#and Speculation

[destinationtoast]

Hi, I would like to know how to make a list of all the ships in a fandom on AO3. For example, I use the Tag Search on "Transformers - A Media Types", but it shows that Jetfire/Starscream is the most popular with 641, but it is actually only the 6th with 1074. Furthermore, it quickly drops to showing Relationship with a single digit when I know that there are dozens of Relationship with hundreds of Works! Why don't most Works appear? Do you know of a way to find All the ships of a fandom on AO3?

Hey! Sorry for the slow reply... I was traveling and then covid knocked me flat for several weeks. :P

So let's talk about AO3 Tag Search. In general, I'm very excited about recent improvements to this feature... There didn't used to be any way to find the top ships (or characters, or freeform/additional tags) across all of AO3. But now you can* by doing a tag search and sorting by uses (descending order):

*In practice, though you won't exactly get a trustworthy list of top tags (and, as you pointed out, in some cases tags may even be missing! we'll get to that later). You will get a list where the numbers are not correct, sometimes to a bizarre degree:

For example, when you click through on the Derek/Stiles tag, you find far fewer works using the tag (note that these are the public works -- if you're logged in, you see a somewhat higher number, but not as high as in the above screenshot):

I will be posting some stats soon that show different numbers (and a different order) for all of the above top ships. But why is there the discrepancy? Here are several guesses about why some works are wrong in Tag Search (and then I'll get to why some ships are missing and what to do about it):

TAG INFLATION #1: The above numbers probably include tags used in AO3 bookmarks, which increases some of the numbers quite a lot. [Evidence: if you search for top freeform tags, you get tags like "To Read" high on the list, and authors don't use those tags.]

TAG INFLATION #2: The above numbers seem to include draft works. [Evidence: I just tested this out by finding a rare tag with only one use... I created a draft of a new work using that same tag, and even though I didn't publish the work, Tag Search now showed 2 uses of the tag.]

TAG DEFLATION: The above numbers do NOT seem to take tag wrangling into account. Some AO3 tags have a lot of synonyms or subtags, but I think only exact uses of the tag get counted in the above list. [Evidence: I found at a tag with only one use according to tag search, but two works when I clicked the tag (Peter Gabriel/Mike Rutherford). I found that one of the works contained a synonym of the main tag ("Mike Rutherford/Peter Gabriel (Imagined)"). That would match with Tag Search only listing one of work for "Peter Gabriel/Mike Rutherford." And when I created a new draft work that used the main tag, it increase the count in Tag Search for "Peter Gabriel/Mike Rutherford" -- but when I created a new draft work that used the synonym tag, it did not.]

There may also be other factors affecting the overall Tag Search numbers.

Okay, so I suspect #3, tag deflation due to no tag wrangling, is (helping to?) create the unexpectedly low numbers you are seeing for ships like Jetfire/Starscream. I suspect that many people do not use the full canonical tag "Jetfire | Skyfire/Starscream (Transformers)", and those other uses don't get counted in Tag Search. The only way to address this issue is to click through on a tag returned by Tag Search and find out how many works the tag has once you look at its list of works.

But why aren't some ships showing up at all? That's a different question. Here, I suspect the answer again is related to tag wrangling. Every (?) canonical ship tag has at least one parent tag that is a fandom tag (as well as the relevant character tags). You can see the parent tags for Jetfire/Starscream on its tag page:

Skyfire (Transformers), Starscream (Transformers), The Transformers (Cartoon Generation One), The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers (Bay Movies), Transformers (Dreamwave Generation One), Transformers (IDW 2019), Transformers (Marvel Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Animated (2007), Transformers: Armada, Transformers: Beast Wars (Cartoon), Transformers: Cybertron, Transformers: Cyberverse, Transformers: Energon, Transformers: Prime, Transformers: Shattered Glass, Transformers: The Headmasters, Transformers: War for Cybertron (Video Games)

Jetfire/Starscream has "Transformers - All Media Types" as a parent tag, and I suspect that is why it shows up in the Tag Search for that fandom. I would guess that some of the bigger Transformer ships do NOT have that broad fandom as a parent tag. Let's check the parent tags of Megatron/Optimus Prime:

Megatron (Transformers), Optimus Prime, The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers (Bay Movies), Transformers Animated (2007), Transformers: Armada, Transformers: Robots in Disguise (2001), Transformers: Robots in Disguise (2015)

Megatron/Optimus Prime does NOT have "Transformers - All Media Types" as a parent tag. I suspect that's why it didn't show up in your tag search.

So what can you do? Unfortunately, I think the only way to be sure to find all the Transformers ships is to do a Tag Search within each of the different Transformers subfandoms (and I know there are a lot) and then combine the lists of ships you find for each. And then be sure to visit the tag works page for each resulting tag to get the actual number of works, as discussed above. I also discussed other ways to get the find the top relationships here, but I think they're all either less reliable or more arduous than this method, at least for a big fandom like Transformers.

Best of luck!

[wolfwhisperertf]

{SPOILERS!}

So like most of us watched Lucanis’s opening right, killing all the venatori with his pretty little wings. Anyway ya know how the venatori start to go into a monologue about their gods before the new favorite assassin starts killing… that whole scene really makes me hope there is some kind of quick time event. Someone starts to go into there evil monologue and Rook just throws a rock at their face… it would be beautiful and hilarious

[andillwriteyouatragedy]

if anyone wants to hear an infodump about frankenstein lmk bc i'm vibrating rn. all dressed up and nowhere to go

[strandnreyes]

oh we're so back

[aresielle]

The spies. I think people were looking to hard. The solution was easy. The spies were all the imperial in the reunion with Gideon. Each one of them was a spy for their respective faction. Pellaeon for Thrawn. Hux for Rae Sloane ... 

[toyourliking]

i put this under a readmore how dare you get rid of it tumblr

okay so ed's running off to be a fisherman after throwing his leathers overboard (while they were literally right near where he's got his fishing job) and then THIS in a behind the scenes video

he for sure dredges up his old clothes thinking it's a giant fish (cause of the cannonball)

and something something coming together (heh) against the threat posed to the republic of pirates, apologies and maybe retiring and idk i just need them to get married, gang

[randomfoggytiger]

I'm really starting to think that the IVF conversation/ask happened early 1998! Chinga could have been Scully's vacation where she decides she wants to ask Mulder to be the father... Classic sibling rivalry; Bill since he and Tara had a baby in Dec-97/Jan-98, and mourning the loss of Emily- thinking she could have been a secret child of Melissa's, Charlie supposedly having son(s) as referenced in Home. The ask happening before Fight The Future... Mulder had found Scully's ovum in '97 and had it immediately tested. She wouldn't want to wait very long from the moment she knew about it... I'm compelled!

There was a fic about that, I think!

Scully takes a vacay to clear her head after Mulder tells her about the ova. It diverts how I interpreted the episode; but it was a great read.

Wait a sec... *rummages* Can't find it on this short notice (I didn't name it appropriately in my docs, UGH.) Does anyone else know what it's from? I think a large body of work?

But anyway! I used to be big on the IVF in S5 thing (got a few? fics about it stashed); but it, unfortunately, made more sense (to me) in S6 because they were grounded often during the Kersh times (and flying wasn't/isn't? recommended while going through IVF, I think.) And the "doesn't want it to come between us" is perfect after FTF and The Beginning and Drive when both were crawling back from the immense mess up that Mulder did in ignoring Scully's FTF reiteration (The Beginning.)

If I were to set it in S5, I'd follow @dreamingofscully's theory-- post All Souls (resolution for grief/guilt on Scully's part); and failure before The End (because Scully would feel even more hurt by Diana-- she would have been viewing herself as a "failure"-- whereas Mulder was oblivious to how threatened she felt. And Diana capitalized on all that emotion.)

[t00thpasteface]

here's something stupid: the catcatfish

some quick facts:

they're nocturnal and tend to roam around while awake.

they have keen senses of smell and hearing, but terrible eyesight. despite this, they also have a tapetum lucidum, making their pupils "glow" in the dark.

their fur is short, dense, and oily to waterproof them.

they prefer a diet of mostly meat and are attracted to strong-smelling food like fish, cheese, and anything fermented.

the elongated dewclaw on each front paw is sharp, flexible, and nonretractable. it injects a venom that causes respiratory failure and cardiac arrest in prey and, in extreme doses, humans. veterenarians typically remove the dewclaw venom glands during the neuter/spay procedure.

they grow to an average of 1m and 23kg (3ft and 50lb) but can reach up to double that length and triple the weight!

[frankierotwinkdeath]

Y’all want Taylor Swift to be gay so bad but you won’t even write femslash about her

[lylahammar]

My take on unicorns! I'd really love to make a mythical creature field guide someday, since the Spiderwick Field Guide is what inspired me to start drawing in the first place 🥰

[armadillorollup]

biology of a stapler

[theantiazdarcho]

The Lancetfish is a species that looks like it comes straight out of a realistic fantasy world building project.

[vcreatures]

PRINTS AVAILABLE

if you’ve been following me long enough you know I love a mimic. From my false faced mermaids that I’ve been painting for years to butterfly dragons, I’m a big fan of illusion in the bestiary world.

I bring you the Ginkgo Draco, another member of the Botanical Drakes. 

[valdevia]

The Ghost Buckeye (Junonia prosopon), descended from a species driven to extinction by urbanization and habitat loss, has evolved specifically to ward off humans. When intimidated, they display the uncanny face-like patterns on their wings. The image it creates has inspired many legends about unearthly distorted creatures, and has consecrated entire areas of forest as haunted.

[iris-of-the-lambs]

Behold, an angel

some anatomy musings on winged ppl and also clothing furgonomics