letzan | Femslash week in review: 2019-11-05

High-level stats for week of 2019-11-05 - 2019-11-11

Total works categorized F/F on AO3: 4058 (-401 from last week)

Works I classified F/F: 2411 (-291 from last week) (1080 new, 1331 continued)

0.83% of all 289855 AO3 works I've classified F/F were updated this week

A few callouts this week:

Hey, look, it's She-Ra season 4. The jump isn't as pronounced as it looks: it's just the usual "more than one name for a fandom" problem. But the leap into the top five is of course real. The top five is actually fairly dynamic this fall: we've had 11 distinct top five fandoms in the past 9 weeks, and I'm not sure what's normal, but that seems high relative to some periods of real stagnation we've had in the past.
Also, FemslashEx revealed on the 16th. I'm going to take the excuse that that's technically past the cutoff for this reporting week, so I have a little more time to gather recs.

Most active classified fandoms:

Rank	Fandom (and top three ships)	Rating for week	F/F works updated this week	% of F/F works updated this week	F/F:M/M ratio (all works)
1	Supergirl (TV 2015) Kara Danvers,Lena Luthor (135) Alex Danvers,Maggie Sawyer (33) Alex Danvers,Kelly Olsen (Supergirl TV 2015) (26)	46.14	198 (-37)	1.07%	28:1
2	RWBY Blake Belladonna,Yang Xiao Long (41) Ruby Rose (RWBY),Weiss Schnee (37) Weiss Schnee,Yang Xiao Long (9)	37.49	93 (-20)	1.40%	5:1
3 (↑2)	Steven Universe (Cartoon) Lapis Lazuli (Steven Universe),Peridot (Steven Universe) (22) Blue Diamond (Steven Universe),Yellow Diamond (Steven Universe) (14) Ruby (Steven Universe),Sapphire (Steven Universe) (11)	33.60	66 (+7)	1.11%	13:1
4 (⇑)	She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018) Adora (She-Ra),Catra (She-Ra) (15) Catra (She-Ra),Glimmer (She-Ra) (13) Catra (She-Ra),Double Trouble (She-Ra) (5) Catra (She-Ra),Scorpia (She-Ra) (5)	21.74	35 (+12)	11.71%	22:1
5 (↑3)	BanG Dream! Girl's Band Party! (Video Game) Okusawa Misaki,Seta Kaoru (4) ...	20.99	25 (-2)	1.79%	445:1
6 (↑5)	僕のヒーローアカデミア \| Boku no Hero Academia \| My Hero Academia Jirou Kyouka,Yaoyorozu Momo (52) Asui Tsuyu,Uraraka Ochako (34) Ashido Mina,Uraraka Ochako (9)	20.61	91 (-11)	2.78%	1:8
7 (↑11)	Marvel Cinematic Universe Maria Hill,Natasha Romanov (Marvel) (9) Natasha Romanov (Marvel),Wanda Maximoff (9) Angie Martinelli,Peggy Carter (3) Natasha Romanov (Marvel),Pepper Potts (3)	20.41	55 (-7)	0.66%	1:8
8 (↑)	Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu \| Fire Emblem: Three Houses Hilda Valentine Goneril,Marianne von Edmund (13) Catherine (Fire Emblem),Shamir Nevrand (8) Dorothea Arnault,Edelgard von Hresvelg (8)	18.52	55 (-10)	11.04%	1:2
9 (↑)	The 100 (TV) Clarke Griffin,Lexa (The 100) (39) Anya (The 100),Raven Reyes (13) Costia (The 100),Lexa (The 100) (3) Lexa (The 100),Raven Reyes (3)	18.46	48 (-22)	0.41%	5:1
10 (↓6)	Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling Ginny Weasley,Luna Lovegood (15) Bellatrix Black Lestrange,Hermione Granger (12) Hermione Granger,Pansy Parkinson (7)	17.63	59 (-13)	0.85%	1:8
11 (↑3)	Doctor Who Thirteenth Doctor,Yasmin Khan (14) Rose Tyler,Thirteenth Doctor (4) Missy (Doctor Who),Thirteenth Doctor (3) River Song,Thirteenth Doctor (3)	17.05	29 (-1)	0.81%	1:1.4
12 (⇑)	Miraculous Ladybug Kagami Tsurugi,Marinette Dupain-Cheng \| Ladybug (13) Juleka Couffaine,Rose Lavillant (11) Alya Césaire,Marinette Dupain-Cheng \| Ladybug (4) Chloé Bourgeois,Kagami Tsurugi (4)	16.85	35 (+9)	2.89%	1.3:1
13 (⇑)	The Vampire Diaries & Related Fandoms Josie Saltzman,Penelope Park (22) Hope Mikaelson,Lizzie Saltzman (14) Hope Mikaelson,Josie Saltzman (13)	16.29	39 (-11)	2.20%	1.1:1
14 (↓11)	Overwatch (Video Game) Angela "Mercy" Ziegler,Fareeha "Pharah" Amari (9) Angela "Mercy" Ziegler,Moira O'Deorain (7) Brigitte Lindholm,Hana "D.Va" Song (4) Emily (Overwatch),Lena "Tracer" Oxton (4)	15.05	27 (-20)	0.46%	1:2
15 (⇑)	Archie Comics Cheryl Blossom,Toni Topaz (19) Betty Cooper,Veronica Lodge (5) Cheryl Blossom,Josie McCoy (2) Hilda Spellman,Sabrina Spellman,Zelda Spellman (2) Sabrina Spellman,Zelda Spellman (2)	14.43	31 (-6)	1.11%	1.1:1
16 (↓4)	Critical Role (Web Series) Beauregard Lionett,Jester Lavorre (13) Beauregard (Critical Role),Yasha (Critical Role) (3) Beauregard Lionett,Yasha (Critical Role) (3)	14.36	24 (-1)	1.82%	1:1.7
17 (↑2)	Homestuck Kanaya Maryam,Rose Lalonde (17) Terezi Pyrope,Vriska Serket (8) Jade Harley,Rose Lalonde (3)	14.23	30 (-1)	0.51%	1:3
18 (⇑)	Life Is Strange (Video Game) Chloe Price (Life Is Strange),Maxine "Max" Caulfield (24) Chloe Price (Life Is Strange),Rachel Amber (8) Kate Marsh,Victoria Chase (Life is Strange) (5)	13.82	32 (-3)	0.99%	9:1
19 (↓13)	Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types Chabashira Tenko,Yumeno Himiko (7) Akamatsu Kaede,Iruma Miu (4) Shirogane Tsumugi,Yonaga Angie (4)	13.78	20 (-13)	0.98%	1:3
20 (↓13)	She-Ra: Princess Of Power Adora (She-Ra),Catra (She-Ra) (42) Adora (She-Ra),Glimmer (She-Ra) (9) Catra (She-Ra),Scorpia (She-Ra) (5)	12.77	69 (+2)	3.31%	10:1

What is all this again?

Mission statement: help out people (including myself) who read fic on AO3 and wish they were reading more femslash, but don't know what's out there. Plan: do a week-in-review post every week which contains general stats about new fic and a few recs.

I am starting with the list of all works on ao3.org which were updated within a given week, and which were categorized as F/F, but I am not reporting stats on 100% of those works --- I'm narrowing down to a subset of fandoms and works for which it's tractable for me to actually look at all the character tags, and then I'm excluding ships containing what I believe to be cis-male characters. I'll give overall stats about how many works I've reported on and how many I've excluded. If you think I'm excluding a fandom you care about, please let me know!

More info about column headers:

Fandom (and top three ships): If multiple tags that seem to correspond to the same fandom (e.g. "The 100 (TV)" and "The 100 Series - Kass Morgan") show up in my ranking, I report the one with the best rating. There's totally a judgment call here about what things are "the same fandom" --- I'm going to err on the side of reporting more different things when I can, but I won't skip something with a lot of works which aren't otherwise accounted for. When measuring the top three F/F ships in a fandom, I count both "A/B" and "A & B" as "A,B". Ties are broken by including all of the ships, but I only include a maximum of five ships per fandom to keep the table length reasonable.

Rating for week: I like fandoms with ensemble casts, so I'm doing a weighted sum based on the logarithm of number of works by pairing, so that fandoms with several different F/F pairings get a significant bonus.

F/F/ works updated this week: includes both new and continued works.

% of F/F works updated this week: This is the percentage of all F/F works I've ever categorized in the fandom, so a big number probably means a brand new fandom, or at least one which was unusually active this week.

F/F:M/M ratio (all works): This ratio is taken from all works in the fandom tag, and is just a hint to readers about how F/F-dominant the fandom is. Obviously there's no reason you can't find great F/F works in a predominantly male fandom (we've all read those), but the ratio may give a hint about whether the F/F pairing is likely to be the dominant one in a work with multiple pairings. Note that the "F/F" and "M/M" numbers for this column are taken directly from AO3, not from my compiled character and ship stats. (Since I don't categorize M/M works, I couldn't do it any other way.)

Known bugs which affect the accuracy of this data:

AO3 does not modify the "last updated" date of a work in a revealed exchange when the exchange reveals, so my database can miss exchange works entirely if they're last edited awhile before the exchange works are revealed. This probably leads to a serious undercount of works in revealed exchanges.

When canonical names for characters and ships change over time, my database can wind up containing entries for both ships. This makes ratings inaccurate.

Share and enjoy, and let me know what I can do to make this more useful.

Femslash week in review: 2019-11-05 - 2019-11-11