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anghraine(Stolen from shadaras)
List your top fanfic on AO3 for every year, sorted by kudos.
I wasn't sure whether to list them by the date posted or updated, but it was easier to go with updated, so that's what it is.
2010 | Contradictions and Varieties
This fic has always been weird for me. The first part was written for a Firthness challenge, but once I posted, I felt that I needed to resolve it (lol, them were the days), so I added another section later. I feel like the gap between the two sections is really noticeable, but idk, people have always liked it anyway.
2011 | Anomaly
The ace!Darcy fic! :D I've written a solid amount of ace fic, but none is dearer to me than this one, so I've always been pleased that it took off in its own way. It even got a quasi-rec at f_fa once! (As issuefic, lol)
2012 | But Thou Didst Not Leave His Soul In Hell
AKA the most pretentiously-titled of all my fics. In fairness, I was doing a meme where all the fic titles came from "The Messiah" (I don't remember why), and this did seem pretty spot-on for the fic. It's the one where Vader swings the other way in the first Death Star II confrontation and decides to escape with Luke. And ... that's it. It's more of a premise for a longer fic I never wrote than a complete fic in itself, but it's one of my most popular ever. I'll take it!
2013 | Stained
IIRC this squeaks in towards the end of the year, when I slid into Borgias hell. It was my first or one of my first fics for them, I think, but I hadn't done much else that year, fandom-wise. I think I was working pretty hard on the original novel, actually.
2014 | Against Every Difficulty
Okay, this is definitely here on a technicality. My main project from 2014 was we get dark, only to shine, which became my most popular fic ever for a good while. But I was updating it into 2016, so it's listed under that year, and this is one of the only other things I wrote that year. I'm still kind of surprised it made it at all, though. I've never thought of it as popular.
2015 | so much the more by nature
The same qualifier applies, but this is at least one that I put some thought and effort into. My Borgias fic has always been a mixture of "I love you!!!!" and "what on earth?!!" and this was sort of a different direction for that—straight-up fix-fic of S3.
2016 | we get dark, only to shine
And here it is. So, obviously, I've written a ton of fic over the years, and some of it was reasonably popular and some ... not so much. But wgdots was pretty much the first time that something I wrote became a fandom's behemoth, and tbh it was heady as hell. I loved writing it and I loved my commenters and I loved pretty much everything about the whole experience. I only stopped because I'd reached a point where I could put it on hiatus with a clear(ish) conscience; I had really wanted to wrap up the Ursula and Isabel-Bernardo subplots, and once I did, I turned all my attention to my exams. I absolutely meant to go back to it afterwards, too, but I picked up work on the original novel after the MA, and then Rogue One happened.
2017 | wandering inside this night
Another one that's only here because ranking by date updated puts the actual popular one in another year. I'm glad this took 2nd place, though! It just struck me in the middle of a TSO concert that Jyn and Cassian surviving = Jyn and Cassian are around in ESB and there for the whole Han/Leia deal in ESB. I was deeply convinced that Jyn and Han would totally be bros and Cassian and Han would totally hate each other, and the whole concept struck me as so hilarious that I had to write it down. I never wrote the promised second part, but there's a reason for it.
2018 | per ardua ad astra
And here's the actual behemoth. It's easily my most popular fic ever, and it's one of the rare cases where the amount of effort I put into something correlates with how much people like it. I lived and breathed ad astra for months, especially early on, and it was just so much fun! And it was the first time something got really popular in a megafandom (even if it was just a corner of that fandom), which I'm sure can be awful—but it was pretty awesome for me. I got questions! encouragement! Tumblr asks! It was like stumbling into the fandom jackpot. No other RO fic I've written (including ones I think are better) has been remotely as popular, but I'm okay with that—ad astra has always been a labour of love.
2019 | tolerably well acquainted
A different sort of "here on a technicality"! I started this yeaaaars ago and only got around to continuing it this year, so I wasn't sure which year it should really count for. But to be consistent, I'm counting it here—and anyway, it's this year that it jumped up my kudos page as I started work on it again. I'm glad it's somewhat popular, tbh. It's hard to write something that hews so closely to the original while also making it my own, so the positive reinforcement helps! And it's lovely to go back to my Austen roots :)
shadaras)List your top fanfic on AO3 for every year, sorted by kudos.
I wasn't sure whether to list them by the date posted or updated, but it was easier to go with updated, so that's what it is.
2010 | Contradictions and Varieties
This fic has always been weird for me. The first part was written for a Firthness challenge, but once I posted, I felt that I needed to resolve it (lol, them were the days), so I added another section later. I feel like the gap between the two sections is really noticeable, but idk, people have always liked it anyway.
2011 | Anomaly
The ace!Darcy fic! :D I've written a solid amount of ace fic, but none is dearer to me than this one, so I've always been pleased that it took off in its own way. It even got a quasi-rec at f_fa once! (As issuefic, lol)
2012 | But Thou Didst Not Leave His Soul In Hell
AKA the most pretentiously-titled of all my fics. In fairness, I was doing a meme where all the fic titles came from "The Messiah" (I don't remember why), and this did seem pretty spot-on for the fic. It's the one where Vader swings the other way in the first Death Star II confrontation and decides to escape with Luke. And ... that's it. It's more of a premise for a longer fic I never wrote than a complete fic in itself, but it's one of my most popular ever. I'll take it!
2013 | Stained
IIRC this squeaks in towards the end of the year, when I slid into Borgias hell. It was my first or one of my first fics for them, I think, but I hadn't done much else that year, fandom-wise. I think I was working pretty hard on the original novel, actually.
2014 | Against Every Difficulty
Okay, this is definitely here on a technicality. My main project from 2014 was we get dark, only to shine, which became my most popular fic ever for a good while. But I was updating it into 2016, so it's listed under that year, and this is one of the only other things I wrote that year. I'm still kind of surprised it made it at all, though. I've never thought of it as popular.
2015 | so much the more by nature
The same qualifier applies, but this is at least one that I put some thought and effort into. My Borgias fic has always been a mixture of "I love you!!!!" and "what on earth?!!" and this was sort of a different direction for that—straight-up fix-fic of S3.
2016 | we get dark, only to shine
And here it is. So, obviously, I've written a ton of fic over the years, and some of it was reasonably popular and some ... not so much. But wgdots was pretty much the first time that something I wrote became a fandom's behemoth, and tbh it was heady as hell. I loved writing it and I loved my commenters and I loved pretty much everything about the whole experience. I only stopped because I'd reached a point where I could put it on hiatus with a clear(ish) conscience; I had really wanted to wrap up the Ursula and Isabel-Bernardo subplots, and once I did, I turned all my attention to my exams. I absolutely meant to go back to it afterwards, too, but I picked up work on the original novel after the MA, and then Rogue One happened.
2017 | wandering inside this night
Another one that's only here because ranking by date updated puts the actual popular one in another year. I'm glad this took 2nd place, though! It just struck me in the middle of a TSO concert that Jyn and Cassian surviving = Jyn and Cassian are around in ESB and there for the whole Han/Leia deal in ESB. I was deeply convinced that Jyn and Han would totally be bros and Cassian and Han would totally hate each other, and the whole concept struck me as so hilarious that I had to write it down. I never wrote the promised second part, but there's a reason for it.
2018 | per ardua ad astra
And here's the actual behemoth. It's easily my most popular fic ever, and it's one of the rare cases where the amount of effort I put into something correlates with how much people like it. I lived and breathed ad astra for months, especially early on, and it was just so much fun! And it was the first time something got really popular in a megafandom (even if it was just a corner of that fandom), which I'm sure can be awful—but it was pretty awesome for me. I got questions! encouragement! Tumblr asks! It was like stumbling into the fandom jackpot. No other RO fic I've written (including ones I think are better) has been remotely as popular, but I'm okay with that—ad astra has always been a labour of love.
2019 | tolerably well acquainted
A different sort of "here on a technicality"! I started this yeaaaars ago and only got around to continuing it this year, so I wasn't sure which year it should really count for. But to be consistent, I'm counting it here—and anyway, it's this year that it jumped up my kudos page as I started work on it again. I'm glad it's somewhat popular, tbh. It's hard to write something that hews so closely to the original while also making it my own, so the positive reinforcement helps! And it's lovely to go back to my Austen roots :)