So, lightly inspired by this post about a March Madness of fic, combined with a recent desire I've had to reread some favourite fics, I made a bracket! To find my all-time favourite (?!) Sherlock fic. I mean, I guess. Except it was hard enough to narrow down to 20 favourites. They're all my favourite!
Anyway, the worst that will happen is I'll reread 20 fics I love, and which I haven't read for several years. I'll report back (somehow) as each pair results in a winner. I might have to literally draw the bracket and take photos of the drawing.
It will take me a few weeks to read all these; once I've read them all, I can do the rest of the bracket in a quick minute. To choose the starting 20, I just brainstormed fics from memory plus looked at my AO3 bookmarks, cut up the list with scissors, then drew at random from my AO3 coffee mug to determine the matchups.
Here are my first matchups (20 is a weird number for a bracket so it's a little convoluted, but I used a real 20-team bracket to set it up).
Family Ties by Saziikins vs. Over Fathoms Deep by bittergreens
[Above winner] vs. Fucking Cake by Random_Nexus
Two Two One Bravo Baker by abundantlyqueer vs. Just Like That by cwb
Sketchy by serpentynka vs. Jam Series by Persiflager
[Above winner] vs. Alone with the Devil by orphan_account
Yes Yes Yes by Basingstoke vs. Leveling Up by philalethia
Evidence of Human Life by thesardine vs. The New Year by greywash
[Above winner] vs. Somatic Theory by CaitlinFairchild
Ad Meliora (Towards Better Things) by lotherington vs. The Ground Beneath Your Feet by Chryse
Big Brother is Watching You by Flawedamythyst vs. The Progress of Sherlock Holmes by ivyblossom
[Above winner] vs. Riptide Lover by jinglebell
NewSub!John Headspace series by mugenmine vs. Albion and the Woodsman by Glenmore
This will be fun and might even make me some enemies, so that's something to look forward to.