#master stats

[please-attend-carefully]

Adding in the Big Finish Masters!

Gina McKee: 56

Alexander Macqueen: 39

Mark Gatiss: 36

Milo Parker: 18

Ages of each actor in their first appearance as The Master:

Derek Jacobi: 69

Roger Delgado: 53

Peter Pratt: 53

Anthony Ainley: 49

Missy Gomez: 48

Geoffrey Beevers: 40

Eric Roberts: 40

John Simm: 37

Sacha Dhawan: 36

[morgan-n-cheese-91]

old Obi-Wan is so funny to me because his sass and overall bitchiness is like the last thing he's got and I'm so proud it survived the great depression of his 40s.

[itsafreetrialofdeath]

multiclassed!

[ao3-anonymous]

Fastest Growing Fandoms on AO3 This Week (04/08/2024)

Every week I pull data on how many fics are in each fandom and compare to the previous week, then calculate the percentage increase to determine fastest growing fandoms.  Since this naturally skews towards smaller fandoms, I have included the same data filtered to Over 1k, 5k, & 10k fics.

Overall:

Over 1,000 Fics:

Over 5,000 Fics:

Over 10,000 Fics:

Source: AO3 Fandom Dashboard

[ktredshoes]

HBO War Fanfiction Stats

Let me start by saying that I am not in any sense criticizing anybody's taste in HBO War relationships. In my opinion, any well-written fanfic, regardless of ship, is worthy. Heck, any fanfic is worthy — it takes a special type of creative courage to write and share a fanfiction story so that others might appreciate what you see in characters you love. So, that's the first thing.

Buckle up, I get wordy. More under the cut.

Tagging a handful of folks who showed interest in my decidedly unscientific findings: @onyxsboxes @jesslovesboats @itstheheebiejeebies @onekisstotakewithme @sparkling-strychnine

Trying something here: @meyerlansky @anachilles @astolovewithallmyheart @dano-png

I started down this fanfiction stat rabbit hole about four years ago when I started looking at The Pacific tags on Archive of Our Own (AO3). I was trying to figure out if it was just my imagination or not that everything other than Sledgefu in TP fanfic felt like a rarepair. I was not surprised to find statistical backup for what anecdotally felt true.

I love all the HBO War series — and for the record, I consider Band of Brothers, The Pacific, Generation Kill, and Masters of the Air to all be part of this fandom community. I won't get into trying to rank them or make the case that one is better than another — they are all related in being stories of men at war, and three specifically stories of men at war during World War II — but direct comparisons, in my opinion, are apples to oranges to prosciutto to tiramisu. They all have different raison d'etres. So that's the second thing.

(I will admit to a particular soft spot for The Pacific as the overlooked "younger brother" to Band of Brothers, precisely because of the tendency of some to negatively compare it to BoB. TP was never intended to be "part two" of Band of Brothers — I was listening recently to a podcast with Tony To, an executive producer of both shows, who asserted that BoB was, yes, about the brotherhood of war, but TP was about the cost of war. )

Anyway.

A couple of days ago, I saw someone post about the fact that the Cleven/Egan ship in Masters of the Air was about to hit 1,000 stories on AO3 — and since I knew that the total number of stories was only about 1,400ish, I figured it was time to take a look at MotA stats too. And that led to looking at GK stats and BoB stats and once I finished, I was really struck by what I saw.

I have a whole spreadsheet looking at the four shows, with breakdowns by relationship and character, with percentages of total stories. (I've posted some graphics from those spreadsheets below, not to worry.)

So what did I learn?

The Pacific and Masters of the Air both are overwhelmingly dominated by a single ship — Sledgefu in the case of TP and Clegan in the case of MotA.

As of August 10, 2024, there were 1,500 stories on AO3 tagged for The Pacific, and 1,485 tagged for Masters of the Air. Sledgefu features in 884 of TP stories, which is 58.93% of the total.

You might think that's an astounding total — but Clegan features in an astonishing 986 of MotA stories, or 66.4% of all stories. The falloff in the next highest ship in each fandom is precipitous: Hilldane in 14% of TP stories (210), and Crubbles in 8.82% of MotA stories (131).

If you are a fan of any ship aside from the most popular pairing in these two fandoms, that has got to be terribly discouraging. You wouldn't think the dropoff would be so high if you're at all active in the HBO War fandom on Tumblr, based on what's posted on a daily basis, but if your entry to HBO War fanfic is solely on AO3, what would you think?

I will once again state that I'm making no judgement on anybody's favorite pairing — I'm making a case on behalf of all the other ships. I'll also note that there are many, many fics posted to Tumblr that never make it to AO3, and I would very much encourage those authors to please please please consider posting your stories to AO3! (If you don't have an account on AO3, it currently takes about 10 days from requesting an invitation to receiving it, which is not that long in the scheme of things.)

The popularity of TP and MotA characters in these stories shows a similar disparity between the most popular and everybody else. In The Pacific, Snafu features in 63.53% of AO3 stories (953) and Sledge in 62.6% (939). No one else is as high as even 20% -- Burgie is in 17.2% (258) and Ack Ack is in 15.6% (234) and Hillbilly in 14.73% (221). The other two ostensibly lead characters in TP are Bob Leckie (12.53% or 188 stories) and John Basilone (1.67% or 25). I find that just shocking.

MotA is both better and worse. There are 10 characters who appear in 10% or better of posted stories on AO3 — but the dropoff from most popular to next highest is even more dramatic. Bucky Egan features in 77.9% of stories (1,157) and Buck Cleven in 74.28% (1,103). The next highest is not, as you might think, Harry Crosby or Rosie Rosenthal, the other featured lead characters in the series. It's Curt Biddick, who is in 25.19% of stories (374), followed by Croz in 23.7% (352). Next is Rosie, who is tied with John Brady — both in 16.9% or 251 stories. What a steep drop!

But, hey, at least there are a baker's dozen plus one of characters who feature in at least 100 MotA stories:

Egan: 1,157 stories (77.91%)

Cleven: 1,103 (74.28%)

Biddick: 374 (25.19%)

Crosby: 352 (23.7%)

Brady: 251 (16.9%)

Rosenthal: 251 (16.9%)

DeMarco: 243 (16.36%)

Payne: 225 (15.15%)

Lemmons: 181 (12.19%)

Hamilton: 167 (11.25%)

Marge Spencer: 146 (9.83%)

Douglass: 139 (9.36%)

Kidd: 130 (8.75%)

Blakely: 111 (7.47%)

After 14 years, will TP ever develop more diversity on AO3? Probably doubtful — though since I first checked the stats in 2020, Hilldane has gained 2%, so there's slow change but some change. Eight months in since the birth of the MotA fandom, and Clegan, and by extension Bucky and Bucky, are steamrollering the rest of the MotA relationships and characters on AO3 — based on what I see on Tumblr, I don't know if that huge disparity will hold up, but who knows? It's still a very new fandom.

But what about GenKill and BoB, you say?

Well, as you might have guessed, there's a clear delineation in GK between the top ship and the next ones below it, but the dropoff is not nearly as dramatic as in TP and MotA.

There are 3,024 Generation Kill stories on AO3 as of August 10, 2024, and the number one ship is Brad/Nate, with 1,261 stories, or 41.7% of the total. Next highest is Brad/Ray, with 677 stories, or 22.39%. The top three characters are Brad, featured in 63.82% of stories (1,930), then Ray, featured 52.35% of the time (1,583 stories), followed by Nate (45.44% or 1,374 stories). Next is Walter Hasser at 571 stories (18.88%), followed by Poke Espera at 284 stories (9.39%), Mike Wynn at 262 stories (8.66%), then Doc Bryan at 254 stories (8.4%). There's that dropoff again!

And as for Band of Brothers? After nearly 21 years on AO3 (the oldest story dates from November 2003), there are 5,016 BoB stories on AO3, with a huge number of ships and characters — albeit some quite small. Frankly, I stopped counting after getting to 70 relationships and 55 characters — I just got tired!

Still.

Let me add that the earliest BoB stories on AO3 are not well tagged for ships or characters — many don't have any tags at all. I don't know the reason for it — whether the tagging system in the early AO3 days wasn't easy to navigate, or maybe the lack of tagging was a holdover from earlier systems or archives? I have no idea how well-tagged stories were on LiveJournal, Dreamwidth, or Fanfiction.net. So anyhow, early BoB stories on AO3, if tagged according to current standards, would definitely change the stats but I have no insight on how it might shift them, except definitely upward for the most popular characters and ships.

At any rate: onward.

The top BoB ships on AO3 are 1) Winnix — 1,250 stories or 24.92%, 2) BabeRoe — 771 stories or 15.37%, 3) Webgott — 663 stories or 13.22%, and 4) Speirton — 662 stories or 12.4%.

Moving on to characters, there are a dozen that feature in 10% or better of the BoB total. Take a look:

Winters: 1,173 stories (34.35%)

Nixon: 1,652 (32.93%)

Roe: 1,380 (27.51%)

Speirs: 1,135 (22.63%)

Heffron: 1,125 (22.43%)

Luz: 1,063 (21.19%)

Liebgott: 1,058 (21.09%)

Lipton: 978 (19.5%)

Webster: 790 (15.75%)

Toye: 749 (14.93%)

Guarnere: 686 (13.68%)

Malarkey: 514 (10.25%)

That's a much more even distribution here, without the massive dropoff in the other three fandoms. Or as @itstheheebiejeebies put it to me: "BoB fans feast on variety. It's a grazing table instead of main and side courses." Just so.

So what do I take from all this? I mean, in the case of MotA, I came into the fandom all gaga over Callum Turner and thus Bucky Egan. But then I quickly veered off into following Benny DeMarco (Adam Long) and for the past several months I've fallen under the spell of Everett Blakely (David Shields). Will I stay there? I have no idea! And that's kind of exhilarating.

But here's what I know for sure: as I continue to read and write HBO War fanfic, I'm going to be doing my best to support the ships and characters out of the top tier.

Creators: Don't just post your fanfic to Tumblr — post it to AO3 and tag it.

Be the change that you want to see.

---------------------------------

Now, as promised, here are the stats in graphic form.

[pixelatedraindrops]

being yuma kokohead is suffering

everyone's mean to him

he's just a little guy ;^;

[kagooleo]

happy valentines from my two favorite guys! 💕💖

made some quick little candy grams of my fluffyrice but they also work standalone too, feel free to share with your special someone :]

[3416]

Flyers @ Leafs | 02.15.24

[ultramagnium]

Now that I have a place to yap about Transformers-- I'm going to begin my Ultrajack agenda with these

[jupebox]

You ever just have crazy blorbo brainrot and draw a bunch of random scenes from their childhood because you literally can’t think about anything else until you do? No? Just me?

A whole pile of baby Embers (and siblings) now that he’s started to open up to the party about some of his traumas 👀 (descriptions in alt text if you want more details)

There will be more of them soon. The brainrot is severe.

[destinywillowleaf]

i fORGOT TO POST THIS BEFORE BUT HOLY SHIT I WAS R I G H T

THEY GAVE HER A DHELMISE AND MADE HER A PIRATE

i think i'm like. legally obligated to pull for her now.

(this actually is supposed to go with the special costume roark from february who's also a pirate but i never got around to actually finishing the other two ^^; was gonna be roark, gardenia, drake, and flannery, all in more pirate-y clothes (drake got less of a boost cause like Look At Him) and very much be "please take care of the ocean" the event with a side of calling it treasure for fun)

[nekoanything]

ゲンさん実装おめでとう！！！🥳💕🎉

Riley welcome to pasio !!!🥰✨💕

[thefirstknife]

Getting real sick of a certain subset of Destiny players complaining that it’s a baby game and crying to Bungie to nerf exotics and abilities when their ENTIRE POINT IS TO BE STRONG in specific ways as if they are being locked into using them.

IF YOU WANT AN EXTRA CHALLENGE STOP BEING SUCH A DPS GOBLIN AND JUST EQUIP SOMETHING THATS NOT TOP TIER META AND STOP COMPLAINING JESUS FUCKING CHRIST

MOOD. Go off.

It's incredibly annoying to me. They always use the argument of "the game should FORCE me to do things, I should not SELF-IMPOSE challenges." And like. ? I'm sorry but what? It's a video game for a big audience, it's here to be playable and accessible to the widest possible playerbase. There are plenty of ways to make the game difficult for yourself, so knock yourself out if that's your thing, but don't force others into it.

Like, I enjoy hard content, I regularly at least attempt day 1 raids, I do master raids, GMs, solo and solo flawless content and all that. But only when I want to. Sometimes I don't and I don't want to suffer in a patrol zone or struggle in a seasonal activity I'm doing for the story. The majority of the players don't want that. Designing games for the professional gamers only has NEVER been a good idea and never will be. Fifty streamers can't sustain a video game. It needs casual players who will want to come back to the game instead of feeling defeated.

One of the reasons I really enjoy helping others is because I know that casual players tend to struggle in stuff that's basic activity for me. I've seen people unable to get through a strike. I've sat for 10 minutes rezing someone who couldn't do the jump in a seasonal activity. I want those people to be able to play basic content without feeling frustrated and I want them to know that there are people out there who will help them out.

And this doesn't apply just to basic content, although it should start with that. I think all dungeons and raids and everything should be things that all players can complete. Fine, doing a master raid with all challenges should be tough, but it should be achievable with time and practice, not impossible. What a lot of these "pros" want is just completely divorced from reality.

It takes days and days of practice every time a new master raid is out for me and my team (all with thousands of hours of playtime) to get comfortable to finally finish it. We're far from casual players and it still takes a lot of time to be able to finish hard content. Making it even harder is insane to me. Like, if something is so hard that my team full of people, each with 5000+ hours of playtime and a coordinated team that's been raiding together for years now can't finish it, that means it's absolutely impossible for probably 90% of the playerbase. That's wild to me. Raids and GMs should have more people playing them. If master raids are too easy for you, Mr. I-Play-Destiny-For-A-Living, that's on you buddy. Unequip the super god tier god roll meta guns and loadouts or play something else.

And ofc, another excuse they make is "if I don't use meta, I am not going to win a raid race!" Then don't. Idk. Let me play you the tiniest violin. This affects literally nobody except a grand total of 50 people. Run your meta in day 1, and play with random shit otherwise. Play raids with all white weapons. Play without mods. Play without a HUD. Do things solo only. I don't know, make up a way to spice things up for yourself. I'm not interested in that and neither are 99% of the players out there. The game is genuinely hard enough for the majority of the players. On top of that, I am here to feel like a powerful space fantasy superhero. I am NOT here to die to dregs in patrol zones. If there's ONE thing that I know for a fact that put people off from Lightfall (as in this year of Destiny), it's the difficulty changes. They're annoying, frustrating and for some a barrier to entry more than anything else.

[ao3-anonymous]

Fastest Growing Fandoms on AO3 This Week (06/19/2024)

Every week I pull data on how many fics are in each fandom and compare to the previous week, then calculate the percentage increase to determine fastest growing fandoms.  Since this naturally skews towards smaller fandoms, I have included the same data filtered to Over 1k, 5k, & 10k fics.

Overall:

Over 1,000 Fics:

Over 5,000 Fics:

Over 10,000 Fics:

Source: AO3 Fandom Dashboard

[ktredshoes]

HBOWar fanfiction stats

As some of you are aware, I've been down the AO3 fanfiction stat rabbit hole for The Pacific (see here). I saw somebody post yesterday about the MotA Clegan tag approaching 1,000 on AO3 yesterday and, knowing the total number of MotA fics there is only about 1,400, I thought it was probably time to look at the MotA stats too. Which I did...which led me to look at the GenKill and BoB stats on AO3 too. I am currently gathering my thoughts and will be posting more later on but figured I'd offer a little heads-up for those of you interested in nerdy stats like this. Not giving anything away right now but I've been discussing my findings with @itstheheebiejeebies today and I have...thoughts.

More to come.

Let me know if you want me to tag you when I post my unscientific findings.

[gothsuguru]

Not to spam you but I did not know Suguru’s voice actor has done NSFW before so. (I totally didn’t look it up) (I did)

LISTENNNNNNN WHEN I FOUND OUT I WENT TO TOWN 🗣️🗣️🗣️ idk but him moaning + speaking directly into my ear + whimpering when it got too good really Did Something To Me