you remembered my name

She’s a kitsune. Sharing her body with another spirit that is mischievous, dangerous, and out of control.

She has powers that were barely even hinted at yet.

Her mother is 900 years old, with countless life lessons to teach, potentially dozens of old enemies or rivals or friends for Kira to meet and interact with, could have other kitsune children for Kira to meet and get to know.

She just found out in the past year that she’s as good as immortal and going to outlive everyone she loves and cares about.

She went to train with three nigh-all powerful and ancient spirits or guardians or whatever.

She was dating the most significant supernatural being in Beacon Hills and regarded as his equal, never his lesser.

She got her ability to heal when she got her first tail, through attaining wisdom and experience. She had at least eight more tails to go, each of which would coincide with learning another lesson or having another important experience and gaining her more power in the process.

She’s an expert swordswoman, instinctively. What else could she do, that she just didn’t even know to try yet?

She’s the first and only girl on the lacrosse team, the show’s favorite and go-to sport.

She was in a position to mentor new character Hayden on what its like to suddenly be a supernatural creature with a dangerous side you don’t know how to control.

She made a deal with three very old, very powerful beings to save her friends, a deal which could have serious consequences if broken, a deal that her friends would absolutely do everything in their power to break to save her.

I couldn’t help but think of @alan713ch​ ‘s post here that I reblogged.  I have no doubt that it is utterly true, but I always think that these things can be better with a concrete example.  And there’s no better example than how the Teen Wolf fandom totally slept on the Scott and Kira romance.

Oh, yes, it had it’s adherents, but it was never passionately embraced by the fandom.  Scott and Kira, if you count them being together from their first date in Galvanize (3x15) were a couple for forty-two episodes, longer than any other relationship on the show.  And yet they have less stories on AO3 than the Canon relationship of Boyd and Erica, which lasted at the most like 8 episodes (and that’s stretching it) and ridiculously fewer stories than the big three white m/m relationships – Sterek, Steter, and Thiam. 

(And before anyone gets their undies in a bundle – I’m not excluding myself from this criticism.  I’m not pointing at any individual person and saying you should write Scott x Kira.  I’m talking about numbers.  I’m talking about trends.)

But if you look at it closely, the canon relationship touched on every single major romantic trope that populates fan fiction.  You can barely read a Sterek, Steter, or Thiam fiction that doesn’t incorporate one of these tropes.  Let’s look at the list:

Opposition from friends: “ Scott, no way. Until we figure out if she’s just another psychotic monster that’s going to start murdering everybody, I vote against any and all interaction.”   

Opposition from family: “Foxes and wolves tend not to get along, not just in fables and stories.”

Inability to express their feelings:  “So if you die down here, are you going to regret not kissing your girlfriend?” 

Obstructive trauma from the past: “I guess it’s supposed to be part of her. But now it looks… Differently. Almost like it’s taking over. I don’t know. Something’s happening. And to be honest … I don’t know if I could trust her anymore.”

One lover forced to torture the other: “ Your hand goes here. So, let me explain what’s about to happen. This one, the fox, has an immunity to electricity. So she’s going to turn the dial on the Alpha.“

Mind-controlled lover trying to kill the other: “He’s been through quite a lot without ever having to kill. I think it’s time to change that.”

Fortifying belief:  “Me again. I have to leave. But I’m coming back to help. I promise. Because you’re right, Scott. If anyone’s going to save Mason, it’s you. It’s us.”

Unwilling separation:  “I made a deal with them. And I need to. It’s not for my parents. It’s not for you. It’s for me.”

It’s like the Greatest Hits of Romantic Plotlines.   And yet, something about this relationship didn’t spark the fandom’s imagination.   You see the relationship isn’t just seriously neglected, it’s disparaged.  The criticisms run like this:

Kira is a replacement for Allison, even though the dynamic wasn’t the same and her actions weren’t the same. 

Kira is a “placeholder for a certain type of villain.”  

Scott isn’t over Allison. (This is one of the favorite of the Sterek/Steter crew because they fixate on Scott’s supposed obsession with Allison because it’s how they attack Scott’s decisions in Season 1 and 2.   If Scott was able to move on from Allison while not forgetting about her, their claim that the only reason Scott didn’t bow to the Hales was his obsession with a hunter’s daughter gets undermined.  If they can’t blame it on Scott’s hormones or stupidity, they have to face the fact that the Hales were violent thugs, and Scott was right to tell them to get lost.)

Kira is boring, because dealing with the fact that she’ll outlive everyone she knows and can drain the electricity from an entire city doesn’t seem interesting.

Their relationship is saccharine.  (Note that when Liam breaks Theo’s nose three times, it’s passion, but when Kira throws Scott in The Maid of Gevaudan, it’s … missed.)

Scott spends too much time pursuing Kira and not enough time doing his job.  Which isn’t his job.  

They don’t have chemistry.   Yeah, sure.  

Kira doesn’t give Scott what he needs.  (I still don’t truly get this one, but I think it means that Kira was supportive of Scott when he needed it without sarcasm or helpful criticism of how he could be a better alpha, as every other person he loved constantly gave him.  The idea that someone could just have faith in Scott without questioning his competence just doesn’t fit – though blind faith in Derek’s leadership, Peter’s competence, or Theo’s inherent goodness is a major part of the big three romances.)

I’m citing this, not to tell people who to ship, but to support the argument that minority ships – especially where both participants are minorities – tend to be overlooked and neglected, most often for the two closest white people.  That behavior and tropes are recognized in ships in which both participants are white.  It’s simply another fandom thing.

“I feel very strongly that I love you more than you imagine, more than I thought possible.”

pairing: isaac/kira brotp, slight scott/kira, mentions of isaac/allison rating: pg-13 words: ~1200 author’s notes: set post-illuminated. because when i found out that isaac likes comic books, i figured he would totally bond with kira over them (maybe stiles too) and i just want some yukilahey. plus i get to fangirl about comics through them, which is an added bonus.  read on: [ao3] [ff.net]

Teen Wolf is about…love.

(from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veySGJUUoOA )