History NeutralFemale / FanWorks

[[AC:''WesternAnimation/KungFuPanda'']]

* ''Fanfic/{{Dominoes}} [[PlayingWithATrope plays with this]] through Shinichi, who serves as a RareMaleExample:
** Shinichi's father and friends ''want'' to [[EnforcedTrope force him into this role]], aiming to keep him LockedOutOfTheLoop



This trope's enforcement basically defines the conflict between Shinichi and the majority of the cast. This is what Yuusaku and his allies want Shinichi to be. They refuse to train him to handle an active role in the events and conflicts around him or encourage an ability to defend himself; they want him out of what they see as exclusively their business at all costs, and prefer that he be ignorant of that business as well. Though there's an attempted veneer of concern for Shinichi's safety, the excuse is so flimsy it doesn't even hold up among the Irregulars (despite Ran desperately clinging to it). Every attempt to play with this trope afterwards derives from Shinichi's attempted rejection of its enforcement: Shinichi's neutral role is simultaneously invoked and subverted by Shinichi's ploy at being KID's helpless kidnap victim in order to lure out and expose his father and the Irregulars for their manipulations and lies; it is thereafter a heavy topic of controversy and discussion among the cast.
The enforcement of this trope and its naturalization in the perspective of the Irregulars is also deconstructed through the breakdown of Shinichi's relationships, particularly with Ran. In fact, Ran thinking of Shinichi like this is the exact reason Shinichi breaks up with her. The fatal flaw in Ran's perspective of her relationship with Shinichi is that from the moment she chose to become Angel and decided his safety was more important than his happiness or honesty in their relationship, she stopped treating him like an equal and partner, deprioritized caring about how he felt about the positions she and the Irregulars put him in and how he felt about his life in general, and started treating him like a precious possession that she valued mostly for the emotional crutch—like Shinichi himself was a keepsake of her romantic feelings rather than an actual person she loves. She stopped talking honestly with him outside of lecturing him and attempting shallow small talk, stopped prioritizing spending time with him, and even habitually became accustomed to shaming him when he stepped out of the behavioral lines she and her team drew for him without honest engagement or consent—restricting him entirely to her one-sided terms on how their relationship should function. The obvious solution to these problems would be to talk about the conflict between them, but Ran's lack of openness and Shinichi's growing distrust prevents this. Because of Ran believing that playing this trope straight was right, what was a healthy and equally supportive partnership devolved into a one-sided and oppressively restrictive Destructive Romance whose effects are comparable to the abuse Shinichi gets from his father and Hakuba, with Shinichi spending the first story arc dreading his significant other's very presence.