#Fandom Analysis

[watermelonsloth]

I think the reason why Naruto fans get so passionate and upset about the series is because of how real it can be. Naruto isn’t about paragon heroes outdoing dastardly villains. It’s about human beings fighting tooth and nail to survive in a world surrounded by death. It’s about broken systems made and perpetuated by broken people.

The Hyuga clan isn’t just antagonistic or pretentious, they practice slavery.

The Uchiha clan weren’t just killed by some raging psychopath, they were systematically massacred.

Itachi isn’t just cruel to Sasuke because he’s a bad brother, he’s cruel because he’d been told time and time again that you can only survive by being cruel and he wants nothing more than for Sasuke to survive.

Nagato isn’t trying to take over the world just for the sake of power, he’s trying to take over the world because it beat him down to the point of believing that the only chance at peace there is is the world being forced into compliance through fear.

Iruka isn’t hard on Naruto just because he’s a strict teacher, he’s hard on Naruto because he knows from experience how unforgiving the world is towards orphans.

Kakashi isn’t just some silly and slightly lazy teacher, he’s a contract killer still grieving his loved ones and struggling to do better without knowing how he’s supposed to.

Sakura isn’t just a fangirl, she’s a normal girl in a very dangerous and abnormal world constantly being made to choose between what she’s supposed to do and what she feels.

Sasuke isn’t just some edgelord, he’s a survivor who lost everything then gets repeatedly told that he has to choose between keeping what he’s gained and doing better than his brother.

Naruto isn’t just trying to be the best Hokage there ever was, he’s trying to prove his worth to a society that abandoned him just for existing and, in a way, confirm his worth to himself.

The Naruto story is about humans trying to force themselves into the role of weapons because that’s what they were told they had to be. It’s a story where everyone is a perpetrator but no one is trying to do wrong. It’s a story where everyone is a victim but no one is a perfect victim.

The world and the characters aren’t simple and trying to simplify them only takes away from them. So of course we get passionate about showing off all the reasons why they shouldn’t be simplified and all of the ways they’re complicated. Of course we get upset when we see others simplifying them or selling certain aspects of their characters short. Of course we get upset when the series itself simplifies them. Of course we get upset when the series chooses to abandon them. Because it not only feels like the characters are giving up, it feels like the series is betraying anyone who chose to get invested in its complexities.

[random-dragon-exe]

Okay now, I'm wondering if Peri's baby wand was transformed into his current wand.

I mean I know that the current one is supposed to merely resemble it as a reference, but I kinda like the idea that Peri transformed it into the current one himself to reflect his growth and personality.

You know the idea of holding onto a childhood item because of its sentimental value?

I imagine Peri held onto it because it reminded him of his childhood and his time with Timmy; it was his way of keeping a piece of him with him.

Besides, if Jorgen can change his wand from a peace sign to a regular star-shaped wand for later:

Then I don't see why Peri could transform his wand too.

Maybe the regular wands we see are like the standard look, but fairies could alter/transform their wands as they please if they want to. (But most if not all, fairies choose the standard look).

[sagaduwyrm]

Something that interests me about Girl Genius is the way that the Heterodynes are consistently portrayed as the worst of the worst despite being pretty reasonable by Spark standards.

This is not to say that they are reasonable by normal people standards, or that they were anything approaching decent people. This is pointing out that compared to other sparks, who figured out they could conquer places and immediately started the Long War, the Heterodynes have had little to no large scale negative effect on the world.

Evidence: Zumzum

While in Zumzum Agatha finds out that the Heterodyne raids rolled through the town "every four years or so, sure as the moonrise" (Agatha H. and the Clockwork Princess). Despite this the town is, though small, prosperous. They have a fully staffed guard and enough spare income that the circus was initially planning to remain for three days.

Compare this to the numerous dead towns noted to be littering the wastelands. Sparks regularly render towns unlivable or dead. The Heterodynes, however traumatize them and steal their stuff, but still leave the towns they raid capable of functioning. From this we can assume that, despite what we are told, the Heterodynes are not only capable of self-restraint, they're good at it.

Evidence 2: Heterodyne Creations

The Heterodynes left an enduring legacy in the form of constructs, clanks, and the castle. Many of these are hundreds of years old and yet have little trouble functioning. This means that the Heterodynes not only build to last, but their descendants are willing to put in the time for upkeep rather than get distracted and focus on the next big thing.

The Heterodynes are the only sparks with so many creations still running around. Other sparks, like Van Rijn, do have some creations that have lasted the ages, but nothing compared to the sheer quantity of the Heterodynes.

Also, consider the jägerkin. The jägers are some of the most important Heterodyne constructs, and have acted as the core of their army and their honor guard for more than half a millennia. Despite this, they don't have levels of speed or strength much beyond average, at least as far as spark constructs go. Instead, they're noted for their remarkable survivability. This again suggests that Heterodynes prioritize longevity to a remarkable level for sparks.

Evidence the Last: Europa still Exists

I repeat myself, after two centuries of off and on spark warfare, significant amounts of Europa is unlivable. The Heterodynes had ten centuries and Europa was fine. Do the math.

However, despite this show of consistent reason, the Heterodynes are constantly described in story as evil incarnate. I'd like to posit that this suggests both that in-story lore should be taken as unreliable, but also that the most dangerous sparks aren't the flashy, fire and brimstone assholes. It's the consistent, intelligent ones who know when to back off and when to press that are the real danger, and it's for this reason that the continent fears Heterodynes. Not because they're uniquely capable of destruction, but because they know when not to destroy.

The Heterodynes are the oldest dynasty in Europa. To everyone with the slightest understanding of how sparks work, this is terrifying.

Also, here's a post that tries to answer why the Heterodynes are uniquely like this. You should read it. It partially inspired this.

[necrotic-nephilim]

@profandomhopper i was going to reblog the original post this comment was left on but i felt it divorced itself from the original topic so much, you get your own post for giving me delightful permission to ramble about this. buckle in people this is long.

so, DC is a big fandom that expanses a lot of different types of content, and like anything, is subject to crossovers. the obvious ones like Marvel are for the reason of being a similar and equally popular superhero world, so it's easy to transpose the worlds onto each other and overlap the characters. both of these worlds deal with multiverses and endless, endless heroes. it makes sense and there's no real stretch to think Batman and Spider-Man could co-exist. i mean, there have been canon crossover comics. and even some more random crossovers like White Collar have pretty easy to trace origins, being an actor in WC was a popular Dick fancast back in the day so there was some bleeding over that led to a well-loved niche crossover space.

but Danny Phantom and Miraculous Ladybug are where it gets interesting. because at a surface, MLB sort of makes sense. it's a superhero world, you're following a teen girl superhero and sure the mechanics are pretty contained, but the crossover should make sense. but when you compare it to the crossover numbers of other superhero media like say My Hero Academia, Ladybug takes the *crown* with such a bizarre popularity. and of course, DP feels like it makes even less sense. sure, you *could* lump it into at the very least, superhero-adjacent media, but it's not a true hero world like MLB or DC is.

but, the thing to always understand about DC, *especially* the Batfamily (which is where the crossover content propagates the most) is this: a *very* good chunk of fans don't interact with the comics. i would venture to say even most Batfamily fans don't read the comics and actively talk about it. we've all read a very fandom big Batfam fanfic where the author's note mentions the writer has never touched a comic in their life. typically, these fans are either cobbling together their understanding from fandom content, or by frankensteining unrelated DC adaptations to understand each character. you take Bruce from Batman: TAS, you take Dick from the animated Young Justice, you take Jason from Batman: Under The Red Hood animated movie, you take Damian from the DCAMU Batman vs Robin, and you read some fandom metas to fill in the rest and well, you've got some sort of an understanding of these characters. read enough incorrect quotes, some genfic, a couple of character metas, and boom, you understand the Batfamily fandom enough to start creating your own content. and of course now. now you have Wayne Family Adventures so it's even *easier*. a pretty easy to pick up webtoon that's filling in all the gaps for you. but i've been in this fandom long enough to remember before we had WFA and even then, this was still a common, if not the most popular way, to ween yourself into the DC fandom space. you cherry-picked the canon you liked and then plunged into the depths of fanon.

i'm not here to make in depth commentary on if i think this is a good or bad thing. trust me i have that commentary in my head, but that would need it's own post. i'm very split on it and my feelings are complicated. my feelings on WFA are even *more* complicated. because oftentimes, the attitude expressed by these fans who are frankensteining this version of the Batfamily/DC world they have in their head is they don't *want* to read the comics. the comics don't contain the content they're after. and to an extent, i understand that. if you're looking for light-hearted vibes of the Batfamily all getting along and having the occasional hurt/comfort moments but in the end, they hug and make up, you're right. largely, you won't find that in canon. of course there are so many comics to recommend for Batfamily interactions, but you have to get specific. you'll find them interacting in small groups, Tim and Dick bonding here, Duke and Cass bonding there, but largely, the comics don't care to balance the ridiculously large cast they've given themselves. but fandom does. it's easy to toss them all in a blender and ignore the parts you don't like. the default argument to ignoring the comics or writing something OOC is always "well the comics are OOC and inconsistent too" which, while a flawed argument that massively misunderstand how comics work as a medium, isn't an entirely incorrect one. you could serve on a silver platter to these fans, an easy and accessible way to get into comics and they wouldn't be interested. it's not what they're here for. fandom is always character-driven above all else. it's driven by character relationships and dynamics. if someone wants to consume content where Tim idolized and stalked Jason as 'his Robin' and now is trying to help him rehabilitate and they're super complicated but have this long epic forgiveness arc, why *would* they read the comics? because they're sure as shit not going to find that dynamic in the comics. it's laughably OOC and not canon at all, but that doesn't matter. what matters is the sandbox. most Batfamily fans care *far* more about the sandbox canon gives them than the actual canon itself. feel how you feel about that, this really isn't being negative toward that attitude, but it is a common attitude.

so, you have Batfamily fans playing in the sandbox and building their own narrative. common fandom headcanons are so common, you could practically write a guide on how the fanon Batfamily works with how consistent people are about it. or you could just read WFA, which is practically the new manifesto of it. even now, with this sudden spike in people talking about canon accuracy and "actually this happening in the comics", they don't actually care about the comics, just what they can cherry-pick for fodder. (even if they rob it of so much context they're just as OOC as they were before. see specifically: the recent phenomena with Tim Drake going from the woobified weakest member of the Batfam who everyone needs to save constantly and he's the smart boy but he's also the one with a sad tragic neglectful past who gets overlooked being the way Batfamily fandom played with Tim for years. but recently, people seem to be pushing this idea of a ridiculously badass Tim, Tim who *totally* has a kill count because of his actions in RR (2009) if you take them completely out of context, Tim who bested Ra's and is even more badass than Jason and he's the 17 yr old CEO of Wayne Industries being cool and flawless it becoming the new fandom zeitgeist. neither of these versions of Tim are canon, and the second fundamentally misunderstands his arc in RR (2009) but the shift has undeniably happened and it's been fascinating to watch. the same thing happened with people suddenly deciding Jason isn't the "angry violent Robin", he was a sunshine sweet boy who was perfect as Robin. neither of these are true, but the second feels more transgressive and new to fandom from cherry-picked panels.) the point is largely, Batfamily fans would rather build their own canon than play with the actual canon.

and then, you have Danny Phantom. i'm not into DP and have no interest to get into it, but what i know about it via fandom osmosis is this: DP fans sort of also don't give a fuck about canon. once again, the canon of DP is a sandbox, not a rulebook. the concepts and the characters are the draw, not the plot itself. i've seen DP posts explaining characters who are essentially OCs, but have become so dominant in the fandom via fandom osmosis. there are concepts and ideas about how Danny's powers work and potential concepts with his ghost nature that either aren't in canon or only happened once in canon and fans decided to expand on that and doesn't care about it's own in-universe logic. i've seen a lot of DP fans also express they haven't seen the show and they don't have plans to see the show. because the show is just some children's cartoon with some inconsistencies and a simple plot, as you'd expect from CN. the show isn't the point. no one cares about it's plot, they care about it's characters. they care about pushing the concept of half ghost boy to a logical extreme and seeing what you can get out of that. can you make it weird and fucked up. how much can you highlight on his trauma and body horror. what identity crisis can you give him and how can you build his interactions with other characters in his world around that and also make those characters fun and unique on their own. sure, the skeleton of canon is there, but the meat lies all in the fanon.

Miraculous Ladybug also exists in this similar vein. the characters, the concepts, those hold intrigue. and not even mentioning the fact the original concept for this show was supposed to be aimed to an older audience, so you can see the bones of something a bit more mature and nuanced under this typical, villain of the week magical girl transformation show. the show itself is a bit shallow and that's not a *bad* thing, it's just the medium it exists within being aimed towards children. but the concepts of a teen girl who's basically a sort of chosen one, a boy who doesn't know his father is the big bad of the show, and their weird identity porn love... square thing. those dynamics are *so* complicated and such a fun sandbox to play in with character-driven fandom.

so, at the core, you have three fandoms that care more about the culturally accepted fanon than the canon, with a good chunk of people often not even consuming the original canon content. and well, DC is an *easy* world to transpose just about anything onto. a boy who's half ghost and fighting supernatural threats? that makes sense, DC has ghost heroes like Deadman already. a girl who has this magical item that gives her animal themed superpowers? i mean that's practically the same thing as Vixen's Totem so that one makes sense too. they fit in pretty easy, no needing to change the world to accommodate them. and of course, if you're a fan of *one* fandom where you don't care for the canon content and only like the fandom sandbox, chances are, you'll get drawn in pretty easily to another fandom with similar mechanics. if you can teach yourself the DP fandom rules/concepts, you can teach yourself the Batfamily fandom rules/concepts. and well, since there's so much crossover in fandom members, why not write the fanfiction? crossover fics will always exist, but with such a shared member base, you have a really big boom.

it's why the characters you see DP interact with in DC are *always* characters who are far more driven by fanon than canon. Danny and John Constantine is a *massive* concept. for people who don't read Hellblazer comics. my poor partner, @divine-dominion has lamented to me pretty often about finding DP content in the Hellblazer tag that is essentially turning Constantine into an OC. because whatever version of Constantine is being written about isn't one bit comics accurate, and really, isn't trying to be. and the same thing happens with Shazam. you watch Young Justice and understand him well enough, you get drawn in by the character concept that you just run with it. people put their favorite blorbos in the same place because hey, wouldn't ghost boy be pretty cool in a city like *Gotham*. how would Batman even react to him. and then, the shipping. because ages for the Batfamily can be easily hand-waved and moved around based on where you plop Danny into the timeline, you have your pick of the litter with him, and same with Ladybug. of course there are the most popular ships but largely, the world is your oyster.

i don't think this is the worst thing in the world for either fandom. it's not hard to filter out the crossover tags and scroll past content i don't like. and sure, i see the appeal of making your blorbos from two different places meet. i've got my drafts *full* of DC/MHA crossover ideas because well, i like them both and think that would be cool. i think my only gripe with it is when DP or MLB crossover content seeps it's way into the wrong tags. using the above example, if you're writing about Danny and Constantine but there's zero content of the actual Hellblazer comics, i don't think you need the Hellblazer tag, just the Constantine character tag. tbh i wish this extended onto Ao3 and people utilized fandom tags better. if you're writing Batfamily fanfiction that is very clearly and obviously WFA driven in characterization and concepts, i would far prefer those fics be tagged with the WFA fandom tag rather than the Batman (comics) fandom tag. because well, you're not writing about the Batman comics. and there's nothing wrong with that, but it helps if you don't confuse yourself for content striving to interact with canon more. (this especially extends to Young Justice, by the way. if you're writing for the Young Justice tv show please, please stop using the Young Justice (comics) fandom tag. i'm at my wit's end- /lh)

the whole thing is fascinating. i've got zero interest in entering DP or MLB as fandoms because that's not my speed, but witnessing it as an outsider is my favorite pastime. i see a *lot* of posts going around the DC x DP space that are helping explain to people who's who, what's what, and understanding the canon/fanon of both of these properties so others can better enter the space. which is not something you'd need in a fandom driven only by it's canon content, but it is sweet watching others try to help newbies enter the space. it's a very inviting fandom space, i think, whether you lament it's existence or not. they're just sitting in their corner with their blorbos, and i gotta respect that. the posts explaining the Batfamily to DP fans are always fun for me to read, even if i disagree with some of the characterizations in them because it helps shine a light on what the fans of this crossover regard as "important" enough about each fandom to be worth including those sorts of primers. very fascinating stuff.

[ao3demographicssurvey2024]

In the AO3 Demographics Survey 2024 - an unofficial demographics survey of 16,131 AO3 users - 44% of respondents used AO3 to consume art or comics, and 17% used the site to read essays or meta.

To see more analysis, including transcripts of all the data shown on the graphs, please view the full results on AO3.

[sprite-and-the-bunnydragons]

throwing my thoughts about the lu dungeon teams at your dash …

latest lu post(s) spoilers ahead!

Team Want Snuggles, Get Struggles (Sky and Twilight):

this one caught me off guard at first, but it makes total sense and shows a lot about Time’s character now that I think about it. Aside from being kind, Sky’s arguably the best fighter in the Chain (not counting op items like Time’s masks). Unlike Warriors or Time, Sky doesn’t have any set expectations about Twilight and his recovery. Likewise, Sky struggles enough with running that Twilight can’t push himself too far, too fast. I think this matchup’s going to give them both some much-needed space to breathe, and I’m excited to see how they fight together!

Team Magically Bad Decisions (Legend and Hyrule):

I totally get why Time’s frustrated at the Downfall Duo atm, but I am so. excited. for this matchup. We’ve all imagined/drawn/written about the connection between Legend and Hyrule, but I don’t think we’ve really seen the Downfalls BE a real duo in the comic before. And the fact that they have the trickiest, most out-there job out of the crews is the cherry on top. Maybe they’ll finally figure out that Rulie is Legend’s successor…

Team Doomed by the Narrative (Warriors and Wild):

yeah. This one’s gonna blow up in EVERYONE’S faces. Wild’s been uncomfortable with Warriors from the earliest comics (even before there was a full-fledged story!), I’d be surprised if he doesn’t see Wars as what he “should” have been. I think it’s only gotten worse since then—look how much Wild sweats whenever Wars turns to him! And add Wild’s creativity to Warriors’s military training, it’s going to be a train wreck. Side note, I’m wondering if this matchup means for the first time in lu, Warriors doesn’t seem to have a clear head. The only 2 Links without traditional dungeon experience? On their own? Wars isn’t doing this for strategy, he’s doing it to talk to Wild about something in private (*shiver*). Or Wars is overestimating the Chain’s abilities to come out on top. Either way, it’s not going to be pretty. At least they both wear blue tho

Team Worst Best. Day. Ever. (Time, Wind, and Four):

they’re already adorable your honor. Personality AND fighting style wise, this trio’s great together. We’ve already seen Four and Time fighting together using both their sizes in awesome ways! I’m sure Wind will catch onto it fast, if he hasn’t already. Plus Four’s experiences with teamwork in a group about their size should make them gel really well. And they each have (about) two adventures apiece! Out of everyone, I’d be the least concerned about this group…which means I should be very, very concerned😳 feels like a false sense of security to me

anyway thank you for coming to my ted talk and reading through this monstrosity

[shyjusticewarrior]

A side effect of fans often writing Damian and Tim as having canon Jason's modern relationship with the killing rule is people claiming Jason isn't different & unique when he isn't actively slaughtering people.

[sneezypeasy]

This is why I prefer to let other people take the mic when it comes to fandom/moral critique. Even on my best day, I couldn't publish a fandom-critical take half as comprehensive and coherent as this one.

Reposted anonymously with permission from OP, who understandably does not want to deal with hate comments/hate asks for expressing these opinions.

(Hopefully the screenshots load properly on tumblr, I know the first one is incredibly long 😅)

[sundropcass]

my friend and i were talking about glimmer from she-ra and i mentioned how i love the season 4 parallel between glimmer and catra. it’s so intentional and all i could think about is how the entire fandom hated glimmer during that season. it’s probably the fandom’s most hated character arc. but it is SO CRUCIAL to who she is as a character. idk i think people who didn’t understand that glimmer arc just didn’t get her at all.

[maxdibert]

I have a question; so M stans make fun of Snape’s looks but at the same time some attribute to their characters via headcanons conventionally “unattractive” features. How’s that so ?

and regarding the new fans that seem to have a preference, do you thing any of them will change their mind

Look, I don't want to get into this topic because honestly, it's something that delves into the world of projection and lack of self-esteem. But I'm going to give my opinion on what I believe is happening, and I say "believe" to be humble, but deep down, I'm 99.999999% sure that this is what's going on.

Severus was a loser, an outcast, and the cool kids bullied and beat him up. He wasn't a typical main character; he wasn't charismatic or socially successful. Fans of the Marauders are probably much like him in their daily lives, but they don't want to be like him. They want to be the main characters and sublimate their fantasies and desires for social triumph and popularity. Since they can't achieve this in the real world, they turn to fiction, a common escape route. To do this, they've chosen the rich and popular kids from the story, the ones everyone feared, wanted, or followed. But those popular kids have nothing to do with them as people. Nothing. Not physically, not in personality, not in values. James Potter and Sirius Black would have beaten up any of their most ardent fans who project onto them so distortedly to identify with them. Because James Potter and Sirius Black are not social justice warriors defending the weak, challenging gender stereotypes, and going against the established norms. James Potter and Sirius Black are two rich, abusive kids who like to show off, proving they can rule the schoolyard however they please, hexing anyone who annoys them too much in the hallways, especially a Slytherin kid who, curiously, doesn't come from a good family, has no money, no parents to back him up, and who they laugh at for wearing old underwear and strip naked in the middle of the school. James Potter and Sirius Black publicly strip people; they're that kind of guys—those white dudes with hyper-toxic masculinity who assert their power through force. They're the opposite of breaking gender stereotypes or challenging the hegemonic norms of masculinity. They're alpha males. And Remus Lupin is not a fuckboy; he's a fucking cowardly loser with self-esteem on the floor and not half a ball to tell his friends they're assholes because, honestly, they aren't really his friends. They're people who appreciate him because he provides them with monthly entertainment and doesn't cause problems. And Peter Pettigrew is their cheerleader and pet. But fans don't like that because they can't identify with them, just like they can't identify with Barty Crouch or Regulus Black, two rich, fanatic kids eager to kill Muggles. But they're the cool kids, and the fans want to be the cool kids they never were in school or belong to that group of social privileged. That's why they've invented OCs with canon names like Pandora, Marlene, or Dorcas—or whoever—who no one cares about, to project themselves as part of the "cool crew." So they've basically changed the personalities of these characters and turned them into guys who don't conform to traditional masculinity or challenge beauty standards (despite Sirius, for example, being described countless times as the epitome of male beauty, but okay) and don't fit hegemonic models (like the headcanon of Lily being fat, even though Lily is also described countless times as a super pretty and very popular girl partly because of this). This way, they use the characters as projections of themselves and sublimations of their frustrated dreams. Not picking on Snape, not hating Snape, not criticizing Snape, not laughing at Snape would mean stepping out of their fantasy and accepting that, indeed, if they'd been in the same class as James and Sirius, they would've been just like Snape. That's how they would've seen them. They would've never accepted them in their group or made them part of the school social elite. It wouldn't have worked that way. So it's okay; they make Severus ten times uglier and justify body shaming and victim blaming by turning him into some kind of obsessed potential rapist, thus finding an excuse to dissociate from the fact that, in real life, they probably have ten times more in common with him than with any member of that generation. But, of course, they don't want to remember in their fantasy worlds of triumph and success how much of losers they are in real life. It just doesn't fit.

And I'm not talking about the long-time Marauders fans, those who are fans knowing they were assholes and still like them because they were the worst and portray them faithfully. I'm not including them here, okay? I'm talking about the fucking dumbs with cognitive dissonance issues, and I wouldn't shit on them if it weren't for the level of victim blaming they handle and the dangerous discourses they spread around, like blaming a victim of sexual assault and bullying for having received violence. These people should look in a fucking mirror because they're admiring characters who would break their fucking heads if they could.

In other words, I would tell these people to learn to love themselves more and stop being so pitiful because the desperation for success is noticeable from miles away and is a natural repellent to achieving it.

[whatsjulietslastname]

expending on the mlm pricefield thing (and i’m not talking about double exposure anymore), i think if pricefield had been one of the first mlm pairing to be openly queer in video games history, it would’ve been way more of a big deal back when the game was released and years later. i also think little to no people would be debating whether their relationship is platonic or not, and people would’ve been way faster at jumping to the conclusion that you were homophobic if you thought they were.

historically, the most popular mlm pairings (i’m thinking johnlock, kirk and spock from star trek, merlin and arthur, all the h*rry p*tter and marvel gay ships) have a way bigger fanbase and are way less denied than the wlw ones (i’m thinking supercop, emma swan and regina mills, betty and veronica from riverdale etc). (for the record, i looked up “queerbaiting” to make this post and have examples, and found like a dozens of mlm pairings and always the same few wlw ones…) AND it is way more socially acceptable to say “those two women have a platonic relationship” whereas, if you do the same with johnlock, for instance, you WILL get an angry twenty paragraphs long reply about how there was nothing platonic about it (even though John Watson married a woman).

my point is not “he married a woman so he wasn’t queer” my point is, whenever one part of a wlw pairing has a boyfriend, or a man who she shows a glimpse of interest in (*cough cough* Warren Graham *cough cough*), it is IMMEDIATELY used as ‘evidence’ that this character cannot be queer since she can be in a heterosexual relationship — which is an argument that, again, you will practically never find directed at a gay ship. and, again, the few people who do use this argument against mlm pairings are called ‘homophobic’.

AGAIN, i am not saying that you cannot ship Warren and Max or are homophobic if you do, i’m saying that if Chloe and Max had been two guys, people would’ve been so focused on them, on Max’s diary’s entries, and the two possible kisses they can share onscreen, and the flirting and implications in their relationship, and Chloe’s obvious attraction to Max, that grahamfield would’ve had a way smaller fanbase — or no fanbase at all. and people would’ve absolutely disregarded the fact that you can make Max romance Warren (who is a girl in this scenario). they would’ve seen Warren’s nearly one-sided flirting, and would’ve immediately gone “she (Warren) is in love with him (Max) and he doesn’t give a fuck” (and the kiss in the Two Whales would’ve been collectively ignored by the entire fandom, as is Mary Watson, or Pepper Potts, or Tonks, or Ginny Weasley).

but BECAUSE Max and Chloe are girls, people are still debating whether she is even queer or not by saying “if i make her romance Warren she experiences no attraction towards Chloe and therefore is straight” which is false, because the attraction is HERE. all you, as a player, get to decide is whether or not Max acts on it. and no matter how much evidence there is that Max is indeed romantically interested in Chloe, you will NEVER convince those people, because to them, the moment a woman and a guy interact in a non-platonic way, this woman has to end up with said guy, no matter how queer-coded her relationship with another woman is.

and now that pricefield is broken up, people who would’ve been rioting if it had been guys are calling people who are rightfully upset ‘dramatic’. just try and imagine the reaction of the Sherlock fandom if Sherlock was returning without Watson because “they argued off-screen and decided to stop seeing each other”. those guys aren’t childhood best friends, are never romantically involved, their fandom hasn’t been begging to have a glimpse of them together for ten years, and yet i can’t even imagine how angry people would be. all this fandom was asking was to at least not destroy Max and Chloe’s friendship, and look where we are now.

[qtubbo]

There has been some talk (mainly on twitter but some here) about calling Em, Tubbo’s daughter. It comes off as so cold, and anti what qsmp family have been teaching, if you don’t agree with that dynamic being there that’s perfectly fine (you are allowed opinions funfact). The reason though is always upsetting, stating that Empanada has enough parents, that she’s perfectly happy without him, that any outsiders to her established family would be an intruder trying to take her away. Qsmp’s family’s are a village, what’s so disturbing about someone non official becoming an eggs parent that didn’t “join” the family.

Using Bad and Pomme as an example, Pomme has 4 other parents (in this case I guess it would be bad taking pomme from the french) that take good care of her. When Bad considers Pomme his daughter, it’s out of love, just because he wasn’t assigned doesn’t mean he can’t have parental love for her. Pomme would be fine without Bad being her dad, but Bad being her dad doesn’t Affect her negatively at all. Pomme still choses to wake up for her other parents, bad doesn’t have priority, and it’s ridiculous to assume that he took her from them. Pomme and Bad are not related by a family tree, they just love each other like father and daughter and so they became that.

It’s a bigger statement of the fandom as a whole and how we really push for familial ties forged by blood even in an adoption setting. For example no one had issue with the idea of Roier being Richas’s dad instead of his uncle because he had forged a literal connection to Cellbit. In the same vein people often depict Cellbit as Bobby’s dad in another life even though he never really got to take care of him. These were never considered taking Richas or Bobby from their parents because there was a marriage, Roier joined Cellbit’s family. The most I ever see going against this dynamic is people arguing Cellbit isn’t Jaiden’s family, which inherently pushes the point once again.

We are given examples of non traditional family relationships where everything is done by adoption and there is barely any blood relationships. Though as a fandom we still try to push things into a traditional box. Fit and Tubbo are not related, nor is Fit to any of Sunny’s parents, yet he still calls her his child. They love each other like father and daughter, so why should it be any different why should Fit be blocked from that because he’s not married to any of Sunny’s parents.

Why is seeing a familial relationship more similar to father and daughter between Empanada and Tubbo an issue. If you believe they love each other like that, shouldn’t that be enough. Why must we consider love like that to be certified, that anyone else getting involved is an invader that is just getting in the way of the old parents.

Every single egg was adopted none have parents that would be considered traditional, but yet we still push for the perfect traditional nuclear family were there is no village, there is no family outside the one given, and believing in anything else is disgusting.

[minugasakuranohana]

Kōyō and Mori related post, part 2

... about that problematic Mori's phrase from ch 37

Please read [Part 1] before reading this

[In Russian] and [abt translation of this dialogue in Russian]

@emilover-1 and @plinko-mori, I hope you'll read it once 𖹭 Happy new year!

And about his line of behaviour in this situation at all.

Previously Kōyō said: Of course. But sad to say, I need to help our unreliable boss get this organization back in order. The one to whom my hatred belongs is your predecessor. Right now, I'm feeling pretty good about being here.

(Japanese: 無論じや。じゃが生憎と頼りない首領が組織を立て直す手伝いがあるでのう。彼の人の仇は先代じゃ。今は此処が気に入っておる)

What did Mori reply (in Japanese)?

He said: 嬉しいけど私の守備範囲は十二歳以下だよ？

To begin with, during the research process, let's maintain absolute neutrality.

meme (or not meme) about it ↘️

Now you are ready, so we're gonna dissect this fucking phrase!

The best known translation are:

I'm quite happy you said that, but I'm only interested in those under 12 years old.

I'm very glad to hear that, but I'm only interested in those under 12, you know?

Please, don't worry.

嬉しい - happy, glad. Here = «I'm quite happy you said that», «I'm very glad to hear that» (I prefer the second one, because it rhymes. There wasn't something like this in Japanese version, and I didn't see it in Russian, but here... 🥺 Let them talk in rhyming banter with each other). From the beginning Mori choose the opposite line to her words «sad to say», 生憎と. It's funny.

けど - «but», follows is contradictory to what comes before. (And you use が to say «but» when ideas are in contrast)

私 - I (official or just gender neutral version of the pronoun «I», using by many people now)

私の - my

守備範囲 - that fucking word 😒🙄🫣

Dictionary says:

しゅびはんい — 守備範囲 — noun

area of the field one is supposed to (or able to) defend (sports term)

(one's) field, (one's) scope, area of expertise, range of topics one can converse about, breadth of one's interests and knowledge

one's type, kind of person one is attracted to

You can use this word meaning «defence» only when you talk about sport. So this isn't about defence in Mori's phrase. Even Japanese dictionaries say so:

Goo:

守備範囲

スポーツで、自分の守るべき範囲。また、守ることができる範囲。スポーツ = sport, スポーツで = in sport. Meaning: «The scope of one's protection. Also, the extent to which it can be protected

自分がすべきことの範囲。また、自分ができることの範囲。«The scope of what you should do. Also, the scope of what you can do»

Weblio:

守備範囲

守ることができる範囲、または守るべき範囲、などを意味する表現 。 That sport term.

趣味・嗜好・異性の顔の造作などにおいて、好みとする対象の広さなどについて言う場合もある。«It may also refer to the extent of one's preference in hobbies, tastes, facial features of the opposite sex, etc.»

The best words to keep together 2nd and 3rd parts from English dictionary entry is «something what you are interested in». Because there's a probability he meant 2nd part and there's a probability he meant 3nd.

は - you really wanna know? Go and read about grammar. Okie, it's the word you use to mark the topic. [Link for grammar]

十二 = 12

歳 - years old

以下 - under

だ - marks present tense and positive sentences. (There are other ways for other sentences) It's a casual form of です. [Link for だ grammar] and [Link for difference between だ and です]

よ - «It indicates that the speaker is offering new information or a new perspective to the listener. Or at the very least, it gives the impression that something new is being offered.» Someone who translated manga added «you know?» for this nuance. [Link]

Mori replied «I'm very glad to hear that, but I'm only interested in those under twelve years old, you know?» Sorry, not sorry, it's really these words.

But the game ain't over at all!

What was it about? You know, words, it's a complicated thing...

Noticed something about «glad/happy»? It sounds a bit strange. He can be happy 'cause she doesn't hate him, or she is content to be here. But after the words «unreliable boss»? Is it irony?

Some thoughts of meaning:

Kōyō, but you are an adult! Stop insulting; stop attacking friends! You aren't Elise (Mori, you really thought at least one of them would stop?) In this case, does Elise have Kōyō's traits?

«You hate only the former boss + You like to be here» ➡️ «You like / love me, right? Oh, you know, with your childish behavior, if you were 12, I might have liked you too, maybe» 🤣 Remember, she canonically doesn't love «love». Mori just fights back.

On the other hand, I've heard the version that her words could be a romantic thing. But then he's just a master at shooting people down in the most cringe-worthy way.

Another point: it could be something like «Oh my, you really tHaT oLd? Are you seriously saying you can teach me running the organization? Behave yourself, my another traumatized adopted child» Some years ago she was angry when Chūya called her «Ane-san», but now 🤭

In any case, he made her feel uncomfortable with his shitty words. That's the punishment for willfulness and impoliteness (?)

Why, or what for?

Because she really hurts his feelings

Her phrase and his face are placed on the same frame. It makes sense, and it matters. Look at Mori! His eyes are open, but the lower lid is tensed / squinted, and you can see the expression lines. The iris is white – he usually has black eyes, so she's hit the mark, hit a nerve. The eyebrows are in a normal position, but it feels a little strained. The lips are composed, or there's just a general tensing of all the facial muscles.

✨ Some interesting information ✨

Why he smiled after - because he understood her feelings and thoughts. As an adult is surprised by a child's antics, but then shakes his head with a smile)

Anime makes this scene worse. Mori's reaction is too weak. All they drew was the basic emotion of surprise, and Mori is a complex character. Harukawa reflects this complexity of emotions: he's surprised, but Koyo's words also evoked displeasure (I'm 99% sure ), a little anxiety is there too (maybe 60-70% sure), insecurity, fear and regret are likely there.

He isn't shocked just a bit surprised but almost calm

For comparison:

In anime, I like to hear their voices and sound effects. The musical background puts a clear emphasis on the phrase koyo, this is the punchline of the dialogue.

I don't wanna say that Bones didn't try to do their best, but Harukawa is... an entirely different matter. There's no comparison to begin with. Just as... nobody would compare Goddess with anything, right?

Sorry - not sorry, I'm too lazy to do another gif with eng sub. «Конечно» = «Of course», « К сожалению, мне нужно помочь неуклюжему лидеру восстановить организацию» = «But sad to say, I need to help our unreliable boss get this organization back in order», «Я благодарен, но интересуюсь только теми, кому меньше 12» = «I'm glad to hear that, but I'm only interested in those under , you know?»

And she isn't t that calm yelling at him: «SHUT THE FUCK UP! I will sew your lips together!», if you pay attention to the size of kanji and lines of speech bubble.

Yes, 黙れ is a very rough word. Don't use it, please.

I found this scene in stage play here, file with stage plays, «Bungo Stray Dogs on stage 3». Timeline: start at 2:16:33 and end at 2:17:50

But video shows HER face when she's saying that phrase, so I can't say anything about Mori's facial expression in that moment 😭 How could them -

There's no «彼の人の仇は先代じゃ。今は此処が気に入っておる» (The one to whom my hatred belongs is your predecessor. Right now, I'm feeling pretty good about being here) Both anime and stage play cut these sentences out. Why? The next Mori's phrase looses its sense a little bit in this way, isn't it?! Wtf

Anyway, right after she said her part, and Mori replied, and then she said «damare…», they laughed together. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

'Cause he's boss

And the insubordination (or something similar) didn't vanish. Akutagawa is his own punishment; honestly, I'm totally agree. But Kōyō – he's just… Taunting her? Hahaha. Best boss ever, isn't he?

Whatever he meant, she's not okay with these words and we're too. That's the whole punishment. Just to check the box ✅

Boss-of-the-Port-Mafia-Mori-Ougai be like:

And because Mori cares a lot about Kōyō, if you look closely

...he couldn't do something more

I see Mori-Kōyō relationship as his redemption arc. He learns to respect human soul and heart, [心]. (That actual reason why Fukuzawa and Yosano dislike him). He combines therapeutic moments for Kōyō with his «evil mafia plans.» At least he didn't want to traumatize her with the possibility of killing that girl.

It's very interesting to analyse it one day. I will, but not before I read «Kokoro» by Natsume Sōseki. They talk about character-Natsume tactic, and then there's just the concept of the [heart] / [心]. But in Japanese, you read it as [こころ], [kokoro], got it? 🧐

I strongly believe that Mori planned more than that. Why else would he forbid her to take Kyouka back before the conflict started? (Chapters 17-18) He let her see the light to get her away from the mafia. As he let Dazai go. As he offered Higuchi. As 14 y. o. Kōyō wanted. It's good for her to see Ky��ka's story, to let her go, to become a better person than the former boss. It's her character development. Mori isn't evil. He does bad things from time to time, but he also does good things.

Guild arc wasn't an easy one for Kōyō. Even if he unintentionally triggered her trust issues and anxiety, he tried to help.

I haven't said anything about 守備範囲 as «(one's) field, (one's) scope, area of expertise, range of topics one can converse about, breadth of one's interests and knowledge», have I? Oops)

Imagine, for example... What if Fukuzawa's words were important to Mori? We didn't even know what happened between them when Rampo and Yosano escaped. Did Fukuzawa run away after «the clock struck 12»? 🤭 Or did Mori actually lose that battle? Or did he lose because he didn't want to win at all? As Natsume's "subordinate" or sth he has to do everything he can for their tactic. But as a human being, well, he regrets traumatizing Yosano. What if he not only let her go but also started learning psychology, soul science?

Kōyō is also traumatized. Mori and Dazai know this. Mori lets her go, but she isn't happy. And what's more, she's using defensive reaction. And Mori just like «You need therapy, girl. But you know, I'm a child psychologist. And it would still be a violation of medical ethics if I were your psychotherapist. (Yeah, sometimes I respect medical ethics)»

What do you think?

...

After the Yosano story, Mori is generally more relaxed about disobeying orders. Because he's not in the military. (Down with bureaucracy!)

Because he realised that if an order was broken, it could be something very important to the person. He doesn't want to break people for the sake of some discipline. And for Koyo, choosing to cooperate with the agency was part of personal growth and healing. She saw herself in Kyōka, and protecting the girl meant protecting them both, and vice versa. Mori couldn't break her. That would be unjustified. He wasn't angry at Kōyō for her decision.

Bonus. Some parallels from the Guild arc:

Mori-Dazai, Kōyō-Kyōka: «We are not the same person, actually. I'm me, you're you. You have the right to choose your path» It was about mentoring, parental love, and letting go.

Mori-Kōyō, Dazai-Akutagawa: «You become stronger. Accept your past and move on from it»

Dazai-Kōyō, Atsushi-Lucy (+ Mori as a mastermind who made these lines possible with his orders abt Kyōka and Q): «Do not abandon the past versions of ourselves»

And keep in mind 2 things:

Mori must keep a balance between etiquette, subordination, and responsibilities on the one hand and his feelings and ulterior motives on the other hand

Sometimes he's a living cringe and a lying liar who lies 😑

The characters' phrases cannot be viewed without context. They don't exist in a vacuum. They have reasons, occasions, and purposes for saying certain things.

I have many other thoughts about these phrases and this dialogue!

But not today

[cooking-with-hailstones]

The Legend of Zelda: stats of the kingdom

A Statistical Analysis of Popular Fanfiction in the Legend of Zelda Fandom on AO3

I like numbers and stats and for some unfathomable reason I find it calming. So over the past couple weeks, I’ve been making this spreadsheet!

DISCLAIMER: This is not a judgement of the quality, value, or merits of any of the fics on this list. It's just me being curious about what's popular with the Legend of Zelda fandom on AO3.

Feel free to go explore the spreadsheet. My own observations and analysis under the cut.

TL:DR, Link has a lot of kinky sex. Sidlink and Zelink are vying for who’s the most popular ship. Also, this fandom has a shit ton of sub categories that are truly islands unto themselves and have their own conventions.

Methodology: I'm including all fics from the first page of AO3 results (20 fics per page) sorted by:

Hits

Kudos

Comments

Bookmarks

Anything tagged under the Legend of Zelda and Related Fandoms tag that was in the top 20 most hits, kudos, comments, or bookmarks made it into the spreadsheet. This ended up including 51 fics in total.

I put all the fics into one single spreadsheet in order to compare the differences between fics that are really high on the kudos count but not the hit count, or what has a lot of comments but fewer hits. Basically, I'm throwing a lot of things together to observe what gets engagement and looking at patterns that emerge!

Popular fandom subcategories:

Botw (41 fics tagged as such)

Linked Universe (9, including one mostly set in the world of BOTW)

OoT (2)

(I do wonder what it would be like to run these numbers on other fanfic sites, given the popularity boom of ao3 over the last 15 years or so. But also, Botw was an insanely popular game even by Zelda standards, so… who knows?)

Tags:

Character tags: Obviously, Link was by far the most popular character, but here are the characters that had a minimum of 3 appearances per category. Yay champions!

Zelda

Sidon

Mipha

Urbosa

Revali

Daruk

Story tags: Again, just going by sheer numbers, here are the story tags that appeared at least 3 times in every category:

Slowburn

AU – canon divergence

With honorable mentions to fluff, angst, double penetration, anal sex, amnesia/memory loss, and mute or selectively mute Link, who all cracked above 3 instances in 2 separate categories.

Relationships:

This was a tight race, but shoutout to Sidlink for eking out the win for the most highly rated ship in the Zelda fandom with 13 fics qualifying in my ranking. Zelink is close behind at 10 fics. (That being said, Zelink takes it by volume: 7,797 fics tagged as Zelink vs Sidlink’s 2,193)

Other popular ships:

Revalink (8) (this one surprised me! I didn’t realize my beloved birb was so popular)

Miphlink (3)

Link/Monsters (2)

Sidon/Reader (2)

Ganzelink, Ganlink, Malink, Miphzelink, and Miphzel all made single appearances.

(Pls don’t start ship war discourse in the notes kthanx)

All right, let’s deep dive into the numbers!

Fics in all 4 categories:

Interim - starkraving

Sands of time -tirsynni

Congrats you are officially the most popular Loz fics across all of ao3! at least according to my particular scope of analysis.

Fics in 3 categories:

Displaced - socksock

Drown In Me - bacchanalia

Alone We Fight - SilvermistAnimeLover

Blood Moon Rising - MarquesGillette

Popular authors (people who show up more than once in multiple categories sorry comments georg)

MarquesGillette

MaryDragon

SilvermistAnimeLover

ObakeAri

Hits:

Top 5 most popular fics by hit count:

Displaced - socksock

Interim - starkraving

To Save Hyrule - orphan_account

Sands of time - tirsynni

Drown In Me - bacchanalia

First page by hits:

Min: 117,917 – Sidon’s Epic Pining Adventure (ObakeAri)  

Max:  189,622 – Displaced (socksock)

Average: 145,385

Average wordcount for fics with the most hits:

140,909

Kudos:

Top 5 most popular fics by kudos count:

Excuse Me While I Kiss This Guy - Icka M Chif

Interim - starkraving

To My Dearest Friend - surveycorpsjean

26 Minutes and 42 Seconds - T_5Seconds

Blood Moon Rising - MarquesGillette

First page by kudos:

Min: 4917 – Finding Link (Umbreonix)

Max:  10321 – Excuse Me While I Kiss This Guy (Icka M Chif)

Average: 6981

Average wordcount for fics with the most kudos:

41,136

Comments:

Top 5 most popular fics by comment count:

Carlos from MarvelandZeldaFan's Children of the Heroes - KR5

This is an Adjuration - notfreyja

My Art - KR5

Sidon's Epic Pining Adventure - ObakeAri

Priestess of War - KR5

Woohoo! You all get to meet KR5 aka Comments Georg. Comments Georg has long conversations and RPs in the comments of their ao3 posts, which are usually fanart. TO BE CLEAR, THIS IS TOTALLY FINE AND COOL! I think it’s quite delightful! However, it does completely bork my ranking system because outside of comments, these posts do not have a lot of engagement (like, less than 100 hits and less than 20 kudos) and I don’t think they count towards my analysis of “what is popular in the Zelda fandom writ large”. But they qualified based on my criteria. Which I think speaks to the weakness of my criteria more than anything else tbh…

Anyways, shoutout to Comments Georg for truly showing off what it means to be a statistical outlier.

First page by comments:

Min: 1568 – The Quiet River Rages (MaryDragon)

Max:  43808 - Carlos from MarvelandZeldaFan's Children of the Heroes (KR5)

Average: 4131 (which goes down to 2042 if we exclude KR5’s impressive max, which is a full order of magnitude more than notfreyja in second place with 3470 comments. Very much demonstrating the power of a statistical outlier!)

Average wordcount for fics with the most comments:

275,593

Bookmarks:

Top 5 most popular fics by bookmarks count:

Interim - starkraving

Excuse Me While I Kiss This Guy - Icka M Chif

Sands of time - tirsynni

To My Dearest Friend - surveycorpsjean

Alone We Fight - SilvermistAnimeLover

First page by bookmarks:

Min: 973 – Expatriate (thehoyden)

Max:  2984 – Interim (starkraving)

Average: 1468

Average wordcount for fics with the most bookmarks:

70,027

Fic Ratings:

G: 3 (literally all fanart from KR5)

T: 22

M: 8

E: 17

Unrated: 1

Observations:

I ran this twice. Once including crossovers, and once excluding crossovers. This filtered out a lot of large drabbles and things like “flash fiction fuckings” which, no judgment, you do you, they just weren’t super relevant for what I was looking for. If you wanna see these stats including all the multifandom stuff that shows up, here’s the link for that:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1DXDKXutIzVC-Iac93fFSDohAkphrn67yV-DmRt9xXmU/edit?usp=sharing

(I’m going to break academic professional analysis here and get on my soapbox for a sec – please don’t post big multifandom one shots where you tag like 20 different fandoms and every single kink that gets written about across 103 different chapters. This is literally what series are for. These kinds of things just clog up the tags, and it also makes it harder for people to find the things you’ve written that they want to read! I know this was a convention on ff.net, but this is not ff.net! We can make authors' lives and readers' lives easier!)

There were 38,427 fics in the tag “Legend of Zelda and Related Fandoms” (including crossovers, that goes up to 41,634). I manually added one back in though because it was entirely a botw story, just loosely inspired by another game.

Linked Universe fans comment a LOT. Strong correlation between high comment and Linked Universe fandom subsection. Y’all are very involved and active, and you show support to your authors. I salute you!

Sidlinkers, y'all are horny and I respect it.

Zelinkers, dear god we do love a slowburn.

All the most highly kudos’d fics are very low in the comment count. It’s almost an inverse correlation.

Excluding crossovers increased the correlation between hits and kudos quite dramatically.

There were not very many au’s other than canon divergence. Only one modern au as far as I could tell from a cursory examination of tags.

Lots more clustering, far less disparity between min and max numbers than when I ran this with A:TLA numbers.

Far less consensus on a vibe. Way fewer big writers, but lots of little writers doing their own thing.

Truly a lot of E fics. We are horny bastards.

We need more stuff written for games other than BOTW!!

There aren’t as many fics that are like “oh everyone in the fandom has read these fics”. There are probably those fics in each subcategory of the fandom, or within the specific ships, but there aren’t as many general fics that have entire fandom-wide appeal.

Thank you for reading! This was a lot of fun, and I hope you found it interesting. Shoutout to the Hateno Hangout discord for helping me refine this mess :P

Further shoutout to my partner who helped with writing some SQL to help with tag analysis. Truly partner of the year.

If you want more of this kind of egregious nerdiness, I did this with the top fics in the A:TLA fandom a couple weeks ago: https://www.tumblr.com/cooking-with-hailstones/751749202663669760/statistical-analysis-of-the-most-popular-atla

[whimsicallywiddershins]

Sarai is an interesting character, that most readers can't help but dislike. She is spoiled, stubborn, opinionated and selfish. It is very obvious that a lot of her scenes in Trickster's Queen were written in a way that made Dove the better choice for Queen.

It took me a long time to realize that Sarai is a foil for Aly.

Aly used to be just like Sarai, before she was captured by pirates. She was caught between two worlds.

Sarai was caught between her identies as a raka and a luarin and it effected her in many ways. She wanted to live like a raka noblewoman, learning to fight and ride and express herself freely. But she was supposed to act as a luarin noblewoman, expected to be meek, obedient and "ladylike." She had to live with her people being abused and ill-treated, while her friends and family were part of the class that were responsible for their suffering.

Aly was torn between her status as a noble with very high pedigree from her mother, and having a commoner thief and spy as a father. She was trained as a spy, but was expected to live as a noblewoman or serve the realm as a knight. Her parents refused to let her be what she wanted, despite that her mother disguised herself as a boy and broke all the rules to chase her dream.

Like Sarai, Aly was flighty, flirted constantly with young men, and generally ignored everything else and didn't contribute to anything meaningful. She had no goals and acted recklessly, which led to her getting captured by pirates anyways.

In the books, Aly constantly compares herself with Sarai. She recognizes her tricks, understands her feelings and actions. She finally sees what she looked like, from the outside.

And, in the end, Sarai defies her fate and family and runs off to another country to do what she wants to do. Just like Aly did.

Aly and Sarai are two sides of the same coin. Very different people, with very different circumstances, but similar in so many ways.

[magicwhiskers29]

Alright listen. I don’t want to get into ship drama, because this isn’t really about there being a problem with people liking a ship or whatever, but I’ve been stewing on this for a while, and I feel like we have GOT to talk about how strange it is that 5 seasons in, and Spicynoodles is still wildly more popular than Dragonfruit. I said I would talk about that, so here. Think of this as more of a fandom analysis than anything.

Speaking as someone who’s been lurking in the fandom since the start of 2021, so from before the pilot or S1 had aired in the US (Or UK, in my case), I can say from experience that Spicynoodles has always been very popular. Using the way back machine to see the AO3 tag stats for Jan 14 2021, we get that it’s by far the most used relationship tag (41 of 125 works, for anyone curious) which… Yeah, that lines up with how I remember it being at that time. And considering the state of the show at that point, this makes sense!

Red Son was the primary villain of season 1 (or at least the one who acted as antagonist in most of the episodes, if you want to argue that it’s technically DBK) who treated MK like a nuisance of a rival, and as someone who gave him silly nicknames and who bounced off of banter with him quite well. Given that they’re two male characters in a rivalry, and given coming fandom shipping tropes, I don’t think it’s surprising at all that they started being shipped in the first place.

I think especially giving the other shipping content type stuff in season 1. The most we got from MK himself (or Mei, for that matter) was that he was physically disgusted by the idea of dating Mei. Cool, so they’d set up that MK didn’t want to date his best friend, so what they’d effectively done, in this case, was get the female character out of the way of the ship preemptively. And for the record, I really like that MK and Mei and two close and intimate friends who would never want to even entertain the idea of dating! I think it’s cute and refreshing, but what’s relevant here, is that there isn’t (yet) a female love interest to ‘get out of the way’ of the rivals/enemies to lovers yaoi.

Also worth noting that Shadowpeach hadn’t taken off yet due to Macaque only being in one episode, and not being in the pilot (though it was still a thing – that same way back machine page lists it as having 10 fics written. It’s just notable that it was significantly less popular than Spicynoodles) and that Freenoodles was still mostly a background thing. The two prominent (male) characters that they had to ship were MK and Red Son.

The thing is, the show wasn’t going to stay in that kind of position for long. Revenge of the Spider Queen, the season 2 special, aired about a month after this early January 2021 snapshot, and I think it fairly succinctly marked the direction the show was intending to take Red Son and Mei specifically. The special gave us a lot of interactions between Red Son and the main cast in general, and of course many that I’m sure fuelled the Spicynoodles fans, because yeah, Red Son and MK bicker and clash in silly ways this episode! But they’re not the focus pairing at any point.

When the group splits up in the Celestial Realm, Tang goes with Pigsy (Yep, that’s normal) Sandy stays back alone (also par for the course) but then… MK also goes alone, whilst Mei goes with Red Son. This means that an important section of the episode is spent with MK overcoming his demons himself, whilst Mei and Red Son bicker and clash and get closer. They even pull a classic “mistaking the male and female duo as dating” joke, which whilst I don’t expect that or anything else this episode to have necessarily radically altered the shipping scene, or even particularly make Dragonfruit a thing, I do think it’s indicative of the increased importance these two would have as a duo, and as parallels, going forward.

And then Red Son isn’t really in season 2. Perhaps it’s not surprising that as of the Wayback Machine’s snapshot of August 12 2021, about 2 months after season 2’s initial release (though still before the US release of the show) although Spicynoodles is still dominating the AO3 tag, Shadowpeach is starting to properly gain. This makes sense given that Shadow Play had aired by this point, but it is worth noting still, imo. It means that, in general, M/M is still dominating the fandom, being curiously, a good deal more popular than even the platonic relationships, such as MK and Wukong or MK and Mei.

But I think season 3 is where it all gets a little baffling to me – especially the season 3 specials. A major plot point this season, is that Mei is secretly the weirder of the Samadhi Fire, Red Son’s signature weapon that he was born with. Combining this with s3e2, the Great Grand Dragon of the East, which puts the focus on Mei’s relationship with her family legacy, and general family struggles, it becomes quite obvious that Red Son’s and Mei are being written as parallels. Red Son and MK still have scenes together this season, which surely fuelled Spicynoodles, like the iconic ‘extra blankets and warm milk’ scene, or the scene where MK shapeshifts to fly Red Son off, but note how I specified individual scenes there rather than season-wide concepts?

Now, this analysis is not the place for me to say one ship is better than the other, or that there’s any kind of problem with having a preference one way or another. My point is that the show’s focus was very clearly on Red Son and Mei’s relationship, and that by this point, they have a very solid foundation for a ship, and yet Red Son and MK are still absolutely dominating that as a pairing.

Skipping ahead to July 4 2022 in the Wayback Machine for the AO3 tag, Spicynoodles is still the most tpopular ship, with Shadowpeach as a fairly close second and… Dragonfruit nowhere to be seen. Now, I will say, I can’t check the exact ship stats for this time. There is no saved Dragonfruit page. However, I can say that Dragonfruit is nowhere to be found on the sidebar of common relationship tags in the main tag, and also that M/M is almost 5 times more common than even F/M in general. Is this distribution unusually for fandom? No, but I think it’s relevant here, because the show had finally become more accessible by this point, with all three seasons available, but Spicynoodles was still dominating.

And to save us all some time, suffice it to say, this trend continues. Mei and Red Son are the more focused on duo, but also yet the far less popular ship. To check the stats today, March 9 2025, Dragonfruit has 441 fics, compared to Spicynoodles’s 1742, and whilst this obviously isn’t the best metric for gauging ship popularity, it is both an easily accessible one, and imo, a somewhat indicative one. I’m sure anyone in the fandom could easily recount how common Spicynoodles is in general, and from personal experience, I can say that yeah! Dragonfruit is hard to come across! It’s not non-existent, but curiously, it is rare.

These days, we have Shadowpeach absolutely dominating, as by far the most popular ship, as the show has further developed Wukong and Macaque’s relationship, whereas, frankly… MK and Red Son haven’t had much screen time together as of late at all. I’d honestly wonder if to some extent, Spicynoodles has lost it’s top spot because it began sharing its trope space with Shadowpeach a little too much, and that led to the more relevant ship taking hold. But that’s not necessarily relevant here, so I digress.

So how is it that we can have the crux of the season 3 finale be Red Son cupping Mei’s face as he withstands the uncontrolled fury of the Samadhi Fire to tell her not to give up, that we can have Red Son’s main season 5 appearance be a duo episode with Mei once again focusing on the Samadhi Fire as well as their blossoming friendship, that from the fairly early days of the show, they’ve been set up as duo that parallels each other, and yet I honestly wouldn’t blame anyone for calling them a rarepair?

There’s a few wishy-washy sort of arguments that could be made. Oh, the show isn’t really about shipping, which… yes, it’s not! In a literal sense, Red Son warming up to both MK and Mei is a friendship thing! Macaque and Wukong’s big fight ended their friendship! Tang and Pigsy are technically just good friends who raised a random orphan child together! But see how inside a fandom context, that list starts to sound more and more ridiculous? And see how suddenly not interpreting Mei and Red Son as romantic because the show isn’t about romance starts to sound like an excuse?

(I should say, obviously it’s perfectly fine not to interpret them as romantic in general, but my point was that I don’t think it’s fair to cite the show’s direction as a reason for that in general)

But I’d honestly say the most likely reasons I’d expect to hear would be either that people aren’t as interested in Mei as Red Son or MK, or that they’re put off by it being an M/F ship. And… Hm…

At that point, doesn’t the issue sort of start to sound like it’s just that Mei is a woman? Doesn’t it just start to sound like despite having similar foundations, Spicynoodles is more popular than Dragonfruit because it doesn’t involve a female character? I’ve tried to make it very clear in this post that I think Spicynoodles starting more popular is for good reason, but by this point, I fundamentally can’t quite understand why there’s still such a big gap in popularity.

Because this is the reading comprehension website and because I really don’t want this post to just be an excuse for ship wars, I should say, no, I’m not calling anyone who prefers Spicynoodles a misogynist. Obviously it would be stupid to make a claim like that.

What I am saying though, is that the general fandom trends towards these ship’s popularity are very likely rooted in misogyny, and that the answer to why there is such a disparity between these ship’s popularity is because fandom doesn’t fundamentally want to engage with female characters in the same way that it does male ones. It’s quite easy to already note that Mei is fairly underrepresented in the fandom given the prevalence and importance of her character to the show, and that hardly hurts my point…

I wrote this post because I really like Mei, and it bothers me to see her overlooked in general, and I wrote this post because I came across this other post earlier, and it struck me how much I was reminded of Spicynoodles vs Dragonfruit. It makes me sad to see, so mostly, I wrote this to express my frustrations. Once more, this is not a hate post for any of the M/M ships mentioned here.