewhat interested in a scenario where Victor learns about the homunculi experiments and Huey's "Monica" motive, because I can imagine Victor getting drunk and saying "wow, I handled the loss of my love infinitely better than Huey / At least I didn't create sentient beings and put them through stressful experiments all in the name of reuniting with a dead loved one / Holy shit what the fuck."

[esperanzacboronial]

Me and the sick twisted bastard I pulled by being emotionally vulnerable

[lottovalentino]

(sits up straight, cold sweat covering my back as sapphic beams fry what's left of by brain) We could've had sylvie x niki

[brbarou]

huemoni + niki and sylvie 👭 i lovee people in love

[abyssalplein]

8, 15, 18, 19, 20 !

Favorite headcanon you've made?

I really like my headcanon that Kalia Gandor loves reading nonfiction books and is actually very intellectual. Booksmarts isn’t Berga’s strong suit, but if she makes reference to something he doesn’t understand, she takes the time to explain it. This has actually ended many a petty yet heated argument. The couple will get mad about some other issue that Kalia had brought up as an example for how ridiculous Berga was being. In the middle of explaining historical or academic discourse she made reference to, they forget whatever silly thing they were arguing about previously. They just end up ranting about whatever she was explaining together.

I also think she and Luck give each other book recommendations, but Luck’s more of a poetry and fiction guy.

Which character makes you the most emotional? Probably Niki. Her life is just a tragedy, although tragedy generally implies that she started in a happy place, and I don’t think that’s true.

Are there any characters the fandom has changed your opinion on?

Hmmm, not really? I suppose when I watched the anime I only really focused on Luck and didn't really think much about Keith or Berga, but then I lurked around B! fandom in the 2010s and grew to love Keith as well, but this development probably would have happened naturally without the fandom's interference given that I have taken it upon myself to love all three of my sons.

I suppose I now think about Nader, Laz, and Charkie more than I ever did before.

How have your tastes changed since you first got into Baccano? Have your favorite arcs, characters, etc. changed?

Answered Here

Who's your favorite Baccano! mutual? Your favorite Baccano! content creator?

Oh, I couldn’t choose! We’re such a small community, and even if someone’s not really active anymore,

b! ask game