[Meme] AO3 hit counts

[edenfalling]

The thing you have to realize about this is that mostly I don't post to the AO3, so there are only 37 fics to choose from and the majority of them were written either for Yuletide or Remix Redux. (Also Homestuck, more recently, mostly for chatlog coding reasons.) So the selection is weird compared to the general history of my work. If I did this on ff.net, for instance, I would get a completely different list, and if I had a way to count hits on DW and LJ, I'd probably get a different answer yet again.

But with that caveat, here are my top ten stories on AO3 by hit count:

What Isn't Broken (Can Still Be Fixed) - 2,652 [Naruto, remix]
Weregild - 1,493 [Inception/Anita Blake, chaptered, WIP]
A History of Handcrafts (Because a Sweater Equals Love) - 1,062 [Star Trek 2009, remix]
I Must Increase My Bust - 945 [Homestuck]
The Geographic Cure - 797 [American Gods, Yuletide]
Dreamers of the Day - 720 [Inception]
Princess no Go - 681 [Enchanted Forest Chronicles/Hikaru no Go, Yuletide]
Postcards from Naxos (You Don't Have To Go Home, but You Can't Stay Here) - 635 [Inception, remix]
More Sins Than Condemnation - 622 [Naruto, sidefic for "What Isn't Broken"]
Sparkly Rainbow Blood - 594 [Homestuck]

I am not in the least surprised that "What Isn't Broken" is far and away my story with the most hits -- it's in a popular fandom, it was written for a festival with some guaranteed readership, it's long, it's been up for almost two years, and it includes a popular pairing (NaruSasu). On a related note, I am even less surprised that of the two sidefics I wrote, it's the one with Iruka and Kakashi being ambiguous that made it into the top ten rather than the one with Naruto and Sakura being friends. I do not and never have understood the appeal of KakaIru, but it's a big fandom Thing, so. *shrug*

The two Homestuck fics that made it are, respectively, the cute and silly porn fic and the ridiculous humor fic. Again, not surprising. The Inception and Star Trek fics are likewise not surprising.

What does surprise me is how popular "The Geographic Cure" is. "Princess no Go" is an even weirder thing to have on a top ten list. I mean, it's awfully cute, but it's also awfully short, and it's anything but an intuitive set of fandoms to fuse. Those probably benefit from age as much as anything -- they are both Yuletide 2009 fics and therefore have simply had more time to gather hits than more recent stories.

...

I should probably import more of my fics someday.

Comments

[marici.livejournal.com]

What Isn't Broken is also fantastic, don't sell it short. Some of the details added to your story, like the names and personalities of Naruto's trainees, are a pointed lesson in how much little changes can enrich a fic.

[edenfalling]

Well, I think all my stories are good. :-) So the question becomes, why do people like THIS good story more than THAT good story. And the answer tends to be about fandoms and shipping. *wry*

[hungrytiger11.livejournal.com]

Actually, I am a little surprised so much Naruto fic made the list as I did not think it was that active of a fandom on AO3. I do not understand the Kakashi ( or Iruka) appeal either, but I can understand true appeal of your writing.... :) All my remixes or yuletides usually have more hits too. A built in audience....

It would be an interesting to see the lists for lj and ff.net just because I find all three sites seem to have different audiences.

[edenfalling]

My ff.net top ten list (by hit count) is as follows:

1. The Way of the Apartment Manager - 225,997 [Naruto, chaptered]
2. The Guardian in Spite of Herself - 148,913 [Naruto, chaptered, WIP]
3. An Ounce of Prevention - 99,545 [Naruto/Harry Potter, chaptered]
4. Lemonade - 91,915 [BtVS/Gundam Wing/Naruto, chaptered, WIP]
5. Strange Likenesses - 47,612 [Harry Potter, chaptered, WIP]
6. Tides - 47,375 [Naruto, chaptered]
7. Paint the Town - 22,188 [Harry Potter]
8. Apartment Manager sidestories - 15,285 [Naruto, chaptered, WIP]
9. Secrets - 13,337 [Harry Potter, chaptered, WIP]
10. Balance - 13,279 [Labyrinth, chaptered]

You have to hit #14 -- "What Isn't Broken," at 8,789 hits -- before you reach anything on my AO3 list. (And that's not exactly the equivalent of the AO3 version, because on ff.net I tacked the two sidefics onto "What Isn't Broken" as chapter two and chapter three rather than posting them on their own.) Of course, the obvious explanation for the difference is that I don't have any of my top ten ff.net stories on the AO3 for anyone to read there. *grin* But even so.

Aside from "Balance," these stories are all related to either HP or Naruto, and aside from "Paint the Town," they're all chaptered -- chaptering automatically raises hit counts, which is probably why "Weregild" is my second most-read AO3 story; it currently has two chapters up over there.

As for Kakashi and Iruka, I like them both very much as characters! I just don't understand pairing them together, and I particularly don't understand how and why that became one of the dominant fandom ships. But to each their own!

[hungrytiger11.livejournal.com]

I think I should clarify that I do not get why and how the ship of Iruka and Kakashi got to be so big when they do not interact in canon. I have seen pairings where the people involved do not meet but never so popular...

Part f the difference between AO3 &ff.net too is the culture. for whatever reason ppl seem to know more about remix and fixations on AO3 compared to ff.net. Possibly simply because you can have collections on one and not the other.... Plus, despite it's reputation as the "pit of voles" I think ff.net is often ppl's first exposure to fandom. So different audiences...

Interesting to compare the lists though.

[edenfalling]

My exposure to fanfiction ran roughly as follows: randomly stumble across Cassandra Claire's "Very Secret Diaries" --> Cassandra Claire's Draco Trilogy on FictionAlley --> other stories on FA plus various Yahoo groups --> SugarQuill and Gryffindor Tower --> start writing my own HP fic --> fanfiction.net (back when porn was still allowed! oh god now I feel old...) --> Livejournal via isiscolo's LJ invite code project --> start reading crossovers on ff.net --> discovery of Naruto largely via Asuka --> start writing my own Naruto fic --> slow realization that I am never getting out of fandom alive (not that I want to get out, but you know what I mean).

But HP fandom was kind of a law unto itself in those days so I would not use myself as a good case to generalize from. :-)

[hungrytiger11.livejournal.com]

Do not feel old! My first exposure was card captors on people's self contained websites or archives, back when webrings were popular....hard to think that A) that was over ten years ago and B) the web was ever that had to mold and change! Lol. And yes, Harry Potter is definitely a la unto itself as a fandom. But it seems like a lot of readers on ff.net are 14 or so ( as much as I love fandom, I am not sure I would want ppl younger than that stumbling around fandom...). And a lot of people who seem to havno idea fandom could xtene beyond ff.net and devianart.... But that could just be who I run into too. One of the pairings I write a lot seems to attract this younger crowd for whatever reason....

Also it is kind of crazy to remember all the really huge archives HP has/had.

[edenfalling]

Oh god webrings. They were a thing once, weren't they? I never figured out how they worked, but I remember them existing, with the little icons and notices at the bottoms of pages and everything.

There are definitely people on ff.net who don't seem to know that fandom exists beyond it. Every time I update a languishing WIP, or post a new fic in a fandom I haven't posted in for a while, I get at least one review to the effect of, "I thought you stopped writing/was afraid you were dead/am so happy you're alive!" Which, um. Yeah. *headdesk*

2¢

[emmee-kay.livejournal.com]

I wonder if "More Sins than Condemnation" isn't more about the story being in the series with "What Isn't Broken" than about the KakaIru shipping. Fans having rather completist tendencies and all. The 'series' function/button in AO3 makes it very easy to keep going if there's something you like. Just a thought. (Because if anybody has read much of your stuff, they're bound to notice you're much more genfic than pairing oriented, regardless of the subject of "What Isn't Broken" - which was set by the original fic. It's not a bad thing - it's merely how it is. Because I while I am a KakaIru shipper, I do like genfic, I like your writing, and I've definitely noticed. FWIW, I read "What Isn't Broken" because of your writing. I'm a bit anti-SasuNaru, but I try to keep an open mind. Heh.)

Edited for more opinion than I originally thought. Sorry.

[edenfalling]

Yeah, that's why it's in the top ten at all. BUT! The thing is, "More Sins Than Condemnation" is the third fic in the "What Isn't Broken" series, so people just clicking on through should hit "With a Vengeance" first, which should give it an equal or greater hit count. Except "With a Vengeance" is only at #11 or #12 by hit count, so clearly people are finding (or rereading) the Kakashi-and-Iruka story more than they're finding (or rereading) the Naruto-and-Sakura story. And that I put down entirely to character and pairing preferences. :-)

(That is in no way a bad thing, btw. People like what they like, and more power to everyone -- the world would be very boring if we all had exactly the same preferences! It's mostly just an observational note.)