Even with Mai I felt like I didn't get a great sense of her character because it kept shifting to suit the writers' needs. I blame most of that on the fact that season 3 had to be rewritten very quickly, though, when they found out they weren't getting a fourth season.
But, if you take Team Avatar as an example, since it's an even split... Numerically, there's three possible m/m ships, three possible f/f ships, and however many f/m and poly ones. Most of the het ones have pretty strong, if small, followings in fandom. Zuko/Sokka and Zuko/Aang also both have pretty strong followings. Katara/Toph has a small, but definitely present, following, too.
By contrast, Suki/Sokka, Suki/Toph, and Suki/Katara are all super rare - the latter two are virtually nonexistent. Suki/Zuko has a decent following, mostly thanks to the comics - we see Suki interacting with Zuko more than we see her interacting with her canonical boyfriend, Sokka.
If we remove Suki from the equation, since her entire character is "Badass love interest", thereby rendering her uninteresting for fic writing purposes, the only f/f ship left is Katara/Toph...which happens to be the only f/f ship of Team Avatar with enough of a following that you can stumble across it accidentally. And shipping is like gravity, the bigger it is the more people it draws.
This doesn't explain why Katara/Toph is smaller than, say, Aang/Toph, other than the possibility that it's not as thematically pleasing, though.
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Date: 2018-12-18 08:55 am (UTC)But, if you take Team Avatar as an example, since it's an even split... Numerically, there's three possible m/m ships, three possible f/f ships, and however many f/m and poly ones. Most of the het ones have pretty strong, if small, followings in fandom. Zuko/Sokka and Zuko/Aang also both have pretty strong followings. Katara/Toph has a small, but definitely present, following, too.
By contrast, Suki/Sokka, Suki/Toph, and Suki/Katara are all super rare - the latter two are virtually nonexistent. Suki/Zuko has a decent following, mostly thanks to the comics - we see Suki interacting with Zuko more than we see her interacting with her canonical boyfriend, Sokka.
If we remove Suki from the equation, since her entire character is "Badass love interest", thereby rendering her uninteresting for fic writing purposes, the only f/f ship left is Katara/Toph...which happens to be the only f/f ship of Team Avatar with enough of a following that you can stumble across it accidentally. And shipping is like gravity, the bigger it is the more people it draws.
This doesn't explain why Katara/Toph is smaller than, say, Aang/Toph, other than the possibility that it's not as thematically pleasing, though.