#non-wilmon

As someone who has spent way too much time imagining the background characters' families, I find it kind of hilarious how the extras playing their parents changed from S1 to S3.

Here are Stella and Fredrika's mums and (presumably) Stella's dad in S1:

Only, Stella is hugged by this red-haired woman in S3 (is the man there with her or not?) who is probably meant to be her mum.

Similarly, we actually see both Nils and Vincent with their folks in S1:

But what do you know, they are both seen with this completely different set of parents in S3!

Now, this is obviously just because the casting department either couldn't the same extras back or forgot that they were already cast for S1. But isn't it much more fun to imagine an in-world explanation?

For example, Stella's mum in S1 looks a bit older than the woman in S3. Is the latter her favourite aunt (to whom she came out over the year)?

How about Nils and Vincent? Did Nils's godparents come see him graduate? Were his parents in S1 actually just one parent + aunt/uncle or the parent's new partner, and this is the other parent? Or are these Vincent's aunt and uncle (the man's jaw looks similar to his S1 dad)? Or just random people they happen to know?

Then there's Henry and Walter, who were never shown with their parents in S1, but they were shown with these people in S3:

Do we think the guy with a moustache and glasses is Henry's dad or Walter's? I'm leaning towards Henry's, he certainly looks the part. Whose mum is that in the light brown coat? She's standing next to Walter in the first photo so could be his mum who brought him flowers, but then, why is someone else holding the bouquet in the second photo? Maybe those two are Henry's folks then... Unless Henry's mum is holding Walter's flowers in the second photo, for some reason. Who knows! But clearly, their families have reconnected since S1.

Maddie's parents were never seen as far as I can recall. I have a feeling that Alexander's dad Ulf appeared in S1, but I couldn't find him when I looked just now...if anyone knows where he pops up, please feel free to add the screenshot (or let me know where to find him)!

EDIT: Found both Ulf and his wife, as well as Fredrika's dad!

Hi anon! Thank you for your message <3

You are right, of course. I did mean to say in my initial post that the Wilmon only trend had been strong from the start, but I seem to have deleted that bit while editing and just written that it has grown stronger (believe it or not, I do try to trim these rambles down).

Yes, most posts and fanworks definitely were about Wilmon from day one. This is reflected in the number of fics for other ships that I included in my initial post, as well as this reblog where I noted that no other romantic ship has even been tagged in 2.5% of the total number of YR fics on ao3. (Yes, really. Two point five percent.)

It's more that...as one of the very first non-Wilmon authors, I also saw first hand the side of the fandom that was really excited for any fan content exploring the still largely unexplored world of the show. My magnum opus was long and niche, and I had neither the guts nor the platform to promote it, but many people still found it (and some even told me it inspired them to include Walty in their own fics). Granted, it did also feature Wilmon as prominent side characters! But even so, the curiosity it was met with could only arise in the early stages, when the fandom was hungrier for different takes.

In other words, even if we never had much non-Wilmon stuff even at the start, what we had was or at least had the potential to become more popular. And of course that's largely to do with the size of the fandom, but I think it's also to do with the makeup.

In the other reblog thread that you are referencing here, I said that I personally thought the significant influx of new fans in the run-up to and after S2 was one of the pivotal moments. Fandom is always in flux as people come in and move out, and if the early fans who leave are replaced by new fans with different expectations, the focus of the fandom inevitably changes.

The immediate aftermath of S2 was actually a very good time to be interested in non-Wilmon things. Lots of Stedrika fics popped up, and we saw the first little surge of thirty Walty fics over four months, for example! But as the first months of excitement turned to a long wait for S3 and people started to drop off...

Most of the fans who stuck around were Wilmon only, and while the majority of those Wilmon-only fans were absolutely lovely people and amazing additions to the fandom, some folks with less lovely sentiments also came in on the same trains. These weren't just people who weren't interested in the non-Wilmon aspects - they were people who regularly said that "no one" cared about anything other than Wilmon, and upheld a constant discourse against characters and ships who were primarily seen as hurting/harming Wilmon, standing in their way, or hogging screen time from them (especially Sargust on here, but also Stedrika in some spaces). All that had already started after the premiere, but it gained a lot more airspace when the initial buzz died down.

That was a really, truly exhausting time to be invested in the non-Wilmon aspects of the show. I have wondered for a while how many lurkers or newer fans were put off who could have potentially been part of our subcommunity if we'd had a safe space for one back then.

I also wonder sometimes how much of this negativity the makers of the show saw, in addition to the hate that was directly sent to Felicia for example. As you suggest, it feels pretty obvious to me that Stedrika's plot was cut from S3 due to the backlash.

I don't think YR was ever a balanced ensemble show, but all the seasons did have some ensemble vibes. In both S1 and S3, Felice had a storyline of her own, and Sara and August's arcs were there all through the show. But do I agree that the ensemble vibe was higher in S2 due to Wilmon being broken up and some screen time being devoted to Sargust, Sircus and to a lesser degree also Stedrika (oh, and Rousseau, who thankfully wasn't on social media to read all the complaints about himself haha).