ha ha ha... your "jackpot" number is exactly the same as mine. <3 8 comments and I'm like, this is one popular fic! That was what was weird about the RPF fic I was talking about-- it was on LJ, where it seems like fic in general gets less response these days, though my statistical sampling is far from complete. I can't speak to it, because all of the most popular genres are stuff I don't usually read. With that fic that got 150 comments... well, yeah, it wasn't well written (and I can't help still getting a bit upset that no one cares about that) but there WAS something kind of compelling about it-- I finished it, after all, and it was pretty long! And yeah... there are so many RPF J2 fics out there, I figured it was safe to talk about it and it would remain anonymous, because I would never want to dis anyone for writing stuff I happen not to like (or for getting a lot of comments).

I'm with ya on the slash vs. gen not necessarily being the factor... some of my slash is wildly unpopular, and with a paring like Cas/Faramir LOTR crossover, that makes sense, or even with my usual Sassy. It gets very little response on LJ. On Ao3, my most popular fic is my porniest (I think it's really the tags more than the content), according to kudos... but it got very few comments, and one of the ones it did get was simply "this is not porn". Which... was the reader expressing disappointment? Disagreement with my tags? Approval of quality of writing? Who knows...

My second-most popular fic is a fluff/angst, short remix, and I think the original writer's popularity is the only reason people like it. It's also fairly tropey.

All this to say... who the @%#$ knows? :-D I try, these days, to just write what I'm really interested in because I want it to exist. Whether anyone else cares or not. I can't always avoid the outrage/jealousy/butthurt... but I know I'm not alone in the, whaaaaa? So that's nice. ;-)