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Misused: Mentor Ship

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SeptimusHeap from Switzerland (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Mu
#26: Aug 4th 2020 at 1:18:56 PM

That's a good question. Got any examples?

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
WarJay77 It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (8,356/50,000) from My Writing Cave (Troper Knight) Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (8,356/50,000)
#27: Aug 4th 2020 at 1:21:52 PM

I think it's an Unequal Pairing because of power imbalance, not specifically because of age difference.

Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall
Synchronicity (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#28: Aug 4th 2020 at 1:32:11 PM

Characters.Negima Ala Alba

  • Mentor Ship: An interesting case, considering Negi very early on surpasses her. Her feelings for him are also sadly one-sided. (It's light on context but there's this line from the description: "Seeing her skill, Negi asks her to teach him kenpo, which he picks up at a rate she considers unfair." I don't see a real difference in power in this example.)

Characters.Persona 5 Confidants:

  • Mentor Ship: Downplayed example; at the protagonist's request, Hifumi takes him on as her Shogi protege, teaching him how to play and tutoring him in battle strategies. She can also potentially be romanced. Despite that, she actually gets embarrassed anytime the protagonist refers to her as master. (Looking at the bios, both she and the protagonist are high school students, so there's no power imbalance here.)

Recap.Supergirl 2015 S 2 E 12 Luthors:

  • Mentor Ship: Kara admits her feelings to Mon-El this episode. (This is a zce, but additional context as I'm familiar with the work: Mon-El, like Kara, is an alien who doesn't really age the way we do, but is portrayed as of a similar age and position in life as her, so again, no real power imbalance as such. She trains him in hand-to-hand combat.)

Edited by Synchronicity on Aug 6th 2020 at 10:29:48 AM

SeptimusHeap from Switzerland (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Mu
#29: Aug 4th 2020 at 1:36:13 PM

Hrm. Mentors in fiction can encompass many more different power dynamics than real life teacher/student dynamics. So I would not necessarily assume that all such "ships" would fall under Teacher/Student Romance.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Adept (Holding A Herring) Relationship Status: Having tea with Cthulhu
#30: Aug 5th 2020 at 7:51:37 AM

So is that a different trope? Or should it not even be mentioned?

Synchronicity (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#32: Aug 5th 2020 at 1:42:50 PM

[up]I believe Adept is talking about the examples I raised — canon pairings, or at least those with Ship Tease, that don't have the power imbalance that seems to be necessary for Teacher/Student Romance or the classical version of mentor (an older, wiser, and more experienced character would still wield more 'power' in a relationship than their apprentice).

Twiddler (On A Trope Odyssey)
#33: Aug 5th 2020 at 6:00:05 PM

Missing supertrope? Mentor Romance or something.

Discar Since: Jun, 2009
#34: Aug 5th 2020 at 8:45:28 PM

@ Supergirl: Other way around. Age-wise they're equal, but she's training him, she's one of the few people on the planet physically stronger than him, and she's his superior officer so she can do stuff like (for an example that actually happened) go harder on him than necessary because he annoyed her as a boyfriend.

Though the training is mostly in the background, so even people who ship it usually don't treat it as a Mentor Ship.

Writing a post-post apocalypse LitRPG on RR. Also fanfic stuff.
Synchronicity (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#35: Aug 6th 2020 at 8:30:25 AM

[up]Yeah, you're right — the last sentence was supposed to be "she trains him"; I've fixed it for clarity. Still, not a classical Mentor Ship as such...should I just delete that example?

Discar Since: Jun, 2009
#36: Aug 6th 2020 at 2:07:10 PM

Technically I think it's downplayed, but it's probably easier to just delete it.

Writing a post-post apocalypse LitRPG on RR. Also fanfic stuff.
Berrenta Bejeweled (she/her) (Ten years in the joint) Relationship Status: I made a point to burn all of the photographs
Bejeweled (she/her)
#37: Oct 9th 2020 at 5:31:31 PM

I'll see if I can wrap this up.

FernandoLemon Since: Aug, 2015
Berrenta Bejeweled (she/her) (Ten years in the joint) Relationship Status: I made a point to burn all of the photographs
Bejeweled (she/her)
#39: Oct 10th 2020 at 10:51:51 AM

Yeah. Helps that I won't need to go through all of them.

Berrenta Bejeweled (she/her) (Ten years in the joint) Relationship Status: I made a point to burn all of the photographs
Bejeweled (she/her)
#40: Oct 11th 2020 at 1:08:14 PM

Character sheets are done. On to Literature/.

Leaving the Tabletop Game/ wick, as it looks to be self-insert shipping In-Universe.

Edit: Literature/ and Pantheon/ are done.

Edited by Berrenta on Oct 11th 2020 at 3:46:48 AM

Berrenta Bejeweled (she/her) (Ten years in the joint) Relationship Status: I made a point to burn all of the photographs
Bejeweled (she/her)
#41: Oct 11th 2020 at 2:57:17 PM

And I think we're done with the wicks. Time to call it done.

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SingleProposition: MentorShip
3rd Jun '20 8:36:10 PM

Crown Description:

Mentor Ship was used as a shipping trope, when an In Universe trope exists as Teacher Student Romance. This crowner decides whether Mentor Ship must be classified as YMMV.

Total posts: 41
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