Mistletoe Exchange

Challenge #14: In your own space, create a promo and/or rec list for someone new to a fandom.

So, last year, I wrote up my first promo for a beloved ship (and had a fantastic time). This year's prompt is a little bit more geared toward canons, but I ran into some difficulties with that. Have you ever wanted to get into Transformers? Well, I'm told the new movie is actually a great way to get into it, but I didn't see it, so have you considered a cartoon from 2007... So instead, I'm going to give you a quick ship promo and rec list for another beloved ship of mine: Ema Skye/Franziska von Karma from Ace Attorney!

(I don't have a thing for rarepairs that share one character with a much more popular ship at all, haha.)

So, no, Ema and Franziska don't have a lot of screentime together (they do interact briefly in Ace Attorney Investigations). But I first got interested in the ship based on the parallels. They're both intelligent, talented women with complicated relationships to their jobs - Franziska struggling with not being the "perfect" prosecutor, while Ema ends up stuck as a detective instead of forensics like she wanted. Both of them have a close relative, a respected prosecutor, who had a long-term impact on their choice of career and also ends up in jail for serious crimes including evidence forgery; Lana is going to get out of jail someday and Manfred isn't, but it's still a point for them to connect over.

They're a lot of fun to bounce off each other, too. They're both abrasive and blunt, even on a good day; Franziska has no patience for incompetence and Ema is not interested in sugarcoating things to make people feel better, and I don't get the impression any of that would change in a romantic relationship. But Ema says she prefers her prosecutors "simmerous" (as opposed to "glimmerous") - yeah, yeah, I know what canon meant, but as far as I'm concerned that's a great description for Franziska. It's a ship with a lot of potential spice! There's room for comfort and fluff, too, but I do have a weakness for ships that argue. (Also, while there's not much fic for the ship, the fic that is there is extremely hot. One might say...simmering.)

So, if all of that sounds promising and you wanted to get into this ship, where should you start? I have a few suggestions, based on what you're interested in! (Some of which are self-recs, for which I will not apologize. It's a rarepair. :D)

Open to WIPs and interested in long, plotty fic? I've been having a great time following flaws (upon your sleeve) (beneath the ground), described as "A catastrophic doomed-to-fail toxic-yuri we-can-make-each-other-worse romance workbuddies fic." It's extremely fun and you should check it out.

Here for some hurt/comfort and the actual getting-together process? How To Avoid The Holidays, written for AA Holiday Rarepair Week at the end of last year: Franziska and Ema bond over disliking Christmas. (This one's mine!)

Looking for comedy and into chatfic? Try Instructions Unclear, Bi Panicked from the kink meme, featuring Maya and some excellent Ema&Maya BFFs alongside the FranEma.

Hey Riella, you said this ship has extremely hot fic, where's that? Three choices for this one! The Music Our Collisions Make (rough sex, it's-complicated relationship), which I recced earlier in Snowflake but will always happily bring up again, Far Gone (premature ejaculation, light teasing) from the kink meme, or Her Summer Blouse (post-office-party PWP), also from the kink meme.

Challenge #12: Make an appreciation post to those who enhance your fandom life.

If you've ever stopped by to talk to me about rarepairs or favorite characters or niche AUs, here or on Discord or Tumblr or in the AO3 comments, thank you! You're the reason I've written as much as I have. (I'd still write for those rarepairs/rare characters/AUs, but knowing I'm writing for someone makes it that much more fun.)

If you followed me over here to Dreamwidth because I would not stop talking about it everywhere else, welcome :D I'm really glad you're here and gave it a shot. And if you've been on Dreamwidth way longer than I have, thank you for being here! It's my favorite place on the internet, and I'm enjoying it so much.

And if you write fic, or meta, or make art or moodboards or memes or anything else fandom-adjacent, you're the reason I got into fandom in the first place, so thank you! I've had a great time here and I'm looking forward to sticking around for a long time. I hope you do too. <3

Challenge #10: Big Mood (Board): CHOOSE SOMETHING YOU LOVE AND CREATE A MINI MOOD COLLECTION OF THREE (or more) ITEMS THAT EVOKE YOUR FEELINGS ABOUT IT. You don’t have to limit yourself to visual media, or collect the items into a special format like a square (though you can if you’d like).

I've never made a moodboard for a published fic in my life, but apparently for some reason I decided it was time to learn how to use Canva and also how to put stock photos and cropped canon art into pretty patterns. So...have a moodboard for Sonata in F You, my longest Ace Attorney fic and also my favorite.

Challenge #9: Talk about your favorite tropes in media or transformative works. (Feel free to substitute in theme/motif/cliche if "trope" doesn't resonate with you.)

Listen, I'm not saying I have an extremely specific preference for ships between two very competent characters*, both a little bit abrasive but one a lot more blunt about it than the other**, with a professional connection in which one technically outranks the other and there's potential for a right-hand-man dynamic even if canon doesn't deliver***, at least one of them canonically has a really baffling career progression****, if they're human it's going to be some variation on blond/brunette and if they're robots their colors contrast similarly, and their backstories are vague enough I can work some kind of long-term personal connection between them into my headcanons if that's not actually canon - and also it's a rarepair, at least one of the characters involved has a much more popular (sometimes canon) ship with a different character, and at least one of the characters involved frequently gets underestimated/underused/forgotten by both canon and fandom.

I'm just saying it's weird that it happened to me four times.

And I didn't even notice until I was lining up a bunch of my favorite ships and went "...huh." Sure, some of it is headcanon because a lot of the characters involved are also underdeveloped, but if I'm coming up with similar headcanons for all of them, I think there's something there! It's so specific I don't think it even counts as a trope. Birds of a Feather + Right-Hand Man + a touch of Opposites Attract except they're not really that different, one just hides it better + Competence Kink + uh, whatever the trope name is for contrasting colors but specifically not red/blue?

*Look, I know popular Ace Attorney fanon is that Daryan's an idiot, but he's pretty clearly canonically not. He makes bad decisions under pressure, which is a different problem. He keeps up with Klavier fine.

**I think Ema and Franziska can match each other's abrasiveness beat for beat, but I know which of them I'd rather be locked in a car with for three hours.

***Did Transformers canon give me the Carly-and-Mikaela teamup it should have? Not even a little bit. But the compatible skillsets are there. Official diplomat/team mechanic is great, actually.

****Does any piece of Transformers canon manage to be consistent about what Elita's actual rank is, let alone Chromia's?