Archive of Our Own ^beta

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I was interested in Sherlock Fanfiction (who is the most popular in fics etc.), so with help of my friend, I made an amateur video, which compares data from 30 September 2017 and 28 March 2018, from the Archive of our Own (AO3) site, about the popularity of fan-stories from "Sherlock BBC".

TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Top 5 most popular characters
2. Top 5 most popular relationships
3. Top 5 most popular crossovers
4. Chosen warnings
5. Chosen ratings
6. Chosen categories
7. The most popular tags
8. Five interesting ideas
9. Summary

SOURCES
We took data from the right-hand navigation at https://archiveofourown.info/tags/Sherlock%20(TV)/works .

Keep in mind that there were so miscalculations:
- the numbers look different when selecting a specific tag separately and if selecting it in "Sherlock (TV)" (e.g. Molly Hooper).
- In addition, the system does not sum up similar tags for relationships and fandoms (e.g. it counts separately "Mycroft Holmes / Lestrade" and "Mycroft Holmes / Greg Lestrade" and "Doctor Who" and "Doctor Who (2005)").
- Also, stories can contain several warnings or relationship at the same time.
However, despite these differences, we want to show how the popularity of characters, relationships and other categories is form.

We also based on the data about authors' age / gender from following pages:
http://luceateis.tumblr.com/post/84540666237/fannish-age-survey-results
http://centrumlumina.tumblr.com/post/63208278796/ao3-census-masterpost

COMMENT TO THE MOST POPULAR RELATIONSHIPS - The fifth place has Sebastian Moran / Jim Moriarty. We did not show the actor playing Lord Moran from season 3, because the character is only "loosely" inspired by Doyle's hero. One of fan versions, of the real Colonel Moran, is Michael Fassbender.
We decided to combine "Sherlock Holmes / John Watson" and "Sherlock Holmes & John Watson", because tags often appeared together in the same story.

COMMENT TO THE MOST POPULAR CROSSOVERS - We did not included "Sherlock (TV)" and "Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms", as they mainly contained the studied fandom. However, we decided to present Doyle's world as a separate universe, due to the time of action (Victorian age).
In the original data, you will notice that there appear "Doctor Who" and "Doctor Who (2005)", after summing up - they were a large majority.

COMMENT TO FIVE INTERESTING IDEAS - In addition to presented popular categories, we wanted to show that you also can find interesting exceptions.

SUMMARY
Positions in the TOP 10 groups - mostly do not change. It is possible that as long as new interesting characters or ideas would not appear (e.g. in season 5, if created), the order would not change. Currently, even Euros Holmes or Charles Augustus Magnussen, the most important figures of the last seasons, are not popular in fanfics.

- AGE - The average age of authors is 24-26. But, there is a large span, from 11 to 70 years old.
- GENDER - People describing themselves as 'Woman' and 'gender / queer'.
- MOST POPULAR CHARACTER - Should this surprise us? Sherlock is WONDERFUL! ☺
- MOST POPULAR RELATIONSHIP - One can ask an interesting question - why young women, who define themselves as straight and bisexual, write gay love stories? But on the other hand, we know perfectly well that the Sherlock BBC itself is constructed on the basis of a romance, and Sherlock and John are the most popular characters and we cheer them on.
- MOST POPULAR CROSSOVER - Wholock forever! ♥
- WARNINGS, RATING, TAGS & CATEGORIES - Mainly 'romantic' stories without violence, but mostly directed for teenage audience
or older.

RAW DATA: in chapter 2

I DO NOT OWN ANYTHING. NO MONEY MADE. DID IT AS I WAS INTERESTED IN THE FANDOM. WE DID NOT WANT TO OFFENCE ANYONE.

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I got question from reader "Question from reader: Why Sherolly is more popular than Mystrade?". I made some investigation and I believe that I found the answer :).

According to info from fanlore.org, SH/MH is more popular as it was more visible than with MH/GL .

In fanlore.org, they write "While Molly's crush on Sherlock meant that the pair were shipped together from the first episode, series two saw a sharp increase in the number of shippers, due primarily to the Christmas scene in "A Scandal in Belgravia" and Sherlock telling Molly that she "always counted" in "The Reichenbach Fall".

With MH/GL, they write "Mycroft/Lestrade (Mystrade) is an unusual pairing because in the first Sherlock BBC series, the characters never appear in a scene together, so there are no hints of attraction or winks at sexual tension to play with".

We know that most fan love Sherlock the most (he is the 1st in TOP 10 favourite characters), so he will be the most famous, and it has just been a matter of time that we would give him male/female partner. And personally, I think that most fangirls compare themselves to Molly (I do), small grey mouse with almost nothing. We love Sherlock, and we would do anything for him, just to be noticed etc.

Do you agree with it? Or have you found other explanation? Or is it just a JIM-virus in the data ;) ?
Please let me know in the comment section.

CLARIFICATION - 17.05.2018
I checked that from Sherlock BBC how are these couples today. Sherlolly is above Mystrade now, but there are only around 60 fics of difference, similar small number was at 30.08.2017 and 28.03.2018. It seems that they are quite competing with each other and it is very likely that S/M may fall to 5th place in coming time.

Sherlock Holmes/Molly Hooper (7539)
Mycroft Holmes/Greg Lestrade (7481)

FANLORE SOURCES
https://fanlore.org/wiki/Sherlock/Molly
https://fanlore.org/wiki/Mycroft/Lestrade