Demographics

How old are you?

Do you identify as LGBTQ+ in any form?

What is your gender identity?

Do you identify as any of the following? (LGBTQ+ related identities)

What is your sexual orientation?

What is your romantic orientation?

What is your race?

Is English your native language?

Which geographic region best describes your current place of residence?

Which religious or spiritual tradition(s) do you believe?

Do you experience the following? (Disability, Neurodivergence, and Health Conditions)

Usage of AO3

Which of the following AO3 activities have you done in the last twelve months?

How frequently do you use the following methods to find works on AO3?

In a typical week, how long do you spend on AO3 or reading downloaded AO3 works?

When did you begin using AO3, with or without an account?

When did you create your first AO3 account?

What languages do you use for reading and posting on AO3?

Works You Post On AO3

Which of the following types of works do you post on AO3? (Media)

Of the works you post on AO3, how often do you post works with the following ratings?

Of the works you post on AO3, how often do you post works focused on the following types of relationships?

Of the works you post on AO3, how often do you post works in the following genres/tags?

Of the works you post on AO3, how often do you post the following types of works? (Format & Miscellaneous)

Works You Consume On AO3

Which of the following types of works do you consume on AO3? (Media)

How much do you enjoy works with the following ratings on AO3?

How much do you enjoy works focused on the following types of relationships on AO3?

How much do you enjoy works in the following genres/tags on AO3?

How much do you enjoy the following types of works on AO3? (Format & Miscellaneous)

Fandom Beyond AO3

Which of the following types of fanworks have you consumed in the last year?

Which of the following types of fandom activity have you done in the last year?

Which of the following websites or apps do you currently use for fandom activities at least once a month?

Which of the following websites or apps have you previously used for fandom activities, but no longer regularly use?

When did you first begin participating in fandom?

How many fandoms have you considered yourself a part of in the last five years?

The Case For

From Lace's very first line, Silksong's dialog positions her as Hornet's equal and opposite. She is constantly using diminutive nicknames like "little spider" or "spider, dear" and is generally condescending to Hornet. In this context, our protagonist calling Lace "child" comes across as less an accurate descriptor, and more an attempt to marshal a counteroffensive on their battlefield of words.

And it isn't just the dynamic in their dialog that presents Lace and Hornet as peers; the entire rest of the game follows through on that by setting the two up as direct mirrors of each other in details both large and small. Lace is roughly the same height as Hornet - in fact, their hitboxes are literally identical. Lace's theme has elements of Hornet's. Lace being a recurring rival boss has her playing the same role Hornet did in the original Hollow Knight. Even Lace's past acting as a seemingly callous sentinel of a dead land is reminiscent of Hornet's own merciless guardianship of Hallownest.

Indeed, despite all the verbal shade being thrown in both directions, Hornet's underlying dynamic with Lace is that she offers Lace respect. She regards Lace as a genuine threat in Deep Docks, she makes a sincere attempt to reach out to Lace after the battle in the Cradle, and she counters Lace's cynical taunts in the Abyss with frank honesty about her past. But perhaps most tellingly, when Hornet describes Lace to other bugs, she calls her "the white knight" rather than "child." Grand Mother Silk might not see her daughter as a worthy knight, but Hornet absolutely does!

And Lace, meanwhile, proves Hornet's respect for her well-founded. She goes from covertly aiding Hornet at the start to actively rebelling against her mother, and even manages to survive Void possession with Hornet's help - something no other being in the series has done. Both physically and mentally, she is far stronger and more independent than she was created to be.

Perhaps the most prominent symbol of this dynamic is the addition of Lace's pin next to Hornet's needle on the post-SotV title screen. The imagery suggests the two of them continuing to fight side by side as they journey together over the Surface. And I think it's notable, too, that Lace continues to be represented by her weapon. Implying she is not a child or younger sibling in need of defending, but again, a co-equal partner to Hornet, accompanying her wherever the two choose to go. (In a delightful touch, Lace's pin stays even if you change the background!)

The many direct parallels between the two, the mutual rather than one-sided taunting in their dialog, and the last impression the player has of the game being this final title screen - these details all work together to support a read of Hornet and Lace as peers from beginning to end.

But what if, in addition to enemies-to-friends, they were also enemies-to-lovers?

The Case for Romance, Specifically

If Hornet's hidden line to Eva creates the foundation for a read where Hornet desires a child, then Hornet's Hunter's Journal entry on the Conchflies creates the foundation for a read where Hornet desires a mate who can match her immortal lifespan. In both cases, the game never states outright that Hornet actually does want one or the other, but once again, absent evidence to the contrary it's not hard to extrapolate that she might.

And as much as I adore Shakra/Hornet, Shakra unfortunately doesn't fit what Hornet's looking for in this read.

But Lace conspicuously does.

And Lace, for her part, also seems to be quite interested in Hornet! Compare her dialog to Kratt's, for example:

We're all in agreement that Kratt is not interested in Hornet platonic reasons, yes? So, does it not follow that Lace's "Spider, dear" may be similarly romantically charged?

I've seen fans claim it's not, and I find that rather baffling? I've had to learn to decode what is/isn't romantic without having a natural instinct for it, so double standards where a certain behavior from a man to a woman is seen as unambiguously romantic/sexual but the same behavior between two women is somehow not romantic... that kind of thing tends to drive me up a wall.

If it were only Lace using the word "dear," then one could perhaps read it as solely a sarcastic spin on how other bugs like Jubilana or Seamstress use that epithet for Hornet in a motherly sense. But Lace's dialog is also playfully provocative in other ways too - take her "Delicious! I like you already!" for example. Then combine that with the way Lace constantly giggles during her battles, and lines like this from her needolin dialog...

Look, I'll just say it: Lace comes across as a flirty sadomasochist.

And that is the difficult contradiction at the heart of Lace. On the face of it, her dialog is bitterly cynical, it is startlingly self-aware, it is quite romantically, perhaps even sexually charged. Of course there are probably real children who sound like Lace - real children are often both surprisingly articulate and surprisingly weird little goobers. But Lace is a fictional character, and nothing about her speech conveys the innocence, clumsiness, or inexperience of a child to the player. And so one must either reject the lore that Lace is to be taken as a child, or one must attempt to explain why this ""child"" speaks and thinks in such a relentlessly uncomfortable adult manner. She is a character designed to defeat simplistic analysis.

For now, let's continue with the idea that Hornet had resigned herself to loneliness, only for Lace to crash into her life by rescuing her, then tauntingly flirting with her. And also trying to kill her, but that's just Tuesday for both these delightful freaks.

It's a pretty solid meet cute.

Now layer on top of that base the intensely romantic imagery around Lace and Hornet throughout the rest of the game. I won't get into the loaded implications of Lace's flower field possibly being a reference to a famously lesbian anime, or how Silksong's plot follows some amusingly common yuri beats - I already wrote about those at length in a previous essay.

Instead, let's skip ahead to the Everbloom, which in both appearance and usage is very clearly the same Fragile Flower from the original Hollow Knight. In that game, the Knight can gift the Flower to express affection toward several different characters (including their mother). But it's primary purpose, the quest most players will immediately associate the flower with because of the task's memorable frustration, is as a tragic offering to be carefully ferried between a lesbian and her lover's grave.

In Silksong, reading Hornet and Lace as a budding romance invokes this old association to create yet another hopeful inversion of the original game. Once again, the flower is brought to the "grave" of the lesbian love interest, but here, this act provides Hornet with the power to bring Lace back for a miraculous happy ending.

After all, it's not as though Team Cherry shies away from including romances in their games. Both the Grey Mourner and the Green Prince's relationships are defined by tragedy in contrast to the straight couples we see throughout. But in Hollow Knight, the buried lesbian lover of the Grey Mourner is balanced with the happy gay couple of the Nailsmith and Sheo. In Silksong, Hornet and Lace would provide an optimistic counterpoint to the doomed romance of the Clover Princes.

Finally, after spending eons being forced into the role of a dependent child, Lace attains the freedom to embrace adulthood. And part of emphasizing that coming of age is that she and Hornet are implied to become a romance, the type of relationship most heavily associated with adulthood. In this sense, Lace and Hornet being positioned as love interests is not a frivolous or incidental flourish - it's used to reinforce Lace's maturity, and thus, to strengthen the themes of finding new hope and breaking tragic cycles in the game as a whole.

The Case Against

Of course, much of the evidence for the previous two interpretations can be seen as evidence against this one. The two details I've seen most commonly cited against reading Hornet and Lace as romantic or even as equals are 1) the dialog from the Caretaker about Lace having the "look of a child and a mind to match" and 2) the idea that Lace should be seen as Hornet's aunt.

Meanwhile, the counterevidence I personally find most compelling is that Hornet calls Lace a child even in her final line to Lace and in the Hunter's Journal entry for Lost Lace. Both of those places would have been perfect opportunities to have Hornet switch to another form of address to reflect her changing understanding of Lace, just as Shakra's quests end with her finally using Hornet's name.

And yet, Hornet calls Lace a child to the end.

So, yes! From that craftsmanship angle I keep coming back to, these are all valid counterarguments against this read. Adding lore that could cause the player to see one of characters as a child but the other as an adult genuinely isn't something a dev should include if the intent was to make it crystal clear that a relationship between two characters was one of peers, let alone romantic. Similarly, the game sure does like to tease the idea of Grand Mother Silk potentially being Hornet's literal grandmother, and not every player is necessarily going to find and fight the First Sinner to learn the truth of the matter. Making the big reveal that Hornet isn't related to Pharloom's monarch or her knight optional is an odd move if that reveal is meant to be essential to understanding the characters.

That being said, this is a game where the fact that there's an entire third act is also an optional and well-hidden twist! Meanwhile, both Hollow Knight games are filled with examples of seemingly reliable lore sources turning out to be biased and flawed when examined more closely. Encouraging fans to dig deep rather than accepting details at face value, to scratch their heads over a narrative built out of vague and multifaceted puzzle pieces - that's the core appeal of Soulslike-style storytelling!

And so, my guess is that with Lace and Hornet, like with so many other lore questions, Team Cherry aimed to present a dynamic that was intentionally ambiguous so as to foster friendly discussions and fan debate. Thus, details contradictory to this friends/love interests read were included to complicate it - just as with the other two reads - but certainly not meant to preclude it from discussion entirely. Because the discussion is the point. There's meant to be multiple interpretations to provide more toys for everyone to play with.

Intent Meets Internet

…Unfortunately, no piece of fiction exists in a vacuum. It's already an uphill battle to present any type of queerness in popular fiction and not have it misunderstood by mainstream audiences. Case in point: the initial German translation of the Clover Princes mistaking them for literal brothers. And also: the early debate over Phantom's gender, oh my goodness. Another textbook example of how "mildly conflicting, highly ambiguous details on whether something is queer" results in the queer reading nearly being stamped out entirely on authoritative resources like the community wiki.

The sad reality is that when there is even the slightest detail that can be used to read against a queer interpretation... then no matter how minor, that detail will likely be weaponized against both that queer reading and anyone who enjoys it.

Thus, details about Lace and Hornet that were likely intended to stimulate sincere discussion when and where it is welcome, instead are used an excuse to inappropriately badger fan creators who just want to share and celebrate their works. An unasked for "debate" where one side is hostile to alternate viewpoints and the other is exhausted of having to regularly defend their right to exist in a community space is no debate at all. That's just harassment. And where harassment becomes common, it becomes far more difficult to have any kind of good faith discussion.

It's quite the irony, isn't it? I can't imagine that is what Team Cherry intended.

Still, even if Team Cherry were to descend from on high to end the debate by declaring one reading correct, it wouldn't change the game itself and all its messy multiplicity of readings. Once a story collides with an audience, we are free to react to and play with the characters however we see fit. Such is the essence of fandom!

…That all being said, my theorizing about Team Cherry's intent isn't mere guesswork. They have outright stated in an interview that they see their narrative as perhaps "quite subjective" and that they prefer seeing community debates rather than watching a single read be accepted as fact. That they wish to leave space for interpretation wherever they can. So, if following creator intent is important to you… well, there you go.

The most "correct" answer is that there is no correct answer. The only thing I can say for certain is that there will be plenty who disagree with everything I wrote in this essay, from the problems of my divided categorizations (the three part structure didn't leave me room to talk about more niche reads like "sisters with Lace and Hornet as peers" or "Hornet and Lace are both children" which is a sincere shame), to how I presented each reading, to the flagrantly subjective thoughts and questionable humor I scattered throughout.

As Silksong is a work of fiction, it is up to us players to decide which interpretation is the truth for ourselves. After all, we each bring our own unique viewpoints to the game, and get something unique out of it in turn.

Personal Thoughts

Speaking of viewpoints, I did my best, but it may have been a fool's errand for me to attempt to be unbiased when shipping Lace and Hornet is a major reason I started playing Silksong in the first place!

See, what happened is that I found this game right at a point where I was becoming discouraged with my previous main fandom. I consider myself primarily a fanfic writer, and what I write is primarily femslash. But what I was discovering in that other fandom was that… well, it's not very fun to be a femslash writer with very few other fans like that to talk to. (Shoutout to those friends I did find though, I doubt any of you are reading this but you're still the best! <3)

Now, at the time I'd already been casually familiar with the original Hollow Knight from Let's Plays, speedruns, and the like. So my first exposure to Silksong was similar - watching a (very slow) Let's Play that started when game came out. But it was the one-two punch of watching of Silksong's incredible finale and then immediately going to AO3 and finding hundreds of Lacenet fics that knocked me on my butt and convinced me that no, I couldn't just sit on the sidelines anymore. I had to play this game for myself.

I just… I wish I knew better how to convey to non-fic readers what a rare and welcoming and wonderful thing it is to find a community with such a thriving femslash scene. Even on AO3, F/F is one of the least common categories of fanwork, typically hovering at around 6-10% of fan content. Yes, below even Gen (platonic) fic, which is usually around 15-20%. The dearth of femslash is a very consistent pattern in centrumlumina/centreoftheselights's yearly AO3 analyses, and it's a trend I've observed up close myself too.

The reasons for this disproportionate rarity are a confluence of multiple unpleasant factors - and no few essays have been written on the subject - but the point is, the comparatively large ratio it has in this fandom is something special, not to be taken for granted.

Because when you have a fandom where there's a demonstrable appetite for female and nonbinary-centered works, more of those works get created in general.

Actually, you know what? I'm a total nerd about fandom statistics so…

Here's what the Hollow Knight tag on AO3 looked like pre-Silksong:

And here's the breakdown of fics written post-Silksong:

The proportion of F/F works nearly tripled, Other remained stable (which is impressive; I would have expected a drop just based on the sheer fact the fandom is responding to a new game with a binary rather than nonbinary protagonist but evidently not!), and Gen and M/M proportionally shrank a bit. Gen is still the easily dominant category at 35.8% of all fanworks, though the most common relationship to write about was indeed Lacenet at 15.5% of all fanworks produced in this time period. (Purely platonic Lace&Hornet made up 3.9%.) And while tumblr isn't possible to analyze casually, the fact that Lacenet made it into February's Top 100 ship tags suggests a similar trend on here as well.

But wait, just because there is proportionally somewhat less M/M and Gen fic being written, does that mean there are now less new works of those categories to read overall?

Nope! Every category saw a massive surge in total fics. Behold, the effects of a popular sequel:

All in all, these numbers seem like a pretty healthy mix to me. Despite the complaints I've seen about pesky shippers running rampant, the numbers show that Lacenet is going strong but it's certainly not overwhelming the fandom!

As a ship, Lacenet also just appeals to my hyperspecific personal tastes, haha. I'm an incorrigible villain-liker, and enemies-to-friends-to-lovers is my favorite dynamic. Especially if it involves a character that is suicidal but also semi-immortal, that's such a decadent thing to play with for Hurt/Comfort scenarios! And heck, the way Lace is often written to be struggling with being perceived as childish and therefore not taken seriously? Yeah that's something I have to deal with in my own life. She both fascinates me and is #relatable.

I adore Lace and Hornet, and I adore Lacenet. Hence: not just this essay, but this whole Silksong Progress series. You can still see from the (increasingly unfitting) title that this started as just casual liveblog-ish thoughts as I played. But as I went on, it became more and more analytical, an attempt to give myself a crash course on the setting's deep lore and how to theorize about and work within it.

so did I do it? do I get a passing grade on the Silksong lore final exam? :P

Well, pass or fail, this post series has been my way of introducing myself and getting to know other fans in the Hollow Knight community. And if nothing else, that part has been a success!

40K Fanworks on AO3 by the Numbers: An Overview

Total works in Warhammer 40.000 (40K): 11,420

Total 40K Works excluding crossovers: 9,724

Earliest F/F 40K work: February 17, 2016

40K F/F at Large: Numbers and Top Ten

Total F/F works (excluding crossovers, F/M, M/M, Other, and Fanart): 318

Top Ten:

Original Female Character(s)/Original Female Character(s): 30

Celestine/Katarinya Greyfax: 24

Yrliet Lanaevyss/The Rogue Trader | Lord Captain: 24

Original Adepta Sororitas Character(s)/Original Adepta Sororitas Character(s): 12

Original Character(s)/Original Character(s): 11

Jae Heydari/The Rogue Trader | Lord Captain: 10

Kibellah/The Rogue Trader | Lord Captain: 9

Cassia Orsellio/The Rogue Trader | Lord Captain: 9

Necron Character(s)/Necron Character(s): 5

Rogal Dorn/Perturabo: 4

Comments:

Relationships featuring at least one original character (OC), including those related to the 2023 Rogue Trader CRPG (RT), dominate with 8 out of 10 spots. Note that if OC / OC ships were consistently tagged in the same manner, they would hold the No. 1 spot by an even greater margin. More on that to follow.

Of the two remaining ships in the top ten, one (Rogal Dorn/Perturabo) is a dual genderbend ship, leaving us with Celestine/Greyfax (Celefax) as the sole F/F ship in the top ten featuring two canonical women characters.

40K F/F without RT: Numbers and Top Ten

Total F/F works (excluding RT sub-fandom): 245

Top Ten:

Original Female Character(s)/Original Female Character(s): 30

Celestine/Katarinya Greyfax: 24

Original Adepta Sororitas Character(s)/Original Adepta Sororitas Character(s): 12

Original Character(s)/Original Character(s): 10

Necron Character(s)/Necron Character(s): 5

Rogal Dorn/Perturabo: 4

Original Astra Militarum Character(s)/Original Astra Militarum Character(s): 4

Fulgrim/Sanguinius: 3

Original Adepta Sororitas Character(s)/Original Female Character(s): 3

Aphone Ire/Jenetia Krole: 3

Comments:

OC ships continue to dominate, holding 6 out of 10 spots, with the remainder of the top ten an even two-two split between dual genderbend ships and ships featuring two canonical women characters (hereafter referred to as ‟canon F/F ships”).

Due to the wide variation in OC ship tagging practices (sometimes including designations like faction, gender, etc.), a hand count is required to determine the total numbers and percentages of F/F works attributable to OC ships, genderbent ships, and canon F/F ships.

A review of 13 pages of AO3 search results gives us the following data:

40K F/F Works (excluding RT) Hand Count Results:

OC Ships: 171 (69.8%)

Canon F/F Ships: 47 (19.2%)

Genderbent Ships: 27 (11%)

40K Canon/Canon F/F Works: Numbers and Top Seven*

*8th place and below have only one work

Total Canon/Canon F/F works: 74

Top Seven:

Celestine/Katarinya Greyfax: 24

Rogal Dorn/Perturabo: 4

Fulgrim/Sanguinius: 3

Aphone Ire/Jenetia Krole: 3

Esha Ani Mohana/Vethorel: 2

Amar Astarte/Erda: 2

Ursula Creed/Morvenn Vahl: 2

Comments:

Celefax has a runaway lead at No. 1 (~32.4% of canon/canon F/F fics), despite a relatively small number of 24 works (26 with crossovers). Dual genderbend ships account for two of the top seven, and canon F/F ships round out the remaining four spots.

Zooming out, ships with at least one genderbent character represent 36.5% of canon/canon F/F works (27), with the remaining ~63.5% of canon/canon F/F works (47) being canon F/F ships.

Discussion

Let's start by acknowledging we are talking about a tiny iteration of a matryoshka of niche subfandoms, in a wider fandom which has been referred to as ten different fandoms wearing a trenchcoat. Fanfiction (shipfic in particular) is a small portion of the fandom ecosystem at large, and AO3 is by no means the only online space for people interested in transformative 40K fanworks.

That being said, as overall trends related to F/F shipping have been discussed elsewhere many times, I will be focusing on the following two specific trends we see in 40K F/F fanfiction posted to AO3: (1) predominance of OC ships; and (2) lack of critical mass for canon F/F ships other than Celefax.

OCs as Tradition and Necessity

40K has a long tradition of encouraging and supporting fans in creating original concepts, characters, and accompanying lore. Building and painting your own special little guys and writing their story with dice rolls is a hugely enjoyable part of the tabletop game, so it makes perfect sense that some fans would also choose to immortalize their OCs (and perhaps make them kiss) in fanfiction, or vice versa.

Notwithstanding that tradition, 40K also has an enormous cast of canon characters, and this is where the most obvious and oft-cited rationale for the comparative lack of F/F content comes in: canon characters are predominantly men.

While this is undoubtedly true, I don't think it's the whole story. Black Library has been making concerted efforts in recent years to include more women protagonists and POV characters in published content, and as someone who started with more recent novels and worked my way backwards, it's noticeable.

I personally suspect the structure and nature of 40K lore is a huge contributing factor. The canon is enormous, spread out, and often contradictory. Resources can be difficult or impossible to access (e.g. hard copies only available for exorbitant prices secondhand). It's overwhelming and difficult to know where to start.

Moreover, everybody likes different things, and even a dedicated F/F fan might have to search far and wide before finding something that speaks to them, or there might simply not be any canon characters that fit exactly what they're looking for. Others might simply be uninterested in the Black Library novels, and prefer to work from scratch using the codex for their favorite faction.

Under these circumstances, and given 40K's OC-friendliness in general, it's no wonder many people choose to create characters perfectly suited to the story they want to tell.

Beyond Celefax: Lack of Critical Mass for Canon F/F Ships

Let's begin with the obvious: other than Celefax, there is not a single canon F/F ship on AO3 that comes close to breaking double digits. The good news is that the bar is low if you want to get your favorite canon F/F ship into the top ten. Pen a few drabbles and your ship has a spot! The bad news is that fans of any particular canon F/F ship rarely have more than one work to enjoy, if at all.

The reality is that we have very few F/F relationships that are truly canon. As relatively popular as Celefax is, it's a nod-and-a-wink dynamic; Lelith Hesperax and Morghana Nathrax are the only canon relationship with a meaningful amount of content (with the caveat that I haven't read everything, including Mark of Faith, which I've heard is hella gay).

Other than that, canon relationships are often relegated to minor or background characters, like Corporal Mari Magot and Sergeant Grifen in the Ciaphas Cain novels, Ani and Sev in the Alpharius primarch novella, and Inquisitor Marguerethe Wienand and her bodyguard Rendenstein in the Beast Arises series, to name three.

While there are other women characters who have (or have the potential for) chemistry, it's only natural that fans would be primarily drawn to canon or heavily implied relationships like Celefax, both of which are in unfortunately short supply.

Suggestions & Closing Thoughts

What follows are a few humble recommendations for how we can encourage the creation of more F/F works in the 40K fandom. Even if you don't plan on creating fanworks yourself, you can still make a difference by inspiring and encouraging others!

Sharing is Caring: This applies to so many things! Book excerpts, lore snippets, headcanons, memes, fanart & fanfiction (your own and others'), factional or character expertise, enthusiastic screeching, etc.! If you love it, chances are there are others out there who will too.

Let Creativity and Passion Guide You: There are so many ways to make good use of the incredible lore and characters we do have! Create an OC, pair up characters from different factions/timelines, or get creative with AUs (30K/40K, time travel, historical, warhammer fantasy/AoS, noir, etc.)!

Support Your Peers: This one is huge! It's hard to keep up creative motivation when we feel like we're screaming into the void, especially when people are vocal about wanting more F/F content. Leave kudos and comments on fics, encourage others, offer to beta read or play sounding board, get unhinged in the tags! We are a community first and foremost, and there are a lot more of us than you might think. So even if it feels daunting at first, I encourage you to get out there and engage!

Finally, I would be remiss not to state that quantity, by itself, is not a perfect metric for the enthusiasm of a fanbase. Despite the relatively small number of F/F 40K fanfiction works on AO3, in my experience, the authors and readers are some of the most dedicated and enthusiastic (not to mention supportive and kind) human beings out there! One fanfic might seem like a drop in the bucket, but I and many authors I know often spend months and even years working on a single project.