#but there is absolutely Simme fanfiction

[im-a-king-baby]

I am re-reading ELYN now, so I will ask for some insights soon with a fresh memory 😊

But for now, maybe I can send you a flower ?

🌺

Hi!! I hope you enjoyed reading it again!

Here is an epistolary section that never made it into the fic (I had a few spares, just in case 😄):

PopIdolLive shares TEN Fun Facts about Simme to celebrate the And The Next World Tour announcement!!!

Simme is Swedish and Venezuelan. His dad was Swedish but moved to Venezuela where he met Simme’s Mom and they had two kids before moving back to Sweden when Simme was ~3. Simme has credited his Mom’s insistence that they spoke Spanish at home as how he managed to keep the language!

His first ever single Como Este had a mix of Spanish and English lyrics and that blend has continued across three albums, but fans are still waiting for Simme to record a song in Swedish. Simme has blamed this on a lack of Swedish songwriters in L.A. (sad, but true!)

During Simme’s first tour (the Chaos tour!) his crew had an in-joke called ‘Stop! Hammer time!’ where they had to stop at any hardware store they passed on the road and buy a hammer. When the tour split into two buses it became a competition to find the most interesting novelty hammer and they started signing them and giving them to fans at stage door when the buses ran out of hammer space! (eventually this stopped when the label lawyers found out and got scared about liability)

Also on the Chaos Tour, since they didn't have a set tour schedule the merch t-shirts were left blank on the back and the crew would write on wherever they played each day making each one a collectors item (The rarest is the single one for 'Jimmy's House' which has never been sold, but signed shirts from 'LaGuardia Airport Lounge' and 'A Starbucks in Leeds' have hit five figures at auction!)

Simme wore a silver bracelet throughout the Honesty tour which he hasn’t confirmed was a gift from the Voice 2024 runner-up Alfonso Perez but it did appear shortly after they were seated together at multiple events and a photo leaked of them having an intimate kiss in a limo driving away from the AMAs.

Speaking of romantic entanglements, Simme attended a prestigious Swedish boarding school where he dated the Crown Prince of Sweden for nearly three years! They looked adorable together, but broke up after graduation so that the Prince could go into the army and Simme could move to L.A to pursue music.

It has been Noted by the fans that Simme gets less dressed on each album (a jacket on Simme, an unbuttoned shirt on HH, shirtless on ATN.) There is a running fan theory that album 4 which the fans have dubbed ‘the CENSORED album’ will feature Simme fully naked (with the title covering up enough to keep it decent!) staring at the camera.

And if the idea of fans naming albums feels unlikely, we have precedent! In an interview during the Honesty, Honestly press tour the interviewer commented that Simme was released in December 2023, and HH was dropping just over a year later in January 2025, Simme grinned and said: ‘And the next March 26!’. The fans latched onto this, referring to album 3 as And The Next so consistently that it ended up being the name chosen for the album! (which actually came out in June 2026, so only a few months late!)

On the bridge of Relentless Simme names twenty five cities, all of which were visited during the Chaos Tour. When this song is performed live, Simme always includes the name of the city he's performing in on the list (except for Portland, when he got mixed up and said Atlanta instead! Oops!)

Simme returned to his home country of Sweden towards the end of the Chaos Tour, but was unable to play there when he was touring Honesty, Honestly due to scheduling conflicts with Stockholm venues (boo!). The current ATN tour schedule doesn't have Sweden dates listed but there's plenty of time for more countries to be announced so watch this space!!!

[roxannepolice]

I really need to scream in joy and share, because I've found an absolutely brilliant tensimm fic, and from what I can tell the author isn't on tumblr, AND THIS GOLD NEEDS TO BE READ, KUDOED AND COMMENTED!

This could be an actual episode. Hell, with a bit of tweaking this could be the secret 60th special with dilfy Fourteen meeting dilfy goateed Saxon that content deprived tensimm bitches it's me I'm bitches BBC supported charities need.

[a-random-whovian7]

A non-serious attempt at comedy/list about what your favourite incarnation of the Master says about you:

Roger Delgado: They just like more dialogue and richer themes in your storyline, preferring character interaction and chemistry rather than spectacle. They also make sure their outfits are neat, stylish and elegant. Always colour co-ordinated. Usually quite calm and collected until you say Terror of the Autons is just a remake of Spearhead From Space.

Peter Pratt: Basically a Fourth Doctor fan who refuses to admit there are flaws with The Deadly Assassin or a fan of horror films. More than likely grew up in the seventies. Definitely looks into their KFC bucket and sees lots of little Masters staring back at them.

Geoffrey Beevers: Basically the same as the Pratt fan, although this one refuses to admit there are flaws in the Fourth Doctor's era as a whole. If you tell them Tom Baker stayed on for too long, prepare to have your intestines made into a scarf. Usually forgets about 90% of the plot of Logopolis. Almost certainly a child of the 70s, hence why they see this Master in the mirror each morning.

Anthony Ainley: Likes to just have fun, no matter how corny or wierd the stories are. Will happily just sit and watch the Master basically trolling the Doctor with minor inconveniences, waiting for the inevitable moment when that character hovering in the background with a not-quite-as-clearly-defined backstory pulls off a mask and wig to reveal a goatee. Is somehow able to enjoy Time Flight. Do not ask them their opinion on the TV Movie.

Eric Roberts: A legend amongst humans. Saw the campy, over-the-top dressing gown/robe, the bad cgi snakes, the wierd terminator references and thought "yes, this is clearly the best one." Constantly annoys purist classic series fans simply by existing and does not care. Knows the TV Movie is mid and does not care. Knows that the Eye of Harmony was originally on Gallifrey and does not care. Has definitely said "I always... dress for the occasion" and does not care that no-one gets the reference.

Derek Jacobi: Sold their soul to Big Finish for the War Master range. Religiously watches Utopia to see that reveal again, and wishes Chantho had been fully fried before shooting the Master. Now all they can do is offer sacrifices to Nicholas Briggs and sit in a darkened room, staring at the Big Finish website.

John Simm: Probably has fan art saved to their phone, and has almost certainly read Ten/Master fanfiction at some point. Will defend Last of the Time Lords and The End of Time Part 1 with their dying breath (and for good reason, those episodes slap and those two slightly dodgy scenes don't ruin them, Moffat did worse retcons, fight me). Cried when their Master showed up in The Doctor Falls and usually has good relations with Missy fans because of it. Thinks Sacha Dhawan is a lazy rip-off. Can usually be found comforting the Jacobi fan after their War Master box set has been delayed.

Michelle Gomez: Basically the same as the Simm fan, only this one defends the Moffat era and their fanfiction search history is a bit more varied. Thinks Death in Heaven was a good episode, and that The Doctor Falls should have been the last Master episode. Hates Chibnall for bulldozing all their character development and rendering this incarnation's redemption slightly pointless. Usually slightly more forward-thinking than some other fans and great with their friends. Has formed an unlikely alliance with Delgado fans... somehow.

Sacha Dhawan: Took one look at the most quirked up Master and decided that was the one. Thinks John Simm was OK, but lacked the "evil four-year-old on a sugar rush" energy of this one. Usually bitter rivals with Missy fans, as everyone started re-evaluating the Moffat era instead of watching S12, and will go strangely quiet whenever the Timeless Child is mentioned, praying that someone will say that it should have been the Master and thus giving them a "get out of jail" card. Was absolutely overjoyed when people enjoyed Power of the Doctor. Convinced that the Chibnall Era will receive a massive reappraisal in the future, despite the fact that the odds of that happening are about the same as the Terry Nation estate accepting that the Daleks are overused.

Alex Maqueen: Sold everything to Big Finish. Doesn't even watch the show. Can't watch the show. Who needs the show when you've just spent all your month's wages on that box set? It's not like you need to eat or anything. The most likely individual to end up in a padded cell when someone doesn't know what Dark Eyes was.

Gina McKee: Missy fans, but with small social circles and a heavy dose of Weezer.

Mark Gatiss, James Dreyfus, Milo Parker: Wait, these guys played the Master?

If you really want more of this shit (why), there's a list about favourite Doctors and Companions

[veraynes-blog]

Hey uh. Hi. So I was pretty hugely hyperfixated on Doctor Who and specifically Thoschei for most of 2018-2020. Before that I was a casual fan, since I basically grew up on the show. And then I sort of... Moved on to other things, as one tends to do. 13's era wasn't really doing it for me and I lost my desire to really keep up with the show or the fandom. But since Power of The Doctor came out I decided I should watch it, to have context for the new series. And uh. Something about seeing David Tennant in that dumb suit again reawakened something in me, and I've been neck-deep in the Doctor/Master brainrot for the past two weeks.

At one point I remember thinking "hey... There was that really good Tensimm fic I read back in the day.. unchained or something... Wonder if I could find that again". Of all the DW fics I read during my time in the fandom, yours was the one that stuck with me most. I did manage to find it eventually (imagine my delight at seeing there was not one, but two follow-up stories!), and I read the whole series in a few hours.

And man, do you get what makes their relationship good. I understand why I remembered it so well, and I'm glad I can go back to the fandom if only to read your fic again with a new perspective. Your writing is pretty stellar, the plot threads and themes you set up in Time Lord Victorious are purposeful and well developed even outside the context of the fandom it's written for. But man, you really excel when it comes to character writing.

I'm very... Picky about my Thoschei. I get frustrated when it gets reduced to just "enemies to lovers" or "kinky hate sex" because there is so much more to them. It's all that history, that underlying connection that neither of them can fully acknowledge but can't fully ignore either, all that mushy subtextual grey area and complicated mixed feelings. That's where the interesting stuff is, that's why I love them.

I find people tend to gloss over a lot of this in fanfic, especially for Tensimm since they fit Tumblr's favourite "edgy pretty white gay bois" ship archetype. And I really honestly think that there are few, if any, fanfics that really dissect and examine their relationship as well as yours. (Hell, I think you understand their relationship a fair bit better than several actual Doctor Who script writers.) It honestly feels like it could be a really extraordinary piece of official Doctor Who media (minus the gay sex obviously). You've written a really incredible piece of fiction and I just wanted to share with you how much I value it and how much it means to me.

A couple questions, if you're okay with answering them

Do you think there's any chance you'll write more Doctor Who fanfic? If not that's entirely okay, I'm just curious

Do you have any recommendations for some of your favourite Doctor/Master fanfiction? Any rating, pairing, or length is fine, just stuff you've read and enjoyed in the past

Thank you again, and sorry for the super long rambling ask :)

Anon I'm nearly crying over this, thank you so much 🥺💕 I keep reading your message again to bring a smile to my face.

I honestly appreciate you picking out the character analysis as a highlight of the series, back when I was writing it I was basically treating it like my personal psychological study, and I'm still fascinating by them 🥰 The awful grey areas their relationship has are the best bits!

In answer to your questions:

1) Yeah absolutely. I also got inspired by the recent episode and wrote down the intro to a Fourteen/Simm!Master fic (although life obligations got in the way of making any further progress yet).

2) @countessrivers and @linz33y used to write great Ten/Simm fic with me back when we were sharing a hyperfixation! I think most of them got pulled across to their AO3s. There's also a couple of Doctor Who fics in my 'Favourites' collection on AO3 that are definitely worth a read!

Thank you again for taking the time to message me 😊 You made my day!

[sarriane]

2022 Year of Fic in Review Boogaloo

sariane on ao3

Total number of completed stories: 4 Total word count: 42,185 Fandoms: dr who, our flag means death

Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you'd predicted?: i am honestly surprised i wrote anything at all, this year has suuuucked!

What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January?: our flag means death was a surprise! i even saw the trailer in january and thought it looked very dumb (the trailer was... not great). the last thing i expected was that it would have a fandom, much less that i would be into it.

What's your favorite story of the year?: space growlr, hands down. i literally had so much fun with it, mixing goofiness with romance and writing something for me.

Did you take any writing risks this year?: i was gonna say no, but i did technically write furry fanfic, and that's a whole new genre for me. i doubt i did it any true justice.

Do you have any fanfic goals for the New Year?: keep survivin', meet zine deadlines, work on your plotting and pacing skills, & spice up the prose a little babes.

My best story of the year: i'm going to say space growlr again, bc it may be the only one i like.

My most popular story of the year: stay the course, which i feel caught the last wave of ofmd fandom before it went into hibernation. i am slow! (and honestly, dw fanfic world is sooo dead right now, and i am writing rarepairs. there's no competition.)

Story that was most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion: again, space growlr!!! because no one appreciates danvanista like the ship deserves!!!! hmph!!

Most fun to write: oh my god are all of these answers going to be 'the silly furry rarepair fanfiction that three people read' oh no

Single sexiest (or cutest) moment: somehow i didn't post a real smutfic this year, so i'm gonna go with fourteen/simm punching each other silly and then having a dumb makeout session fight to see who wins. they're so dumb and i missed them.

Hardest to write: stupid! pirate! story!!! i don't even know WHAT that story is. it needs like... probably half of it cut out and the last chapter rewritten. idk man i don't get paid for this.

Biggest disappointment: me ngl i was hoping that posting updates on the pirate fic week-by-week would somehow encourage people to comment or talk to me about the fic, and that i'd make friends, but i only had one or two people follow it as a WIP! i'm never doing anything for ~the engagement~ ever again haha.

Biggest surprise: that i somehow ended up writing rassilon/omega smut as a joke!! it took me a half hour and was easier than anything! i will do absolutely anything for the bit, huh.

Favorite lines: because i only posted 4 fics this year, i'm just gonna drop a line from each.

space growlr:

Dan: SOS Karvanista: [AJE928384AJ392DJ9402.jpg] Dan: It means Save Our Souls, not send SHIRTLESS PICS!!

stay the course:

Stede can taste it on his tongue. He can hear it beating in his chest. It sounds like love, and it looks like Ed curled up on the sofa with a glass of brandy and his deep, heavy eyes drawing him in. It’s moonlight and fleeting touches, dodgy treasure maps and scary stories. It’s a life, and an adventure, and it’s not rooted in anything but the promise of each other. “I won’t say that I love you, because I haven’t proved it yet,” Stede says. “But I think I’m figuring out what that means, to love someone. And I want a second chance to prove how I feel.”

the black scrolls of rassilon:

i can't lmao this is too cracky to choose from

which to bury, us or the hatchet?:

He fills himself in through the gaps in the Master’s memories and takes them all with the kiss. The Master dies and dies and he lives on, the Master is a gaping wound and he is a yellow bruise, the Master accepts and he grieves. The Doctor takes it all.

[thechamberofbooks]

✨I’M BRANCHING OUT PEOPLES ✨ Still Young Royals, still an AU but this time a different one!

Because of my edits (x) for @prince-simon GREAT fanfic “I don’t feel like our love is brand new” (x) I acquired quite a bit knowledge about crowns, titles of the Swedish monarchy as well as fitting flowers and what better way to use all of that for another great fanfiction AU 💜🧡

This edit is for @toffeelemon's absolutely AMAZING Princess Wille AU, "princess charming & the rebel", a wlw version of Young Royals WHICH PEOPLES YOU SHOULD GO READ, IT'S ALSO COMPLETE !!! (x) 🧡💜🧡

Fun Facts are FUN:

1. The flower and crown in the right corner of Princess Willes Edit are transparent because they symbolise Willes title and position before Eriks death, I used these two already for another Wille edit (x) where I provided a lot more detail about that crown and flower (Same line of thought for the “couple edit”)

2. The flowers in the left corner on the other hand symbolise Willes current position, which she inherited from Erik. On my other post I also went into detail how I chose these flowers , basically I applied reality to fiction, the current Crown Princess is Duchess of and these are the flowers that region (Same line of thought for the “couple edit”) (flower reference x) (Swedish Monarchy ref x)

3. The crown over Willes head here is the Crown Prince/ Princess Crown of Sweden (x)

4. The flower over Simmes head in both edits is the national flower of Venezuela, the the orchid Cattleya mossiae, known as flor de Mayo ("May flower") (x)

The rest is self-explanatory I think 😊

[plinys]

/shrieks/ next gen shenanigans tho preferably with lyrasaac and alfrozeo

weLP SO THIS IS JUST ALFROZEO WHICH ACTUALLY, i kinda gave them a better ship name in fic cause i had an idea. anyways literally anyone other than @ophvelias this wont make any sense and really there is no way to put any context on this, its like two fitz au next gen im sorry

The best part of being in love with your best friend is that there’s absolutely no way to tell them without ruining everything.

Especially when said best friend was more than likely straight. Ninety-five percent at least.

There was that time watching Star Wars when LBJ said that he would do Han Solo but that doesn’t count.

Everyone would do Han Solo.

It’s a fact.

Wanting to have passionate sex on the Millennium Falcon while a galactic sex icon calls you princess does not make you gay.

Or…

Well…

The point was Alfie has been out since he was ten, a glorious moment covered in bright blue paint from redecorating his bedroom for the eight time where he accidentally said, I think I like boys out loud and his dad was like same.

He came out to his best friend a week later, making sure to specify, but like not you, so that things wouldn’t be weird.

And they weren’t.

They hadn’t been weird.

They haven’t been weird for years.

Until some superhero got the wrong idea, which may have been Alfie’s fault.

But in his defense, he called everyone ‘babe’ and the fact that he and LBJ took daily snapchats together was because they were best friends. Just that him being a known gay artistic icon and taking frequent photos with a known superhero without any public attachments didn’t help. And once the media got ahold of it, the whole thing had been impossible to stop.

They had a ship name.

They trended on twitter almost weekly.

#ALFITE

Which really was just a sign that LBJ needed a better superhero name than Frostbite but -

“We meet again.”

Alfie doesn’t both hiding his groan, speaking of terrible super names.

“You’re going to have to stamp my frequent kidnapping card,” Alfie says.

“Your what?”

He digs into his pocket for his wallet, pulling out a bright blue card with the words frequent kidnappee across the front of it. It was Vic’s idea, said between wheezing laughs the last time they’d all been hanging out, and it had been going surprisingly well.

Every supervillain had just seemed to accept it so far.

“When I get twenty you guys have to let me have a day off,” Alfie continues, watching as Carjack stamps his card and hand it back, before having his henchman throw a bag over his head.

When did the frequently getting kidnap thing before familiar?

Easily almost.

He prefered it to the ongoing suggestion of his younger brother to actually tell LBJ his feelings. Like? Why mention how he feels? When he could instead get kidnapped and avoid all conversations of feelings?

A much better plan.

And really Isaac couldn’t talk.

Nobody in this family could.

Well, maybe Peggy but it wasn’t like he was about to listen to her.

Nobody listened to Peggy.

It was known.

Getting shuffled around by a supervillain isn’t so bad. Sure they take him to some scary warehouse, and tie him up (which sucks because live tweeting his kidnappings usually gain him a big boost of followers) and make all kinds of empty threats.

It’s kinda of interrupting his lunch plans and his stomach reminds him of that fact grumbling loud enough that one of the henchmen shoot him a look , but those lunch plans were with LBJ which means the likelihood of his best friend coming to rescue him sooner rather than later.

Especially since there’s a camera broadcasting live across the city being shoved in his face  and an order to beg for his life.

Which Alfie doesn’t do on principal.

Instead he lets out an almost bored sigh, and says,  “Hey babe, if you haven’t left the sandwich shop can you pick up my usual before coming to rescue me? Also one of those fizzy pops?”

Getting slapped for his insolence is oddly expected and his only real though is hoping that it doesn’t bruise because it would mess up his aesthetic.

He doesn’t bother to listen as the supervillain of the week going on his usual nonsense Carjack is going on and on about, it doesn’t really matter, because Alfie doesn’t have to wait too long for the warehouse to get a shade colder than usual, the only warning they have before LBJ and a team of SHIELD agents burst into save the day.

One of the plus sides of fake dating his superhero best friend and coming from a family of SHIELD agents was that he was the first person attended to, freed from the ropes holding by an agent that he most certainly remembers the name of from his sister’s stories.  

“Davis, right?”

“Let me get you to safety, Mr. FItz-Simm-”

“Alfie, for fuck’s sake,” he says, because last names were terrible and he was not old enough to be a Mr. “And, I’m fine, I’ll wait for Frostbite.”

There was something about it, about watching LBJ get his superhero on and like, it wasn’t like Alfie wasn’t aware that he was gay and crushing on his best friend, but seeing him fight off bad guys to save him, was something else.

His kink.

And apparently a good chunk of the country’s kink because Alfie has definitely found fanfiction of himself. And read it outloud dramatically with voices to LBJ while drunk. And enjoy it.

Not that admitting that would be cool.

He tugs his phone up from his pocket to catch a few choice shots of it on camera, tweeting one out with the caption my hero, noticing that he’s already trending.

Someone whose display name reads A Known Alfie Stan has tweeted hoping that he does get his sandwich, which reminds him -

“Hey babe, about lunch-”

“Not the time, Alfie,” LBJ says, in the middle of freezing a bad guy.

“So is that a no on the sandwich or-”

“Alfie!”

“I’m going to tweet frowny face emojis,” Alfie says, doing so, pointedly. “A hundred and forty of them.”

“Be my guest?”

Because that’s their friendship. Emojis and bad jokes and Alfie trying to insist that this is all a joke and definitely not something more.

No sir.

He’s on the sixty-third emoji when the last of the bad guys fall and his phone is removed from his hands unceremoniously, and - “Hey!”

“Stop being a dick.”

“I have never in my life been a dick,” Alfie insists which is a bold face lie and they both know it.

Everyone knows it.

The random SHIELD agents in the background know it.

People in alternate universes know it.

“Your sandwich is in my backpack.”

“Wow, I love you, are you aware,” Alfie says, because saying it like this like a joke is easier than admitting the truth.

And it earns him one of LBJ’s little half smiles. The ones that just belong to him. One that’s part of this whole little joke.

The joke that will have LBJ slinging his arm over Alfie’s shoulders when they step out of the warehouse into the waiting eyes of the paparazzi. That will lead to a kiss being pressed to the side of his head and Alfie trying his best to hold it together. That will lead to Alfie needs to take a break for this universe for a few hours to get his thoughts in order.

Because what else was he supposed to do.

When his best friend was so much more than just that.

[travllingbunny]

What even is a Draco in Leather Pants?

Look, I really like the Television Tropes website. It’s fun and you can spend a lot of time reading it. The tropes it has formulated are, for the most part, the tropes you can actually discern and find quite often in fictional works, and the descriptions are usually quite witty and well supported. The examples and their justifications can be...questionable, since anyone can provide them, and may lead to a debate between contributors (i.e. anyone who has bothered to register and post), but still, usually the majority of examples make sense and more or less fit with the description provided at the top of the page. 

But not always.

There’s supposed to be a trope called Draco in Leather Pants, which I had been vaguely aware for a while (basically, that it had something to do with people in the Harry Potter fandom stanning the character of Draco Malfoy and thinking he’s hot), and have been recently reminded because I’ve recently seen at least a couple of mentions of “leather pantsing”in various comments in fandom discussions, or links to the Television Trope page for said trope (for instance, a link to that page was provided in a page of a podcast about Jaime Lannister... who isn’t even among the examples listed on that page, BTW). So, it seems that this is supposed to be an actual trope and that people know what it’s supposed to be about.

Well, since I’ve actually looked at the above mentioned page, read the description and looked through the list of examples from various media given on that page, I understand even less what it’s supposed to be about. If anyone has a better understanding of it, please help me.

So, here’s the description from the Television Tropes page called Draco in Leather Pants:

”A form of Misaimed Fandom, when a fandom takes a controversial or downright villainous character and downplays his/her flaws, often turning him/her into an object of desire and/or a victim in the process. This can cause conflicts if the writers are not willing to retool the character to fit this demand.”

Then the text proceeds to talk about how such a character is treated in fanfiction, why this happens, and finally explains the origin of the term:

“ Named for a term in the Harry Potter fandom, for the mostly sympathetic Fan Fic portrayals of Draco Malfoy, who, in Canon, is a petty, smug, elitist Spoiled Brat. (The term originated in Hurt/Comfort Fics, where Draco was the comforter and Ron was the abuser, usually with Hermione being the victim. Not coincidentally, the Inverted Trope Ron the Death Eater also originated from such fics.) “

I have never read any of the Harry Potter books, and have only seen a couple of early movies on TV, so I’m largely unfamiliar with this entire franchise. But from what I gather, the point is Draco Malfoy is supposed to be merely an antagonistic bully and not a particularly sympathetic character or a sex symbol in canon, but fanon and/or fanfiction made him into both these things? Right? 

However, the description is both highly specific, because it includes several different things that don’t necessarily have to go together, but at the same time strangely vague and wide:

The character in question has to be “controversial or downright villainous”. What exactly does this mean? Does it have to be a villainous character, or a controversial one? Many characters are both of these things at the same time, but a villainous character does not need to be controversial (if almost everyone agrees they’re awful and almost nobody likes them, there’s no controversy there), and there are plenty of controversial characters that aren’t villainous. Controversial merely means that there are very strong and very different and polarizing opinions about something or someone, with opposing views being both shared by a significant number of people. Heroic characters or characters meant to be sympathetic can be very controversial.

The “fandom” takes this character and “downplays his.her flaws”. What exactly does this mean? What is meant by “fandom”? It’s really unlikely that it means “literally everyone who’s a fan of that franchise”, since it’s extremely unlikely that 100% of any group of people feel the same about something, so what percentage are we talking about? 90%? 75%? Two thirds? Over 50%? At least 20%? A vocal minority? A reviewer/blogger or two? Anyone who writes a fanfic or posts a Youtube fanvideo? Someone you’ve just argued with online? What is the cutoff?

 ...” often turning him/her into an object of desire and/or a victim in the process”. So, apparently the fandom, whatever that means, does not necessarily have to turn this character into an object of desire and/or victim, but what I gather from this must be a character who is not presented as an object of desire in canon, and is not presented as a victim in canon. At least not intentionally,  by the creators of said media. 

OK, now we’re getting somewhere. This is pretty specific. The character may or may not be a villain, but absolutely must not be presented in canon as either 1) sexy/desirable or as 2) victimized/suffering in any notable way? Got it. 

Now, I’m not sure why exactly this description suggests that it’s necessary to downplay someone’s flaws in order for that someone to be an object of desire or for that someone to be a victim. I mean, these are clearly three different concepts:

(relatively) flawless person

object of desire

victim

Of course, a real person or a fictional character can be two or all three at the same time, but that’s not at all necessary. They may be just one or those things, or two of these things, but not the third. They may be a character or characters who are none of the three in canon but are all three in fanon/fanfics - I’ll trust the Television Tropes page that Draco Malfoy is all of these things. But I’m not sure how many other fictional characters there actually are that fit that entire description. I can’t think of many.

But since the term “leather pants” is in the title, this should suggest that it’s the sex symbol status that’s the emphasis of this trope, right? Not downplaying of flaws or victimization? Because I really don’t see the connection between people wearing leather pants and people being victims or not having notable flaws. 

So, I guess we could say that Ramsay Bolton in his Villain Sue version in the TV show Game of Thrones is a Draco In Leather Pants, if we treat GoT as a fanfic, taking the canon Ramsay Bolton from George R R Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, who’s described as a very ugly, fleshy dude with no appealing qualities, with a certain low cunning but no great intelligence or skill or courage, who’s not considered as sexy by anyone in universe (and has no consensual sexual relationship with anyone, instead only being interested in raping and torturing people) and turning him into a cute, frequently shirtless Rambo-style fighter with a loving girlfriend who even finds himself as an apex of a love triangle of sorts (even if it’s a one-sided triangle, in that the abused but smitten girlfriend is jealous of the hot new wife Ramsay will get to rape). This fits the trope pretty closely, no? 

However, Ramsay is not in the list of examples on the page. Here are, instead, some of the characters listed by various contributors as examples of this trope. These are about 90% of all character listed that I’m familiar with:

Film:

Jareth the Goblin King (David Bowie) from Labyrinth

Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) from Pirates of the Caribbean

Riddick (Van Diesel)

Frank N Furter from The Rocky Horror Picture Show

Tony Montana from Scarface

Hannibal Lecter from The Silence of the Lambs

Darth Vader from the Star Wars saga

Stanley Kowalski from A Streetcar Named Desire (as played by Marlon Brando)

Arnold Schwarzenegger's Terminator from The Terminator (it's actually mentioned that he literally wears leather pants in the movie)

Sarah Connor (specifically in Terminator II: Judgment Day)

Harry Lime (Orson Welles) from The Third Man (it's actually acknowledged that he's that "both Out and In-Universe)

Loki from MCU

Tony Stark from MCU, called an "Odd heroic variation"

Magneto from X-Men:First Class

Literature:

Hannibal Lecter (again) from Thomas Harris' novels (The Silence of the Lambs and Hanibal Rising are specifically mentioned)

Sandor Clegane from A Song of Ice and Fire

Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights

Mr Darcy from Pride and Prejudice (called "an unusual example of this trope”)

Live-Action TV:

Grant Ward from Agents of SHIELD

Dandy Mott from American Horror Story: Freak Show

Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel

Faith from Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel

The Master from Dr Who ("particularly in his Athony Ainley and John Simm incarnations")

The Tenth Doctor

Ianto from Torchwood (called "an odd heroic version")

Gaius Baltar from Battlestar Galactica

Alex Krycek from The X-Files

Sylar from Heroes

Noah Bennet from Heroes

Cole Turner from Charmed

Phoebe from Charmed

Scorpius from Farscape

Eric Northman from True Blood

Lex Luthor from Smallville

Furio from The Sopranos

Ben Linus from Lost

Gene Hunt from Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes

Alex from Dark Angel ("somewhat. While he's a good guy by the end..." starts the description)

Khal Drogo from Game of Thrones

Dr Gregory House 

Barney from How I Met Your Mother

Tate Langdon from American Horror Story: Murder House

Regina Mills from Once Upon a Time

Rumpelstilskin from OUAT

Jefferson from OUAT

Captain Hook/Killian Jones from OUAT

Tony DiNozzo from NCIS (the description actually says "He's good person deep down (...) and isn't by definition an actual villain" before going into why he's supposedly a Draco In Leather Pants)

Walter White from Breaking Bad

Damon Salvatore from The Vampire Diaries

Klaus from The Vampire Diaries/The Originals

Now, hold on. After going through this list, I’m even more confused. Either the above description of the trope is incorrect or really poorly worded, or most of the people who have posted supposed examples have no idea what that trope is supposed to be about.

Because, while quite a few of these characters - but not all! - are villains/antagonists or were villains at some point, many (in fact, the majority) of these characters are actually sexualized and presented as objects of desire in canon, by actual creators of the media in question. Now, I’m not sure if the writers, producers and directors of The Silence of the Lambs initially intended to make Anthony Hopkins’ Hannibal Lecter a sex symbol (unlike Mads Mikkelsen’s Hanibal Lecter from the TV show, who clearly was intentionally presented that way and treated as such in-universe) - but I’m pretty sure they always meant for him to be fascinating and strangely appealing while also being super-evil and scary - the way they clearly did not portray Buffalo Bill, or even Chilton, who’s not really a villain but is clearly intentionally portrayed as annoying and hateful. However, I really want to know if someone is seriously going to argue that David Bowie’s extremely tight pants in The Labyrinth happened because the costuming department just couldn’t find anything bigger and looser for him to wear, or that characters such as (among others) Faith, Spike, Damon Salvatore, Klaus, Eric Northman, Grant Ward or Captain Hook from OUAT were not intended to be objects of desire, and that it was somehow the fandom that “turned” them into sex symbols, totally unprovoked, to the total shock and horror of the creators of these shows, who refused to “retool” these characters that were totally not meant to be sexy, no sir! I don’t think that anyone is going to argue that, and if they did, they either did not watch these shows at all, or are being completely dishonest.

What are we even talking about here? It’s really strange if not downright hypocritical to complain about the “fandom” putting certain characters in “leather pants”, when the canon has already put them in (metaphorical and in some cases also literal) leather pants to begin with. That’s not “Misaimed Fandom”. That’s the opposite of it - the showrunners were aiming for it and hit the target, intentionally playing up the actors’/characters’ sex appeal, often in really obvious ways. Unless I’m supposed to believe that things like frequent shirtless or nude scenes, tight/leather clothes, female gazey/male gazey (whichever applies) camera shots, and other fanservicey moments are there for no plot-related reason, just happened by accident, and that the writers wrote these characters as sexy and desirable in-universe with a bunch of other characters commenting on or falling for their charms, not to mention blatant ship teases or actual romantic/sexual relationships with protagonists - but somehow expected the audience to not see them as desirable, at all.

Which, BTW, does not necessarily have anything to do with downplaying a character’s flaws, or to what extent they are portrayed sympathetically. Many of the characters on the list are both given some sympathetic qualities and complexity and intentionally presented as desirable, but you can have one without the other. Case in point: Dandy Mott from AHS:FS - totally evil, no redeeming qualities, not sympathetic at all, but Finn Wittrock sure did not have all the nude scenes because the plot demanded it.

Furthermore, on the second point: most (actually, the majority, although there are some exceptions) of these characters were actually given tragic backstories and/or had terrible things happen to them in canon in scenes that were supposed to be dramatic and tragic and were clearly intended to elicit at least some degree of sympathy or empathy. For instance, you may argue how bad or evil or good Sandor Clegane is, but can anyone deny that he’s canonically a victim of horrible abuse by his brother, which has left him physically scarred and disfigured for life, and left even an harsher psychological and emotional trauma that’s defined his life? No. You can’t deny that. And some of the other above mentioned characters have had entire episodes and storyarcs or, heck, even entire movies devoted to their tragic backstories. It doesn’t make sense to accuse the fandom of “turning (x) into a victim”, when that character is already portrayed as a victim (among other things, and at least at some point in their arc or their backstory) in canon, intentionally, by the actual creators of said media. 

Which, BTW, has absolutely nothing to do with downplaying a characters’ flaws or the villain/hero status in the narrative. You don’t have to be a flawless person or even a good person in order to be or have been a victim (of abuse, rape, torture, murder etc.) and being a bad person or doing bad things does not disqualify you from the victim status. Conversely, being victimized at some point in your life does not automatically make you a good person or a hero, and does not preclude you from doing evil things and/or being a perpetrator of crime/abuse. I shouldn’t really need to explain this, it’s pretty obvious and basic.

In short, there is no reason why villainous, semi-villainous, anti-heroic or super flawed characters can’t canonically be objects of desire, victims, or both. Many, in fact, are.

So then, maybe half of the description of this trope should really be scrapped, and it’s all just about downplaying the flaws of villainous characters?

But that doesn’t fit either, because quite a few of the characters listed on this page either did not remain villains and eventually became heroes (Faith and Spike, for instance - and heck, even Darth Vader got last minute redemption) or simply aren’t and have never been villains. In fact, several of these - such as the Doctor, Sarah Connor or MCU Tony Stark - are definitely heroes and protagonists of their stories. Flawed heroes are still heroes. RDJ’s Tony Stark is clearly meant to be super flawed and occasionally annoying, but still likable, and certainly heroic. Others aren’t heroic, but are clearly not meant to be disliked by the audience, in spite of their shitty behavior (e.g. Barney from HIMYM). 

In fact, people who wrote some of these entries even admit that the character they think is a Draco in Leather Pants is “a heroic example” or “a good person deep down” - which contradicts what the trope is supposed to be about. Some entries are even complaining about the treatment of said characters not by fandom, but in the actual canon - which, again, completely contradicts what the description says the trope is all about (Misaimed Fandom).

OK, maybe listing heroic or other non-villainous characters does not contradict the description - because it says “controversial or downright villainous character”? But a controversial character is simply one that polarizes opinions. It’s usually pretty clear which characters are supposed to be villainous, but any character can be controversial. For instance, someone has listed Sarah Connor and said that people see her as “flawless icon of feminism” and then proceeded to criticize her character flaws - but someone else replied that many people may actually see the character as feminist exactly because she’s a heroine who is flawed and complex, rather than a flawless paragon of anything, and that it’s great to see female characters allowed to be flawed heroes, just like male characters so often are.

How do you actually separate the controversial from the non-controversial characters? If a bunch of people think a character is smart and awesome, and a bunch of others think the same character is stupid and annoying, that’s a controversial character. But do these groups have to be roughly the same in size for a character to be controversial? How many people in fandom need to hold one or the other opinion? Is Dawn from Buffy the Vampire Slayer a controversial character, or just an unpopular one? Many people often go about how hated she was, but I know quite a few BtVS fans who love Dawn.

And even if we agree on that, well - whether people are “downplaying” a character’s flaws is pretty debatable in itself, isn’t it? Yes, sometimes people ignore canon flaws or bad actions of their faves in fanfiction or fandom debates. But what if some fans acknowledge that their faves are flawed and have done shitty things, but insist that they also have good traits and the bad doesn’t outweigh the good, or even simply that they still like them in spite of all? Someone else who hates that character and thinks that they’re the Worst Ever and pretty much the closest thing to Antichrist may say that they are “downplaying their flaws”. But the other party may reply that it’s in fact the hater who’s overplaying their flaws. It’s not really an exact science - and that’s exactly what makes a character controversial. 

And, well, if the point of the trope is to complain that there are different and opposing opinions about controversial characters, in other words, that there’s controversy about controversial characters... well, duh? 

So, at the end of this analysis that’s probably way too long... I’m even more confused than I was at the beginning. I’d really appreciate it if someone would help me understand what this trope is about, if it’s even a trope, and why it’s called what it’s called. Is it supposed to be about:

complaining about characters that aren’t supposed to be sexy /desirable/ appealing in canon, but some rather sizable portion of the fandom treats them as if they were? (Which would be the one explanation that would fit the name of the trope.)

complaining about characters that aren’t victimized/don’t suffer in canon, but some reasonably large portion of the fandom treats them as if they are?

complaining about characters that fit both of the above, at the same time?

complaining about characters that are villainous, but a lot of people like them and sympathize with them anyway (regardless of whether the canon offers them material for that)?

complaining about the fact that authors of some canon works like to make their villains complex and somewhat sympathetic or give them heartbreaking moments and tragic backstories?

not being upset with canon for giving villains heartbreaking moments and  tragic backstories, but complaining anyway about the fact that a lot of fans sympathize with them, because you think that fandom should be stronger than that and bravely resist the authors’ attempts to elicit sympathy for bad people?

complaining about the fact that authors of some canon works portray their villains/antagonists as desirable and try to make them into sex symbols?

complaining about the fact that they’ve actually succeeded in that, which upsets you because you think that fans should all be morally stronger and be able to resists for the authors’ blatant fanservice and sexualization of morally corrupt characters?

just an umbrella term for people’s tendency to downplay or ignore their favorite characters’ flaws (which may apply to not just to villains, but to any character who has any flaws or has done something wrong or morally dubious)?

merely an excuse to bitch about the fact that, shockingly, there are some fans who have a different opinion than you and like a character that you strongly dislike?

[im-a-king-baby]

hi! i love all the media things in ELYN so much that i'd gladly have a fic that contains just them: tumblr posts, twitter replies, some online articles, maybe even Prince/Simme fanfiction, i just adooooore what you're doing with it, so thank you so much 🧡

hiii! Thank you, they were so much fun to write (although some more than others were a headache to format XD)

Here is a bonus one that got cut from the main fic just for you:

[transcript of fan shot video of Simme in Los Angeles]

Hola mis amigos! Hope everyone is having an awesome night, I’ve been on tour for a few weeks now and it’s so exciting to be back home, doing And the Next shows here in L.A.! [crowd screams for a full thirty seconds before Simme waves them to be quiet.] Now I know you might be expecting certain things from my tour, but my mom is here tonight - hola mama! - and so we’re going to have a nice, clean show. No naughty language, no property damage and no taking off our clothes! Can you all do that for me? [Massive roar of agreement.] Thanks all, that means so much to me. Alright, our next song is called Fuck this Motherfucker, let’s fucking party!

[Comments]

xXx8787xXx: Isn't this the show where they set the piano on fire?

[thechamberofbooks]

Should I have done uni stuff the last hour and a half in the library?

Probably.

Did I make an edit based upon the beautiful polaroid’s @moonofthenight just posted early today? [x]

I absolutely fucking did!

This is an edit for @prince-simon beautiful fanfiction “i don’t feel like our love is brand new” (x)

I hope you like what I have done with your creation Moon and Wyo I hope you also enjoy another edit from me for your fanfiction 🧡💜

Funsized Fun Notes

The background as you can see is an beautiful appartment full of plants and personality, exactly what I hope for Wille and Simmes future 🧡💜

find all of my other edits for this fic here (x)