Dysfuncentine Statistics

[swissmarg]

dysfuncentine has completed posting and put up their master list. You can find some statistics under the cut.

Fest community: dysfuncentine 
Fest type: Anonymous prompting fest
Premise: Dysfunctional relationships
Ratings restrictions: All ratings allowed
Length restrictions: None given
Creation period: 3 and a half weeks (from opening of claiming to due date for submissions)

There were 23 fics written for this fest, by 20 participants. lash_larue wrote 3 fics and one poem.

By rating:

G - 1
PG - 3
PG-13 - 7
R - 5
NC-17 - 7

 By word count:
The shortest fic (a poem) was 130 words long. The shortest prose piece was 600 words long. The longest fic was 18,000 words long.

<500 - 1
500-1K - 4
1-2K - 4
2-3K - 6
3-4K - 2
4-5K - 1
5-6K - 2
6-7K - 0
7-8K - 2
8K+ - 1

Total words written: 79,962
Mean (average fic length): 3,477 words
Median (half the fics shorter, half the fics longer): 2,550 words
Mode (most frequent fic length): 2-3K
 

Most popular characters:
(By number of mentions in a header)

Minerva - 4
Draco, Severus - 3 each
Cho, Hermione, Lavender, Neville, Rita - 2 each

There was only one pairing which was featured more than once: Minerva/Severus (two fics)

By alignment:
(Some fics had more than one pairing)

Het - 17
Femmeslash - 7
Slash - 2

Some thoughts: Another short notice, short creation time fest with a great turnout. Like with the severus_sighs Anti-Valentine's Day Mini-Fest, the idea of a non-fluffy, angsty, turn-Valentine's-Day-on-its-head fest must appeal to a lot of people. ;-)

The ratings covered the entire range, with all ratings well represented except for G, which only had one fic. There was a slight tendency to high-rated fics, with just over half (52%) of the fics rated R or higher.

The word counts were really astounding, given the short creation period. A quick comparison with the above-named Anti-Valentine's Day fest, which had a similar timeline, shows that the word counts for Dysfuncentine were higher in all categories (total, mean, median, mode, longest and shortest fic). Even discounting the one 18,000 word fic (did the author even sleep?!) this fest had longer entries.

The range of characters and pairings was likewise broad (and rare), with usual favorites like Harry, Sirius, and Luna completely absent, although the presence of Draco, Severus, and Hermione in the top 8 was no surprise. Perennial favorite fandom ships such as Harry/Draco, Harry/Ginny, and Harry/Severus were likewise missing; in fact, I would say there was only one popular pairing that showed up, namely Draco/Hermione.

Maybe rare pairs are more dysfunctional than the usual fare? Or perhaps people didn't want to portray their favorite ships or characters in a dysfunctional light.

Finally, for some reason the slashers seem to have skipped this fest, judging by the fact that there were only 2 slash pairings, and one of them had to share top billing in its fic with two het pairings. The femmeslashers, on the other hand, had a good run with 7 fics. Het was by far the favorite though, with 65% of the pairings.

Comments

[ncp.livejournal.com]

Even discounting the one 18,000 word fic (did the author even sleep?!) this fest had longer entries.

No, but the author's 3-year-old is now completely addicted to PBS Kids. There's a reason most fic writers are childless.

[featherxquill.livejournal.com]

This is so cool! Thanks so much for doing it!

I think the absence of slashers (along with the higher numbers of femslash, and the popularity of Minerva McGonagall) probably has something to do with the first year out, pulled together quickly and likely pimped by friends of the Mod to their like-minded friends bit. It did get pimped on potterfests and in the newsletters, but I suppose friends of friends are always a bigger draw card. If there's interest again next year, I'll be intrigued to see if and how the demographic changes.

[swissmarg]

Haha, was that you? ;) I have 2 kids myself, I feel ya. But seriously, 18,000 words in less than a month is awesome, with or without kids.

[swissmarg]

I hope I'm still around doing stats next year to compare! But I agree that with small(er) fests the crony factor does play into it.

[megacurious.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the stats! I'm still pretty new to fandom, and this was a fun fest to take part in. Maybe because it was so small...but I agree with Featherxquill, since it was small and quickly put together I think it changed the demographics a bit. Personally, I loved it. It helped me write (and read) a bigger variety of characters and pairings than I normally turn to. Just like your journal turned me on to HP Diversity, which should also keep me intrigued with some lesser known characters and stories.

[swissmarg]

Rare pairs seems to be the current trend in HP fandom. I'm glad I could point you in the direction of a comm you like. Nice to have a new reader (and writer!).