#questions for the tumblmind

[destinationtoast]

Calling Game of Thrones fans with knowledge of the fandom's history! [see also: Supernatural version]

I'm in the midst of putting together some fandom deep dives as part of my analysis of TV Fandom Fix-Its on AO3, including GoT. I'm trying to give context for how many fanworks the fandom was producing overall, and when overall spikes in fandom activity were happening, and I could use help.

Specifically, I'm trying to label AO3 activity spikes with what episodes/events seemed to contribute to them. But I'm probably missing important context. E.g., I know there were other events like fanwork exchanges happening that might have been contributors to some activity spikes, or things the show creators said/did might also have contributed sometimes.

If you have theories about why the red spikes between seasons happened near the following dates, that would be excellent:

Dec 28, 2020

May 11, 2020

Oct 5, 2015

Sept 29, 2014

July 21, 2014

And if you think I'm missing important context for some of the other spikes, or I made goofs on some of the labels, please LMK!

This was posted on April 10, 2024; I'm hoping for relevant replies in the next few days.

If you prefer to look at the raw data, it's too long to list here, but you can read it in this spreadsheet. And you can view the graph and labels bigger in this slide.

Thanks so much in advance!!

(If you have questions or critiques, please click through and read more context on AO3 or click through to the OP version of this post, which I will update with clarifications as needed.)

[destinationtoast]

Calling Supernatural fans with knowledge of the fandom's history! [see also: Game of Thrones version]

I'm in the midst of putting together some fandom deep dives as part of my analysis of TV Fandom Fix-Its on AO3. I'm starting with Supernatural and trying to give context for how many fanworks the fandom was producing overall, and when overall spikes in fandom activity were happening, and I could use help.

Specifically, I'm trying to label the activity spikes with what episodes/events seemed to contribute to them. But I'm not in the fandom, so I'm probably missing important context. E.g., I know there were other events like fanwork exchanges happening that might have been contributors to some activity spikes, or things the show creators said/did might also have contributed sometimes.

If you have theories about why the red spikes happened around July 15 and Oct 7, 2023 (both after The Winchesters was done airing), that would be excellent.

And if you think I'm missing important context for some of the earlier spikes, or I made goofs on some of the labels, please LMK!

(Edit: This was posted on April 7, 2024; I'm hoping for replies in the next week or so.)

If you prefer to look at the raw data, it's too long to list here, but you can read it in this spreadsheet (edit: click tab "just the total activity"). And you can view the graph and labels bigger in this slide.

Thanks so much in advance!!

(If you have questions or critiques, please click through and read more context on AO3 or click through to the OP version of this post, which I will update with clarifications as needed.)

[destinationtoast]

*waves shyly* Hello!! First off, I absolutely adore all of your stats and get excited when you post new ones -- thank you so much for all that you do!

Secondly, a friend and I have been discussing fandom longevity lately, and I wondered if you have thoughts? Subjectively, it seems to us that new fandoms tend to have more quick bursts of fandom activity when a new season/movie/book/etc comes out that fades quickly with time, whereas older established fandoms have more staying power. I'm curious if you have any insight about whether this is objectively true in most cases or not, and as to whether or not the type of canon source material matters (eg show-based fandoms vs book-based fandoms). I hope you're having a great day <3

Hi there, and thanks! :D This is a great question, and one I have been having a bunch of conversations about lately.

I share this subjective experience -- it sure seems like the attention span of fans and lifespan of fandoms is shorter than it used to be, when I think of how quickly people stop talking about a bunch of newer movies and TV shows these days. And then I see some of the older fandoms like Harry Potter still producing a ton of new fanworks, and I think, "Wow, maybe new fandoms just don't have the staying power of older ones." At the same time, I also question how objectively true/simple that story is for a few reasons, including:

Memory bias: When we look back on the past, the fandoms we remember most are usually the ones that lasted a long time. So our estimates of past fandom longevity may be overly generous.

Changes to fandom size: Maybe any changes to fandom lifespan are mostly due to some other change, like fandom size... Attention is more splintered these days than it used to be across more streaming services/etc, and I think there are more, smaller fandoms than there used to be. Maybe if a fandom doesn't get really huge, it's just not likely to last that long.

For TV fandoms -- changes to canon release schedule: most TV shows used to have seasons that lasted most of the year, so they had a lot more reason to stay in the public mind longer. Now many seasons are shorter and sometimes drop all at once. Perhaps if we compared popular TV procedurals with 22 episodes/season from now vs. ~a decade ago, we'd see similar patterns of fandom activity?

I've been thinking about ways to try to gather quantitative data about the changes, and testing out a few methods. A few ideas I've had:

Look at the Tumblr official lists of top fandoms and see whether the top fandoms tend to leave the top 20 rankings faster now than they used to. (The Tumblr rankings go all the way back to 2013 on a yearly basis, at least -- I'm not sure how long they've been releasing the weekly lists; those may have started later.)

Look at AO3 fandom activity after new canon infusions - how quickly does activity drop off after a new movie/book/video game release, or after a TV season ends? How has the rate of activity dropoff changed over the years? (And how much of that seems to be explained by other factors, like fandom size?)

See how quickly AO3 authors/creators tend to migrate to new fandoms, and how that's changed over time - many authors tend to be active in multiple fandoms, so we'd have to define what it means to migrate to a new fandom, but I think we could do so in a way that would allow us to look for changes.

Look at Tumblr, Twitter/X, and/or Reddit activlty after new canon infusions - same as AO3, but on a platform where people are posting shorter content and there's more of a discussion. (This data would be harder to collect, though.)

I'd love to also hear other ideas. I think I'm going to need some volunteers to help gather data if I do any of the above, though... Readers, if you'd be interested in helping to gather data for an hour or more to help investigate this question, please reply/DM and let me know! And/or join the new fandom-data-projects community.

Also if any readers know of anyone else who has looked into this/similar questions, I'd love to hear about it!

[destinationtoast]

Help me understand some AU tags.

I'm in the midst of looking at find fandoms on AO3 that have a lot of works tagged with "Alternate Universe" or a related tag. I'm trying to sort a bunch of the freeform/additional AO3 tags into cases that are simply canon divergent vs. cases that involve a larger transformation of the universe (e.g., a change to the time period or setting of the story, or a change to the powers that characters have, or a change to character gender or age). Please help me figure out which category the following tags fit into. (I'm writing this July 29, 2024; if you're reading this more than a week or so in the future, I probably don't still need help. :) )

Do these AO3 tags represent canon divergence or a larger change to the canon universe (or are they canon compliant)?

"Alternate Universe - Non-Despair (Dangan Ronpa)"

"Alternate Universe - Grand Theft Auto Setting" (fandom: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF)

"Humanstuck" - (fandom: Homestuck) I assume this probably is about Homestuck trolls being human or some other major transformation, but otoh maybe it's just focused on the human characters or something...?

"Alternate Universe - Underfell (Undertale)"

"Alternate Universe - No Curses (Jujutsu Kaisen)"

"Alternate Universe - Underswap (Undertale)"

"Alternate Universe - No Blue Lock" (fandom: Blue Lock (Manga))

"Alternate Universe - K/DA (League of Legends)"

"Alternate Universe - No Killing Game (Dangan Ronpa)"

"Magical Stiles Stilinski" (fandom: Teen Wolf) are there even magicians in TW canon? I don't know...

"Alternate Universe - Transcendence (Gravity Falls)"

"Alternate Universe - No Sburb Session" (fandom: Homestuck)

[destinationtoast]

Thanks for the rec, and for sharing the rest of this list! 🥰 Royjamiekeeley has eaten most of my brain ever since S2, so despite being somewhat multifandom and multiship, I anticipate posting a lot about the OT3 and Ted Lasso for a long time to come. :) Some links:

my Ted Lasso fic (almost all RJK)

my Ted Lasso S3 fandom stats about the fandom response to S3 -- some data about RJK in here, and I anticipate future updates

some 🔥🔥🔥 RJK fanart (full explicit version here!) I commissioned from @nottonyharrison to go with my fic Outgrow the shoes of expectations (still my favorite fic I've ever written) -- I love their Ted Lasso art and fic which is all RJ(K)

my #roy x jamie x keeley tag -- lots of reblogged meta, fanart, ficlets, gifsets, etc (plus my own fic and very occasional meta)

my #ted lasso tag -- mostly RJK or gen, but I also reblog other ships from time to time, especially tedbeard, tedtrent, rebeccakeeley.

my tag about soccer research contains recommendations for relevant articles, books, podcasts, and more -- I also have lots of related recs in the chapter endnotes for Outgrow

I may reblog again and add more RJK blog recs later as I think of them -- some of my faves are already rec'd above! One quick rec that's not RJK but may appeal: @chainofclovers has written and reblogged a lot of thoughtful TL meta (and the folks they reblog meta from are also terrific), plus great TL poly fic that often features RK (lots of Roy/Keeley/Ted/Rebecca and combos thereof; also lots of Beard/Ted/Rebecca.).

I know I have a bunch of RJK fans among my followers -- what other blogs would you rec for more good RJK content?

hi! do you have any ted lasso blog recs- especially if they're royjamiekeeley focused? thank-you!

Greetings, exalted one! Always such a pleasure to run into a fellow RJK fan! <3

I’m afraid that I’m not a great person to ask, as I’m still rather new to the fandom myself and tend to follow quite few people in general, but you can have the TL blogs I follow (some with an appropriate love for our OT3) and then maybe my kind followers would care to chime in with more suggestions? I’d love to hear them myself – feel free to plug yourself too, if you fit the RJK bill!

Here goes:

@destinationtoast – not a Ted Lasso blog per se, but posts a lot about it and also write the sweetest OT3 fic and sometimes meta! The stuff not related to TL is also great, so this is just a good blog for anyone to follow, really. Does fandom statistics!

@scoatneyhall – knows a lot of things about football and the Premier League (and England) and is very generous about sharing their knowledge. Writes OT3 fic, writes meta and reblogs a lot of TL stuff.

@jamiesfootball– mix of reblog and original posts, lots of fun stuff to be found. Writes fic, including a post-season 3 one I’m eagerly awaiting, though I believe it’s RJ rather than RJK.

@liesmyth – multifandom blog, but you get A LOT of glorious TL stuff, including interesting meta and some very nice fic! Also, a nice helping of The Locked Tomb stuff, which I adore!

@pghumfort – mix of reblog and original posts, almost all of it TL! Lots and lots of RJ but a fair bit of RJK too! Writes fic and will happily join discussions and add to posts (which I adore) and talk TL to you!

@lunar-years – multifandom, but a fair bit of Ted Lasso, both original posts (fun meta!) and reblogs. Absolutely on the OT3 train. Huge on Taylor Swift lately, so if you’re into that as well as Ted Lasso, this is a great choice!

@jedusaur– multifandom and posts less about TL than the others, but writes lovely (and often kinky) fic, both for your RJK and RJ needs!

@hacash – mostly NOT a TL blog and I’m not sure if they do RJK at all, but their TL meta is thoughtful and interesting.

@itsalinh – has not posted in like a month so no idea if they’re gone for good, and I’m not sure they were into RJK, but they posted a lot of fun TL stuff! Also knows a lot about football and was happy to answer questions it.

@sabra-n – does not post a lot about TL anymore but there’s great stuff if you go back a bit, including lovely and well-put meta.

[destinationtoast]

Toastystats poll: fandom fix-its

I've analyzed three fandoms so far with a lot of fanworks tagged "Fix-It" on AO3 (for my TV fandom fix-its analysis): Supernatural, Stranger Things, and Game of Thrones. I'm planning to post a chapter about Sherlock next. If I do one more chapter after that, which fandom should I look at?

[destinationtoast]

Have you noticed how much Goncharov fic is femslash? it's a lot. the whole phenomenon is wonderful, but this is probably the most fascinating thing about it (to me, at least)

I have noticed, and it is fascinating! To update some of my Goncharov stats from 3 days ago, now that the AO3 fandom presence has grown from 40 to over 500 fanworks (!!!):

With those smaller numbers a few days ago, I was really just goofing around (you can't conclude much about which ships are "winning" with only 40 fanworks, but I wanted to contribute some fun graphs to the Goncharov phenomenon anyway). Now that there are so many works, femslash is clearly leading the fic world, even though a lot of the meta and articles I see people sharing primarily mention the Andrey/Goncharov homoeroticism.

This is really interesting, and I wonder what all is driving it. Do the actors who play Andrey & Goncharov not speak as much to slash fans as the actors who play Katya & Sofia? is it the particular scenes that the women characters are in that speak to the fans the most? Was there some particularly inspirational early F/F fic or fanart that spurred more? Are "imaginary canons" (such a goofy genre name!) more likely to generate more femslash than other canons? And/or are there other reasons? Would love to hear theories.

[destinationtoast]

Toastystats preview: F/F vs. M/M tagging

I discovered something unexpected while doing stats comparing F/F and M/M on AO3. One thing I was initially looking for was whether M/M fanworks were more likely than F/F fanworks to tag dark themes or explicit sex acts. It seemed like yes, they were -- but then I found out that, more generally, M/M fanworks use more tags on average than F/F fanworks. And given that, it's not too surprising that M/M is more likely to use most of the common AO3 tags than F/F is (whether the tag is dark, fluffy, or otherwise).

Still, I found a few AO3 tags that F/F was more likely to use than M/M. And I sorted a bunch of common AO3 tags from "Most likely to be used by M/M" to "Most likely to be used by F/F", shown above. The middle line indicates that a tag is equally likely to be used by M/M and F/F. Some of the darker and more explicit tags do indeed seem to be further toward the mostly-M/M end of the spectrum, but some of the ordering surprised me. (E.g., F/F is more likely to use "Smut," while M/M is more likely to use "Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot." And F/F and M/M are nearly equally likely to use "Trauma" and "Coercion.")

I have a whole lot more F/F vs. M/M data to share soon, but I have questions for y'all first about this data:

does the above visualization makes sense? I'm worried it might be hard to interpret, so if you're confused, can you share anything about why?

are you are surprised by anything about the data?

any thoughts/theories/questions this data raises for you?

Below the cut -- additional explanations that might be useful when theorizing (e.g., about possible factors like background ships), along with raw data for the above graph.

A couple notes on interpretation: we shouldn't have to worry about the fact that F/F is often tagged when F/F is actually a background ship -- I tried to weed out all cases where the F/F or M/M tag of interest could possibly have referred to a background ship. Also, all of the above tags are used at least 1000 times on F/F works and at least 17K times on F/F and M/M combined... so these numbers shouldn't be *too* prone to the noise of really small numbers.

Data used to make the chart

Header: tag name | % F/F using tag | % M/M using tag | A/A is X times more likely to use tag as B/B (A/A uses it more than B/B)

Whump | 0.16% | 0.39% | 2.4

Protectiveness | 0.85% | 1.81% | 2.1

Hurt | 0.93% | 1.94% | 2.1

Kinks | 1.12% | 2.30% | 2.1

Crack | 0.87% | 1.67% | 1.9

Torture | 0.46% | 0.84% | 1.8

Children | 0.56% | 0.99% | 1.8

Gore | 0.23% | 0.40% | 1.7

Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot | 2.25% | 3.72% | 1.7

Not Beta Read | 1.76% | 2.63% | 1.5

Falling in Love | 1.12% | 1.62% | 1.4

Self-Harm | 0.63% | 0.90% | 1.4

Abuse | 1.82% | 2.57% | 1.4

Incest | 0.93% | 1.31% | 1.4

Cuddling & Snuggling | 1.56% | 2.15% | 1.4

Humor | 3.63% | 4.99% | 1.4

Birthday | 0.38% | 0.51% | 1.4

Supernatural Elements | 2.16% | 2.93% | 1.4

Badass | 0.37% | 0.50% | 1.4

BDSM | 3.94% | 5.32% | 1.4

Awkwardness | 0.65% | 0.86% | 1.3

Dark | 0.44% | 0.58% | 1.3

Marriage | 1.78% | 2.36% | 1.3

Light-Hearted | 3.13% | 4.12% | 1.3

Hatred | 0.51% | 0.66% | 1.3

Mythical Beings & Creatures | 2.01% | 2.58% | 1.3

Love | 5.95% | 6.74% | 1.1

Friendship | 5.01% | 5.64% | 1.1

Alternate Universe | 19.27% | 21.27% | 1.1

Holidays | 1.90% | 2.09% | 1.1

Trauma | 1.43% | 1.56% | 1.1

Coercion | 0.37% | 0.39% | 1.1

Horror | 0.45% | 0.47% | 1.0

Comfort | 0.95% | 0.97% | 1.0

Fluff | 23.98% | 24.17% | 1.0

Flirting | 1.20% | 1.20% | 1.0

Hugs | 0.38% | 0.37% | 1.0

Crossovers & Fandom Fusions | 1.56% | 1.52% | 1.0

Alternate Canon | 4.89% | 4.71% | 1.0

Polyamory | 0.71% | 0.67% | 1.1

Smut | 7.04% | 6.48% | 1.1

Slow Burn | 2.54% | 2.26% | 1.1

Post-Canon | 2.32% | 2.03% | 1.1

Romance | 6.42% | 5.49% | 1.2

Drabble | 2.59% | 2.21% | 1.2

Prompt Fill | 0.70% | 0.59% | 1.2

Pre-Canon | 0.77% | 0.59% | 1.3

One Shot | 3.85% | 2.66% | 1.4

LGBTQ Themes | 7.77% | 4.44% | 1.7

Gender Related | 3.52% | 1.45% | 2.4

[destinationtoast]

This is an interesting sort of question, and I suspect your hunch is right; I know some users author single fics that are millions of words, and some people post a huge number of separate short works, but I suspect those are fairly separate populations.

I'd be very interested in related questions like "How many authors are there with at least X fanworks?" or "How many authors with at least X word count?" if you (or anyone else) figure out a good way to get/estimate that data. But I also advise caution around user privacy here -- I wouldn't want to share the pseud of the author with the highest word count, or a list of the most prolific authors, for instance. Because they haven't agreed to it and don't necessarily want to be publicized in the way. So I advise sharing anything you figure out with care, and strongly consider anonymizing any accounts you're talking about.

That caveat made, also boosting this in case anyone else has relevant data/estimates to share. And good luck in your own investigations! :)

i want to know who has the most fics and who has the most words published on ao3. i doubt they’re the same person and i want to know.

[destinationtoast]

I've been getting a new wave of spam comments recently on AO3 that are easy for me to spot because they are responding to my fandom stats meta as if it were fiction:

[redacted]* left the following comment on [Fandom stats] Ted Lasso S3 on AO3: fandom response to Season 3:

I love how you explored the unexplored aspects of the original story. It adds a whole new layer of depth.

[redacted]* left the following comment on [Fandom stats tutorial] How to gather fandom data & do fandom stats:

Your fanfic is an emotional rollercoaster. I laughed, I cried, and I couldn't get enough. Fantastic work!

[redacted]* left the following comment on [Fandom stats tutorial] How to gather fandom data & do fandom stats:

Your writing has a lyrical quality to it. The prose is poetic, and it added an extra layer of beauty to the story.

[redacted]* left the following comment on [Fandom stats tutorial] How to gather fandom data & do fandom stats:

I can't get enough of your writing. It's addictive.

I believe I've only been getting these on my most recently updated three works (and mostly on the oldest of those three, which is also the most popular, the only WIP, and the only one with multiple chapters). But it's also possible I got some comments on older works that were fiction, and I didn't recognize them as spam.

Has anyone else been noticing a similar influx?

*Edit to add: redacted because at least some of the names the bots are using are real usernames, appropriated for spam. (But if the name in a comment is not linked, it's not the actual user leaving the comment.) If you see such comments yourself, don't blame the real users for the spam bots' actions!

[destinationtoast]

Reverse fake relationship fic?

Has anyone read any fic where characters who are not in a relationship have to pretend to be siblings, or some other platonic relationship, and in the process realize how hard it is to act truly platonically, and that they want more?

Or about members of an established relationship who have to pretend to be platonic and keep having to explain away absent-minded affection, and have to keep sneaking around to have secret sex? (Edit: a couple people have rightly pointed out that this one is a Secret Relationship, which is indeed an existing trope!)

[destinationtoast]

Just finished rereading the Imperial Radch trilogy. (Or, actually, I listened to it this time.) How is it so fucking good?? I'm sniffly about it. *happy sigh*

I love rereads in general, but I especially enjoyed the additional Presger insights I had this time around, thanks to Translation State.

Based on my love of this universe and the Murderbot Diaries, a friend recommended A Memory Called Empire. Do any of you agree/disagree, or have any other recommendations?

[destinationtoast]

britpicking? (Ted Lasso)

So, I seem to be continuing to write lots of Ted Lasso Roy/Jamie/Keeley fic. :D Is anyone interested in britpicking? I'd be especially interested in someone who can help with the essentials of a Northern/Mancunian dialect (e.g., when it's appropriate to say something like, "she were sending a text" vs. "she was sending a text") and also with "innit" (which I know is linguistically more complex than just replacing "isn't it" and has been evolving). I'm happy to beta/ameripick in return, if desired.

I currently have a couple WIPs that are a few thousand words each.

[destinationtoast]

Hi!

I've been tracking the number of restricted works on AO3 since about 24 hours after the recent Reddit post on ao3 probably being scraped for use in commercial writing AIs. I think it could be interesting to make some meta with that.

Do you, or does one of your followers happen to have data on the number of restricted works on ao3 prior to December 2nd? Or know where I could find it?

Oh, that sounds really interesting! I don't have any recent data about restricted works on AO3 prior to that date (it's vaguely possible I looked at this number at some point in the past, but if so, it was years ago). Any of my followers have relevant data?

[destinationtoast]

seeking parallel F/F and M/M duos

I'm looking for F/F and M/M pairings that have strong parallels in canon, such that you might expect them to generate similar fanfic.

Examples:

Eve/Villanelle (Killing Eve) and Will/Hannibal (Hannibal) -- highly similar show genres and similar character roles

Robin/Nancy and Steve/Eddie (Stranger Things) -- this group of four spends a bunch of time together onscreen and is frequently shipped as two same-sex duos

[destinationtoast]

How to address non-binary characters in fandom stats about gender

@once-a-polecat asked a thoughtful and interesting question in response to my post about Canon gender representation & shipping:

So, I know this is a VERY small number of characters (statistically speaking), but how do you deal with, or plan to deal with, the increasing numbers of characters who are non-binary in canon? (Jim Jimenez in OFMD, or Desire in Sandman for instance.) If you’re documenting how prevalent it is that fans introduce gender diversity to binary characters at some point you have to address the question of canon characters who do not have a binary gender. And I understand how much of a tricky question this is because it’s less easily traced across fandoms and some characters may not have a binary gender in ways that do not track with Western human society (they may have culturally significant genders or be non-human beings etc…), but small numbers and diverse types of genders gets difficult for data visualization purposes.

I wanted to give a long-ish answer (or really, to discuss a number of possible answers, all of which sometimes apply but aren't complete on their own), and I also wanted to open it up to others for ideas, so rather than reply in the notes, I'm replying here.

One answer is to say that I'm limited by the data I have available about canon (e.g., in that past 2018 work I was pointing to about Gender representation in canon vs. fanworks, I was working with someone else's movie data set, which didn't contain any data about canon nonbinary characters). That raises a question for future analyses -- does anyone know of a reliable list of canon nonbinary characters that is kept up-to-date? How good is Wikipedia's List of fictional non-binary characters, e.g.? Also interested in lists of canon trans characters.

(A quick aside, because I'm about to talk about limitations: I'm incredibly grateful for the AO3 tagging system, and everyone who makes it work! In part because it allows me to do far more complex stats about all this stuff than any other fandom platform -- or other media platforms, period. And because it gives us all some pretty outstanding sorting and filtering superpowers. Hallelujah! Okay, now onto some limitations. :) )

Another possible answer is to say that my stats are about how people tag things on AO3. So for the most part, I just follow however people are tagging things on AO3 -- and if AO3 users start tagging more ships as "Other" as they often do when a canon nonbinary character like Jim Jimenez or Desire is involved, some of my tag-based stats will pick up that kind of thing (even though I'm currently investigating F/F and M/M specifically, about which more below, I do often include more shipping categories than that). However, this is also only somewhat satisfying, since tagging practices differ between fandoms and change over time (e.g., I *think* more people used to tag some ships involving nonbinary characters, like LaFontaine/Perry from Carmilla, with gendered tags like "F/F" rather than with "Other" -- though maybe that particular example was just because L/P was often a background ship). And I know the use of "Other" can also be touchy; it can be frustrating to lump together human-only ships like Oluwande Boodhari/Jim Jimenez with ones like Eddie Brock/Venom Symbiote, for one thing. (And AO3 could even change some of these tagging options in the future, which might make such data even less useful.)

Another answer is to say, "Nonbinary characters are usually just noise, statistically, because there are so few of them -- I can ignore them most of the time." (Which you nodded to in your question, though you didn't suggest being so dismissive about it. :) ) There are some times when I make those kind of omissions or oversimplifications, though I avoid it when possible. For the purposes of my upcoming "F/F vs. M/M" analysis, this answer and the previous one both come into play -- my initial goal is to look at how explicitly queer fic differs between fanworks tagged "F/F" vs. "M/M." Which will unfortunately miss a whole bunch of queer fanworks featuring nonbinary characters. But I am going to simplify things by initially focusing on those two largest and most explicitly queer ship tags.

A final answer is to say that I've tried to make up for limitations in my other work by explicitly seeking out and analyzing gender diversity in some of my stats, like my analyses of Trans, nonbinary, and gender-diverse characters on AO3. [Edit: and then I addressed the possible visualization complexities by looking at each of the common tags -- like "Nonbinary Character" -- separately.] At the same time, because I don't know which characters are trans or nonbinary in canon, those stats have been vague about which gender diversity is coming from canon vs. from fandom -- see my above question about good lists of canon gender diversity. (Also, this doesn't capture types of gender diversity that aren't reflected in the tags.)

Finally, a shoutout to @centrumlumina who does a fantastic job hand-labeling the gender and race of all the characters for the annual top AO3 ships analysis. I am in complete awe. Canon race and gender are both things I wish were easier to analyze/find data about -- but at least for the characters in the top 100 ships each year, Lulu has provided a great data source!

Thanks for the question -- curious to hear if/how others think about this topic.