Agreed. Flare is very friendly and seems to do well in collabs with everybody. It was a shame she known just for one pairing when she is so great elsewhere

This is kind of a (possibly inaccurate due to being based off of memory) assessment from someone who watched Hololive around the early formation of Shiraken but was kinda into the Noefure clips back then, if there's something I've learned from watching Flare and a lot of clips with Flare present or mentioned, she has about 2-4 things that really goes against her if she wanted to make the ship tease a performance of sorts: 1) She's just sensitive in general. There's that whole thing with her not playing Among Us because she couldn't handle being lied to (as in, despite knowing it's a game, she takes it harder than she knows she should), and in a rather positive spin on this trait is her Minecraft collab with Coco where she turned on member's chat because of the bots back then. It's generally a boon for her since she seems to get along with anyone she speaks to and can make people talk for hours, but it and the second thing about her has caused misunderstandings in the past. 2) She's actually pretty shy. She may not be known for it, but her collabs up to six months ago (and her standard collab partners in general) will generally consist of at least one person in these group: Shiraken, Bakatare (Circus), Gen 3, and IRyS, with the Minecraft collab with Sora being the odd one out. While stories from Kiara and Subaru implies that she's just as personable and a little mischievous off-stream, her collab partners have remained fairly small. Contrast with Korone, a similar marathon streamer in Hololive that plays a lot of games and is also surprisingly shy, and you have Gamers, Subaru, OKBR, AZKi, Lui, the onyan, the Among Us collab, Nene and Aki for some reason, Towa, the Lethal Company collab that includes IRyS and Pekora and Flare... yeah. 3) There's also kind of the problem where Noefure had this air of legitimacy, with the pair rings and other holomems talking about how close they are, and a few streams where they did basically act like sweethearts and nothing else. One of the Gen 3 anniversaries had one of the two joke about how they got a girlfriend from joining Hololive, leading the other three to tell them to knock it off. There's the fact that unlike Okakoro, Noefure: a) didn't have anything like Shion and Aqua to mix things up; Marine was either third-wheeling comfortably, or failing to threesome, or is paired off with Rushia. b) or someone like Okayu playing into the bit of being a womanizer; Flare had the harem thing going on for a bit, but it didn't last very long. c) or the medium in which the pairing was shown off. Okakoro's popularity also stems from the fact that they're gaming buddies; most of Noefure fuel is zatsuzan-esque tete. In the end, it wasn't just the intensity of the pairing, but the implied exclusivity that the two teased, something that doesn't quite plague Okakoro (Shion and Aqua, gaming buddies) or MiComet ("business partners", StartEnd's Towa and Aqua-- god she's in a lot of these, isn't she). No, Marine doesn't count. 4) Noefure went off around the time when 100k subs was a fairly huge thing in Hololive... in a Gen that shot off like a rocket. Flare was and still is by far the least subscribed in Gen 3, part of it being that the role she initially played was an ikeman-esque elf that ultimately didn't fit her at all (she's charming, but for completely different reasons). She also doesn't have the advantage of having 'universally applicable talents' compared to someone like Korone's noises and goofiness, Fubuki's memes, Suisei's singing and 'psychopathy', and Towa's and Subaru's passion English, amongst others. Her shy and considerate-to-a-fault nature really works against her. IRyS is a godsend. Ironically, Noel was one of the few back then that pointed out how cute Flare is off-stream and vouched for this part of her frequently, long before Flare herself would kinda controversially pivot hard into a persona that actually fits her better. Most people can't put on an act forever, after all. Still remember people being kinda disappointed that Flare pivoted into "yet another cute girl". Miss her outfit, but the change was ultimately good for her. So, yeah. tl;dr from a certain point of view, it is "technically" Flare's fault she has to address it publicly as opposed to everyone else, but it's a mix of her personality, the uncertainty of Hololive back then, and her relatively low sub count compared to everyone else that it basically ended up like this. When Noefure went dark, Flare's small but loyal fanbase took a relatively big hit compared to Noel's. Not sure on Noel's end, but she has already established herself as an ASMR specialist during the early years. If her personality on-stream back then is half of what it is today (and I think it is; she was still a tad hotheaded, a dork, and low-key wacky), that's still less of a change than what Flare went through over the years.

@@ExCirkuu Really appreciate the long and detailed explanation! Thanks! I genuinely know so very little about Flare that just about everything you mentioned regarding her is news to me -- I didn't even realize she was close with IRyS, since I also don't really watch IRyS. ;) The only English member I knew she had any connection with whatsoever is Ina, because I DO watch Ina and have thus seen a number of the "Ore no Ina" clips at this point. Heheh. I feel like Okakoro is just as serious as what you're describing with Noefure, as they've had a number of zatsudan streams together as well, including ones where Korone has stayed over at Okayu's place or Okayu has stayed over at Korone's and their interactions have been the absolute height of TeTe. But indeed, they don't have that same sense of exclusivity to them as you've suggested -- there's more a sense that they're both in an "open relationship," you might say, where they're permitted to fool around but will ultimately always wind up back with each other in the end. And I guess the fact that they established that general lack of exclusivity early on (admittedly more on Okayu's side than Korone's, as Korone is pretty firmly devoted to just Okayu, but still!), combined with their overall bigger and less idol-centric fanbase, makes their relationship a lot easier to maintain without triggering excessive parasocialism from the fanbase. It's kind of remarkable how widespread the Hololive net is these days, and how much interpersonal history and character lore, both kayfabe and IRL, has been established at this point. I've been in the rabbit hole since 2020, but there's still so much I don't know, since there are simply too many members and too many relationships to really keep track of them all. ;)

@@Wyrdwad I'll add a bit more from the OkaKoro perspective: they're really more like 'extremely close friends who basically treat each other like family members, and occasionally RP-ing being couple mostly for giggles' (as ExCirkuu already explained very well, the differences with Noe Fure are subtle but significant; NoeFure just felt more possessive, serious, and 'in their own world'.) That said, OkaKoro didn't "ignore the fans' judgment', they also had to react to hardcore shippers, just in a more tactful/less clipped way. I kid you not, there was a time when I saw fans not wanting to see Okayu/Korone collab if the other one isn't around. Korone had to say repeatedly that she didn't mind Okayu being close with someone else (as long as they don't hurt her), Okayu when in Real Talk mode with onigirya stated that she sees Korone more as a 'big sister', and both of them had to clarify after they got a bit carried away mentioning about 'kissing each other' (basically, 'not in that way'). You may have noticed, but in the last two years they had much fewer on-stream collabs/moments compared than it used to be. While it's mostly because they're much busier now and it's harder to match schedule, I believe this also played a part in drastically reducing the problematic shipping narrative. A part of me is kinda sad and longing for the good old days when you can expect at least weekly OkaKoro (instead of once in several months like now), but I do believe that it's good for both of them long-run. Okayu can pursue projects with other close partners (Retro Game Club w/ Subaru, Doroken with Lui, etc.) without said partner being spammed by the increasingly unfunny 'Korone will come for your fingers' joke, and Korone can advance on her own w/ her own sponsorship projects while being much less Okayu-reliant like she was in the very beginning~

@@slitization I suppose they have stepped back a bit, but I always saw that as a natural progression from them -- it didn't feel like a response to fan backlash, but rather just the two of them getting involved in more projects and getting busier in general due to their ever-increasing popularity, making it harder for them to find the time to collab. Korone has stated, though, that she and Okayu still meet for dinner dates all the time, however, and still talk to each other online quite frequently. I also find it hard to believe they're trying to distance themselves from the allegations when they literally had a marriage scene in the Shuffle Medley this year. ;) That feels more like they're just straight-up leaning into it! Was definitely the biggest, boldest statement yet from them. As for their response to the kissing thing and all that, it was kind of a weak response that didn't really come across as "not in that way," but rather more "we're not talking about this anymore, so stop asking." ;) It was dismissive, yet denied nothing and basically said nothing. Heheh. According to Okayu, they very much do kiss, on the mouth, and Korone is the ONLY Holomem she kisses, despite all her flirting. Which is a pretty bold statement on its own that has never been retracted. It was the "beyond kissing" part that got retracted/corrected, but the retraction was... that they just meant they "clean each other's tails." Which is an in-character answer to what was previously an out-of-character statement, and can also be interpreted... interestingly. Heheh. I'm still of the opinion that there's more going on between those two than simple friendship, but that's just the feeling I get from their interactions -- and ultimately, it's none of my business, so whether they lean into it or not, and whomever they choose to collab or flirt with, I'm here for it. I'm hoping my gut is right that other fans are more or less in the same boat, and aren't pestering them too much over their "relationship," and I hope the same can eventually be said of Noefure too -- let them be lovey-dovey if they wanna be, or not if they don't! It's sweet and charming to see, but we're not the ones in charge of them, so we really need to just sit back, watch, and enjoy -- no comments, no demands.

....what? Lol, Takamori fiasco happened, and even Kronii hanging out with the boys incited the kind of weird unhinged behavior that's just as bad as those JP fans. Let's not act as if it's country-specific phenomenon.

just tell me you're racist without telling me

​@@slitization To be fair Takamori was like 60% driven by Kiara. She encouraged it massively and then acted like it was something the fans did all on their own. The Kronii shit though, yeah that's just naturally occuring weirdness. She never created and expectation or did anything to cultivate am audience that you would expect to act that way, and I actually suspect it was more anti-fan bad actors than actual creepy obsessive fans. People looking for any reason to attack someone.

what happened to oreapo?

Well they don't play together anymore and try to not speak about each other on stream to not feed the shippers

@@bourbon7455 like the guy above said, but sometimes their friends in vspo still tease them about it so it's cool. They also still play off-stream

They are a lot more chill about it now for sure. I mean they still reference takamori often enough surprisingly like the most recent thing was Kiara’s birthday stream which was earlier this month so it’s still around

@edgelordoompaloompa not wrong, feed a ship past a certain point if not doing so period, and the fans go nutty. They've managed to put the genie back in the lamp to a great degree, though it's fortunate that they have no real interest in co-ed collabs

IMO shippers treating it as real isn't the main problem. The problem is that the shippers act as if the of them can ONLY interact with each other one on one. The moment they have fun with others it's all "X cheating on Y!" and "Oh no, Y is going to cry!" And if they don't interact for a while, shippers go "they broke up!" All made worse no thanks to meme brain and people spamming it at every opportunity cos they think it's a funny meme. That's the IRL equivalent of seeing someone you know who is married just talking to someone and running to their partner saying they cheated. What, married people can't have friends?

@@TF_NowWithExtraCharacters Sorry, but I barely understood the first part of your comment. And answering that, like I said, fans are extreme and nothing excuses them. If you were already part of the Holo world at that time, you would know that most of the collabs were between them. The two of them collaborated with other members but it was not a common thing. In fact, Flare was the one who did the least collabs, most of them included Noel. I repeat, nothing excuses extreme fans. But if you get used to both of them doing several things together, I think it's normal for their fans to ask about the other person when they're not there. I understand that it can become spam very quickly and become annoying. I don't think they did it for memes or because they thought it was funny, it just became annoying. Noel wasn't too bothered by it but Flare got tired of it and that's why they cleared things up.

@@edgelordoompaloompa ok lemme rephrase, hope it's clearer this way. I think shipping itself ("NoeFure is a couple!") isn't a problem. The problem is people start expecting that they must always be together. If they're not, people start asking about the other person. If they collab with others, people start "OMG cheating". They're no longer treated as 2 separate people, they're treated as halves of a unit. "Normal for fans to ask about the other person" - maybe if it's months since the previous collab, that's a fair question, but knowing how the fanbase is, they probably started pestering them after a few weeks. "It just became annoying" - totally agree, but I don't think people were doing it to be annoying. I think joking about ships became acceptable meme material, and the whole format of memes is to repeat it until a new meme comes along (for another example, see all the wall/cutting board jokes). That's what I mean by meme brain, people repeating the same comments over and over again. For the record, I started around Myth's debut. I didn't get to see NoeFure in action, though I saw quite a lot of clips of other members talking about their offline interactions. I did see Takamori though, and that also had problems with the annoying fans that pushed too far (IMO Kiara had it worse, Calli was mostly fine).

​@@TF_NowWithExtraCharacters I agree with you here. Treating the ship as real actually isn't that big an issue, the problem is that toxic shippers habe wildly unreasonable amd unhealthy expectations from two people in a relationship, real or not. If I play a video game with someone that isn't my wife, even another woman, that's not cheating. That's just having other friends besides her.

For a more recent example: see Takamori 1.0

Luckily they haven't managed to ruin MiComet, OkaKoro or BaeRys. Not yet at least.

@@DinnerForkTongue NoeFlare isn't ruined, per se, but OkaKoro isn't much more commonly seen nowadays is it? BaeRys feels a bit less prominent for sure. MiComet is a pretty strong unit and has always had ship denial. Business!

@@TF_NowWithExtraCharactersKiara forced that one to be fair 😐

@@DinnerForkTongueFlaRys (not shipping for me) chemistry is ahead of Baerys imo

lol shippers has nothing to do with those two.Something just has happened between them since they're completely avoiding each other. Plus, cmon, people has been shipping Miko and Suisei/Pekora and Marine for year now (even harder than PekoMiko btw), and that, for some reason, didn't stop them from interacting and collabing with each other.

@@dxxdify Explain pekomiko

@dxxdify some seem worse than others is my guess and "shippers" was the reason Miko gave for why such collabs stopped

Lets just think it positively, PekoMiko is too strong so they go on their own way