AO3 top by year meme
Jul. 21st, 2019 09:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alias_sqbr"List your top fanfic on AO3 for every year, sorted by kudos."
Except not actually just fic, in my case. Memes evolve!
I was curious to compare to deviantArt but I keep forgetting that most sites don't have AO3's nice sorting options. Speaking of which, if you're like me and your brain just DOESN'T SEE obvious things sometimes: scroll down to the bottom of the sidebar on your works page for "date updated" under "more options".
Since this is going by date updated, WIPs tend to get pushed forward. I posted my first story in 2008 (Wedding is Destiny And Hanging Likewise) but didn't finish it until 2015. Thus...
2009:
Meanings tied up in dots and lines: Avatar The Last Airbender, Toph post-canon gen
I'm sometimes a little wistful about not having felt inspired to write this sort of plotty gen character piece in a while. It used to be very much my jam.
2010:
The greatest minds of their generation Sherlock/Castle/Psych crossover comic, John/Sherlock, Castle/Beckett, Shawn/Gus (m/m, m/f, and f/f)
I wasn't trying to construct a perfect storm of megafandoms to bring in the kudos, but it definitely worked that way. It's not totally terrible, but it's definitely not actually the best thing I made in 2010. Most of the rest was for Dragon Age and Homestuck. There was actually some Supernatural in there too, speaking of megafandoms, but it was all gen or f/f.
2011:
Visiting the Hawkes: Dragon Age 2, m!Hawke/Fenris, pre-relationship fluff comic (m/m)
I'm surprised this is the most popular, but I guess it was a popular pairing and the comic is a good mix of funny and shippy (and is actually moderately well drawn, unlike the one above)
Technically the actual most popular work is Wedding is destiny, and hanging likewise (OLD VERSION) but since I went on to write a longer finished version later I'm not counting that.
2012:
Practical Applications of the Turing Test: Portal 2, Chell/GlaDOS post-canon getting together (f/f)
I'm still really proud of this story, it's a cute f/f hateship rom-com but also a science fiction road-trip, with actual plot and structure.
2013:
The Life and Death of Setsuka Heel: Skip Beat, Ren Kyoko getting together (m/f)
I actually reread this yesterday, I'm pretty proud of it too! Lots of mutual pining under multiple layers of fake dating, fake siblings, fake identities, and trauma (which is just canon, but unlike canon I actually let them get together and talk about their feelings, yes I am looking at you Yoshiki Nakamura)
2014:
The Scent of Honeysuckle: Dragon Age Inquisition, Josephine/Cassandra, fake dating getting together (f/f)
Pure tropey rom-com. One of my favourite genres to read, and fandom tends to agree.
2015:
Sighs and Whispers: Dragon Age Inquisition, f!Inquisitor/Cassandra, getting together (f/f)
More tropey rom-com, this time with identity porn. Just barely beat the finally finished Wedding is Destiny And Hanging Likewise.
2016:
Strictly Professional: Yuri on Ice, Yuri/Victor getting together fluff (m/m)
Getting together fic for a fandom juggernaut written in response to a very shippy episode that left the fandom feeling very KISS DAMMIT. Not bad, but not very notable asides from being what it is.
2017:
Five times Sara Crispino tried to get a boyfriend, and one time she didn't: Yuri on Ice, Sara/Mila fake dating (f/f)
More tropey rom-com, for a huge fandom, if not the juggernaut ship this time.
Looking back, I think this is about the point when I got tropey f/f rom-coms out of my system. Not that I'll necessarily never write one again, but they're not The Thing I Feel Like Writing the way they were for a few years there. Anyway, I'm still pretty proud of this, I put a lot of work into learning about ice skating enough to create programs in my head I could then describe shippily.
2018:
Wedding Night: Hakuoki, Chizuru/Kazama (m/f)
Turns out fandom likes fluffy canon m/f first time sex as much as they like tropey f/f rom-coms, lol. My recent trend for fic has been otome m/f with queerness and Gender Stuff, but this is pretty close to standard m/f.
2019:
The Persistence of Memory: Nameless, ot6 post-canon fixit (m/f, m/m, some nonbinariness blurring the edges)
More otome m/f with queerness and Gender Stuff. It's the only thing I've posted this year so it wins by default, but it's not doing too badly for such a tiny old canon.
---
Thinking about my overall trends, I guess at first I was just experimenting with the basics of character and writing, then figuring out how to write satisfying f/f romance. And now I'm experimenting with the very definition of gender, and figuring out how to write satisfying non binary romance.
Looking back, I was always writing everyone as kind of non binary. And it's not that the characters I'm writing now are necessarily any more explicitly non binary than my old ones, but I'm a lot more self aware about what I'm doing with gender. I'm starting with m/f and tweaking, since I tend to find tweaking a m/m or f/f relationship to be about different genders a bit uncomfortable.
Which implies that in a few years I'll be writing tropey non binary romances with identity porn and fake dating. I guess we'll see!
Except not actually just fic, in my case. Memes evolve!
I was curious to compare to deviantArt but I keep forgetting that most sites don't have AO3's nice sorting options. Speaking of which, if you're like me and your brain just DOESN'T SEE obvious things sometimes: scroll down to the bottom of the sidebar on your works page for "date updated" under "more options".
Since this is going by date updated, WIPs tend to get pushed forward. I posted my first story in 2008 (Wedding is Destiny And Hanging Likewise) but didn't finish it until 2015. Thus...
2009:
Meanings tied up in dots and lines: Avatar The Last Airbender, Toph post-canon gen
I'm sometimes a little wistful about not having felt inspired to write this sort of plotty gen character piece in a while. It used to be very much my jam.
2010:
The greatest minds of their generation Sherlock/Castle/Psych crossover comic, John/Sherlock, Castle/Beckett, Shawn/Gus (m/m, m/f, and f/f)
I wasn't trying to construct a perfect storm of megafandoms to bring in the kudos, but it definitely worked that way. It's not totally terrible, but it's definitely not actually the best thing I made in 2010. Most of the rest was for Dragon Age and Homestuck. There was actually some Supernatural in there too, speaking of megafandoms, but it was all gen or f/f.
2011:
Visiting the Hawkes: Dragon Age 2, m!Hawke/Fenris, pre-relationship fluff comic (m/m)
I'm surprised this is the most popular, but I guess it was a popular pairing and the comic is a good mix of funny and shippy (and is actually moderately well drawn, unlike the one above)
Technically the actual most popular work is Wedding is destiny, and hanging likewise (OLD VERSION) but since I went on to write a longer finished version later I'm not counting that.
2012:
Practical Applications of the Turing Test: Portal 2, Chell/GlaDOS post-canon getting together (f/f)
I'm still really proud of this story, it's a cute f/f hateship rom-com but also a science fiction road-trip, with actual plot and structure.
2013:
The Life and Death of Setsuka Heel: Skip Beat, Ren Kyoko getting together (m/f)
I actually reread this yesterday, I'm pretty proud of it too! Lots of mutual pining under multiple layers of fake dating, fake siblings, fake identities, and trauma (which is just canon, but unlike canon I actually let them get together and talk about their feelings, yes I am looking at you Yoshiki Nakamura)
2014:
The Scent of Honeysuckle: Dragon Age Inquisition, Josephine/Cassandra, fake dating getting together (f/f)
Pure tropey rom-com. One of my favourite genres to read, and fandom tends to agree.
2015:
Sighs and Whispers: Dragon Age Inquisition, f!Inquisitor/Cassandra, getting together (f/f)
More tropey rom-com, this time with identity porn. Just barely beat the finally finished Wedding is Destiny And Hanging Likewise.
2016:
Strictly Professional: Yuri on Ice, Yuri/Victor getting together fluff (m/m)
Getting together fic for a fandom juggernaut written in response to a very shippy episode that left the fandom feeling very KISS DAMMIT. Not bad, but not very notable asides from being what it is.
2017:
Five times Sara Crispino tried to get a boyfriend, and one time she didn't: Yuri on Ice, Sara/Mila fake dating (f/f)
More tropey rom-com, for a huge fandom, if not the juggernaut ship this time.
Looking back, I think this is about the point when I got tropey f/f rom-coms out of my system. Not that I'll necessarily never write one again, but they're not The Thing I Feel Like Writing the way they were for a few years there. Anyway, I'm still pretty proud of this, I put a lot of work into learning about ice skating enough to create programs in my head I could then describe shippily.
2018:
Wedding Night: Hakuoki, Chizuru/Kazama (m/f)
Turns out fandom likes fluffy canon m/f first time sex as much as they like tropey f/f rom-coms, lol. My recent trend for fic has been otome m/f with queerness and Gender Stuff, but this is pretty close to standard m/f.
2019:
The Persistence of Memory: Nameless, ot6 post-canon fixit (m/f, m/m, some nonbinariness blurring the edges)
More otome m/f with queerness and Gender Stuff. It's the only thing I've posted this year so it wins by default, but it's not doing too badly for such a tiny old canon.
---
Thinking about my overall trends, I guess at first I was just experimenting with the basics of character and writing, then figuring out how to write satisfying f/f romance. And now I'm experimenting with the very definition of gender, and figuring out how to write satisfying non binary romance.
Looking back, I was always writing everyone as kind of non binary. And it's not that the characters I'm writing now are necessarily any more explicitly non binary than my old ones, but I'm a lot more self aware about what I'm doing with gender. I'm starting with m/f and tweaking, since I tend to find tweaking a m/m or f/f relationship to be about different genders a bit uncomfortable.
Which implies that in a few years I'll be writing tropey non binary romances with identity porn and fake dating. I guess we'll see!
no subject
Date: 2019-07-21 04:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-07-28 01:55 pm (UTC)Idk if you saw how many things I am in the middle of right now. Follow your heart :)
no subject
Date: 2019-07-21 07:14 am (UTC)I'll be ready.
Writing enby fic has been inexplicably hard for me. It's hard to predict which of the themes that are close to my heart I will succeed in writing, and which will languish.
no subject
Date: 2019-07-21 08:19 am (UTC)Same. I'm having to approach it side on with tiny steps.