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nottrickstery · 22 days ago

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thoughts on why f/f is SO unpopular in the dragon age fandom

... and why it is relatively less popular for Dragon Age than for Mass Effect.

Note I am specifically examining what is represented on ao3, I'm not talking about the most popular romances chosen by all players. Apologies for the length of this lmao.

I'll start by saying that this isn't an indictment on writing or shipping M/M (or M/F), as that would make me a hypocrite lol. It's not morally wrong to write/ship M/M, however-- I do think it's important to be objective and honest about general fandom tendencies and why they might occur. This also isn't intended to tell people what they should/shouldn't do-- it's not about individuals choosing to write M/M or M/F over F/F, rather I think this topic is worth discussing in a broader sense.

I've seen this topic provoke a lot of defensiveness in the past so, if this offends you 1. it's not personal, 2. sorry, 3. plsss dont tell me why you personally need yaoi to live. again, this is GENERAL.

I'll state now that I find 'but M/M is written by lots of women so it's feminist!!' flawed as an argument, because M/F and F/F are also primarily written by women. I can understand why women (and esp. queer men) might prefer M/M, however, this doesn't in my view make the fact that female characters are routinely ignored by fandom any less of an issue. To this argument I would say, if women don't engage with women's stories, who will?

I also won't accept the argument that lack of interest in female characters is because they're 'badly written' or 'boring.' This is not universally true AT ALL and imo falls flat when you consider that male characters, even popular ones, can also be badly written. and boring. lol

DRAGON AGE / MASS EFFECT

(I've linked the @fandomyuriindex posts on each fandom above. and colour coded lol, the two genders...)

I cropped out multi, (and 'other' BUT see end note*) just because idk confusing. There are prob also un/miscategorised fics. I'm not rly equipped to do proper statistical analysis nor am I going to really look at percentages lol. These are just general observations-- I apologise if there are any glaring statistical errors.

Gen fics-- I'm not fully sure what to make of the fact that these outstrip F/F in BOTH cases. The ratio for DA is particularly wild i have to say

OK, general thoughts-- first lets deal with the fact that M/F is by far the most popular category in both fandoms:

M/F is dominant in both fandoms-- but I think this is unusual in terms of wider ao3 tendencies, and occurs here because of RPG shipping being based around original player characters.

Whereas in other media, general disdain towards female characters might lead fandom to ignore them entirely, in an RPG players create their own characters.

My theory is that it's common for women to create female OCs essentially (or partially) as a stand-in for themselves, and play out a romantic fantasy with a male character this way. (not just women do this, but I'm specifically talking about female OCs and M/F)

Basically, culturally learned rejection of female characters doesn't occur as strongly when the character is a projection of Yourself. Or, at the very least, your own creation.

Misogyny reproduced by women is often primarily externalised towards other women (eg 'I'm not like other girls.') and I think it makes sense that M/F is more popular when women create (and project onto) their own characters.

As opposed to general inability to connect/empathise with established female characters.

For contrast, if you look at big fandoms like Marvel or Harry Potter, M/M outstrips M/F by a significant amount. Of course this will vary by fandom, but, generally:

On ao3, there are 7,392,656 M/M works across ALL fandoms There are 3,733,949 M/F works across ALL fandoms 1,464,029 F/F works across ALL fandoms. rip

So-- I don't think we should fall into the trap of 'the problem is m/f shippers!' even if this might seem the case in this fandom.

Because while (obv) heteronormativity is a big factor, I think what we're seeing more strongly at play across general fandom spaces is simply disinterest towards female characters.

Ultimately, in these specific RPG fandom spaces, popular M/F is still centred around men and imo primarily indicates an overwhelming preference for male characters.

Note that no M/F pairings in the top 10s for DA/ME involve an established female character (say, mWarden/Morrigan, which has 529 works.)

This is still the case for DA when you filter for M/F as a category, however mShali does appear for ME. (565 works)

This to me indicates there's something else at play besides purely interest in M/F itself.

We do have to consider that women are probably more likely to play as a female PC, but then we're then faced with the massive lack of F/F compared to M/M.

Female OCs are great, but it's not the same as engaging with established female characters at the end of the day.

btw i am NOT saying that female OCs are always self-inserts lol. This is simply my theory as to why M/F dominates on Ao3 in these fandoms, when this isn't reflected across ao3 as a whole.

I'm not in BG3 fandom-- a quick look shows me Astarion has an absolute chokehold on that situation lmfao, but M/F is still more popular than M/M.

With very, very low F/F comparatively to both loll anyyway

Now I'll share my thoughts/observations about the discrepancy between M/M and F/F more specifically, across both fandoms.

Imo, that Mass Effect has a slightly more balanced ratio of F/F to M/M than Dragon Age is probably because of these factors:

Female Shepard/Liara is substantially more popular than ANY F/F pairing in DA. fShiara is the 4th most popular ME pairing on Ao3, whereas no F/F pairings at all make it onto the top 10 for Dragon Age.

Not only that, but if you exclude M/F (to avoid the issue I covered above) there is STILL no F/F among the remaining top 10 DA pairings. They ALL include male characters. (It's possible that 2 of these, Rook/Lucanis and Rook/Emmrich, also contain works categorised as 'multi' and 'other'.)**

Shiara has 2082 total works, but if you select F/F and exclude everything other than F/F, this becomes 1741 works.

If you do the same for DA, the top F/F ship leliwarden*** drops from 1325 total to 791. rip

Shiara is likely more popular because, being the only F/F romance option available until ME3 (and the only squadmate option until MEA,) fans of F/F have concentrated around Shiara, creating a stronger fandom.

This boosts engagement, which incentivises the creation of fanworks for the pairing.

I do think Shiara is doing the heavy lifting here. Applying the same filtering criteria as above, Jackanda (2nd most popular f/f) is left with 341 works and Vetryder (3rd) 195.

While DA offers more F/F options, the unpopularity of F/F combined with a wider selection means that fandoms for each individual pairing will be very small.

This means negligible engagement, ergo less incentive for fans to post F/F works.

Another consideration is how often F/F ships are tagged as secondary/background pairings rather than primary pairings.

I mentioned that Shiara and Leliwarden drop in numbers if you exclude everything other than F/F, the same is true of fHawkebela. (1002 to 603)

I'll recognise this filtering method is flawed because there could be 'multi' fics with F/F as the main pairing. Probably not a lot tho...

Anecdotally I can def say it's frustrating to search for F/F because of how often the F/F is secondary, relative to how often it features as the primary pairing.

I have my theories about why/how this happens, particularly when it comes to Isabela, but that's maybe a separate discussion.

Verifying if/how/to what extent this happens requires more extensive analysis; it would also need to be compared to M/M when everything other than M/M is excluded. I do not feel like doing this lol

But anecdotally, it has always been much easier for me to find works featuring Inquisitor/Dorian as a primary pairing, than Hawkebela.

To effectively search for F/F, you need to do extensive filtering that isn't typically required when looking for M/M. And even then... well.

On the other side of this, we have to look at M/M:

ME didn't offer M/M options until ME3, these being mShep/Kaidan and mShep/Cortez. Of the two, Mshenko is wildly more popular.

However-- it isn't nearly as popular as any of the big M/M DA ships. Like Shiara, Mshenko likely carries for M/M in the fandom (there's also mRyder/Reyes, which is in the top 10 with 663 works)

Given that Mshenko is limited in-game, and the mass dominance of Shakarian (also fShenko), it's still overall less popular as a pairing compared to something like Dorian/Inquisitor.

It's probable that fans of M/M are less likely to play the ME series, given the lack of M/M content. Understandably.

EVEN SO, Mshenko remains more popular than Shiara, which has a LOT more content (the most in fact lol) over the games, and I find this significant.

DA offers many more M/M options, and a lot of these are very popular with big fandoms behind them. Again, popularity leads to engagement which incentivises creation of content.

So unlike with F/F, what we see here is that a wider offer of M/M ships leads to a significant increase in works posted, rather than a wider offer leading to fewer works posted overall-- as is the case for F/F.

The only pairing to make a top 10 which doesn't involve a Player Character is Dorian/Iron Bull.

While this is likely frequently tagged as a background pairing to (my guess) solavellan etc lol, we don't see this happening with Isabela/Fenris or Garrus/Tali.

Dorian/Bull is by far the most popular pairing between established characters in either fandom.

And I do understand that Fenris and Garrus are popular romance choices. But still. I haven't looked at the DATV pairings, however.

Adoribull so popular that somehow it even appears in the top 10 when you select F/F as a category. lol

It would be interesting to compare the number of Dorian/Bull works in which they're the primary pairing, to the most popular ships in the F/F category but that's a lot of effort for mee

tl;dr-- one conclusion I can draw is that ME fandom is heavily concentrated around specific juggernaut ships in each category: Shakarian and fShenko for M/F, mShenko for M/M, and Shiara for F/F. The greater dispersal of popular ships for DA leads to increased output for fandoms centred around male characters, and significant relative decrease in those centred around female characters.

Furthermore, personally I believe that prevalence of M/F in RPG fandoms stems from the exact same disinterest in established female characters that causes M/M to dominate other fandoms.

(the OTHER thing to consider is what's being posted now, vs what was posted a decade ago but remains on the archive. Is the M/F category gaining more works per day than M/M? I'm leaning yes based on the DATV stats in which M/F Rookanis dominates, but it would be interesting to see by how much. And how this has changed over the years. Also whether F/F is more or less frequently posted than before. im not checking tho)

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So, all of that being said, what can we do about it?

First, I don't think shaming is a productive tactic-- like I said, this isn't intended as an attack against people who write M/M or M/F, exclusively or otherwise. Nor do I believe in telling people what they should/shouldn't write. Every individual is free and should be free to read and write whatever they want.

However, in a general fandom sense, I believe it's worthwhile to identify and critically discuss patterns such as these.

Awareness and honesty around this subject is probably a good first step. I do find it frustrating that when this subject is brought up, people often tend to get defensive and resort to, imo, intellectually dishonest arguments such as "it's misogyny to criticise m/m in fandom!" and "female characters are badly written so they're boring!"

I've found that fans are often unwilling to do any self-reflection as to why they ostensibly do not care about fictional women. Which isn't my business individually speaking, but it can be frustrating seeing this constantly. (like. every week there's a post on r/Ao3 defending the right to exclusively read yaoi loll. nobody is stopping you....)

I think, rather than seeing such discussions as a personal attack, and reacting out of guilt or defensiveness, it's probably more productive to just recognise that this is happening generally. Simply recognising this doesn't necessitate you changing your behaviour or interests.

Also, to derail/obfuscate this issue is imo pretty disrespectful towards fans who do create F/F works, who can very much observe the lack of engagement they receive and the overwhelming dominance of M/M in fandom by comparison.

F/F shippers have the right to point out this phenomenon. Ultimately there is no way that widespread disinterest in female characters does not stem from cultural misogyny. I would say, tbh, that generalised inability to connect with established female characters is a concern.

As for those who do write and read F/F, well, all we can do is try to boost engagement, as that will encourage more works. If you write for a pairing try to engage with other works for that pairing. Build community and support other F/F creators. Also, you are god's strongest soldiers and I love u

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* a quick note about nonbinary characters. As it currently stands this is pretty difficult to quantify precisely (as fandomyuriindex has mentioned too) but I think it reasonable to assume that works centred around NB characters are very rare and receive negligible engagement. Because... obviously.

There are currently 214 works posted for Rook/Taash fwiw. And we could briefly compare M/F Rookanis (2628), M/M Rookanis (933), and F/F Rookneve (460,) the most popular DATV pairings in each category. ((I did this quickly without accounting for a lot of factors. the most popular pairing in 'other' is still Rookanis lmfao.))

However, this post is about female characters and F/F-- I think analysing the reality of NB characters/ships in fandom would require a different approach and a different post. The quantity of romanceable NB characters does have to be taken into account, and this quantity is.... 1. Taash is also a recent character, so they would have to be exclusively compared to other DATV characters. Unfortunately you can't do a lot with a sample size of 1-- personally I'm not sure exactly how this should be tackled, honestly, but I think it would be worthwhile! However, for reference I'll add how many 'Other' fics are tagged in each fandom:

ME: 1416 DA: 3974

**also, the way tagging for da works means it's often difficult to tell exactly how many works are in each category. For instance, M/F, M/M, and 'Other' Rookanis are all tagged as Rook/Lucanis alike. Whereas F/F leliwarden is normally tagged as Female Warden/Leliana, but not always.

*** a weird thing happens between leliwarden and hawkebela, which is that if you select F/F as a category, hawkebela appears to have more works. However, if you then exclude everything other than F/F, leliwarden ends up with more works. In terms of total works, leliwarden has 1325 to hawkebela's 1002. Idk what happening here quite honestly.

The way the 'multi' category functions is very confusing to me and when I've applied my xtreme yuri filter Ive STILL seen a few multi fics with pairings involving male characters. It seems like 'multi,' while not counted within the F/F total, still shows up when you select F/F (or M/M etc) as long as there is at least one F/F pairing included. As far as I can tell Multi is simultaneously its own category but also is every category at once? This, to me, is annoying. idgi lol. In terms of leliwarden vs hawkebela, I suspect this means a greater percentage of fics tagged hawkebela contain M/M or M/F. But I haven't checked this so that's just a guess.

also, if you search within the "Dragon Age (Video Games)" category and apply my xtreme yuri filter, fewer fics appear than if you apply the xtreme yuri filter to the pairing's tag. I think this can be explained by fics tagged as specific games (or even crossovers) rather than in the general DA category.

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