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snowgallIt's the time you've all been waiting for, where we learn Who tops more in hd-fan-fair fics, Draco or Harry?
The impetus for this project came from my original "Who Tops More" post, where I looked at nearly 1500 fics from my own personal database. That post generated a ton of feedback in the comments, which made me decide to run the numbers again, this time looking at just the fics written for the![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
hd_fan_fair fest, which has run since 2009, with a gap in 2011.
The results are at the bottom of this post. Before I get to them, I just want to explain FAQ-style how this project came about and how the data was collected and labeled.
Why use data from hd-fan-fair? What's so special about that fest?
The proposal to use data fromhd_fan_fair originally came from ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
eidheann_writes in a comment thread on the original "Who Tops More" post:
And that made a lot of sense to me. And there are several other benefits to using a fest as a data source:
And we can do this again with another fest if people are interested. Just let me know!
How did you compile the data?
We crowd-sourced it! If you want more background on how this was done, you can get caught up with these posts:
Huge thanks once again to (in alpha order)birdsofshore, cabinetcaligari, cagnurit, dicta_contrion, eidheann_writes, gracerene, iwao, khalulu, and vaysh for being awesome and contributing to the spreadsheet. I love you guys! If I left out anyone who contributed, please let me know so I can thank you too!
Are you trying to make some sort of statement about who should top or bottom?
No! This study is meant to be descriptive of what sorts of fics have been written in the Draco/Harry fandom. It is in no way meant to be prescriptive in regards to what sorts of fics should be written. Please feel free to read and write whatever fics you like with whoever you prefer topping, bottoming, switching, or whatever. I am only interested in fanfiction trends because I'm a stats nerd, not because I want to tell you what to do :) (shout-out tovaysh for explaining that so well in a comment on an earlier post)
What about fics where there's no penetration, are you counting those?
In this case, no. In my first "Who Tops More" post, I included a "no penetration" category where I lumped together all the fics I had read that didn't have explicit penetrative sex scenes. However, with this data set, I think that including this category would be problematic.
You see, in order to get the spreadsheet completed as quickly as possible, I didn't bother asking for info on fics rated PG-13 or less. What this means is that if there's a PG-13 fic where it's pretty clearly implied that they do have sex, just offscreen, I wouldn't be able to tell it apart from another PG-13 fic where all they do is hold hands or kiss. And then both of those fics might get lumped together as "no penetration" along with an NC-17 fic where Harry and Draco get up to all sorts of sexual shenanigans but just don't have penetrative sex. And it seems to me that by lumping them all together I'd be potentially implying something about how much sex occurs in HD fanfiction which wouldn't necessarily be accurate.
So in the charts and graphs below I'm just going to stick with bottom!Draco, bottom!Harry, and switching as categories. All the data is still there in the spreadsheet for anyone who wants to see it. It occurs to me that the question of "what sort of sexual activity (if any) goes on in fics if it's non-penetrative" is itself a potentially fascinating question, and one that could maybe be tackled in the future :)
How do I tell whether you've counted a fic as top/bottom or switching?
In the public spreadsheet (get the link in this post, or PM me) the first word in the top/bottom field indicates how I counted the fic. If it says "bottom!Draco (implied)" then that's counted as a bottom!Draco fic. If it says "switching; mostly bottom!Harry" then that's being counted as a switching fic. Etc.
There could be lots of extra information in the top/bottom field that's just there to clarify what went on in the fic and provide as much information as possible to readers, but for the purposes of what got counted as what, only the first word matters.
Results
Harry still tops more :) (i.e. bottom!Draco is more common than bottom!Harry). As we saw last time, the proportion of bottom!Harry fics seems to be increasing with time (with a weird anomaly in 2013), but not to the point of complete parity (in contrast with the earlier data set).
Note that the "Total (top/bottom)" column is only counting the total number of fics which had clear top/bottom/switching action going on. "Total (all fics)" counts all the fics posted to the fest that year.
Table
Graph
Sorry for the absence of year labels for 2009 and 2013. Google docs created this graph for me but was being picky about how it wanted to label things.
What does it all mean?
Well, that's a little bit above my pay grade - I do math people, not sociology :)
Still, it's pretty clear that no matter how you slice it, Harry tops more. And I think it's reasonably clear that Draco is beginning to catch up more as the years go on, though the actual rate of change is not quite as clear. (Seriously, what is going on with 2013?) Actually, what I think is going on is that numbers from each year are a bit too small to draw large sweeping conclusions from, especially 2013, which only included 10 top/bottom fics. I'd actually be very interested in collecting data from more and more fests and running the numbers again. Am I crazy?
Please do let me know what it all means to you in the comments :)
The impetus for this project came from my original "Who Tops More" post, where I looked at nearly 1500 fics from my own personal database. That post generated a ton of feedback in the comments, which made me decide to run the numbers again, this time looking at just the fics written for the
hd_fan_fair fest, which has run since 2009, with a gap in 2011.The results are at the bottom of this post. Before I get to them, I just want to explain FAQ-style how this project came about and how the data was collected and labeled.
Why use data from hd-fan-fair? What's so special about that fest?
The proposal to use data from
hd_fan_fair originally came from eidheann_writes in a comment thread on the original "Who Tops More" post:I don't know much about data sets, but would it be more telling to look at maybe a specific fest over the years (hd_fan_fair for example, which is a prompt (not a gift) fest which is long running but less likely to include people feeling obligated to write topping preferences due to prompts rather than gifts) and then use those stats over the years to draw conclusions?
I mean, smaller sample size but less chance of unintended bias?
And that made a lot of sense to me. And there are several other benefits to using a fest as a data source:
- You don't get WIPs
- The pub date is very clear and traceable
- You get a pool of works that all were written under similar constraints so it's the closest thing to apples-to-apples you can get
And we can do this again with another fest if people are interested. Just let me know!
How did you compile the data?
We crowd-sourced it! If you want more background on how this was done, you can get caught up with these posts:
- Crowd-sourcing Fan-fair Proposal - Spreadsheet link (f-locked)
- Progress Report #1
- Progress Report #2 - My f-list rocks!
- Progress Report #3 - Take a Poll
- Progress Report #4 - Poll Results and Spreadsheet Complete!
Huge thanks once again to (in alpha order)
birdsofshore, cabinetcaligari, cagnurit, dicta_contrion, eidheann_writes, gracerene, iwao, khalulu, and vaysh for being awesome and contributing to the spreadsheet. I love you guys! If I left out anyone who contributed, please let me know so I can thank you too!Are you trying to make some sort of statement about who should top or bottom?
No! This study is meant to be descriptive of what sorts of fics have been written in the Draco/Harry fandom. It is in no way meant to be prescriptive in regards to what sorts of fics should be written. Please feel free to read and write whatever fics you like with whoever you prefer topping, bottoming, switching, or whatever. I am only interested in fanfiction trends because I'm a stats nerd, not because I want to tell you what to do :) (shout-out to
vaysh for explaining that so well in a comment on an earlier post)What about fics where there's no penetration, are you counting those?
In this case, no. In my first "Who Tops More" post, I included a "no penetration" category where I lumped together all the fics I had read that didn't have explicit penetrative sex scenes. However, with this data set, I think that including this category would be problematic.
You see, in order to get the spreadsheet completed as quickly as possible, I didn't bother asking for info on fics rated PG-13 or less. What this means is that if there's a PG-13 fic where it's pretty clearly implied that they do have sex, just offscreen, I wouldn't be able to tell it apart from another PG-13 fic where all they do is hold hands or kiss. And then both of those fics might get lumped together as "no penetration" along with an NC-17 fic where Harry and Draco get up to all sorts of sexual shenanigans but just don't have penetrative sex. And it seems to me that by lumping them all together I'd be potentially implying something about how much sex occurs in HD fanfiction which wouldn't necessarily be accurate.
So in the charts and graphs below I'm just going to stick with bottom!Draco, bottom!Harry, and switching as categories. All the data is still there in the spreadsheet for anyone who wants to see it. It occurs to me that the question of "what sort of sexual activity (if any) goes on in fics if it's non-penetrative" is itself a potentially fascinating question, and one that could maybe be tackled in the future :)
How do I tell whether you've counted a fic as top/bottom or switching?
In the public spreadsheet (get the link in this post, or PM me) the first word in the top/bottom field indicates how I counted the fic. If it says "bottom!Draco (implied)" then that's counted as a bottom!Draco fic. If it says "switching; mostly bottom!Harry" then that's being counted as a switching fic. Etc.
There could be lots of extra information in the top/bottom field that's just there to clarify what went on in the fic and provide as much information as possible to readers, but for the purposes of what got counted as what, only the first word matters.
Results
Harry still tops more :) (i.e. bottom!Draco is more common than bottom!Harry). As we saw last time, the proportion of bottom!Harry fics seems to be increasing with time (with a weird anomaly in 2013), but not to the point of complete parity (in contrast with the earlier data set).
Note that the "Total (top/bottom)" column is only counting the total number of fics which had clear top/bottom/switching action going on. "Total (all fics)" counts all the fics posted to the fest that year.
Table
| Year | bottom!Draco | bottom!Harry | switching | Total (top/bottom) |
Total (all fics) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2009 | 24 (67%) | 07 (19%) | 05 (14%) | 36 | 72 |
| 2010 | 10 (56%) | 04 (22%) | 04 (22%) | 18 | 50 |
| 2012 | 14 (64%) | 07 (32%) | 01 (04%) | 22 | 38 |
| 2013 | 08 (80%) | 02 (20%) | 00 (00%) | 10 | 34 |
| 2014 | 06 (50%) | 04 (33%) | 02 (17%) | 12 | 37 |
| Overall | 62 (63%) | 24 (25%) | 12 (12%) | 98 | 231 |
Graph
Sorry for the absence of year labels for 2009 and 2013. Google docs created this graph for me but was being picky about how it wanted to label things.
What does it all mean?
Well, that's a little bit above my pay grade - I do math people, not sociology :)
Still, it's pretty clear that no matter how you slice it, Harry tops more. And I think it's reasonably clear that Draco is beginning to catch up more as the years go on, though the actual rate of change is not quite as clear. (Seriously, what is going on with 2013?) Actually, what I think is going on is that numbers from each year are a bit too small to draw large sweeping conclusions from, especially 2013, which only included 10 top/bottom fics. I'd actually be very interested in collecting data from more and more fests and running the numbers again. Am I crazy?
Please do let me know what it all means to you in the comments :)
no subject
Date: 2015-04-06 03:15 pm (UTC)What it all means - who knows? I love all the speculation but it will be hard to draw definite conclusions.
Just for Fan Fair, there seems to be a decrease in explicit fic, which is something I totally would not have guessed. It may be that the more thematic focus of the fest (unusual careers, books, unusual locations) leads to more world-building fic, and less smut and romance – this just a hypothesis. But it would be really interesting to do a similar study with H/D Smoochfest where the fest focus is explicitly on romance, even when some awesome world-building fics are coming out of the fest every year.
The other fest that I think would be interesting for such a study is, of course, H/D Holidays and its successor H/D Erised. With H/D Holiday and Erised there is the additional fact that these are exchange fests, where participants can explicitly state their topping/bottoming preference in the sign-ups, and gift writers will usually stick to them.
no subject
Date: 2015-04-06 03:35 pm (UTC)I do know that I myself don't read or write as much explicit sex now - the initial excitement/challenge of discovering that has lessened and I'm usually more interested in other parts of the story, unless the sex scenes are really integral to the plot and characterization or really deftly written. I have heard a few other people say "I used to only read NC-17 but now I often skim the sex."
no subject
Date: 2015-04-06 03:43 pm (UTC)For me, I still prefer to read NC-17 fics. But I'm picky, and in general I don't like PWP. I need there to be good plot and characterization too, and it's so important that the sex scenes be, as you said, integral to those. If I'm skimming the sex, it's because the scene doesn't seem to have grown naturally from the plot/characterization, and therefore is less interesting to me. But when an author can make it all work together and still deliver the NC-17 rating, then I'm all in :)
no subject
Date: 2015-04-06 03:43 pm (UTC)I do continue to read predominantly R and NC-17-rated fics. And I will admit that a lower rated fic has to really grab me so I enjoy it (sorry, sorry, sorry, all you gen writers). However, I also have entirely stopped to read sex scenes that feel tagged on and superfluous. It has become a back-button issue for me.
no subject
Date: 2015-04-06 03:58 pm (UTC)I'm guessing by sex-focused she might be referring to DTH and bottom!Draco ? Just a guess.
Maybe we'll eventually analyze ALL the fests, and then we can see if hd-tropes and hd-cliche are or are not more explicit in general. The possibilities for analysis are never-ending :)
no subject
Date: 2015-04-07 02:49 am (UTC)I still read plenty of R and NC-17! But I enjoy not feeling like I have to write a sex scene if I don't feel like it or don't think the story needs it. So I'd hesitate to commit to a fest where I felt obligated to write a certain kind of sex. Though it looks like a few of the DTH entries last year were lower rated?
no subject
Date: 2015-04-07 03:07 am (UTC)And I do still read PG-13 and lower rated fics, but usually only if I've read and enjoyed that author before or if the fic is highly recced by others I trust. And most of the time even when I've enjoyed a PG fic, I still think, "But why wasn't there any sex?" :) So I'm pretty shallow, I guess :/
But those rare times when I read a PG fic and don't even miss the sex at all, then I know I've read a keeper. I've recced several that were awesome and didn't need any sex. Here's a few I read and loved:
astardanced77's A Fountain of Unspoken Words
curiouslyfic's An Inconvenient View
firethesound's Blue Sheets
And you know, I would have also assumed that entries to the DTH fest would all be R or NC-17 rated, but yeah, there were a couple of PG fics as well last year which confused me too :) Though at least one of the PG fics was really good anyway, so I guess it's all fine in the end.
no subject
Date: 2015-04-07 06:36 am (UTC)I think none of the stories I've written for DTH had a sex scene. ;)
no subject
Date: 2015-04-07 03:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-04-07 04:06 pm (UTC)In the DTH community and fest rules we define bottoming and topping as sexual practice only. It is interesting, though, that the overall characterisation of Draco and Harry is a bit different from the usual H/D stories, too (this is a somewhat broad generalisation). But we get more often an unredeemed, tough or just in general a more assertive Draco. Interestingly enough, Harry in the DTH fest I find is not whiny or feminine, but less (sexually and emotionally) uptight and more prone to enjoy life. Again, sweeping generalisations. :)
no subject
Date: 2015-04-07 04:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-04-07 04:15 pm (UTC)Just to add to the points Vaysh brought up, I know that when people have compiled top/bottom save lists from fests in the past (not just DTH fest, but any fests), they will often include fics where neither of them top because that fic is "unobjectionable" to readers who prefer one dynamic over the other. Like if I was going to list all of the top!Draco fics from hd-smoochfest 2010, I might include the PG-rated fics as well, just because Harry *doesn't* top.
So yeah, probably makes sense to think of it as "Draco won't bottom" rather than "Draco will definitely top"
no subject
Date: 2015-04-07 04:23 pm (UTC)If you check out today's art that just posted, you can see, too, what I mean about characterisation. The art is G-rated, and yet there is no doubt that Draco is a "top" here. :)
no subject
Date: 2015-04-06 03:38 pm (UTC)But yeah, that's why I'd really be interested in doing this again with a fest like Smoochfest or hd-holidays/erised. I was thinking of starting with Smoochfest because it might be more manageable. Like fan-fair, that fest has run since 2009, while hd-holidays has run since 2006! Of course, that means that the data from hd-holidays would be even more fascinating since it goes back further, but it will also take much longer to collect it all. Hmmm. I'll have to think about it :)
no subject
Date: 2015-04-06 03:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-04-06 06:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-04-07 03:59 am (UTC)(Or is there a difference in these fests from others? :D)
no subject
Date: 2015-04-07 04:14 am (UTC)So the main issue with the serpentinelion fests is that they aren't as consistent in theme. That is, there's the Glompfests, which are gift-fests, I think, and there's the Secrets & Wishes, which are prompt-fests, and there was also a Summer Kink Fest which was more freestyle. And there's no problem with that, it's just that it doesn't make for quite as consistent a data set. Not as much apples-to-apples, you know?
The other small issue is that there still isn't a masterlist published for the more recent Glompfest, which was already many months ago now. We don't *need* to have one, but it would be nice.
So I'm thinking that maybe we could start with Smoochfest, and then (if there's still energy and interest) decide between hd-holidays and serpentinelion.
But I absolutely want your input on this, since just like with fan-fair, I only have maybe half of each of these fests' fics in my current database and would love it if someone else could enter the rest of the fics in the spreadsheet. And since you were the one who did that this time, if you really feel strongly that you'd prefer to work on serpentinelion, then I'm willing to do that one first instead.
So let me know how you feel about starting with Smoochfest, and if you have a strong preference for serpentinelion instead.
Thanks!
no subject
Date: 2015-04-07 04:35 am (UTC)I'll happily follow your lead, Captain! *g*