I'll be honest, when I found out that people shipped Damian Wayne (DC comics) with Marinette Dupain Cheng (Miraculous Ladybug) I was like: Why the hell would people put these two together?
Like canonically speaking, Damian Wayne is the LAST person Marinette would ever date. Baby girl don't like dudes who are rude and condescending, and that's basically Damian.
As for Damian? He'd probably be mostly annoyed by her.
So, in theory, this ship doesn't make sense since both of these two's personalities clash.
However
I was willing to give it a chance and let the fanfiction writers cook with this ship. I've read some ships that canonically don't make sense, but the fanfic writers made it work, and it made me like the ship.
So surely I was going to find some good Daminette fanfics thar actually made this ship work right?
.... kind of. There are some good Daminette fanfics that I've read, but there was one teeny tiny issue I had with them.
It's basically the same plot.
No, seriously. Reading A Daminette fanfiction on Wattpad and AO3 felt I was reading the same plot over and over again.
Here's your standard Daminette fanfiction:
Lila has successfully turned the entire school against Marinette by framing Marinette as the bad guy, and now she's getting bullied.
Alya is Lila's new best friend who absolutely hates Marinette's guts.
The whole class either goes to Gotham City for a school field trip where they meet the Wayne family, or Damian gets transferred to Paris.
Lila lies about having met the Waynes and either previously dated Damian or that Damian has a crush on her.
Marinette is somehow connected to the Wayne family or is related to a DC character (I actually read a fanfic where Marinette is Lady Shiva's niece. Sabine is Lady Shiva's sister and was previously part of the league of assassins.)
Damian becomes the knight in shining armour and the person to expose Lila's lies and humiliates her.
Obviously there's some miraculous/akuma and DC Young Justice and Teen Titans stuff going on but that's generally the what I've seen from damn near EVERY Daminette fanfic I've encountered and read.
Well, except one. It's called Darkest Night, Bluest Stars and it's written by my best friend. It's on Wattpad and AO3. It's pretty good.
It's like people are just recycling the same trope over and over, but don't even bother to be creative or play around with it at least a little. And I ain't gonna lie, it gets kinda boring seeing and reading the same trope for this ship over and over again.
Like is the only thing Daminette is good for is to be an outlet for writers and readers to have this one character/plot device who can actually expose Lila and just happens to come from a rich and elite family and has the power and influence to do so?
Like I see some potential for this ship.
We can go for
Enemies to lovers where Ladybug and Robin are forced to work together because they share a common enemy.
Forced proximity/reluctant allies where Robin is forced on a mission to Paris and has to work with Ladybug instead of riding solo.
You want some non hero AUs? I gotchu
Academic rivals to lovers
Blind Date
Fake Dating
Arranged Marriage/Business Partners
Opposites Attract
Like give us something with this ship that does not involve the Bullied Marinette and Saviour Damian trope, please, and thank you.
3 likes from Spapop, Azelfty, and indexingtruth.