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lgbtlunaverse · 1 year

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There's a few "league gets adopted by Rei / Rei takes care of the league" fics out there and I love them dearly even if i have to admit that they're all quite unrealistic, mainly because they tend to paint Rei as a better parent than she actually is. Sort of what happens to aizawa in fanon, too, completely accepting and eternally affectionate. The "comfort" in hurt/comfort personified. I get why this happens, it hits like a truck watching people who were denied parental affection finally get it.

But, as always, with fanon tropes, there is a part of me that's melancholic for all the potential that gets left behind. Because there's a kernel of truth in these fics that i'm sad isn't highlighted enough, there's something that could draw rei to the league outside of one of them being her literal thought-to-be-dead son or some nebulous perfect motherly instinct. And that truth is: Rei is not an amazing parent. Her faults are mostly of inaction, and the whole thing with Shouto was due to the abuse she suffers herself. But she has- and she knows this- failed her childen as a mother.

And what that gives you is a woman with a deep massive guilt over failing to be there for her kids when they needed her. She believes one of them died and it was, in part, her fault. Shouto she can reconcile with, but Touya, she thinks, will be a wound that never heals. And why wouldn't you, as a fic writer, use that?

What i'm saying is, if you were to- in the right circumstances- throw a traumatized child also failed by their parents her way. (Perhaps, say... a child rejected by her parents explicitly because of her quirk, wink wink?) And it reminded her just of how much she herself had failed as a mother, specifically because she was too scared to do anything, then she would absolutely want to take care of that child. She just wouldn't be all that good at it. Really, she'd be terrified to even try. But she'd want to try. And wouldn't that make for a story worth telling, one that could be just as cathartic in the end as the 'perfect mom takes care of her new murder children' fics?

#bnha #fandom #fanfiction #fanfic writing #of course as always with fanwork if you want to see something you'll have to do it yourself #what i'm saying is i'm writing a 'rei meets toga' fic #it is itself still very self indulgent because the premise kind of HAS to be #and it'll take a long while before it gets here #but i am trying hard to keep rei's character in the bounds of canon accuracy #and it sure is funny when dabi realizes who exactly the nice pretty lady toga has been talking about for weeks is #this isn't a critique of fanon and fix it fics as i said i understand why they exist #just need more rei character studies and deepdives into the guilt she feels for hurting her kids through inaction #and i'm just saying that a bunch of kids who were hurt by both parents and societal inaction are a pretty good narrative tool for that

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leonawriter · 29 days

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I'm sure I've said this before some time in the past, but- there's certain ships that since they have no foundation in canon and one or more of the two are already canonically attracted in a monogamous way to someone else... I tend not to feel any sense of attachment to the fandom portrayal of them, because usually (not always! just often enough that it sticks in my head) the impression I get is that fanon erases the pre-existing attraction one or either of them has, in order to make things more... simple. Or something. So I see that, and I lose interest.

But the thing is, if the fanworks I see accept and address the fact that one or more of the people in the ship used to be attracted to/in love with someone else? I'd be WAY more likely to get on board the ship!

It does several things for me.

One: It doesn't disregard canon in a way that makes me feel like certain things are being retconned purely for the fan-preferred/author's ship. Often I'm a fan of how things actually go in the canon, or I just use it as a base point of reference, so if something's been thrown out and it feels arbitrary... that's off-putting.

Two: it keeps their core personality traits intact. This might sound weird, but it's a fact that who we are changes depending on who we're most interested in at any given time. If a character has been seen crushing on someone so badly that they base parts of their own personality on matching someone else, that's not something you can or should easily ignore, given how big of an effect that is. And when it comes to relationships, you'll notice that the vibes they give off shift how the characters act and are written/portrayed. Some pairings with one character have them be soft, while others have them sharper.

Three: I enjoy seeing characters go "I used to like [x], those feelings were real, but [I moved on]/[they don't like me back, so I had to move on] and now I've started to like someone else." I like to see that sense of progression. Especially if the canon has them all as teens, it's more realistic to have not all of them create their livelong commitments in the course of one year when they're 16! Some, sure, it's fun - but not all. Let them make mistakes, break up, move on, find someone else.

Four: It... honestly adds nuance and depth to the characters - both in a pairing - if they're shown moving on, and/or attracted to someone who either still has feelings for another person, or who's moved on. Give them a bit of time. A bit more maturity. As said above, not everyone finds true love at 16 or so. Having that happen is simple, it's cute, and it's kind of like a fairy tale - but there are other ways to have it work out without making it love at first sight.

But really. How do they feel about this? How does the first person feel about how long they've had someone feel that way about them? Is there a dance of "the last time we knew each other you were still tagging after [other person], are you available now?" or is it more "I want to attempt asking them out, but I'm too nervous in case it's not wanted" when at this point, it'd be welcomed?

Have Character A be there for Character B when they've realised they'll never be with C!

Maybe they even just see each other as "just friends" for the longest time, until someone goes "doesn't your idea of a perfect partner sound like [A]?" and it's the first time they've thought of that.

And in the case of both of them having previously been attracted to the same person (no matter how much or how little), there's the evergreen "oh fun, we can roast [C] together now!"

So like... so many of those ships aren't even bad. I just wish I could see them having gone through a progression from "where they're at in canon" to "where they're at crushing on someone other than their canonical crush/love interest" more, y'know? Even if it's just handwaved as having happened in the past!

#Leona says a thing #writing stuff #fandom stuff #there are specific pairings I have in mind here but I'm not naming names or characters

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19thsentry-blog · 1 year

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ML Fanworks

An archive my Miraculous Ladybug fanfics, because 1) I like pretty things, 2) I'm just That Kinda Guy, 3) "it is always morally correct to bump your own content", and 4) one post is easier to keep track of than 63894.

Caught (AO3 Link)

Rated M | Complete: Oneshot | 13K Words

Prominent Ships: FeLuka (Endgame), Lukanette (Friendship)

*S5 Emotion Spoilers*

Luka grins widely, hand catching a street pole just to swing around it. Satisfaction blooms in his chest when Félix stops to appraise him with a raised eyebrow and a sly smile. Luka reaches out with his other hand, tapping a finger on the hard cover wrapped in leather and stamped with gold leaf. "Sure does have a much prettier cover."

Félix lifts it a bit higher, nearer to his shoulder. "And deadly--don't forget," he says with half-predatory delight, almost like a threat.

A teasing threat, Luka hopes, one meant to elicit his carefree laugh rather than something very real--something that might beat him over the head if he doesn’t move out of the way fast enough.

The Pirate Queen's Son (AO3 Link)

Rated M | Ongoing: Latest Chapter | 8.6K Words

Prominent Ships: FeLuka (Endgame)

Félix doesn't need to further clarify which one she's referencing. Of course it's him, the one dressed in a black leather jacket accented with dark scales, the snake bravely emblazoned on the back (the cherry on top of what had given Luka away). Cerulean eyes hiding behind dark azure hair scan the crowd as he leaves the stage, inspecting everything and seeing nothing. He's in a world of his own.

Luka Couffaine, son of the Pirate Queen and the most trusted of her secret band of criminals, is the one person with a Miraculous that might stop Félix from getting what he wants. None of the rest are as clever, as vexing, as the man disappearing out of sight.

See This Chance (AO3 Link)

Rated G | Complete | 4K Words

Prominent Ships: FeLuka (Endgame)

Luka died in 2016. Yep. Crushed by the Arc de Triumph when Mayura’s Robustus slammed into it. It was kind of a big deal, but once you’re dead, you’re dead—especially when there’s no Lucky Charm to bring you back.

Luka’s been dealing with it in the typical ways.

Sunset Palette (AO3 Link)

Rated G | Complete: Oneshot | 5K Words

Prominent Ships: FeLuka (Endgame)

Félix straightened, denying Luka any further honest investigation with the guile of a charismatic banker. "A trade," he said, "if you are truly looking to get the Miraculous back, it's one you'll take me up on." He lifted his hand from the tabletop, frowning at the sawdust and grime that returned while he tried to rub it away between his fingers. Félix looked up at him after, still framed by that picture window and blindingly bright golden butterscotch leaves, one eyebrow arched. "An identity for a jewel."

In The Shadows (AO3 Link)

Rated T | Complete: Boomer!Luka Series | 120K Words

Prominent Ships: Lukanette (Endgame, fluffy), FeLuka (Not endgame in this work, one-sided and angsty)

It starts sweet. Blue eyes draw me in like a siren’s call, soft lips speak my name and it sounds like there’s a ring to it even when my lungs are burning and I’m left drowning. There’s a song in your body, it moves like shadows and sunlight, Eros and Apollo laboring in tandem for one holy purpose, to mold your body and soul and make it soft and hard in all the right places, till I’m left gasping for you.

World's Not Our Own (AO3 Link)

Rated T | Complete: Boomer!Luka Series | 88K Words

Prominent Ships: FeLuka (Not endgame, moving toward friendship, still one-sided and angsty), Luka & Alix (Friendship), Lukanette (Endgame, fluffy)

It is now, standing in the pit made from the maw of the monster in his arms, that he can finally accept what has been happening to him these past few months without hating it. It is much like twilight, something that should signify an end, but for whatever reason, feels more like acceptance and rebirth than dawn ever did. He is changing, growing, expanding beyond his limits, and every minute is a new picture, all of his contradictions spilling out next to each other, shifting across the sky like one might mix paint. The same night never comes twice, and when he looks up, he sees thousands of stars, all the light from all the suns that feel like eyes in the sky, watching him to see what he'll do.

New Beat (AO3 Link)

Rated T | Complete: Boomer!Luka Series | 42K Words

Prominent Ships: Adrinette (Friendship), Aligami (Friendship/It's Complicated But Delicious), Adrien & OC (Friendship/Eventual Pairing)

Marinette sat beside him on the rooftop, staring out into the night sky. He didn't know what to say, so he said nothing at all. Marinette was the first to speak.

"I guess I never really knew you," she said softly, staring at her hands curled in her lap.

Those words were the ones that cut him the most. How many times had he wanted her to know exactly who he was? To see the real him, the one beneath the surface? But Ladybug had never loved Chat Noir. She had loved Adrien, the façade he put on. "No," he said, no malice in his voice, "I guess not."

The Way I Love You (AO3 Link)

Rated T | Complete: Boomer!Luka Series | 3K Words

Prominent Ships: FeLuka

Because Luka is a friend. No. He truly is a friend. He has to be. The alternative is that Luka is nothing to him, and Félix can't bear that. He'll take this instead. However he can belong to Luka, he'll take it—Félix is horrifically selfish and knows it; he's a ball of contradictions wound so tightly together they all run into each other, where want and need and fear and loathing and longing all mingle at home in his head and heart, and Luka simply…holds out his hands. Accepts it.

The Night We Met (AO3 Link)

Rated M | Complete: Boomer!Luka Series | 15K Words

Prominent Ships: FeLuka (Endgame), Luka & Alix (Friendship)

Félix was still a Pandora's box of contradictions.

"I haven't forgotten," Luka said, tilting his head to fruitlessly try to steal back Félix's eyes, to draw them back to his face. It didn't work, but he kept talking anyway. "What you asked me--the night we fought."

It had been impossible to forget, because the question had constantly hunted him, always looming in the back of Luka's mind. He could have recited it by heart, but by the deliberately blank stare on Félix's face and the way he clenched his fists, he knew Félix remembered too.

Anarka, Meet Jagged (AO3 Link)

Rated M | Complete: Oneshot | 1K Words

Prominent Ships: Anarka/Jagged (We all know how that ended up)

"I mean, there's always the Raincomprix kid, right?" Fester's feet were straight in the air, resting against the back of the ratty ass couch in his garage; his mohawk grazed the concrete from where his head was hung off the seat. He had a jar of imported cheese puffs in hand, shoveling them in his mouth with big handfuls, and a couple fell out between his fingers and rolled underneath the drum set that they had somehow managed to make fit around Fester's dad's golf kit and tool chests.

Anarka stared at him, mouth agape. "…Are you fucking kidding me?"

Patient (AO3 Link)

Rated G | Complete: Oneshot | 2K Words

Prominent Ships: Lukanette

"I'm sorry I wasn't there," Ladybug said softly. She'd pulled her knees up to her chest and rested her chin on her forearms. The reminders of her failure to Paris were everywhere she looked; rubble on the sides of the roads, knocked-over buildings, and, more importantly—the people who had gotten hurt in the crossfire. Seeing it when she got back had hit her like a ton of bricks. Finding out that Luka was one of the people that had been hurt? That had hit her worse.

#Nat's Monster in the Box #FeLuka #Lukanette #Time twins #Aligami #Anarka/Jagged #i need a new pinned post #this is convenient AND new works can replace the one up top #so that i can throw it into the void of tumblr #its a win win win for me #miraculous ladybug #zolila

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rex101111 · 2 years

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Cheap choice but I genuinely love hearing you talk about him, so Anji?

– Overall opinion of them

He's a fucking weasel and I love him. There's just something striking about a guy who's whole deal is lying to everybody's faces with a serene smile when the series he's in is full of people who could rip him in half if they wanted to. His whole deal was being a smooth talker and never showing his true nature and overall just being confusing for everyone around him and I dunno I know you think he's too flippant but something about him just seemed interesting to me straight off.

And him finally showing at least part of that true nature around someone he actually cares about and using those exact same tricky tricks to do some good and help people is just icing.

– Gender/sexuality headcanons

Baiken-sexual. I kid I kid, if only slightly. Personally I see him as Demi because I don't think he's ever shown any actual interest with anyone other than Baiken. Gender-wise cis, but I'm cool with whatever, though the idea of Trans Anji showing off his mastectomy scars has always been one I've been especially fond of. Of course he's running around without a shirt on, he's put a lot of time effort and money into those boobs so he's gotta show them off!

– Favorite moment in canon

That one arcade ending (in X I think) where he very casually tells I-No that Asuka is very disappointed in her and then traps her in a crystal while she's cursing him out. Just something about how blasé he is about the whole thing. He very easily just brushes off I-No's angry comments and does his job without a hint of hesitation or remorse.

It's one of his darker moments, no question, but I like to keep this moment in mind because for all of his dancing and grinning, Anji is also ruthless and cold when he needs to be and I think that's an aspect of his character that she be explored more.

...oh, also any and every moment he shares with Baiken, both because I am biased and because they just bring out the worst and best in each other.

– Favorite moment in a fanwork

There's this one piece I can't for the life of me remember who made that has Anji carrying Baiken on his back. She's throwing a bit of a fit up there, but isn't really visibly attempting to get him to drop her, while Anji is just happy as a clam and grinning dopily at her while she's yelling at him.

It's a very good summation of their relationship, I think.

– Favorite line, in canon or otherwise

"...I'm not the only one. [...] Check my mirror someday, you'll see." Maybe it's because Another Story has stuck itself in my mind but I just really like that line. It says something seemingly innocuous on the surface, but soon reveals itself to be a much deeper cut than you first imagined. Anji in a nutshell.

But also: "...I dunno, I don't have an answer to that. All I know is, I don't want you to die. [...] Ok, let's go. From now on, it's my job to keep you alive. So get used to having me by your side." Childish, presumptuous...but it's also one of the first moments where we see this guy being honest.

– Characters I love seeing them interact with

....do i need to say it? do I? Okay so Baiken is the obvious answer because you put this smooth talker with the rough and tumble samurai and you get fireworks but other than that, him and Chipp are an amusing duo. With Baiken he's able to be serious but with Chipp he's either forced into being the Ninja Babysitter when Answer isn't available or he gets dragged along with Chipps nonsense and they have an Excellent Adventure and it is a treat.

– Last thing before sleeping headcanons

He stretches. I think he's also gotten into the habit of looking into the mirror before he sleeps and muttering, "you're anji mito, remember, you are anji mito", because there is no way that is his actual name and he needs to remind himself that he's grown past that, but having a hundred aliases tucked away in your head for anytime use could get confusing.

– Sleeping habits headcanons

He's a wired, shallow sleeper. He goes to sleep very quickly and wakes up very easily. He's the kinda guy that, if you startle him awake, his instinctual response is to throw a punch.

– First thing after waking up headcanons

He checks his surroundings (where's my bag, where's Zessen, where's Baiken ah fuck where's my damn glasses) and then gets up for a glass of water and to splash water on his face. He wakes up early and doesn't waste time.

– Favorite locations headcanon

He's learned not to get attached to any one place, being a wanted vagabond traveling with another wanted vagabond means that staying in one spot for too long means people will start wondering if you look similar to a poster they saw the other day. But personally I think he's very fond of grassy hills. Perfect for sitting down and admiring the view.

#answers #broken clover #guilty gear #Anji Mito #aaaah that was fun!#also i sent you an ask ALSO with Anji XD did you get it?

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olderthannetfic · 2 years

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Okay, I'm gonna do this the clean way by sending you an ASK! :) I was listening to the latest fansplaining ep about doing fandom without other people (is that still fandom or just pleasurable consumption?) and got me thinking if other very long-term fans feel like they don't want to do the online fandom thing anymore. I know you talk about your offline group of fandom friends, but putting that aside, do you feel it'll come (or has come) a time when you just don't want to do it with new fans/fandoms anymore? (that was the gist of the experiences discussed in fansplaining and something I have been feeling and discussing with a like-minded friend, though neither of us have been on fandoms for most of our lives).

I think just consuming canon without interacting is pleasurable consumption. Writing fic, even posting fic, without interacting much or reading other people's fic without trying to be active on tumblr/twitter/discords/etc. is more like doing fandom alone.

I haven't listened to fansplaining in a while. They've humored kink-haters too often and been too Boggled, Just Boggled by basic fandom shit their friends all know. I like them as people, but...

But back to your actual question: I'm just about the most extroverted person in the universe, so no.

I like new people, even now, even in the era of radical feminist kink hating pretending to be pro-gay activism. Even in the era of whiny children causing massive mental trauma to their peers in the quest to protect a cartoon character's chastity.

Lately, I've had trouble sitting down to watch or read anything. I blame general life stuff. (I'm still in the middle of epic decluttering, and my mind feels cluttered because my space is.) But I'm not someone who revisits comfort canons. If I rewatch, it's for vidding. If I reread, it's not until I've forgotten everything, and usually then, it would only be if I want to review a book, not just for the pleasure of reading it again.

I do revisit fandoms pretty regularly, usually to read new fic or because I want to write new fic or make other fanworks. But for me, fandom is a long procession of new interests. I'm never happy for long in a juggernaut ship or megafandom, so the idea of stagnating forever in my "safe" old corner is anathema. "My" corner is always something where there are 20 fics and I've already read them all. There's nothing to stay in.

And even in my last couple of years of gray blah, I fell hard for Kingdom. I have so many feelings. That one I am going to rewatch, but for Korean practice and to vid it. I've already got some new-to-me music I'm very excited about also that I want to pair with it.

It sounds like Fansplaining was talking about something that is essentially a Fannish Midlife Crisis. This has been a well-known pattern as long as I have been in fandom. If you stick around long enough, you'll generally go through one. Stick around really long, and you'll go through multiple!

If you're like late 20s-mid 30s and got into fandom in college, on average, you're probably hitting your first serious one right now. (I see this a lot.) If you're like 60, you've probably left fandom for a decade or two and come back. Some people do leave forever, of course, but if you're a current fan then, by definition, you didn't.

Honestly, it reminds me of people endlessly rediscovering the thing that happens with friendship once you're a few years out of college and you have to make regular adult life friends instead of having peers delivered to you on a silver platter. It's a genuine issue, but it's an issue that generations of other people have dealt with before, so it's amusing when people are shocked or think they're unique.

The basic fandom pattern that leads up to these crises is that people get into fandom the first time more or less the same way:

You find something you adore. You're on fire and other people are too at the same time in the same way. It's magic!

Now, not everyone has this experience, but people who don't often fail to find or get into fandom in the first place.

After a few glorious years or months, depending on your era and circumstances, you sour on the canon or you run out of fics to write or other people drift away. In type 1 of this crisis, you're still happy where you are, but the there isn't there anymore. Where has the love gone? etc. etc.

In type 2, you find a shiny new canon! The pangs of new love! Everything is new again! Only, this time, something is wrong: nobody else is into your thing with you. Fandom has not rallied round with the longfic and the meta and the gifsets. What is going on???

And, of course, the answer is that nothing is going on. 99% of the time, when a person falls in love with a piece of media, other people don't love it quite the same way at quite the same time in sufficient numbers. But since Baby's First Fandom is by definition one where this did happen, Baby's Second Fandom is hugely disappointing.

Since you now know fandom as a way of processing all your media feels, you want to do it with canon #2, and you just can't. Not if you want other people in a community as part of that.

Both 1 and 2 could happen with baby's 37th canon instead, or they could happen with a cultural gap of some kind--maybe a generation gap, but not always.

In addition to all that, you the person change. If your life gets really busy and stressful or you're depressed or you're trying not to look at bright screens before bed or whatever else, you no longer have the ability to make the party happen. I constantly see people going "Why is fandom not like X anymore?" where X is something they did because they were a college student and they were willing to blow off homework to run a bajillion fandom events or to hunt for fic. But now, they don't have time or energy for that yet somehow expect that it will just happen in their space somehow. I certainly don't fault people for having more going on in their lives, but if you can't bring the party yourself, you have to go where someone else is throwing one. Them's the breaks.

We all go through periods of being more and less into our hobbies. That's just life. But one of the big things I've seen in fandom is people unwilling to put themselves out there.

I have made plenty of new friends over the last few years, from people I've hung out with offline to new tumblr friends like you, and it's basically entirely because I'm so publicly visible. This also paints a target on my back, of course. I get why people don't like being out in public.

Antis suck, sure. But how many people do we all see saying antis suck? How many people are going "I feel old and want to hang out with people who aren't emotional children"? How many people are like "Everyone my age is awful! Where do I find friends?" There is no shortage of fans who don't like what they perceive to be the current state of fandom and who would like some new friends. At least some of them are going to be to one's taste if one went out and found them.

It's like romance: if you're too scared to try again, we all get it, but you can't then expect to be anything but single. How many romances start this way? Just so, so many. The character absolutely did get burned, and there absolutely are emotional consequences to putting yourself out there, but...

I have friends who sit at home talking about how they want to date, but they don't go out to meet people. They don't use apps. Things don't just happen. You have to make them.

Even liking new canons is like this: if you can't make time to sit down with a few different tv series, how can you expect to find the one that clicks? I've had few new fandoms lately because I haven't watched anything. The one time I actually did--Kingdom--I was hooked.

Between the pandemic and various other factors, a lot of people are in a life phase where they're like a turtle retracted into its shell right now. New friends, new canons, new fandoms are just not going to happen for a while. And that's okay!

But it's not inevitable or an unchanging future unless people want it to be.

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ilikekidsshows · 2 years

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First thing first, I want to say thank you for all the counterargument for the senti theory. Seriously, during all these time when people shouting THE THEORY IS CANON your blog always give me relief and I thank you wholeheartedly. Even when people ridicule me saying I'm in denial because apparently the 'staff being throwing obvious hints like crazy' and 'ambasador confirmed it has been building since s1' your blog always give me assurance that I need.

Second and lastly, I don't understand when people said 'the hints is there' because I never see it, what hints? Gabriel fidget with the ring is something similar with what I do when I'm nervous, adrien obeying his father is something a child would do, even more so in abusive situation and it's normal thing that has nothing to do with the whole senti being thing. I'm watching the show with my niece and nephew who is 9 and 11 which is the target audience for miraculous and they see nothing as well. So why would the show use something that the kids wouldn't understand or catch in the first glance? That just beyond my comprehension, actually the whole theory is.

Thanks! I've pretty much accepted my role as the chairman of the "People Who Don't Like SentiAdrien" Support Group.

This is actually something I thought about yesterday but I didn’t have the time to make a post then, so thanks for reminding me. A big thing about the "SentiAdrien story" is that it exists on social media, not in the show. And the Theory Stans get mixed up over this and think that the show has been obvious about it when it hasn’t. It’s partially because of their confirmation bias: they think it’s fact so everything is obvious evidence for it even when there are other explanations too. However, some of it is caused by an overindulgence in SentiAdrien content.

The SentiAdrien Theory really got going through season four, because the season four fandom is the perfect breeding ground for it. The episodes drop sporadically, Gabriel is acting erratically and the show seems to be full of high drama when said “high drama” is mostly played for laughs or solved pretty easily. This atmosphere has people expecting the show to be grimdark while also turning to fanworks to pass the time, and a lot of the fanworks are about the SentiAdrien Theory, since it’s popular and grimdark. There are fanfics and fanart about it and, most importantly, there are a lot of posts where people pick at minor details and build elaborate structures of symbolism and meaning out of them.

And the people who are into the Theory post a lot about the theory. Just like how seeing similar Salt posts again and again slowly makes you think like they do, the theory blogs wear down your disbelief first into “there wouldn’t be so many posts if it wasn’t likely” and then into “there wouldn’t be so many posts if it wasn’t basically canon”. I originally blocked the SentiAdrien tag even before I actively started disliking the theory simply because I saw SO MANY POSTS ABOUT IT. I had other shit to do than read the same points over and over again.

Just like people reading salt fics and salt posts start to believe the salt takes are canon, the people reading these posts analyzing how every single detail in the show is now evidence or foreshadowing for SentiAdrien get the impression that the episodes these analyses are based on are about nothing but dropping hints about SentiAdrien, so they think season four is about SentiAdrien when it really isn’t. There are so many posts explaining how all these blink-and-you'll-miss-it details are pointing towards SentiAdrien that people think: "of course it's obvious. It's basically been said word-for-word with how much hints there are!" when, in fact, every single one of those hints is questionable. It's very much not obvious to anyone who isn't a Theory Stan and constantly surrounded by Theory Stans telling them it's basically canon. The only reason I think about SentiAdrien consistently is because I'm in the Miraculous fandom on tumblr. If I was just watching the show on my spare time, I would not think it was even on the table as an option.

Because, here's the thing: no one in the show has raised a single question about Sentimonsters. The show isn't questioning the existence of Sentimonsters and what they are exactly. Any actual mystery show actually has at least one character wonder about the things the audience is supposed to be wondering about or has a clearl, definitive hint to point people in the right direction. You're meant to solve the mystery with the characters. Anyone who looks at Gabriel fidgeting with a ring will only think: "SentiAdrien Confirmed!" if someone outside of the show has told them about the theory beforehand. No one would immediately jump to that conclusion, at most they'd wonder "SentiAdrien? Maybe." The hints are less obvious than the Theory Stans think they are.

This tendency to overblow the SentiAdrien Theory is even worse with people who don’t actually watch the episodes, but just kinda absorb them through osmosis from posts made by the rest of the fandom. This is very common practice for the Miraculous fandom, since the new episodes are kinda hard to get your hands on at the moment. Because of that, there are people who haven’t seen the episodes and have only read about how this or that episode "foreshadowed" or “confirmed” SentiAdrien.

I’m not even exaggerating about some of the Stans being people who haven’t watched the season. I got someone telling me that ‘Ephemeral’ already revealed that Adrien was a Sentimonster, and several more claiming that the SentiAdrien plot has been carefully built up during season four and it’s continuing from what started in the episode ‘Ladybug’, you know, the episode I've mocked repeatedly for dedicating a whopping 59 seconds (not even a full minute) to building up sympathy for Sentibug.

Season four is apparently only about SentiAdrien despite the fact that one of the big themes the people actually watching the show have noticed is that Adrien’s presence in the average episode was greatly diminished in the first half, which is followed by Adrien getting demoted from being Ladybug’s partner in the second. I bet you can agree that an arc about how Ladybug and Cat Noir have an unequal relationship that focuses much more on Ladybug’s side of things is not the same as building up a story about how Sentimonsters are fully sentient and Adrien is one. These Stans are completely reconstructing the narrative of the show to fit their bias, which is: “I really want SentiAdrien to be a thing, so the entire season four that exists in my head is just about that no matter what happens in the actual episodes.”

#adrien is not a sentimonster #ml fandom salt

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