TVTropes Now available in the app store!
Open

Follow TV Tropes

Where the Light Hides

Go To

  • Adorkable:
    • The Reader's socially awkward nature contrasts with her cold demeanor, resulting in an unintentionally adorable protagonist.
    • Midoriya, naturally, seeing as how he's a constant stuttering mess.
    • His role as The Comically Serious leads to Todoroki often acting awkward and adorable.
    • Uraraka's natural excitable and positive nature qualifies her as this.
  • Base-Breaking Character: Aria is this for several reasons. Many have stated her personality, background, and other aspects of her life are too fleshed out to be a good reader insert. That and her incredibly strong personality makes her unrelatable to many, or at least unlikable. The creator's defensiveness over the character only adds fuel to the fire.
  • Designated Hero: Aria constantly berates others or herself, with many different characters coming into conflict with her general Jerkass behavior. It becomes difficult to root for her when she's typically insulting many beloved characters from canon.
  • Fan-Preferred Couple: While Midoriya/Reader is most likely the official pairing (considering the fanfic's tags), it's easy to ship Todoroki/Reader due to their similar personalities and close friendship.
  • Jerkass Woobie: The reader counts as this to most, considering her abrasive nature is a result of trauma and bullying.
  • Relationship Writing Fumble: If the fanfic wasn't tagged as Midoriya x Reader, many might not know that Midoriya is the main love interest until several chapters in. Even then, Aria ends up having more natural chemistry with her best friend Todoroki than with Midoriya, given their similar personalities.
  • Stoic Woobie: Similar to the original manga, Todoroki serves as this due to his well-known nature as The Stoic and his Dark and Troubled Past involving his abusive father.
  • Strangled by the Red String: Aria mostly hangs out with Todoroki, developing her relationship with him off of a shared background and similar personalities. This makes it all the more odd when she starts dating Midoriya, who she has befriended but hasn't spent as much time with. Even characters in the fanfiction itself ship Todoroki and Aria! This is worsened by the fact that most of the fanfiction actually doesn't involve much Midoriya x Aria interaction, but instead works on fleshing out Aria's own character development, backstory, and plotline. The romance that was promised only starts several chapters in and then the memory loss incident undoes all of it, once again removing the romance in favor of Aria's own plotline.
  • Tear Jerker: One particular example stands out in Chapter 14, where the protagonist attempts suicide after remembering their kidnapping. For anyone who has gone through a similar ordeal, the scene can be all too relatable.
  • Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Despite everything that Aria goes through, many readers find it difficult to sympathize with her abrasive personality.
  • Wangst: Aria's constant angsting and drama-inducing behavior makes it hard to sympathize with her, especially if readers don't understand her experiences.

Top