Murderbot and Project Hail Mary (AO3 Category data comparison)
Thank you for liking and commenting on my impromptu data post on how Murderbot is a more gen-fic centred fandom compared to other book-turned-into-tv/film fandoms!
Several people pointed out that the large portion of M/M in the PHM fanworks must be attributable to crossover fictions, in particular with Iron Lung.
@rajamitsu suggested that category proportion might get more similar to murderbot if we removed crossovers. So, I decided to try just that.
I am now comparing:
Murderbot (before the TV adaptation came out)
Murderbot (current, but without any crossovers)
Murderbot (all the data to date)
PHM (before the film came out)
PHM (current, but without any crossovers)
PHM (all the data to date)
And here is the raw data
The most amaze-amaze-amaze thing is that 98% of all the PHM fanworks came out after the film - which was only 4 months ago (premiered on 9 March 2026)!
Indeed, prior to the adaptation, 67% of all the works in the PHM fandom was "General" - meaning, no shipping centred which was comparable to the Murderbot fandom.
Focusing on shipping categories, the highest shipping category for Murderbot Diaries is "Other". This is not surprising considering that the protagonist Murderbot has no gender, and even though Murderbot expresses disinterest (as in actively NOT interested in sex or romance), people often use '/' tag for special flavours of platonic (e.g., QPR) when writing stories focusing on relationships between Murderbot and other characters.
In the Other category, the most popular ship is "ART/Murderbot" (488 works), followed by "Dr. Gurathin/Murderbot (433 works)".
In PHM, the highest shipping tag excluding crossover is F/M, followed by M/M. In the F/M tag, the most popular pairing is Grace/Stratt (754 works). But what really surprised me was the second most popular one: Ryland Grace/Reader (504 works)!
In the M/M category, the highest one was Grace/Rocky (586 works).
Needless to say (?), if I include crossovers, the most popular pairing in PHM is "Simon (Iron Lung)/Ryland Grace" (2793 works). (why...) This is much higher than Grace/Rocky (669 works).
If we ignore shipping, the most popular relationship tag (without excluding anything) is "ART & Murderbot" (1525 works) followed by "Dr. Mensah & Murderbot" (635 works) in the Murderbot Diaries. In PHM, it's "Grace & Rocky" (4865 works), followed by "Simon/Grace" (2999 works) and "Adrian/Rocky" (1649 works).
Conclusion:
Murderbot is still a very Gen focused fandom.
Project Hail May got rapidly de-gen-centred since the film came out, and the large portion of shipping works are crossover fics, particularly with Iron Lung as rightly pointed out by many!
