Yo Booasaur, do you think Cruz&Aaliyah fics might have the staying power to rival Clexa fics? I don't feel like there's been a tv show that's sparked like them for some time (at least in the english speaking world). There have been cute couples like Izzie&Cassey, Josie&Penelope but this just hit's different. There's a part of my head that's laughing at how predictable *that* scene is but executed so well... you could probably hear panties dropping...

No, I don't think so. So many things went into creating the Clexa phenomenon, and I don't think that can be repeated. The one thing that I could see really boosting Aaliyah/Cruz is if a season 2 is announced and both actors returning, in the same way Lexa's return in s3 really propelled Clexa to heights that I don't think any f/f ship has come close to reaching, including Aaliyah/Cruz.

The biggest thing is longevity, you need multiple seasons. The top f/f fandoms on AO3 are Swan Queen and Supercorp, each of which had years and years of full seasons to keep people invested and writing. Clexa didn't get even two shorter ones, but it was canon and involved the lead and had the hiatus to really build momentum and incredible popularity, based in part on the promise of better-than-average f/f treatment, and then the anger at that broken promise along with every other f/f ship that year being killed off one by one made people stay with it in a way I'm not sure they would now.

The memory of Clexa itself now makes sure people won't get that invested in anything. I myself was literally telling people to wait till the finale aired to watch SOL. And we have enough other media now that we can just move to instead. Warrior Nun, I think, is probably a good current example of how popular ongoing central f/f rep can be, and I think theirs would be good numbers for Aaliyah/Cruz (we need a ship name that isn't just repeating the two names!) to aspire to.