Hello good morning/day/night I’m a bit lost when it comes to Nathan from gym club and whats “canon” and fanon with him, could u help me?
So someone had found that in an old.. like, 2010 publication, there was a small report on the then in-development concept Lady Bug. Here:
so TLDR: The canon was that he's gorgeous, his name is nathan, and he was in the gym club. He was also marinette's love interest. Anything past that is "fanon". If concept stuff can even be considered fanon.
now, if you want a heavy breakdown, continue on.
So, introductory stuff: an idea in this fandom is that there are "concept characters" like Felix, Richard, Adoni, the Quantic Kids- more obscure designs like Sebastian, Flora, and Alina. Characters who don't exist in the canon 3D series- or at least not recognisable AS these characters.
For example, Melodie may have been developed into "Flora" (a fan name I like to use) who was later developed into Chloe.
They are so wildly different, it's easy to separate them into different characters. Chloe would never be friends with Marinette willingly, but Melodie or Flora are easily depicted as close friends of hers. It explains why she's a hero- at least on a meta sense.
So, back on track.
"Felix" was a design used very heavily in a LOT of concept work, He was Chat Noir's secret identity, Marinette's crush, and a boxer.
From the Artbook, Felix is described like this: "Felix is a classmate of Marinette, and he’s popular among girls. ... He has a speciality on athletics and boxing, and when he rotates his ring he can transform to Chat Noir."
Marinette is described like this: Marinette lives as a normal student at day.... Marinette is in love with Felix, but she doesn’t know Chat Noir is Felix in transformation.
Please keep that description in mind.
It was so established, in fact, that was the design that moved foreword for the PV. So he tends to be the most Well-Known because he DID get to star in some animation!
Felix' design got reused for Adrien's cousin, so the two characters get confused a lot. In a meta sense, Concept Art Felix is closer to Adrien then he is to Felix GDV.
However, he was later developed and changed into Adrien, the character that currently takes the role of Chat Noir. Adrien is notable for being attractive enough to be a model, and participates in the fencing club. Oh. He's also Marinette's Crush.
However, these were not the only designs that existed. Some of the earlier ones got pretty weird. Since the only thing that kept them strung together was the fact that this this character was the secret identity of Chat Noir as well as Marinette's Crush.
I'm quite fond of using some of these to depict Nathan.
So it's safe to assume that...
Nathan COULD be a preliminary name chosen BEFORE Felix was chosen- as names and identities were fluid. Early Marinette was Marietta, after all.
Him being in the gym club DOES mirror the fact that in concept work, Felix was noted to be a boxer as well as Adrien being a fencer- and that Marinette often chose to try and impress Felix by getting into athletics herself.
Nathan is labeled as gorgeous enough that Marinette is tempted to misuse her good luck powers to score a date with him. Something that Marinette would do frequently with Felix. Not so much with Adrien, but we're aware of her crush on him so it's hard to argue. With Felix' popularity with girls and Adrien... well.. Adrien being a model and also being fought over constantly....
This is like, an early publication. Its hard to argue that due to how early it is and how much lines up, or that it's fake- the site seems legit, but personally idk.
Also, it could just be a fluke in the report. Maybe this early Chat Noir identity character wasn't really named Nathan? But hey, concept fandom takes what scraps it gets. and pairing that up with how creepy early Chat was.. well, you get the picture. It's all trying ones best to tie up string, it's all fun.
most importantly, it gives me a new character to use. and I will use him for evil. i promise.