#jk i've never taken a single stats course

[yoshi-ori]

Boys Planet AO3 Stats

I’ve seen people do stats analyses on ZB1 AO3 fics, so I wanted to analyze the AO3 fics for the Boys Planet fics without the ZB1 fandom tag (i.e. I went to the Boys Planet fandom tag, went to the filters, excluded all fics with the ZEROBASEONE | ZB1 fandom tag, and clicked "Sort and Filter"). By extracting the data of all Boys Planet fics using this bookmarklet and importing all the data into a Google spreadsheet, I was able to find all unique characters (i.e. the contestants) and ships that writers have written about and figure out which ones were the most popular.

Disclaimers: All data was extracted at approximately August 19 at 5:51AM KST. Characters who are not Boys Planet contestants were removed. Ships involving two or more non-Boys Planet contestants were removed.

As of August 19 at 5:51AM KST, there were a total of 596 fics written. The top 20 most written about contestants are:

Zhang Hao - 180 (30.2%)

Sung Hanbin - 159 (26.7%)

Kim Jiwoong - 120 (20.1%)

Seok Matthew - 101 (16.9%)

Yoon Jongwoo - 93 (15.6%)

Ricky - 92 (15.4%)

Kum Junhyeon - 86 (14.4%)

Kim Taerae - 82 (13.8%)

Han Yujin - 81 (13.6%)

Jay - 76 (12.8%)

Kim Gyuvin - 75 (12.6%)

Park Hanbin - 74 (12.4%)

Lee Jeonghyeon - 72 (12.1%)

Keita - 68 (11.4%)

Ollie - 65 (10.9%)

Seowon - 63 (10.6%)

Cha Woongki - 60 (10.1%)

Na Kamden - 56 (9.4%)

Lee Seunghwan - 55 (9.2%)

Haruto - 48 (8.1%)

Zhang Hao takes the crown with the most fics written about him, with Sung Hanbin trailing not too far behind him. Interestingly, all 20 contestants listed ranked within the top 28 during the show and passed the second eliminations.

There are a total of 231 unique ships. Ships on AO3 are indicated as romantic using "/" and platonic using "&." The top 18 most written about ships are:

Sung Hanbin/Zhang Hao - 97 (16.3%)

Kim Jiwoong/Yoon Jongwoo - 44 (7.4%)

Kim Taerae/Kum Junhyeon - 43 (7.2%)

Jay/Yoon Jongwoo - 36 (6.0%)

Kim Jiwoong/Seowon - 33 (5.5%)

Seok Matthew/Sung Hanbin - 32 (5.4%)

Han Yujin/Ollie - 28 (4.7%)

Kim Taerae/Park Hanbin - 25 (4.2%)

Kim Gyuvin/Ma Jingxiang - 19 (3.2%)

Jay/Na Kamden - 17 (2.9%)

Cha Woongki/Keita - 16 (2.7%)

Haruto/Wang Zihao - 15 (2.5%)

Chen Jianyu/Lee Jeonghyeon - 14 (2.3%)

Sung Hanbin & Zhang Hao - 13 (2.2%)

Ma Jingxiang/Ricky - 12 (2.0%)

Cai Jinxin/Zhang Shuaibo - 10 (1.7%)

Chen Kuanjui/Zhang Hao - 10 (1.7%)

Han Yujin & Ollie - 10 (1.7%)

As we can see, Sung Hanbin/Zhang Hao dominates amongst all the ships, having more than twice the amount fics as second place.

Google spreadsheet with the full results

Some more fun facts/stats:

Out of the 98 Boys Planet contestants, 32 of them do not have any Boys Planet fics written about them. These contestants are Chen Liang, Chen Renyou, Chen Yugeng, Choi Seunghun, Dong Dong, Feng Junlan, Han Seobin, Hyo, Ichika, Itsuki, Jang Minseo, Jeon Hoyoung, Jeon Wooseok, Jo Eunwoo, Jung Hwanrok, Jung Seyun, Kei, Kim Minhyuk, Lin Shiyuan, Nice, Ouju, Park Gwanyoung, Qiu Shengyang, Riku, Tao Yuan, Toui, Wen Yechen, Xuan Hao, Yeom Taegyun, Yuki, Yutaka, and Yuto

While Zhang Hao has the most fics written about him, in the ZEROBASEONE | ZB1 fandom tag, Sung Hanbin has the most fics written about him (both including and excluding the Boys Planet fandom tag)

Out of the 231 unique ships, 133 are romantic and 98 are platonic. 15 ships involve more than two people (4 romantic and 11 platonic) (not including -everyone ships)

The contestants with the most unique ships are Ricky (24), Park Hanbin (23), Seok Matthew and Zhang Hao (21), Park Gunwook (20), and Cha Woongki, Kim Gyuvin, Kum Junhyeon, Lee Jeonghyeon, and Sung Hanbin (17)

The most written about ship involving a non-Boys Planet contestant is Kim Jiwoong/Yoon Seobin with 5 fics

Out of the 596 Boys Planet fics the stats are based on, 226 (37.9%) are rated General Audiences, 142 (23.8%) are rated Teen And Up Audiences, 91 (15.3%) are rated Mature, 58 (9.7%) are rated Explicit, and 79 (13.3%) are not rated

Out of the 596 Boys Planet fics the stats are based on, there is an average of… (rounded to the nearest whole number)

3,587 words

1448 hits

95 kudos

10 bookmarks

The Boys Planet fic with the most words goes to "Even Stars Die Eventually" written by AO3 user cordeliasept, with 63,592 words

The top 10 most common content tags are Fluff (166), Canon Complaint (85), Angst (72), Not Beta Read (55), Hurt/Comfort (48), Kissing (44), Established Relationship (37), Light Angst (32), Friends to Lovers (29), and Emotional Hurt/Comfort (26)

[the-passenger-if]

so Malin had that interesting post on game design and some of the rules he created for Fallen Hero specifically, and tbh, I think FH has become a model for how others are creating their own from what I've seen. I was curious if you did something similar when you were planning out Passenger, and/or if there was anything different that you've been focusing on or trying to emphasize (i never give you easy questions)

I read it; Malin is, once again, the person I want to be when I grow up.

I think FH has become a model for how others are creating their own from what I’ve seen.

Hopefully; Fallen Hero is one of the best examples of interactive fiction I’ve read (it ticks all the right boxes for me and by now I think it’s pretty obvious it’s been a huge inspiration for my own work).

(i never give you easy questions)

(pictured: my last 2 brain cells trying to work together)

I will take the atheist youtuber approach and I’ll revise Malin’s comment step by step to see what resonates with me and what doesn’t.

Malin: “My goal was to write interactive fiction, not a game.”

100% this. Reading the forums I realized I was a lot more into games that told me a story and had rich characters and interactions than, I don’t know, about the I shoot the gun *roll dice* It doesn’t work. Baddie shoots gun *roll dice* It leaves a cool scar on MC’s arm. I have nothing against that type of games, neither against micromanaging, it’s just there’s so many times I can go feed the goats before my brain goes away and comes back once every goat has died of starvation. I get bored, that’s what I’m saying.

M: “Trust. This was the first rule. I needed to build trust in the reader, and make them realize that there would be no game over in this book, no way to fail so badly you couldn’t get back from it.”

This too. I didn’t want to put game overs around every corner. Don’t get me wrong, it works. One of my fave WIPs is Monsters (TW for everything basically) and I died like five times before getting it right, but Monsters isn’t just about dying; I like the NPCs, I like the MCs, it’s a cool slash horror game and I think it makes more sense to die in that game than it does to do it in mine. They say eliminating the possibility of dying kills the suspense and encourages players to play stupidly; TP is a game about an eldritch abomination and their gang of freaks, not rocket science: If players are having fun I did my job.

M: “The only reason you would make a choice should be that it felt right for your character, and you wanted to see what happened.”

I disagree with this one; I really like the oppose pairs COG encourages so much, and after reading dozens of games I found that the author that makes it work best is Devon (Samurai of Hyuga saga). I loved that the most important use of the oppose pairs was to choose your ronin’s personality traits (Devon tends to get a little carried away with how every single choice must be affected by them, but that’s because he’s a more gamey author, while I’m more interested in the role-playing aspect). That’s why there’s no way to fuck up too much in my game if you choose the “wrong” option (read: the option that doesn’t align with your traits). You are still supposed to think about your Newman and what answer feels the less OOC. Some people like to play a character that has some agency of their own (raises hand), other people are control freaks (jk I love you all xD) which bring us to the next point;

M: “Immersion. The second rule, and the thing that influenced my stats and flags. They should be there to help immersion, to enable me to to callbacks to earlier events, and to tailor text to the reader. While there’s an unusually fixed protagonist in Fallen Hero, I wanted variability in how they were presented. While things like cautious/daring influences success in certain fights, that’s actually a secondary function. Instead of trying to artificially have a stat chance with every choice to make it ‘matter’, I embraced the thought that the changing text itself did matter enough.”

All of this. There’s no way I can say it better. Also ties in with MCs having different thoughts and reactions on what’s going on around them. Flavor text rules.

M: “Consequence. That being said, I wanted there to be tension and nervousness, which meant that there needed to be consequence. This was tricky, especially over three books where a lot of the consequences won’t come until later in the series.”

The consequences in my book are a lot quicker to come and bite you in the ass than in Malin’s book (of fucking course); that’s why there are flags just about everywhere and some people will be lacking one or two companions from CH6 onwards.

M: “No lock-in.” “There’s no point in which a RO becomes locked in for good, and at the same time you don’t get locked out if you didn’t start a romance at a certain point…”

Since I have less time to show you things, I had to pick and choose what’s more important for the story I’m trying to tell. For example, what’s more important: keeping the romance paths open or having more fluffy flavor text with your chosen RO. Guess which one I chose (took me 2 solid seconds to make that call I’m telling you)

As I said before, don’t try to create your own angsty path: I FEED on angst, I won’t disappoint you. Smooch that RO, hug Livvy, everything will be taken away by me raining fire on Newman and co anyways.

M: “Secrecy. One way I picked to help me heighten tension was to keep secrets from the reader,”

Not a big fan of this one if I’m being honest. I’m not mad about it or even vocal (this is the first time I say anything) I just could do without it. Fallen Hero is great and I love it, it’s just sort of weird at times when Sidestep goes like “Did they know about the blue button and the diet coke, did they?” And I’m like, “Bitch I sure hope they do because I have no idea what you’re talking about”. FH is my second favorite game (my #1 if I don’t count WIPs) but yeah, that. Maybe if all secrets are revealed by the end of book 2, and book 3 is about Sidestep (and the player) reacting to them, maybe I won’t find it so distracting.

The Passenger has its fair share of secrets (it has to) but most of them aren’t even secrets (what is Newman? where do they come from? what about the Old Ones?) that’s just how cosmic horror works. Things just are, there’s no explanation; the magic trick is always a lot less impressive once you know how it works, and some things are better left unsaid. Whatever your mind comes up with will be one hundred times worse than any explanation I might give you.

M: “Community.” “by having people share and gossip and theorize, the story became so much greater than their single paths.”

No shit I love this. And not only when someone pushes too far and breaks their own heart by being curious *cough*shokujin*cough* but also when people come up with their own headcanons, fanfics, fan comics. Reading my babies’ words through someone else’s creation blows my mind, I’m not kidding. It’s almost dissociative. Also, I write fanfiction, I read it, I’ve made fan comics and art and I know the amount of work and love that you guys pour into it and it’s always super flattering.

All in all, I guess our approaches were pretty similar. I could talk about this for days, that’s why I chose to keep it as close to Malin’s comment as I could.