@tinkertailorsoldierguy

May I present the best apple:

What I mean by that is that, while you can see how many fics are tagged in each category (M/M, F/M, F/F, Gen, etc.), for example, you can't easily capture how popular fics in each category are relative to each other.

NCIS shows a clear example of this problem and how it complicates determining what is "popular" in fandom: as of June 10, 2026, there are 8424 Gen fics, 8093 F/M fics, 7483 M/M fics, 1029 F/F fics, 685 fics, and 246 Other fics tagged to NCIS on AO3. From those numbers, you would think that Gen and F/M fics are more popular than M/M fics, because more people are writing them.

However, the most popular fics are virtually all M/M fics. 18 of the top 20 most kudosed fics are M/M, while only 4 of the top 20 are F/M (fics can be multiple categories, and 3/4 top F/M fics are also M/M fics), and 1 of the top 20 is Gen. This holds fairly consistent for at least the top 100 most kudosed fics in the fandom. So based on what fics are popular, M/M is by far more popular than the other categories in the fandom. People respond more positively to them; they do better in the fandom.

Unfortunately, kudos distribution is basically impossible to collect at scale. Unlike category, which is collated by AO3, kudos data has to be gathered entirely manually, which means looking at literally every page. And for fics with multiple categories, that means opening each fic to see what categories it is tagged to. There's just no practical way to collect that data on a large scale.

(Yes, you can write a script to collect it for you. Yes, AO3 will rate-limit you fairly quickly. AO3 rate-limits me regularly doing regular manual data collection.)

We run into a similar problem when it comes to looking at character popularity. We can see how many fics a character is tagged in, but not only do we have the same kudos popularity issue, but there's also basically no way to tell whether characters are being tagged as a primary vs secondary character purely from the numbers.

Natasha Romanov is the fourth-most tagged Marvel character on AO3, but she is rarely the main character of fics she is tagged in, and those fics where she is the main character tend to be less popular (fewer kudos) than fics where other (male) characters are the main character. So the data we can easily collect say that she is one of the most popular characters in the Marvel fandom, but looking at both kudos numbers and the fics that she is tagged in tell us that that's not really accurate.

Like it's bad when a "tattoo is undulating" (as opposed to... "drawn in a wave like pattern on the skin"?), or when hair is "wet wheat from a late Summer field" (as opposed to "sort of brownish light yellow that dries lighter, but is not actual wheat stalks growing on someone's head but kind of reminiscent of the color and texture"?), or when when ice cream tastes like midnight at the fair" (as opposed to "ice cream flavour bringing back memories of undefined ice cream flavours that are individually popular but always tied to a memory of late evening at the fair ground and probably smelling vaguely like popcorn and sugar"?).

No one, *ever*, tried to persuade me to transition.

when it's framed as a "so just get married for legality reasons" and im like. you mean like how gay people married/marry people of the opposite gender for legality reasons? and that's considered to be a symptom of a problem, not the solution? you want people to "just" get married against their will because it's the only solution this system has available?

if people cannot or will not get married for whatever reason -- not just for being aromantic, but, say, due to inefficient disability support measures within marriage, because of having had bad experiences with marriage in the past, because of being polyamorous, because some element of marriage is ineffective, unwanted, limited, discriminatory, or hell, because you can't find somebody to marry or nobody wants to marry you, or maybe because you just plain don't want to without there being a distinct Reason -- then it's a problem that this is the only framework in place for people to be afforded certain legal and social protections.

i am glad for others that more people can get married, but it's a flawed institution with gaping holes that isn't for everyone and builds social structures that leave so many people behind and unsupported. this is abundantly obvious in the way that we saw why people pushed for the need for equal marriage in the first place.

that's what's said when making a point that it's a social construct. and also what's meant (partially) when pushing against the idea that "love" as concept isn't at the core of queer (amongst others hinted at in this post) activism, because it's about building better structures. if the only people we care about are those we "love" within a family unit, or those who successfully manage to pretend that unit without actually really wanting it, and if not being in that unit for whatever reason means that care isn't going to be/is no longer afforded, then are we really doing any better than heteronormativity?

WHY is the fucking AIR out here TOUCHING ME