- Everybody remembers the day the world changed forever, the day parahumans first came to be, and it all started with a... small pink glowing teenage girl floating above the ocean...
Bocchi the Scion! (ぼっち・ざ・しおん!) is a crossover fanfic of Worm and Bocchi the Rock! by Johnnyboy306.
Falling asleep while on the train home, Bocchi suddenly finds herself in Earth-Bet, where she takes the place of Scion back in the 1980s. Though she initially intended to use them for heroism and to finally grow as a person... 29 years passed on Earth-Bet with Bocchi basically being the same. However, inexplicably taking the place of Scion made a notable impact on Earth-Bet. In that, nothing changed because every cape had been inflicted with the same social anxiety Bocchi has, with most hiding away.
Though she eventually finds her way back to her Earth, this sudden shift in schedule had not gone unnoticed by Cauldron, nor her subtle changes in behavior by her bandmates.
The fic can be read on SpaceBattles
and on Archive of Our Own. Late Arrival Spoilers ahead!
Bocchi the Scion! provides examples of:
- Adaptational Badass: The premise is "What if Bocchi took Scion's place?" Bocchi now has all the superpowers at Scion's disposal.
- Adaptational Heroism:
- Some Capes that were villains are instead heroes, because of Bocchi taking Scion's place.
- Played With with Cauldron. On the one hand, their more unethical experiments were stopped by Hero before they got out of hand. On the other hand, they still have the goal of killing Bocchi, believing that everything is an act. They're not completely unjustified, as she still has the powers of an Omnicidal Maniac. It would be naive of them at most to believe that everything somehow sorted itself out in the interim without further evidence.
- Adaptation Name Change:
- Enforced with the In-Universe movie of Bocchi, Rise of the Pink Sun. Instead of Hitori, Bocchi's given name is Hanami in the movie, among other creative liberties. This was based on a 23-second interview where she nearly gave her full name on accident but just cut short of her given name (the remaining 20 seconds just consisted of her screaming because of this blunder.)
- Instead of Tattletale, Lisa's cape name in this fic is Insight.
- Adaptation Personality Change: On a mass scale. All capes who triggered naturally possess Bocchi's extreme social anxiety. This is best exemplified with Taylor Hebert, who attempted to join the Wards, but could barely sign the paperwork before ultimately running away.
- Adaptational Wimp: Kenta, thanks to Earth-Bet being a significantly better place than in canon, and Bocchi stopping Leviathan from sinking Kyushu, never experiences the same trauma that would've made him trigger and become Lung. He's still a part of a criminal organization, but instead plays a glorified babysitter to socially anxious capes.
- The Alcoholic: Some Capes have taken to, among other vices, drinking heavily before they even think of getting into social interactions. Kenta notes that this is a common enough occurrence that he has reined them in before for this.
- Bad Liar: Bocchi's attempts at hiding her powers from her friends can only be described as "fumbling." Besides her already compulsive habit of lying, she's proven terrible at hiding them under even the lightest amount of scrutiny. Unsurprisingly, her slip-ups have them finding out.
- Big Good: Bocchi became this to Earth-Bet thanks to her exploits. Unlike Scion, Bocchi had also dealt with the Endbringers alongside other capes before they could actively cause destruction.
- The Cameo: Sattsu, one of Kita's friends who had yet to make an appearance in the anime at the time of Guitarhero 1.8's writing, briefly shows up to witness her friend attempt to calm Bocchi after flattening herself upon encountering Hero, who she 'knows' is one of her 'superfans'.
- Cassandra Truth: After Kenta witnessed Bocchi stealing his friends' phones to replace the one she threw into the sun, he had attempted to tell the tale but with no one believing it.
- Character Development: What Bocchi hadn't noticed with how she dealt with her anxiety visually speaking, instead of hiding away and ignoring it, she actively pushes it down and does all she can to keep it from reoccurring, including a Neck Snap.
- Continuity Nod: Kita once again smushes Bocchi's face as she rapidly tells her something. This time, it's to tell her never to let Ryo find out she can just create actual money instead of selling the gear Bocchi creates.
- Entertainingly Wrong:
- Cauldron believes that Bocchi is the entity's disguise and her social anxiety is all an act, believing that all natural capes with their social anxiety were an intentional choice, and that Bocchi's name was chosen because their partner was killed. And it's also completely wrong, with Bocchi having no idea that she had somehow taken over Scion and the shard network, let alone what any of that means.
- On Bocchi's end, she has completely bought into the idea that Hero and other Cauldron members are her 'superfans', not once entertaining the idea that it's actually a cover exploiting her social anxiety as a method to keep her from looking deeper into Cauldron for whatever reason. Naturally, Hero has no reason to disprove that, given that he's still skeptical of Bocchi's intentions, though is willing to trust her for now.
- Everyone Has Standards:
- While Bocchi is a bit of an attention seeker, even she can't stand how much everyone basically worships her as the first and greatest hero, despite her blunders. At one point, while she was saving a burning apartment, she saw one room was filled with bodypillows of herself.
- Once Ryo found out how bad Bocchi's fans can get, it was enough to back out of trying to achieve Bocchi's level of fame and claim that she would leave the band if she ever got that popular.
- Hiding in Plain Sight: In Guitarhero 1.5, When her 'rapper' costume was ruined thanks to being dumped in a dumpster to calm down, Ryo gives the idea that she pretends to be a Bocchi cosplayer, without her powers obscuring her face. Bocchi herself is absolutely baffled at how easy it was.
- In Spite of a Nail: Amy still meets Vicky. However, because the Dallon family never adopted her, she's instead merely a good friend of Vicky.
- Late-Arrival Spoiler: The fic does not pull punches with later plot developments of Worm. Discussion of the Entity of which Bocchi has inexplicably replaced happens in the second chapter.
- Named by the Adaptation:
- Hero had no name given in canon. Here, he's named Charles.
- Iron Rain, Kaiser's sister, is named Rose here.
- Nigh-Invulnerable: Nothing can hurt Bocchi thanks to possessing the same powers as Scion. Whether it would be the countless abominations of Nilbog, or a cat attempting to scratch her face when she tries to rescue them when she's too stressed.
- Noodle Incident: Whatever worse horrors Bocchi has seen with her fans are never revealed. The fact that it was horrifying enough to dissuade Ryo from pursuing Bocchi's level of fame speaks of how bad it had gotten.
- Oh, Crap!: Upon running into Bocchi while she's pretending to be a cosplayer of herself in Brockton Bay, Lisa's Thinker power tells her that she ran into the real deal, and thanks to her social anxiety, makes the subsequent oh craps escalate until she yells that she won't tell anyone, startling everyone in the cafe that Bocchi and Kita are in.
- Older Than They Look: By the time she found her friends again, Bocchi was now 45 years old. Thanks to one of her powers, her body was still that of her sixteen-year-old self.
- Only Sane Man: Downplayed, but Hero is the only member of Cauldron who is willing to give serious consideration to the (entirely correct) idea that Bocchi isn't putting on a fake personality to deceive Earth-Bet, though he does initially view it as her potentially Becoming the Mask.
- Ontological Mystery: How did a sixteen year old girl with crippling social anxiety from another world wake up in the body of Scion, with all of his powers, no sign of the original Scion to be found save that she now controls his body, and accidentally give all parahumans crippling social anxiety?
- Point of Divergence:
- Because Bocchi took the place of Scion and, unbeknownst to her, took over the shard network, this causes all capes to have Bocchi's severe social anxiety instead. Earth-Bet is also not spiraling out of control thanks to most capes hiding away and interacting very little with the world.
- Since Bocchi dealt with Nilbog and by extension, the Ellisberg Incident, Emily Piggot also has a much better opinion of capes as a result. However, she otherwise finds capes who have yet to overcome their anxiety pitiful.
- Because of their social anxiety and Marquis being implied to be much subtler in his operations, the Brockton Bay Brigade never unmasks or becomes New Wave. This also means Amy never gets adopted by the Dallons and still lives with her biological father.
- Because Bocchi fought Leviathan at Kyushu, the island remains unsunk and Earth-Bet's Japan is still around. Incidentally, Japan possesses the largest hero-related merchandise stores (if not just because Bocchi is also apparently Japanese to the populace.)
- The same goes for Newfoundland. Not only does Andrew Richter survive and Newfoundland rebuilt itself, he's also a member of the Guild alongside Dragon, with Dragon implied to not be chained like her canon self.
- Spared by the Adaptation:
- Hero is alive and well in 2011.
- Iron Rose is alive and leads the Empire instead of her brother Max, with their father depowered and jailed.
- Andrew Richter is also alive and a member of the Guild, since Bocchi also saved Newfoundland here.
- Superman Substitute: Bocchi is a completely straight version here, as opposed to canon Scion. That Cauldron doesn't know it is part of the dramatic tension with them.
- Totally Radical: In order to deal with his social anxiety, Armsmaster creates an AI that will guide him through social interactions. Unfortunately, it results in him talking like this.Armsmaster:Be careful about sharing information so freely. Lest something very un-epic shows up on the interwebs, and you get roasted.
- Ungrateful Bastard: Downplayed and averted. While there are some entitled superfans online, when Bocchi actually reveals who she really is to a crowd on Earth-Bet and how she's been spending time on her home Earth with her friends and family, they are entirely supportive of her and thankful towards her, making it clear that they want their hero to be happy.
- Your Costume Needs Work: Bocchi is repeatedly mistaken for a cosplayer of herself. This is Justified as normally, Bocchi has a perception filter that blurs her face, and this "disguise" hinges on the fact that she's mistaken for one.
- You Wake Up on a Beach: Bocchi (and everyone else) has no idea how she gained her powers (specifically, Scion's) - all she knows is that her eyes closed for a second on a train because she was sleepy, and the next thing she knows, she's floating in the air above the ocean with superpowers.
