september's coming soon

G: What was your first fandom?

The Pokémon anime, and specifically the Team Rocket-centered parts of it, at ca. 2000-2002. I eventually played the games and got a bit into the Adventures manga, but my main interest was was always the anime and the anime-adjacent manga (the one where Rocketshipping was canon, obviously). I eventually got more and more into the "twerps", and it was the home of the very first pairing that by all accounts was crack but which I found myself taking very seriously because it would be very adorable (ref. adrichat) - thirdwheelshipping AKA nevermetshipping AKA Brock/Tracey.

Yes, I had websites (yes, plural). And I'm old enough to be the original Eevee on both FFN and AO3 - but not DW. But sure enough, the username I ended up with was still very much oldskool Pokémon

D: What was the first thing you ever contributed to a fandom?

Rocketshipping fanfic. Like, I specifically remember one just coming to me and my going out and either buying a notebook or bringing one along for some outing because i had to write it down right this moment. It was an utterly OOC dumb romance, but to my defence, it was at least somewhat original in the take that James somehow wasn't in it at all.

I can't remember if it ever was posted anywhere, but I did contribute some fic to a TR-centred archive (TRHQ2), where I also spent some very formative time hanging around the forums.

I suppose it speaks for itself that I later found the fic posted there so embarassing that I asked for it to be taken down *g*

B: A pairing – platonic, romantic or sexual – that you initially didn’t consider, but someone changed your mind.

I'm ashamed to admit that the most recent one is AdriChat, thanks to recent shenanigans (for those not in the ML tag on tumblr, it is at writing one week since some BNF made a jokey comment and the fandom sent it straight to the second place on the weekly panfom ship ranking based on activity)

Obviously, shipping it is ten degrees of idiocy, but thank you tumblr and the suddenly-the-joke-isn't-a-joke-any-longer, I am having a lot of thoughts about the hypothetical scenario where Adrien and Cat Noir are two different people (and what is fanfic, if not hypothetical scenarious?)

The obvious point that nobody is talking enough about here is the extent to which Cat Noir is Adrien's dream man. He is literally his dream self, the opportunity to be everything that Adrien wants to be but isn't allowed to. Heartbreaking though it is, he's said outright that being Cat Noir is thet best part of his life. Cat Noir is a duty, and not always to Adrien's disposition. Being Cat Noir comes with dangerous conditions, and we've already seen Adrien being deprived of Plagg for his own safety once.

In the world where Cat Noir isn't Adrien's LARP character, but a different person, he is also an actor that can actively do something about Adrien's life in a way that Adrien cannot. He's no more likely than anyone else to not make Gabriel Agreste an emotionally abusive supervillain, but Adrien is the personficiation of hopeless and awkward and desperate for love. Someone claiming some degree of Special Relationship with him would give him a reasonable argument against his father's micromanaging of his life, and we all want him to have a happy family life or at least the hope for it in the future. And Cat Noir, moreover, is known to get worked up over injustice. Between him and Ladybug, I honestly think he'd be far more likely to yell at his boyfriend's dad for being a jerk.

You don't even have to make up arguments about why they should fall in love. Adrien clearly has a thing for superheroes, and he's literally a model, why wouldn't Cat Noir be into that. They're both super romantic, they're both kind and forgiving. Adrien would love Cat Noir's sense of humour. Cat Noir would delight in being the one to let Adrien let down his hair and showcase what a little shit he can be when he's given the chance. They'd be an amazing couple and I hate that I honestly think so.