I think getting "correct" numbers with Tolkien fic is particularly difficult - and likely with any fandom which has similar fandom tags. For one, a lot of people who migrated their older fic aren't aware that there are other fandom tags and migth tag only for Lord of the Rings - I've seen a big number of fics which are clearly pre-LotR but still tagged as that. Then there are the archived small archives who have been migrated to the AO3, which also tend to be tagged only with Lord of the Rings. And then there's the question of what is really Silm fic and what not - I've had a complaint once that what I'm writing shouldn't be tagged as such since it's not about things directly happening in the book. I'm mainly writing about the late Second and early Third age in Rivendell, with bits of Lindon, Lothlórien and Rhovanion thrown in, and back when I started the tag "Tolkien and related fandoms" didn't exist. I also want to be found by people who're searching for Silm fic, too, and tags are essentially there for people to search for/find things, after all... it's complicated. XD But for the purpose of this meme it's fun to check out the numbers. A note also on the numbers of works: you've seen in my take on the meme that there are only very little works for Earth's Children. On AO3 there are some really short ones, but others which are beyond epic - the one I'm currently reading has three parts, part one is finished on the AO3 with over 500k words, part 2 is being posted but finished at a fandom-specific forum and not shorter, and part three is in the process of being written. Other fandoms, though, tend to have mostly very short fanworks but a high number of them. And then there are numbskulls like the "author" of one fanfic I've once come across, who stated their only intent about that fanwork was to reach the 1 million word count to be counted among those fics, and they had countless chapters wiht one or two paragraphs each of absolute nonsense, no story whatsoever, just some generic blather about the weather and their slippers or so. LOL
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A note also on the numbers of works: you've seen in my take on the meme that there are only very little works for Earth's Children. On AO3 there are some really short ones, but others which are beyond epic - the one I'm currently reading has three parts, part one is finished on the AO3 with over 500k words, part 2 is being posted but finished at a fandom-specific forum and not shorter, and part three is in the process of being written. Other fandoms, though, tend to have mostly very short fanworks but a high number of them. And then there are numbskulls like the "author" of one fanfic I've once come across, who stated their only intent about that fanwork was to reach the 1 million word count to be counted among those fics, and they had countless chapters wiht one or two paragraphs each of absolute nonsense, no story whatsoever, just some generic blather about the weather and their slippers or so. LOL