It’s officially halfway through the year (give or take five days), so it’s time to take a look at one of my yearlong projects.
For those who don’t know, I’m tracking every kudo that I get on Archive of Our Own throughout the year of 2022. This is merely being used as a motivation tool, not as a brag. Every time I would open my email and see my daily kudo email, I felt this burst of serotonin.
While this project is ongoing, I wanted to mark the midway point. I’m actually proud to see that I’ve kept up with this every day. It’s been a bit of a ride.
Important To Note
There are several details to note before we dive into the data. The first is that June’s data is not going to be 100% accurate, due to the issues brought up in my previous blog post. The fics came down on June 20th, and reposting started on June 26th and is still ongoing as of this posting. This means that not only is there a gap in the data that wouldn’t normally be there, there is also the possibility of duplicate kudos, as fans of the works are rereading them and kudoing them as each set of fics goes up.
Another thing that needs to be acknowledged is that as of May, I no longer had the semi-guaranteed support of the discord I was formally involved in. In fact, I have reason to believe that being a fan of my works will now get you banned. (Which… considering what I’m seeing in some author notes, I wouldn’t put it past them. Way to overcorrect and miss the damn mark. [Insert Insult Here].) This means that the number of kudos I would have received in May and June was probably slashed in half, maybe more. While I can’t prove this, it’s something that should be noted.
And finally, there is the possibility of human error. One of the biggest issues with this project is that the kudo email doesn’t give a number for each fic. (Example: TITLE (3 kudos), name, name, etc.) Instead, each username is written out, and the number of guests kudos is listed at the end. (Example: Name, name, and 3 guests left kudos on TITLE.) I manually count these daily, usually at the beginning of the morning. It’s very possible for me to miscount, especially on high kudo days. I’m half tempted to go back to January 1 and start again, or even to August 1st, 2021, which is when I wrote my first popular 9-1-1 fic, just to see if there is any counting differences.
Hmmm, an idea for later.
Monthly Totals
Let’s start with the easy. All told, I have been given 7175 kudos as of July 1st. This breaks down to about 1196 kudos per month, which only one month surpassed. If we want to break this down into days (as from January 1 to June 30, there are 181 days), every day would average about 39.5 kudos. This is a bit more common.
While I didn’t actually start this project until March, I used data from January 1st (since I never clean out my email anyways). That month, I received 903 kudos across all of my stories. My biggest day for kudos was January 12th, while my lowest day was January 10th. I published eleven stories (of varying quality) during this time, with those stories earning 237 kudos.
February blew everything out of the park, which make sense as it was a writing challenge month. Throughout the month, I received 2861 kudos. My biggest day was February 6th, while my lowest was February 3rd. I wrote 28 stories during this month, earning whopping 1882 kudos from those stories alone.
March was much slower, as I was in Febuwhump recovery. I received 1001 kudos over the course of the 31 days, with March 6th being my largest day, and March 20th being my lowest. My lone fic, published on March 1st, received 42 kudos for the month.
April had a bit of a decline, do to not posting any fics during the month. I received 839 for the month. My biggest day was April 6th, while my lowest day was April 3rd.
In May, things turned higher a bit. I received 895 kudos throughout the month, thanks to the two fics I published (earning 265 between the two of them). My biggest day was May 30th, while the lowest day was May 12th.
And finally, there’s June. It’s currently my lowest month, due to the circumstances. I received 676 during the month, with a third of those coming during this reposting time. The lone fic I posted (prior to pulling my fics down) received 87 kudos from before and after.
Popular Stories
To absolutely no one’s surprise, my most popular fics in 2020 were mostly written in February. In fact, out of the top ten fics, only three came from outside of February, and two of those were posted in 2021. The other is from May. For ease, I will break down the top five, then list the next five with their kudo totals.
A total of twenty two fics have received over 100 kudos in 2020. Among those, only four have received higher than 200, not taking into account any kudos from 2021. One is just shy of 300, and one is over 400.
(To note, the cut off date for kudos was the June 30th kudo email. These fics have all gained more kudos in the days since. Also, two of these fics were written before 2022, but only kudos from this year counted.)
The highest kudoed fic is Hidden Bruises, with 431 kudos since it was posted in early February. To note, this is almost entirely from before it was pulled down. It was reposted on June 29th and earned 16 kudos before the end of the month.
Runner up is a fic I wrote in May, An Invitation Surprise. As of June 30th, this fic received 297 kudos, of which 21 came from after it was reposted. This was a test fic and a bit of a spite fic, and I’m glad to see how quickly it gained traction.
Third is one that dealt with the aftermath of that controversial scene (and 5×06, but who’s counting). His (Head’s) Own Worst Enemy remains one of my most popular fics at 228 kudos. It will be reposted either today or tomorrow, depending on how far I get.
Fourth is the oldest of the top ten fics, published back in November to pretty much rave reviews. Just from 2022, Back in Class (to Protect Those I Love) has earned 218, with just 7 of those being from after reposting. As an aside, this one is one of my favorites.
And in fifth, we have a funny little 9-1-1 Lonestar fic that I wrote on a whim during Febuwhump. Accident Prone is still gaining kudos at 184, with 8 kudos coming after it was reposted.
The other five fics to round out the top ten are: Fever Guardians (169), Please Don’t Go (167), A Time to Celebrate (163), How Long? (Check the Clock) (154), and Misunderstanding on an Epic Scale (137).
Other Notes
Something that has struck me is that some of my oldest fics have received kudos this year. Several of my Old Guard fics, written primarily in February 2021, have all received a kudo or two this year. What’s more surprising is some of my old Super Robot Monkey Team fics from 2012 have received a kudo, which is most unexpected. And also, a few of my Fusionfall fics have also been poked at. I really need to finish that one fic…
What The Data Tells Me
That I have far too much time on my hands.
Okay, no, seriously. I may be a word human, but I do like numbers once every month or so. Just seeing everything laid out in front of me like this has been very interesting, watching fics raise in popularity, or barely make a peep. The only major detail I’ve noticed is that I received more kudos when I was posting with the support of the discord. Once I walked away, my counts did clearly drop. Also, this controversary and shift in the 9-1-1 community has caused a decent amount of readers to slowly shift away from AO3. (I happened to notice that posting has slowed on AO3, and a lot of the familiar faces aren’t there, or aren’t commenting/kudoing.)
Questions The Data Has Raised
Well, the biggest question I have right now is, “What will happen if I start writing for another fandom?” This is my plan, as I really want to shift away from 9-1-1 fanfic. I’m not sure what fandom I will be heading towards (it all depends on the next several months).
Another question is the effect of pulling my fics down and reposting them. I can confidently say that while I am receiving kudos, it is at a very slow rate compared to where it was in mid-June. I believe this could be because of my presence on the first list, which included a way to block authors from view.
What Now?
In writing this post, I went from debating restarting my data collection to actually deciding to do it. I am planning on starting with January 2022. This will of course be a multi-week project, but one that I’m going to take my time on, due to how long this will take. If I do take my time and get more accurate data, I’ll be able to accurately chart the effect of June 2022 and the two week deletion.
The next update, which will be actually very interesting, will be at the beginning of October, right as Whumptober kicks off (if I take part, which right now I have not made any decisions).
Thank you all for taking a look at this data with me! It’s been a very interesting ride thus far, and I’m curious to see where this goes.
Until next time!
(Take a shot for every use of the word “Receiving”, since I can guarantee I spelled it wrong. Every. Single. Time. Including right here.)
