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2018 in fic
Here's 2018's year in fic!
(Previous years: 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006)
February
New Horizons -That Which Was Lost- (Legend of Sun Knight, 5711 words)
This oneshot took me quite a while to finish, so it wasn't until February that I got it done. It fought me the entire way. XD; But the end result was something that I liked, with the story coming full circle. I seem to like writing characters just sitting around and talking... this is at least the second story I've had Grisia and Lesus sitting and talking, the other being Long Live the Sun Knight. But hey, this time it's from Lesus's POV, which is always fun to write.
March
New Horizons -That Which Was Lost- Extras (Legend of Sun Knight, 1815 words)
Even though I probably should have just left the story as is, I thought I'd write some silly extras to go along with it. Best counter for angst. XD The tone is completely different from the main story, so I wrote and posted these separately.
I also finished writing a chapter to one of my ongoing stories in April, coming out to be around 4k words, but since I haven't posted it yet, I didn't count it for 2018's word count.
October
so my captain shrank... now what? Part 1 (Legend of Sun Knight, 991 words)
so my captain shrank... now what? Part 2 (Legend of Sun Knight, 1527 words)
so my captain shrank... now what? Part 3 (Legend of Sun Knight, 1607 words)
so my captain shrank... now what? Part 4 (Legend of Sun Knight, 1096 words)
so my captain shrank... now what? Part 5 (Legend of Sun Knight, 1170 words)
so my captain shrank... now what? Part 6 (Legend of Sun Knight, 1354 words)
so my captain shrank... now what? Part 7 (Legend of Sun Knight, 1066 words)
so my captain shrank... now what? Part 8 (Legend of Sun Knight, 1340 words)
so my captain shrank... now what? Part 9 (Legend of Sun Knight, 2370 words)
Dang, I had a looong dry spell. I took quite a long break from writing altogether until I decided to give 4thewords a try. It's really motivated me to at least write a little everyday, and that's how I finished this story. :3 So my captain shrank is a companion piece to A Vice-Captain's Tale and so we can get to know you. Basically just rambling writing. It was just nice putting words down again. It got me back into writing, and I've been keeping up with it since~ (on my 86th day now!) Hoping I'm able to keep up with it through 2019. This plunny came about when I was rereading some of my own stories to compile them together into a book thanks to fhaystshilffe for spurring me on!
I quite enjoyed being able to post updates to a completed longfic daily. I'm hoping to be able to do so again sometime.
November
New Horizons -That Lollipop's Lingering Taste (Legend of Sun Knight, 6172 words)
I actually started this one before all my other New Horizon fics. (Oh, also, the name "New Horizons" comes from the song A Whole New World... since these stories are responses to the Whole New World AU challenge ahahah)
Here, have a verse of the song:
A whole new world (Every turn a surprise)
With new horizons to pursue (Every moment, red-letter)
I'll chase them anywhere
There's time to spare
Let me share this whole new world with you
Ahem. Anyway, for the longest time, I never got past the beginning parts of this fic. Grisia and Charlotte weren't cooperating. Until I realized Charlotte still wanted to blow things up. o/
December
Doorway (World Trigger, 3511 words)
The Narrow View Through the Mask (Fire Emblem Heroes, 2530 words)
I took a break from my LSK fics to write my Yuletide story~. I spent the latter half of November reviewing canon, and goodness did it take me a long time... 168 chapters... now 171. It's awesome that World Trigger returned from hiatus though! Amazing timing.
I find World Trigger to be a complicated series. There are so many characters! Arashiyama is not all that major of a character either, so whenever he did show up, I frantically made note of that, haha. I was glad to discover that the WT fanbook has been translated pretty thoroughly, so that helped fill in my knowledge about Arashiyama. The most important things I took away though were his love of his family, and that his family consisted of his parents, grandma, younger sister and brother, and a dog.
I came up with several different ideas. I don't think I'll be writing any of them anymore, as they were all ideas I couldn't get to work, but here they are!
idea #1: Arashiyama Unit is chosen to do PR for Border's first announced expedition. They record most of the trip. Story is revealed through videos, posts, and online comments. (I only got around 60 words into this idea, haha. My recipient wanted hurt/comfort and a desperate Jun with things to hide, and this really wasn't leading to that.)
idea #2: Far in the future, friendly contact has been made with a neighbor nation called Skylos (Greek for dog), and the Arashiyama Unit is sent as the negotiating team to discuss terms of opening their borders for travel between the nations. While there, Jun is kidnapped. (I planned this one pretty thoroughly and realized it would turn into a very long fic before I even got to the main part, which is Jun getting kidnapped. I didn't have enough time to write such a long fic, so I had to scrap this idea. I had a lot of things I wanted to include though, like Jun's siblings joining different factions of Border. Anyway, the only thing I kept from this idea was the neighbor nation, Skylos, but I don't even mention it by name in the end fic though.)
idea #3: Arashiyama's trigger malfunctions, and he ends up being able to hear Tachikawa's thoughts. He wonders if he has gained a side effect, but it turns out that Tachikawa's are the only thoughts he can hear. (My recipient likes Tachikawa/Arashiyama, and I was hoping this could lead into their like of being unwillingly bound, but I had a lot of trouble describing the trigger and how it worked, so this idea was also scrapped)
idea #4: Arashiyama's trigger malfunctions (ahaha, yes, I was on a roll with triggers malfunctioning) and he ends up switching trion bodies with Tachikawa. Tachikawa tries to do PR with disastrous results. (I got around 400 words into this fic, with it formatted as a 5+1 fic, already gave it a name—Trigger Malfunction—but stopped because this is something I enjoy but uh, not sure my recipient would like bodyswap and it wasn't very big on the hurt/comfort)
idea #5: Arashiyama gets kidnapped. (Straight to the point this time! So the story would start with him in a cell, with him slowly despairing after being confined for a long time with no one visiting him, his narration growing less and less lucid. I had a lot of trouble describing him slowly losing his mind, so I didn't get very far.)
idea #6: Tachikawa is a university student who buys Arashiyama as a pet from Count D. (This idea kind of made it into the resulting fic? But it's not Tachikawa who buys Arashiyama. My recipient indicated liking Petshop of Horrors AUs, so I thought I'd try my hand at it.)
idea #7: Outsider POV with Fuku detailing his brother's return home after getting hurt on an expedition. (I also got around 400 into this fic and gave it the name, "What You Fight For." In the end, I felt it focused on Fuku too much, but this had more of a chance of getting finished than the other ideas. Because siblings? I'm so there.)
My ideas were all over the place. :'D In the end, I can't say if one of the other ideas might have worked better, but the one I went with was the one that I was finally able to get past 400 words with, and that I felt catered to my recipient's taste more.
When I finished my assignment, I looked over Yuletide letters again. Zynnser's Fire Emblem Heroes prompt really jumped out at me! I got around 1k written by Dec 24th and didn't know if I'd finish it. But then I sat myself down and somehow wrote another 1.5k and got the fic to a satisfying conclusion. :') I totally ran out of time to name the fic though, so I slapped on a title at the last minute (now it's too similar to another title I've given, The View Through the Window), and I wasn't able to add the italics back in. So er, now the fic has no italicization, but hey, I think it still works like that, so no italics it is.
Total number of stories: 4 oneshots, 1 longfic started and completed. It's fewer stories than previous years, but each oneshot has generally been longer.
Total word count: 32,262. Wow, this is almost exactly the same as my 2017 word count.
Fandoms written in: Legend of Sun Knight, World Trigger, Fire Emblem Heroes.
Leitmotif(s) of the year: talking it out, probably, haha.
Favorite fic: That Which Was Lost. Looking back, I quite like how this fic comes full circle.
Best fic: That Which Was Lost. Because feels.
Most popular fic: so my captain shrank... now what? An actual fic of decent length that I was able to complete right away.
Most underappreciated fic: Doorway. It's mostly received crickets on AO3. I worry that my depiction of certain subjects might be distasteful, but it's also a small fandom and rare pair, so those could be factors too.
Favorite first lines: "Might I buy you a drink?" I asked. (That Which Was Lost)
Most fun fic: The Narrow View Through the Mask. Because imagine Alfonse wearing Bruno's mask!
Sexiest fic: None.
Fic that shifted my own perceptions of the characters: That Lollipop's Lingering Taste. I feel I got to know Charlotte better after writing this.
New pairing/genre/fandom you never predicted writing in January: World Trigger.
Hardest fic to write: Doorway. I came up with so many ideas before finally writing this one.
Biggest disappointment: Not updating any of my previous WIPs.
Biggest surprise: Writing a companion piece to A Vice-Captain's Tale and so we can get to know you.
Most telling fic: All of them? But as I was writing The Narrow View Through the Mask, I had Alfonse go off and train on his own, and I was very much going, "Oh dear, I'm having him turn into Tyler now..."
What's next?
I had quite a long dry spell in 2018, so in 2019, I'm hoping to post at least one thing a month. I have several stories in the works and can't wait to finish them~. I've mostly been writing oneshots that have been turning very... long... as I want to finish them instead of letting them turn into unfinished multi-chapter stories. I feel that these oneshots are pretty developed, so I'm quite happy with them. I'm pleased to say that I didn't start any new multi-chapter stories in 2018 that I didn't finish (well, I only wrote one and finished it), so that's a good start. I feel that several of my old fics could have been long oneshots instead, such as Fifteen Going on Sixty and A Rose For Your Hair.
I'll be focusing on finishing as many of my responses to the![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
whole_new_world challenge as I can. I have 5 in the works right now. :') Not sure if I'll be able to reach 15, but hey, if I can get at least half the challenge done, I'll be happy.
As for my other WIPs... I've left them for so long that I wonder if I'll be able to return to them. I might have to draw random names out of a hat to see which one I should tackle first, pffft. I do feel that several stories are close to completion, though some of them still need a ton of work.
I'll be attempting Get Your Words Out once again, with a goal of 150,000 words. I fell very short of it in 2018 once again, but I have a good feeling about this coming year! Let's do it!
(Previous years: 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006)
February
New Horizons -That Which Was Lost- (Legend of Sun Knight, 5711 words)
This oneshot took me quite a while to finish, so it wasn't until February that I got it done. It fought me the entire way. XD; But the end result was something that I liked, with the story coming full circle. I seem to like writing characters just sitting around and talking... this is at least the second story I've had Grisia and Lesus sitting and talking, the other being Long Live the Sun Knight. But hey, this time it's from Lesus's POV, which is always fun to write.
March
New Horizons -That Which Was Lost- Extras (Legend of Sun Knight, 1815 words)
Even though I probably should have just left the story as is, I thought I'd write some silly extras to go along with it. Best counter for angst. XD The tone is completely different from the main story, so I wrote and posted these separately.
I also finished writing a chapter to one of my ongoing stories in April, coming out to be around 4k words, but since I haven't posted it yet, I didn't count it for 2018's word count.
October
so my captain shrank... now what? Part 1 (Legend of Sun Knight, 991 words)
so my captain shrank... now what? Part 2 (Legend of Sun Knight, 1527 words)
so my captain shrank... now what? Part 3 (Legend of Sun Knight, 1607 words)
so my captain shrank... now what? Part 4 (Legend of Sun Knight, 1096 words)
so my captain shrank... now what? Part 5 (Legend of Sun Knight, 1170 words)
so my captain shrank... now what? Part 6 (Legend of Sun Knight, 1354 words)
so my captain shrank... now what? Part 7 (Legend of Sun Knight, 1066 words)
so my captain shrank... now what? Part 8 (Legend of Sun Knight, 1340 words)
so my captain shrank... now what? Part 9 (Legend of Sun Knight, 2370 words)
Dang, I had a looong dry spell. I took quite a long break from writing altogether until I decided to give 4thewords a try. It's really motivated me to at least write a little everyday, and that's how I finished this story. :3 So my captain shrank is a companion piece to A Vice-Captain's Tale and so we can get to know you. Basically just rambling writing. It was just nice putting words down again. It got me back into writing, and I've been keeping up with it since~ (on my 86th day now!) Hoping I'm able to keep up with it through 2019. This plunny came about when I was rereading some of my own stories to compile them together into a book thanks to fhaystshilffe for spurring me on!
I quite enjoyed being able to post updates to a completed longfic daily. I'm hoping to be able to do so again sometime.
November
New Horizons -That Lollipop's Lingering Taste (Legend of Sun Knight, 6172 words)
I actually started this one before all my other New Horizon fics. (Oh, also, the name "New Horizons" comes from the song A Whole New World... since these stories are responses to the Whole New World AU challenge ahahah)
Here, have a verse of the song:
A whole new world (Every turn a surprise)
With new horizons to pursue (Every moment, red-letter)
I'll chase them anywhere
There's time to spare
Let me share this whole new world with you
Ahem. Anyway, for the longest time, I never got past the beginning parts of this fic. Grisia and Charlotte weren't cooperating. Until I realized Charlotte still wanted to blow things up. o/
December
Doorway (World Trigger, 3511 words)
The Narrow View Through the Mask (Fire Emblem Heroes, 2530 words)
I took a break from my LSK fics to write my Yuletide story~. I spent the latter half of November reviewing canon, and goodness did it take me a long time... 168 chapters... now 171. It's awesome that World Trigger returned from hiatus though! Amazing timing.
I find World Trigger to be a complicated series. There are so many characters! Arashiyama is not all that major of a character either, so whenever he did show up, I frantically made note of that, haha. I was glad to discover that the WT fanbook has been translated pretty thoroughly, so that helped fill in my knowledge about Arashiyama. The most important things I took away though were his love of his family, and that his family consisted of his parents, grandma, younger sister and brother, and a dog.
I came up with several different ideas. I don't think I'll be writing any of them anymore, as they were all ideas I couldn't get to work, but here they are!
idea #1: Arashiyama Unit is chosen to do PR for Border's first announced expedition. They record most of the trip. Story is revealed through videos, posts, and online comments. (I only got around 60 words into this idea, haha. My recipient wanted hurt/comfort and a desperate Jun with things to hide, and this really wasn't leading to that.)
idea #2: Far in the future, friendly contact has been made with a neighbor nation called Skylos (Greek for dog), and the Arashiyama Unit is sent as the negotiating team to discuss terms of opening their borders for travel between the nations. While there, Jun is kidnapped. (I planned this one pretty thoroughly and realized it would turn into a very long fic before I even got to the main part, which is Jun getting kidnapped. I didn't have enough time to write such a long fic, so I had to scrap this idea. I had a lot of things I wanted to include though, like Jun's siblings joining different factions of Border. Anyway, the only thing I kept from this idea was the neighbor nation, Skylos, but I don't even mention it by name in the end fic though.)
idea #3: Arashiyama's trigger malfunctions, and he ends up being able to hear Tachikawa's thoughts. He wonders if he has gained a side effect, but it turns out that Tachikawa's are the only thoughts he can hear. (My recipient likes Tachikawa/Arashiyama, and I was hoping this could lead into their like of being unwillingly bound, but I had a lot of trouble describing the trigger and how it worked, so this idea was also scrapped)
idea #4: Arashiyama's trigger malfunctions (ahaha, yes, I was on a roll with triggers malfunctioning) and he ends up switching trion bodies with Tachikawa. Tachikawa tries to do PR with disastrous results. (I got around 400 words into this fic, with it formatted as a 5+1 fic, already gave it a name—Trigger Malfunction—but stopped because this is something I enjoy but uh, not sure my recipient would like bodyswap and it wasn't very big on the hurt/comfort)
idea #5: Arashiyama gets kidnapped. (Straight to the point this time! So the story would start with him in a cell, with him slowly despairing after being confined for a long time with no one visiting him, his narration growing less and less lucid. I had a lot of trouble describing him slowly losing his mind, so I didn't get very far.)
idea #6: Tachikawa is a university student who buys Arashiyama as a pet from Count D. (This idea kind of made it into the resulting fic? But it's not Tachikawa who buys Arashiyama. My recipient indicated liking Petshop of Horrors AUs, so I thought I'd try my hand at it.)
idea #7: Outsider POV with Fuku detailing his brother's return home after getting hurt on an expedition. (I also got around 400 into this fic and gave it the name, "What You Fight For." In the end, I felt it focused on Fuku too much, but this had more of a chance of getting finished than the other ideas. Because siblings? I'm so there.)
My ideas were all over the place. :'D In the end, I can't say if one of the other ideas might have worked better, but the one I went with was the one that I was finally able to get past 400 words with, and that I felt catered to my recipient's taste more.
When I finished my assignment, I looked over Yuletide letters again. Zynnser's Fire Emblem Heroes prompt really jumped out at me! I got around 1k written by Dec 24th and didn't know if I'd finish it. But then I sat myself down and somehow wrote another 1.5k and got the fic to a satisfying conclusion. :') I totally ran out of time to name the fic though, so I slapped on a title at the last minute (now it's too similar to another title I've given, The View Through the Window), and I wasn't able to add the italics back in. So er, now the fic has no italicization, but hey, I think it still works like that, so no italics it is.
Total number of stories: 4 oneshots, 1 longfic started and completed. It's fewer stories than previous years, but each oneshot has generally been longer.
Total word count: 32,262. Wow, this is almost exactly the same as my 2017 word count.
Fandoms written in: Legend of Sun Knight, World Trigger, Fire Emblem Heroes.
Leitmotif(s) of the year: talking it out, probably, haha.
Favorite fic: That Which Was Lost. Looking back, I quite like how this fic comes full circle.
Best fic: That Which Was Lost. Because feels.
Most popular fic: so my captain shrank... now what? An actual fic of decent length that I was able to complete right away.
Most underappreciated fic: Doorway. It's mostly received crickets on AO3. I worry that my depiction of certain subjects might be distasteful, but it's also a small fandom and rare pair, so those could be factors too.
Favorite first lines: "Might I buy you a drink?" I asked. (That Which Was Lost)
Most fun fic: The Narrow View Through the Mask. Because imagine Alfonse wearing Bruno's mask!
Sexiest fic: None.
Fic that shifted my own perceptions of the characters: That Lollipop's Lingering Taste. I feel I got to know Charlotte better after writing this.
New pairing/genre/fandom you never predicted writing in January: World Trigger.
Hardest fic to write: Doorway. I came up with so many ideas before finally writing this one.
Biggest disappointment: Not updating any of my previous WIPs.
Biggest surprise: Writing a companion piece to A Vice-Captain's Tale and so we can get to know you.
Most telling fic: All of them? But as I was writing The Narrow View Through the Mask, I had Alfonse go off and train on his own, and I was very much going, "Oh dear, I'm having him turn into Tyler now..."
What's next?
I had quite a long dry spell in 2018, so in 2019, I'm hoping to post at least one thing a month. I have several stories in the works and can't wait to finish them~. I've mostly been writing oneshots that have been turning very... long... as I want to finish them instead of letting them turn into unfinished multi-chapter stories. I feel that these oneshots are pretty developed, so I'm quite happy with them. I'm pleased to say that I didn't start any new multi-chapter stories in 2018 that I didn't finish (well, I only wrote one and finished it), so that's a good start. I feel that several of my old fics could have been long oneshots instead, such as Fifteen Going on Sixty and A Rose For Your Hair.
I'll be focusing on finishing as many of my responses to the
whole_new_world challenge as I can. I have 5 in the works right now. :') Not sure if I'll be able to reach 15, but hey, if I can get at least half the challenge done, I'll be happy.As for my other WIPs... I've left them for so long that I wonder if I'll be able to return to them. I might have to draw random names out of a hat to see which one I should tackle first, pffft. I do feel that several stories are close to completion, though some of them still need a ton of work.
I'll be attempting Get Your Words Out once again, with a goal of 150,000 words. I fell very short of it in 2018 once again, but I have a good feeling about this coming year! Let's do it!