Bowsette

Bowsette is typically portrayed as a blonde woman with horns, fangs, a spiked collar with matching armbands and a black strapless dress, essentially combining Princess Peach with elements of Bowser's appearance.

Journalists took notice of the trend and were surprised by its longevity, attributing it to various aspects such as the character's appearance and appeal or the possible desire by fans to shock Nintendo's social media handlers.

[3] Shortly after, artist Ayyk92 posted a four-panel webcomic on DeviantArt and Twitter with the caption "The Super Crown's some spicy new Mario lore".

A related hashtag quickly trended on Twitter, amassing over 150,000 mentions and fan art shortly after, with some renders giving the character darker skin and/or red hair as a callback to the original Bowser.

[11][12] An event dedicated to the character titled "Project Crown" was also planned for 27 October, featuring fan art and crossdressing cosplay.

[16] Kotaku's Gita Jackson noted the overabundance of art for the character, stating that she was "overwhelmed by how strongly Bowsette has taken root in video game fandom".

[17] In a video with Tim Rogers, she added that she had never seen a trend "hit Twitter this hard", and noted the heavy Japanese support both for the character and original artist.

[19] Don Nero of Esquire described the character as "dominatrix-inspired", proposing that the character could be seen as a positive symbol of female empowerment along the likes of Samus Aran or Lara Croft, though complained that a bulk of the art was "overtly male-gazey, dripping with horrendously over-the-top, seam-bursting cliches that call to mind the bodacious sex-dolls of Dead or Alive Volleyball".

[16] Fairy Tail creator Hiro Mashima weighed in with reverse-gender versions of their characters as well: he voiced caution for participants in the trend "to be careful not to cause trouble for copyright holders and companies that they are contracted to", and noted that even if he wanted to draw fan art, he would need the approval of publishers and other related parties.

[31] The Daily Dot cited it as an example of how "people embraced being horny on Twitter" in 2018, stating that "very nature of the meme—a powerful, masculine villain becoming a buff, domineering woman—fascinated users with transformation and feminization fetishes", and that the character's non-normative appearance added to the appeal, namely with queer women.