Kat/Adena

Kat Edison/Adena El-Amin is a canonical femslash pairing in The Bold Type fandom.
==Canon==
Kat and Adena meet in the first episode of the series, when Kat wants to run an article on Adena, her photography, and her identity as an out lesbian Muslim woman who is proud of who is she. 
Their relationship undergoes a wide range of story-lines across the five seasons. 
==Fandom==
Fans saw chemistry between the two characters from the first episode, but didn't expect the show to follow through with it. Over the five seasons there were many parts of the relationship and the show which were well received and enjoyed, while other writing decisions were far more inconsistent or evoked frustration from fans.
The couple were widely discussed on social media and were the subject of many episodes in the podcast This Lesbian Ship is Intense as well as other podcasts discussing sapphic relationships in media.
On Archive of Our Own, the fandom for The Bold Type is relatively small at just 479 works as of October 2023. However, 340 of those works are tagged with Kat/Adena as a pairing, and, of those, 188 have Kat/Adena as the only pairing tagged. 
===Fan Commentary===
(overview of fans' reactions to the ship, including relevant quotes from both within and outside the fandom)
===Common Tropes and Fanon===
* Canon Divergence/Fix-it - Given the writing decisions made about the pairing and inconsistent characterisation, fans often took it upon themselves to re-write scenes, episodes or entire story-arcs in ways that they felt were more in-character and satisfying. 
===Controversies===
Fans of the Kadena pairing were often disappointed with story-arcs for the pairing and characters, especially in seasons 4 and the shortened season 5. A common feeling was that drama was being written into their relationship which made little to no sense based on their previous characterisation. 
For example, in season 4, Adena expresses biphobic views to Kat, which seem at odds with how she was written previously, being supportive in the early seasons of Kat exploring her sexual orientation and how she was attracted to men and women. There are also story-lines around cheating which seem at odds with both characters' earlier characterisation. One particular story-line which many fans found infuriating and very out of character was in season four, where the show wrote Kat being attracted to and eventually sleeping with a white republican with conservative views almost completely at odds to Kat's own.
Aisha Dee, who played Kat, also spoke out during seasons 4 and 5 about failings behind the scenes in writing Kat and Adena's characters and in how the show wrote and supported their BIPOC cast and crew.
As a result of these story-lines and writing decisions, some fans stopped watching the show entirely and others waited until there was confirmation that Kat and Adena were endgame before watching the final season. 
==Example Fanworks==
===Fanfic===
===Fanart===
*kat x adena 💖❤️💗💓 by afroditemademedoit.
===Fanvids===
*It's Love by WEISARE1.
*One Call Away by Prideoflove
===Other Fanworks===
===Meta===
*This Lesbian Ship is Intense podcast dedicate multiple episodes to discussing The Bold Type and Kat/Adena specifically.
==Archives and Communities==
*Kat x Adena tag at Tumblr
==Other Fannish Resources==
(Rec Lists, Big Bangs, Thing-a-thons, Holiday Exchanges, wiki links, etc.)
*Kat Edison/Adena El-Amin tag at Archive of Our Own
==References==
Category:The Bold Type
Category:Femslash Pairings
Category:Interracial Pairings