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End-of-year writing meme, 2021 edition
I made it home safely, though I was pretty stressed to be on the train, and my 'I should start skating lessons again!' plan has been derailed for, like, the fourth time. Thanks, Covid.
US/Canada Nats probably should've been derailed by Covid, but I did enjoy watching what I could. So happy for CG/L's win - they are a lovely and well-matched pair and one of the few I keep up on, and it's also so cool to me that Leduc is probably going to be the first out nonbinary athlete at the winter Olympics! Jason was also great despite the ??? hours he spent in transit.
I am not confused by the hate Mariah got for winning over Karen despite the fact that Karen was off her music for most of the free skate and some of her jumps being visibly not rotated in real time (liked her SP, though), but I would love if someone on Mariah's team would edit the music for her SP. The performance has improved a lot - when I first saw it, all it made me feel was the urge to watch Zhenya's program instead - but that musical transition is so bad. Please. Don't make her skate that at the Olympics.
On the other hand, I was a little confused about the rending of garments over Ilia, someone I've haven't seen talked about as even a dark horse outside shot candidate for the Olympic team, not being prioritized over Jason on the basis of a clean Nats and inconsistent rest of his season (though personally I'd still consider kicking Vincent off for him anyway). But then those people started sounding a lot like Yags (QUAD QUAD QUAD never mind that Ilia's body movement and SS and choreo are still underdeveloped because he is, you know, seventeen and his FS was basically just jumping, to be fair he has amazing jumps QUAD) and I suspect the answer in some cases is homophobia, so. Still, it's hilarious when people are insisting that one set of clean performances at a national competition with inflated scores for a junior = solid medal candidate we are leaving behind and he needs to switch countries.
...well, at least Jason and Zhenya will both be present at the Olympics in some form, even if she may not be allowed to physically be there 💔
Anyway, now onto the writing meme. Apparently, I forgot to do this last year for 2020! Well, I wrote my thesis, that was the important thing.
This year's fic stats:
Total number: 20 fics + 1 original work + 1 meta (+ 1 art)
Total word count: 132570 posted to AO3, which is a bit higher than in 2020 - but there's original stuff not on AO3 that would add to that.
Ship/character breakdown:
Category breakdown, excluding the art/meta:
Gen: 10
M/M: 10
F/F: 1
Multi: 1
The last couple times I did this, gen was the most common, but this year it tied for M/M.
Fandoms: I am still obsessed with Yuri on Ice. That surprises me given how short it is, but... well, I guess I was super into Yami no Matsuei for years, too, and that didn't have that much more canon material to work with. I've been dipping into Onmyouji whenever there's new fic for even longer, and that's got only two movies (+books I haven't tried to read yet). Plus it's still the biggest fandom I'm into; reliably getting comments is nice. I'm still getting ideas for it - making the timeline even gave me a few more!
Anyway:
Yuri on Ice: 15
The Morose Mononokean: 2
FE Three Houses: 2
Onmyouji (the Japanese films): 1
Original Work: 1
Specifics:
Best/worst title?
My favorite is "Time is Not the Answer You Want". Also partial to "Missing You Yesterday", and I liked the symbolism of "Bright and Yellow, Soft and Cold".
I don't think I had any terrible ones this year, but "High Flier" is one of those ones where I had no idea what to name it and didn't come up with anything more clever.
Best/worst summary?
Best: For the most part, I think I did okay this year! Maybe "The other Russian coaches wonder what the hell goes on at Yakov Feltsman's rink. Why do his students keep winning, and why are they all so... like that?" or "It may not have all the heart-pounding excitement and drama of competition, but Mari's finding her own life and love."
Worst: "Leo and Guang-hong get a chance to act for a few minutes in the latest skating series. Afterward, Leo struggles to find the right music to convey something he realized during the filming." Clunky and plain.
IDEK: "Hiromasa and Seimei investigate three cases of fox possession." I feel like there should be more there for a 17k get-together casefic, but I could not think of another thing to add to it. (Then again, "Bright and Yellow" is almost 30k and the summary is just as long, so. Maybe it's fine?)
Best/worst first line?
Best: "Mari realized as a teenager that she was never, ever going to be as good at anything as Yuuri was at skating."
But again, I think I did pretty well here. I can't find any I think are noticeably worse than the others.
Best/worst last line?
Best: "And perhaps they could even try dancing together again, to no music but a rhythm of their own."
Worst: I had a hard time picking this one, but "Until then, Mari turned the volume down low and pulled her headphones on again, filling her ears with Takao's voice, ready for another quiet day of work." is one that I remember writing in attempt to just end already, story.
General questions:
Looking back, did you write more fics than you thought you would this year, less than you thought, or about what you predicted?
Less than I thought, considering I didn't have a job for most of it. (That being said, writing cover letters kind of sapped my writing energy on days I did that. Ditto for when I did have contracts and was writing code and reports.) But part of my effort did go into origfic. And I noticed that a few times, I wrote or edited a lot in one day for an exchange or something and burned myself out a bit, so I'm going to try not to do that this year. And also I didn't sign up for Trick or Treat and probably never will again, and I usually try to write a couple treats for that.
What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted last year?
I got Morooka/Yuuri on my bingo card (I also blame meme), but I can't see anything else that's at all surprising.
What's your favorite story this year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you the happiest.
"Bright and Yellow, Soft and Cold". I really enjoy exploring the Yakov & Victor relationship and pre/post-canon Victor, and it had a lot of moments that were fun to write. There was a point where I was cursing myself a little for having to write so many skating scenes in one fic, though! But I also think the 2018 in-universe Olympics have a lot of potential for messy feelings, so it was fun looking into one way that could shake out.
Okay, NOW your most popular story.
"Bright and Yellow, Soft and Cold"! Followed at a distance by "Merrily Whirl the Dizzying Dances" (FE3H fic about dancing), "A Flower for Your Thoughts" (postcanon Mononokean fic), and "From the Other Side of the Rink" (YOI outside POV humor fic), which I really did not expect to take off as much as it did - I think the TTT post on tumblr got reblogged a few times.
Story most underappreciated by the universe?
Is it cheating to say the timeline meta? Otherwise, "Like a Record, Baby" is probably the one I'd pick, though I'm not surprised, given the subject matter and ship.
Story that could have been better?
"Jouseki" I think could be smoother than it is. I struggled with getting the POV voice right, and that distracted me.
I'm not 100% satisfied with the climax of "Time is Not the Answer You Want" even after a few editing passes, but the recip seemed happy with the fic, at least.
Sexiest story?
"Like a Record, Baby"!
Saddest story?
"Time is Not the Answer You Want" - felt a bit bad for giving Flayn so many nightmares just when she most wanted to strengthen herself, but that's h/c for you.
Most fun?
"From the Other Side of the Rink" - Yakov's weird students from the perspective of the coaches grumbling about his students always taking up spots on the important teams.
Story with single sweetest moment?
Either the dad-daughter bonding in "Time is Not the Answer You Want" with Seteth admitting he also had nightmares, or Yakov comforting Victor in his own way about losing the Olympics (and telling him to have a proper wedding one day) in "Bright and Yellow, Soft and Cold".
Hardest story to write?
"Nike's Wreath" was a pinch hit for Heart Attack, an exchange with a 2-week writing period and a 10k minimum, and I spent the first week of that figuring out what I wanted to write. In the end, we ended up getting more time for editing, which was helpful! Smut is slow for me to write, which didn't help. I also worried a lot about keeping Yuuri roped in enough when he wasn't physically present.
"For Whose Sake the Moon Finds Lodging" was another one I struggled with, because Seimei is a somewhat difficult character to write - there's a reason most fic is written from Hiromasa's more everyday, non-magical viewpoint - and I had trouble deciding which story to write before I ended up stringing all three cases together. I also had Genji on the mind while writing it, which is a lot to live up to. I think the most difficult part was the get-together, because Heian romance is so goddamn vague that you can't ask for someone's daughter's hand in marriage without reciting poetry that has vague allusions to the thought of marriage. And Seimei is. Not that into Heian court culture lol. I'm still not sure how well I did.
Easiest/most fun story to write?
Ficlets aside, "From the Other Side of the Rink"! I sat down and wrote it straight through, inwardly grinning at what these poor OC coaches have to witness year after year.
Did any stories shift your perceptions of the characters?
I'm not sure if it shifted, but it was certainly something to dig more directly into Seimei's head for "For Whose Sake the Moon Finds Lodging".
Most overdue story?
Bright and Yellow, Soft and Cold got started in 2018. Which is long enough ago that the first chapter was half rewritten because I hated it.
Did you take any writing risks this year?
I was a bit nervous about posting "Like a Record, Baby" because I didn't want any wank over how the smut went down. (Sure, I am also trans, but I have less than zero desire to play argument from identity with internet strangers.) But nothing happened. It also didn't become super popular, but it's trans dude topping and a YOI rarepair, both of which are niche, so I didn't expect it to. Despite the dithering and editing I did about how exactly Chris ended up telling Victor, I did enjoy writing it.
What are your fic writing goals for next year?
In general, I want to work more on plotting! More specifically, though I want to focus more on origfic, fanfic-wise I want to write more Mononokean fic. Maybe one of the more dark and fucked-up ideas I have, since nobody else is writing that.
I also discovered, at the very end of the year, Grammarly, which is software/a browser add-on that tries to find your grammar mistakes and wrong word typos in whatever text form you've written in. While it did seem to make a lot of mistakes on the two fics I tried it on, it also caught a lot of mine, so I want to experiment more with it this year and see how helpful it is.
US/Canada Nats probably should've been derailed by Covid, but I did enjoy watching what I could. So happy for CG/L's win - they are a lovely and well-matched pair and one of the few I keep up on, and it's also so cool to me that Leduc is probably going to be the first out nonbinary athlete at the winter Olympics! Jason was also great despite the ??? hours he spent in transit.
I am not confused by the hate Mariah got for winning over Karen despite the fact that Karen was off her music for most of the free skate and some of her jumps being visibly not rotated in real time (liked her SP, though), but I would love if someone on Mariah's team would edit the music for her SP. The performance has improved a lot - when I first saw it, all it made me feel was the urge to watch Zhenya's program instead - but that musical transition is so bad. Please. Don't make her skate that at the Olympics.
On the other hand, I was a little confused about the rending of garments over Ilia, someone I've haven't seen talked about as even a dark horse outside shot candidate for the Olympic team, not being prioritized over Jason on the basis of a clean Nats and inconsistent rest of his season (though personally I'd still consider kicking Vincent off for him anyway). But then those people started sounding a lot like Yags (QUAD QUAD QUAD never mind that Ilia's body movement and SS and choreo are still underdeveloped because he is, you know, seventeen and his FS was basically just jumping, to be fair he has amazing jumps QUAD) and I suspect the answer in some cases is homophobia, so. Still, it's hilarious when people are insisting that one set of clean performances at a national competition with inflated scores for a junior = solid medal candidate we are leaving behind and he needs to switch countries.
...well, at least Jason and Zhenya will both be present at the Olympics in some form, even if she may not be allowed to physically be there 💔
Anyway, now onto the writing meme. Apparently, I forgot to do this last year for 2020! Well, I wrote my thesis, that was the important thing.
This year's fic stats:
Total number: 20 fics + 1 original work + 1 meta (+ 1 art)
Total word count: 132570 posted to AO3, which is a bit higher than in 2020 - but there's original stuff not on AO3 that would add to that.
Ship/character breakdown:
Category breakdown, excluding the art/meta:
Gen: 10
M/M: 10
F/F: 1
Multi: 1
The last couple times I did this, gen was the most common, but this year it tied for M/M.
Fandoms: I am still obsessed with Yuri on Ice. That surprises me given how short it is, but... well, I guess I was super into Yami no Matsuei for years, too, and that didn't have that much more canon material to work with. I've been dipping into Onmyouji whenever there's new fic for even longer, and that's got only two movies (+books I haven't tried to read yet). Plus it's still the biggest fandom I'm into; reliably getting comments is nice. I'm still getting ideas for it - making the timeline even gave me a few more!
Anyway:
Yuri on Ice: 15
The Morose Mononokean: 2
FE Three Houses: 2
Onmyouji (the Japanese films): 1
Original Work: 1
Specifics:
Best/worst title?
My favorite is "Time is Not the Answer You Want". Also partial to "Missing You Yesterday", and I liked the symbolism of "Bright and Yellow, Soft and Cold".
I don't think I had any terrible ones this year, but "High Flier" is one of those ones where I had no idea what to name it and didn't come up with anything more clever.
Best/worst summary?
Best: For the most part, I think I did okay this year! Maybe "The other Russian coaches wonder what the hell goes on at Yakov Feltsman's rink. Why do his students keep winning, and why are they all so... like that?" or "It may not have all the heart-pounding excitement and drama of competition, but Mari's finding her own life and love."
Worst: "Leo and Guang-hong get a chance to act for a few minutes in the latest skating series. Afterward, Leo struggles to find the right music to convey something he realized during the filming." Clunky and plain.
IDEK: "Hiromasa and Seimei investigate three cases of fox possession." I feel like there should be more there for a 17k get-together casefic, but I could not think of another thing to add to it. (Then again, "Bright and Yellow" is almost 30k and the summary is just as long, so. Maybe it's fine?)
Best/worst first line?
Best: "Mari realized as a teenager that she was never, ever going to be as good at anything as Yuuri was at skating."
But again, I think I did pretty well here. I can't find any I think are noticeably worse than the others.
Best/worst last line?
Best: "And perhaps they could even try dancing together again, to no music but a rhythm of their own."
Worst: I had a hard time picking this one, but "Until then, Mari turned the volume down low and pulled her headphones on again, filling her ears with Takao's voice, ready for another quiet day of work." is one that I remember writing in attempt to just end already, story.
General questions:
Looking back, did you write more fics than you thought you would this year, less than you thought, or about what you predicted?
Less than I thought, considering I didn't have a job for most of it. (That being said, writing cover letters kind of sapped my writing energy on days I did that. Ditto for when I did have contracts and was writing code and reports.) But part of my effort did go into origfic. And I noticed that a few times, I wrote or edited a lot in one day for an exchange or something and burned myself out a bit, so I'm going to try not to do that this year. And also I didn't sign up for Trick or Treat and probably never will again, and I usually try to write a couple treats for that.
What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted last year?
I got Morooka/Yuuri on my bingo card (I also blame meme), but I can't see anything else that's at all surprising.
What's your favorite story this year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you the happiest.
"Bright and Yellow, Soft and Cold". I really enjoy exploring the Yakov & Victor relationship and pre/post-canon Victor, and it had a lot of moments that were fun to write. There was a point where I was cursing myself a little for having to write so many skating scenes in one fic, though! But I also think the 2018 in-universe Olympics have a lot of potential for messy feelings, so it was fun looking into one way that could shake out.
Okay, NOW your most popular story.
"Bright and Yellow, Soft and Cold"! Followed at a distance by "Merrily Whirl the Dizzying Dances" (FE3H fic about dancing), "A Flower for Your Thoughts" (postcanon Mononokean fic), and "From the Other Side of the Rink" (YOI outside POV humor fic), which I really did not expect to take off as much as it did - I think the TTT post on tumblr got reblogged a few times.
Story most underappreciated by the universe?
Is it cheating to say the timeline meta? Otherwise, "Like a Record, Baby" is probably the one I'd pick, though I'm not surprised, given the subject matter and ship.
Story that could have been better?
"Jouseki" I think could be smoother than it is. I struggled with getting the POV voice right, and that distracted me.
I'm not 100% satisfied with the climax of "Time is Not the Answer You Want" even after a few editing passes, but the recip seemed happy with the fic, at least.
Sexiest story?
"Like a Record, Baby"!
Saddest story?
"Time is Not the Answer You Want" - felt a bit bad for giving Flayn so many nightmares just when she most wanted to strengthen herself, but that's h/c for you.
Most fun?
"From the Other Side of the Rink" - Yakov's weird students from the perspective of the coaches grumbling about his students always taking up spots on the important teams.
Story with single sweetest moment?
Either the dad-daughter bonding in "Time is Not the Answer You Want" with Seteth admitting he also had nightmares, or Yakov comforting Victor in his own way about losing the Olympics (and telling him to have a proper wedding one day) in "Bright and Yellow, Soft and Cold".
Hardest story to write?
"Nike's Wreath" was a pinch hit for Heart Attack, an exchange with a 2-week writing period and a 10k minimum, and I spent the first week of that figuring out what I wanted to write. In the end, we ended up getting more time for editing, which was helpful! Smut is slow for me to write, which didn't help. I also worried a lot about keeping Yuuri roped in enough when he wasn't physically present.
"For Whose Sake the Moon Finds Lodging" was another one I struggled with, because Seimei is a somewhat difficult character to write - there's a reason most fic is written from Hiromasa's more everyday, non-magical viewpoint - and I had trouble deciding which story to write before I ended up stringing all three cases together. I also had Genji on the mind while writing it, which is a lot to live up to. I think the most difficult part was the get-together, because Heian romance is so goddamn vague that you can't ask for someone's daughter's hand in marriage without reciting poetry that has vague allusions to the thought of marriage. And Seimei is. Not that into Heian court culture lol. I'm still not sure how well I did.
Easiest/most fun story to write?
Ficlets aside, "From the Other Side of the Rink"! I sat down and wrote it straight through, inwardly grinning at what these poor OC coaches have to witness year after year.
Did any stories shift your perceptions of the characters?
I'm not sure if it shifted, but it was certainly something to dig more directly into Seimei's head for "For Whose Sake the Moon Finds Lodging".
Most overdue story?
Bright and Yellow, Soft and Cold got started in 2018. Which is long enough ago that the first chapter was half rewritten because I hated it.
Did you take any writing risks this year?
I was a bit nervous about posting "Like a Record, Baby" because I didn't want any wank over how the smut went down. (Sure, I am also trans, but I have less than zero desire to play argument from identity with internet strangers.) But nothing happened. It also didn't become super popular, but it's trans dude topping and a YOI rarepair, both of which are niche, so I didn't expect it to. Despite the dithering and editing I did about how exactly Chris ended up telling Victor, I did enjoy writing it.
What are your fic writing goals for next year?
In general, I want to work more on plotting! More specifically, though I want to focus more on origfic, fanfic-wise I want to write more Mononokean fic. Maybe one of the more dark and fucked-up ideas I have, since nobody else is writing that.
I also discovered, at the very end of the year, Grammarly, which is software/a browser add-on that tries to find your grammar mistakes and wrong word typos in whatever text form you've written in. While it did seem to make a lot of mistakes on the two fics I tried it on, it also caught a lot of mine, so I want to experiment more with it this year and see how helpful it is.