okay this is random but I find it really funny how neatly my favorite MDZS/CQL ships fit into a very distinct pattern and I got curious about, like, broader fandom opinions.
So. there are TWO instances in canon where you have a trio of people--Person A is widely considered to be very kind and just, and basically his main/only flaw is trusting the wrong people. Person B is his longterm friend, who is a little grumpier/angrier/slightly more judgmental, but also fundamentally good, and equal to him in power (and fairly close in height). Person C is a Villain with a traumatic childhood past marked by rejection and physical injuries, associated with the Wen and later the Jin. He is devoted to(/obsessed with) Person A more so than anyone else in his personal storyline, and he murders Person B via tricky means and conceals that fact from Person A. (And then, depending on the 'verse, C is also then murdered by B's fierce corpse.)
I filtered for the relationships on AO3 and got some fun results. In both cases, the most popular two-person ship from these trios are A/C, followed by A/B, and only then by B/C--although, interestingly, A/B/C is the least popular combination when it comes to 3zun, whereas SongXueXiao is in third place, being more popular than SongXue.
Statistics!! as of 5/26/2023
Lan Xichen/Nie Mingjue/Meng Yao:
there are 4,115 fics tagged for Lan Xichen/Meng Yao
if you exclude 3zun as an additional ship tag, that drops to 3,808
92.5% of XiYao fics lack the 3zun tag (which makes it the most "independent" of any of the ships mentioned in this post)
there are 1,969 fics tagged for Lan Xichen/Nie Mingjue
if you exclude 3zun, that drops to 1,718
87% of NieLan fics lack the 3zun tag
there are 1,581 fics tagged for Nie Mingjue/Meng Yao
if you exclude 3zun, that drops to 1,286
81% of NieYao fics lack the 3zun tag
in total, there are 1,002 fics tagged for 3zun, compared to 6,812 fics that feature some combination of the three but not all of them, a 6.8 to 1 ratio. (although I didn't filter for fics that featured all three 2-person ship tags without also featuring the 3-person ship tag because... idk, seemed like a pain.)
Xiao Xingchen/Song Lan/Xue Yang:
there are 2,817 fics tagged for Xiao Xingchen/Xue Yang
if you exclude SXX, that drops to 2,367
84% of XueXiao fics lack the SXX tag
there are 2,328 fics tagged for Xiao Xingchen/Song Lan
if you exclude SXX, that drops to 1,897
81% of SongXiao fics lack the SXX tag
there are 744 fics tagged for Song Lan/Xue Yang
if you exclude SXX, that drops to 313
42% of SongXue fics lack the SXX tag (which makes it the least "independent" of any of these ships by a LOT. XiYao is only 8% ahead of the next most-independent ship, while SongXue is 39% behind the next most-dependent ships.)
in total, there are 1,015 fics tagged for SXX, compared to 4,577 fics that feature various combinations between them, a 4.5 to 1 ratio.
I think it's really interesting looking at the ways these break down similarly and differently! like, for 3zun, there is a VERY big gap between the most popular pairing and the second most popular one, with 2nd and 3rd place being very close, whereas for SongXueXiao, there is a muuuuch narrower margin between between the two most popular ships, and then the greatest gap is between the second-most-popular duo and the least popular duo.
I also think it's noteworthy that I've been in fandom for half my life and have never managed to have the strongest feelings about the most popular ships for my favorite characters lol, but there's no fun statistics for that.
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