the true measure of a people's champion

[horselizard]

fun taskmaster metagame: for each series, rank the contestants in order of how many fics you think there are in their ao3 character tags, and then check your guesses. play with a friend! hours of fun!

(i got the first two series i attempted BANG ON and every series thereafter was a mild disappointment :P)

no spoilers, but the absolute Taskmaster Monarch of AO3 (for all the series we've checked so far, and frankly i'd be surprised if anyone came higher) is eminently guessable

some series... capture the ficcing imagination WAY less than others o.O

a familiarity with the general vibe of ao3 is an advantage (this is why i am doing better than my partner/enabler :P)

if you wanna get all this guy (and i'm in danger of it), variants include: logged-in vs logged-out; tagged-as-taskmaster-fic-only vs full-character-tag; overall cross-series rankings

posting additional fics purely to adjust the rankings to match your own guesses is a) unsporting but b) impressive commitment (i was surprised to find some of my own fics didn't turn up in certain tags then realised i'd only tagged them as ensemble :P)

make good choices! (i.e. choose to play this game)

Comments

[rionaleonhart]

Sounds like fun! I'm going to attempt series twelve and show my working, so I can embarrass myself in real time.

I think first place is between Victoria and Alan. Their numbers will both be influenced by the fact that some of their fanfiction probably predates AO3, but I still think they're likely to be the top two.

I know Victoria was a popular supporting character in the short-lived but intense Charlie Brooker/David Mitchell fandom, and I imagine she's shown up here and there in fanfiction since then on account of being half of a popular comedy pairing; people shipped her with David Mitchell hard well before we learnt they were actually together! It's me. I'm people.

So Victoria's the person I can say with confidence has a presence on AO3. I don't know about Alan; I have no idea whether QI RPF is a thing! But he's so long-established in the panel show world that I'm sure he must have appeared in a fair bit of fanfiction.

This is really difficult. I have no idea whether to put Victoria or Alan first. I think I'm going to give the edge to Victoria, because I know people actively ship her, whereas I've never seen people sincerely shipping, say, Alan Davies/Stephen Fry (although I'm sure some do!). Victoria comes first; Alan comes second.

I didn't know Morgana, Desiree or Guz before I saw them on Taskmaster, so I have no idea whether they're likely to appear in any pre-Taskmaster fanfiction. I'm going to say Morgana has the third-largest number of fics, Desiree the fourth and Guz the fifth.

My final guess:

1. Victoria Coren Mitchell
2. Alan Davies
3. Morgana Robinson
4. Desiree Burch
5. Guz Khan

OKAY, LET'S SEE HOW I DID

1. Victoria Coren Mitchell (56 works)
2. Alan Davies (50 works)
3. Desiree Burch (5 works)
4. Morgana Robinson (3 works)
5. Guz Khan (2 works)

Oh, hey! I got Morgana and Desiree the wrong way around, but overall I didn't do too badly. Definitely right to pin Victoria and Alan as the first-place contenders from the start.

[horselizard]

Hahah awesome, thanks for playing! We hadn't done s12 yet so we hurriedly finalised our guesses before I read down to the end of your post. I too had Desiree and Morgana the wrong way round (though I didn't think there'd be much in it). I also had Alan and Victoria the wrong way round, both overestimating the QI fandom (I knew there was one) and underestimating the Brooker/Mitchell/Coren fandom EVEN THOUGH I once binged pretty much all the works in it, lol. Meanwhile, my partner/enabler actually nailed it this time :D

It's me. I'm people.

Hah, good instincts XD

(I mean, to be fair, so was he :P)