#damn myself for primarily writing block boys in situations

[raan-miir-tah]

This is the most vague complaint ever but imma be so real with you: I am totally not getting in this damn zine

[eloarei]

In which I discuss my feelings revolving around a rare-pair I'm really into right now, and self-analyze my shipping habits (again) and my relationships with my parents.

aka

Why the goddam hell does Elo keep falling for ships that others read as paternal?! ...2500 words of ship-talk and self-analyses under the cut! Read if you like! 

Full disclosure, this is absolutely about my love for "DekuMight" (the pairing of Midoriya Izuku and Yagi Toshinori/ All Might) from Boku no Hero Academia (bnha). But I'm definitely going to compare it to several other similar ships I've had over the years.

Point 1: I love DekuMight, and here's a little bit of why.

Point 2: Here are some other similar ships I've loved, and a bit of why.

Point 3: These ships are often read as Father/Son (etc) by the majority.

Point 4: My relationships with my parents, especially my "fathers".

Point 5: Conclusion

Alright, Point 1:

I started watching bnha a few months ago. I often go into new series with preconceived notions about ships, due to exposure from tumblr. This was, oddly, not the case this time. I like to try to watch things in an unbiased way at first, so I tried to keep the 'shipping goggles' off as long as possible. However, it quickly became obvious to me that I had found my ship, despite efforts not to. (Unfortunately, I can't remember exactly when I realized it.)

In case you're not familiar with the series (lol I write this like anyone's even reading this thing anyway), I'll explain it/the characters just a little. Izuku, the main character, is a highschool boy who befriends his favorite superhero, All Might, and then inherits his power. This is not really a spoiler; it happens in the first few episodes, and is the basis for the whole series. Izuku is presumably about 15, give or take a year because of time passing. All Might's age is never stated, but he can easily be assumed at least 35. My estimate puts him anywhere from 35 to 55. They're shown, in canon, to have a positive and friendly relationship. (Not to say that it's without its flaws, of course.)

Here are some reasons why I ship them (minus the psychological self-analysis; I'll get to that later) :

--They get along well. Izuku has been a huge fan of All Might ever since he was tiny. He clearly idolizes him. All Might is also impressed by Izuku. They seem to care about each other.

--They inspire each other to be better. Izuku has always been, and continues to be, inspired by the hero. All Might shows early-on that his drive to be a hero is reinvigorated by Izuku's passion.

--They share a secret that most others aren't in on. Both the existence of All Might's "true form" and the fact that he shared his power with Izuku are big and dangerous secrets that only a few people know. This is primarily what binds them together.

--They enable each other. In this case, it's not really a positive thing, because they're enabling each others' self-destructive habits, due to their shared passion for heroism. (Example: All Might never tells Izuku to stop breaking his whole damn body while he's training/fighting. They both seem to believe that self-harm is acceptable when pursuing their goals.)

--Other reasons revolve around headcanons, minor situations, themes, and micro-analyses.

(Examples:

Izuku had to literally ingest a part of All Might in order to gain his powers, which hits on a lot of themes.

Izuku will presumably begin to stop idolizing All Might, and begin to start seeing him as a person.

I hardcore headcanon that Izuku had a major crush on All Might before meeting him, because, really, have a you ever seen/read a story about a boy who obsessed over a superhero and wasn't super gay for him?)

I could go on with examples, but I won't.

Point 2:

Other ships I've found myself liking-- some of which I still actively ship, others of which I guiltily backed out of when I realized the context the story was trying to paint.

--Doc/Marty, from Back to the Future. This is a GREAT ship, and I will defend it endlessly. These two share most of my reasons for shipping DekuMight: they get along, they inspire/enable each other, and they share a very very big secret. While they're obviously not canon, and the age difference between them is the widest of any of my ships (uh, in the normal timeline; they're about 65/16), I think they may be the most widely accepted of these ships, even casually (if jokingly) being accepted in popular culture.

--Ples/Veser, from the webcomic Hanna Is Not A Boy's Name. This one is a little hard to properly justify, given that the webcomic went on perma-hiatus before they canonically had a chance to meet, but they're 37/19 and they're shown in sketches interacting and teasing each other. My serious basis for shipping these two deals with a source of mutual trauma, and a potential for that "shared secret" thing the others have going on.

--Law/Corazon, from One Piece. Definitely a strange one. We're first introduced to Corazon through a vague mention from Law, who we've known for years by this point. "Cora" is the name he speaks when he's on the verge of death, and also the person who he's based his entire theme/identity on. (By the way, that theme is heart-based.) We later find out that Corazon was the man who saved him from death when Law was a child, when everyone else (including himself) was ready to let him die. Their "shared secrets" include Cora's true identity, a months-long journey they went on to cure Law, and the plot to steal a valuable item meant to cure him. Cora unfortunately is murdered in the attempt, but first hides Law, smiles widely at him, and says "I love you". Lord have mercy on me, I cried several times. This is definitely awkward territory, given that flashback-Law is a pre-pubescent child and Cora is, I dunno, 30+? My basis for shipping them lies primarily in adult-Law's continued fixation on Cora's memory.

(Further awkwardness for this ship: Though I don't recall it happening in the anime, I think in the manga, Cora might have actually called Law his son at one point? Given that bnha's author is a One Piece fan, I wouldn't be surprised if Izuku and All Might's relationship mirrors this at all, in the future.)

--Several ships I remember being intrigued by early in the story, before they were explicitly stated as being paternal, including Treasure Planet and Bioshock Infinite. I'm positive there are more, but I've probably blocked them from my memory. XD;;;;

Point 3:

The majority of fans, in my noticing, tend to read these as Father/Son relationships. (This is particularly true of Izuku/All Might and Law/Corazon, and I'm mostly focusing on the former now.) I can certainly understand where people are coming from here, even though it doesn't ring true for me.

Reasons why they see this as a Father/Son pair (probably) :

-- The number one reason I think most can't help but see this as a parental relationship is the age difference. With a roughly ~30 year difference between Izuku and All Might, that does seem statistically likely. In both real life and fiction, I think people are uncomfortable with age-gap friendships unless they fall into some category like "parent figure" (or "aunt/uncle"). Even "Teacher" and "Mentor" are usually considered a type of parent figure.

-- Izuku HAS a father, but we never really see him. In the anime so far, he's only mentioned once, while his mother makes multiple appearances.

-- All Might is very supportive of Izuku. He gives him the power to pursue his dreams, and encourages him.

-- All Might calls him "Midoriya Shounen", translating to "Young Midoriya" and sort of implying "boy" or "my boy".

-- All Might is shown acting 'fatherly' to other young characters. He hugs the winners of the tournament, for example. (It was cute; I got emotional.) (Tbh though, this could also be a sign of his Americanism? because Americans are thought to be much touchier.)

-- It's an easy explanation for their relationship, particularly if you ship either character with someone else (which most people do).

Point 4:

Now we get into my own personal psychology. The TL;DR of it is that my perception of parenthood (particular with fathers) does not line up with how these characters act.

I have had a perhaps complicated relationship with the concept of fatherhood. I have (or have had) more parents than any one person really needs. Between my biological parents, my adopted parents, my friends' parents, my aunts/uncles, and older family friends, I've had more parents than I can shake a stick at, and I have truly loved all of them. However, none of my fathers ever acted toward me like the older men in my ships do towards their younger partners.

First and foremost is my adopted father, who raised me. He loved me, I'm sure, and we generally liked each other, but he never expressed an interest in getting to know me as a person, or seeing what I was interested in. He didn't encourage me to follow my dreams, and it's unlikely that we would have wanted to hang out much. He looked after me and provided for me, but as I got older he seemed to lose interest in me. (He greatly preferred when I was young and could be molded to fit his image.) He died when I was 15, which likely contributes to my views in regards to age, but that's another self-analysis post. (EDIT: My 2nd Dekumight meta.)

My biological father, I don't know very well. I've certainly spent some time with him, but we have never bonded.

My favorite allo-dad, my childhood best friend's dad, Lee, is the man I have the most positive memories of. I spent a lot of time at that house, perhaps as much as my own. He seemed to make some effort to be involved in my interests and remember my odd preferences. (Example: he bought us (me and his daughters) Pocky. He got them normal flavors but got banana for me because he knew I liked to try different things.) Of the men I spent time with as a kid, he was the one I could have most easily 'hung out' with, especially due to having some shared interests. However, even he had, at most, only a mild interest in what I was ever doing or thinking.

Most of my other allo-dads were the same: nice guys who mostly seemed uninterested in being particularly involved in my life. This clearly influences my view of what a "father" is. In my mind, a father is the man who provides for you, loves you (often due to familiarity and familial obligation), but does not have the interest (or want to take the time) in getting to know you as a person or being very involved in your life.

Point 4.9: I do have one very positive and encouraging male relationship in my life: my husband. He is a man that I easily get along with, who encourages me to be happy and to be my best self, who happily listens to my thoughts and ideas, who inspires and enables me, and who I share all of my secrets with. He is the one person I would be most lost without, who I would fight to defend, who I would team up with against the whole rest of the world.

Point 5:

I do not see DekuMight as a father/son relationship because of this. Let's look again at some of the points of their relationship which I mentioned before (the reasons I ship them).

--They get along well, they seem to genuinely like each other. My fathers and I never disliked each other, but it is unlikely we would have ever gone out of our way to spend time together.

--They inspire each other. I highly doubt I ever inspired my fathers, and they never really spent any effort to encourage me.

--They share secrets. I never shared any sort of secrets with my fathers. Assuming that this could be skewed along gender lines, I'll note I never really shared secrets with my mothers either.

--They enable each other (both positive and negative) due to shared passion. My fathers physically/financially enabled me (as a parent must), but not much further. Rarely, if ever, did we bond over shared passions/interests.

These are, however, all things that I share with my husband-- and with my other friends, to a degree.

I'm perfectly willing to accept that there may be parents (particularly fathers) out there, in both real life and in fiction) who DO do these things, and it's very likely that that's what fathers are supposed to be like. However, that's not how it is, in my experience.

POINT 6:

I actually forgot, the main purpose of this was originally going to be a little bit of a rant about how awkward and uncomfortable it is to be a shipper of something primarily seen as a parental relationship-- mostly because every time I see art of them I know it's going to be portrayed in that way, and it rather clashes with my own interpretation. I certainly don't begrudge people thinking however they do, especially as it seems to be a common viewpoint, but it makes me feel guilty ever interacting with those people (aka the majority of the fandom) because, presumably, they would be very probably 'squicked' by my interpretation.

TL;DR it's tiring and awkward and kind of saddening to have an unpopular opinion. ^^;;; In the unlikely event that anybody read this, thanks very much! Please do feel free to reblog/message me/etc if you, I dunno, feel like gettin’ all up in my discourse or whatever. As long as you’re not gonna be super rude about it.  Also also, in the extra unlikely event that anybody reading this is actually a DekuMight fan, I’ve been writing a lot of fic lately over on AO3, if you wanna check that out. =]  ALSO ALSO! I got my first-ever anon hate after I posted this! I’m super proud, haha. Check it out!  EDIT: I’ve done a second meta now! This one revolves around the age issue. Please have a look if you like.