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my fanfic year in review
Jan. 1st, 2019 10:36 amI'm taking a look at my AO3 stats for 2018! I was going to compare them to 2017, but I'm just gonna leave it at 29 fics in 2017 versus 10 in 2018 (discounting "Tiebreak"). Spoilers for the fics and the canons are sometimes embedded in the little blurbs, fyi.
[descending by kudos]
wordcount: 103,296
"Tiebreak" -
So right away, I'm gonna kinda discount "Tiebreak" (but I'm still gonna talk about it). On December 31st, 2017, I was struck by the mad urge to leave behind the giant Otabek/Yuri tennis AU that had consumed by summer in 2017. Unfortunately, I made some last minutes in the early morning hours of January 1st, 2018, so the fic has spilled over into 2018. I would consider it a work thoroughly situated in 2017, written in 5k shots after a long day of digging at archaeology field school, finished up in the long drag of July and early August. And then my 60k+ triumph became my bugbear: I just could not bring myself to edit it, and rereading even little bits of it sent me into a doubt spiral until I just wanted to push it out into the world without touching it again. I reread it recently just two weeks ago and while some of my mistakes in writing, editing, and posting it really made me wince, I still had that feeling of like...I Did That.
"breathe into it" -
Moving down the line to my other fic, we've got an M/M & F/F fic (Toph's POV, Toph/Ty Lee and Zuko/Aang) that was a rewrite of one of the first fics I ever posted on the internet, on fanfic.net. I was hitting 50 fics posted on AO3, so I wanted to do something looking back on my early work. That old fic had some Toph perspective, but no femslash--I wanted to pay homage to how I've changed as a fan by adding femslash. Zuko/Aang was my first ship, and it was nice to reapproach them as an adult and with both characters as adults. Sometimes it's nice to write something fluffy and uncomplicated.
"magnet to another magnet to another" -
My next fic is F/F, Steph/Cass, which I'd been waiting to write forever. I'm a big fan of Batman!Cass and just wanted to write some married sweetness. More fluff, oops. I think I kinda wrote that in the throes of a break-up of a relationship that wasn't. Hardcore wishful thinking.
"a six-inch valley through the middle" -
Ahaha, this next one is F/F but a genderbend of an M/M pair, Tony/Peter. It's just shameless, deep id smut. When I reread this one, it was with my hands covering my face for sure. Butch for butch and daddy kink in one fic is seriously like, exposing myself.
"who you think we should blame" -
Here's a rarepair M/M fic, for once! I really love Joey Wilson and wanted to write a fic fusing some of his previous comics history with his recent stuff, and Dick is a character that comes easily to me, so I wanted to explore some things with their families and experiences that run in parallel.
"underneath this hood you kiss (i tick like a bomb)" -
M/M again, Midnighter/Apollo! I'd been wanting to write these two since the first time I read them, but I was afraid I wouldn't do them justice. Reading their comics and reading other people's fics, I'm still not sure I did, but I'm really happy I could pay tribute to this couple. By far my favorite comics couple as they've been portrayed in canon. Plus a title from "Perfume Genius"! I saw the trailer for Eighth Grade had "Slip Away" in it and I felt very proud of him.
"rearranges your molecules" -
Ahaha, an F/F crack ship with Rose Wilson and Talia al Ghul, my two favorite dark and complicated women of DC. I love Rose's pluckiness and Talia's deadliness and just...if there's no femslashy mentor/student pairs out there, I'll have to make them myself, you know? Upon rereading, I remembered with some shock how kinky the sex scene in this is? Like some bloodplay and lowkey foot fetish? We out here.
"ain't nothing but a sore" -
An F/F ship I had to make the tag for, despite Topaz and Valkyrie definitely having some friction in the movie. Like Rose/Talia, two women of color. This fic was super snarky, let myself run wild with the POV. I'd kinda expected this to be PWP, but I let the characterization run away from me. I think this is a really fun fic, and I enjoyed Ragnarok a lot, so I'm glad I wrote it.
"a free agent at heart" -
This one! This is THE Spitefic. I wrote a fic of Selina Kyle and her canonical girlfriend Eiko from her iconic mob boss run. And posted it on the eve of her wedding to Bruce Wayne. I let my writing style out to play a little, and I really enjoyed the results. I'd like to say lyrical and ambiguous, but maybe flowery and abstract is better. And of course made a poetry reference because I couldn't resist when it was in the comic itself ("The River Merchant's Wife"). In fact, it's very similar in style to my other Selina fic, "moonflower." Not sure why she brings it out in me! But anyway, DC are a bunch of cowards and their writing of Batfam seriously took a turn for the worse after the comic I was preemptively responding to, so I feel very justified in my spite and am proud of this one.
"your wick in the air and your feet in the fetters" -
This one was...definitely actually posted in 2017, I thought. How do AO3 timezones work? Anyway, this was also a December 31st, 2017 thing, but actually written largely on that day. It's another Authority fic, but F/F this time (and the date is significant to the character, Jenny Sparks, the spirit of the 20th century). Among my friends, it has earned me infamy as the metal hair tentacle fucking fic, and that's all I have to say about that.
"what i need is a good defense" -
One last F/F rarepair! I actually had to create the character and the ship tags for this one. Honor/Talia. The Silencer is seriously a great comic and underappreciated by my circle outside of two of my friends. It's stylized comic book action and violence, not too much brainpower needed, but the protagonist is a woman of color who has enormous tension with another woman of color. Seriously, maybe I need to post some panels sometime.
So in 2018, I wrote no het and no gen, which I guess reflects my lonely gay ass this year. Half of my fics were explicit because of course they were. I had a ton of F/F, and I featured women of color: Toph, Ty Lee, Rose, Talia, Honor, Topaz, Valkyrie, Cass. Selina is arguable since she's been portrayed as Latina, but since I didn't really make any particular references to that canon, I'm not sure that I can fairly count her. Jenny Sparks in the incarnation I wrote her is white, unlike a later Chinese Jenny Sparks. I'm kind of ashamed of myself for doing that since I often judge people's decision to write the original white version of characters rather than the racebent modern versions, but I was leaning heavily on old Authority canon and the fic was already weird enough. Anyway!
I definitely think I've matured as a writer and learned more about where my talents are and where I can challenge myself. My moods and genres for this year were much more consistent than previous years, I think? While I got dark with both my fics involving the Wilsons, I didn't go as dark as "let your branches fork my veins/let your honey tide in me," and I didn't have any super long fic this year. Then again, I might never go that dark again. I super support unhappy endings and darkfic, but it's just not what I gravitate towards producing or consuming most of the time. I also might not go above 10k in the future. Despite my love for settling in with a good long fic, holding a plot up for that long is just not my strength. My ideal fic is just like, two people sitting in a room talking to each other, I'm not gonna lie.
The fic that is unspoken here is my 20K+ Diana/Shayera that is just too internally inconsistent to salvage and doesn't feel worth it for an old fandom with like three people and a ball of string in it. I've pretty much decided that's gonna be a forever WIP left behind in 2018 with my completed fics.
Another thing I didn't do in 2018 was write Bruce/Dick. I had a couple ideas spinning around about Dick's background, them getting married, things like that. I had titles and images in my mind. But I could never coalesce it into one fic. In the end, I love that pairing too much and I put too much pressure on myself. I consider my two Bruce/Dick fics my greatest works, so it's hard to live up to that every time. Maybe in 2019 or maybe not. I am very happy with what I've done, and I think those fics are really special, so if I stop there, it won't be a great regret.
In conclusion, I'd love to have another writing year like this. I really want a larger and active fandom to call home, but I still want to write women of color fucking and falling in love and not be totally ignored. Those two desires are somewhat opposed to each other. We'll see what 2019 holds for me.
[descending by kudos]
wordcount: 103,296
"Tiebreak" -
So right away, I'm gonna kinda discount "Tiebreak" (but I'm still gonna talk about it). On December 31st, 2017, I was struck by the mad urge to leave behind the giant Otabek/Yuri tennis AU that had consumed by summer in 2017. Unfortunately, I made some last minutes in the early morning hours of January 1st, 2018, so the fic has spilled over into 2018. I would consider it a work thoroughly situated in 2017, written in 5k shots after a long day of digging at archaeology field school, finished up in the long drag of July and early August. And then my 60k+ triumph became my bugbear: I just could not bring myself to edit it, and rereading even little bits of it sent me into a doubt spiral until I just wanted to push it out into the world without touching it again. I reread it recently just two weeks ago and while some of my mistakes in writing, editing, and posting it really made me wince, I still had that feeling of like...I Did That.
"breathe into it" -
Moving down the line to my other fic, we've got an M/M & F/F fic (Toph's POV, Toph/Ty Lee and Zuko/Aang) that was a rewrite of one of the first fics I ever posted on the internet, on fanfic.net. I was hitting 50 fics posted on AO3, so I wanted to do something looking back on my early work. That old fic had some Toph perspective, but no femslash--I wanted to pay homage to how I've changed as a fan by adding femslash. Zuko/Aang was my first ship, and it was nice to reapproach them as an adult and with both characters as adults. Sometimes it's nice to write something fluffy and uncomplicated.
"magnet to another magnet to another" -
My next fic is F/F, Steph/Cass, which I'd been waiting to write forever. I'm a big fan of Batman!Cass and just wanted to write some married sweetness. More fluff, oops. I think I kinda wrote that in the throes of a break-up of a relationship that wasn't. Hardcore wishful thinking.
"a six-inch valley through the middle" -
Ahaha, this next one is F/F but a genderbend of an M/M pair, Tony/Peter. It's just shameless, deep id smut. When I reread this one, it was with my hands covering my face for sure. Butch for butch and daddy kink in one fic is seriously like, exposing myself.
"who you think we should blame" -
Here's a rarepair M/M fic, for once! I really love Joey Wilson and wanted to write a fic fusing some of his previous comics history with his recent stuff, and Dick is a character that comes easily to me, so I wanted to explore some things with their families and experiences that run in parallel.
"underneath this hood you kiss (i tick like a bomb)" -
M/M again, Midnighter/Apollo! I'd been wanting to write these two since the first time I read them, but I was afraid I wouldn't do them justice. Reading their comics and reading other people's fics, I'm still not sure I did, but I'm really happy I could pay tribute to this couple. By far my favorite comics couple as they've been portrayed in canon. Plus a title from "Perfume Genius"! I saw the trailer for Eighth Grade had "Slip Away" in it and I felt very proud of him.
"rearranges your molecules" -
Ahaha, an F/F crack ship with Rose Wilson and Talia al Ghul, my two favorite dark and complicated women of DC. I love Rose's pluckiness and Talia's deadliness and just...if there's no femslashy mentor/student pairs out there, I'll have to make them myself, you know? Upon rereading, I remembered with some shock how kinky the sex scene in this is? Like some bloodplay and lowkey foot fetish? We out here.
"ain't nothing but a sore" -
An F/F ship I had to make the tag for, despite Topaz and Valkyrie definitely having some friction in the movie. Like Rose/Talia, two women of color. This fic was super snarky, let myself run wild with the POV. I'd kinda expected this to be PWP, but I let the characterization run away from me. I think this is a really fun fic, and I enjoyed Ragnarok a lot, so I'm glad I wrote it.
"a free agent at heart" -
This one! This is THE Spitefic. I wrote a fic of Selina Kyle and her canonical girlfriend Eiko from her iconic mob boss run. And posted it on the eve of her wedding to Bruce Wayne. I let my writing style out to play a little, and I really enjoyed the results. I'd like to say lyrical and ambiguous, but maybe flowery and abstract is better. And of course made a poetry reference because I couldn't resist when it was in the comic itself ("The River Merchant's Wife"). In fact, it's very similar in style to my other Selina fic, "moonflower." Not sure why she brings it out in me! But anyway, DC are a bunch of cowards and their writing of Batfam seriously took a turn for the worse after the comic I was preemptively responding to, so I feel very justified in my spite and am proud of this one.
"your wick in the air and your feet in the fetters" -
This one was...definitely actually posted in 2017, I thought. How do AO3 timezones work? Anyway, this was also a December 31st, 2017 thing, but actually written largely on that day. It's another Authority fic, but F/F this time (and the date is significant to the character, Jenny Sparks, the spirit of the 20th century). Among my friends, it has earned me infamy as the metal hair tentacle fucking fic, and that's all I have to say about that.
"what i need is a good defense" -
One last F/F rarepair! I actually had to create the character and the ship tags for this one. Honor/Talia. The Silencer is seriously a great comic and underappreciated by my circle outside of two of my friends. It's stylized comic book action and violence, not too much brainpower needed, but the protagonist is a woman of color who has enormous tension with another woman of color. Seriously, maybe I need to post some panels sometime.
So in 2018, I wrote no het and no gen, which I guess reflects my lonely gay ass this year. Half of my fics were explicit because of course they were. I had a ton of F/F, and I featured women of color: Toph, Ty Lee, Rose, Talia, Honor, Topaz, Valkyrie, Cass. Selina is arguable since she's been portrayed as Latina, but since I didn't really make any particular references to that canon, I'm not sure that I can fairly count her. Jenny Sparks in the incarnation I wrote her is white, unlike a later Chinese Jenny Sparks. I'm kind of ashamed of myself for doing that since I often judge people's decision to write the original white version of characters rather than the racebent modern versions, but I was leaning heavily on old Authority canon and the fic was already weird enough. Anyway!
I definitely think I've matured as a writer and learned more about where my talents are and where I can challenge myself. My moods and genres for this year were much more consistent than previous years, I think? While I got dark with both my fics involving the Wilsons, I didn't go as dark as "let your branches fork my veins/let your honey tide in me," and I didn't have any super long fic this year. Then again, I might never go that dark again. I super support unhappy endings and darkfic, but it's just not what I gravitate towards producing or consuming most of the time. I also might not go above 10k in the future. Despite my love for settling in with a good long fic, holding a plot up for that long is just not my strength. My ideal fic is just like, two people sitting in a room talking to each other, I'm not gonna lie.
The fic that is unspoken here is my 20K+ Diana/Shayera that is just too internally inconsistent to salvage and doesn't feel worth it for an old fandom with like three people and a ball of string in it. I've pretty much decided that's gonna be a forever WIP left behind in 2018 with my completed fics.
Another thing I didn't do in 2018 was write Bruce/Dick. I had a couple ideas spinning around about Dick's background, them getting married, things like that. I had titles and images in my mind. But I could never coalesce it into one fic. In the end, I love that pairing too much and I put too much pressure on myself. I consider my two Bruce/Dick fics my greatest works, so it's hard to live up to that every time. Maybe in 2019 or maybe not. I am very happy with what I've done, and I think those fics are really special, so if I stop there, it won't be a great regret.
In conclusion, I'd love to have another writing year like this. I really want a larger and active fandom to call home, but I still want to write women of color fucking and falling in love and not be totally ignored. Those two desires are somewhat opposed to each other. We'll see what 2019 holds for me.
no subject
Date: 2019-01-01 05:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-01-01 05:54 pm (UTC)Rose Wilson is Slade Wilson, Deathstroke the Terminator's, daughter! She's half-Hmong in current canon. She has white hair and an eyepatch and has a non-skimpy costume (thank god, as she's usually depicted in her mid-teens). She's run with the Teen Titans and with Nightwing. She has a pretty complicated relationship with her father, but in the end, she's definitely one of the good guys. DC has this odd trend towards mixed kids whose Asian mothers are villains? Damian Wayne, Emiko Queen, Cassandra Cain, Lian Harper. In Cass's case, both her bio parents are villains, and I guess Rose is different because her white dad is way more evil than her mom. But still. Choices.
That fic is fairly choose-your-own canon, so I'm not sure if that'll help or hinder comprehension. Anyway, thanks for giving my fics a chance!
no subject
Date: 2019-01-01 10:30 pm (UTC)(Also, that is one weird trend for sure...)