The Power of Love in Fan Works.
Crossovers
- AWE Arcadia Bay (Rogue_Demon): Just as Orzai succeeds in brainwashing Jesse, she immediately snaps out of it when he decides to go after Emily next.Jesse: You. Dare. Touch. Her. KEEP AWAY FROM HER!!
- The Bridge:
- Princess Cadance specializes in love magic, and the Crystal Heart is an Amplifier Artifact for love. It is among the only things able to reliably counter King Sombra's hate and darkness spells.
- While the Sirens normally channel and feed on The Power of Hate, Aria Blaze eventually remembers that her mother Hymnia taught her a song that channels love. She finds that love feeds her and powers her up much more than hate does.
- Even some kaiju begin to unwittingly tap into it, showing Equestrian magic doesn't play exclusives. Xenilla and Gigan on separate instances both got a boost of power via familial love for their respective younger sibling, granting them the strength to fight back against stronger opponents to protect the ones they cared for.
- Child of the Storm has this as a central underlying theme, with The Four Loves being discussed In-Universe, and Doctor Strange's grand scheme resting on this and The Power of Friendship (which, as one of the four loves, it more or less conflates). It even successfully defuses the Dark Phoenix, which is driven by The Power of Hate - though as is also noted, that Dark Phoenix wasn't quite fully-fledged. Harry is particularly adept at using it, with Bucky noting in chapter 24 of the sequel that his love for loved ones, and more generally his habit of seeing the better natures of those who didn't even know they had better natures can be extremely powerful and - with the influence of Gambit - inspires at least one Heel–Face Turn (Maddie's).
- Speaking of the latter, Xavier needles Sinister regarding it, since Maddie had been under his thumb since birth, under More than Mind Control for all that time, and The Power of Love (combined with generally showing her a better way, months of Gambit carefully Defusing the Tyke-Bomb, and well-timed revelation or two) was the tipping point that Sinister never understood, which brought about her Heel–Face Turn, and always would have done.
- On the flip-side, love for Carol is stated by Harry to be the one thing (if she was killed) that would make him cross his personal Godzilla Threshold and become the Dark Phoenix. More generally, people he cares for being hurt or killed is the best way to unleash his inner monster.
- Children of Time: Love is powerful enough to break and remake Time... and redeem a certain detective...
- Equestria Girls: Friendship Souls: Human Chrysalis believes in this, though unlike her Equestrian counterpart who believes only she and other Changelings can use it, she acknowledges anyone can use it and admires both the good and especially bad things love will make someone do. Of course, like her counterpart she also believes people who let themselves be ruled by it are weak.
- God Slaying Blade Works:
- Shirou Emiya has been seriously injured by Mordred and is almost out of mana, preventing him from using his magic. Then Mordred attempts to kill Guinevere. Arondight, the sword of Sir Lancelot, immediately appears in Shirou's hand and restores his energy so he can defend her. Lancelot loved Guinevere so much that his weapon was imbued with that love, and even though the Campione!verse Guinevere is a different person from the Nasuverse Guinevere, it would still do anything to protect her.
- When Venus attempts to enthrall Shirou, his love for Sakura resists all her efforts to drive it out until she finally goes all out by forcing all other loves out of his heart. However, when he manifests his Reality Marble it's revealed that his love for Sakura was so deep that she had become part of his soul. When Venus threatens to kill her, Shirou kills the goddess despite his power-induced love.Venus: But... you love me.
Shirou: With all my heart. But I chose her over everything... even my own heart.
- Horseshoes and Hand Grenades: In A Month of Sundays, this gets played straight with Mari, who's able to frees Miura from Gamou's mind control spell that forced him to become the Aries Zodiarts. Yet it's also subverted with Yayoi, who's unable to achieve the same effect with Haruto, as the Creepy Doll asks What Is This Thing You Call "Love"?, forcing her to slice him up and leave him to burn.
- The Many Dates of Danny Fenton: In the timeline where Danny is involved with Kim Possible, after he falls into a coma in a failed attempt to get his powers back, Danny is able to hear her voice and it's her being in trouble that awakens him.
- This plays a key part in Once Upon a Supernatural Time, both in terms of breaking the curse on Storeybrooke and helping the characters break other curses. On a personal level, Dean and Sam Winchester become so close to Emma Swan and Ruby respectively that the girls are able to give the Winchesters True Love's Kiss.
- In Haloes, Urd has a nasty bout with aphasia that robs her of spoken and written language, forcing her to communicate by pantomime and gibberish utterance. She later develops the ability to use music to convey her emotions and utters her very first word and sentence ("Keichi" and "I love you"), apparently out of sheer love. It's subverted, though: By then, she has merely learned to, at first very awkwardly, translate her Starfish Language in human words. But the fact she was in love acted as a strong motivation to do so.
- Queens of Amphibia
: In Chapter 16, Anne's Healing Factor starts failing after she's irradiated by a Kaiju monster. This prompts Sasha to make an Anguished Declaration of Love, imbuing her own calamity powers into Anne and helping her fight off the radiation.
- Blackbird: This is what gives Oliver the Heroic Second Wind he needs to get up and kill Ra's al Ghul during their duel — seeing a struggling Laurel trying to save him, and knowing that she will die if he fails.
- In the climax of Batman: Angel of Death, Selina's unwavering love for for her sister proves stronger than the years of conditioning that served to make Maggie subservient to the Order of St. Dumas and Père Roland, defusing her in time to save her sister from being burned at the stake.
- This is basically the Central Theme of the Contractually Obligated Chaos series, best exemplified through a Call-Back to an actual quote from the source material.I believe that when you love someone, the impossible becomes possible.
- Facing the Future Series:
- Sam has used this a couple of times when Danny needs to be pulled back after accidentally triggering his dangerous Super Mode.
- It's implied that this is what allows Danny and Sam to regain their memories of each other and escape Nocturne's dream world.
- The Bolt Chronicles: Beginning with the "The Ship", Bolt and Mittens develop a romantic relationship which continues through all following chronological stories. In the final story, "The Gift", it is revealed that they are soulmates and their ability to become a couple helped them learn their last two main life lessons (tolerance and unconditional love respectively), allowing them to become complete souls and reside permanently in Nirvana's afterlife.
- The central theme of Beyond Heroes: Of Sunshine and Red Lyrium is the triumph of this over despair. Both the Inquisitor and Varric are in frequent danger of succumbing to despair, and it's this trope which keeps them back from the edge.
- Cave Dancers Pretty Cure: Mokey/Cure Wisdom's main power is based on love. She uses this to calm her opponents down and talk them out of fighting, and to repair broken items and injuries.
- Played for Drama in many Prince Hans redemption fics such as Warm Hugs and The Phoenix and the Snowbird. Owing to the fact that he was ignored and neglected by his own abusive family, he starts off as a grouchy man who derisively sees love as an idiotic thing only good for fairy-tale romances. But as the fics progress, he realizes that Love Redeems, how his hatred warped his mind and made him an enemy of the heroes, and that there's more to life than just being power-hungry. Sometimes, the heroes (Elsa, Anna, Kristoff and Olaf) even call him out on his cynical beliefs about love and/or ask where it got him, to which Hans is unable to answer. Also in many of these fanfics, he even genuinely falls for Elsa.
- The Queen's Consort: It was light magic that gave Elsa amnesia, so it stands to reason that light magic can undo it, and what is more bright and pure than love? The trope is practically stated by name.
- This, to an only slightly lesser extent than The Power of Friendship, is what drives the good guys in the Elemental Chess Trilogy.
- This trope is quoted word for word in HERMIONE AND GINNY VERSUS THE SPACE WIZARDS by Harry, after Ginny and Hermione have sex, combine their powers and free the other wizards so they can fight the evil Spacewizard Griz'nakh.
- In I'm not on drugs, I'm just in love, Harry gets dosed with a particularly nasty variant of Love Potion that makes him violent against the people trying to help him. His love for Ginny lets him break out of it long enough to get treated. Ginny, being a Weasely, teases him for this mercilessly.Ginny: (grinning) You love me so much a love potion didn't work.
Harry: (grumbling) There was no love potion. I was just trying to have an affair. - Oh God, Not Again! had this to say about The Power Of Love:"...What was that last part?" Sirius asked.
"Remus and Tonks got married?" Harry repeated innocently.
"No, the other last part. The one about Voldemort killing you," Sirius clarified.
"Oh, well he killed me and I had a nice chat with Dumbledore's soul who informed me that just because I was imagining things it didn't make it not real and then I got better."
Sirius just stared at him.
"It gets better," Harry grinned. "Apparently I only survived because of the power of love."
Sirius groaned. "For the record, when you're telling this to other people, try to come up with an explanation that sounds more badass."
- Played for Drama in Unraveling Emotions; the central premise is that the Sinners' high Healing Factor and Resurrective Immortality stems in part from their blackened, deadened hearts. While it isn't impossible for them to fall in love, doing so renders their hearts red, human-like and vulnerable, meaning they can be permanently killed. This means that any Sinner who falls in love has to decide whether or not it's worth the risk of sacrificing their regenerative abilities.
- The whole plot is set into motion when Alastor reveals how Vox had made a Love Confession to him years ago, triggering a massive turf war as Opportunistic Bastards immediately set upon the Vees' Entertainment District. Rosie immediately calls him out for it, and even Charlie is utterly furious with him.Charlie: (transforming into her demon form) Alastor exposed that Vox had a killable human heart to all of Hell when HE was the reason it was vulnerable in the FIRST PLACE! (bursting into the Hotel) ALASTOR!
- Carmilla killed her own lover in order to ensure that her heart would revert back to being black, so that nobody would be able to take advantage of her weakness. While she rationalized this as ensuring that she couldn't be ripped away from her daughters, it remains one of her deepest regrets.
- The whole plot is set into motion when Alastor reveals how Vox had made a Love Confession to him years ago, triggering a massive turf war as Opportunistic Bastards immediately set upon the Vees' Entertainment District. Rosie immediately calls him out for it, and even Charlie is utterly furious with him.
- Lost and Found: When Claire sees Danko shoot Elle, it allows her to access Elle's power and unleash an electrical Heart Beatdown on him.
- It is because of this in Gankona, Unnachgiebig, Unità that Germany and Japan see the error in their ways and decide to share Italy. However, they also fall for each other, completing the polyamorous relationship.
- To Reclaim a Dream: At the end of Sins of the Father, the Pale King dies soon after the Radiance and becomes a bodyless mind in the Abyss, losing grasp of his memory. But through the Kingsoul, he senses the White Lady wishing for him to come back to her and their children, which allows him to remember and be reborn.
- In Mega Man: Defender of the Human Race, this is a frequent theme, particularly between Mega Man, his family, and Kalinka. In episode 11, chapter 8, ProtoMan uses his love for Nomad to gather the courage to restore his old self. Two chapters later, he calms Nomad out of her destructive programming and pain. And in the finale of episode 11, memories of those he loves enable him to fight Wily's fear program and turn on him.
- Someone to Watch Over Me features a rather twisted Exploitation of this: since an akuma's powers are tied to their emotions, Gabriel sets out to crush his son Adrien's spirit, hoping that his love for his mother will make him unusually powerful.
- The Bonding Quirk from One for All and Eight for the Ninth is this given form. The gist of it is that it connects its bearer to a person if both feel affection and attraction for each other, giving them an empathic link that allows them to understand each other better - and as their feelings for each other grow and deepen, they both gain more powers, up to healing the partner from deadly wounds. Izuku Midoriya ends up inheriting it due to how it got mixed into One for All during its creation, allowing him to link with eight girls and empower them and himself.
My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
- As the title implies, this is the central premise of Romance and the Fate of Equestria. It begins shortly after the show's Season 2 finale, where the Power of Love was witnessed firsthand, and Twilight decides to pursue romance for the purpose of supplementing her studies on The Power of Friendship, thus kick-starting the entire story.
- Played for Drama in the Triptych Continuum. In this continuity, Cadence's alicorn magic makes her the one pony who can directly manipulate love. And unlike in many portrayals, she is not limited to reinforcing existing love. She can create love, destroy it, transfer it, all with a thought. Needless to say, she is terrified of what she could become if she let herself.
- Blind had this conversation between Naruto and the Kyuubi:Naruto: Will it (being Hokage) really make me happy?
Kyuubi: Kid, I used to go around killing people thinking it would make me happy.
Naruto: Did it?
Kyuubi: Nope. But then I found a mate and we both went around killing people together and then I was happy.
Naruto: You... are a sick bastard.
Kyuubi: Yeah. But what did you learn from that?
Naruto: I need a mate to be happy?
Kyuubi: Most people do. - Destiny is a Hazy Thing: The Power Of Love is so strong that even Eldritch Abominations aren't immune to it.
- Naru-Hina Chronicles: While seeing how confident Hinata is during her fight against Touji instead of her usual personality, Kurenai is impressed by her confidence and wonders if this is really because of Naruto.
- Son of the Sannin: It is well documented in canon that Hinata is stronger and more confident when Naruto is present, so the fact that they're Childhood Friends here means that she is that much more powerful (to the point that she supplants Ino as the top ranked kunoichi of their graduating class). Her mother took notice of this, and made sure to have Naruto come over to the Hyuga compound whenever Hinata was sparring as they were growing up.
- Advice and Trust:
- Asuka and Shinji's love for each other is also the only reason why they manage to stay sane. And their love for Rei (regardless of what type of love it was) gave her support during her second detox.
- Kaworu had found that feelings like love and lust are the strongest mental buffers against the Call (his subconscious desire to cause Third Impact), so situations where Rei returns his affections (like giving him a "platonic" kiss on Christmas or asking him out on a date) can drown it out entirely.
- Evangelion 303: In chapter 13 Shinji finished his speech about how he had seen all sides of Asuka –including the worst and darkest ones- and there was nothing that she could show him that would make him love her any less:Shinji: You call it imprinting... That's all love is, isn't it? A form of imprinting! The kind of imprinting that can survive anything!
- In Going Another Way, this, amplified by Shinji and Rei's EVAs, is what brings forth Arimsael's downfall. Well, weaken him greatly enough for him to separate from the EVAs for Asuka, Toki, and Hikari (previously barred by his AT Field enhanced by the EVAs he was linked to) to charge in and stab him with their Prog knives. Upon nearing self-destruction, Toji then rolls up the Angel into a ball and chucks it sky high, and then Mana in her Trident delivers the final blow.
- HERZ: In 2015, Shinji was grieving because he loved Asuka and he could not save her. Rei’s love towards Shinji led her to feel his angst, rebel against Gendo and help him. In 2027, it is Shinji and Asuka's love for each other and their daughter and Rei’s love for them which drives them to come up with a risky plan to save humankind and that love allows them to succeed.
- Downplayed in The Dark Lady. While it is able to return Rumpel's memories after the Black Fairy curses him and break most curses, it is made clear that the Curse of the Dark One is an exception and immune to true love’s kiss.
- Guys Being Dudes: Somehow, Spark manages to demonstrate Super-Strength and possibly Shock and Awe powers when Arlo, his boyfriend, is in danger of Death from Above when an Abandoned Playground gets hit with Shaymin's Seed Flare and is about to fall down on him.
- A Pikachu in Love both plays this straight and Subverts it. While her love for Pikachu gives Pichi the courage to save him from being mauled to death by an Ursaring, in the end, he chooses to continue traveling with Ash rather than staying with her.
- Screwed around with in With Strings Attached. When George confronts the mind-controlled Paul, he cautiously attempts to snap Paul out of it by mentioning his wife Linda. Paul's response: "Who's Linda?" However, Paul later reveals that he had thrown off the mind control within fifteen minutes and was faking it, so the trope never even got a chance to operate.
- Children of Remnant: This is ultimately how the battle between the Claimed, the conspiracy, and the Huntsmen of Remnant gets stopped. Blake and Emerald's bluster is revealed to be exactly that when they can't bring themselves to attack Qrow and Amber, Jaune revealing how much he was tortured by Salem provokes the conspiracy into a massive My God, What Have I Done?, and Pyrrha, despite being incredibly desperate and willing to attack anyone, comes to a screeching halt when she realizes that she almost cut Yang's arm off in her rage.
- Empath: The Luckiest Smurf:
- In "Empath's Wedding", Chlorhydris steals Smurfette's "heart" so that she can no longer feel love for anybody, including her husband-to-be Empath. Empath decides to give her his "heart", only for Hefty to make the sacrifice instead, wanting to prove himself as Smurfette's One True Love. Empath then gives Hefty his "heart" in turn, with the intention of letting him marry Smurfette instead.
- In "Empath's Honeymoon", it's after Empath's first time alone with Smurfette when they "get under each other's hats" that he starts speaking in Smurf fluently, as before that he normally wouldn't speak in Smurf unless he was extremely angry or afraid.
- In the Star Trek (2009) fanfic Written in the Stars, the love between Fem!Kirk and Spock is shown to be so powerful that no matter the reality, the pair will always be drawn to each other.
- A straight example occurs in chapter two, in which the Prime Fem!Kirk tells the Alt Reality Fem!Kirk about the incident with the Medusan, Kollos. In this story, the only way to cure the insanity (brought about by looking upon Kollos) is if the victim's true love locks eyes with said victim. Fem!Kirk did this when Spock goes insane, curing him within seconds.
- Another straight example, similar to the first, happens when Spock goes crazy due to Pon Farr. He doesn't recognize anyone and attacks anyone on sight... except for Fem!Kirk, who he even protects from anything he considers a threat to her. It is revealed that this happened because he recognized her as his bondmate.
- In Keep Your Love Alive, Castiel manages to defeat Chuck by appealing to his sister Amara's love of Dean to convince her to do a Split-Personality Takeover from within Chuck so that she can help them save Dean. Chuck even lampshades it, asking disbelievingly if Castiel's last move is really going to be an appeal to the power of love right before it proves to work.
- In Sword Art Online Abridged:
- Invoked but subverted in Episode 10, when Kirito and Asuna face off against the Fatal Scythe.Asuna: Don't worry, Kirito, I've got your back! With the two of us, our love can conquer anythi—
(WHAM)
Kirito: (slurred) The Power of Love is bullshit. The Power of Swords and Violence, that's where the money is... - And mentioned again in Episode 11, after Asuna breaks out of GM-induced paralysis to take a fatal blow for Kirito.Kayaba: Huh? How did she...? (amused) There's not supposed to be any way to break out of Admin-paralysis! Guess I'll have to add that one to the log: "Power of Love might cause paralysis to fail." Heh, it's the damnedest thing, somehow that never came up in beta-testing.
- Invoked but subverted in Episode 10, when Kirito and Asuna face off against the Fatal Scythe.
- In The End of Ends, Terra realizes who Count Logan really is and how her actions caused his rise to power. She then devotes herself to saving him because deep down, she loves him. This allows her to tap into the powers of the Light Prognosticus and over power Count Logan... However, she only succeeds in roughing him up. Had it not been for The Starscream, Logan wouldn't have changed. It's only when he is mortally wounded that he began to redeem himself, and not even the Power of Love was able to save him.
- New Tamaran: This is how Starfire defeats Blackfire, and why Raven becomes a benevolent deity.
- Played for Drama in The Ultimate Weapon. The Ultimate Weapon is an individual with a gentle spirit and pure intentions; such a soul has a lot of spiritual energy and power, and the Ultimate Protector is meant to help them reach that potential and protect them whether they like it or not. Mikey definitely doesn't like it, and neither do his brothers.
- Stellar Requiem's TRON: Legacy Fanfic Survivor's Tale plays this card for everything it's worth. First, in the arena "Rinzler" and Yori recognize each other during an Involuntary Battle to the Death and it leaves enough of an opening for her to perform a move that knocks them both out. Second, Clu tries to have her executed, but she invokes "This isn't who you are" and stops Rinzler dead in his tracks. Thirdly, after she's been repurposed, Tronzler is able to set her free, even when he can't free himself. Lastly, Yori is asked by a cloaked figure in the back of the tavern if she could ever forgive Rinzler. She admits that while she would find it hard to forgive his actions, she will always love him, no matter what he calls himself. That's when the stranger reveals himself as Tron and the pair are finally reunited.
- In Everqueen, a required emotion when making Dreamstones is love, and the Emperor's main problem turns out to be him having forgotten how to feel and express it properly.
- The Numbershots considers this as the natural evolution of The Power of Friendship. During the Duel with the Numbers Distributor in "Numbershot C13: True Love Shines Through All", when Kotori combines it with ZEXAL, she becomes so powerful that she brings her beloved Yuma (who heroically sacrificed himself to save her just in the previous chapter) Back from the Dead. Before they proceed to thoroughly kick his ass by combining their ace monsters.Kotori: This is a power someone like you could never understand. Numbers have hearts and feelings, like humans! They are capable of loving each other! And when you combine that love with the power of ZEXAL... the result is a power that cannot be stopped!
Numbers Distributor: This is impossible! I killed you! You should be dead!
Kotori: Don't you listen? When the power of love is combined with the power of ZEXAL... anything can be accomplished!
