The details · Readers
Heated Rivalry's fans wrote about it for years before its show.
A book doesn't need mainstream numbers to matter.
- From
- Case study · CS-001 · September 28, 2026
Heated Rivalry fan works: 566 a month before the show, 45,712 on September 28, 2026
Public works on the AO3 Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov tag. Each dot is one reading; the lines only join them.
- June 1, 2022, 71
- December 17, 2023, 223
- October 31, 2025, 566
- September 28, 2026, 45,712
Dashed: eleven months with no reading in between.
Sources (3)
Source: CS1-114 CS1-107 CS1-19
See the numbers
| Date | Works |
|---|---|
| June 1, 2022 | 71 |
| December 17, 2023 | 223 |
| October 31, 2025 | 566 |
| September 28, 2026 | 45,712 |
What I found
Before their shows, The Deal had about a million Goodreads ratings and Heated Rivalry about 42,000. Heated Rivalry's AO3 tag held 71 works in June 2022, 223 in December 2023 and 566 a month before its premiere: "a small, devoted group writing into its margins for years before a show was announced."
So do this
Take a small, devoted readership seriously, even if the charts don't measure it.
Keep in mind
Three books can't show that fan writing predicts an adaptation. All three were picked because they were adapted, and tag renames can add works to a count.
Source: Before the shows; After the showsCS1-107 to CS1-110CS1-114
Read the full case studyLast on Goodreads, first on AO3 for its size: what fan fiction saw in Heated RivalryThree adapted romances, two ways of counting readers, and a theory about books that leave room.Case study · CS-001 · 9 min read · 5 posts come from it