acequeenking (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
acequeenking) wrote2019-01-25 11:39 pm
acequeenking) wrote2019-01-25 11:39 pm
Looking Back at 2018: Fanfiction Meme
Shamelessly grabbed from artemis1000 .
Number of fics written: I'll have to go by Ao3 for this, because my storage drive for fic is an absolute disaster at the moment. According to Ao3, I wrote 72 stories this year, which is a tiny bit more than I would have thought tbh.
Fandoms: Aladdin (1992), Dragon Age: Inquisition, Greek and Roman Mythology, Hadestown - Mitchell, Hellsing, Mad Max Series (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Mass Effect Trilogy, Mass Effect: Andromeda, NieR: Automata (Video Game), Persona 3, Power Rangers, Rogue One, Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018), Star Wars (Marvel Comics), Star Wars Legends, Star Wars: Force Unleashed, Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, Star Wars: Battlefront (Video Games), Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types, Suicide Squad (2016), Suikoden V, Tekken, The Good Place (TV), Thor (Movies), VERNON Ursula - Works, and Wynonna Earp. The theme for 2018 was, evidently, Star Wars.
Worst first line: easily goes to The Darkest Thoughts in the Brightest Sands (Aladdin, Jafar/everyone basically): Jasmine was dreaming, at least she was pretty sure. One of those fics that came due when time was not my ally this year, and I never got to give it the good one-over that surely would have led to polishing up that first part a bit.
Best first line: I don't remember first lines really, but looking back over what I wrote this year, I like this one: She smiles at the bloodbath before her, Cullen's pair of queen of thorns neatly under fire on all sides by her all flower suite. (Friendly Wagers, Dragon Age, Cullen/Isabela). It made me smile! I feel like all fics are better when they start in bloodbaths, even if it's just in playing cards.
Worst last line: She took his hand and held onto it tight. There was so much work to do, but first - she would take a moment to just breathe.
And maybe with Poe, she'd adjust. (Adjustment Period, Star Wars: Sequel Trilogy, Poe/Padme)
I never felt like this really ended well; I should have written something longer with them, but this is as far as I got in terms of an idea, and then I just threw alcohol at them. I wish I'd written that first date and perhaps Leia's reaction to it. Started with a bang, ended with a whimper.
Best last line: Chaolan's gloves fluttered to the ground, and his hands wrapped around Lars' head. Whether it was a gesture of affection or control - well, Lars knew it was the later. But looking up into Chaolan's eyes, he could almost be fooled into thinking it was the former. (This Charming Man (Tekken, Lars/Lee)
I really like writing Lee as someone in total control, especially given that he's kind of Tekken fandom's eternal uke/joke (which is wrong for a wide variety of reasons!*). I feel like I really hit Lee being manipulative, powerful and controlling, but still being so charming that even someone who knows he is being controlled (as Lars does here, he lost the game before he even realized Lee was playing) can still try to believe that maybe, maybe there's some affection there.
*People don't write about that side of Lee often enough; he's not as demonic as Kazuya, but that doesn't mean he is less monstrous. Heihachi did a whammy on those kids something good.
Looking back, did you write more fics than you thought you would this year, less than you thought, or about what you predicted?:About what I expected, a tiny bit more. I feel like I never got anything done last year, because I was writing mostly exchange fic... and looking through this, wow, I sure wrote a lot of exchange fic and not a lot of stuff for me.
What’s your favorite story this year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you the happiest: It's not published, but the Insanely Large Hadestown/Greek Mythology Fic That is Still Somehow Not Even Close to Done despite being 30K is overwhelmingly my favorite baby. I got to write Demeter with a shotgun and frankly that is a treat.
Okay, NOW your most popular story:
By Hits: Hold Me, Kiss Me, Thrill Me, Kill Me (Mass Effect, Morinth/F!Shepard) - smutty smut smut smutterino is the only reason that this one gets much in the way of hits. It's one of the first explicit F/F things I wrote this year, and I like it alright; Morinth is waaaaay out of line, morally, with characters I usually write and I think I got her character well. I wish I had written this sexier, somehow, though; it bothers me I still can't figure out why my dub-con feels like it falls flatter than I'd like.
By Kudos/Comments: The Trick is to Keep Breathing (Star Wars: Sequel Trilogy, Vader & Leia)! I love Vader and Leia so much but I feel like I struggle to hit their dynamic sometimes. This is my favorite sequel trilogy AU: Leia is so old and so tired and so done with all this, Vader is well aware of what he is, but also still yearning to reach out to Leia. I started a sequel for this that got long and I have yet to finish, but hope to someday before everyone forgets this fic exists. Shame I'm so burned out on Star Wars right now. :(
Story most underappreciated by the universe?: By hits, this year, that's And the Band Plays On (Jackalope Wives, gen), but that's not very surprising considering its based on a fairly niche short story in a short story collection (but a REALLY good one, and you should listen to Levar Burton read it, it's a really good deconstruction of just what happens to monster wives after the folktale ends.)
Most of my bottom list is there for a reason: original characters, or niche characters or pairings (Sidious/Palps gets no love), dead fandoms (*pours one out for Suikoden*); statistical outlier this time is The Long Way Around (Orpheus/Eurydice, mostly gen Hades & Eurydice); it's a lot worse, stats wise, than either of my other two Hadestown fics, which is odd given this hit Yuletide and the other two didn't. Guess everyone else loves Hades and Persephone more? (Which, I mean, me too, but...I like th
Story that could have been better? Life for Life (Rogue One, Bodhi/Bor Gullet) is a fic that hit every "what could go wrong: exchange edition" trope for me most of which were hellish conditions from work/school/real life stomping in. I did my best to write PWP for Bodhi and Bor Gullet and there's parts of it I do like; writing a character who cannot actually communicate like a human is a fun challenge and I liked trying to have it seduce Bodhi through accessing his memories and altering them to match what it was doing to him. But I don't think it worked as well as some of my other smut, and at the end of the day I wish I had more time to work on it. Similar fates befell The Darkest Thoughts in the Brightest Sands (Aladdin, Jafar/everyone basically) where I got overwhelmed by other stuff and struggled to find time to write or polish. Lesson to self: next year, don't sign up for stuff if you don't think you'll have time to finish it.
Sexiest story? Catharsis (Hadestown, Hades/Persephone) is by far my iddiest of last year. It's got a lot of my weaknesses - too much talking in smut, especially, no one shuts up in bed with my stuff, it's a bit too fluffy -- but it's also one of my favorite takes on make up sex, established (long long established) sex between old marrieds, and character/relationship-building in sex is my catnip to write.
Saddest story? Know These Bones (as being mine) (Star Wars: Sequel Trilogy, Leia & Ben/Kylo) - Leia gets her son back, but he's totally dependant on her, and she knows it's' only a matter of time until she's gone. Worse, he's still attracted to his Kylo-half, so really at best Leia is giving the universe a little time to recover before Ben/Kylo comes back (or, I guess better-for-the-universe-but-bad-for-Kylo, Ben starves to death after Leia dies); still, she loves him, and loves him beyond the point of admitting he's too dangerous to keep alive. She spends the whole fic trying to understand him, and at the end, she isn't really any closer; Ben never really understands what's happened to him, but knows he's missing something, and Kylo can't see anything beyond his own vengeance --including how to escape his prison... but they all know there's only so many ways this is gonna end.
Hardest story to write?: Boot/Reboot (Good Place, Janet/Jason) - This one was hard as hell and took the entire assignment writing time. Janet viewpoint, which is tricksy since she isn't a girl or a robot, linear but also kind of not because for half of them, they're meeting for the first time over and over, and Janet's voice being really hard to write makes this one really hard, but I am mostly pleased with the result. Also, I had to do research on Gainesville's craigslist for this, which wasn't hard but was kind of scary.
Easiest/most fun story to write?: Shoot to Kill (Star Wars: TOR, Sith Inquisitor Kallig/Darth Zash), because
artemis1000 .Number of fics written: I'll have to go by Ao3 for this, because my storage drive for fic is an absolute disaster at the moment. According to Ao3, I wrote 72 stories this year, which is a tiny bit more than I would have thought tbh.
Fandoms: Aladdin (1992), Dragon Age: Inquisition, Greek and Roman Mythology, Hadestown - Mitchell, Hellsing, Mad Max Series (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Mass Effect Trilogy, Mass Effect: Andromeda, NieR: Automata (Video Game), Persona 3, Power Rangers, Rogue One, Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018), Star Wars (Marvel Comics), Star Wars Legends, Star Wars: Force Unleashed, Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, Star Wars: Battlefront (Video Games), Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types, Suicide Squad (2016), Suikoden V, Tekken, The Good Place (TV), Thor (Movies), VERNON Ursula - Works, and Wynonna Earp. The theme for 2018 was, evidently, Star Wars.
Best title: Most of my titles are song lyrics or poems I like so I fear my titles are not very original. of the ones that are something I've come up with myself, I like Vampires on the Rhine (Wonder Woman, Erich Ludendorff/Isabel Maru) best; I feel like it's quite evocative and also a good summation of what the two main characters are, both to one another and to the world at large.
Worst title: I feel like there are a lot that could have this title. I never found a title I liked better than The Long Way Around for this Hadestown Eurydice/Orpheus fix-it fic; it works, but I know it's one of those titles that in 2019, I will get a kudos for and be like, "What fic is that?" I never liked Beggar's Canyon and Choosers either, and wish I'd thought of something a bit more original for Lando and Luke meeting on Tatooine.Worst first line: easily goes to The Darkest Thoughts in the Brightest Sands (Aladdin, Jafar/everyone basically): Jasmine was dreaming, at least she was pretty sure. One of those fics that came due when time was not my ally this year, and I never got to give it the good one-over that surely would have led to polishing up that first part a bit.
Best first line: I don't remember first lines really, but looking back over what I wrote this year, I like this one: She smiles at the bloodbath before her, Cullen's pair of queen of thorns neatly under fire on all sides by her all flower suite. (Friendly Wagers, Dragon Age, Cullen/Isabela). It made me smile! I feel like all fics are better when they start in bloodbaths, even if it's just in playing cards.
Worst last line: She took his hand and held onto it tight. There was so much work to do, but first - she would take a moment to just breathe.
And maybe with Poe, she'd adjust. (Adjustment Period, Star Wars: Sequel Trilogy, Poe/Padme)
I never felt like this really ended well; I should have written something longer with them, but this is as far as I got in terms of an idea, and then I just threw alcohol at them. I wish I'd written that first date and perhaps Leia's reaction to it. Started with a bang, ended with a whimper.
Best last line: Chaolan's gloves fluttered to the ground, and his hands wrapped around Lars' head. Whether it was a gesture of affection or control - well, Lars knew it was the later. But looking up into Chaolan's eyes, he could almost be fooled into thinking it was the former. (This Charming Man (Tekken, Lars/Lee)
I really like writing Lee as someone in total control, especially given that he's kind of Tekken fandom's eternal uke/joke (which is wrong for a wide variety of reasons!*). I feel like I really hit Lee being manipulative, powerful and controlling, but still being so charming that even someone who knows he is being controlled (as Lars does here, he lost the game before he even realized Lee was playing) can still try to believe that maybe, maybe there's some affection there.
*People don't write about that side of Lee often enough; he's not as demonic as Kazuya, but that doesn't mean he is less monstrous. Heihachi did a whammy on those kids something good.
Looking back, did you write more fics than you thought you would this year, less than you thought, or about what you predicted?:About what I expected, a tiny bit more. I feel like I never got anything done last year, because I was writing mostly exchange fic... and looking through this, wow, I sure wrote a lot of exchange fic and not a lot of stuff for me.
What’s your favorite story this year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you the happiest: It's not published, but the Insanely Large Hadestown/Greek Mythology Fic That is Still Somehow Not Even Close to Done despite being 30K is overwhelmingly my favorite baby. I got to write Demeter with a shotgun and frankly that is a treat.
Okay, NOW your most popular story:
By Hits: Hold Me, Kiss Me, Thrill Me, Kill Me (Mass Effect, Morinth/F!Shepard) - smutty smut smut smutterino is the only reason that this one gets much in the way of hits. It's one of the first explicit F/F things I wrote this year, and I like it alright; Morinth is waaaaay out of line, morally, with characters I usually write and I think I got her character well. I wish I had written this sexier, somehow, though; it bothers me I still can't figure out why my dub-con feels like it falls flatter than I'd like.
By Kudos/Comments: The Trick is to Keep Breathing (Star Wars: Sequel Trilogy, Vader & Leia)! I love Vader and Leia so much but I feel like I struggle to hit their dynamic sometimes. This is my favorite sequel trilogy AU: Leia is so old and so tired and so done with all this, Vader is well aware of what he is, but also still yearning to reach out to Leia. I started a sequel for this that got long and I have yet to finish, but hope to someday before everyone forgets this fic exists. Shame I'm so burned out on Star Wars right now. :(
Story most underappreciated by the universe?: By hits, this year, that's And the Band Plays On (Jackalope Wives, gen), but that's not very surprising considering its based on a fairly niche short story in a short story collection (but a REALLY good one, and you should listen to Levar Burton read it, it's a really good deconstruction of just what happens to monster wives after the folktale ends.)
Most of my bottom list is there for a reason: original characters, or niche characters or pairings (Sidious/Palps gets no love), dead fandoms (*pours one out for Suikoden*); statistical outlier this time is The Long Way Around (Orpheus/Eurydice, mostly gen Hades & Eurydice); it's a lot worse, stats wise, than either of my other two Hadestown fics, which is odd given this hit Yuletide and the other two didn't. Guess everyone else loves Hades and Persephone more? (Which, I mean, me too, but...I like th
Story that could have been better? Life for Life (Rogue One, Bodhi/Bor Gullet) is a fic that hit every "what could go wrong: exchange edition" trope for me most of which were hellish conditions from work/school/real life stomping in. I did my best to write PWP for Bodhi and Bor Gullet and there's parts of it I do like; writing a character who cannot actually communicate like a human is a fun challenge and I liked trying to have it seduce Bodhi through accessing his memories and altering them to match what it was doing to him. But I don't think it worked as well as some of my other smut, and at the end of the day I wish I had more time to work on it. Similar fates befell The Darkest Thoughts in the Brightest Sands (Aladdin, Jafar/everyone basically) where I got overwhelmed by other stuff and struggled to find time to write or polish. Lesson to self: next year, don't sign up for stuff if you don't think you'll have time to finish it.
Sexiest story? Catharsis (Hadestown, Hades/Persephone) is by far my iddiest of last year. It's got a lot of my weaknesses - too much talking in smut, especially, no one shuts up in bed with my stuff, it's a bit too fluffy -- but it's also one of my favorite takes on make up sex, established (long long established) sex between old marrieds, and character/relationship-building in sex is my catnip to write.
Saddest story? Know These Bones (as being mine) (Star Wars: Sequel Trilogy, Leia & Ben/Kylo) - Leia gets her son back, but he's totally dependant on her, and she knows it's' only a matter of time until she's gone. Worse, he's still attracted to his Kylo-half, so really at best Leia is giving the universe a little time to recover before Ben/Kylo comes back (or, I guess better-for-the-universe-but-bad-for-Kylo, Ben starves to death after Leia dies); still, she loves him, and loves him beyond the point of admitting he's too dangerous to keep alive. She spends the whole fic trying to understand him, and at the end, she isn't really any closer; Ben never really understands what's happened to him, but knows he's missing something, and Kylo can't see anything beyond his own vengeance --including how to escape his prison... but they all know there's only so many ways this is gonna end.
Hardest story to write?: Boot/Reboot (Good Place, Janet/Jason) - This one was hard as hell and took the entire assignment writing time. Janet viewpoint, which is tricksy since she isn't a girl or a robot, linear but also kind of not because for half of them, they're meeting for the first time over and over, and Janet's voice being really hard to write makes this one really hard, but I am mostly pleased with the result. Also, I had to do research on Gainesville's craigslist for this, which wasn't hard but was kind of scary.
Easiest/most fun story to write?: Shoot to Kill (Star Wars: TOR, Sith Inquisitor Kallig/Darth Zash), because