"it's the crowded room that breaks me / everybody looks so luminous, and strangely young"

Because I had something better to do, I checked the number of AO3 fics for TV shows TBD has watched more than a couple trial episodes (that I can remember):

Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood: 0
Tayo the Little Bus: 0
The Wonder Pets!: 0
Peep in the Big Wide World: 0
The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That: 0
Hurray for Huckle/Busytown Mysteries: 0
Chuggington: 0
Space Racers: 0
WordWorld: 2
Curious George: 4
Peppa Pig: 5 (all crossovers)
Dinosaur Train: 7 (half written for Yuletide 2012)
Blue's Clues: 8
Caillou: 11
Bob the Builder: 16
Dora the Explorer: 24
PAW Patrol: 46
Thomas & Friends: 80
Transformers: Rescue Bots: 270

The Thomas franchise has been around so long and Rescue Bots crosses over so much into the rest of the Transformers franchise, I don't it's fair to compare them to the others. OTOH, the large number of PAW Patrol fics speaks to just how engaging the show is: TBD interacts with it more enthusiastically than with any of the others, even those, like Blue's Clues and Dora, that invite viewer interaction. (Rocky is their favorite pup, because he fixes things.) Not to mention, has acquired more merch for it, not counting books.*

I'm most disappointed in the first number.** But there's still all the other zeroes. That's a lot of children's media filled with all sorts of fic-able holes that aren't getting filled, despite being co-watched by caretakers. Someone get on this, 'k?


* Books, it's the Marvel comics universe, hands down, with DC and Busytown not far behind.

** And that's even aside from how little Daniel's Dad, the original Daniel Striped Tiger grown up, has an absurdly sexy voice.

---L.

Subject quote from "Nothing Without You," Vienna Teng.