#3) lotd onward

[n7punk]

OK I WAS THINKING WDTFD TOO IT IS CRIMINALLY UNDERRATED AND ive literally been spending more time than necessary trying to figure out why, because I would argue it is one of your best and one of the most unique out there in general. You can ignore me if you want but I have a Theory (gonna mark myself with this emoji ⚡️ so you know it’s me)

this is... an absolutely fascinating theory XD i have no clue, to be honest, and always just put it down to 1) being a busy time of year (tho thematically appropriate) when maybe people weren't reading a lot of fic then so it never got that established, and 2) me going dark for a month afterwards while i worked on my novel, resulting in less content to bump me up in the ao3 tag (or on people's dashboards) that might make people check what i'd just done, or help them notice they missed a fic right before it (i have people comment on a new fic all the time being like "OH SHIT i missed the last one, time to binge!").

its interesting to get an outside perspective, because for me personally i notice jumps in interaction around a few fics (knifepoint for example) but i never really attributed a spike to BFM. i was really shocked when i recently saw beg for me was ranked 24th in hit count for she-ra fics (its worth noting that both slas and asdlm rank higher than it, but i also remember lots of engagement with both of those - especially asdlm, there was so much fanart). i dont remember a lot about what was going on when i was writing bfm, so i just assumed it... wasnt a lot XD but apparently it left an impression.

(actually, i did just remember i had anon off while writing BFM because i didnt want people getting Too Horny and crossing into creepy, and that probably had a big effect on the interaction i got and my perception of it)

as far as the smut thing... honestly, no clue, although you might be onto something with vampires being generally slutty (and rightfully so) and WDtFD being lore-focused. i feel like im reluctant to say fics without smut dont do as well, but i think that it might be true and i just dont want to acknowledge it XD i do think that, as far as rating goes, T and E do better than M because... if you dont want smut, you go T, and if you want it, you go E, you know? M is this middle ground i enjoy, but people tend not to be on middle ground with smut XD

i have no clue, but it was fun reading theories, and thank you for the enthusiasm for a fic i really love! to be honest i think if i wrote it a year before it might have been smuttier.... but the idea was also a year old and never had anything but that one scene in it, even if that scene was originally a bit more explicit, so idk. i do tend to go in cycles and whatever i did after beg for me needed to be smut-light because writing beg for me took a lot of time/energy XD see lotd following knifepoint, as well

i really loved crafting a lore fic, i had a whole outline where i tracked what had been hinted at and in what ways, what had been revealed so far, what i still needed to foreshadow/explain, etc, because there was so much stuff i wanted to imply and then reveal, and im realllllly happy with the finished product, so thank you for the love! <3

#ask #anon #its funny because i consider beg for me to be the start of like... #my second era? i guess? #actually no third #1) canon-heavy/summer of 2020 #2) slas onward #3) lotd onward #where like the first one was when the fandom was on That High and i was first getting into writing again #slas was when i started being established and i was just cranking stuff out and constantly having a new idea as soon as i finished the last #and then lotd on was when i had to slow down because that rate wasn't sustainable #and started taking gaps to rest/work on other projects #and from there on i kind of thought people started dropping off #(partially probably because it had been a year since the show ended then and Some people dont get hyperfixations lasting years apparently) #so this third era is kind of slower and exploring different angles for stuff that i havent before #and beg for me was included in that because. well #it started with lotd #but apparently the numbers dont prove that out LOL