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peppermint-chocolate-cherries · 4 years

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Ship Analysis in TNMJ

One of my bigger spoiler elements for The Nefarious Mathilda Jones was all the ships involved in the story. I did make a Tumblr post back in 2017, after posting Chapter 9, speaking about some of the ships that were definitely in the earlier part of the story. I knew at that point already that most of the ships were spoiler material, which is why they were never tagged on the story itself.

Now that the story is finally finished, and all the spoilers have been revealed, I can finally discuss and tag ALL the ships that showed up in the story. I’ll put it under a cut here, both because this will be a long post and because there will be spoilers.

If you haven’t read it yet, here is the AO3 link and here is the FFN link. 2,045 words below the cut, the TLDR is all the ships tagged on this post.

My Darling Canadian Muse

Let’s start with the story’s namesake character, because she had the most ships in this damn story. What can I say, Canada is the muse of almost all my plot bunnies, I only have maybe a couple plot bunnies where Canada is NOT a main character. For Mathilda Jones, I included four of my favourite Canada ships.

Russia x nyo-Canada

Yes, the true OTP of the whole story, pre-game through to post-game. Mathilda fell in love with Ivan while they worked together in R&D, and it was because they wanted to be together that they dared to make the supercomputer, kill her family and destroy JCI. They were willing to sacrifice everything, and to do whatever they could, in the hopes of being together. Not much to say here, they always were the OTP.

Spain x nyo-Canada

A very interesting side to a love triangle. It’s revealed in the story that Mathilda nearly killed herself once, and it was Antonio who saved her life. Having Antonio protect her from Arthur’s wrath started Mathilda on her path of vengeance against Arthur, Alfred and JCI. Antonio saw that she desperately needed him to be her hero, and he fell in love with her during that time.

Haven’t you guys ever noticed, in all those classic hero movies, that the hero always wins the damsel after saving her life? This really puts an emphasis on the hero always getting the girl, even if he was a random stranger who showed up out of nowhere to rescue the damsel in distress. Although she cares for him deeply, and is grateful for everything he’s done for her, Mathilda feels that sense of obligation to love and worship Antonio for his heroic deeds.

Mathilda’s relationship with Ivan was more organic and natural, with no obligation to love him, and it’s that freedom to love Ivan by her own choice that is key here. I would say that Antonio was hurt by this at first, but learned to accept it when he saw how much happier she was with Ivan. Mathilda’s story is all about freedom, about choosing her own life path, and she is doing exactly that by choosing Ivan over Antonio for romantic love.

Germany x nyo-Canada

Ah yes, the very complicated ship of the story. It was all hinted right away: Ludwig was the one flirting heavily with “Madeline”, and he was the one to ask her out. Mathilda tells Ivan she might be able to seduce someone, just to get a rise out of the police force, that victim of her seduction was Ludwig. Ivan warns her to watch out for the man’s elder, that was a reference to Gilbert.

Mathilda’s plan was to string Ludwig along for a while, under the guise of dating him as “Madeline”. She might get some clues out of him for upstaging the police force, and for throwing Gilbert off the edge in the hunt for her. And hey, if it was found out that Ludwig was dating Mathilda, that would really cause a distraction, wouldn’t it?

Ludwig’s fuck-ups began when Gilbert arrested “Madeline”. He knew his brother was arresting his girlfriend, and kept his mouth shut. He knew that “Madeline” had escaped on forged bail paperwork, and kept his mouth shut. If Ludwig had told his brother the truth at this point, it could’ve changed everything, especially since it was the phony bail jailbreak that made Gilbert discover her hidden identity. What Gilbert would say later is true, they could’ve found Mathilda and re-arrested her that same day!

But no, Ludwig thought he was in love, so he goes to confront her instead and winds up being introduced to Lovino Vargas. From here on out, Ludwig rejects every opportunity to break up with “Madeline”, which starts adding complications to Mathilda’s plans just as her group has all the chess pieces in place to destroy JCI.

Ludwig’s next big fuck-up was where he refuses to let his brother arrest him after the bank heist. If Ludwig had turned himself in right then and there, Gilbert could’ve told him exactly who “Madeline” really was, and they could’ve caught them together. Ludwig could’ve then brought Gilbert to the cafe, where they could explain to the others that Mathilda had been deceiving them the whole time. In other words, the gunfight where Feliks and Yao died could’ve been easily prevented if Ludwig wasn’t such a dumbass!

Finally, the jailbreak fuck-up where Ludwig finally learns the truth. He’s now been told multiple times that it’s his choice what to do next, and he’s set to stick with Natalya and join the others at the safehouse. And what does he do the moment he learns that “Madeline” had been deceiving him? He goes upstairs to find her and save her. Mathilda and Toris are planting bombs on that floor and sneaking around past the police, having Ludwig join them is the last thing they need. Once again, if Ludwig hadn’t interfered, Toris might have escaped with Mathilda instead of being shot dead by the police!

Don’t get me wrong, GerCan is a sexy ship, and there are other stories that show how fantastic it can be. However, the GerCan in this story is problematic. Mathilda does have a bit of blame, entering the relationship under the blatantly false pretenses and manipulation. However, it is entirely Ludwig’s own damn fault for not walking away at one of his MANY MANY blatant opportunities to do so.

England x nyo-Canada

Like I said above with GerCan, UkCan is a beautiful ship in the right context. Yes, many of my plot bunnies have FACE family dynamics where UkCan does not work, it has to be the right setting and AU technicalities to make that relationship romantic. There are some gorgeous UkCan fanfics out there where Arthur genuinely appreciates Matthew, and I even have a long-living plot bunny exploring Arthur’s relationship with Madeline. I’ve even written a Valentine’s one-shot of them here on Tumblr.

This story’s UkCan ship is the definition of toxic. Mathilda was married off to Arthur by her father, completely against her will. Arthur was an abusive control freak, so much so that she would nearly kill herself trying to do something especially triggering that is discussed in further detail in the story itself and does not need to be repeated here. After Antonio saves her life and begins protecting her from Arthur’s wrath, Mathilda begins building her plans to separate herself from Arthur permanently.

For the record, not that he deserves any sympathy at all, Arthur was completely blindsided by what we see in the prologue. I have it planned out that he knew Mathilda and Ivan were working on a top-secret R&D project of some kind, and that Antonio was the biggest nuisance in the world. Arthur was flabbergasted to learn that not only had Mathilda been cheating on him with Ivan, but they planned to destroy JCI.

Through the story, we see that how he and Alfred manage JCI is restricted in Mathilda’s absence. Booting her from the shareholders table, or other such measures to remove her 45% influence, cannot be done without a unanimous vote. Likewise, their nuptial agreements and wills are so intertwined that Mathilda and Arthur must both agree to any changes. There are only two solutions to the problem of their broken marriage: either Mathilda is arrested and coerced into signing everything away to Arthur, or one of them dies and leaves everything to the widowed spouse.

The Minor Ships

China x Ukraine

A very simple side ship that unfortunately gets sacrificed to my sadistic whims of killing people off. In a nations AU, China and Ukraine are both among the older modern nations that would know what the world is really like, and have the maturity to face its troubles head-on. Here in this AU, they know their lives are not perfect, but they are really doing their best, and finding a way to do it together.

Romano x Hungary

One of those enemies to friends to lovers situation, as they start the story in opposing mobs. When they have to work together and find a new way to make ends meet, they unwittingly grow close enough that they do not want to separate once they have the chance to enjoy their own living spaces again. I almost gave them kids in the epilogue, but it was starting to feel too heteronormative, especially since Liz and Lovi are too much of a power couple for that, so I left that detail open-ended.

Poland x Lithuania

One of the very few popular ships that actually showed up in this story. As mentioned in Chapters 9-10, Toris and Feliks had some form of romantic relationship, although they didn’t put a clear label on it. Of course, once Toris turns on Mikkel’s gang and joins Ivan in working for Mathilda, Feliks knows he can’t trust Toris anymore. A bit upsetting that they had to break up, and I am now also disappointed that I killed off both the gays.

Veneziano x Ukraine

The end-game pairing that was dependent on another ship sinking. Even before the cafe showdown, there were teasers about Feliciano admiring Katerina from afar. Specifically, when he discovered that Madeline drugged Ludwig, that was after shooting down the idea of sneaking in on Yao and Katerina to get video footage of them getting freaky. After Yao’s death, Feliciano’s priority is keeping Katerina safe, he doesn’t want to see her hurt like this. In the years after, she does eventually recover from her grief and return Feliciano’s affections. Even outside this AU, it’s an interesting rare-pair, as North Italy would shower Ukraine in the sweet affection that she deserves.

Prussia x Belarus

I hope you weren’t all surprised by this epilogue ship reveal, but there were a LOT of clues earlier on. When Gilbert is looking at Natalya’s file after the phony bail, he’s making a lot of comments on how pretty she is. When Gilbert breaks Ludwig out of jail, and Natalya opens the back door to the transport van, he calls her gorgeous. He’s quite sympathetic to how she’s been dragged into Ivan’s poor choices, and is willing to defend her defensive actions. This sympathy, plus the fallout of Ludwig’s bullshit, brings them together.

The Ships That Missed The Cut

Spain x Lithuania

Early in the drafts for this story, I thought Antonio and Toris could be a side pairing, during the time where Toris is working with the nefarious trio. They would keep each other company while Mathilda and Ivan were off being a heteronormative couple. Toris was already confirmed as gay with the PoLiet ship, all that was needed was to make Antonio bi. There wasn’t any solid opportunity to add it to the story after all, but that would’ve been one spicy rare pair to include.

Lithuania x nyo-Canada

The four Canada ships at the top of this post have been strong in my affections since 2015, let’s get that out of the way. My interest in this rare-pair grew after I started writing this story, as writing this more interesting role for Toris encouraged my fascination in him. Now here in 2020, LietCan has made its way onto my favourite Canada ships, they are quite similar in temperament and would work well together.

After I published his death scene, I started thinking of ways I could’ve added more to the story if I could go back and re-write this story, and Toris is the character I would’ve given more screen time to. While their relationship definitely wouldn’t be romantic, Toris would bring ideas to the table that Mathilda and the boys wouldn’t have considered, which would be a fresh perspective. Honestly, Toris and Mathilda would’ve gotten along very well.

Germany x Belarus

Last but not least, the love triangle that almost was. It was indeed in the first drafts of the story to have Natalya like Ludwig, and to worry that Madeline was manipulating him. That part got cut, especially once I had decided that PruBela was end-game. A few teasers are still in the plot, though, as later chapters have Natalya trying to save Ludwig from his own stupidity.

#hetalia #fanfiction #the nefarious mathilda jones #ship rant #ship analysis #ruscan #spacan #gercan #ukcan #chukraine #romahun #itakraine #poliet #prubela #spaliet #lietcan #gerbela

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