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ladyqueth · 2 years

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Lan Xichen’s “Mistake” Line

There’s been much ado about Lan Xichen calling Wei Wuxian his brother’s “only mistake.” To a reader, it’s quite a soundbite. But I’d like to make the case that that line doesn’t say anything more or different from the rest of LXC’s rant speech. Which is to say, it wasn’t passing a romantic or even personal judgment on WWX or Wangxian.

This isn’t a translation meta, but any time a short line gets outsized attention, I like to check against the original just in case. The word here is 错, which has similar breadth to the English word “wrong” - covering things from being incorrect on a test to moral fault to, yes, mistakes. So in that sense, it’s not wrong (hah) to translate it as “mistake.” But I think that brings some baggage and does bias English-speaking fans’ reactions in a way the original text may not.

@spicychickenyang once suggested to me that a better localization would be “transgression.” I think that’s perfect.

See how it changes things?

You were his only mistake.

You were his only transgression.

The latter makes clear that it’s not LXC’s personal opinion that WWX is ‘wrong’ in some sense. It’s rules and society that claim WWX is in the wrong. WWX knows that; he’s not going to be bothered by LXC saying so.

[This isn’t the place for me to talk about translation vs. localization, but here’s a nice article about it.]

That LXC is speaking about societal judgment is also clear in the other instances of 错 being used in the same speech.

Do you know how he’d knelt in front of the the Wall of Discipline?! When I went to see him, I told him, ‘Young Master Wei was already in the wrong [大错], why add onto the wrong [错] committed?’ And he said……. He can’t affirm whether what you did was right or wrong [对错] . But no matter what, he was willing to shoulder all of the responsibility together with you. (x)

LXC’s comments immediately before the “‘mistake’ line” is also all about societal perception (or the perception of authority, when he invokes LQR).

With the ways in which he looked and talked to you when he saved you and hid you in that cave, even someone who was blind or deaf could perceive his feelings, which was why my uncle was in such anger. WangJi was a model for the disciples when he was young, and a prominent cultivator when he grew up. In his whole life he had been honest and righteous and immaculate---you were the only mistake he made! (ExR translation)

In other words, everyone saw LWJ as above reproach. The only time he acted out of accord with that was for WWX.

Recall that this--the societal condemnation of LWJ for helping WWX--was precisely LXC’s fear after the events of Nightless City.

I was afraid that if some other sect had reached the two of you first, WangJi would be treated as your accomplice. His name and reputation would be ruined forever or, worse, he would be killed instantly without trial. (x)

The anger in LXC’s delivery was personal (even then still from a place of not wanting to see LWJ get hurt), but what he was telling WWX was all about societal and external consequences to LWJ, not LXC’s personal feelings about LWJ’s behavior.

If you go back to the top and follow the overall arc of what LXC and WWX are talking about, it boils down to this:

WWX: How did he get his scars? Did it have something to do with me?

LXC: How could it not have something to do with you? [Exposition.] Wangji has been perfect in all else; his only transgression that could earn such punishment would be in relation to you.

Maybe this is still offensive to some fans. But it doesn’t make LXC a Wangxian anti. And the words are not something that WWX would be bothered by (separate from the underlying facts, which do bother him of course) or that LXC should need to apologize about afterwards.

#mdzs #mdzs meta #lan xichen #this is one of those 'I don't care about xyz but the haters turned me into a defender' things #but if you come down to it I don't think LXC is either the Wangxian ship captain nor an anti #he's just a nice guy and generally benevolent towards others #he supports things that keeps his brother healthy and happy #but also feels more constrained by rules and society than LWJ #and actually I think that's part of the anger that's coming out in this speech #his frustration at his own inability to flout society as compared to what LWJ did #anyways #this post probably got harder to write the longer I waited #would you believe this was the original reason I started a Tumblr account #and then I thought I needed to better understand why people were upset about this line #all the while getting sucked into Tumblr for its own sake #well now it's done. I'm out.#(just kidding)#(you're still stuck with me)

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skylaryozora · 2 years

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I'd love to see them actually performing some, say, anime-style songs, oh my, that would be awesome.

On this occasion, let me write a little rant.

One of the reasons I kinda like S5 (apart from Harmonix design and pretty casual outfits IMHO) was this short scene where these two got the spotlight in a good sense. Something I wasn't emotionally ready for, I kid you not, I was fangirling so much when I realized that Riven admitted he had been taking guitar classes and actually wrote A FRICKING SONG, AND HE. STARTED. SINGING. And to top it all, it turns out he has a pretty good vocal.

But all of a sudden, Musa joins him and starts singing as well. As much as I stan Rivusa, I can't understand something about this whole situation. First, how tf does she know the lyrics if he has just revealed that he had written it? Is she improvising? People justified it by pointing out that Musa is said to know melodies of people's hearts or something, and that's why she is able to sing together with him. But even if that's true and may make sense to someone, there comes the second issue...

Girl. He wrote a song for you. SO LET HIM SING and show that he is a good performer.

Knowing that your girlfriend is a fairy of music, you probably hustle hard to create something decent so as to impress her, and when the time comes, you want to show the best of you. But instead, she joins you or rather steals the spotlight, because she clearly dominates the rest of the song, eclipsing you as a result.

This feels wrong for me because it shows how Musa-centered this relationship is. Things are usually shown from her perspective, and she is made to play the first fiddle even if Riven tries to display his skills and prove he made a genuine effort for her. Her being a fairy of music and being an expert in this field in a way doesn't justify her behavior here, and I would say it's very selfish. All the more because this event is not even commented on later, in neither of the seasons, and in Musa's flashbacks from S8 we actually see her reminiscing about (all the bad things ofc) him meeting up with the female guitarist and jumping to conclusions that he was cheating on her, and NOT A GLIMPSE of him revealing his secret and singing a song he wrote for her, in front of a huge audience. I can't get over how biased and ridiculous it all is, poor writing at its finest.

If I remember correctly, Riven was actually singing before, in S4, which also wasn't that much commented on. So it wasn't that much of a revelation that he can perform.

Also, don't get me started on Winx forming a band all of a sudden and Bloom soon putting Musa in the shade and becoming the main vocalist (the latter is just outrageous, but yeah, the protagonist takes it all). A similar thing happens with other specialists accompanying Riven. Everyone goes in barbie-style into a world of music which in real life requires years of training and a knack for it all in the first place. Here, everyone suddenly knows how to play an instrument in sync with everyone else, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Same with Winx girls riding horses or playing sports (correct me if I'm wrong). Their individual interests and talents are for some reason overshadowed and flattened by the miscallenous and random things they end up doing together for the sake of... What actually?

Feel free to add anything, I really needed to vent. That notwithstanding, I do enjoy the song La Musica and the fact that they had their moment together, even though I'd rather see Riven singing separately and later them singing something else together. So yeah, I have a love-hate attitude towards this scene.

#winx club #winx musa #winx riven #riven x musa #musa is clearly the center of this ship #when riven is being given a chance it's taken from him anyway #i can't #the producers don't care #they just throw random things thinking winx viewers dont give a damn about continuity and logic #fml #but still I like the song and I fangirl when i listen to riven

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221bshrlocked · 2 years

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you can pry the ‘hot sweaty ship sex with din djarin’ trope from my cold dead hands

#i don't care if he has a starfighter now #i'm still going to write ship sex with the resident space himbo #the mandalorian #din djarin #the book of boba fett #tbobf spoilers #the book of boba fett spoilers

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stillness-in-green · 2 years

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Can we talk about how BS it was for Deku needing to see the “crying child” inside of Shigaraki to make him want to save villains. What about the man struggling under AFO’s control, shouldn’t that be enough to make Deku want to save him? Maybe Kurogiri talking about how Shiggy was raised to make Deku realize that he was groomed to be this way? And then he thinks deeper about heroes and villains, cause and effect like anything besides what happened in canon.

Frankly, if we were going to rewrite this whole story post-Jakku, I’d have let Lady Nagant win her fight with Deku. Save the explanation of her extremely fucked up personal history for the several hours she'd spend dragging Deku back to AFO’s cave lair, because it is some horse shit that Deku is able to leave that encounter blaming Nagant's fate on AFO, when AFO met Nagant for all of a few minutes after like two solid decades of her getting repeatedly screwed by the HPSC and the society that let them get away with it. Deku would also have to spend those several hours in the company of what remains of Chisaki Kai, who definitely would not have the focus to spare on openly loathing Deku the whole time when he could be spending his fleeting lucid periods on increasingly hysterical demands to see his Pops. You know, just to make sure Deku gets a nice long look at what became of Overhaul once the heroes handed him off to state custody.

Anyway, my beef about that whole situation aside, once Lady N delivered him and fucked back off with Overhaul, the story could let Deku spend some time in captivity while the villains tried to soften him up enough for Shigaraki’s hatred to overpower One For All. Make him actually have to talk to the villains for more than a few minutes in the middle of a crowd or a battlefield. Let Toga run the same question she asked Uraraka by Deku; let him ask Spinner why someone who was professing to follow Stain was now following Shigaraki. Make him have to field Dabi after vouching for Endeavor on the field. Let him watch Shigaraki writhe and rant for a while. Hell, let him get an earful of Skeptic at some point.

Sadly, it seems all that will have to wait for the fix-it fic.

As to the rest… Let’s definitely talk about it—below the jump.

jump tldr: You’re completely right about Inner Child Tenko being unnecessary hand-holding of the main character; there would have been much better ways to write Deku coming to the understanding he needs, but part of this is Tsukauchi's fault; Kurogiri’s nice and relevant to Tomura’s childhood history, but if you’re really looking to talk about saving who Shigaraki is now, consider Spinner Supremacy.

The vision of the five-year-old is yet another iteration of one of my long-standing beefs with Deku’s alleged oh-so-uncommon drive to save, yes. Like, if Deku were really letting himself think about it, he had all the clues he needed as far back as the mall encounter, when Shigaraki all but said into a microphone while staring meaningfully at the audience, “Something very bad happened to me in the past and I hold All Might personally responsible.”

The kindest interpretation I’ve got about that—and I actually just came to it while typing up this answer, so thanks for that, anon!—is that it wasn’t All Might’s answer to Deku’s later question about it that got Deku’s mind off the subject, but rather Tsukauchi’s. All Might saying, “Yeah, sure, I fail to save people all the time,” would be cause to think further about what happened to Shigaraki to make him say something like that, but Tsukauchi instead said this:

Do you think this man ever lays awake at night having flashbacks to how this line felt leaving his lips?

I'd always kind of thought the line was a bit out of left field, but it would track with the conversation if it were being offered as an explanation for Shigaraki's line—which Tsukauchi even brought up, prefacing the panel above with, “Worried about what Shigaraki said?” I think, then, that what he was saying here was basically that he thought Shigaraki was making a threat for the future—like, "All Might may have saved everyone this time, but just you heroes wait, my next plan, that'll be the one where All Might fails to save someone. Then you'll see that smile is phony. Then you’ll all see!"

That's still not a great excuse for Deku taking the out—after all, Shigaraki obsessing over setting up All Might for a situation where he fails does imply that he's got a beef about heroes failing—but it's at least something. Certainly it’s a reading that would fit into the heroes’ early understanding of Shigaraki as a sullen manchild, and villains of insane “others” with no motivations any reasonable person could ever parse—and Deku, raised in the thick of that society, has all the reason in the world to take any explanation he can get that doesn’t undermine his faith in his favorite hero, his predecessor, and the pillar of his entire society.

I would be a lot more forgiving, though, if Deku would ever admit that he’d had much earlier misgivings and consciously chose to ignore them because they made him too uncomfortable to look at straight on. It would be in keeping with Deku’s tendency to clam up when he doesn’t know how to handle some wrinkle in his nice, clean heroes vs. villains morality,(1) and it’d be entirely in line with the failings of Hero Society as represented by Tenko’s Long Walk. Further, overcoming it would be a much better marker of growth than the (demonstrably false) claim that Midoriya Izuku, patron saint of saving people, just never had that failing at all—but he totally has both an overwhelming drive to save and an analytical streak, we swear.

OKAY, sorry about that whole diversion. Yes, hard agreed that Deku really ought to be able to find some sympathy for Shigaraki after everything he’s heard and seen, and it shouldn’t require some hackneyed vision of Shigaraki’s inner child. I’m also 100% down for Deku talking to people who are close to Shigaraki to come to a better understanding of him.

Kurogiri is one good option, but somewhat complicated by the continued uncertainty on where the manga is even going to fall on treating Kurogiri, where “Kurogiri” means “the 12+ years Oboro served as a guardian to AFO’s ward, bearing intimate witness to his growth from a child of less than ten to the villain Deku meets at USJ, and, by implication, developing a level of fondness for the boy as someone he ‘could not abandon’.” I very much want to see Kurogiri talk about Shigaraki some more—I will also accept Oboro regaining consciousness with a decade and change of new memories and loyalties to sort out—but I fear that taking that tack would be somewhat overly complicated for the time the manga has remaining.

Still, even if we do get Kurogiri/a reckoning with Oboro’s existence as Kurogiri, that strikes me as being less a good information source for Deku and more a hurdle for Aizawa to overcome—Aizawa, who has been distressingly vengeful against Shigaraki ever since the whole Kurogiri thing came out, despite Shigaraki’s age making it quite clear that he could not have had any active hand in Oboro’s fate. Aizawa, who has been so focused on saving his kids that it seems not to have occurred to him at all that Kurogiri might want to save his. Aizawa, who in this most recent chapter has claimed to be “telling it to Aoyama straight,” about the low odds that he will be able to remain at U.A., yet had nothing to say about those odds when it was his friend who had had his life toyed with and warped for reasons wholly outside of his control.(2)

No, Kurogiri feels pretty thoroughly regulated to Aizawa’s corner at this point. The character who’s really being set up for this role, I feel, is Spinner.

Spinner, following Stain’s example, protected Deku all the way back at the training camp, laying some early ground for them to be able to have a pseudo-civil conversation. Spinner has dealt with discrimination due to his quirk—and particularly the weakness of his quirk—in ways that could easily be raised as a parallel to Deku’s experience of quirklessness. Spinner and Deku are now both profoundly invested in Shigaraki’s welfare, making them natural allies against All For One despite their otherwise opposed positions. Spinner and Deku are the only characters that get arc narration, distinguished by the past tense they use to discuss current events and how those events affect the future.(3) Spinner and Deku are both green.

Spinner is the one who bonded with Shigaraki over mundane pastimes. Spinner is the one with insight into what Shigaraki wants now and why he wants it. Spinner is the character with the best handle on who Shigaraki is outside of what AFO tried to make of him. Spinner is the one most tightly glued to Shigaraki’s side, with only the scene-setting with his PLF followers and Shouji “gonna have a cool moment before the series ends” Mezo as a possibility for any other endgame whatsoever.

Spinner also recently watched his keen understanding of Shigaraki’s emotional state—an understanding that turned the tide for the villains at the tail end of Jakku, when Jeanist and Lemillion’s arrival came so close to cinching a hero-side victory—immediately backfire by careening Shigaraki straight into AFO’s hands. So, you know, it’s never going to be easier to convince him that he can either support Shigaraki’s hatred or he can support Shigaraki’s freedom. The empty horizon, or the man who showed it to him; Spinner doesn’t get to have both.

This would likewise lead Spinner’s arc to a proper culmination: resolving his sense of emptiness. Going from a self-loathing shut-in to a terrorist cloaking himself in another man’s cause when all he really wanted was an echo of that other man’s fervor, to falling for a new man because he saw a reflection of himself in that new man’s experience, all of these were just different forms of self-focus. It’s in the last iteration, though, that Spinner began to really look at someone outside of himself for reasons other than what personal fulfillment that person could give him. Realizing that he’ll have to sacrifice that chance at vindictive self-fulfillment if he wants to save the guy he bonded with—that he’ll even have to risk Shigaraki’s hatred himself by turning against that vision of “everything between heaven and hell”—that is Spinner resolving his emptiness in a way that will last.

Of course, none of this is going to matter if the endgame turns out to be, “Deku fights Shigaraki to a standstill and then Eri Rewinds him back to being Tenko” or some shit, but if there is to be any reckoning with Shigaraki as he currently exists, getting on speaking terms with Spinner is—in my admittedly very Spinaraki-colored view—Deku’s best hope. Other people—the rest of the League, Kurogiri, Nana, All Might, Bakugou—might well have roles to play yet, but I can’t imagine what the point was of setting Spinner up as “Shigaraki’s most devoted follower” (or, more literally, “the one who cherishes Shigaraki the most”) if he’s only going to get peeled off by Shouji before he and Deku have a chance to talk about how much more Deku needs to know beyond “crying five-year-old” if he’s hoping to do anything remotely productive with that psychic link.

As I’ve said time and time again, saving “Tenko” doesn’t mean shit if it doesn’t lead to Hero Society addressing the problems that formed all the other villains Tomura represents. And Deku, Hero Society’s highest hope, is still, even after everything he saw outside the walls of his hero academy, still telling people that they’ll get their old lives back, that he’ll put everything “back to normal.” Does he have the slightest idea what horror that implies to the people whom that normalcy pushed out?

Who better to tell him than Spinner, who suffered under the old normal, who met and grew close to others who all suffered like he did but for reasons entirely their own? Who spent months working closely with people with wildly radical ideas for a new, different way, who is now becoming a focal point for people all over the country who see in him the same kind of inspiration he once saw in Stain, that of someone willing to stand up and fight back? Who better to say, “You have to care about the people you turned us into, not just the kids we used to be”?

And that’s my pitch for Spinner Supremacy. Thanks for the ask, anon!

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(1) As seen with Kota’s hatred of heroes, Shinsou’s resentment of those “blessed” with good quirks, his drive to save shriveling up in the face of the maimed Overhaul, both times Shigaraki laid out his motives without an attendant vision of a crying 5-year-old, and so on.

(2) This is oversimplifying things somewhat, sure—we can assume Oboro had his brain tinkered with by a mad scientist to lay in directives and orders, which is a significant difference in levels of agency compared to the Aoyama family’s blackmail/hostage situation. But it is not a distinction I expect the people in charge of e.g. handing out Hero Licenses to care about.

(3) Bakugou has a tiny, tiny bit of future!self narration, but he only uses it to talk about how his body moved without him thinking about it, while Future!Deku and Future!Spinner have more broad statements to make about where their stories are going and how they’ll impact the world.

#bnha #stillness answers #deku semi-critical #shigaraki tomura #kurogiri #bnha spinner #iguchi shuichi #spinner supremacy #reasons to ship spinaraki #sorry not sorry for letting spinaraki take over this answer but look #i don't care what the anime merchandising team has to say about it; spinner is IMPORTANT

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storfulsten · 3 years

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some dudes

#bombeep #whittyxbf #just guys being dudes #the usual #pose kinda weird #parts kinda off #I don't care lol #if nothing else always good practice of some sort I suppose #might still be enjoyable or might not be #whatever floats your boat my dude #fnf #fnf au #fnf shipping #friday night funkin #boyfriend #whitty #bf #I draw what I want

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citnamora · 2 years

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Glammike this, Glammike that. What about Glamrock child? Crying Freddy?

#fnaf security breach #fnaf sb #the crying child #crying child fnaf #glamrock freddy #those sound like ship names. they are not ship names. i'm just getting my point across #this blog does not condone child/animatronic shipping #i don't care if 'canon contradicts that!' mentally i still live in the early 2010s fnaf fandom #where we did whatever the hell we wanted because it's f u n #'the crying child and gregory would be best friends' they already are :))#edit: tagged gregory without tagging glamrock freddy. my apologies

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enchantedbyhiddles · 3 years

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One thing the fandom has to explain to me: why is it okay for Mobius to torture Loki?

When Mobius sents him to the Sif-memory, he is totally aware that he is in a loop, where he gets emotionally and physically abused. He even visits, sees the result, and goes away again. Why is that okay and Mobius the new fav?

Sif only reacts to Loki physically abusing her by lashing out. From her perspective it is a one-time event. What she does is a direct reaction of Loki destroying what is really important to her and disfigurement.

Mobius makes sure that Loki gets beaten up again and again and again, until he totally breaks down. He is the one controlling that situation and the torture master.

Still Mobius is the fandom fave? Why?

#loki spoilers #i get the comical implication of that #if you see it as a thing like in looney tunes or so #but with the way the fandom sees thor and odin sometimes even frigga #and takes things out of context or implies abuse #once we see a character really and actually torturing loki on screen #that one is still a fav and a big part of the fandom ships them romantically?#anti mobius #<- tagging just in case #not hating him but i'm confused #because he really swings from being extremely abusive to caring #and loki likes him #but then that is also kind of standard abusive relationship?#though i don't think it is meant to be perceived that way #as it is depicted more comical #like tom and jerry hitting each other #so see the first tags

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eliseliedl · 2 years

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can people stop shipping female characters with their adoptive father/paternal figure 💀

#if you see jinx/silco as romantinc.... you are a weirdo #if you ship geralt of rivia with ciri you aRE a weirdo!!!!!#i just can't comprehend how someone sees a man calling a girl 'his DAUGHTER' and still be like 'yep! i ship it :)'#can't you be... normal #there's plenty of characters you can ship these girls with #why in the world would you ship them with their father #i don't care if they are not related by blood it's still fucking weird #i blame p*rn for shit like these but still y'all should know better #delete later

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worstloki · 3 years

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To get you ranting again, explain how loki was abused by Odin please

bold of you to expect a rant

#okay so basically the most interactions they have in the mcu is in Thor 1 which is great because it establishes how abusive Asgard was #namely Odin #so we know Loki's been ignored and treated less as a kid and learnt not to ask questions when he had them #because kid loki opens his mouth to ask about how there can be 1 throne but both born for it and he CLOSES HIS MOUTH #because earlier he asked a question and ODIN IGNORED IT COMPLETELY #so we know 1. loki was smart and picked up on behavioral cues easily so he definitely had the emotional maturity to feel bad about that #and 2. odin's been doing this since he was a kid and favouring thor so the whole codependency really shines through (golden/dark child)#he also didn't tell loki what his own race was and lied about it??? in a racist society?? i don't even know what kind of abuse that is #psychological and physical i'd guess #that's a thousand years of memories that weren't good to begin with tainted with THAT trauma #thank you internalized-racism-that-odin-did-nothing-to-prevent #the iconic HUAERGH and other character's silencing Loki too (namely Thor) implies it's a common enough thing for Loki to be silenced/ignored #the entire vault scene was a mess #it basically shows that Odin... didn't care for Loki #even if we assume his wording was clumsy because he was tired or whatever other excuse they still lied to him for over 1000 years #and loki was already suicidal before the bifrost and odin KNOWS loki was doing everything to prove himself but all he says is... no???#like???????#okay #and the double standard is so real because when Thor and Odin did genocide/war/enslavement/established ruler-ship it's fine #but when loki does it (and not even ONE PERSON asked how he was or why he did it despite him being morally fine for millennia??)#suddenly it's a huge deal and there's a big fuss and loki's in isolation for life #no earth vacation for him or way to measure his worthiness through a trial #nope #everyone just gives up on him off the bat #frigga's gaslighting isn't mentioned because it aint odin but that's fine odin does enough verbal abuse in the sentencing scene instead #and the wack psychological deal of putting him in prison alone for that long and saying he wont get to see him mother??#not to mention whatever the &*^% Ragnarok tried to pull with odin 'acknowledging loki as his son' like??? b*tchboi?? apologize???#if anyone here needs to forgive the others and accept them as family it's Loki?? what was Odin on?? he's lucky Loki is selfless so it worked

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lnkedmyheart · 2 years

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My personal opinions on the various ships I am/was drawn to in Yuumori

I'd like to start by saying that I didn't actually go in planning on shipping anything. I'm a huge Sherlock Holmes fan and I have always had a thing for (not entirely romantic) Sherlock/Irene just because I found the way she could throw him off hilarious. (I also relate really hard with Sherlock's utter disinterest in most things romantic and sexual). Disclaimer: she/her is used to refer to Irene before Bond.

Anyhoo.

James/Sherlock

As someone who is super fond of this pair ever since the RDJ movies the anime left a bitter taste in my mouth with these two. Their interaction was too short and rushed for me to reasonably believe that Sherlock actually had a reason to be fond of her. Sure she was fascinating cause he couldn't pin her profile but just...it made no sense. There was nothing particularly special about her outside of sneaky, hot and kind and it just felt like a not like other girls narrative done badly. It felt very Bella/Edward with the whole "I can't read your mind" angle. Also they only know each other for like one day. Even Bond never truly has any interaction with Sherlock and just passes him by. I don't like the "pass by" way of developing romance.

The manga develops them far better with Irene having a lot more personality and keeping Sherlock on his toes rather easily. While they still barely know each other and she dips out quickly, its still believable that Sherlock is fond of Irene by the time she leaves. However it is also made clear at multiple points that Sherlock has no interest in her romantically or sexually. Which lets be real is closer to his general aro/ace personality from the source material. He also explicitly states being uninterested in women and is super fascinated with Irene solely because she's unusual. There's also the fact that the person who says Sherlock may have had special feelings for Irene is Mycroft, the same person who is playing off the "rumor had it that Sherlock was seeing her" lie. There's also the fact that Irene's main focus is protecting innocent people like Sherlock, Watson and Hudson as opposed to Sherlock out of romantic interest and Sherlock's obsession with keeping Irene safe is stated to be more out of her being innocent and undeserving of death just for wanting a better world and his growing obsession with the Lord of Crime and the fear of what he would do to Irene. Basically the ship ends when Irene dies and Bond is born.

That being said...Bond isn't a woman so... Anyway the ship seems to have stagnated for now and I've heard there is a manga scene later (that I'm wary of from stuff I've heard) which I'm yet to reach but so far this ship kinda...sunk itself for me.

I'm also uninterested in seeing if the fandom for the ship can convert me because a large part of James/Sherlock fans I've seen are actually Irene/Sherlock shippers and it irks me on a personal level.

John/Sherlock

This ship has historically been popular for a reason. Something about friends to lovers resonates with people a LOT especially with Sherlock's disinterest in romance and the opposite sex as well as his emotional dependency on Watson. Its rather sweet especially since John also cares for Sherlock deeply. However in the anime their bond barely gets time to develop. We still get more from John than we do from Irene however and Sherlock clearly has a far more positive interaction with John throughout.

In the manga however, John and Sherlock are developed a lot more compared to the anime and their arguments feel like they hold more weight because of this development. I rather like the way they play off of each other and just how dorky John is in general. I do however know how absolutely smitten John is with Mary so I'm sorry but I can't... I just can't seperate those two cinnamon rolls. But this ship is still good.

Sherlock/William

Okay so I didnt go in expecting to ship them. I ended up shipping them anyway. See, I love enemies to lovers ships but usually when there is something warmer there. I need some warmth and emotional tension and its usually missing from this specific ship in other adaptations. However here, holy shit, the anime gave them this "best friends in another life" vibe right up until the last 2 episodes where it just launched into the starcrossed lovers territory.

The manga on the other hand starts us off with "besties in another life" vibe but quickly starts giving us Sherlock being a huge dork over William, and this extremely flirtatious back and forth all while retaining the point that Sherlock is still suspicious of Liam. His interactions with William are also some of the softest we get from Sherlock in the story. Idk man, he acts like he has a huge crush on that pretty blonde professor. Seriously he needs to stop smiling softly at Liam whenever he gets the chance. He's the enemy my sweet idiot child.

Moran/James

I love this ship. I have no idea why this ship is so underrated but not only do they develop beautifully around and through each other within one volume, they continue to have one of the most playful and entertaining dynamics in the series (so far). Also up until this point we only know Irene, Irene isn't the character we need to follow, she's just an introduction. Her entire arc with Sherlock is just an introduction to her capabilities and character however it is only when Irene ends and Bond begins that we truly see any development of the character. The main source pushing for this development? Moran. Now i know some people think Moran is mysoginistic and transphobic, but tbh, I didn't feel that way. For starters the setting is Victorian England, women in men's clothes was hardly considered decent, the gender roles were extremely strict, transgenderism was not something really taken into consideration, women were considered weaker and less useful than men. Keep in mind Irene was already unconventional simply for being too bold than most women of the time. Bond being ftm or nb or what have you while not impossible, would still have been met with some discomfort. Keeping in mind that Moran is the most normal of the entire crew it'd make sense that he has a hard time reconciling with Bond's gender switch. Keep in mind, Moran didn't know Bond before and to him he is just pretending to be a man. Its also about the fact that he realises that Bond thinks he isn't a person but a tool waiting to be told what to do. This conflict and its resolution prove that Moran isn't a bigot (or a mysoginist, he respects Moneypenny a lot) and just has a problem with people playing pretend and is super comfortable with Bond once Bond comes to terms with his role and place in the crew and starts taking initiative.

Moran/Moneypenny

Listen I dunno how to say this, but the golden army arc has me dying over this ship. Anyway, Moran is a war vet with severe ptsd and a huge flirt, Moneypenny is a no nonsense, warm hearted badass lady who is both feminine AND not super feminine. I love how much care and respect Moran shows towards her and it develops him from this womanizing dumb muscle into a genuinely sweet guy with a dumb flirt streak. Its not super deep. I just love them.

James/Moneypenny

I'm sorry but like what the fuck is happening behind the scenes you two??? I ship it simply because...BECAUSE REASONS.

Note- the reason I like Moran/Bond and Moran/Moneypenny despite their short time together and not James/Sherlock is because Moran, Bond and Moneypenny actually developed in their arc while neither Sherlock nor James developed in their interaction. We didn't get to learn anything new about Sherlock or find out about his hidden depths (except that he hates clingy people). The reason Sherlock/Irene from the RDJ movies worked for me was because a) they had a lot of chemistry and it was more of a back and forth and b) there was a mysterious past involved there. In yuumori, the back and forth and chemistry is absent so there isn't really a fun dynamic that I liked about them nor is there a past to truly justify the lack of interaction. There's also the issue that Sherlock comes across as more irritated throughout the arc than interested and that just rubs me the wrong way since we know he is moody and he doesn't show any positive feelings towards her outside of the last few scenes. Meanwhile there is a lot of time given to Moran and Moneypenny's interaction and we see them both grow and Moran and James actually have a conflict and resolution with active back and forth. The reason I like James/Moneypenny is because it is introduced with a scene that implies that something is going on offscreen and like RDJ Irene/Sherlock, this pair leaves me wondering and creates interest.

#I don't think Sherlock is the kind to fall for someone he JUST met #I did't even consider his general giddiness about William romantic till much later #and that was AFTER the 2 Detectives chapter where he's literally a hyper blushing mess #for Sherly I think its more a case of finding Irene fascinating as opposed to being attracted since he never seems to show attraction #if anything it only has him repeatedly and vehemently denying any such thing and even telling Irene off for picking on Miss Hudson #it also creates a contrast between his fascination with Irene and his friendship with William #since both of them keep him on his toes but his response is vastly different #i do wish John and Sherlock's friendship was developed even more but its still good in the manga #i officially ship James/Moran/Moneypenny as an OT3 #sherliam #is still chef's kiss in the manga #I'm also glad this show gave us a seperate shio name #also before anyone comes here with a. Sherliam feels onsided #let me remind you #Liam was accidentally cold towards his own blood brother eho he cares for deeply #Liam is bad at showing affection in general and I think the letter proves how much he genuinely cared for Sherlock

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