Meta Monday - "Fics that didn't do as well as I expected"

Last week I talked about the fics that did better than expected, so here's the opposite! I think I've talked about these ones a little more before, so some of this will be familiar if you've been following me a while!

Give a man a mask

Honestly this is probably the fic that spawned this conversation at all - because it did significantly worse than I'd ever expected. Case in point, as of writing this, it has just over 1k kudos - I know that sounds like a lot to most people, and I'm of course eternally grateful to those thousand people who read and liked my work, but compared to a lot of my other fics? That number is really low.

This fic was one I really loved the idea behind, and had a blast writing, but it just didn't resonate with anyone. I tried changing the summary a few times to see if that was putting people off, I advertised it on social media etc, I posted quotes, I talked about how much I liked it, but nope, nothing!

A couple of months later I posted 8 Simple Rules, which is slightly shorter, same rating, but a little more kinky in the tags, and that has 8x as many kudos. Some of the short fics (which usually get a lot less, in my experience) from around the same time have double.

So apparently, despite this being one of my favourites, other people just didn't like it!

(For anyone who hasn't seen it/read it before, and is curious, here's my brief explanation with some minor spoilers:

Deku has an accident on the job which gets him hurt and has the media etc talking about how badly he screwed up, so he decides to retire from being a hero, and moves in with Katsuki, because Katsuki is worried about him and wants to help take care of him. However, he quickly learns that he can't sit still when attacks are happening etc, so he creates a brand-new hero persona to allow him to go out and work vigilante-style, under the radar, without the pressure and recognition of being 'Deku' on his shoulders.)

Leave a Light On

I understand this one a little bit, in some ways - mainly the fact that it's a lot more sad/angsty than most of my fics are, so it's not my usual audience. However, so many people seemed to want stuff that was a bit darker or more heart-breaking, so I expected this one to get a few more views than it did! Especially with the vigilante Izuku aspect, because I see so many posts about how much people love that, and yet two of the three fics on this list are my vigilante ones! That'll teach me for trying to give people what they want, haha.

I spent a long time writing this one, trying to get it exactly how I wanted. Beta readers kept saying they wanted it to be longer, so I did that, but now I wonder if it would have done better if I'd kept it a one-shot instead of a set of shortish chapters.

At any rate, it has 400 kudos, which is maybe my lowest BNHA fic ever, so I think it's fair to say people didn't like it!

(I might re-read this as my bedtime reading tonight, it's been a while - at least I can enjoy my own work!)

A Calming Effect

This is a little more niche than the others, but it was one of my Ace Week/Pride Month fics, and in previous years, these had always been pretty well-liked. I got a lot of sweet comments from other Ace people who were excited to see more rep in the fandom, or who told me they really related to the story/experiences. And maybe it's just because it was shorter, or more recent (the fandom isn't as big as it used to be), or because it was fluffier and less hard-hitting than moments in my older Ace fics, but this one just never really garnered any attention. Personally I think it's super cute, though, and I'm gonna try to hype it up again next Pride month, so wish me luck I guess?

Don't forget to let me know if you have any ideas for future Meta posts or Blogs, and I hope you're enjoying the content!