#walty

The fact is that most viewers simply don't get attached to minor side characters, and that's particularly understandable when it comes to the Hillerska students in YR. I've noticed that many fans are not only indifferent to these characters, but they actively dislike them. A lot of people never forgave them for shunning Simon in S1, and the glimpses we saw of their elitism in S3 didn't do them any favours either. They represent a world that Simon doesn't fit into and Wille is meant to break loose from.

I regularly see posts questioning how anyone could like these characters, and even the occasional bad faith take on why they are popular. I assume those people are in the minority; the majority just scroll past posts or fics about Walty, Stedrika & co because they simply have no interest in exploring them further. (I keep thinking of how someone once told me directly that they couldn't stand any of the privileged brats, which was why they hadn't read my fics.)

In the immediate aftermath of S3, there was in fact a small surge in enthusiasm for Walty, as the meadow scene moved their relationship from "strictly platonic" to "open to interpretation" in many people's eyes. In my poll on their canon status, the result of 42.9% shippers/fans was probably skewed by my followers being more likely to ship than the average YR fan, but there was also very real excitement on their tumblr and ao3 tags. Many new posts and fics (by non-Wilmon standards), good responses to those, and new kudos/hits on older fics too.

However, that surge was virtually over by May, and since then, interest seems to have plummeted. Walty still appear in some fics as a side ship or as part of an ensemble, and there's one post-S3 WIP focused on them that has 130 kudos, but there have been very few new tumblr posts or fics focused on them since the spring. When people do make posts or publish fics, they don't get much of a response.

Of course, the immediate reasons are many fans moving on from YR as a whole since canon ended, and summer happening in between. But if we disregard those and just look at the fandom at any given time, there is a definite "Wilmon only" trend that I feel has grown stronger as the fandom has grown smaller. (Here's a link to my thoughts on said trend after S2.)

Take, for example, the fic numbers for other ships on ao3 (for the sake of clarity, I'm only including fics tagged with /): 121 Salice, 110 Walty, 86 Stedrika, 28 Vingust, 23 Madirosh, 22 Nilcent, 21 Sigust, 5 Vindie, 2 Madisander, 2 Nilgust. Plus 106 Sircus and 92 Sargust, but few of them are shipfics.

Even if these were all separate fics focused on each ship, they would only make 420 (+198) to Wilmon's 4,799 fics as of this morning. In reality, most of them are either fics primarily focused on Wilmon with other ships on the side or in the background, or multi-ship fics.

To bring this back to Walty, those 110 fics make six pages on ao3. If you sort them by kudos, only five fics on the first page are primarily focused on them, with 1,227 (OPS in which Wilmon are prominent side characters), 561, 517, 469 and 423 kudos. There are way more Walty-focused fics on the second page, but the decline in kudos is pretty steep. The bottom of page two is already down to less than 200, and only the very top of page four is over 100.

As a non-Wilmon author, I do find it sad how often I see people say that they aren't interested in anything else. I don't blame anyone for feeling that way - it was Wilmon's story that hooked us all in the first place! Everyone should get to enjoy fandom in their own way, and there's a strong sense of community in people being obsessed with the same ship and keeping it alive with all their love and creativity.

But for those of us who are also interested in the other aspects, the heavy focus on Wilmon can become a demoralising cycle. New fans coming into the fandom don't see much enthusiasm for other ships or characters, which means they don't get invested in them, which means there's even less incentive to create more fanworks or posts about them. There are no subcommunities for us; just the outer perimeter of the already small YR community.

For me, personally... Let's just say it has been an adjustment to go from OPS, which had 700 to 1,200 hits per update, to TRD where 200 hits per update are a windfall. That's partly my own fault for taking too long between updates (creative burnout is a bitch) and insisting on such a niche angle (ace/allo fics simply aren't as popular as allo/allo). But interest in Walty has also been on a steady downward trend I would say since the long wait for S3, and the brief upturn after S3 was very likely the last one. It's good to set my expectations accordingly the next time I post something.

Which I fully intend to do! I still have one or two new stories to tell and one WIP to rework and finish, and the "write for myself" approach is working for now. The "share for others" part will be harder than ever, but I'm keeping faith in my small group of loyal readers. Some of them may have been swept away by other things, but some have already reassured me they'll be there.