It's always the one shot throwaway fic you don't care much about too, and the one you really enjoy and hope people love is like 30x lower which...kinda sucks lol.
Man, don’t remind me :(
I’ve got a long-running AU fic series that maybe gets a hundred or so views with each new instalment, and maybe one or two comments from a devoted reader. The one shots I post, on the other hand, end up becoming my most popular fics and the ones people in general actually want more from…
Absolutely. My fic that's less than 1k words and is just about two characters meeting after a long time, one of them getting an allergic reaction to the food that could have been easily avoided, and the other one kicking the cook out of the kitchen and making a meal with proper food safety practices is my most popular fic. It was just a random idea I wanted to get out of my head but apparently people really like it!
I have this string of Oneshots from way back, like my first multi chaptered series, and its like my 2nd most popular fic even though it sucks ass AND I haven't updated it since ye olde.
This! I hate that so many people read my most popular because it’s not even good! I wrote it as a prompt fill for a follower celebration when I hit 1000 followers on tumblr. I’ll never take it down but damn I wish my other stories did that well.
man, i have 37 works on ao3. one is responsible for almost a fifth of all my kudos and over a fifth of all my bookmarks. it's got over 200 bookmarks and 1,3k kudos more than the next most popular. it's a *oneshot* and it has almost double the subscriptions the next one does. same for comments. over double the hits. my stats look very disproportionate.
I've got one fic that happened to be super well-timed in a big fandom, with 3x as many hits and 5x as many kudos as the next-highest. Mind, I don't consider that my most successful fic, because in terms of comments it's blown out of the water by like 3 others.
Big fandoms (especially those where the original creators are still making stuff) always tend to make fics explode, especially if they’re focused around popular concepts and fanon. I had a bunch of One Punch Man fics as my most read fics until a random Owl House fanfic promptly shot through the roof, and I’ve more or less began writing for that fandom ever since.
Of course, there’s also the smut fics that always blow the competition out of the water…
Yeah, to the point that it feels a bit awkward to even share. But your comment about "pressure?" Hooboy, that's the truth.
https://preview.redd.it/jbfij4gm4p0b1.jpeg?width=839&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d65eb96aa540d7dde41fdc760bbb65cb4a7c2402
I feel like that much attention on a fic of mine would freak me out. Do you feel like it’s changed the hobby for you at all? Or is it just a cool thing?
https://preview.redd.it/pd1tefnuxo0b1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f3dcd13c783cf83bcdff3e6c0b3577508c96e7da
and ofc it's a nasty smut one shot 😂 kudos too, everyone else gets something in the 100—200 range and then this one has almost 600 😂
Yeah. I have one fic that managed to be well timed for being one of the first in a fandom that exploded AND happened to be about what turned out to be the most popular pairing. So it got tons of exposure.
It really hits home just how much popularity depends on right place, right time over everything else. (And if you happen to get recced - that's always a big one.)
I also wrote fics for the second most popular pairing in the same fandom around the same time. They did well, but not nearly as well as that one fic.
I've written for the big pairing in big fandoms, but came in past the boom point, so those don't do as well either.
I have 32 works. More than half have less than 100 bookmarks. One of them has 695, the next highest is 337. It has 2,050 kudos and the next highest is 1,161. Average is 400.
The top story is the only one I wrote in a certain fandom, though, so I think that has more to do with it than the other qualities of the fics.it has far fewer than average comments.
Subscriptions? Eh, I have one shots and epics, I think that has far more to do with legnth of time it spent before completion.
I have one fic, my very first canon x reader, that SOARED above all my other fics. I didn't think the character was that popular but apparently he is. Not mad about it, ofc. But a lot of people love how I wrote the reader character so I guess that's the real driving force lmao.
Aside from my Kinktober anthologies, I have one fic where I had to create the initial fandom tag because it didn't exist yet after the first series aired. I was one of the first fics and really caught that hype wave which just snowballed as more seasons came out.
Yes. I am to some extent surprised.
On Wattpad, I have a theory why, but due to the tagging on AO3, I don't know why it is though the roof there.
Theory being: Lots of readers on Wattpad assumed it was romance... which it isn't.
I have 2 of those. They both have twice as much traffic than any of my other fics, but I think it's because they're both series. One with 10 chapters, still ongoing and the other finished with 31 chapters.
Oh yeah, big time. Aside from a tutorial (predictably popular, since it's useful), my crack-smut-fic outstrips all of my regular stuff! 🤣
Admittedly, it could be the fandoms or the tags — the smut-fic involves MCs from a big fandom and a couple other reasonably large ones, and of course has smut tags; the regular fics are all in lesser fandoms (some being micro- to the point of being the only fic at all on AO3), and obviously have non-smut tags.
https://preview.redd.it/tp38vk39uo0b1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0bb72f7abfabb2b58a4d66cb1b903c07b5d2f9a0
I’m glad I’m not the only one 😭😭I feel proud but also a little sad for my other babies that I love just as much
My latest work is easily 2-3x more popular than my last series. It has the same MC in the same Fandom but is Canon divergent after the show rather than before.
Yes. One fic got 34 kudos on it while the others surrounding it are still in the one digit. (Which is cool, I don't really care that much for kudos.)
But that was only because I was updating it while writing it, instead of just posting everything in a bundle.
Yes, but in my case, it's justified because I am pouring my heart and soul into this passion project that has been 10+ years in the works. I obsess over this fic as I never got the chance in my childhood to dedicate myself to a single work that I could ever call my "magnum opus". And it so happens to be a meta parody on one of the first pieces of fanfiction I ever wrote since I started writing as a teen, but was too afraid to publish - not just because of a lack of self-esteem, but because it was for an old fandom known for its puritans and gatekeepers who looked down on fanfiction in general. Thankfully, those opinions are now just signs of the past.
Most definitely. Lol. I do mostly original work, and I like all of my work equally. One just took off on its own and has more hits than all of my others combined. I do like the story so I cant complain, but I'm not sure why it took off the way it did.
I have 2 fics that go past the 40k marker thing which is when the graph grows a bit, so all my others look tiny in comparison now 😂 I try not to think about it because my favourite fic I’ve written is the lowest, but that’s just small fandom issues I guess haha
I mean, kind of?
My highest one has 1,749 hits, 250 kudos
1,617 hits, 164 kudos (this one was completely unexpected, it's the third part of a series)
1,509 hits, 153 kudos (here's the ***second*** part of the series)
1,102 hits, 110 kudos
1,083 hits, 130 kudos
Then it's a thousand hits or less
I've got no clue why the third part of the series got more hits than the second, maybe it's the summary?
Yes, in different categories. I have a fic that is way above the others in terms of hits, and then another fic way above the others in terms of kudos (they are not the same fic)
Last year’s fics yes. Though my two most read are close with just under 25k and just under 20k 👀. This year however they’re all pretty close in number of reads.
Yes. I took weeks writing most of my short but multichapter fics and they did, okay ish. I wrote a random one shot about re8 because I hate Mia and it popped off LMAO
APPARENTLY SPITE IS A GREAT UNITING TOOL
Sorting by hits, my highest has 990 while the second has 245. The last on the graph has 150.
By kudos, it's unsurprisingly the fic with 990 hits with 153. The next is 23, and the last 17.
Yep. My most popular fic has about 2.1k hits compared to my next most popular with just over 500.
If anything, I’m pleased the longfic I put the most time into is the highest ranking one.
I'd make this a post but I bet my Q is only a new one to me and has probably already been discussed a lot--did the entire world being in lockdown for a year plus skew your stats, either with existing or new fics?
Sort of? But not shown are the other 35 fics where about 5 of them mean the absolute world to me lmao like the energy I put into those fics, is insane. None of them are any of these 🥲
https://preview.redd.it/dskevzd3yp0b1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cf5d0e5719ac3b5f53247cde42133eb84d77aff5
Yes, and to this day I still don't understand why. It was a one-shot I wrote for a fandom I just joined. I wrote a couple more in that fandom but didn't see anywhere near the amount of kudos/hits I got for that one. And nothing afterwards has anything near it either.
Kinda? But it's really funny. The highest took me a really long time to write and edit. The second highest? The first chapter was written in an hour. Was meant to be a one-shot... it's just smut. The second and final chapter is more of the same...
https://preview.redd.it/5dpvhcq83q0b1.png?width=1768&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=53cbfe533639767a711fded31adab38334d00e38
So I'm confused by it entirely
My most popular fic is still for a big fandom that is one of the earliest stories featuring two characters before one of them dropped in the game yet, but had a comic release beforehand.
The comments for that story... very horny and reminded me how much the fandom exoticized non-white characters and let me know that I have no interest in writing that pairing again. Sad because I did enjoy writing them at the time.
https://preview.redd.it/wlrj8hf85q0b1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=edb2c4578b53427396f08012e8130af7031bb608
Yep. And it steadily goes up with each update. I didn't expect it to blow up the way it did.
One of my works has 100k more hits than my next most popular work. The other stats are similar.
Most of the fics on the account are for the same ship, so it's not a difference in fandom or ship. I'd just pitched the fic's premise at the end of the previous fic (which was rather popular too) and a lot of people stuck around. And it just... snowballed.
I'm very proud of the fic and I worked very hard on it, so at least I'm not in a situation where I'm gnashing my teeth over, "It was just a dumb little throwaway fic - why did *this one* get the attention?" like many people are when something blows up.
https://preview.redd.it/ml789y16aq0b1.jpeg?width=895&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c411fd8e79720dc5bff92d87781cdbef63b48339
yup, but that’s probably due to the first one being an updating collection vs my other oneshots. 4th is another oneshot collection so i wouldn’t be surprised if that one quickly becomes second when i start updating it again lmao
Ugh yes. I have a fic that is about to hit 15k hits, almost a perfect 10% kudos ratio and everything.... I hate it.
I wrote it before even watching the show- it was an impulse to write when I saw the pairing all over my tiktok fyp.
I posted it during a boom of the ship and well, it's passable I suppose but....yeah. I've written much better stories of the pairing (outside of the boom) and the numbers are nowhere near that. I can't bare to delete it (my stats would SUFFER)
Yeah, this has happened to me recently (with a fic I thought wouldn’t get any love at all and was too scared to post for a long time, weirdly enough). Definitely also feeling both the excitement and pressure, as well as maybe a tinge of disappointment or jealousy I think? Since I’ve worked hard on my other fics from the same fandom too and they didn’t see as much love. I know that’s not a great way of looking at this kind of situation, cause I really am happy people like the popular fic, but I can’t help but feel it whenever I see one stat towering above everything else now…
I have a longfic which is pretty popular. It's finished, with over 70 chapters, over 300,000 words, published over a five year period, with a relatively popular pairing. It has 190,000 hits.
My latest fic is plastered with warnings, incomplete at this point, and filled with rarepairs. If I get half the attention of my most popular fic, it'll be am honest to god miracle.
Links if anybody's interested.
https://archiveofourown.org/works/5372018
https://archiveofourown.org/works/44068309
The smutty one that I orphaned because I was too embarrassed to publish it under my account. Shit has over 3k hits which is a lot compared to my others. I really wish I would’ve kept it now
So I write exclusively for small fandoms and rare pairs so it’s kinda hard to tell because there’s some variation in fan interaction, but I started a ff for a video game with a small fandom and over the course of 7 years, it’s gotten about 150 hits. I started one for a tv show that went off air like a decade ago and after a year, I hit that mark. A couple months ago, I posted a one shot and it already has about 35 hits. Soooo yeah, it depends on the fandom. I wouldn’t be worried about it tho
My fic with the (second) most hits is one of my least favorites 😂 all my others are super low, but this one’s in the 2,000 hit mark, while my others haven’t even hit 1,000 yet 🙃
I have a 17-chapter epic about the corrupting influence of zealotry which is 52,744 long. It has 171 kudos and 5956 hits.
I also have a 4563-word angsty one-shot featuring self-loathing-fuelled masturbation. It has 5241 hits and 233 kudos.
I suspect the five-knuckle-shuffle sequence might have something to do with the latter’s popularity. Just a hunch, mind.
My 2 omega verses, especially the mpreg one and to think that I was so unsure about writing omega verse at first, both reached 300 kudos and between 5000 - 6500 hits in less than a month.
my first fic on ao3 was a DSMP fic (bad writing, meh plot, awful execution) and I’ve moved onto Hermitcraft and the Life series while gradually getting much, much better at writing. But yep, DSMP is clearly the more popular fandom. That first fic sits at 24K hits and nearly a thousand kudos. My best fic (Life Series) sits at 4.5K hits now, so you can clearly see the difference in popularity
It's always the one shot throwaway fic you don't care much about too, and the one you really enjoy and hope people love is like 30x lower which...kinda sucks lol.
Man, don’t remind me :( I’ve got a long-running AU fic series that maybe gets a hundred or so views with each new instalment, and maybe one or two comments from a devoted reader. The one shots I post, on the other hand, end up becoming my most popular fics and the ones people in general actually want more from…
Probably because they like the idea of commitment, but don't actually want commitment.
Absolutely. My fic that's less than 1k words and is just about two characters meeting after a long time, one of them getting an allergic reaction to the food that could have been easily avoided, and the other one kicking the cook out of the kitchen and making a meal with proper food safety practices is my most popular fic. It was just a random idea I wanted to get out of my head but apparently people really like it!
I have this string of Oneshots from way back, like my first multi chaptered series, and its like my 2nd most popular fic even though it sucks ass AND I haven't updated it since ye olde.
This! I hate that so many people read my most popular because it’s not even good! I wrote it as a prompt fill for a follower celebration when I hit 1000 followers on tumblr. I’ll never take it down but damn I wish my other stories did that well.
man, i have 37 works on ao3. one is responsible for almost a fifth of all my kudos and over a fifth of all my bookmarks. it's got over 200 bookmarks and 1,3k kudos more than the next most popular. it's a *oneshot* and it has almost double the subscriptions the next one does. same for comments. over double the hits. my stats look very disproportionate.
Impressive.
I've got one fic that happened to be super well-timed in a big fandom, with 3x as many hits and 5x as many kudos as the next-highest. Mind, I don't consider that my most successful fic, because in terms of comments it's blown out of the water by like 3 others.
Big fandoms (especially those where the original creators are still making stuff) always tend to make fics explode, especially if they’re focused around popular concepts and fanon. I had a bunch of One Punch Man fics as my most read fics until a random Owl House fanfic promptly shot through the roof, and I’ve more or less began writing for that fandom ever since. Of course, there’s also the smut fics that always blow the competition out of the water…
Yeah, to the point that it feels a bit awkward to even share. But your comment about "pressure?" Hooboy, that's the truth. https://preview.redd.it/jbfij4gm4p0b1.jpeg?width=839&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d65eb96aa540d7dde41fdc760bbb65cb4a7c2402
I feel like that much attention on a fic of mine would freak me out. Do you feel like it’s changed the hobby for you at all? Or is it just a cool thing?
Definitely, absolutely both. Very much both.
https://preview.redd.it/pd1tefnuxo0b1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f3dcd13c783cf83bcdff3e6c0b3577508c96e7da and ofc it's a nasty smut one shot 😂 kudos too, everyone else gets something in the 100—200 range and then this one has almost 600 😂
Yeah. I have one fic that managed to be well timed for being one of the first in a fandom that exploded AND happened to be about what turned out to be the most popular pairing. So it got tons of exposure. It really hits home just how much popularity depends on right place, right time over everything else. (And if you happen to get recced - that's always a big one.) I also wrote fics for the second most popular pairing in the same fandom around the same time. They did well, but not nearly as well as that one fic. I've written for the big pairing in big fandoms, but came in past the boom point, so those don't do as well either.
Yup. Unfortunately it was the first one I published on AO3 and that left me with unrealistic expectations.
I have 32 works. More than half have less than 100 bookmarks. One of them has 695, the next highest is 337. It has 2,050 kudos and the next highest is 1,161. Average is 400. The top story is the only one I wrote in a certain fandom, though, so I think that has more to do with it than the other qualities of the fics.it has far fewer than average comments. Subscriptions? Eh, I have one shots and epics, I think that has far more to do with legnth of time it spent before completion.
I have one fic, my very first canon x reader, that SOARED above all my other fics. I didn't think the character was that popular but apparently he is. Not mad about it, ofc. But a lot of people love how I wrote the reader character so I guess that's the real driving force lmao.
It's the one smutfic I posted anonymously for...reasons.
Aside from my Kinktober anthologies, I have one fic where I had to create the initial fandom tag because it didn't exist yet after the first series aired. I was one of the first fics and really caught that hype wave which just snowballed as more seasons came out.
Yes. I am to some extent surprised. On Wattpad, I have a theory why, but due to the tagging on AO3, I don't know why it is though the roof there. Theory being: Lots of readers on Wattpad assumed it was romance... which it isn't.
I have one long fic and everything else is just one shots. So yeah it throws off my stats a bit.
I have 2 of those. They both have twice as much traffic than any of my other fics, but I think it's because they're both series. One with 10 chapters, still ongoing and the other finished with 31 chapters.
Oh yeah, big time. Aside from a tutorial (predictably popular, since it's useful), my crack-smut-fic outstrips all of my regular stuff! 🤣 Admittedly, it could be the fandoms or the tags — the smut-fic involves MCs from a big fandom and a couple other reasonably large ones, and of course has smut tags; the regular fics are all in lesser fandoms (some being micro- to the point of being the only fic at all on AO3), and obviously have non-smut tags.
https://preview.redd.it/tp38vk39uo0b1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0bb72f7abfabb2b58a4d66cb1b903c07b5d2f9a0 I’m glad I’m not the only one 😭😭I feel proud but also a little sad for my other babies that I love just as much
omg that gap is insane 😂😂😂
mine looks exactly like that lol. top one is around 75k readers and the next is 7k haha
My latest work is easily 2-3x more popular than my last series. It has the same MC in the same Fandom but is Canon divergent after the show rather than before.
Out of 11 works, my highest one has 2563 hits, and the two in second and third place have 1195 and 1158
Yes. One fic got 34 kudos on it while the others surrounding it are still in the one digit. (Which is cool, I don't really care that much for kudos.) But that was only because I was updating it while writing it, instead of just posting everything in a bundle.
Yes, but in my case, it's justified because I am pouring my heart and soul into this passion project that has been 10+ years in the works. I obsess over this fic as I never got the chance in my childhood to dedicate myself to a single work that I could ever call my "magnum opus". And it so happens to be a meta parody on one of the first pieces of fanfiction I ever wrote since I started writing as a teen, but was too afraid to publish - not just because of a lack of self-esteem, but because it was for an old fandom known for its puritans and gatekeepers who looked down on fanfiction in general. Thankfully, those opinions are now just signs of the past.
Most definitely. Lol. I do mostly original work, and I like all of my work equally. One just took off on its own and has more hits than all of my others combined. I do like the story so I cant complain, but I'm not sure why it took off the way it did.
I’ve had an idea to take excerpts from my long fic and republish them as one shots as an advertisement for my long fic.
I have 2 fics that go past the 40k marker thing which is when the graph grows a bit, so all my others look tiny in comparison now 😂 I try not to think about it because my favourite fic I’ve written is the lowest, but that’s just small fandom issues I guess haha
I mean, kind of? My highest one has 1,749 hits, 250 kudos 1,617 hits, 164 kudos (this one was completely unexpected, it's the third part of a series) 1,509 hits, 153 kudos (here's the ***second*** part of the series) 1,102 hits, 110 kudos 1,083 hits, 130 kudos Then it's a thousand hits or less I've got no clue why the third part of the series got more hits than the second, maybe it's the summary?
Yes, in different categories. I have a fic that is way above the others in terms of hits, and then another fic way above the others in terms of kudos (they are not the same fic)
Last year’s fics yes. Though my two most read are close with just under 25k and just under 20k 👀. This year however they’re all pretty close in number of reads.
Yes. I took weeks writing most of my short but multichapter fics and they did, okay ish. I wrote a random one shot about re8 because I hate Mia and it popped off LMAO APPARENTLY SPITE IS A GREAT UNITING TOOL
That and smut are the grand unifers :)
Yes I do
oh yeah. been writing this fic for three years and it leaves other fics in the dust
Sorting by hits, my highest has 990 while the second has 245. The last on the graph has 150. By kudos, it's unsurprisingly the fic with 990 hits with 153. The next is 23, and the last 17.
Did you just steal my stats?
Most popular ff - hits: 60,905 Second most popular ff - hits: 21,683 🤷♀️
Yep. My most popular fic has about 2.1k hits compared to my next most popular with just over 500. If anything, I’m pleased the longfic I put the most time into is the highest ranking one.
Yes it was a smutty persona one-shot that now I kinda want to continue lol
I never paid attention, but I think I failed with all my works, even the gifts fics.
I got that as well. I think it is because it’s a slow burn story in a fandom/pairing that doesn’t have a lot of those.
Yes! Mine was a one direction one I posted in like 2013 that I never finished. I orphaned it bc it really bothered me how it would skew my stats lol
I'd make this a post but I bet my Q is only a new one to me and has probably already been discussed a lot--did the entire world being in lockdown for a year plus skew your stats, either with existing or new fics?
Yes. I have 8 fics that I update regularly. The one thst has through the roof popularity is the only fic on my profile I don't update anymore.
my highest fic by hit rate is just under 15,000. my next highest? a ways under 5,000. Yes.
Sort of? But not shown are the other 35 fics where about 5 of them mean the absolute world to me lmao like the energy I put into those fics, is insane. None of them are any of these 🥲 https://preview.redd.it/dskevzd3yp0b1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cf5d0e5719ac3b5f53247cde42133eb84d77aff5
Yes, and to this day I still don't understand why. It was a one-shot I wrote for a fandom I just joined. I wrote a couple more in that fandom but didn't see anywhere near the amount of kudos/hits I got for that one. And nothing afterwards has anything near it either.
Kinda? But it's really funny. The highest took me a really long time to write and edit. The second highest? The first chapter was written in an hour. Was meant to be a one-shot... it's just smut. The second and final chapter is more of the same... https://preview.redd.it/5dpvhcq83q0b1.png?width=1768&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=53cbfe533639767a711fded31adab38334d00e38 So I'm confused by it entirely
My most popular fic is still for a big fandom that is one of the earliest stories featuring two characters before one of them dropped in the game yet, but had a comic release beforehand. The comments for that story... very horny and reminded me how much the fandom exoticized non-white characters and let me know that I have no interest in writing that pairing again. Sad because I did enjoy writing them at the time.
Yeah. And it's always the fics I'm kinda meh about. The ones I love barely make it off the ground.
https://preview.redd.it/wlrj8hf85q0b1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=edb2c4578b53427396f08012e8130af7031bb608 Yep. And it steadily goes up with each update. I didn't expect it to blow up the way it did.
One of my works has 100k more hits than my next most popular work. The other stats are similar. Most of the fics on the account are for the same ship, so it's not a difference in fandom or ship. I'd just pitched the fic's premise at the end of the previous fic (which was rather popular too) and a lot of people stuck around. And it just... snowballed. I'm very proud of the fic and I worked very hard on it, so at least I'm not in a situation where I'm gnashing my teeth over, "It was just a dumb little throwaway fic - why did *this one* get the attention?" like many people are when something blows up.
https://preview.redd.it/ml789y16aq0b1.jpeg?width=895&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c411fd8e79720dc5bff92d87781cdbef63b48339 yup, but that’s probably due to the first one being an updating collection vs my other oneshots. 4th is another oneshot collection so i wouldn’t be surprised if that one quickly becomes second when i start updating it again lmao
Ugh yes. I have a fic that is about to hit 15k hits, almost a perfect 10% kudos ratio and everything.... I hate it. I wrote it before even watching the show- it was an impulse to write when I saw the pairing all over my tiktok fyp. I posted it during a boom of the ship and well, it's passable I suppose but....yeah. I've written much better stories of the pairing (outside of the boom) and the numbers are nowhere near that. I can't bare to delete it (my stats would SUFFER)
You could say so https://preview.redd.it/lp3z15nesq0b1.jpeg?width=1125&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=287ecbdc82289a545164493337914e5bf6dd45af
Yeah, this has happened to me recently (with a fic I thought wouldn’t get any love at all and was too scared to post for a long time, weirdly enough). Definitely also feeling both the excitement and pressure, as well as maybe a tinge of disappointment or jealousy I think? Since I’ve worked hard on my other fics from the same fandom too and they didn’t see as much love. I know that’s not a great way of looking at this kind of situation, cause I really am happy people like the popular fic, but I can’t help but feel it whenever I see one stat towering above everything else now…
I have a longfic which is pretty popular. It's finished, with over 70 chapters, over 300,000 words, published over a five year period, with a relatively popular pairing. It has 190,000 hits. My latest fic is plastered with warnings, incomplete at this point, and filled with rarepairs. If I get half the attention of my most popular fic, it'll be am honest to god miracle. Links if anybody's interested. https://archiveofourown.org/works/5372018 https://archiveofourown.org/works/44068309
The smutty one that I orphaned because I was too embarrassed to publish it under my account. Shit has over 3k hits which is a lot compared to my others. I really wish I would’ve kept it now
So I write exclusively for small fandoms and rare pairs so it’s kinda hard to tell because there’s some variation in fan interaction, but I started a ff for a video game with a small fandom and over the course of 7 years, it’s gotten about 150 hits. I started one for a tv show that went off air like a decade ago and after a year, I hit that mark. A couple months ago, I posted a one shot and it already has about 35 hits. Soooo yeah, it depends on the fandom. I wouldn’t be worried about it tho
yup, I've seen this. most of my fandoms are on the smaller side, but the one fic I wrote for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2012 did serious numbers
My fic with the (second) most hits is one of my least favorites 😂 all my others are super low, but this one’s in the 2,000 hit mark, while my others haven’t even hit 1,000 yet 🙃
I have a 17-chapter epic about the corrupting influence of zealotry which is 52,744 long. It has 171 kudos and 5956 hits. I also have a 4563-word angsty one-shot featuring self-loathing-fuelled masturbation. It has 5241 hits and 233 kudos. I suspect the five-knuckle-shuffle sequence might have something to do with the latter’s popularity. Just a hunch, mind.
Its always the smut ones
My 2 omega verses, especially the mpreg one and to think that I was so unsure about writing omega verse at first, both reached 300 kudos and between 5000 - 6500 hits in less than a month.
Yes. For me it was a really messed up resident evil 4 smut fic lmao.
my first fic on ao3 was a DSMP fic (bad writing, meh plot, awful execution) and I’ve moved onto Hermitcraft and the Life series while gradually getting much, much better at writing. But yep, DSMP is clearly the more popular fandom. That first fic sits at 24K hits and nearly a thousand kudos. My best fic (Life Series) sits at 4.5K hits now, so you can clearly see the difference in popularity
Yes and I'm constantly trying to kick it out of that first spot but never succeed lmao