#data source: toastystats.tumblr.com

[buffydataviz]

BTVS Fandom on AO3 - Tillow and Fuffy

There are two blogs (ToastyStats and centrumlumina) that regularly post about AO3 fandom stats, and I wanted to summarize where BTVS ranks in their findings. The highlights?

While BTVS used to be a top fandom by popularity (as recently as Jan 2018) it is not anymore. Sadly no BTVS ships make the top overall ships list. But an Aug 2022 top 100 femslash ship ranking includes Tillow (Tara x Willow) at 61 and Fuffy (Faith x Buffy) at 73. (Back in 2014 they were both in the top 20!) And as of Feb 2021 Fuffy was top ranked for F/F ships with a higher percent of adult content, at 12. You can see them halfway down on the toastystat's chart below. Source links, more on Tillow, another chart, and other details after the cut!

Sources are at the end and noted in text in parentheses.

As recently as Jan 2018 (1 - ToastyStats) BTVS was one of the top 25 fandoms, considering only large fandoms. It was at 25 overall and 10 for TV show fandoms. "Large" meant over 25K fanworks. Fanworks include fan fic and also fan art!

Unfortunately BTVS is no longer one of the top fandoms. (2)

We know (from before) that 2 of the top 5 AO3 ships for BTVS are Tara x Willow (Tillow) and Faith x Buffy (Fuffy). While the other ships do not make the "top 100 ship lists" (3 - centrumlumina) Tillow and Fuffy do make the "femslash top 100" list (4). (Femslash is an older term for F/F ships.)

As of Aug 2022, rankings were Tillow at 61 and Fuffy at 73. Both fell from their ranking last year. The first year that centrumlumina did her femslash analysis, way back in July 2014, Tillow was at 9 and Fuffy was at 13! (5)

Additionally, if you're looking for F/F ships with a higher percent of adult content (rated Explicit or Mature), Fuffy is shown on this chart at 12. (6) That ToastyStats purple-y chart (also shown above) is sorted by % Explicit. Only F/F ships with more than 1,000 works were included. You can see the fuller set of data (that includes Tillow) at ToastyStats's helpful data link.

If you leave out the video games, leave out the Anna & Elsa (platonic) ship**, and sort by the total % Adult Content, you can create the chart below. In this chart Fuffy moves up to 8. The new chart shows the 1 - 25 ships, and by that method then Tillow is ranked at 24. (The main difference is sorting by % Explicit above vs % Adult Content below. Adult Content is combined Explicit and Mature rated fanworks.)

[ ** I suspect this is an error by the AO3 fanwork creators. Perhaps they meant to label their Anna - Elsa work as non-platonic, but they are using the "&" symbol instead of the "/" symbol for their ship.]

For the red - yellow - grey chart, if you mouse-over the fandom will pop-up, and you can also see the last year the original media aired. It will say current if the media is still going. Shout outs to Star Trek: Voyager (last aired 2001) and BTVS (2003) for being the oldest fandoms to make the top 25!

Also interesting to see that some media have two ships in this list: The 100 (2020), Glee (2015), and BTVS (2003).

While I made the red - yellow - grey chart on Flourish, all the data compilation was done by ToastyStats. All credit to her, and all errors in this chart are mine.

Sources:

Note AO3 posts have more details. While you have to agree to their terms of service to view, they are rated G (for General) and you do not need an AO3 login.

2018 top fandoms: AO3 post or Tumblr post (ToastyStats)

2022 top fandoms: AO3 post or Tumblr post (ToastyStats)

2022 top ships: AO3 post (centreoftheselights)

2022 top femslash ships: AO3 post (centreoftheselights)

2014 top femslash ships: AO3 post (centreoftheselights)

F/F stats: AO3 post or Tumblr post (ToastyStats)

#not my work #btvs data #btvs data viz #buffy the vampire slayer data #result: bar chart #data source: AO3 #data source: toastystats.tumblr.com #data source: centrumlumina.tumblr.com #extra thanks to toastystats #it was her data that i used to make the second chart #only the second chart is mine