Comments | brighteyed_jill: AO3 Top Hits Meme

brighteyed_jill

AO3 Top Hits Meme

May 01, 2012 14:29

Stolen from igrockspock, I bring you a list of my top ten stories on AO3, ranked by number of hits, with commentary:

( A fairly random representation of my work,. )

commentary, meme, f-list knows all, writing bollocks

Comments 10

morganstuart May 1 2012, 20:01:08 UTC

Oooh, very interesting meme! And interesting results, too.

I tend to use AO3 and LJ pretty much interchangeably, depending on where I am at the time. Sometimes I read an author's work in one place or the other, and my reading habits are pretty much the same in both places. When I'm in an extreme hurry, I like AO3 simply for the expediency of the "kudos" option, but that's about the only difference to me.

What fascinates me is looking at my hit stats on AO3 compared to FanFiction.net (which I just did, thanks to your post), because my top ten at one is different than my top ten at the other. In fact, my #1 story on AO3 doesn't even make the top ten list of those at FFn. Curious! I wish we had the option of comparing such stats to LJ hits. Might be interesting.

Hugs to you!

brighteyed_jill May 3 2012, 17:30:00 UTC

Hey there stranger! *snuggles you*

I also like the simplicity of the "kudos" option when I'm in a hurry, but I feel guilty about it. I also prefer to read on AO3 if someone has a hard-on-the-eyes LJ template.

In fact, my #1 story on AO3 doesn't even make the top ten list of those at FFn. Curious!
That is very curious! I wonder if the demographics of the readerships at those sites are very different. I'd suspect FFn skews younger, but perhaps that's just my perception.

I wish we had the option of comparing such stats to LJ hits.
Agreed. I can see hits on a particular entry with the "My Guests" function, but it's not easy to see stats over time (or total stats), and almost impossible to compare entries. Comments are some indication, of course, but not a very accurate one.

But I do love speculating!

triedunture May 2 2012, 03:08:18 UTC

How iiiiiinteresting! I'm especially interested by your #2 slot, the genish crossover. I have one pretty tame crossover that got a surprising amount of kudos but it's not even in my top 10 for hits! I figured that was because not a ton of people were interested in crossovers, but this seems to show otherwise.

CONCLUSION: who knows what the fuck is happening when people read fanfiction?

brighteyed_jill May 3 2012, 19:48:29 UTC

My thought about the crossover was that the Inception fandom is pretty popular, so perhaps I was getting cross-traffic from that?

CONCLUSION: who knows what the fuck is happening when people read fanfiction?
TRUTH!

purplekitte May 2 2012, 12:23:07 UTC

There's probably a difference in that most people on lj find works by authors they aren't specifically following through comms, but someone might be too nervous to post there or not know about it or their might not be an appropriate comm. I certainly read a lot more obscure fandoms on AOOO even outside of Yuletide, along with all the stuff where someone's lj post linked there for the story. I like being able to read the entire archive for a fandom or pairing, or to read a bunch of multifandom stuff for a tag that's caught my interest ( ... )

brighteyed_jill May 3 2012, 19:51:39 UTC

someone might be too nervous to post there or not know about it or their might not be an appropriate comm.
Good point. I remember finding LJ very intimidating when I first stumbled onto it. If you don't devote the time to following comms and making friends, I suppose it could seem insular.

I like being able to read the entire archive for a fandom or pairing, or to read a bunch of multifandom stuff for a tag that's caught my interest.
Oh man, I do, too. Sometimes I despair about how difficult it is to find stuff I read ages ago on LJ but never bookmarked. AO3 makes that way easier.

One thing I have noticed is that kinkier stories have a lot of anonymous kudos and very few logged in responses, compared to gen stories of similar popularity.

I'd believe that. People don't necessarily want to wave their kink flag under their own internet identity. I, on the other hand, have no shame :D

rubynye May 2 2012, 19:04:01 UTC

I love this meme.

Do you tend to read more obscure/kinky things there than on LJ? Do you find yourself reading outside of your usual pairings/fandoms at all?

Yes and yes, because browsing is easier.

brighteyed_jill May 4 2012, 04:21:41 UTC

Oh my gosh yes, browsing is so much easier. I love LJ communities, but if you don't catch something when it's first posted, it's basically hopeless. However, I do like the option to know more about a person that just his/her work, so I still love journals.

s0mmerspr0ssen May 3 2012, 14:09:29 UTC

Ao3 is more practical in terms of clicking through, sorting through and finding fics you like quickly and efficiently. As much as LJ communities and rec lists are helpful, they are nothing compared to a search engine that will let you efficiently look for, e.g. all Sherlock/Mycroft fic that is Explicit, tagged as BDSM and sorted by length, longest first; or all Sherlock Gen fic that is Anthea-centric; or whatever it is you're looking for ( ... )

brighteyed_jill August 2 2012, 19:10:46 UTC

Ao3 is more practical in terms of clicking through, sorting through and finding fics you like quickly and efficiently.
This is so very true. Although the lack of tag sorting for the past few months is killing me. I need to be able to sort!

What I like better about LJ is that on here, you can communicate better with others and have a better sense of who your readers and commenters are as well as talk to authors you admire or enjoy personally.
Amen to that. As more and more people seem to drift to reading fic on AO3 only, I feel like there's less discussion of fic. For example, Avengers seems to be SUPER popular on AO3, but I haven't heard as much chatter about it on LJ. I like knowing things about other authors and readers!