#like yes not everyone is gonna like being second kudosed over and over

[honestlyvan]

I really should remember to add this to the body of the post, but Rekudo has counterspam built into it XD you can only rekudos a fic once a day -- if you’re rereading a fic MORE than once a day then at that point you really should be looking into leaving comments instead. May I recommend the sister toolset for that?

[image: a banner for AO3 ReKudos Converter. between the Kudos button and the Comments button is an Uno Reverse type symbol; an arrow leads from the “You have already left kudos here :)” banner to a comment by “You” reading “This is an extra kudos, since I’ve already left one. :)”]

I made a userscript that will automatically turn a pointless click of the kudos button into a customisable automatic comment on the fic!

>> Get the script here <<

The script was made to work with Tampermonkey, so you may need to change the formatting to work with other JS userscript managers.

You can install Tampermokey for Firefox from here.

[EDIT 12/11/2022] The extension version of Rekudo is still live for those of you need it, but I remind everyone that it’s not the supported version of the script and is thus lacking features. The comment assist functions are fully functional, but it lacks the prompt list that the userscript version of Comment Assist has – you will just get a random prompt that says “random prompt” on mode 2 because it will not load the file with the correct prompts. Modes 1 and 3 work just fine.

Actually, Comment Assist is ready to go and fully functional also! I’ll try to make a separate post about it – the plan was always to have Rekudo provide comment prompts for those who wanted to do more than just say “second kudos!” but didn’t know where to begin, but I lost steam on this project due to a negative reaction I got from people wanting more thoughtful comments. Oh well, perfect is the enemy of the good.

[starflake-burning]

I saw @antimony-medusa doing ao3 stats, and since I have not made very many og posts on this blog after making a new multifandom blog, I'm using this as a opportunity to update everyone here on what I posted this year to ao3 :)

I'm going to be blatantly ripping off Medusa's format for this.

Overall stats for 2023

--User Subscriptions: 119

--Kudos: 5,606

--Comment Threads: 306

--Bookmarks: 1,618

--Subscriptions: 846

--Word Count: 174,435

--Hits: 64,821

Everything is almost the same, except for a decrease in kudos. That makes perfect sense since I wrote a couple of rarepairs in fandoms that are less hyped about multishipping.

My user subscriptions have basically stayed the same since I started posting, likely because I organize fics down into different series so that people can sub to those instead.

Fun Stats:

Total number of fics published: 40

This was my most prolific year of fic writing! For reference, my total number of fics posted EVER is 53. I wrote a lot of short fics as treats for two different extreme timed challenge exchanges. I also got into several new fandoms this year.

Number of One-shots: 24

There's the exchange fics coming in clutch! And also the bushel of smutshots (oneshots that are pwp) that I wrote for new fandoms I got into and got very excited about writing smut for.

Number of Multichapters (Including WIPs): 14

Some oneshots become twoshots. Some multichapters had planned chapter counts and many did not.

Number of WIPs (aka unfinished works): 4

Of these, one is the most recent fic I have posted, which is being actively written and updated. One is being co-written with someone else. And the others are one hiatus.

Number of Inspired Works: 1

My total number of inspired works ever is 2. Fortunately or unfortunately, I have plenty of ideas to work with on my own.

Longest Fic: Stealing Candelabras (10,797).

Most of my works this year were under 10k, and a lot of them were even under 1k. I started the year short and ended it long. And I anticipate writing much more longfic this year. This one was long because I love vampires and making up vampire lore.

Shortest Fic: shifting eyes and vacancy, vanished when i saw your face (476). A very cute prompt that I had to fill. Title courtesy of my partner's suggestion, since they love the song so much :)

Most Kudosed fic: On the Twelfth Day of Christmas My Twin Sons Gave to Me: The Child Spy of My Enemy (586).

:/ Ah yes the last vesitges of my Dark SBI era. Not my favorite thing I've written, but it has it's audience.

The second most kudosed is The Care and Keeping of Your Vash (406). I love you trigun fandom <3

Most Viewed Fic: Same as most kudosed! But those stats do build up over time so I'm gonna highlight my fifth most view fic that was only posted a couple months ago as opposed to almost a year ago: When I'm On the Throne it's a Total Freak Zone (3,366). My second foray into exploring a character being a soft dom.

Most Subscribed Fic: Same as the most kudosed and most viewed. To be fair it had the format of the twelve day countdown to Christmas, so it hooked people into sticking around.

Most Bookmarked Fic: Same one again. My second most bookmarked was Shot Through the Heart, and You're to Blame (110). Arguably my best trigun fic, I love writing monsterfucker porn, especially as part of a larger canon divergent au. Double points for also getting to write a trans headcanon.

Most Used Fandom: Dream SMP, at 13. But if you combine all the fics for books by the same author (MXTX), it comes out to 12, which is pretty close!

Least Used Fandom: There's a couple I've only written one work for so...

1. Big Dragon the Series. This is a tiny fandom for a BL drama that I am co-writing a fic for. If you go searching for this show MIND THE WARNINGS. It is very intense from episode one so proceed with caution.

2. SMP Earth. I wish I got into this fandom when it was more popular, Now I don't know where to find the stream archives to get into the lore :(

3. Supernatural. I came back to this fandom this year only to post a trans character study of Dean and then leave it again lol.

Most Used Rating: E, 15 fics.

Like I said, I wrote a lot of smutshots lol. Second place is Teen, at 11 fics.

Least Used Rating: Mature, 0. Alternatively, Gen, at 9.

None of my fics are rated Mature this year because I discovered the wonders of smut and I can no longer do things by halves.

Most Written Relationship: Still SBI, but Quackbur is a close second.

Most Used Additional tag: I can't be bothered to look through all of this year's fics right now, but for the E rated ones I'm 90% sure it's Biting. As I've been quoted saying "biting is sexy!"

Most Frequently Used Characters: Again, SBI wins out. Though I think of all of them I have more fics with Techno than the others. (Again, too lazy to look through 40 fics right now lol).

Hopefully this was fun for someone else, because it certainly was illuminating for me. I'm much more active on my @cosmic-starfall blog nowadays but I'm still doing mcyt stuff occasionally here as well :)

[ed-edward-blackbeard]

Fanfic Author Meme.  Keep Reading after question 2 for 3-50.

1. What was your first fic and could you stand to reread it today?

Jesus Lord, no.  I’d die of secondhand embarrassment before I got halfway through it.  It was never published online, thank Christ.  It was called … ugh, I don’t remember what I called it, but it was a line from Edmund Spenser.  (Don’t judge.)  It was an OC female character and Autolycus, from Hercules and Xena, played by Bruce Campbell.  It was… a SHAMBLES.  Self-insert, wish-fulfillment of the worst kind.  But, my friend Alicia read it at the time and she told me how great she thought it was, and I should keep at it.  So, thank you, Edmund-Spenser-titled-fic.

2. What’s your most recent fic and how far do you think you’ve come?

It’s called “i commit sins every day but i never give my soul away”, and it’s on my AO3 at https://archiveofourown.org/works/22951009.  And I actually don’t have a unit of measurement for how much I’ve improved.  But it’s also been… God, I’m 43 today,  so it’s been 27 years I’ve been writing.  Almost thirty years.  Shit, I’m old.

3. In your opinion, what’s your best fic?

Oh, man.  Tricky question.  If by best you mean technically written, most enjoyable?  I’d say maybe wasting the dawn.  Definitely By Inches We Fall.  But to be totally honest with you?  I think my best fic, the one that got me, personally by the throat, shook me, and hasn’t let me go?  Shoah.  It’s one of my earlier fics, from the Sentinel fandom, but man.  Writing this was rough.  I did my research on concentration camps, and I couldn’t sleep right for weeks.  Lisa and Patt were holding my hands over AIM practically every night when I was sobbing that I couldn’t finish it, that I couldn’t do it, that it was too much.  (I’d have been about fucking seventeen, maybe nineteen, when I was writing it.)  I bit off way more than I was prepared for, but I didn’t quit.  And I’m proud, quite frankly, that I even finished the damn thing, but even this far removed from it, I still feel that gut-punch when I go back re-read it, which is why I don’t.  And haven’t for a couple of years.  

4. In your opinion and without looking at any numbers, what’s your most popular fic?

It’d probably be Consortio.

5. Is there any fic that makes you super happy to reread and remember you wrote that?

I actually feel that way about 99% of my stuff.  Even some of the older stuff, I re-read it and I get really happy because not only do I see myself changing and maturing, I realize I was harder on myself than I should have been.  I didn’t suck like I thought, and I get the warm fuzzies.

6. Is there any fic that makes you super embarrassed to reread and remember you wrote that?

Er, not really?  I mean, there’s some cringey shit I wrote when I was like, twelve, but not even I know where those notebooks got off to.

7. What’s the fic you most want to continue (unfinished or no)?

By Inches We Fall.  It’s my only Game of Thrones fic, and I feel like I really want to continue the story of Jamie and Brienne and their kids, and of Jaime being Hand to King Jon and Queen Sansa.

8. What’s the oldest (longest since last update) fic you most want to continue (unfinished or no)?

How Firm A Foundation.  It’s a Deadwood fic, and I (many years ago, when Deadwood was actually on the air) actually sketched out how every chapter would go.  There’s a few things I’d change today, if I started it again, just because I can plot better than I could ten years ago, but I think the thread of the story is gone forever.

9. Have you ever written for a fandom without watching/reading/playing the source material?

Yami No Matsuei.  A friend of mine was actually heavily into YnM, and I wrote several stories for her.  Later I’ve watched some of it, and I realize I did okay on my characterizations, but there’s always things I could have done better.

10. Have you ever written for a fandom without reading other fanfic for it?

Pretty much every fandom I have ever been in.  I don’t read a lot of fanfic, because I’m afraid (almost paranoid, in fact) that I’ll internalize something I’ve read and later spout it out in my fic, and I don’t ever want to copy anyone, deliberately or otherwise.

11. Have you ever written a fic for a concept you know someone else has done before? How did it impact your writing process or feelings after posting?

I have, and I didn’t publish it for the reason above; I didn’t feel like my take on it was original enough to bother.

12. Have you ever written a fic and decided never to publish it? Why?

Lots of reasons, actually.  Sometimes I write with the intention of not publishing, it’s something just for me.  I’ve also written a few fics that I ended up absolutely hating, and they’ve never seen the light of day.  I’ve also done some that I felt wasn’t original enough, or they were written about the trope du jour, and I had nothing else to offer that ten other people hadn’t already done.

13. What’s the biggest change between your style when you started in fandom and today?

Sentence style and structure.  I used to do the whole, “He said.”  “In reply, she said.”  “The sky was blue when he rode in.”  And then a few of my better friends (and betas) took me in hand and showed me how to mix it up, chop my comma addiction in half (seriously, I once had a single sentence run on for twelve lines.) and I feel like I get a better grip on characterization.

14. What’s the biggest change in your taste between when you started in fandom and today?

Sex.  I used to write it in everything.  And then the more I wrote, and the older I got, the less I wanted to write it (or read it, or talk about it.)  So I’m a lot more comfortable writing non-sex stories than I used to be.

15. Have you ever purposefully written one fandom/fic idea over another because you knew it’d be more popular?

Of course.  I think everyone has, at one point or another.

16. Have you ever stopped writing a fic/for a fandom because it wasn’t receiving enough attention?

Anything I’ve ever abandoned was lack of my own attention, not anything else.  I’m kinda used to not getting a lot of attention.

17. In your opinion, what’s your most overrated fic?

What He Wants.  It’s pretentious wankfic, for a pairing I don’t actually like all that much (Lucius/Harry), and I just feel like everyone loves it way more than it deserves.

18. What’s your most underrated fic?

I’m gonna pick on Shoah again, because I feel like it just doesn’t get enough love.  I’m biased, because of how emotionally attached I am to the fic, but I feel like it’s ignored.

19. If you had to pick one fic/scene/chapter of your work to describe your entire portfolio to a stranger, which would you pick?

Wasting The Dawn.  It’s a Magicians fic, and it showcases every character from the show, and I think I did a passable job of hitting every voice.  So I’d be proud to show that one around.

20. Have/Would you ever rewrite a fic? If yes, would you take the original down?

Would I rewrite it?  Sure.  Would I take down the original?  Um, that’s a little more difficult.  On the one hand, I’m not really ashamed, as such, of anything that I did.  But having two copies of things would get really complicated and onerous.  I might actually start a second pseud, like maybe kelex-originals or something like that, and move the originals over to that, and leave the rewrites on my main, with a link to the original in the notes.  Yeah, that’s probably what I’d do.

21. If someone starts kudosing and commenting your fics in a spree and has a few works of their own, would you go look through theirs?

HELL YES.  Mostly because I’m always looking for shinies to read in fandoms I don’t write for.  I also kind of like to read their stuff and get a feel for who they are and why they like what I’ve got.  But mostly, I just love it and it makes me giggle watching someone go through my fics and like EEEE THERE YOU ARE AGAIN.

22. Has there ever been anyone who’s made you freak out because they read your work and followed/favorited/reviewed?

Fucking scads of people, actually.

23. What’s the nicest review you’ve ever gotten?

Oh man, I’ve got a fuckton of good ones.  But the one that I always get a kick out of is on one of my Gotham fics, and the comment was along the lines of, the tag mentioned bed-sharing and they thought that was all it was going to be, but it was so much more and they got caught up in it and it was wonderful.  And that’s my favorite (if not the nicest) because I love the fact that I was able to give someone something they enjoyed, even more because it was unexpected!

24. What’s the meanest review you’ve ever gotten? Do you think the reviewer intended it?

It was a review back in the days of OneList, and I was told that my pencils should be broken and my keyboard taken away because I was a terrible writer.  And yes, I know they meant it.

25. What constructive criticism, however well-meaning, always makes you feel bad when you see it in a review?

It’s less a concrit and more a crit.  But it’s always, “why did you do X?  It was out of character!” and that makes me grit my teeth.  Mostly because I feel like I’ve always explained, thoroughly, why I’ve done something (whether in dialog, in the writing itself, or heavily implied in monologues), and that question always makes me want to throttle someone because either they didn’t get it, or I didn’t.  

26. What aspect of your writing do you most enjoy to see praised?

Humor.  I’m a sarcastic bitch, and when it’s appropriate (and sometimes when it isn’t), I have funny characters or have characters deadpan things.  And it delights the fuck out of me when someone highlights that as one of their favorite parts.

27. If you could only ever write crossovers or single-fandom fics ever again, which would you pick?

Single fandom fics.  I’m not a fan of crossovers, though I’ve written them from time to time, and probably will again if I think it’s appropriate.  I just prefer not to cross the streams, as it were.

28. if you could only ever write for a single crossover or a single fandom again, which would you pick?

Good Omens.  Hands down.  So. Many. AUs.  So many ideas.  So many delightful characters.

29. Does the division of your writing across fandoms line up with your reading? What’s the biggest discrepancy?

It does not.  I read far, far less than I actually write.

30. Do you continue to write for a fandom after you’ve moved on or do you focus solely on the new one?

I usually focus on the new one, however, I’ve occasionally re-visited a fandom after I’ve left it, because inspiration hits me, or I’ve gotten back into it.

31. Who’s the one character you’ve just never managed to get perfectly right?

Margo Hanson, from the Magicians.

32. Who’s the one character who shines without you even trying?

There’s a few.  Eliot Waugh, Lex Luthor, Jack O’Neill, the Doctor (9 & 10 mostly)

33. Is there any particular character whose scenes always wind up being longer/more frequent than you expected? Does the quality hold up?

Not really?  Characters and scenes are as long as they need to be.  I do think the quality holds up, though, because honestly, by the time they’re done, I’m done.

34. Was there any fic that you wrote that really surprised you in the fandom reaction? Was it just by the numbers or did they take it an entirely different way?

Not really, or if there was, I don’t remember it.

35. Have you ever written a ship into a fic without meaning to?

Yup.  It snuck in there, especially in the background early on, and by the end I was like, what the fuck, I don’t even ship you, YOU DON’T EVEN GO HERE.

36. Have you ever sincerely written a ship you do not support into a fic?

Nope.  If I don’t like a ship, I don’t write it.

37. Have you ever purposefully bashed a character/ship in a fic?

No.  Not as a writer.  But like, I have written a character saying “I don’t think X belongs with Y, they belong with me!” because that’s pretty much how the actual relationship went down.  (Spike, Buffy, Riley most specifically.)

38. Have you ever purposefully written something you know your readers would find uncomfortable/would not enjoy? If yes, why?

Very, very, very many years ago.  I wrote it just to see if I could.  I could, I did, and I haven’t written it again.

39. Do you consider yourself to have a readership?

No.

40. Do you feel like you put out enough content?

I feel like I put out what I need to.  Is it enough?  idk.

41. If you cross-post your fics on multiple sites, do you have a favorite? Are there certain fics you would only post on certain site?

AO3 is, hands down, my favorite.  For awhile, I was posting to WWOMB (Wonderful World of Make-Believe) but I’ve stopped there, sadly.

42. How many views has your most popular fic gotten?

Consortio is my most popular fic, and it’s gotten 21,658 hits.  Although the fic is multi-chapter, so I don’t know how to break that down into individual hits. In fact, four of my five most popular are multi-chapters.  The only single-chapter fic is What He Wants, clocking in at 6,743. 

43. Your least popular?

The Rose and the Yew Tree, with 0 hits.

44. Do you follow/favorite/kudos/comment/review more stories than you have received?

Unfortunately, no.

45. If you had to call yourself an author of a single genre (besides fanfic) what label would you give yourself?

Pornography.

46. Do you consider yourself a diverse author?

Diverse as in fandoms?  Yes.  Diverse as in style?  Not so much.

47. If someone you know in real life who isn’t involved in fandoms asked to read your work, would you let them? If yes, what would you recommend they read first?

I’ve done that before, and I’ve tailored it to the person and what I know they like.  For example, my old boss got me hooked on La Femme Nikita (the Peta Wilson one), and so when she wanted to read my writing, I gave her my LFN fics to read.

48. Does anyone you know from outside of fandom know you write fanfic? Are they involved in the same fandom too?

Yes, and some of them.

49. Has anyone in your life ever read your fanfic just because you wrote it?

Yes.

50. Has writing fanfic had a significant impact on your life? Would you say it’s entirely positive?

It has had a very significant impact, and no, it hasn’t been at all positive.  Some of my best moments, as well as my worst, are because of fanfic and fandom, but fanfic in particular.  Fic’s brought me close to people, fic’s pushed me away from people, and it’s made people change the way they look at me.