mostly reblogs

I have a theory that the introduction of "lovergirl Mira" as a taggable term legit helped course-correct the fandom's perception of Mira early on. I remember in the first few months post-release there was some contention in fandom on how mean or nonchalant Mira was/would be toward the girls. I think this was partly due to the whole "falling for the character's facade", as well as the typical fandom thing of applying tropes and behavior they already like onto a character, regardless of how in-character it might be. So what's a Mira fan to do when the fandom is leaning toward posting/writing/drawing her as a cold, standoffish loser who barely gives a compliment?

Enter: Lovergirl.

In one word (two words?) everyone is suddenly able to encapsulate Mira's soft side in comments and tags. Art of Mira bringing the girls flowers? Such a lovergirl! Fic of Mira cooking for them? As excepted for a lovergirl! Screenshot of Mira smiling at either Rumi or Zoey? Lover. Girl.

And because I love a graph, here's one to show the use of the Lovergirl Mira tag on Ao3 over the year. It took about till October for it to really take hold which does feel about right from my experience in the fandom.

Now none of this is to say that people are wrong for creating/liking a more distant or colder interpretation of Mira (I've read a ton of pre-debut stuff with that setup that were all great) because at the end of the day she doesn't have that much screen time compared to Rumi or Jinu, and so is far less developed as a character. That's always going lead to varying interpretations as fans start bringing their own takes to the less developed areas of her characterization and backstory. The difference is now you're more likely to see Mira being a little (or lot) more soft and sweet alongside being cool and tough, which feels a lot truer to her character in general.

Anyway, it's been fun watching people warm up to Mira over the year and I think a small part can be credited to the lovergirl PR campaign ran by Mira stans :)