Fictional Fans

oh are we also talking about how characters refer to each other and themselves?

in ML, people refer to Marinette and Ladybug as though they are two separate individuals, if they are not (and most people are not) aware that these are the same person. that's not optional. in my fic, she herself thinks of herself as whichever one she is being at the time. which can get complicated quick—like, as Multimouse, she is being Marinette and Chat Noir knows it, but she's not not being Ladybug, either, and she wants to keep those three identities separate for everyone else's benefit—but it means I as writer have an easier time keeping track of which one of her others are seeing, and I can occasionally do cool tricks by having her internal narrative refer to her as one of them when she's definitely being the other one. and people who know her as both, I'm having them mostly do the same thing of referring to her as whichever one she happens to be being, unless pointedly distancing the other one—like Adrien when talking to Marinette in the presence of people who don't know she's Ladybug (when he does know) will talk about Ladybug as though she isn't present.

most of that transposes to the other secret identities in play, too. not all—I don't think Alya has ever once thought of Nino as Carapace, since she figured out Carapace was Nino about five seconds after his superheroic debut, and I think Nino stopped thinking of Alya as Rena Rouge the moment he learned those are the same person—but most.

GuardianKarenTerrier makes a point of Adrien thinking of himself as Adrien no matter whether he's being Adrien or Chat Noir at the time.