#do you read me ( PSA )

[5ummit]

AO3 Ship Stats: Year In Bad Data

You may have seen this AO3 Year In Review.

It hasn’t crossed my tumblr dash but it sure is circulating on twitter with 3.5M views, 10K likes, 17K retweets and counting. Normally this would be great! I love data and charts and comparisons!

Except this data is GARBAGE and belongs in the TRASH.

I first noticed something fishy when I realized that Steve/Bucky – the 5th largest ship on AO3 by total fic count – wasn’t on this Top 100 list anywhere. I know Marvel’s popularity has fallen in recent years, but not that much. Especially considering some of the other ships that made it on the list. You mean to tell me a femslash HP ship (Mary MacDonald/Lily Potter) in which one half of the pairing was so minor I had to look up her name because she was only mentioned once in a single flashback scene beat fandom juggernaut Stucky? I call bullshit.

Now obviously jumping to conclusions based on gut instinct alone is horrible practice... but it is a good place to start. So let’s look at the actual numbers and discover why this entire dataset sits on a throne of lies.

Here are the results of filtering the Steve/Bucky tag for all works created between Jan 1, 2023 and Dec 31, 2023:

Not only would that place Steve/Bucky at #23 on this list, if the other counts are correct (hint: they're not), it’s also well above the 1520-new-work cutoff of the #100 spot. So how the fuck is it not on the list? Let’s check out the author’s FAQ to see if there’s some important factor we’re missing.

The first thing you’ll probably notice in the FAQ is that the data is being scraped from publicly available works. That means anything privated and only accessible to logged-in users isn’t counted. This is Sin #1. Already the data is inaccurate because we’re not actually counting all of the published fics, but the bots needed to do data collection on this scale can't easily scrape privated fics so I kinda get it. We’ll roll with this for now and see if it at least makes the numbers make more sense:

Nope. Logging out only reduced the total by a couple hundred. Even if one were to choose the most restrictive possible definition of "new works" and filter out all crossovers and incomplete fics, Steve/Bucky would still have a yearly total of 2,305. Yet the list claims their total is somewhere below 1,500? What the fuck is going on here?

Let’s look at another ship for comparison. This time one that’s very recent and popular enough to make it on the list so we have an actual reference value for comparison: Nick/Charlie (Heartstopper). According to the list, this ship sits at #34 this year with a total of 2630 new works. But what’s AO3 say?

Off by a hundred or so but the values are much closer at least!

If we dig further into the FAQ though we discover Sin #2 (and the most egregious): the counting method. The yearly fic counts are NOT determined by filtering for a certain time period, they’re determined by simply taking a snapshot of the total number of fics in a ship tag at the end of the year and subtracting the previous end-of-year total. For example, if you check a ship tag on Jan 1, 2023 and it has 10,000 fics and check it again on Jan 1, 2024 and it now has 12,000 fics, the difference (2,000) would be the number of "new works" on this chart.

At first glance this subtraction method might seem like a perfectly valid way to count fics, and it’s certainly the easiest way, but it can and did have major consequences to the point of making the entire dataset functionally meaningless. Why? If any older works are deleted or privated, every single one of those will be subtracted from the current year fic count. And to make the problem even worse, beginning at the end of last year there was a big scare about AI scraping fics from AO3, which caused hundreds, if not thousands, of users to lock down their fics or delete them.

The magnitude of this fuck up may not be immediately obvious so let’s look at an example to see how this works in practice.

Say we have two ships. Ship A is more than a decade old with a large fanbase. Ship B is only a couple years old but gaining traction. On Jan 1, 2023, Ship A had a catalog of 50,000 fics and ship B had 5,000. Both ships have 3,000 new works published in 2023. However, 4% of the older works in each fandom were either privated or deleted during that same time (this percentage is was just chosen to make the math easy but it’s close to reality).

Ship A: 50,000 x 4% = 2,000 removed works Ship B: 5,000 x 4% = 200 removed works

Ship A: 3,000 - 2,000 = 1,000 "new" works Ship B: 3,000 - 200 = 2,800 "new" works

This gives Ship A a net gain of 1,000 and Ship B a net gain of 2,800 despite both fandoms producing the exact same number of new works that year. And neither one of these reported counts are the actual new works count (3,000). THIS explains the drastic difference in ranking between a ship like Steve/Bucky and Nick/Charlie.

How is this a useful measure of anything? You can't draw any conclusions about the current size and popularity of a fandom based on this data.

With this system, not only is the reported "new works" count incorrect, the older, larger fandom will always be punished and it’s count disproportionately reduced simply for the sin of being an older, larger fandom. This example doesn’t even take into account that people are going to be way more likely to delete an old fic they're no longer proud of in a fandom they no longer care about than a fic that was just written, so the deletion percentage for the older fandom should theoretically be even larger in comparison.

And if that wasn't bad enough, the author of this "study" KNEW the data was tainted and chose to present it as meaningful anyway. You will only find this if you click through to the FAQ and read about the author’s methodology, something 99.99% of people will NOT do (and even those who do may not understand the true significance of this problem):

The author may try to argue their post states that the tags "which had the greatest gain in total public fanworks” are shown on the chart, which makes it not a lie, but a error on the viewer’s part in not interpreting their data correctly. This is bullshit. Their chart CLEARLY titles the fic count column “New Works” which it explicitly is NOT, by their own admission! It should be titled “Net Gain in Works” or something similar.

Even if it were correctly titled though, the general public would not understand the difference, would interpret the numbers as new works anyway (because net gain is functionally meaningless as we've just discovered), and would base conclusions on their incorrect assumptions. There’s no getting around that… other than doing the counts correctly in the first place. This would be a much larger task but I strongly believe you shouldn’t take on a project like this if you can’t do it right.

To sum up, just because someone put a lot of work into gathering data and making a nice color-coded chart, doesn’t mean the data is GOOD or VALUABLE.

[darkfictionjude]

That's why I do not like when the authors create in Twine instead of CS. It may look boring but it gives you three basic themes; white, sepia, black and you can choose depends on your preferences. We are talking about text game, after all, not visual novel so author should provide the reader comfort during long reading. Aesthetics is a secondary matter.

I don't get it. It seems that most authors in itch.io / tumblr community do not care about readers but create themes that they like the most and do not pay attention that font style, font color or background can be awful to read. This may not be good for the project too: doesn't matter writing is great and the story intriguing, if the potential reader gives up, because their eyes hurt from reading...

I don’t like the idea that a text game is somehow lesser than a visual novel and I don’t like the accusation towards authors in IF that they don’t care about their readers when most authors break their backs creating free games for the audience to enjoy, it is not simple and it is not easy and after all that to have someone say to you that you don’t care about the readers is not only false but hurtful. Do you know how hard it is to write a choice based game? Do you know how many hours of work weekly have to go into it? I’m right now looking into changing the text colour based on themes from a code another IF author just sent me but I will have you know right now that I won’t be disrespected nor be told what is good and not good for my project. I always try to treat my readers with respect and I demand the same in return

[franeridart]

The Housecat Philosophy - Ep 37

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[emblazons]

"Do you not see, Eleven?"

El & 001 + Mike Wheeler & Martin Brenner Parallels see also: Vecna' using El's trauma to manipulate(!) her ⤷ inspired by @heroesbyler & my own commentary (x)

[bottombaron]

you know, i can handle a little bit of fun "Nandor is dumb" talk, but i have a net-zero tolerance for any implication that Nandor is not educated.

Nandor would have been incredibly educated in his lifetime.

even (or especially) as a soldier in the Islamic World. being a soldier was more like getting sent to boarding school that's also a military camp. they weren't just concerned with creating loyal fodder for war. they were building the next government officials, generals, accountants, advisors, etc. it was important that young men knew how to read, write, speak multiple languages, learn philosophy...sometimes even studying art and music was mandatory.

if he was nobility (and its most likely he was), take all that shit and multiply it exponentially. Nandor would have been reading Plato at the same age most people are still potty training. he would have been specifically groomed in such a way to not be just a brilliant strategist and warrior, but also diplomate and ambassador of literally the center of scientific and cultural excellence of the age.

so like yeah, he can be a big dummy sometimes, sure. but that bitch is probably more educated than any of us will ever be.

[dukeofthomas]

I can't find it now but there's a post about suspension of disbelief and how it's broken when the story starts trying to excuse it. "character gets knocked unconscious for hours but there's no further issues from this" okay 👍 "and actually this makes perfect sense because of this and that" um no it doesn't why are you lying to me. like i am willing to ignore the holes and the discrepancies!! all you need to do is let me and not bring unnecessary attention to it!!!

and all that is my issue with the whole robin child soldier argument. like i am willing to ignore it i am willing to engage with the fantasy literally all you need to do is NOT try to convince me that Actually It's Fine Because They Want To Do It or whatever. like literally just shut up about it and i can engage with the fantasy!!

[agoddamnrayofsunshine]

Its fair to say that the DC fandom is a pretty divided space between those who care about canon and those who don’t and I usually veer closer to the canon-caring side but every now and then I venture over to see what those fanon madlads are up to and I have to confess to being, at the very least, deeply entertained every single time

[kiestrokes]

Important Updates: Officially as of 4/10/2024 I am currently not online; Tumblr, Discord or Instagram. As previously shared, I started a new medication last month and my body has had a horrible reaction to it. The doctors are unsure when the symptoms will go away. Tentatively I will be back once my brain has returned.

[not-poignant]

Okay! Didn't want to have to say this but I'm going to say it!

Don't send me transphobic nonsense in your anon asks to me. Don't send your TERF thoughts to me and end your anon message with 'no hate' when you've just been hateful and invalidating. You might not be aware of this, but I'm a trans person, and this space on Tumblr and on my AO3 isn't a democracy and TERFs will not get their voices heard here. Good luck, keep trying, I love blocking bigots.

If you're transphobic and you read Underline the Black and I realise you're transphobic, I'm just going to start blocking you outright, deleting your comments. In this day and age, transphobic, hateful nonsense is everywhere, but it doesn't get to be here.

You don't have a right to have a voice here, you don't have a right to have your anonymous transphobic asks answered here, and you don't have a right to expect your comments to stay on my AO3 stories when they happen. And if, if by some chance, you have no idea you're a complete transphobe and you find your comment on Underline has been deleted? The only person you need to be angry at is yourself.

I'm trans, and I have too many trans followers to give any kind of airtime to transphobes.

Antis I will happily take on when I have something productive to add to the conversation.

There is nothing productive for me personally about giving space to transphobic views on my blog.

(And for everyone else, no this isn't currently a huge problem, but I've had about two borderline transphobic comments on Underline the Black and I've now gotten a transparently transphobic anonymous ask about it. I'm dealing with it now, and also making my stance clear. TERFs are banned in the Discord, you can expect that I maintain this view everywhere, including here and on my AO3.)

[dwtdog]

he gets the same grace to express losing his friend and to support shelby, after that his opinions mean nothing to me

totally fair! and i feel the same

i do think though, that when things are over, we do need to remember to be better than drantis. obviously we have a million and half reasons to dislike a lot of ccs now, but if we all we ever talk about is who we hate and the terrible things they're doing, we're going to drive ourselves crazy and we'll all end up miserable

[sav1ored]

definitely a reminder that my negan only likes pu$$y

[vero-niche]

spoilers!!!!!!

im a twitter user who thinks tumblr works the same way

[transexualpirate]

re this post

HOW VERY DARE YOU </3 i'm here to make it worse because i can't go a week without thinking about steve on vormir alone and when he jumps he either sacrifices captain america and reverts back to his pre-serum self or sacrifices steve rogers and turns into a shell of a person and you see where i'm going with this

literally what the fuck i did not need this how dare you now i can't stop thinking about how people would probably not realize it. thinking about how long it'd take for people to notice steve rogers was gone (because he's not close to a lot of people in our time, but they all know captain america). or about how shield would probably fully and officially strip him of the title and just give the shield to a random person without steve's say in it (and he'd watch someone else be america's sweetheart as all his pre existing conditions came back and he'd have to relearn to live with them, except alone this time).

[age-of-moonknight]

Night Moves. Marvel Superheroes: Official Game Adventure (Vol. 1/1990), pg. 19.

Designer: Anthony Herring; Editor: Karen S. Boomgarden; Illustrator: John Statema

[thejadecount]

Okay usually I don’t complain about the rottmnt fandom when it comes to them writing the characters in fanfics BUT WE HAVE TO TALK

WHY. WHY DO PEOPLE MAKE RAPH SO SOFT?

Like yeah, I get it, everyone loves the big tank soft guy trope but he’s a Raph regardless. And we’ve seen him get impatient and frustrated with his bros, for example the infamous “DONT EAT THE POISON” episode and in the movie.

We also know he threatens them as any older sibling does (which I can confirm as a middle child) like in the maze episode when he tells Leo he’ll haunt him if he dies in the maze and in the fish episode when he tells Donnie he’ll shove his head in the toilet.

I just think we all need to get our facts straight and remember that just because Raph doesn’t outburst and isn’t the Anger Issues™️ Raph we know from the other iterations DOESN’T mean he’s always Mr. Nice Guy.

Point is I need more fanfics where Raph gets frustrated and does the classic ‘threaten-your-younger-siblings’ move all older siblings do and stop being the all cupcakes and rainbows the fandom makes him out to be. Specifically a crossover fanfic where the other version(s) of the TMNT are telling the Rise TMNT they aren’t taking things seriously and all it takes it one death threat from Rise! Raph and they straighten out immediately and all the other Leos and Raphs are impressed by it.

[verflares]

decided to delete my response to that anon message because i will be so real i don't really wanna give people a reason to want to try and imagine me as someone in their head that they can project and get mad at LMAO there's a reason i don't use twitter

this being said i will still laugh about it a little. imagine getting mad over a throwaway line in someone's bio having a little fun while also asking people "hey don't repost my work." imagine said line also being a quote from the voice of mario in the 1989 super mario bros. super show running a 90s anti-drug psa. now imagine how silly you suddenly sound