Poll Results!

Whew! Just got done calculating things, but I have two things to touch on before I reveal the results.

1) Yes, I'm aware that I accidentally opened the votes to $1 patrons for about 2 hours, back when the poll first went up. A surprising number of people slipped votes in during that time. At first, I was going to go ahead and give them the single vote their patronage would get them under the overall system...but honestly the vast majority of them were for Halfway Broken -_-. Which is the story that least needs the help. As a result, I wiped those clean. I have to tally everything by hand anyway, since the Patreon polling system is terrible. So it was easy to just weed them out as I went. Sorry folks that snuck in :-p, but the voting really is supposed to be for the voting tiers.

2) Remember, with the new system in place, Pandora's Box and Eridium Dreams got boosts this month. A forty percent bonus for Pandora's Box, and an eighty percent bonus for Eridium Dreams, based on when they were last updated. A Very Confused Pokemon Adventure didn't get a boost yet. But will get one starting next month. Frankly, the boost system actually seems to be working, as it came pretty close to toppling Halfway Broken for the first time. Boosted stories are represented like so:

50(+30%)=65.

Raw votes first, the boost percentage in () and the total result bolded. Without farther ado, the results:

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One Piece: Halfway Broken - 108

Mass Effect: Eridium Dreams - 51.5(+80%) = 92.7

Harry Potter: Pandora's Box - 54(+40%) = 75.6

A Very Confused Pokemon Adventure - 71

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As you can see, this poll was much more competitive than before! Shockingly enough, A Very Confused Pokemon Adventure actually hung with the rest of the stories despite not getting a boost yet. Frankly, even the first level of boost it will get starting next month could push it into being a serious contender against Halfway Broken. And, well...you can see what the new system did for Eridium Dreams. It came darn close to unseating Halfway Broken for the first time, and it's only going to get closer the longer it goes without an update. I think that is fairly solid evidence that the system works, even if I might tweak the percentages once they finally reset with an update (letting them go most of a year without an update is a bit much).

Frankly, despite the fact that Halfway Broken won again, I'm quite pleased with the results here. The new system seems to offer a solid balance between letting less popular stories get their chance to shine, without punishing the fans of the most popular works by forcing the issue too hard. I'm also considering sneaking another small chapter of A Very Confused Pokemon Adventure in despite it's loss, if I can.

I know I should be doing that with Eridium Dreams. But between my muse still being strong with 2B's little adventure and the extreme response that the poll about her starter got? Well, between those things and its clear popularity in the poll, I'm inclined to give it a boost in size until it's at least around the same length as Eridium Dreams. Currently, Pokemon Adventure is by far the smallest fic. Short of even Eridium Dream by around 10,000 words. So giving it another small shot to the arm when it's obviously popular seems logical, if I can manage it (which is always a big if).

All that said, however! Despite how much closer things came. The Winner for November is still One Piece - Halfway Broken! So look forward to its November update!

P.S. I'll wrap up the poll about her starter tomorrow. Frankly, the winner is obvious at this point and I want to get on top of the follow up poll to see if people would prefer the Vulpix variant. I only didn't add it here because this post was already a long one.