#absolutely canon interaction between the two greatest villains

[ruwilleatyou]

Made these two quite a long time ago but since I have nothing else to post, here they are

[bigskydreaming]

Current mood: thinking about the damage done to society by the myth of perpetual cycles of abuse and the flip side of that coin, the incessant woobification of abusers and victimizers.

Like.......one of my biggest.....I don’t want to call it pet peeves cuz its bigger than that, but I don’t want to call it triggers cuz its smaller than that, but somewhere in between, but like....whatever you want to call that, one of the biggest for me in regards to both my two big faves, Scott McCall and Dick Grayson is like......the simultaneous dismissal or erasure of their own traumas and abuse, alongside the erasure/invalidation of how their choices are THEIR choices.

What I mean by that is....let’s look at Scott first. There’s a huge issue of empathy gap when it comes to his character, and people looking past, around or through instances of outright harm, exploitation, trauma and abuse.......in large part because fandom has come to consider these things a kind of shield from criticism. So not only is there the problem of ignoring the harm and damage done to his character by these traumas and abuse.......there’s the compounding issue of how the whole reason this shell game of ‘hide the trauma’ is played in the first place, has literally nothing to do with his character or the effects of these things on him.....but rather the completely superfluous element of like.....people not wanting these things to be usable to defend the character from criticism....even though that’s not what trauma is or why it exists/happens in the first place. It just DOES, and what happens after that is entirely what we make of it......but nothing ever CAN be made of it at all, if its not acknowledged as existing, purely for the sake of ‘winning’ arguments that should have nothing to do with it in the first place.

Like.....this is a character whose father once knocked him down a flight of stairs while drunk, knocking him unconscious and giving him a lasting scar.....and people have had to fight over the years to have this actually acknowledged or considered an instance of abuse. Not because of anything to do with the actual incident itself or what the effects of it were and weren’t on Scott, or how they inform his dynamic with his father.....but purely because fandom is so married to the idea of “abuse makes a character sympathetic regardless of all other context” that they don’t just apply it to villainous characters (and usually just white ones, it must be acknowledged), but they equally apply it in reverse to heroic characters (and usually just ones of color) in order to REMOVE sympathy.....ie, can’t be sympathized with for being abused, if they weren’t actually abused.

Now at the exact same time, this goes hand in hand with the erasure/invalidation of Scott’s good qualities or choices being a credit to him as a person and a character, compounding everything. What I mean HERE is how often do we see Scott’s character and personality being attributed to the influence of his mother, his friends, the Sheriff and Deaton as role models, the idea that he had a better or more stable home life than he otherwise could’ve (with it all being relative, as in, the focus is never even on “was his home life completely happy, healthy and stable at all times: y/n” but rather on the much more malleable “at least it wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been/as others’ were.”)

And to be clear: its not that these positive elements DIDN’T exist or that he was completely miserable or anything of the sort, its just something I’m emphasizing in the specific context of how often this is all held up in deliberate contrast to the home lives or pasts of characters like Derek, Jackson, Theo, etc, with the specific aim of pointing to “well of course they don’t make the kinds of choices Scott makes, but that’s because they didn’t have the kind of atmosphere/home/influences Scott had.”

And again, its not that environmental factors, the influences of different parents/nurturers on an individual’s formative years....its not that any of that is irrelevant or meaningless, that it doesn’t play a role, its the EXTREMES I’m talking about here. The fact that its all or nothing, that Scott’s choices and personality being a credit to HIMSELF rather than to his upbringing or surrounding factors just gets washed away as an afterthought, as less than a thought......in order to present as a given.....a premise that is NOT innately true: that anyone could be him or make the choices he makes, if they had the life he had. 

(Something that is frequently born out in the literal hundreds if not thousands of fics that run with the premise of Stiles is bit instead of Scott, or an OC that’s Scott’s sibling is bit instead, and everything else about the show plays out exactly the same, as if Scott himself is irrelevant, that his character, his personality, his choices had absolutely nothing to do with the shape the show took, and that he’s completely interchangeable with anyone else if you just transplant them into his shoes.....all of which leads to the inevitable conclusion that there’s nothing especially worthy of consideration about him, and he’s unnecessary).

Now let’s shift focus to Dick Grayson, and how the exact same thing plays out there. The way so many of his greatest hits: Trauma Edition, are just like....completely glossed over or left out in the cold any time his characterization is happy, upbeat, positive.....as if its completely inconceivable that someone can be those things and yes, also traumatized.

But also, the way that specific instances of trauma and abuse are erased or invalidated the second his choices are being upheld as especially ‘good’ in contrast to another character like Jason. There are other elements in play when it comes to the overall picture of fandom not wanting to engage with Bruce’s instances of abuse with Dick, to be clear......plenty of that hails from fans of Bruce’s character not wanting to interact with canon or fanon that upholds him as capable of treating ANY of his children that way. But what I’m talking about here is like, the specific times and ways when fans who are perfectly willing and even EAGER to interact and engage with canon/fanon where Bruce behaves abusively towards Jason, like....are equally dismissive of the idea that Bruce has an extremely poor track record with Dick as well.

And same as what I was outlining above with Scott���s character.......we run into the same issue of where its not even ABOUT Dick’s character or his choices......but nevertheless, any way in which his choices might be upheld or examined as a good thing or aspirational, just...vanishes, because the spotlight of focus is basically restricted to shaping the idea that well, the problem is never Jason’s choices but rather that he never got the opportunities that Dick did, that Bruce has never done anything wrong in his raising of Dick or given Dick cause to resent him or make poor choices in general or specifically in terms of his dynamic with Bruce, the way Bruce has with Jason.....all leading to the framing narrative that not just are negative choices or decisions not inherently someone’s fault if there are elements of abuse in the mix....but equally that if elements of abuse can be erased from the mix - whether because they literally just weren’t present or they’re willfully being suppressed as part of making the following case - then any positive choices or decisions are not inherently to another character’s credit either. 

Resulting in the same issue, both coming and going:

Over and over, we’re forcefed the narrative that most people prefer to just reaffirm and uphold as true, even if they nominally criticize it here and there......that cycles of abuse are inviolate, and that once abused, that character’s future as an abuser is set in stone......and thus its not really their fault.

While at the exact same time, its equally reaffirmed and upheld as true.......that positive choices are the inevitable end result of positive upbringings, environments and influences.....and thus anyone who doesn’t have these things not making these positive choices....that isn’t really their fault either, nor is it to the credit of anyone who does have these things, if and when they make such choices.

And here’s the kicker: Its not that either of these above statements are inherently UNTRUE.

Its just that they’re not....inherently true.

Its not that abuse victims NEVER become abusers themselves, and its not that their pasts don’t directly have a hand in shaping them following that direction in life.

And its not that people with positive, supportive upbringings never turn out as positive, nurturing individuals, just as its not that their pasts don’t directly play into shaping THEM following THAT direction.

Its that.....its never all or nothing, and this willful insistence that it is....usually for reasons that have absolutely NOTHING whatsoever to do with ACTUALLY examining abuse and trauma and the impacts of this on fictional characters and real life people, choices and decision-making...but rather with abuse and trauma just being completely hijacked and co-opted in the name of ‘winning’ arguments......

Like....it results in the complete erasure of not one, but two entire swaths of people:

1) The people who grew up abused, had no real positive environments, role models or influences, BUT WHO STILL MANAGED TO BECOME POSITIVE, EMPATHETIC, AND CARING PEOPLE REGARDLESS.....

2) And the people who grew up supported, affirmed, sheltered and with plenty of positive role models to potentially choose from, BUT WHO STILL MAKE THE DECISION TO DO HARM, HAVE A TOXIC OR DESTRUCTIVE IMPACT ON OTHERS, AND PRIORITIZE NOTHING BUT THEMSELVES REGARDLESS.

And like yes, both these kinds of people absolutely do exist, and the fact that their existence, their choices, their reasons for making those choices and potential examinations of who they are and why they’re that way and how they’re impacted by things both positive and negative even if the choices they then make don’t match up with what choices are typically expected to go hand in hand with various life experiences or walks of life.......

The fact that all of these things are entirely erased and glossed over and invalidated simply because they’re INCONVENIENT to the more simple, binary perception of ‘good people vs bad people’ and why people are like that.....

Its fucking infuriating, lmfao.

Anyway. So that’s what’s on my mind at the moment.

[superdorkcat]

Problem Child AU

TL;DR: A Dad For One AU where in Izuku’s a chaotic good homeless runaway attending U.A. while hiding out from his abusive super villain dad.

Side note: This was way longer than I expected it to be (1K+ words), so I might do a part two later on down the line.

Okay, so Dad For One is a thing in this AU and when Izuku turns four, he and Inko are brought to AFO’s hideout so that Ujiko can run tests on Izu to see if he inherited All For One

He didn’t, he’s Quirkless like he was at the start of the series, but Tomura becomes quite fond of Izuku and Inko while they’re there and Inko winds up finding out that Hisashi Midoriya = AFO so they just end up,,, staying there

AFO is FAR from a good dad - he only romanced Inko as part of a side project to see if he could replicate All For One and only keeps Izuku around ‘cause Tomura likes him, Izu might as well be his pet in AFO’s eyes

At first, Izuku actually likes living with AFO. He likes that they’re a family together - him, his mom, his dad, big brother Tomura, and Mr. Kurogiri.

But, Izuku’s a smart kid. He begins to notice things. He begins to notice the pure, unrestrained hatred that his dad has for heroes that he’s passing down to Tomura, how Tomura seems to see Dad more like a god than as a dad. He begins to notice the way his mom’s eyes slightly widen in fear whenever Izuku goes to spend alone time with Dad. He begins to notice that his dad’s doctor spends a weird amount of time around the house. How him and Dad always talk about something called “Nomus”. Conversations that, while Izuku’s still too young to understand the science talk behind them, still manage to send a shiver down his spine.

There are bright spots, though. Tomura is just the greatest big brother that Izuku could ask for and Kurogiri always treats him with such kindness that Izuku sees him as part of his family. But the dark areas just get bigger with time.

Eventually, AFO figures out that Izuku’s onto him and things just go down from there. It gets to the point where the thought of AFO giving him a hug terrifies Izuku way more than if AFO were to just hit him.

What finally pushes Izuku into running away is the AFO-All Might fight. Seeing his now faceless father laugh like an utter lunatic and brag about how he weakened All Might, how he kickstarted the slow, lingering death of the Symbol of Peace, even while heavily injured himself just proves too much for Izuku to bear. He’s been devising a plan to run away for a year now, the fight is just the catalyst he needs to go through with it.

So he does. Thus begins the chronicles of Izuku Midoriya: Street Rat

Izuku constantly moves from place to place, never staying in the same place for long. He also develops a somewhat flexible sense of morality. He’s not morally ambiguous or some gritty anti-hero though, just even more chaotic good than canon. 

Stealing is still a no-no for him, so he takes up any and all odd jobs that are capable of being done by a kid in the area he’s currently staying in for money that he can use for essentials. He becomes good at living on an incredibly small budget.

He passes off his talent for analyzing Quirks as a Quirk analyzing Quirk since Quirkless people are so rare.

Izuku also gets good at moving in back alleys, avoiding hero patrol patterns and sneaking through villain territory during this time. If he runs into a villain, they could turn him in to AFO. If he runs into a hero, they’ll try to help him and should AFO ever come for him, Izuku… Well, he would never forgive himself if AFO did anything to hurt them. (He also doesn’t approach a shelter or the Bakugous for the same reason.)

That being said, Izuku also winds up having to lose heroes a fair amount of time, so he gets pretty good at outmaneuvering people. 

Izuku develops a habit of keeping no more personal items than can be kept in a backpack that he carries with him at all times

He also starts writing his Quirk analysis's down in code, a habit he picked up living with AFO. After all, you never know when someone might be spying on you. He also sleeps with a knife under his pillow, another habit derived from AFO’s shitty parenting.

He’s a l w a y s ready to write in his Quirk notebooks. He tries to keep himself from muttering (you never know when someone might be listening) most of the time, but he slips up whenever he gets really excited.

Izuku still wants to become a hero, so he heads to Musutafu when he becomes old enough for U.A.’s entrance exam. He moves into an abandoned warehouse relatively near U.A.

Izuku gets a part-time job so that he can get more money for things and spends almost all of his time when he’s not there studying for the written part of the U.A. entrance exam (since, while he was being homeschooled by Kurogiri when he was living with AFO, he hasn’t had any sort of education since he ran away so the written portion is his largest hurdle for getting in)

Izuku does a good job in the practical portion of the exam, maneuvering around the robots and pressing their deactivation switches. He barely passes the written portion. He gets in.

All of Izuku’s classmates notice things about him. How he’s always carrying his backpack around, like he’s almost afraid that he’ll lose it if he’s away from it. The fact that his analysis Quirk can be wrong, something that’s incredibly rare for Quirks of that type. How he’s walks on eggshells when around All Might. All of this, while it doesn’t make his class like him any less, certainly mark Izuku as an odd individual in their eyes.

Also, since the only person around Izuku’s age when he was living with AFO was Tomura and how after he ran away, he never really interacted much with his peers, Izuku is incredibly rusty when interacting with his schoolmates. Teachers? No prob. People his own age? His has little to no social skills, someone help him.

Because of the timeline of when Izuku came to live with AFO, him and Bakugou are still friends. However, Bakugou quite understandably wants to know where Izuku’s been all this time and what his deal is, which Izuku can’t tell him for obvious reasons. As a result, there’s a bit of tension between them.

Izuku did not see All Might being a teacher at U.A. coming. While Izuku still heavily admires All Might, he was planning on doing so from a distance, on account of being the son of All Might’s arch-enemy and all. As a result, as mentioned above, Izuku is incredibly nervous around him. Izuku also feels misplaced guilt regarding All Might’s weakening since AFO is his dad, so he tends to apologize for it. This is complicated by the fact that All Might has absolutely no idea that AFO is Izuku’s dad or that Izuku knows that he’s weaker, leading to him being very Concerned.

All Might, shortly after the USJ incident, sobbing on the phone to Gran Torino: Young Midoriya said “I’m sorry”, Torino! “I’M SORRY”! He apologized for being threatened by villains! Who hurt him?!?!?

So All Might tries to reach out to Izuku, telling him that he’s there whenever he needs to talk. However, that just sets Izuku on edge because “hE kNoWs”. So All Might tries to reach out to Izuku as Small Might, which just freaks out Izuku even more. Basically Dad Might trying to dad while Izuku does his best to avoid him at all costs.

Izuku gets dubbed a problem child much earlier than in canon and the phrase becomes pretty much synonymous with him, hence the name of the AU. Problem Child is to Izuku Midoriya as Symbol of Peace is to All Might.

[queen0fm0nsterz]

For the ship thing: all combinations between the main five from woy !!

OMG UAGAGAGKASIDSFSKUGHS WHY DIDN’T I ANSWER TO THIS BEFORE!?!?! OMG JHGJESG THANK U SO MUCH ANON THIS QUESTION SAVED MY LIFE????

Disclaimer: I’m a HUGE multishipper and I’m interested in all the ships I’m about to list. However I do have my preferences, so I’m going in order from my least favorite to my absolute fave. Don’t get upset, for this is only my opinion. Ty!!

LETS GO MAD LADS LETS GO!!!!

Bonus 11th ship: I’m really into Something The So and So x Emperor Awesome. I called it Something Awesome. Just putting this.. out there

10) Deathstar (Wander x Dom)

Ah, my two hyperactive spoons. Usually I’m all about the “perfect angel/literal spawn of satan” dynamic, but for some reason they never really clicked for me. Maybe it’s because they didn’t have that many interactions in canon??? But damn, the fanarts are super adorable!! i will die!! (death star shippers yall wanna come in my askbox and talk death star to me?? i would appreciate sm!!)

9) Wandering Eye (Wander x Peepers)

First of all I wanna say, y’all Wandering Eye shippers are perseverant af?? they had like one episode together and it was early first season, it’s been a lot since that. i respect you guys. As for the ship itself, what can I say? I love small boys being in love!!! But once again, nearly no canon interaction... smh

8) Astigmagmatism (Peepers x Dom)

THIS SHIP HAS SO MUCH COMIC POTENTIAL!!! I WILL SCREAM FOREVER I mean the angry smol and bastard tol dynamic?? PLUS theyre both villains???? as in evil fucks??? Who are also rivals?? If there were any canon interactions this ship would DEF be really high on my list but I don’t really have that much to say rn...

7) Zboneak (Hater x Sylvia)

Alright at first I wasn’t really into it but I got my filthy hands on one (1) fanfic and you can bet your ass I was immediatly captivated. The thing I look for in Woy ships is comic potential and these two have SO MUCH POTENTIAL. Plus, “The Date” is one of my favorite episodes ever, so yeah. add that to the list. Let them interact in season 3!!!

6) Death Glare (Peepers x Hater)

I TAGGED THE NO HOMO BECAUSE IM 100% THAT HATER WOULD SAY IT TO PEEPERS AFTER ACCIDENTALLY KISSING HIM IM SO SORRY

Ok so, Death Glare. At first, until late first season, I wasn’t into it at all. I’ve never been a big fan of boss/subordinate (saving a few exceptions). The episode “The Funk” made me do a complete 180° becAUSE HOLY SHIT DID YOU SEE THEM??? HOLDING HANDS???????? BRUH MY FUCKING HEART HAS BEEN D E S TR O Y E D...................... And while I do love them as a friendship, I can totally see them romantically!!!! also once again the comic potential

5) Sylander (Sylvia x Wander)

THESE TWO WHERE DO I EVEN START. I literally tear up when I think about them? Platonic or not, their love is so pure, innocent, real, it makes my heart do backflips. You have no idea how many times I cried watching them. When they’re together you can’t tell where one begins and the other finishes .... but the reason why I’m so attached to them is because I happen to have a person in my life that... she’s the Sylvia to my Wander (hey @awesome---disaster talkin to you).  I understand how it feels to have someone this important in your life. The episode “The Ryder” is particularly hard to wacth (despite it being my number one favorite) for this reason. GOD THE TEARS I CRIED.

4) Sylava (Sylvia x Dom)

What can I say? I stan girls being in love. Plus the CHEMISTRY they had in “The Night Out” omg.... I JUST FDSHFHLGLHSLLIHSBLIHSLI MY HEART EXPLODES WHEN I THINK ABOUT THEM???? I CRY  THEY WERE F U CK I NG HOLDING HANDS WHILE RUNNING OUT OF THAT BAR OK DO NOT TOUCH ME. when are we getting the good season 3 sylava content when they make up and become friends again? disney pls

Also, y’all got some good Sylava fics that I could read? Blease?? im starving

3) Skeleton Dance (Wander x Hater)

IS THERE EVEN SOMEONE WHO DOESN’T LOOK AT THIS SHOW FROR LIKE 5 SECONDS AND D O E S N T SHIP THEM???? ITS IMPHASBLE

iM TALKING VALID BOYS HERE!!! The sweet smol/ grumpy tol is my aestethic always and Im all about it. Plus, I mean the dEVELO P MENT THEY HAD IN SEASON TWO!!! The episode that got me to ship them strongly was “The Buddies” and God my love kept growing from there????? ITS UNSTOPPABLE EVERYTIME I SEE THEM MY HEART KILLS ME

 Ok I will admit im kinda projecting on Wander a little bc I love Hater but can u blame?? me?? who doesnt love the hate man

2) Dom n Hater (Hater x Dom)

Ok if youve been on my blog for like 1 minute you probably already know that these two are the light of my life, but why?

... well tbh there are a lot of reasons but to be quick it was a gradual process of me going from “Yeah right like THATS ever gonna happen” to slowly going on to “I mean its not even that bad” to “It’s cute? I like it” and then it fucking skyrocketed out of my control and suddently I’m crying like a little bitch during “You’re the Greatest”. I do not know what happened or how. It just did. 

I have an ask of someone asking me about them (BLESS U MAN) that inm going to answer eventually so I’m not going into detail but I WILL SAY that the height difference kills me bc it’s not that much but it’s jUST ENOUGH to make it obvious that hes shorter than her and im just oudfgusguaigGUivfehuhaf i live for height differences

1) Black Eye (Sylvia x Peepers)

AND AT LAST I GET TO TALK ABOUT MY BABIES

I’ll be honest with y’all: I was actually gonna put Black Eye in second place at first bc Hater & Dom just own my hear,t but upon lots of thinking I belive this is the best option. because DEVELOPMENT. God I’m all about that sweet DEVELOPMENT we got!!! Wander and Sylvia may be the perfect friendship but Sylvia and Peepers are sure as hell the PERFECT TEAM!!!!!! BRAINS AND MUSCLES!!! TOGETHER!! TO SAVE THEIR IDIOTS!!

I am a BIG fan of enemies to friends to lovers, height differences, villain/hero, smol/tol, angry/chill...... these two were a gift from the Gods. I love them so much.

On an unrelated but kinda related note, I love how all Blackeye shippers just silently agreed that Peepers is a lovestruck nerd who can’t process his feelings and refuses to acknowledge them despite how hardly he’s pinning after Syl?? AND SYL IS NOT OBLIVIOUS AT ALL SHE ACTUALLY KNOWS???? its amazing. 10/10 best ship thank u for ur time.

And thats that! Wow that sure took long didnt it- but its here.

[aion-rsa]

Star Trek Discovery Season 4: What to Expect

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

Yes, we’re already looking forward to Star Trek: Discovery Season 4. Season 3 saw the show go where no Star Trek has gone before – literally. Flung almost a thousand years into the future after saving all sentient life as we know it, Michael Burnham and her crewmates had to navigate a new and alien reality that bore little resemblance to the one they left behind.

Yet, the decision to send Discovery to the future is possibly the best decision the series has ever made, giving the show a much-needed narrative reset that cut ties to things like Klingon wars and The Original Series legacy characters and sends it off to blaze its own path, unencumbered by the strings of existing canon. But now that Discovery is firmly established in the 32nd century, what can we expect from Star Trek: Discovery‘s upcoming Season 4? We have a few educated guesses…

Michael Burnham Finds Her Feet as Captain

Despite her colorful history as an officer – replete with mutiny, insubordination, and general recklessness – it’s been obvious for a long time that Michael Burnham was destined for the Discovery captain’s chair. The only question was a matter of when. But now that she’s there – what kind of captain will she be?

She could very easily turn out to be one of the Starfleet greats. Despite her flaws, Michael has proven time again that she is smart, capable, and brave. A risk-taker who always comes through in the clutch, she has saved her crew more times than most of us can count and she is a shining example of someone who absolutely believes in the mission of the Federation and the good it can do.

But she’s also often rash and impulsive, and just a few short episodes ago wasn’t even all that certain that she belonged in Starfleet anymore. Granted, many successful male Starfleet captains (cough cough James Kirk cough) are remembered as great precisely because they weren’t huge fans of following the rules, either, so there’s certainly precedent that generally refusing to play things safe is a workable leadership strategy.

Yet, Michael has always found her greatest success as a character when she has an authority figure or structure that is set in opposition to her, so it will be interesting to see how she evolves now that she is the authority she once pushed back against.

What’s Next for Saru?

At the conclusion of “That Hope Is You, Part 2,” Saru took a leave of absence from the Starfleet to go with the young Kelpian refugee Su’Kal back to their home planet of Kaminar. What’s next for him is unclear, but there’s no way Discovery’s planning on writing off this character completely – or losing the talents of actor Doug Jones.

So what’s next for Saru? If he does return to the Discovery, what role can he fulfill now that he’s no longer captain? Does his future lie in the Federation hierarchy somehow, possibly working for Admiral Vance or serving as some sort of ambassador to his people?

A third option could involve Saru taking on an entirely different kind of mission, one that looks a lot like fatherhood of a sort. Ever since his arrival in the 32nd century, Saru has longed to reconnect with his people. Perhaps showing young Su’Kal the stars he’s missed out on all his life is something that might allow him to do just that on a smaller, more intimate scale. (And indulge his dorky dad vibes at the same time.)

Gray Will Return Somehow

During Adira’s trip to the dilithium planet to ferry medicine to Saru and Culber, we learned that the holodeck program on the abandoned Kelpian ship could extrapolate Gray’s consciousness and give him a holographic form. This allowed him to be seen by the other Discovery crew members present, which means that the technology clearly exists which can bring Gray back to life again. Sort of, anyway.

 Because, of course, Gray is technically dead and his consciousness only exists as part of the Tal symbiont inside of Adira, which raises many questions this subplot will eventually have to answer, including how much agency and sentience post-Burn holograms even have to begin with. (Eli the Federation lie detector hologram certainly seems independent enough.)

Culber has promised both Adira and Gray that he will find a way for him to be seen again. But what that will ultimately look like, we don’t yet know. There is precedent for the idea that one part of a Trill’s symbiont memories can live outside it, but does that mean Gray will become a hologram himself permanently? Or can his consciousness be housed in something that has a more physical form?

What’s Book’s Actual Job Now Anyway?

Now that Cleveland Book – and we’re still waiting for the story behind that name, btw – is officially a part of the Discovery crew, it’s time for the series to define his role in this universe beyond his relationship with Michael. Is he technically part of Starfleet now? Is he an officer on Discovery? Does Grudge get a tiny decorated insignia collar? (Please say yes!)

Much of Book’s role in Season 3 was to support Michael in one way or another, whether that meant to literally help introduce her to the new rules of the 32nd century or to provide emotional and tactical help when needed. And don’t get me wrong, Book and Michael have somehow managed to form one of the most functional, normal relationships in Star Trek history. They’re honestly great together. But David Ajala is a tremendously appealing actor and if he’s going to stick around – which I think we’re all in agreement he should – Book needs a meaningful story of his own.

Tilly’s Promotion

Following Michael’s promotion to the Captain’s chair, it certainly looks like Tilly is getting some sort of command-level promotion in Season 4.

Technically she was still an Ensign when serving as Saru’s Acting First Officer, and while she conducted herself admirably during, well, everything, if she’s going to be Michael’s legitimate First Officer – which that last scene would definitely seem to indicate – she deserves to at least become a lieutenant.

Stamets and Michael Will Have to Work Out Their Issues

One of the lingering unresolved plotlines from Season 3 is the massive rift that formed between Paul Stamets and Michael following her decision to physically jettison him from Discovery while it was under Osyraa’s control. To be fair, her choice was completely the correct one, as he was the only one capable of operating the spore drive, and removing him from the equation meant that the Emerald Chain couldn’t just jump back to the Verubin Nebula and all its dilithium.

But, Stamets basically took that decision to mean that Michael was fine with condemning his family to horrific radiation deaths, and that’s going to be a hard thing for him to get over. If you notice, he’s the only person who doesn’t exactly look thrilled at Captain Burnham’s promotion, and we don’t see the two interact again once the ship is reclaimed.

There’s also the question of the spore drive itself. Stamets has tied his own identity – and his worth as part of the Discovery team – pretty tightly to his ability to communicate with the Mycelial network. Now that Book can do the same thing, how will this change things for him?

We’ll Probably See More Episodic Storytelling

Solving the mystery of The Burn and battling the villainous Emerald Chain were both season-long arcs that helped establish Discovery’s place in the future, and allowed Discovery the show to set up the new rules and players of its universe. But now that both those tasks have been accomplished, don’t be surprised if we see a shift toward more episodic storytelling in Season 4.

After all, with a fresh new supply of dilithium to distribute and the entire future to explore, isn’t it time we spent some time seeing what the 32nd century looks like? Some of the most entertaining moments of this season came when Michael and the rest of the Discovery crew found themselves on new planets or adjusting to changed cultures (including their own). Since Discovery purposefully removed itself from all known Star Trek canon, isn’t it time the show got about really establishing some new ones? The revelation that Vulcan and Romulan reunification has indeed happened feels like it should be just the beginning of the surprises this universe has in store for us. What has happened to other species such as Klingons or the Borg? Wouldn’t it be fun to find out?

The Grudge Content We Deserve

One of the few things Discovery fans of all stripes can agree on: Grudge is amazing. And we deserve to see more of her. Whether that means all our initial speculation turns out to be true and she’s actually the secret god of a planet full of telepathic felines we’ve yet to visit or just that she gets her own bridge-safe cat basket so she can hang out with Book and Michael next season, just give the people what they want.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Can we at least find out how she and Book ended up together? Throw me a bone – or I guess a cat treat – here, show. (Truly, if we don’t at least get a Short Treks episode about Grudge what are we even doing here?)

The post Star Trek Discovery Season 4: What to Expect appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[eyebright-iris]

Review: Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)

“I’m the one they should be scared of.  Not you, not Mr. J – me.  ’Cause I’m Harley-fuckin’-Quinn.”

A triumphant riot of not just girl-power, but the true indomitable spirit of women who have been wronged their entire lives kicking back at the ones who have tried to ruin them.

Birds of Prey is truly one of the greatest movies I have seen in a long time, and this is after having seen some fantastic competition.  Finally, a Harley movie that actually cares about her as a character, as a person, that shows off all the things that makes her great and somehow doesn’t have to make her the film’s sole lead to give her the space she needs to perform.  She’s naïve, excitable, an emotional rollercoaster in a pair of rollerblades and the most delightful not-quite-villain to watch on screen.  Harley has broken up with the Joker and set out on her own, but she never forgets the clown look she is so known and loved for.  Where so many Joker depictions try to show of the madness of clowns, the scary side to make the Joker a formidable villain, Harley Quinn is joyous.  She’s a jack-in-the-box with a rocket launcher, pigtails and smiley-face mallet and maniacal glee in every bit of mayhem she causes.  Yeah, in her own words, she’s not a good person – but you want to be her best friend anyway because you can’t help but love her. Every outfit was sexy but not sexualised, all about Harley’s wild self-expression and not about how much of her ass could fit into each shot; you can feel that this was directed and produced by women; created by women, a project loved by the women behind it. There’s enough emotion to make you really feel for the characters despite the comedy, but manages to flip effortlessly between genuine emotion and humour without cheapening the authentic feelings like other films have done in the past (looking at you, Deadpool).

The film also makes brilliant use of its 15 rating with an explosion of foul language and violence – but none of it gratuitous.  The fights are gritty, lively, and feature none of the signature lady-fighting technique synonymous with Black Widow that involves bringing a man down with her thighs around his face.  The women in this movie punch, brass-knuckle or bare-knuckle; they swing bats and break limbs, they smash windows and noses and get punched back themselves because they aren’t reduced to something pretty for the time of the fight; the fights are fun, but never feel fake.  There’s enough weight behind the combat scenes to carry each of them without losing the fun of watching them.  The Booby-Trap fight scene is the obvious standout, the title scene of the movie where we finally have everything the movie promised us delivered on perfectly, but there are so many others – Harley’s raid on the police station with the shotgun is another personal favourite.  And good news – rumours of Harley having an ex-girlfriend are in fact true!  Bisexual badass Harley Quinn takes centre-stage.

But speaking of Harley, this isn’t just her movie: I couldn’t review this film without paying proper homage to the other characters.  Renee Montoya, a detective overshadowed when her partner took credit for her career-making case, watching him be captain while she never gets the respect she deserves.  For a movie with a cop as one of its leads I was surprised (very pleasantly) at the general tone the film takes towards the police (in colloquial terms, BoP said “fuck blue lives!” and I love it).  Renee’s a force to be reckoned with, a good heart in a bad city and she knows it. The film openly makes fun of how she speaks like an 80s cop movie, but only for the cheese of it all, because the intention behind the cheese, the desire to do good despite the rules, is what this film is all about and while I won’t spoil Montoya’s ending, I was ecstatic for her.  Oh, and did I mention she has an ex-girlfriend who appears multiple times in the movie?  Dinah Lance, Black Canary, is an iconic heroine of DC.  A crime lord’s club songbird with a bite, she clearly has a rough history with police and a lot of mistrust, but there’s a heart of gold beneath it all and she breaks all the rules she’s set for herself to save an innocent life.  Dinah also gets to show off her powers in a fight and it does not disappoint.  Lastly of the Birds, we have Huntress.  A mystery for much of the movie, she’s a lot of motorcycling around and mysteriously killing people for reasons unknown. However, when she does join the gang and come into the light, she’s incredible.  A ruthless assassin with not great people skills which make her formidable but adorably awkward as well, her character realistically reminds the audience that childhood trauma can indeed make superheroes – but that doesn’t magically undo the fact that it is, in fact, trauma.  Her interactions with Cassandra Cain are touching and she’s a fascinating case of someone with no real stake in the affairs that all the other characters are caught up in but takes a stand regardless because it’s the right thing to do.  Also, all these ladies are in fact very beautiful and powerful and kickass and I am very gay.

Cassandra makes the last of the protagonists and she doesn’t let her young age or small stature make her seem any smaller against her co-stars.  Fabulously cast and brilliantly acted, Cassandra is a little shit that people can’t help but take a liking to, but also very much a child in a frightening world who has no idea what she’s gotten mixed up in.  I can’t lie, it’s also very refreshing to see a kid being played and acted like a damn kid, not a thirty-year-old in a schoolgirl skirt.  The Booby-Trap fight where the Birds and Harley are furiously fighting dozens of goons whilst working to protect Cassandra is a really powerful scene, not just for the technicolour girl-power but also because the sight of women working together to protect a young girl in ways they themselves could not be protected is…*chef’s kiss*.

I don’t want to spoil any more than I may already have done, but the villains are phenomenal.  Ewan McGregor does an amazing job with Black Mask, terrifyingly unstable and violent, yet so entertaining at the same time. Also, queer-coded (or canon, if you take McGregor’s own words on the matter) villains are absolutely no issue with me when at least two of our main cast of incredible ladies are queer on screen in this movie (and yes, imo, the bad guys are gay your honour).

Conclusion:

A supernova of harlequin madness and an absolute resounding triumph.  Birds of Prey is everything we needed when Suicide Squad’s own neon-painted violence failed to live up to its potential.  The movie is vividly coloured and non-stop fun.  It’s lurid, violent, and perfectly Harley.

10/10

[csyp-writers-mob]

Choices Fandom Challenge

Welcome! We constructed especially for you, a Choices: Stories You Play writing challenge. It will take place from 7th of April until 21st of April, and will contain 14 prompts. Some would contain one or two prompts by choice.

You can tag your works as #csypwritersmob or @csyp-writers-mob on tumblr, csyp_writers_mob collection on ao3. 

We will be happy to have you!

List of prompts:

Bad Habits

Theories OR Domestic

Broken OR You’re out of this world

Crossover outside the fandom

AfterLife

Fathers and Sons OR Under Arrest

10 Year Later

The Best Heroes Make The Greatest Villains OR Reverse AU

Crossover inside the fandom

Memento Mori

Light! Camera! Action! OR Soulmate AU

Unusual/Weird Ships

Free Space

Indescribable 

The prompts also contain notes about it. You can just skim through it if you’ve got the general idea, but it’s also very helpful if you’re stuck!

1) Bad Habits

Could be of any genre, from Angst to Fluff. Maybe it’s someone annoyed by somebody’s habits or someone remembering whom they have lost to the same habits

2) Theories OR Domestic

As the prompt suggests, theories or domestic fanfictions. It could be an alternative ending, or a guess about the ongoing book’s ending. Or a little canon scene instead. 

3.1) Broken

Pure Angst, could be a Hurt/Comfort.

Also could be a side story (for example, how MC in MotY struggles with raising a child, worries about her, etc. Or how MC or what their Love Interest in ES feels after MC’s death).

3.2) “You’re out of this world”

Genres expected: Romance, Fluff, Angst, Hurt/Comfort.

Suggested books: Bloodbound, Endless Summer, The Hero, Nightbound, Across the Void, The Elementalists, The Haunting of Braidwood Manor, Perfect Match and It Lives Anthology.

Of course we do not restrict authors in this, it can be any story if it fits the theme.

4) Crossover outside the fandom

Crossover with other fandoms (Avengers, Forgotten Realms, folk tales or BTS). Books and genres are chosen by you. Go wild.

5) AfterLife 

Post-Canon. Meant as a story after the big adventure, how the characters live after the chase/monsters’ attacks/flying into space. Or, what happened after the Happy End?  Preferred lean into Angst territory. (No classmates’ reunion, or something like that. Don’t worry, though! There will be a separate prompt for that.)

6.1) Fathers and Sons

As the prompt suggests, it’s a conflict between parents and their children. It could be MC that had their kids, or on the other side of the coin it could be MC as a child/teen/of a canon age interacting with their parents.

6.2) Under Arrest

Works about police and/or detectives.

7) Ten Years Later

Post-Canon again.

Mainly, it’s a story about characters’ lives after the book’s events (much like AfterLife, but with the promised fluff). It could be highschool(High School Story), university(The Freshman Series) or military buddies reunion. Main genre: Everyday Life.

8) Reverse AU

We have books where MC and/or their friends are presented as brave and mighty heroes, but what if they get broken down? Or even tempted?

Suggested books: The Elementalists, The Hero, The Royal Masquerade, Bloodbound, Nightbound, Across the Void, The Crown & The Flame, It Lives Anthology, Desire and Decorum, Veil of Secrets, Ride or Die, Perfect Match.

9) Crossover inside the fandom

A crossover between PixelBerry’s Choices: Stories You Play books. It could be a setting switch or characters from one book meeting other characters from other books. But! It’s strictly inside the fandom.

10) Memento Mori

“Remember That You Are Mortal”

Preferred genre is Angst and/or Hurt/Comfort. It could be the death of a background character, Love Interest’s or the MC’s themselves. How the others took another’s death? In short, everyone is dead and you’re sad.

11.1) Light! Camera! Action!

Let it be light after the darkness. Suggested genres: Comedy, EveryDay Life. The plot can be anything you wish it to be, but the main idea is that the characters are presented as a cast of film/series based on their book story. The Freshman can be a TV romcom series with a billion episodes. Veil of Secrets could be a TV detective series that got one season and cut off abruptly. It could also be presented as interviews with actors as MC, Love Interests and background characters.

11.2) Soulmate AU

Star-crossed lovers, the ones tied by Fate’s hands, whatever you call them, they’re still soulmates. They could hate each other, fall in love at the first sight, build up a happy and healthy relationship, or just stay or become friends, the choice is yours. 

12) Unusual/Weird Pairings

You’re not pleased with the Love Interests presented in the book? Or did you want to romance that background character, but never got a chance? Or maybe you wanted different background relationships? You could rewrite your story today, right now! Absolutely free choice of pairings, from the suspected Kane/MC to unexpected Gaius/Lily. The weirder the better. NO JUDGEMENT ZONE.

13) Free Day

Anything you want to write, absolutely anything. No restrictions, no recommendations, no suggestions.

14) Indescribable 

…

[echodrops]

Why Do Certain Ships Become So Popular? (And Why Should Writers Rethink When They Do?) - Part 2

<- Start back at part 1 or you’re going to be very confused!

This time my victim of choice example is Klance (and Allurance and Lotura too).

In a previous post, I established the premise that shippers focus their efforts and attention on ships between characters who exhibit the most compelling dynamism, the greatest amount of emotional energy--good feelings or bad--that directly relates to one or more of the characters’ growth arcs... or the two characters whose emotional interactions most significantly affect a story’s main plot.

This idea (that shippers are looking for strong, dynamic emotional interactions that are directly tied to plot) feeds directly into my second premise: part of the popularity of slash ships comes from the fact that, very often, the strongest and most plot-relevant emotional events don’t occur between male characters and female characters, but between male protagonists and other male characters--due to a combination of 1) a much smaller number of female characters, 2) a majority of writers for anime/manga and American shows being male; 3) under-developed or poorly written female characters, and 4) the tendency to situate males in the hero, sidekick, and villain positions, increasing the chance that their actions will have greater importance in the story’s main plot.

In short, writers can unintentionally cause fans to prefer non-canon slash ships by writing more dynamic, better developed, and more plot-relevant interactions between their male leads than between the main character and his designated female love interest.  

Now hang on. Before you get all up in arms, yes, I’m perfectly aware there are plenty of other reasons slash ships are popular, including:

A huge desire among LGBT+ fans for positive representation

The fact that m/m interactions appeal to straight women/others the same way w/w interactions are sexy to straight men/others

The tendency of shows, particularly from Japan, to deliberately queer-bait

The fact that many women vicariously ship male characters together because it allows them to imagine a relationship of “genuine equals,” particularly in areas where women feel they are still not treated equally to men

The tendency for “pair the spares” to result in m/m ships simply due to a lower number of available female characters

And so on

This isn’t written to negate any of those reasons or to imply that they aren’t major factors in the popularity of slash ships, not at all, but it has always, always struck me as reductive when I hear things like “Slash ships are only popular because girls think two dudes together is hot” (the fetish argument) or “Girls will ship any two good-looking male characters together regardless of canon. They just hate het ships” (the fetish argument with a side dish of misogyny).

In particular, this last one--an argument I’ve heard from a lot of male fandom members (but of course not all)--has always gotten under my skin, because it implies that girls who ship aren’t capable of critically analyzing the media we consume and identifying characters who have meaningful interactions and interesting potential. That we, unlike those viewers who adhere to the canon (typically heterosexual) relationships, are somehow reading these stories wrong, blind to “real” romance (namely the one between the male hero and his best girl/waifu), and/or misusing male characters with zero regard for their personalities--worse, this argument also implies that female fans deliberately hate or under-appreciate oh-so-perfectly written female characters whose romantic subplots are totally natural and not at all an unfortunate side effect of their position as the token chick on the team...

At its best, the statement: “Girls will ship any two good-looking male characters” is demeaning in its dismissal of a majority of slash shippers and their ability to read characters. At its worse, it’s this exact dismissal that continues to allow so many (primarily male) authors to write under-developed, unimportant, token female love interests: “It’s the girls [or the slash shippers] who are weird; there’s nothing wrong with the way we’re doing things.”

But guess what happens when well-written female characters whose actions are central to a story’s main plot are introduced and highlighted? Guess what happens when the emotional energy between a female lead and her male counterpart is the most compelling and dynamic in the series?

The (often canon) het ship suddenly--somehow--magically becomes well-liked by fans!

Zutara and Kataang vastly out-strip any slash Avatar pairings in popularity. Noragami’s Yatori commands a staggering following in the fandom. Is there anyone in their right mind who thinks Alucard/Integra wasn’t the best pairing to end Hellsing with? No one debates whether or not Ahiru and Fakir from Princess Tutu are true love. In Doctor Who, Rose and the Doctor reign so far supreme in the fandom that none of the other ships even need to exist though I actually prefer River. Terra and Aqua from Kingdom Hearts beat out every other Terra or Aqua ship by a mile (and this is in a series notorious for hating and under-shipping its female characters). Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-Kun has no problem juggling three very well-accepted het ships--even while having a scene in which two male characters sit down and draw a gay manga together. Ain’t nobody suggesting Mr. Bates and Anna from Downton Abbey should be with anyone else, right? And this is just in the handful of shows I personally have time to watch. Anyone who reads or watches a series with well-written female characters can play this exact same game!

The obvious conclusion? Female fans are perfectly willing to ship heterosexual pairings--if they’re well-written.

It’s the same story all over again: when the real emotional energy, the dynamic core, the most plot-relevant interactions occur between a male and female character, they too can become the fan-preferred couple. (Shocking!)

Yes, yes, I hear you saying “B-But wait, sometimes the m/m ship is more popular even though the het love interest is well-written!” or “Sometimes girls ship guy characters who have never even met!” or “So what you’re saying is female fans wouldn’t ship slash if there were better het options available?”

1) Don’t get me wrong--there are certainly always exceptions. I’m pointing out a trend, not a rule. Sometimes a fandom has a separate, specific reason for elevating a non-canon slash ship above a well-written canon het ship. (Someone who is actually in the Fullmetal Alchemist fandom might be able to explain why Ed/Roy is more popular than Roy/Riza, probably?) And in situations where a slash ship and a het ship in a series both have equally strong emotional energy, my bet is that the slash ship will always come out on top because it gets the added benefit of people liking LGBT+ rep and straight girls (and anyone else) who just think m/m is hot.

2) Crack ships definitely do exist. But usually when a crack ship actually manages to become popular, it’s because fans have recognized the potential for a strong emotional energy between two characters. If the two characters could reasonably have strong tension because of similarities, differences, or other elements of their characters, then crack ships are still following the trend of aligning with emotional energy, even if that energy is only anticipated at the moment.

3) I definitely don’t mean to suggest that slash ships are shoddy seconds to fans who would “naturally” prefer het ships if good het ships were available. What I’m suggesting is only that it’s no surprise slash ships are so extremely and consistently popular across so many fandoms, because in terms of plot relevance, depth of writing, and meaningful interactions with each other, male characters so rarely have any real competition. A desire for LGBT+ representation and people living out power or equality fantasies through slash are certainly motivating factors and good and worthy reasons to write slash. But one unfortunate contributor to the popularity of slash ships is that male characters continue to occupy a place of privilege in modern narratives. Our heroes remain overwhelmingly male. Our sidekick/lancer/buddy characters remain overwhelmingly male. Our villain characters remain overwhelmingly male. That is to say: male characters continue to dominate all the most “plot relevant” roles in our narratives, and so long as male leads continue to be placed in roles where their most compelling emotional interactions and greatest sources of character growth are other male characters, slash ships will continue to dominate fandoms’ online presences.

(Hilarious: the dude bros who complain about the number of slash ships in their favorite series are often the very same ones supporting and becoming the writers whose shallow portrayals of female characters further bolster the popularity of said slash ships in the first place...)

Okay, I’ve made you wait long enough.

What does all of this have to do with Voltron?

Well, you’ve probably figured that part out already, actually.

If we consider the “emotional energy” and tension among Voltron’s main characters, there’s absolutely no question who is at the core, where the most plot relevant and meaningful emotional interactions have occurred, where the “heart” of the story is, in essence...

Hint: It’s Keith.

(Just a heads up: I’m going to use Klance as the example because it’s the most popular Voltron pairing according to the numbers, but any Sheith fan worth their salt could obviously very, very easily apply these ideas one-for-one to that ship, because clearly Shiro’s interactions with Keith are some of the most emotionally tense and compelling in the entire Voltron series--they are a consistent core of feeling energy for the show which naturally leads many people to support this ship. A large part of the reason that this post is tagged Sheith is because I am absolutely inviting Sheith shippers to use the theory and lens in this essay to analyze Sheith--using this idea to analyze Sheith will reveal a lot of intense emotional energy to discuss and validate that ship. I’m very tempted to put this paragraph in all caps or something so the Sheith shippers will actually read it and stop badgering me...)

Keith (and his relation with other characters) is the core of Voltron’s main plot, both in that he is positioned as the leader/the hero/the protagonist, and because, obviously, almost all of the series’ emotional high points (with the exception of “Crystal Venom” and Pidge’s search for Matt) somehow feature him. 

Keith isn’t just central in the main plot though; he’s also central in the individual arcs of two other characters: Lance and Shiro. He’s a motivating and driving factor in both of these characters’ stories and change throughout the series, affecting their actions, attitudes, and self-worth, and so it should come as absolutely no surprise that Sheith and Klance are the series’ most popular ships.

But since Klance is the most popular pairing, the person I really want to talk about is Lance.

You can say a lot of things about Lance and the raging debates that occurred over whether or not Lance is a straight loverboy trope or not, but I don’t think any viewer of Voltron would deny that, if we consider the main cast members (Team Voltron plus Lotor), the core of Lance’s emotional energy and tension is Keith. His interactions with Keith--not even in a romantic sense, simply in a storytelling sense--are more important and dynamic than his on-screen interactions with any other main character.

From his laser focus on Keith at Garrison that caused him to invent a rivalry (this word is basically just a synonym for “emotional energy” at this point):

To comedic banter:

To the infamous bonding moment:

To a fledgling “right hand man” partnership:

To Lance’s insecurities:

The story of Voltron itself continuously reiterates that Lance’s interactions with Keith are more dynamic, more intense (even if we’re talking about “Rawr, I hate you, we’re rivals!” emotions instead of lovey-dovey stuff), and more plot relevant than Lance’s interactions with other characters in the series. Lance’s emotional arc is irrevocably centered on Keith until very, very late in the series.

More importantly: Lance’s motivation and personal plot line as a whole are centered on Keith. At it’s most basic, Lance’s character arc seems like it was supposed to center on Lance’s sense of self-worth--despite acting confident, Lance was actually insecure about his ability to help save the universe. Theoretically, his narrative should have focused on him becoming confident about his place on the team and his value as both a friend and fellow paladin to the other main characters. His arc should have been (and I guess theoretically still is? It’s just not... ever given much attention?) about him overcoming his insecurity by learning to recognize his own unique talents and discovering the things that only he can do to help Team Voltron succeed. (Hell, the entire Allurance thing could have been framed as “She’s completely out of my league” ---> “Whoa, originally I was putting Allura on a pedestal but actually she’s as much a member of this team as me--we’re in this together, side-by-side.”)

Whether or not the semi-incoherent narrative of Voltron actually delivered on this promise is iffy, but the set up in season 1-3ish is all there and all Keith:

At Garrison, Lance viewed Keith as a road block in his quest to becoming a fighter class student. Keith’s achievements and talent became a measuring stick for Lance’s own capabilities. He imagined a rivalry to make himself feel better/less insecure. His drive not to lose out to Keith is what dragged Hunk and Pidge along to Shiro’s rescue and ultimately led to the discovery of the Blue Lion. Lance comparing himself unfavorably to Keith as a paladin and pilot contributed to (mostly) one-sided animosity throughout the early seasons that gave way to a scene of Lance attempting to step down from the team because he didn’t see himself worthy of the position in comparison to Keith:

The logical conclusion that I think most fans would draw from these many scenes is that, as part of Lance’s overall character growth across the whole series, he needed to have a moment in which he recognized that he isn’t--and has never been--inferior to Keith.

Ultimately, the first five seasons continually reiterate the idea that, in terms of interactions, energy, and dynamic character growth, the most important main character in Lance’s story (other than Lance) is Keith.

Keith’s interactions with Lance are directly and immediately tied to Lance’s individual character arc/growth, and Keith is definitely the focus of Lance’s most meaningful emotional tension throughout seasons 1-5 at least.

Which means it shouldn’t come as any surprise that Klance is the most popular Lance ship, particularly when you set it side-by-side with the (increasingly canon) Allurance.

I just want to make this abundantly clear before I begin: I have absolutely nothing against Allurance shippers and, until it was done so poorly in season 5-6 (and potentially 7, I still haven’t even finished that one), I actually was okay with the possibility of Allurance being endgame because I thought there was potential for it to be done well. After what we’ve been given, I actually feel the Allurance shippers have been horribly shortchanged by the show’s real writing, and that I can’t personally support the ship the way it’s being written, but that’s not the fault of the characters themselves or anything inherently “wrong” with the ship. So please don’t take the rest of what I say here as ship hate--this is just observations from a literary analysis standpoint.

What has prevented Lance and Allura from gaining significant traction with the fans despite the fact that it’s edging close to canon territory if it isn’t canon already?

Well, one problem might be that Lance’s emotional energy has no bearing on Allura’s individual character development--and Allura’s emotional peaks have no bearing on Lance’s personal arc either (at least as far as it was established in early seasons and then left essentially unresolved).

Allura’s arc has, throughout the course of the show, centered on her ability to defeat her family’s foes, her grief for her lost people and planet, and her desire to follow in her father’s footsteps as a leader and in the Altean traditions as well. None of this has much of anything to do with Lance. Her growth as a character occurs--with the exception of the single shining scene on Naxela--completely independently of Lance. She lets her father’s memory go on her own in “Crystal Venom.” She faces Zarkon head-to-head by herself after rescuing Shiro. It’s Shiro who stops her from over-working herself to aid the coalition, not Lance. It’s Keith’s whose Galra blood forces her to re-examine and overcome some of her universal hatred for the Galra. It’s Lotor who helps her reach Oriande, and her own ingenuity that allows her to tame the White Lion and learn the secrets of Altean alchemy.

With the exception of the scene on Naxela where it was specifically Lance’s speech that motivated Allura to save the day, virtually all of her most charged emotions occurred elsewhere and with other characters, and there’s nothing in her personal goals--to be a strong leader, to revive her culture, to save the universe--that is intrinsically tied with Lance. He can encourage and aid her in those pursuits, but so can Shiro, Keith, Pidge, Hunk, and Coran. The role of fellow paladin and supporting ally isn’t unique to Lance. His interactions with her don’t fill a niche that drives her personal plot lines outside of the romance subplot.

And the same thing is true in reverse.

We get this nice scene of Allura encouraging Lance and helping him work on his insecurity... And then it is promptly never mentioned again. (Where did the sword go, guys? Where???) Lance gives up Blue to Allura and she’s almost immediately gifted at piloting the Blue Lion, while Lance is shown struggling with Red (once more in Keith’s shadow) and still hadn’t, as of the end of season 6, seemed to have mastered it to the same extent as Keith. It’s Keith, Laika (an alien dog--not Allura guys, an alien dog) and the SPACE MICE that Lance expresses his insecurities to, and it’s Coran who is there for Lance’s touching scene expressing his longing to return to Earth. Lance’s personal arc about growing into the paladin role and becoming a selfless person who puts the team before his own desire for glory once again occurs independently of Allura, with little to no interaction, and even fewer emotional high points between them, in the entire first half of the show.

For both of these characters, their “real emotional energy”--their tension both positive and negative--occurs with other characters. The “believability” and energy of this ship is diminished by the fact that it simply isn’t the most well-written of character pairs in the series. The romance subplot isn’t organically tied to either of their personal plot lines, and the depth of their one-on-one interactions pales in comparison to their, particularly Lance’s, interactions with other characters.

But huh... would you look at that... When a potential romantic interest came along whose interactions with Allura were both directly tied to her personal arc, her central character motivations, and her emotional high points...

Isn’t it amazing how well it was received by the fandom--despite the fact that no one was really sure whether Lotor was evil or not? Now of course, I’m not going to ignore the fact that Lotura was probably helped along by leaving Keith, Lance, and Shiro free to ship elsewhere, but I don’t think the actual chemistry in the series’ writing itself should be ignored.

There was significantly, significantly more tension and nuance to Allura and Lotor’s interactions that any of Allura’s interactions with any of the other main cast, and their interactions operated not just in a romantic capacity, but also as a vehicle for Allura’s personal character growth:

The push and pull of these two characters and their scenes together sparked change in both of them, which augmented and increased the quality of their romantic arc while also furthering both of their own individual goals as characters.

The story painted them as equals with mutual interests, a shared interest in Altean culture, both victims (at least initially) of their parents’ war, both distrusting but ultimately lonely people who were longing for connection to, in Allura’s case, what had been lost, and in Lotor’s case, what he theoretically had never been able to have (except the writers did him dirty so jk).

I just don’t think there are many people who would argue that Allurance--or Allura’s interactions with any other male character--have been written with near as much depth, engagement, and integration with her motivations as Lotor and Allura’s were. Their plot literally got more screen time one-on-one in a single seven episode season than Allura and Lance did in the 43+ other episodes...

And for the the short time that it lasted, this pairing was embraced by many fans. I might be biased because I immediately went out and followed every Lotura blog I could find, but to me it seems like it was well-liked and generally well-regarded among shippers until the colony reveal (and by many still after). I was very excited by the writing of this ship and definitely wanted something meaningful to come out of it. Part of the fandom’s immense outrage at Lotor’s reveal was, I think, linked to the fact that this ship had been so convincingly written into the series before it.

This, to me, is a perfect example of a situation in which the emotional exchange between two characters exceeds the strength and depth of their interactions with others, leading to immediate adoption and approval as a ship by the fandom. Where the real energy is, there are the shippers.

PHEW! Let me take a deep breath and come up for air. There’s a lot going on here, but boiling it down to the basic point I’m trying to make, and which I’ll address in a lot more depth in the third and final part of this: the way that a story is written profoundly affects what ships will or will not become popular with fans. Shipping isn’t an unpredictable beast that grows completely independently of its source material. The ways writers craft interactions between their characters--and the places where they invest the most and infuse the most life--are powerful tools that impact how fans view and come to love seeing characters both separately and in romantic relationships.

To that end, while there are numerous reasons slash ships are popular and continue to grow in popularity, one reason that should be considered seriously by all creative writers--fanfiction authors or aspiring original novelists--is the notion that shipping often aligns with the core of a story’s or character’s emotional energy, the pairs with the highest tension, the electric pulse of the story’s most meaningful moments. Non-canon ships of any sexuality swell to mega-popularity when fans perceive more depth and significance in the interactions of characters outside the canon pair, when the emotional work of the story is happening somewhere outside the intentional romantic plot line. Sometimes this is fine. But more often, this is a bad sign for creators--a sign that you’ve fumbled in the writing of your main romantic leads.

As writers, questions we rarely ask ourselves but often should are: “Where is the core of the tension in my story? Whose interactions are deepest and most central to the development of my main character?”

In other words: Where is the real emotional energy in my story?

In part 3 I’m going to provide one more excellent case-in-point, and then close out with a discussion of some take-aways for writers from all this that might help strengthen your romantic subplots, whatever your genre or whoever your characters.

Go on to Part 3 ->

[captainkirkk]

yoooooooo. i was on the lookout for it the moment you mentioned there was gonna be a moana reference, but i didn't expect to find it right in the title! xD it fits perfectly though, and the fic is just WONDERFUL, tho at this point i've come to expect nothing less. so. you know the drill: i have to talk about it now, and the talk has to be extensive. so strap in for more of my ramblings~ (1/?)

Thank you! As always, the rest of the asks and answers are under the cut!

first off, i normally don’t read shinsou-centred fics even tho i like him, so i was surprised by how easily enraptured i was in this story, right from the beginning and all the way to the end without pause. it was compelling without being overly-dramatic, tugged on my heartsrtings (and snapped them – shinsou remembering what shouto looked/acted like at deku’s bedside is a special type of grief-fuel, tddk is my greatest weakness and you hit me right where it hurts most UGH), made me smile (2/?)

and overall improved my whole day a great deal: and make no mistake, the reason for that was entirely the fact that you chose to feature my online persona in it so profusely. when i started reading the fic, i knew there was a chance my username would be somewhere in there, so i kept an eye out for it, but i didn’t it expect there to be an entire segment dedicated to it! i was smiling so widely my mouth hurt, and i felt so touched by the end. you gave me an awesome quirk too!! telepathy is (3/?)

not something i have ever considered whenever i’ve asked myself what kind of quirk i’d like to have, but i love it! and you gave me direct interaction with one (or two, if you count bakugou seeing the tweet and insisting that mind blank read it and reply from his account) of the hero/canon characters too AAAAAAH~ the whole thing felt like a gift and i can’t thank you enough for this verse and for choosing to include me in it!!! SO THANK YOU. SO MUCH. REALLY. UGH.

now. QUESTION TIME *rubs hands creepily* 1. could you tell me more about deku and shouto’s mission? obviously it had to be something huge if the no.1 and no.4 heroes were both being sent out and told to keep it secret. and also the aftermath! i’m assuming izuku won whatever battle he was in/the mission was a success despite his horrible injuries, because there were some fans describing him as a BAMF because of it??? pls tell me he didn’t get hurt in vain/only to fail?? and also where (5/?)

was shouto during the whole thing? what was his role? was he the one who discovered deku after it was all over? i need details even tho i don’t know why i’m doing this to myself i absolutely hate seeing these boys suffer i hate it with a passion and YET. details. i wanna know em. but seriously, it must’ve been so horrific for shouto no matter where he was: you mention in the fic that deku had managed to go almost a year without hospitalizing himself, but i don’t assume the last time (6/?)

he went to a hospital was this traumatic? and lol, i wanted to laugh at shouto "willing to murder anyone who breathed wrong in his fiance's general direction" and the fact that there's a chat specifically dedicated to deku wrecking himself, but i couldn't, i was too worried. it's such an awful thing to happen during one's engagement too, on top of all things. can you imagine the love of your life dying, knowing you had been about to marry them?? FUCK. my boys need a vacation. (7/?)

hopefully the wedding will happen soon and their honeymoon will do them some good! question 2. shinsou said deku doesn't seem to be sleeping well due to perhaps his medicine, but is that really it? i thought there was something more to it, can you confirm? or was he simply tired/had a lot on his mind after his near-death experience? gosh pls don't make it be anything more serious, tddk deserve nothing but happiness and they've already suffered plenty have mercy i'm begging 3 (8/?)

and lastly 3. i understand that you are very busy, tired and stressed and the last thing i want is to burden you further with my obsession over your stories, so before i ask this i just want to let you know that you should feel absolutely 100% free to say no to this question, ok? goodie. now here it goes: would it be ok to change the gender you have used for me in the fic? i couldn't help noticing historyverse!me was called "him", but i'm a girl xD it's totes ok if you want to keep it like (9/?)

it is, or if you simply don't have time, i completely understand! once again, thank you for everything, and i eagerly await your response!!

Yes, the mission was a success! In my mind, a handful of heroes were working together to find and take down a villain group’s base (because, though villain groups have always been common, I imagine organisations became even more popular after the League of Villains). Todoroki and the others had their hands full with taking down the villains in the underground levels, but some of them escaped. Deku chased after them. The fight spilled out onto the streets, and some of the villains grabbed hostages, and Deku was Not Having That On His Watch. Hense the scary, badass moves that landed him in the hospital. He was trying to take on several villains that were making a run for it while also trying to protect the civilians around them. Trust me, Todoroki was so upset when he realised what Midoriya was doing on his own, without backup, but there was no way he could’ve realistically been there without jeopardising the mission

ALso: the group chat specifically for Deku and his injuries was (very vaguely) mentioned in ‘starry eyed’ too

No, don’t worry, it’s not anything more serious! Midoriya had a lot on his mind after being hospitalised because he’s almost 26. He’s been the Symbol of Peace for half a decade. He used to rationalise his injuries when he was younger, like ‘it was necessary, I’ll become stronger so I’m better next time’, but now that he’s older, he’s more reflective. I imagine Toshinori also spoke to him over the phone while he was in the hospital, and there’s always been parallels between the two of them, but this one doesn’t sit easy with Midoriya. He’s mostly just worried that he’s following in Toshinori’s self-destructive footsteps, and his overactive brain latched onto the idea and made it difficult for him to sleep. 

Why did I have a feeling you would ask this? A part of me wants to say no, since Blue is my fictional character, but they’re only in there for a few lines so it’s whatever

[coe-lilium]

Would you be willing to rank the major Apocrypha characters (Masters and Servants) from best to worst? I'm curious as to how you would rank them

Gladly :D

Be warned that this will be 90% tastes and maybe 10% narrative/objective analysis. And sorry for taking so long to answer. Also, it got long ^^’

A concise, condensed ver before the cut

- 10+/10, tie between Mordred, Jeanne e Shirou

-  9.5/10: Semirams and Shishigou Kairi

- 8-7.5/10: Vlad, Achilles, Shakespeare, Caules 

- 7: Chiron, Fran, Atalanta, Karna, Fiore, Darnic

- 6, I start not caring: Gordes

- “wasted” and “still bitter after 5 years”, no numbers: Avicebron and Siegfried

- 5-4, it’s complicated: Astolfo

- 4: Sieg (and it might go down to 0, I’m serious)

- 3 to 0: Jack, Reika, Celenike 

Btw, I kept them vague, but spoilers/hints up to vol4 and 5

Rank “will fight the world for them, forever in Higashide’s debt, I wish one day for Nasu to write them himself because I trust the mushroom man to make me love them even more than I already do, 10+/10″: 

Mordred: SHE. Higashide’s best accomplishment in winning me over no matter other flaws. Tie with Gilgamesh as my favorite Nasuverse character ever.

There isn’t a single thing I don’t love about her (bar that atrocious “dress” under the armor, delete that). The armored and casual character design. The backstory as abused and exploited child who tries to break free of her mother influence and plots but ends up following them anyway because of her other parent rejection and, ultimately, how Morgan life lasting damage could not be undone without support. Her snarky, bratty, selfish and ferocious personality she show to the outside world and the hidden insecurities, the good heart and the ability to reflect on her flaws. Her loyalty and her desperate need for parental love and recognition as her own person. Her fighting style that is a delight to read or watch, truly a beast. Her chemistry and relationship with Shishigou, all of it. How it start in that cemetery, how develops over the course of the story, how she manage to open, connect and trust him and ultimately find a real father in him.

If I have to find a “wish this was expanded on” is her written in but not recognised by canon issues with gender/presentation which wasn’t a real issue for me until I read metas here and I’m now quite confused especially on how to write her (him?) in the future, when I’ll hopefully get at it.

The only reason I don’t completely wish for her and her Master to have been made MCs is the love I have for the following two guys and this couple steal too much of a spotlight from other characters.

Still, while theirs is a story more focused on personal growth and healing then deciding the fate of a great number of people or the world, in the end Mordred and Kairi saved each other so it could’ve still meshed neatly with the overall salvation theme. Sadly it was not meant to be but I’m more than content for what we got.

Jeanne: She. Who gets only second place and no caps lock because, a surprisingly good portrayal none withstanding, she could’ve been even better had Higashide done a bit more research (in his favour, I don’t know what kind of books on her are translated in Japanese and if the processes transcripts are among them).

For example I’ll forever maintain that, while the whole “romance” thing has a historical base (funny that, uh?), it required a way better realisation and as it’s written in Apocrypha does her character a disservice. Laeticia too, who was a potentially interesting “device” and could’ve been our outsider perspective, got derailed into more nonsense romance and aww poor Sieg and oh man, who-gives-a-damn: not me.

Also, not enough of a sarcastic spitfire or military prowess (“just waved the flag”, now that’s a funny way to write “half of Charles’ court was impressed by how good she was with every damn weapon”) for my tastes but I guess historical Jeanne is just that irreplaceable or TM chose to emphasise her piety and “sainthood” over other traits in order to avoid an Arturia 2.0.

Not a single mention to her mentors either, in 5 volumes (which is bad, extremely bad, Higashide why) and too much of Gilles de Rais nonsense but unfortunately Type Moon is committed to roll with it. Dunois, La Hire and d’Alencon never, poor me. 

That said, Fate!Jeanne is really a good interpretation, firmly rooted in history and I love, love her. 

Her faith and lack of hate are spot-on and are treated with respect instead of mocked. 

She’s allowed to have a no-nonsense and even ruthless soldier like attitude, a protective streak (which always remind me of that promise she made to a young noblewoman to keep her husband safe and bring him back to her, or how she took care of her young squire. Both survived her) and loth of empathy at the same time. 

She’s down to earth but can also be immature and have flaws and be tempted. 

This post is already long as it is, so here’s some more reasons I love Apo Jeanne: 

Novel Jeanne musing 1       

Jeanne meta from the manga 1

Jeanne meta from the manga 2

My eternal greatest disappointment will forever be the lack of a satisfying confrontation with Shirou. You write someone able to shake Jeanne d’Arc convictions, make her doubt her conduct and moral standing when the threat of torture and the Rouen process weren’t able do so... and you don’t follow on it? Unforgivable.   

Shirou: This guy. This absolute mess of a human being. I need more and no, GO, “evil alternative self” isn’t what I mean (but yeah, gimme him too). After discovering him in Apocrypha I started digging my university library to hunt down his IRL self story and there is no higher accomplishment for a Fateverse character for me.                                                                                    Fascinating person and fascinating take by TM, double so since I discovered dude’s still being vilified in contemporary Jp stories/entertainment and man do that enrage me.

It’s like someone mixed up a character I love (Kirei), one I loathe (Kiritsugu), shaked it and the result it’s the best possible one I could ask for. 

I like the character design (both), the historical and post 3HGW backstory and how it shaped him into a Jeanne opposite (for excellent reasons), the most “Kotomine” traits like the snark and trollish attitude and how they cover all the suffering, despair and hate boiling under the constant smirk. How Higashide avoided the “turned evil” interpretation that’s prevalent in jp entertainment and made him a good person and a hero, if a misguided one and also the trapping of a “void/hollow inside” personality and instead gave him those fragments where you see he’s still a 17yo kid. 

He’s not just interesting, he’s funny to read, even with all the angst going on.  

The interactions with Shakespeare are great and... his relationship with Semiramis. Man, that’s excellent, excellent stuff. Can’t gush enough about how much I love them together

My only great complaint -for now, until I see a certain late discovery with my own eyes- is that all the narrative build up and comparisons between him and Jeanne (done in-universe and acknowledged within the text mind you, I’m not headcanoning here) went wasted. 

How can you write two characters who mirror each other so perfectly, put them as “head” of their factions, in the same role both... and not deliver with a confrontation? The only thing that tried to do so was -ironically- the anime in ep #13, as their confrontation in the novels wasn’t as personal and as good as the anime.      

Rank “good, excellent civilisation, never get tired of them”, 9.5/10

Shishigou: best father ever, 100% should legally adopt Mordred. He was/is extremely enjoyable to read about, snarky, smart, his fucked-up magus backstory had long lasting effects but managed not to destroy him, on the outside your tough, broody mercenary making hard decision but actually a good, moral person with a caring nature and, again, a great father. 

As already said, his and Mordred narrative is less tied to the different views of salvation theme and more to the “people making their wishes come true” and they’re bit of outliers for the whole duration of the story but I wouldn’t change a thing (except one T_T). 

His relationship with Mordred is one of the absolute highlights of Apocrypha for me, in every medium.

Semiramis: shallow reason first: charming, scheming, hot asshole-ish royalty in league with a Kotomine troll, what more could’ve I asked for?                        That she was an interesting char in her own right, which is what I got.          

More in-depth, she’s another character I never have enough of. Begrudging sole responsible adult of red team, I couldn’t help but grin every time she had to deal with AKA team or single members, not to speak of her scenes with Shakespeare, which are both amusing and very good for characterisation. 

She may not have that much of screen time compared to other faves but earned her place by making what she had memorable. 

Her backstory is simple: abandoned child learns to exploit her society view on women to rise to the top and get everything she wants and fuck everything else. Which not only neatly establish how and why she became what she is but also why this broken kid, which is a sort of her exact opposite, fascinate her so much. 

Speaking about our broken resident Kotomine, her chemistry with Shirou is simply great, all of their scenes are a joy to read. They have fun plotting together, they (she, dude’s either too young to notice or just let it go) casually flirts, have a functioning, mostly open relationship from the get-go that works no matter how messed up they really are and get each other’s back until the very end. Most of the more lighthearted stuff is in vol 1-2, then things gets more interesting. 

See, as much as she seems to be (and like to present herself as such to enemies) the perfectly devoted Servant and is aiding Shirou… she’s also truly villainous, cold and ruthless as hell and is also very conflicted and switch back and forth on what she wants, not much as out of the War as instead from her Master in particular (don’t think bad… okay, do) for the whole series. Vol3 and 4 are a godsend for her character and you dunno how I wish we had more than a bare bone summary for vol 5 because god damn some things in that summary. 

With the many, many stay night or Zero parallels and homages in Apocrypha, she come off as a sort of reverse Zero Gilgamesh and Gilles in being, respectively, the devilish member of the  Kotomine - Servant pair and the “personal involvement/interest in the saint figure, sometimes verging on the creep-ish, predatory behaviour" one (Gilles was 100% full on creepy mode, Semiramis keeps her thoughts for herself and is just tempted. I strongly appreciate), “reverse” for being conflicted, but in the end being a better person than both dudes above and respecting and knowing her partner enough to let go of her worst desires/frustrations. There’s some really good stuff in these two’s relationship, let me tell you. 

If Mordred-Shishigou take the cake for best platonic relationship in Apo, Semiramis and Shirou single handy destroy every competition for the romantic one. 

Rank “You. I like you”, 8-7.5/10

Vlad: here’s someone I’m pretty content with how he’s written (I wouldn’t change a thing), but really wish had had more space just because I enjoyed him a lot. Higashide nailed him and I wanted more of a historical Vlad III who is a hero, a good ruler caring for his country and a ruthless warrior and executioner and none of this aspects negate the others. Plus, it was refreshing to see a Vlad III being so clearly separated from the “vampire” twist that his wish for the Grail was to erase book and legacy from existence.

Achilles: a simil Alexander, I dislike the IRL/myth dude but can’t stay mad with their Fate incarnations. I like his personality, his quirks, his relationships with Chiron and Atalanta. Loved the mocking duel (and the anime committee will hear me scream from the other side of the world if I get robbed of it  yeah, I wrote this part before ep17. Fuck you A1). 

I don’t even think he needed more screen time, he’s really fine with what’s shown. Not every character need to be a main one and Achilles manage to be a good secondary one, with enough development and characterisation.

Shakespeare: here’s an enjoyable dude I like to hate. Amusing character, his interactions with Semiramis and Shirou are a joy to read or watch, but, fuck this guy. May Moriarty and Saber Gilles have their way with you in Chaldea.

Caules: one of those rare beasts known as “perfectly functioning siblings” of the Nasuverese. Respect his Servant and tries to do her right till the end. A good dude.

Rank “could’ve shined more in a longer and more focused series, but okay” aka those who served their purpose, 7/10 

Chiron                                                                                                            Atalanta                                                                                                          Karna                                                                                                                Fran                                                                                                                  Fiore                                                                                                                Darnic

Not really anything to say about each one here. They’re fine as they are.            

Could’ve used more Darnic, the 3HGW is a fascinating subject no matter who the Einzbern decide to summon and his actions shaped the whole world of Apo. Personally I’d have cut the Jack business and expanded him as a character/treat, maybe to shed light into CT politics and magus society fuckery (because if there’s something the Yggdmillennia as a whole and each one of them in particular show is how the magi society is an aberration that twist and corrupt everything it touch). But in the end I know it was either Ygg vs CT as promised or Rulers against each other and I’ll gladly take the latter.  A longer series could’ve had space for both, who knows.

Rank “nice arc. There are more interesting people but I’ve come to appreciate you” 

Gordes: Probably the human character who experience more growth in the series.

Rank “wasted” and “decent what little is there, perhaps, but still bitter after five years”

Avicebron: also know as the poor thing similar to the antagonist in background and wish that could’ve worked with the themes while also being a personal foil to the protagonist in being a golem/artificial life creator and user but the writer couldn’t/wouldn’t bother with him for some reason and he only got to be the “Gilles de Rais summon Chtlulu and heroes have to team up to bring him down” of Apocrypha, with no other purpose than being a Zero “homage”. 

To add insult to injury, the Adam threat does literally jack shit on a narrative point because “Servant goes stray and threaten the world, Servants form both factions have to team up to defeat him” already happened, 2 episodes before for the anime, end of vol2 vs beginning of vol3 for the novel version. And Mordred and Shishigou making an alliance with the surviving Black members was already going to be a thing after the Gardens mess. Shame, shame and shame.

Siegfried:  tainbocuailnge here has written some good meta about him lately and, yeah, perhaps all of that was intended, and I can kinda appreciate it. The point is that I couldn’t give a single crap over the OC when for him to come into being means sacrificing freaking Siegfried. I may not have read as much or being already attached to the literature/epic character like other cases but… no, just no. Siegfried deserved way better than what he got in Type Moon. 

Add more personal bitterness because with such numbers I thought it was finally time for the Heroes to shine and for the Masters to be sidelined and instead we got super special super powered MC. To hell with it.  

If anything, Siegfried may be the only character the anime did more good than damage. He’s still there and sometimes get to act as a mentor instead of being a useful power up and then fucking off for the remaining 4 volumes.

Rank “I tried to like you, I wish I could like you, but I cannot stand you no matter what”, 5-4

Astolfo: I’ve tried to like him but to no avail (rest assured, though, that I’ll deck anyone who’ll try use that t*ap or “girl” bullshit). 

It has to be that unholy combination of extremely airhead personality and mannerism, all the screen time he gets that could’ve gone to my favourites, that idiotic attempt at a “love triangle” (for the love of God, Higashide) and a voice acting that, I swear, even if I already didn’t like him from the novel the anime would’ve been the nail in the coffin. All these combined make him grates on my nerves like few other Fate characters. Perhaps part of my distaste comes from being unable to shake the feeling that the author himself don’t respect him.

I realise it’s quite… unfair, because on the page he has everything I usually like: he’s brave, he’s kind, he has morals and will maintain them in front of everything, he stand up to assholes, he save and inspire people, you can overpower him as much as you like and he still won’t care and will still fight you. 

Astolfo is a good, decently written character and I really wish the franchise would just stop using him as a joke and stop being so gross to him in order to cater to even more gross “fans”. 

If I were to put tastes/guts feelings aside, I could praise him for pages. I simply can’t bring myself closing the gaps from appreciating the undeniable qualities to actually like the character. 

Rank: fluctuating between “your concept should’ve been handled by a more experienced narrator” and “goddamn, does your very existence piss me off”, pending more on the second as we go on, less than 4

Sieg: on the page kid’s got a good arc. An homunculus, a magus’s tool, trash to be used and disposed off, gains consciousness and, shaped by what he witness and the actions and sacrifices of heroic figures, rise to free his kin from their slavers and then find himself fighting to “save the world”. How he attained freedom and have come to interpret it and his experiences put him in the path of the antagonist and the two and their “ideologies” makes for an interesting double face of the coin, forced salvation vs free offer and answer to actual prayers. Sounds pretty great. 

Unfortunately, Higashide aimed too high for his skills or didn’t learn well from Nasu and Shirou Emiya, or both. 

Otakus mad because he “got the waifu” aside, Sieg do come across as too damn lucky and overpowered and there is a limit on how much the in-universe reason “damn, the Counter Force had to work hard to give him a chance to stop a Heroic Spirit with hundreds time his experience” can go before the readers start getting annoyed at Heroes dropping dead or getting sidelined just to push him forward. 

I’m not a fan of these buzzwords, but the impression he’s a fan fiction OC that force the original and more interesting cast to revolve around/sacrifice for him or hijack their plots is damn strong. Scrap it, it’s not an impression, it’s exactly what happen. In at least 4 or 5 cases. 

There were also too many times he bore me to death so not really what you want from your protagonist. 

Another thing, more grave than personal preferences: his wish/fight firstly go nowhere, then get resolved too quickly without a fuss and then, once his goal has been effortlessly achieved, he proceeds to tag along and stole duels and confrontations from other characters, on which he had no stakes nor reason to be. What kind of writing is this?! He get the contract with Astolfo, walks in the castle and the Yggd agree on releasing the homunculi. And that’s it. Wow?

Also here’s my 100% personal reason for not having an ounce of interest in Sieg, godly writing skills or not: for once, just once, we could’ve got our first Fate solo female protagonist. An all-around badass but, at the same time, not an Arturia nor Shiki nor Arc nor Aoko clone. Who just happened to be my favourite historical figure ever.

Could’ve kept the same theme of opposing concepts of salvation, brought the Ruler vs Ruler/Saint vs Saint thing in the spotlight, with all their nice baggage of similar lives resulting in  opposite views by different regrets and traumas, faith or lack (that instead got all swept under the rug, and man if the self awareness of vol4 isn’t something to behold) and after five years I still feel personally robbed of all of this, especially when it became clear Apocrypha was yet another “male protagonist with the world revolving around him while the female heroine gets to be his support/sidekick. Oh, and as already said, he get the confrontation with whom the narrative builds as her rival”. Because of course he does. 

You don’t sideline Jeanne frigging d’Arc and expect me to forgive you for it.

Rank “why are you even here, why are we wasting anything on you”

Jack and Reika: ye god, why. The concept behind this Jack the Ripper? I find Fake ver superior but I’m on board. Then, first, that fucking character design. Sorry BL, reddit, MAL and whatever: putting a child in a thong is a revolting choice of character design and no, there’s no “well, she learned from prostitutes” that count.    I appreciate at least the connection made with Atalanta. But the execution. Their “plot” drag and drag on and goes nowhere (hilariously so in the anime. What was the point of Jack killing some random homunculi and disappearing for the whole arc, again?). Their only narrative purpose is doing ???? for roughly three volumes, *do that* to Atalanta and shaking Sieg’s worldview. At least they grant Jeanne some badass solo scenes and to us more insight on her character. Still the equivalent of a anime-only filler, and a bad one. 

Pity, really, because a child Jack who 1. is a child and act as one and 2. get heavily influenced by her/their Master and thus could either become a better person or be exploited wasn’t that bad of a twist for a famous figure but the pair was never allowed to be more than “Apo pair of rogue murderers”. 

Celenike: just… begone. I cheered when she died in the novel, cheered loudly when she died in the anime and will cheer even more loudly when she will die in the manga. 

[taliesin-19]

Fic Recs Part 2!

I did one or two of these a while ago, so you can just click on the ‘fic recs’ tag if you want. But for part 2, I’ll start out with some general fics that I’ve read recently and enjoyed, and then go into more specific recs that people asked for. 

1. Ginny Chronicles by @justalittleconfusing (Part I complete, Part II actively updating)

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12312469/1/Ginny-Chronicles-Part-1-Little-Girl-Lost

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12470990/1/Ginny-Chronicles-Part-2-The-Lioness-Within

This is a canon-compliant series from Ginny’s pov that starts from her 1st year and is continuing on. The author has created a perfect characterization of young Ginny. She begins as her talkative, curious, bright little self, but as the story progresses, we slowly see her ‘descent into madness’ as Tom cleverly manipulates her. It’s truly wonderful writing, packed with so much emotion that you can’t help but feel everything that Ginny is feeling. Before reading this, I’d never given too much thought to what Ginny went through in the Chamber of Secrets, but now, I can really see how this experience must have haunted her and eventually shaped her to become the independent, feisty, stubborn girl we all know and love. I’m beyond excited to see how the author handles the coming years and Ginny’s growth, as well as her relationship with Harry. 

2.  I’m Not The Only One by Potato19 (incomplete, but actively updating)

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12365803/1/I-m-Not-The-Only-One

AU story set in Harry’s 5th year, his parents are still alive and he has a half-brother after James cheated on Lily. Also, HHr. 

You’re probably thinking, why in the world would I read, let alone rec such a story? It has a bunch of red flags, yes, but this is honestly so well-written. It’s like a breath of fresh air. The characters are charming, complex, and funny. The dialogue is always spot on. And there’s just this aura about it that is so pleasing, and yet sad at the same time. As someone who can’t really stomach HHr stories these days, I was pleasantly surprised to find that I actually enjoyed their chemistry. Both their characterizations are just slightly different enough to canon to make it work. But it’s not even the romance that drew me in. It was the relationship Harry has with his mother and Sirius, and his best friends Neville and Luna. If you enjoyed Perks of Being a Wallflower, or any other coming of age book where the characters are outcasts, then I think you’ll enjoy this. 

Some downsides: James Potter is not a pleasant character in this story. I’m not sure if I could call it bashing yet because the author may reveal something in the future or flesh out his character more, but at this point, I can’t stand him. The same goes for his son (Harry’s half-brother) who I hate more than Draco Malfoy, which is saying something. Also, at this point, I’m not entirely sure where the story is heading plot wise. It may have something to do with Voldemort, Harry/Hermione, James and his bad choices, or all of the above. 

Despite that though, it’s just a nice drama/romance fic with great characters. And I’m eagerly awaiting an update!

3.  Rogue’s Bet by Hufflepunk (incomplete, but updated not too long ago)

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12240216/1/Rogue-s-Bet

Light-hearted AU story where Voldemort never rose to power and Harry had a happy childhood (raised by Sirius I believe, but not sure if reasons were given why). Honestly, this is just a fun fic. Harry is a bit of a douche, but not a horrible person. All the Gryffindor dormmates are tight-knit friends and very believable teenagers. Ginny’s characterization is absolutely amazing and hilarious.The author states that the story is more character-driven than plot driven, which is very apparent as soon as you read it. There are some minor plot threads here and there, but the crux of the story is the boys’ and Ginny’s friendship, and the trials and tribulations of being a teenager. 

Downsides: Harry’s love interest as of now is Daphne Greengrass, and while I don’t mind reading stories with her or any other minor character from the series, I don’t particularly like her characterization, here. She doesn’t fit well with the tone of the story, in my opinion. And I would much rather have Harry and Ginny together. But the fic is still in-progress so things may change.

4.  The Casebook of Harry Potter by Chris400ad (incomplete, but still updating)

 https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12373224/1/The-Casebook-of-Harry-Potter

I actually beta this fic, so I may be biased, but you can take my word for it that it’s a great story. It’s AU (surprise, surprise), post-Hogwarts, with a Sherlock!Harry that consults with the Aurors to solve crimes while Daphne Greengrass plays the role of Watson. The author knows his Sherlock Holmes, I can tell you that much. Harry is a wonderful depiction of the character. The perfect amount of snark, arrogance, and genius. The dialogue is witty, the interactions are fun, and the cases are well thought out and intricate. It’s still in its early stages, but I would highly recommend following this story, and maybe dropping a review to give the author a good kick in the bum. If you like Sherlock Holmes, you’ll love this. If you don’t, give it a shot anyway!

Now for some specific recs that people requested: 

Dark!Harry AUs where he’s raised or mentored by Voldemort. Like I said somewhere before, this particular subgenre of fanfiction doesn’t produce the greatest stories because they’re usually riddled with bad tropes and bashing. The ones I have been able to stomach are mostly just guilty-pleasure fics, so here are a few:

1.  A Shattered Prophecy by Project Dark Overlord (Complete)

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/2762511/1/A-Shattered-Prophecy

This is actually the story that Kurinoone’s Darkness Within is based on, so you’ll see some similarities. I prefer Kurinoone’s version, but you can give this one a shot too. The major difference I see between the two (besides the plot divergence that eventually happens) is that this story doesn’t have as much heart. I feel like the characters and dialogue are more wooden. I actually teared while reading The Darkness Within, but with this, there weren’t really any emotional moments. I suppose the major difference is that A Shattered Prophecy is more plot driven, while The Darkness Within is really both plot and character-driven. 

Harry is still pretty bad-ass though, so it’s worth it, I suppose. 

2.  The God of Death: Black Beginning by I Am Atrocity

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11868509/1/The-God-of-Death-Black-Beginning

Same premise with this fic, except Harry intentionally goes to Hogwarts on a mission from Voldemort instead of being captured by the Order and forced to attend. This story is pretty enjoyable, but the biggest downside for me is that Harry isn’t as badass or methodical as I would’ve liked, He doesn’t get redeemed which is rarer in a dark Harry story, but I like my villains more sophisticated. I also really don’t like the HHr relationship or Hermione’s characterization, in general. But again, these are guilty pleasures, so I forgive a lot of things. 

Barty Crouch was fun, though, and he has a great friendship with Harry, so that’s a plus!

3.  Imprisoned Realm by LoveHP (incomplete, but updated recently)

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/2705927/1/Imprisoned-Realm

So, this story has a slightly different premise in that canon Harry gets pulled into another dimension where there’s a dark Harry roaming about (I believe the two interact telepathically or something, but I can’t remember). Anyway, we do get some scenes from dark Harry’s pov which are awesome, and canon Harry switches places with him at some point. Idk, it’s a long story man. The major plus for me are the dark Harry scenes which, unfortunately aren’t as abundant. The major downsides are the canon Harry angst, the mentions of rape, and some other plot points which I don’t want to spoil. To be honest, I read this one a while ago, so I don’t even remember how it ends. But give it a shot if you want. I happen to really enjoy dimension hopping fics, so that’s probably why I stuck with it. 

Anyway, that’s that for now. I’ll probably think of more eventually. And maybe I’ll do a list of Dark Harry fics not raised by Voldemort. Sorry these weren’t exactly glowing reviews, but I wanted to be honest with you guys lol. If I set your expectations low, then they can only go up, right? ;)

[recentanimenews]

OPINION: Rebecca and Asta: The Strongest Ship in Shonen

No matter the stakes in a shonen series, peace between ninjas, inspiring hope through heroics, stopping evil brain-eating insects, or various words followed by “king”, there's almost always a romantic subplot on the backburner. A childhood friend of the main character who harbors a secret crush or a new acquaintance star struck by their heroics, we’re familiar with the figure of a female character looking at the hero’s back with hands clasped as he faces his latest, greatest challenge. Whether or not she joins in when it comes time to fight, the resolution to these stories are typically attached to that of the series itself, meaning love takes a back seat to several hundred episodes of action and adventure before the world is saved and finally the hero can settle down.

There's no shortage of these girls in Black Clover, with Asta having already drawn a few eyes who find themselves to flustered to function in his presence and even Yuno picking up a fan who appreciates a man that can save food from an unfortunate end on the floor. Make no mistake, however, one of the areas where Black Clover really breaks the mold and makes an argument for "best of" among stalwart shonen plot element is romance. We have one girl to thank (and support) for separating herself from this formula and really showing us a quality ship. Who is this mysterious woman?

Right off the bat Asta’s first encounter with Rebecca is... unique, taking place in unfamiliar territory for your average shonen fighting series, a mixer. While blind dates are dangerous in their own way, the lack of a villain presents a strange environment for a girl to develop a crush. Lacking an opportunity to display heroics, Rebecca's initial impression of Asta is a bit closer to that of the audience. Without present danger to dramatically defeat, she can't be dazzled by his bravery or become another victim of the infamous suspension bridge effect. Instead, Asta and Rebecca connect in a more mundane, even relatable way. A common interest.

For different reasons, both Asta and Rebecca are unsure precisely what they’re doing at a mixer, but the mention of Rebecca’s siblings suddenly has both actively engaged in a conversation about how much their younger siblings alternatively annoy them and enrich their lives. Rebecca wasn't wowed by Asta's declaration that he wanted to be wizard king, if anything it put her off, but being able to enthusiastically share in the common struggle of taking care of so many kids and the bizarre ways it affected each of them came across as a conversation she really needed. How can you see two kids hit it off talking about how they're obsessed with looking cool in front of their siblings, feeling annoyed when they're around but lonely while they're away, and not be absolutely charmed? Sure, Asta ends up bouncing a guy off the ceiling to protect Rebecca’s honor, but she's interested well before the drunkard shows up.

Beyond the circumstances of their meeting, Rebecca separates herself from the pack of bachelorettes by recognizing her own feelings and taking some actual initiative. Not content to gaze at Asta from the background, hands clasped together in hopeful longing, Rebecca makes the revolutionary decision to act upon her feelings immediately, inviting Asta to a second date to meet her family and play with her siblings. I’m not even going to check because I’m 100% positive this is the all-time speed record from meeting to first date in any property out of Weekly Shonen Jump. No hand-wringing, no hoping senpai notices her, Rebecca is a woman of action. Best of all, Asta accepts and they again have a great time together.

That's a second date your looking at. Rebecca doesn't stop there, either. She's even smoother than Asuna when it comes to inviting a man over for dinner. When the soul of Asta's squadamate literally leaves his body, she seized upon the opportunity to have him visit her restaurant and sample her cooking while waiting until (if?) he gets better. She was on her way to taking things even further when Asta slept over if she hadn't been foiled by the twin plot contrivances of a murderous older brother and all the children in town inconveniently disappearing.

Rebecca is obviously great, but another thing that makes her dynamic so special is what it does for our high-volume hero. Their interactions coax out charming aspects of Asta’s character we might not have otherwise known existed. Although we know he was responsible in taking care of the younger children in the orphanage, studiously sending the majority of his pay back to help them out, his conversation with Rebecca and their later visit show that Asta doesn’t just feel a sense of responsibility but actual enthusiasm when it comes to kids. In a character profile that ticks “likes: becoming wizard king” and “activities: exercise, eating, rivalry” this covers a lot of ground.

Asta is canonically obnoxious, there’s no hiding it, and his monomaniacal pursuit of the title of Wizard King has left little room to develop his character outside his heartfelt friendship/rivalry with Yuno, but Rebecca has allowed us to see that their is more to him than that. A relationship built on relateable sentiment and which actually carries narrative worth in building up the character rather than simply accessorizing him romantic interests. Not only does this show a good side of Asta but it speaks well of their relationship in that he is actively interested in that he is actively engaged in something that represents a huge part of her life.

Unfortunately it’s an uphill battle for Rebecca, up against an interested Magic Knight of noble blood and Asta’s own childhood crush that he obsessively pursues, but thankfully all is not lost. Sister Lily just isn’t going to let it happen. Noelle is too tsundere to live and is just as likely to kill Asta working out her feelings as confess her affection.

  There’s also the simple fact that Asta is so oblivious he hasn’t yet realized how she feels about him, or even what the actual purpose of a mixer is. Mimosa is the only remaining obstacle to what could become the single greatest romantic pairing in shonen, so join with me and send Rebecca your energy so she can make her feelings known through his thick skull. Also think of her adorable siblings who will be able to brag their brother-in-law is the Wizard King.

---

Peter Fobian is Features and Reviews Editor for Crunchyroll, author of Monthly Mangaka Spotlight, writer for Anime Academy, and contributor at Anime Feminist. You can follow him on Twitter @PeterFobian.

By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com

[echodrops]

Why Do Certain Ships Become So Popular? (And Why Should Writers Rethink When They Do?) - Part 3

<- Start at Part 1 for best understanding

<- And here’s Part 2 if you need it!

I’m going to end this discussion with a case-in-point comparing the mega-popularity of non-canon ships against semi-canon ships, and then discuss what this all means for writers, and how examining the popularity of ships in media can actually improve the way you write romance plot lines in your own works.

Pictures taken seconds before disaster

Although I’ve been reading My Hero Academia for a while, I haven’t been an active part of the fandom until recently and so there might be meta and other surrounding the series most popular ships that I’m not familiar with. But I want to talk about this series because it’s the absolute perfect model for the points I’ve been making in this whole discussion: shippers target pairs of characters with high emotional energy/tension, and the “canon” ship will always lag behind non-canon ships in popularity when the emotional energy between the romantic leads is not as strong as the tension between the male lead and another character.

My Hero Academia has the somewhat rare situation of having two almost equally popular non-canon ships for its main character: TodoDeku and BakuDeku. Technically, given what I can find using filters on AO3 and Google Trends, TodoDeku is the more popular of the two (at least in the U.S. except in Indiana; I have no idea what’s going on over there, but man they love BakuDeku) by a fair margin...

Which would actually make this a series that disproves the trend--because you can say what you want about Bakugou and his notorious assholeishness, but at the end of the day, I don’t think there are any readers who would really argue that the pair of students with the strongest emotional energy--the greatest degree of push and pull and the most effort, meaning, and time invested in their interactions--is Bakugou and Midoriya.

As I mentioned earlier, it doesn’t matter that much of the emotional energy/tension between these two characters is negative in nature (in fact, for a lot of fans that probably just sweetens the deal because it increases the potential for progress and growth so much)--rather, what matters is the depth and intensity of the emotional interactions between the two characters. There’s certainly no short supply of--at times--almost nonsensically powerful emotions between Bakugou and Midoriya. They’re Extra™ in every meaning of the word, and the manga drums that message in fairly consistently, especially in arcs in which heavily feature the class.

Get out of my school

Bakugou’s inferiority-superiority complex is fixated on Midoriya (whom, deep-down, he recognizes as a “better” hero than himself, despite the fact that everyone is constantly praising him and his powerful quirk), which means that even the most inadvertent of Midoriya’s actions triggers a reaction in Bakugou and Bakugou’s character.

Likewise, many of Midoriya’s significant plots and plot lines are driven by Bakugou--sometimes as a motivating factor (Deku is just as concerned about beating Bakugou as Bakugou is about beating him) and sometimes because the plot, rather hilariously, positions Bakugou in the role of Midoriya’s “damsel” in almost equal (actually it may even be more) proportion to the number of times Uraraka plays that role.

Bakugou and Midoriya’s combined progress is the emotional core of the student/class storyline, and they operate, in some ways, as joint protagonists whose play off each other drives the plot of the early sections of the manga, and whose rivalry fans can readily anticipate continuing to advance the main story in significant and meaningful ways. Bakugou, for example, still has plenty of growth to go through before he can really call himself a hero, and it’s only natural to assume that Midoriya, our premiere hero archetype, is going to be part of that growth--however grudgingly on Bakugou’s part.

Someone who actually ships this pairing (please don’t follow me for BakuDeku content, I got nothing guys!!) could probably go into much more detail on this and find much more support for it as a whole, but I brought it up to demonstrate that, once again, the pattern holds true: the greatest degree of emotional intensity, the core of these characters’ tensions and motivations, is another male character--and, equally on par with the pattern, they become an extremely popular ship.

But if Bakugou and Midoriya are the undisputed kings of emotional interaction energy among the students in My Hero Academia, why is TodoDeku the most popular Midoriya ship?

Well, besides the fact that Bakugou’s a grade-A asshole whose bullying crossed the lines for many fans, you can probably pretty safely blame Kirishima Eijirou.

My sunshine boy, where are the rest of your eyebrows???

In Kirishima’s emotional arc throughout the story, again, few people would argue that there’s any character more central than Bakugou.

This creates a viable ship that--importantly--plays well with others. Pairing Bakugou off with Kirishima leaves the series’ main hero free for shipping with anyone else, whether you prefer the semi-canon Deku/Uraraka or Deku/Literally-anyone-else-I’ve-even-seen-people-who-unironically-ship-him-with-Toga. In fact, this might be a little too much speculation on my part, but I almost feel like the degree of deliberate baiting this ship gets from actual staff (namely the anime and movie teams) is not only a ploy to appeal to female fans, but also an intentional way of deflecting some of the over-investment that’s gone into Bakugou and Midoriya’s storyline. Giving Bakugou someone else to focus on adds more variety to his scenes and provides Uraraka (or anyone else) a little more breathing room to interact with Midoriya.

The official media has to go this hard just so that Uraraka has any reasonable chance with Deku... Also god Bakugou, why are you so ugly in the anime...

Really, what I mean by all this is that part of TodoDeku’s popularity stems from it playing well with KiriBaku. Fans who want Midoriya with Todoroki are happy to ship KiriBaku on the side to get Bakugou out of the way, while even fans who don’t care much about Midoriya or Todoroki are happy to pair them together to free up Bakugou for their preferred Bakugou ship. It’s a symbiotic relationship, so to say, that helps elevate TodoDeku above BakuDeku in terms of popularity, even though without the presence of Kirishima, the stats would probably be skewed the other way.

That’s not to say that TodoDeku isn’t a perfectly valid ship or that it lacks the support or basis that BakuDeku has, because of course it doesn’t. It fits the pattern the same as all the other mega-popular ships do: if I were to ask “Who is the most important fellow student in Todoroki’s story?”, the answer would inevitably be Midoriya.

Todoroki is an ice prince prior to being beaten with the Friendship stick, and his choice to open up to Midoriya in a way that he hadn’t with any of his other classmates becomes the catalyst that allows him to--quite literally--thaw out and begin to have positive experiences with his fellow students.

His fight with Midoriya allows him to remember his resolve and his mother’s words that he has the power to be an individual separate from the looming shadow of his abusive father, which becomes a profound turning point in his character. In his clash with Midoriya, he opens up access to his fire side which he had previously repressed, a move which is tantamount to embracing who he is as a person, bolstering his sense of self-worth and autonomy and helping him to begin moving out from under his father’s thumb. His experience with Midoriya is, in short, utterly life-changing, and Todoroki’s character has never been the same since (for the better)--to the point that characters nowadays are teasing Todoroki about how uptight and icy he used to be.

There’s plenty of, to use the phrase again, emotional energy between Midoriya and Todoroki attracting fan attention and serving as the spark for the mega-popularity of the ship.

Bakugou is the most important fellow student in Midoriya’s storyline. Midoriya is the most important fellow student in Todoroki’s storyline. The interactions of these characters, however you choose to ship, is rich, meaningful, full of intense emotions (positive and negative), and--most importantly--strongly relevant to these characters’ individual arcs and even to the main plot overall.

But where does that leave Deku/Uraraka, the story’s semi-canon pairing and the (highly likely) endgame ship? Why is a pairing in which one of the characters has confirmed feelings for the other so far below non-canon ships in popularity?

Well, the premise holds true here--in reverse.

Say it with me, guys: the “real emotional energy” of Midoriya’s storyline has frustratingly little to do with Uraraka Ochako. She’s just not that important in his story.

The tension of Midoriya’s plot lines consistently has no personal connection to Uraraka, and all his most intense emotions and emotional scenes occur between him and other male characters. The problem I outlined in part two of this essay is in full effect here: female characters, especially in hero stories, are typically positioned in roles outside those which have major plot relevance. Uraraka might be “a hero,” but she’s not “The Hero.” She’s not the deuteragonist. She’s not the villain. She might qualify as a sidekick, except for the fact that the manga consistently prefers to pair Deku up with other male characters--such as Todoroki and Mirio--in the supporting roles. Uraraka, as a girl, simply wasn’t designed to serve in the same plot-mover-and-shaker capacity as the male characters. It’s the classic failure to write romantic female leads whose actions are central to the story, at it again.

I don’t mean that Uraraka has no impact on the plot--she did great against Kurogiri in the USJ arc, for example--nor to suggest that Uraraka isn’t a strong fighter (although of course, as a girl, she’ll never really measure up to the plot’s central males--sorry, can you feel my eyes rolling yet?). Her martial arts skills, clever use of her quirk, and, far more than that, her acumen for understanding people’s feelings mark her as a character with great potential... that’s just never really allowed to shine as much as it could be.

In her under-utilized position, Uraraka has less power and freedom to effect major changes to the main story compared to characters such as Bakugou. So far in the plot, she simply hasn’t occupied a position of importance or even enough individual screen time to put her personal arc in the spotlight heavily, at least in comparison to other characters like Todoroki, who, between himself and his family, now star in two whole arcs of their own. To quote Uraraka’s own bio, she has no “hidden side” or “ulterior motives”--two terms which might as well be synonymous with “fertile ground for creative fans to play with.” Being a simple and straightforward character is not the stuff of fan writer favorites, unfortunately.

More than that, Uraraka’s primary goal is no different than her classmates’--although she started with a somewhat interesting and unique reason for pursuing heroism (to help her parents financially), throughout the course of the series she evolves more into a character who embraces heroism for heroism’s sake. This is billed as progress, because the series comes down hard on those who seek to become heroes for their own gain. The only problem is... half the class at this point wants to become a hero because they believe in the merit of heroism itself. By growing into someone who wants to become a hero to genuinely help people and make a difference in the world, Uraraka actually becomes less unique and therefore more similar to just about everyone else in the class.

As time wears on, this problem of under-investment in Uraraka’s personal emotional journey becomes even more telling, as numerous battles for Uraraka devolve into little more than moments to reflect on her crush on Deku.

These are two separate occasions. Like are you kidding me--

If we were to remove Uraraka’s crush on Midoriya, she’d have absolutely zero tension between herself and other major characters. Literally no deeper emotional investment than “supporting friend.” It’s isn’t bad for a background character--but for what should be the main female character and romantic lead, it’s god awful. If we discount her newfound desire to punch herself in the face for jealous thoughts over Deku, Uraraka’s character hasn’t seen a lick of unique emotional growth since the Sports Festival. Worse, with her repeated entanglements with Toga, who also supposedly has a crush on Deku, I feel as if we’re almost inevitably going to get a chick fight scene in which they squabble over him. PLEASE MISS ME WITH THAT NONSENSE.

I like Uraraka. Or rather, I like what I think Uraraka could be. I want to root for her and I want to be impressed by her. But it’s hard when the writing of the story repeatedly tells me that she is less important than the male characters in her class, and that her own personal journey and motivations as a character could be reduced to “admiring the protagonist” and wanting to be like and be with him.

(“If I push down my feelings instead of accepting them, I can draw out our awkward romantic plotline for at least ten more volumes.”)

Who, at this point, isn’t motivated to greater heights of heroism by Midoriya? Even his role in her life isn’t unique to her... I almost feel bad for Horikoshi, in a way. Using other characters to inform the female lead of her romantic feelings for the hero is a classic trope that indicates a lack of experience writing and developing believable romantic plot lines. I guess when he said he wasn’t good at it, he really wasn’t lying.

The limited popularity of Deku/Uraraka plays word-for-word into the quote that sparked this entire discussion for me:

Many fans, particularly women, are disappointed by the contrived romantic story lines that are appended to ‘buddy’ series and movies in which the real emotional energy is between the heroic male leads (or between hero and villain) (McLelland 2006). [Source]  

This is a classic scenario of a semi-canon het ship that, by virtue of its own under-developed female character, will never achieve the same level of support and interest among fanwork-producing members of the fandom as more emotionally invested and intense relationships such as those between the starring male characters. (Of note here: Kacchako’s number of vocal fans isn’t surprising, given that Bakugou’s refusal to treat Uraraka with kid gloves was the most respect the series itself has ever given her...)

All right, all right, I’ll stop. (By the way, if you’re a Deku/Uraraka shipper, more power to you, my friends. I really feel bad that your ship isn’t getting the meaningful development and depth it deserves. There’s nothing wrong with this ship in theory... just in practice. T_T)

SO! FINALLY! AT LAST! Speaking of practice!

What’s the lesson? What is the take-away?

I didn’t write this monster of a rant because I wanted to shit on canon ships, het ships, or (often male) writers failing to write believable women. I didn’t write it to justify my favorite slash ships.

I wrote because as I was mulling over my answers to recent conversations and after I stumbled on the quote I’ve shared repeatedly now, I had a bit of a heart attack.

I’m writer. Many of my friends are writers. I have a Masters degree in creative writing. I took seven years of creative writing in school. I’ve written hundreds of thousands of words of both original work and fanfiction.

But never once have I sat down and consciously mapped out the “emotional energy” in my stories. Never once have I spent time actually examining the interactions of pairs of my characters and actively comparing them to really gauge where the core tensions and intensities in my stories really are.

I trusted in the notion that, as the author, I knew my own characters better than anyone else. If I wrote two characters in love, well then, surely it’s because they were meant to be in love.

In today’s discourse, the words “fan entitlement” are increasingly bandied around and often applied when fans get aggressive over their favorite ships not becoming canon. It’s easy to dismiss the frustrations of readers and viewers “as demanding something writers don’t owe them.” But this dismissal hinges on a central notion:

The original writer always knows best.

Whatever story the writers have written--whatever canon romances they have chosen--those are the “right ones,” and fans who piss and moan about that just “aren’t appreciating what they’ve been given.”

This is an easy mindset to understand in the face of fans who take their grievances to the extreme and harass creators. Harassment is obviously never acceptable.

But I don’t feel comfortable with the other side of the spectrum either. Blindly defending canon by completely ignoring cases where the fandom vastly prefers a non-canon ship to any canon alternatives... In the end, isn’t that the same as saying “It’s always the fans who are mistaken, never the authors”? Or, by extension: “As the author of this story, I can do no wrong.”

To me, authors who choose to simply dismiss their fans’ preferences--especially when the fans reject a canon relationship--are doing themselves a terrible disservice.

As a writer, I have never had nor wanted to have the thought that I’m perfect at what I’m doing. I am always keenly aware of the fact that my ability to write is limited. There are always things I felt I could have captured better. And more than that, I’m always trying to grow and improve my writing. I don’t want to be right all the time!

So why should I expect that my planned romances are always right?

Fans are not entitled to the ship they prefer. But if the fans prefer a ship you didn’t intend, that’s a good sign that something has gone wrong, and you might want to rethink the way you write romances, character interactions, character motivations, and potentially female characters in your next project.

A non-canon ship reaching mega-popularity in a fandom should provoke thought--not dismissal--from the series’ writers. And I don’t mean the kind of thought like “Would we have made more money if we’d caved to fan demands?” I mean things like “Where did I go wrong in writing my romance that led the fans to prefer something else? How can I fix that in the future?”

The take-away isn’t “I should give my fans what they want” but “How can I get my fans to want the same things I do?”

In order to align your fandom’s interest with the canon romance you’re writing, the canon main pair has to have meaningful, intense emotional interactions that are entwined with the central plot line or at least their own personal character development arcs--to greater or at least equal extent with any other potential pairing of characters in the story. Your romantic leads need to have interactions that are as compelling, as personal, as plot relevant as the hero and his (or her!) villain. As the hero and his or her sidekick/best friend/brother-or-sister-in-arms. It’s not enough for your main character’s romance to be “pretty interesting”--it’s got to be as interesting as his or her relationship with every other character in the story.

Now of course there are ways around this. A father-and-son story with a romance on the side doesn’t necessarily need to elevate the romance above the father-and-son dynamic. A hero and villain story where the villain is a complete monster that no one in their right mind would ship is probably safe, etc.  

But I guess the basic baseline is this: If you’re bothering to write in a romance for your main character... don’t you--shouldn’t you--want it to be as compelling, intense, and believable as the relationships you write for any other characters?

If you want fans to love the love you’re written into your stories, you’ve got to give that love the same attention and effort as everything else in your plot.

How do you do this? What actual actions can you take in your writing to apply this idea? I don’t have a definitive answer that will magically make everyone’s romances perfect, and really, none of this is particularly revolutionary, but I think these are all good reminders that even when we’re writing our own original stories, there’s stuff we can do to check if we’re “doing it right”:

Make a single chart of all major character interactions in your story, especially those which provoke strong emotional responses in your characters and those which are relevant to the story’s main plot. You can mark positive emotional interactions in one color, negative emotional interactions in another. Do something to indicate the level of intensity for these interactions. Then, step back and look at the big picture. Which characters really have the most interactions? The most intense interactions? The most plot relevant interactions? If the canon romance you’re planning doesn’t have as many, as much intensity, or as much plot relevance as the relationship between your main lead and another character, think about how you can change that.

Ask yourself the important questions: Where is the real emotional energy in my story? Which characters have the most tension (positive or negative)? Which characters promote the most growth in each other through their interactions? Which characters are the real “movers and shakers” of the main plots? How do interactions with other characters help to advance Character B’s individual character growth? Spend time consciously thinking about the flow and cores of emotion in your story. Who really makes the biggest difference in your hero’s life?

Remove the romance and look at the story again. If romance is not the main point of your story, go back to your character interaction chart and remove all the romance and romantically-led plot points. What does the interaction chart look like now? Do your romantic leads still have compelling interactions even with the romance removed? Do they still motivate and help each other grow as characters even if they’re not romantic partners? Are their remaining actions relevant to the main plot? And, most importantly: with the romance removed, do they still have intensity? Are they still part of the story’s “emotional core”? Is there still as much or more energy between them than between the main character and others? If the answer is no, that’s a good sign that you can probably develop your romantic lead and his/her relationship to the hero more fully--or better integrate it into the main story and their personal stories--in order to improve the depth and quality of their relationship in the eyes of fans.

Take another look at your female characters. Even if you’re a female writer yourself, that doesn’t mean you automatically write great women. In fact, we’re often so conditioned to see males as the drivers of narratives that even series by female authors, with female protagonists sometimes fall into the trap of having a male character doing all the real heavy-lifting in the plot. Check your girls again. Do they have as much meaningful influence on the main plot as your male characters? Do they have as much meaningful influence on other characters’ personal arcs? If you remove all the romance, do they still have these influences? Are your female characters allowed to have as much diversity in their emotional interactions with others as your male characters are? Do the intensities of these women’s feelings match the intensities of the men’s feelings, even (especially) when romance is removed from the equation?

And I’m sure there are many more things you can try along the same lines.

Really, the idea I want other writers--professional, amateur original writers, or even just fan writers--to take away from this is the notion that we should never rest on our laurels and assume we know what’s what. We should never just expect our fans to agree with us as writers.

And, more than that, when the fans prefer something other than what we intended, we should always, always use that gap as motivation to rethink our writing, to discover where we might have fumbled in our plotting and character creation.

Fans don’t (usually) ship randomly. Most of the time, there’s a logic and pattern to this “madness.” If a non-canon ship becomes mega-popular, it’s usually because the fans saw something the creators missed.

And that is always--always--an opportunity to reflect and grow for future projects.

PHEW. I’M DONE! I did it! Man, this was such a labor of love... I hope some people actually read it...