u/Affectionate-Team-63

I've seen many people state that Smugbug is the most popular ship as it appears the most on Ao3 (432) to BioBug(123), however thing comes with asterisks, the one I've seen is that it excludes fic's purely on others sites like spacebattles (as well as others). But I've there other asterisks I've not seen as comely stated, such as works not be tagged, example Amelia is not tagged as BIoBug on ao3, although most i feel would agree it is. Even then those aren't the asterisk i want to discuss further, One big i haven't seen discussed is that it is by raw amount of fics tagged with ships, & no further criteria.

I'm arguing word count is more important, One large BioBug fic is worth an equivalent amount of smaller Smugbug fics. This has own asterisks such the previous, both share and new, like a Long fic that has romance as side plot, vs all short fics having romance as main focus, but i not gonna account for that, but acknowledge that is a area of study & may have merits if further investigated. Also other asterisk i"m sure i haven't even considered, but this will be word count

Rule: Just ao3 fics, that are tagged as either BioBug(no Amelia counted), or Smugbug, excluding ones that are not either BioBug, or SmugBug as main ship, so either neither people in ship is main character listed directly on page, & also not first ship listed, this does knock out longest listed SmugBug of Sexual assault panda with a He used to describe the Main character( Also a lot of other tags on that one that i didn't even know existed, example(Dean/Carol).

So yes, i wanted to exclude this, it's 900,000 plus words, but is longest Smugbug listed fic, but the ship listed fifth after Guts & Glory(usually i assume they mean unrequited, but given lack of clarification, & other tags/ships & think it's legit.

The new longest is the rise of sin, which is tagged as both BioBug, & Smugbug. So no poly ships, they can be the only shipped tagged with the charaters to prevent harem fics & such.

The new new longest SmugBug fic is Wake-up Call at 438,683 words

The second longest SmugBug is Skitter Stripper...

The Second Longest SmugBug then is C̶y̶b̶e̶r̶n̶e̶t̶i̶c̶ ̶W̶o̶r̶m̶, S̶t̶r̶o̶n̶g̶e̶r̶ ̶T̶o̶g̶e̶t̶h̶e̶r̶, T̶a̶y̶l̶o̶r̶ ̶C̶u̶m̶s̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶T̶e̶r̶m̶s̶ ̶-̶-̶ ̶W̶O̶R̶M̶ ̶B̶I̶M̶B̶O̶S̶,
M̶u̶t̶a̶n̶t̶ ̶D̶e̶v̶i̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶s̶, M̶y̶ ̶G̶i̶r̶l̶f̶r̶i̶e̶n̶d̶ ̶I̶s̶ ̶T̶e̶r̶r̶i̶f̶y̶i̶n̶g̶, Worm artifice, SmugBug shipped tagged first, it has a bunch of fandoms tagged, & i have no idea who the MC is but I'll take it. fic is 236,348 words

Third is Path of Blood and Bugs( I just not gonna mention the ones I'm skipping now) fic is 201,627 words

Fourth is the third door 190,439 words

fifth beyond the fog 187,901 words

sixth WYSP 163,203 words

seventh Guardian 162,357 words

eighth A light in the dark 128,235 words

ninth Placeholder 123,766 words

tenth wordsworth 123,292 words. total so far 1,955,851, ill just add up the rest now.

50th Wallflower 27,780 words, total of 4,063,167 words so far.

100th Just a good friend, Right? 10,377 words, total 4,912,320 words so far.

Final word count is 5,742,594(stopped keeping track of number of fics.)

Now to BioBug

1st is Here come the new boss(Nothing like the old boss) 686,581 words

2nd is Worm: More then meets the eye, but it just has others for additional ships that could discount it, so we won't count(584,355 words)

2nd real fic is In Pale Blood 404,665 words

3rd is Crescent 383,428 words

4th DTCFDP 321,252 words

5th Legion 289,178 words

6th Paths Diverged 204,289 words

7th Hope shines bright 183,576 words

8th Silencio 161,077 words

9th Spirit Detective Taylor 144,473 words

10th a Helping hand 110,070 words total 2,599,411 words so far

50th Bloody bliss 6,780 words, 3,860,902 total so far.

Final total 3,941,416. 4,525,771 if you count more than meets the eye, after all those others pairs are side ships, right. *breathes copium.* If we include Amelia it's 5,278,634, everyone agrees that BioBug fic right, who cares it not tagged. *Gulps Copium.* Mauling snarks, i heard that it's BioBug if you squint, & that's like a million word, sure not on ao3 but, but.* Faints from Copium ingestion.*