Come and wail about AO3 with me

[birdsofshore]

I noticed today that my Smoochfic, Hungry, has been read 5000 times on AO3. 5000 times! Who are all these people? It feels very strange to know that people are reading my fic, which is quite a personal and even, in a way, private thing to me, and I have no freaking clue who they are, or if they liked it, or anything.

I never even wanted to be on AO3! I am such a Luddite, I was going to stay on LJ forever and ever, where it is safe and warm and cosy and I know (kind of) everybody. I blame those wicked hd_smoochfest and hd_erised mods! *shakes fist and blows kisses simultaneously* But now I am on there, I want to understand it.

Some random questions:

Why do we put our fics on AO3 (if we do)? To get more reads / comments? I can't imagine anything else I post to AO3 would get this number of reads; I presume it's because it was in the Smoochfest, which is an adored, popular fest. But for all those thousands of reads, I got erm, I think 8 comments on AO3, and 5 of those were from people I know on LJ anyway, who probably would have read it if I'd just posted it to LJ only. I don't know. *shrugs* I suppose I don't really care how many thousand people have read it, if I don't know whether they liked it?

Bookmarks. What's that all about? If someone bookmarks your fic, does it mean they are halfway through and want to come back later? Or that they liked it a lot and are marking it as a favourite, to read again?

Finally, how do you stop feeling paranoid that only a few people commented because they all hated it? Hungry had Angry!Ron and Mean!Gryffindors in, and I get the feeling that was not so popular with everyone. Maybe 5000 people CLICKED on it, and 4952 of them then BACKBUTTONED because they loathed it?

You see, AO3 is really not good for me. It looks all shiny and tempting, with its stats and all those readers waiting with open hands, but it's perplexing and makes my brain hurt.

Anyway, those 5000 clicks can be two fingers up to Mr Birds who thinks there are only about 20 of us deviant Drarry-lovers in the whole wide world. He thinks the handful of people I talk to on LJ are the only ones who could possibly be weird enough to be into it, and that we have all found one another and are clinging together like this purely by luck :DDD.

The other thing that cheers me up is thinking that maybe Draco was one of the 5000 clickers. If so, I like to think that this would be his reaction:



by Microbluefish on Deviantart

Comments

[amorette.livejournal.com]

See, I don't think it's pretty! That's one of the things people say about it that I never understood. I think it's ugly, to be frank lol. I hate the way it looks soo much! It doesn't feel clean to me, but messy. And why are the lists in your "masterlist" listed in these big blocky formats with all those icons representing the rating and explicit content? I don't want to have to memorize those icons, they don't even look like what they mean.

Sorry, I just had to butt in :P I clearly have ~feelings~

[fantasyfiend09.livejournal.com]

Embrace the feelings! :D

I personally find it easy to read (no weird fonts or garish colours), but it's more like a book than a website (which means it's not so much pretty as simple).

[mab.livejournal.com]

you can change the skin on Ao3 so it doesn't look like that Mari. The one I use is called "plain text" and I find it quite easy to look at. Go to your preferences and change site skin.

[amorette.livejournal.com]

Oh, cool. I will definitely try it!

[birdsofshore]

You are always unique with the way you see things. It's part of what makes me love you! :DD