AO3 Hits Meme
I've mentioned the fight against North Carolina's Amendment One before and would like to remind people in North Carolina that the Early Voting period has begun (if you haven't registered to vote yet, early voting gives you a chance to register and vote at the same time; this will not be possible in the last days up to and including election day May 8th).
In other news, there's an AO3 hits meme going around and I love lists, even though I'm usually too lazy to compile them.
Here are my ten fics (with two bits of cheating, where I counted prequels with the main fic) on AO3 with the most hit counts:
(Please note that the comment count includes my answers, so you can basically cut it in half if you want to know how many people commented on a fic. Also note that "only available on AO3" is not entirely correct because some fics have been posted at the Ebook Library, though the statement is true for when the fic was first published.)
1. Knowing (T) John/Rodney et al. Written for Atlantis Big Bang 2010. 46,749 words.
As the members of the Atlantis expedition wait for the order to return, Rodney struggles with his relationship with Jennifer and his own expectations. Spending much time with John does nothing to clarify his feelings, but in the end he still finds the answers to his questions.
7626 hits, 52 kudos, 101 comments (only available on AO3)
2. Grounded (E) John/Rodney. AU. Written for AU Big Bang 2010. 20,435 words.
After spending over a decade researching for his second book, Rodney McKay has to face the loss of his money and home. John Sheppard, the grandson of an old friend of Rodney's, is happy to offer him a place to stay in his grandmother's boarding house that he plans to reopen. As they try to deal with their respective futures, their pasts catch up with them in ways that give both of their lives a new direction and new hope.
3917 hits, 20 kudos, 10 comments (only available on AO3)
3. Our Own Reality (E) John/Rodney. NaNoWriMo novel 2009. 54,296 words.
An accident with an Ancient machine forces John to adjust to a life that doesn't feel like his own any longer. The most difficult part to figure out is what role Rodney will play in it.
2847 hits, 26 kudos, 12 comments (available as I wrote it on LJ, but in one piece on AO3)
4. Flight (E) John/Rodney. AU. Written for AU Big Bang 2011. 24,721 words.
Rodney McKay has been imprisoned for ten years and forced to work as an engineer. It's by accident that he's rescued by John Sheppard and his crew and ends up on John's space ship, the Pegasus. At first, he only joins them to get passage back to the planet where he was kidnapped, but soon John makes him an offer he can't refuse.
2612 hits, 81 kudos, 24 comments (only available on AO3)
5. Compatibility (E) John/Rodney. AU. Written for Atlantis Big Bang 2011. 41,360 words.
This story centers around John and Rodney's life together, after their first meeting, a sexual encounter in a mall, induced by their genetic compatibility. John and Rodney struggled most of their lives with their feelings about their cycling and rare compatibility respectively. As their relationship progresses, they have to realize that they still haven't quite found out what they want, but it becomes increasingly clear that however they deal with their genetic compatibility, it's the non-genetic one that matters to them.
2545 hits, 47 kudos, 29 comments (only available on AO3)
5a. Waiting to Engage (M) John/Rodney. Written as my interpretation of the cycling universe, but posted on AO3 along with the Atlantis Big Bang 2011. 2,513 words.
The year Rodney was born is often cited as the birth of the cycling choice movement.
1674 hits, 17 kudos, 2 comments
5b. Hating to Engage (M) John/Other. Written along with the Atlantis Big Bang 2011. 6,258 words.
For as long as John can remember his father has been very proud of the fact that he is a cycler.
1512 hits, 8 kudos, 2 comments (only available on AO3)
6. Following the Lead (T) John/Rodney. AU. Written for Casefic 2011. 17,238 words.
John Sheppard's latest murder case has a growing amount of leads, none of which allow him to solve the puzzle of Karen Parker's unusual death. When Rodney McKay is brought in on the case, it's annoyance at first sight for both of them. While John is stuck in the time of combustion cars and 2D-TVs, Rodney embraces the latest technologies and develops housebots in his free time. Together they work to uncover why Karen Parker had to die and along the way discover that they have more in common than they thought.
2129 hits, 46 kudos, 8 comments (only available on AO3)
7. Expecting (M) John/Rodney. Written for the MPreg Big Bang 2012. 16,180 words.
When a run-in with an Ancient machine leaves John ready to bear a child, he has to make a decision that will affect not just him, but the very recent changes in his relationship with Rodney.
1809 hits, 59 kudos, 28 comments (only available on AO3)
8. Disturbances in an Elf's Life (E) Joe/David. AU. Written for the RPS Big Bang 2010. 15,027 words.
Joe is a very content elf on most days. He has to put up with leprechauns trying to steal or destroy his precious liquid, but that turns out to be a minor disturbance compared to the human who suddenly shows up close to his hut. Shooting a documentary about squirrels, David is much too close for comfort, and he seems to take a special interest in Joe.
1400 hits, 10 kudos, 27 comments (only available on AO3)
9. The Honor Thing (E) John/Rodney. Written for McSheplets #81 isolation (or truthfully written before, but posted for that). 3,123 words.
"I don't want to hear any of this crap. We're dying. I know that you've been looking forward to your honorable death, but some of us were quite happy alive and would have gladly retired."
1171 hits, 15 kudos, 12 comments
10. Life After (E) John/Rodney. Written for SGA Big Bang 2008. 48,260 words.
"We could do more," John said, turning to him, and there was a conviction in his voice and eyes that sent shivers down Rodney's spine. "We could destroy the Wraith."
1168 hits, 21 kudos, 6 comments
Some thoughts on the list:
The clear trend here is for works that are long and/or only available on AO3. Which is pretty understandable and mirrors my own reading patterns. I read every story over 10,000 words (sometimes even less than that) on my ebook reader and the epub download at the archive makes it so much easier than downloading several entries on LJ and manually assembling them into an ebook. Life After is somewhat of an exception because it is available elsewhere in a single file (as opposed to Our Own Reality), however, it is also been on the archive the longest. It was my first test upload if you will, with a works number of 243, which makes me feel pretty special actually. It's like a four-digit Slashdot user ID or so ;)
The only story under 10k words (not counting the prequels to Compatibility, which I listed as a part of that) is The Honor Thing at #9, which I believe was the first story that I crossposted from McSheplets. Maybe people clicked on the link out of curiosity to check if there was any advantage to reading there over reading on LJ and finding there wasn't didn't do it again (or at least not all of them).
Another clear trend is obviously for John/Rodney vs. Hewligan or Joe/David. Disturbances in an Elf's Life is the only non-McShep story in the list (discounting Hating to Engage, which has fewer hits than the previously posted Waiting to Engage, and I think that's probably due to the pairing (i.e. lack of McShep); I can totally relate to that as I will carefully skim works that include John/Other even if they do end up as McShep, simply because I'm very particular about what kind of relationships I (want to) see John having before he meets Rodney). I think the relative popularity of Disturbances in an Elf's Life (especially compared to my other Joe/David AU Joseph's Destiny, which has only 233 hits) is due to the fact that it doesn't include their wives, making it easier to read it as John/Rodney, and is pretty light-hearted and funny.
I'm not sure about the ranking of the other fics. There are many factors:
The relative popularity of a challenge (e.g. Atlantis Big Bang vs. AU Big Bang).
The rating of a fic, though I'm not sure that there is a conventional wisdom in which way this skews. Judging from the T rating of my #1 fic maybe there is a sizable number of people who prefer romantic stories without sex (and in fact one commenter on that story mentioned that IIRC). Though I've also heard the opposite, so who knows what's true.
AU vs canon-based. Again I'm not sure how that influences the base appeal of a fic. I personally feel that it's not so much a general preference as one that depends on my mood. Sometimes I just want to read about John and Rodney meeting and falling in love and sometimes I want them to finally take their years of history and see what it really is. (Not that you can't have an AU that does that.)
Plot (and summary and tags as indicators of it). I guess some things just work for more people. Knowing, which leads the list by a huge margin, was written with the goal to explore a natural development of their relationship outside of highly emotional special scenarios (like one being kidnapped, pretending to be boyfriends, and all that good stuff that I love very much). I did cheat a bit with John revealing he was gay, but I actually think that if the premise is a happily oblivious Rodney, you need that one fact that gets him thinking because otherwise he'll just keep walking with his blinds up, unable to see what, or rather who, is right there next to him. It was meant to be the ultimate reassurance that Rodney would not make it work with Jennifer even if they really tried. #2 in the list is essentially an exploration of grief and how it affects lives.
Subjective quality of the fic. Of course, quality is a bit of a nebulous thing. I'm pretty sure that the qualities I love in a McShep fic don't necessarily align with something a New York Times critic looks for in fiction. So I added the qualifier "subjective". Though this quality is something that you'll only see once you click on the link and start reading, so this only indirectly influences the hit count by producing recs/storyfinder requests/bookmarks.
I don't look at the statistics of my fics too often. There are so many factors involved in getting to those numbers that they're not meaningful to judge any particular thing. I know that some people watch their stats more closely or who (involuntarily) will analyze them, coming to conclusions like which work day or time of day produces the most amount of hits/kudos/comments. I'm mainly just happy to see Kudos mails and comment notifications coming in, particularly for older fics.
How much I love a fic of mine doesn't always align with its popularity. Again, I point to Disturbances in an Elf's Life vs Joseph's Destiny, both of which are quite dear to me, but which have vastly different levels in popularity.
A more subtle example is Incredibly bad at this (but still making it work in just over six years) vs Reaching the Eye of the Storm. They have the same rating, similar length, both are John/Rodney, posted within 90 minutes of each other. By any measurable factor "Incredibly bad at this (...)" is the more popular one (comments are the same on AO3, but skewed towards the former on LJ), but my gut feeling is that I like the latter more. John's feelings seemed so much more raw in the latter story, and that spoke to me in a different way than the conventional pining/misunderstanding of the former. But apparently this feeling wasn't shared by readers.
And that's perfectly fine. Different fics have different meanings to us. I'm not writing to maximize hit counts. If I were, I'd stop writing Joe/David altogether, but I won't because sometimes it's their story I want to tell. I write a story when I feel compelled to do so at any particular moment. Sometimes they don't come out as expected, but I can live with that. Sometimes (in rare cases) I don't even like them, and that's okay too, because if others still enjoy them, I'm glad to have shared what I wrote.
Fandom experience (as opposed to being fannish by yourself) is about sharing, and I love to share my fics (and art) and hope to eventually get it all up there on AO3, so that people can find all my fic in one place.
I also took the OTW survey. Whether you love, hate, or have mixed feelings about it, now is your chance to weigh in.
In other news, there's an AO3 hits meme going around and I love lists, even though I'm usually too lazy to compile them.
Here are my ten fics (with two bits of cheating, where I counted prequels with the main fic) on AO3 with the most hit counts:
(Please note that the comment count includes my answers, so you can basically cut it in half if you want to know how many people commented on a fic. Also note that "only available on AO3" is not entirely correct because some fics have been posted at the Ebook Library, though the statement is true for when the fic was first published.)
1. Knowing (T) John/Rodney et al. Written for Atlantis Big Bang 2010. 46,749 words.
As the members of the Atlantis expedition wait for the order to return, Rodney struggles with his relationship with Jennifer and his own expectations. Spending much time with John does nothing to clarify his feelings, but in the end he still finds the answers to his questions.
7626 hits, 52 kudos, 101 comments (only available on AO3)
2. Grounded (E) John/Rodney. AU. Written for AU Big Bang 2010. 20,435 words.
After spending over a decade researching for his second book, Rodney McKay has to face the loss of his money and home. John Sheppard, the grandson of an old friend of Rodney's, is happy to offer him a place to stay in his grandmother's boarding house that he plans to reopen. As they try to deal with their respective futures, their pasts catch up with them in ways that give both of their lives a new direction and new hope.
3917 hits, 20 kudos, 10 comments (only available on AO3)
3. Our Own Reality (E) John/Rodney. NaNoWriMo novel 2009. 54,296 words.
An accident with an Ancient machine forces John to adjust to a life that doesn't feel like his own any longer. The most difficult part to figure out is what role Rodney will play in it.
2847 hits, 26 kudos, 12 comments (available as I wrote it on LJ, but in one piece on AO3)
4. Flight (E) John/Rodney. AU. Written for AU Big Bang 2011. 24,721 words.
Rodney McKay has been imprisoned for ten years and forced to work as an engineer. It's by accident that he's rescued by John Sheppard and his crew and ends up on John's space ship, the Pegasus. At first, he only joins them to get passage back to the planet where he was kidnapped, but soon John makes him an offer he can't refuse.
2612 hits, 81 kudos, 24 comments (only available on AO3)
5. Compatibility (E) John/Rodney. AU. Written for Atlantis Big Bang 2011. 41,360 words.
This story centers around John and Rodney's life together, after their first meeting, a sexual encounter in a mall, induced by their genetic compatibility. John and Rodney struggled most of their lives with their feelings about their cycling and rare compatibility respectively. As their relationship progresses, they have to realize that they still haven't quite found out what they want, but it becomes increasingly clear that however they deal with their genetic compatibility, it's the non-genetic one that matters to them.
2545 hits, 47 kudos, 29 comments (only available on AO3)
5a. Waiting to Engage (M) John/Rodney. Written as my interpretation of the cycling universe, but posted on AO3 along with the Atlantis Big Bang 2011. 2,513 words.
The year Rodney was born is often cited as the birth of the cycling choice movement.
1674 hits, 17 kudos, 2 comments
5b. Hating to Engage (M) John/Other. Written along with the Atlantis Big Bang 2011. 6,258 words.
For as long as John can remember his father has been very proud of the fact that he is a cycler.
1512 hits, 8 kudos, 2 comments (only available on AO3)
6. Following the Lead (T) John/Rodney. AU. Written for Casefic 2011. 17,238 words.
John Sheppard's latest murder case has a growing amount of leads, none of which allow him to solve the puzzle of Karen Parker's unusual death. When Rodney McKay is brought in on the case, it's annoyance at first sight for both of them. While John is stuck in the time of combustion cars and 2D-TVs, Rodney embraces the latest technologies and develops housebots in his free time. Together they work to uncover why Karen Parker had to die and along the way discover that they have more in common than they thought.
2129 hits, 46 kudos, 8 comments (only available on AO3)
7. Expecting (M) John/Rodney. Written for the MPreg Big Bang 2012. 16,180 words.
When a run-in with an Ancient machine leaves John ready to bear a child, he has to make a decision that will affect not just him, but the very recent changes in his relationship with Rodney.
1809 hits, 59 kudos, 28 comments (only available on AO3)
8. Disturbances in an Elf's Life (E) Joe/David. AU. Written for the RPS Big Bang 2010. 15,027 words.
Joe is a very content elf on most days. He has to put up with leprechauns trying to steal or destroy his precious liquid, but that turns out to be a minor disturbance compared to the human who suddenly shows up close to his hut. Shooting a documentary about squirrels, David is much too close for comfort, and he seems to take a special interest in Joe.
1400 hits, 10 kudos, 27 comments (only available on AO3)
9. The Honor Thing (E) John/Rodney. Written for McSheplets #81 isolation (or truthfully written before, but posted for that). 3,123 words.
"I don't want to hear any of this crap. We're dying. I know that you've been looking forward to your honorable death, but some of us were quite happy alive and would have gladly retired."
1171 hits, 15 kudos, 12 comments
10. Life After (E) John/Rodney. Written for SGA Big Bang 2008. 48,260 words.
"We could do more," John said, turning to him, and there was a conviction in his voice and eyes that sent shivers down Rodney's spine. "We could destroy the Wraith."
1168 hits, 21 kudos, 6 comments
Some thoughts on the list:
The clear trend here is for works that are long and/or only available on AO3. Which is pretty understandable and mirrors my own reading patterns. I read every story over 10,000 words (sometimes even less than that) on my ebook reader and the epub download at the archive makes it so much easier than downloading several entries on LJ and manually assembling them into an ebook. Life After is somewhat of an exception because it is available elsewhere in a single file (as opposed to Our Own Reality), however, it is also been on the archive the longest. It was my first test upload if you will, with a works number of 243, which makes me feel pretty special actually. It's like a four-digit Slashdot user ID or so ;)
The only story under 10k words (not counting the prequels to Compatibility, which I listed as a part of that) is The Honor Thing at #9, which I believe was the first story that I crossposted from McSheplets. Maybe people clicked on the link out of curiosity to check if there was any advantage to reading there over reading on LJ and finding there wasn't didn't do it again (or at least not all of them).
Another clear trend is obviously for John/Rodney vs. Hewligan or Joe/David. Disturbances in an Elf's Life is the only non-McShep story in the list (discounting Hating to Engage, which has fewer hits than the previously posted Waiting to Engage, and I think that's probably due to the pairing (i.e. lack of McShep); I can totally relate to that as I will carefully skim works that include John/Other even if they do end up as McShep, simply because I'm very particular about what kind of relationships I (want to) see John having before he meets Rodney). I think the relative popularity of Disturbances in an Elf's Life (especially compared to my other Joe/David AU Joseph's Destiny, which has only 233 hits) is due to the fact that it doesn't include their wives, making it easier to read it as John/Rodney, and is pretty light-hearted and funny.
I'm not sure about the ranking of the other fics. There are many factors:
The relative popularity of a challenge (e.g. Atlantis Big Bang vs. AU Big Bang).
The rating of a fic, though I'm not sure that there is a conventional wisdom in which way this skews. Judging from the T rating of my #1 fic maybe there is a sizable number of people who prefer romantic stories without sex (and in fact one commenter on that story mentioned that IIRC). Though I've also heard the opposite, so who knows what's true.
AU vs canon-based. Again I'm not sure how that influences the base appeal of a fic. I personally feel that it's not so much a general preference as one that depends on my mood. Sometimes I just want to read about John and Rodney meeting and falling in love and sometimes I want them to finally take their years of history and see what it really is. (Not that you can't have an AU that does that.)
Plot (and summary and tags as indicators of it). I guess some things just work for more people. Knowing, which leads the list by a huge margin, was written with the goal to explore a natural development of their relationship outside of highly emotional special scenarios (like one being kidnapped, pretending to be boyfriends, and all that good stuff that I love very much). I did cheat a bit with John revealing he was gay, but I actually think that if the premise is a happily oblivious Rodney, you need that one fact that gets him thinking because otherwise he'll just keep walking with his blinds up, unable to see what, or rather who, is right there next to him. It was meant to be the ultimate reassurance that Rodney would not make it work with Jennifer even if they really tried. #2 in the list is essentially an exploration of grief and how it affects lives.
Subjective quality of the fic. Of course, quality is a bit of a nebulous thing. I'm pretty sure that the qualities I love in a McShep fic don't necessarily align with something a New York Times critic looks for in fiction. So I added the qualifier "subjective". Though this quality is something that you'll only see once you click on the link and start reading, so this only indirectly influences the hit count by producing recs/storyfinder requests/bookmarks.
I don't look at the statistics of my fics too often. There are so many factors involved in getting to those numbers that they're not meaningful to judge any particular thing. I know that some people watch their stats more closely or who (involuntarily) will analyze them, coming to conclusions like which work day or time of day produces the most amount of hits/kudos/comments. I'm mainly just happy to see Kudos mails and comment notifications coming in, particularly for older fics.
How much I love a fic of mine doesn't always align with its popularity. Again, I point to Disturbances in an Elf's Life vs Joseph's Destiny, both of which are quite dear to me, but which have vastly different levels in popularity.
A more subtle example is Incredibly bad at this (but still making it work in just over six years) vs Reaching the Eye of the Storm. They have the same rating, similar length, both are John/Rodney, posted within 90 minutes of each other. By any measurable factor "Incredibly bad at this (...)" is the more popular one (comments are the same on AO3, but skewed towards the former on LJ), but my gut feeling is that I like the latter more. John's feelings seemed so much more raw in the latter story, and that spoke to me in a different way than the conventional pining/misunderstanding of the former. But apparently this feeling wasn't shared by readers.
And that's perfectly fine. Different fics have different meanings to us. I'm not writing to maximize hit counts. If I were, I'd stop writing Joe/David altogether, but I won't because sometimes it's their story I want to tell. I write a story when I feel compelled to do so at any particular moment. Sometimes they don't come out as expected, but I can live with that. Sometimes (in rare cases) I don't even like them, and that's okay too, because if others still enjoy them, I'm glad to have shared what I wrote.
Fandom experience (as opposed to being fannish by yourself) is about sharing, and I love to share my fics (and art) and hope to eventually get it all up there on AO3, so that people can find all my fic in one place.
I also took the OTW survey. Whether you love, hate, or have mixed feelings about it, now is your chance to weigh in.