#SURPRISE SURPRISE teen wolf lolol

[kendall-coded]

2021 fic year in review!

thank you for the tag @fanfics-fix and @outtoshatter <3

i actually already did a similar wrap-up type of thing pretty recently, which you can view here if you’d like (: this one goes a bit more in depth on the fic aspect of things, so i figured i would do it as well!

total number of completed works - 36 (15 have been deleted so now 21 rip)

total word count - 325,530 (252,520 not counting the deleted works ouch)

fandoms i’ve written in - teen wolf and detroit: become human (hoping to write more for the latter soon!)

looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you’d expected? - i actually wrote a lot more than i expected? i don’t think anyone (especially not anyone like me) just casually plans on writing 325k worth of gay fanfiction in a year lolol. also, last year, i only wrote about 52k. so, calculating these stats was definitely a pleasant surprise!

what’s your own favorite story of the year? - oh this one is tough. my favorite story of mine changes constantly and i always have more than one. for right now, though i think it’s unexpected, i actually would say it’s just a skull (at least that’s what they call it). i just enjoyed writing it and i personally think it has some of my best instances of like…uh “lyrical” writing. is that thing? at the same time, i would say it’s tied with after the pain, rebirth. i just really like that one for some reason.

did you take any writing risks this year? - um, yes? at least i think so. i participated in a lot of events, which came back to bite me more than once. i sometimes severely overestimate my levels of motivation and creativity, which gets pretty risky haha. i only did five, but boy those deadlines sneak up on you lolol

do you have any fanfic goals or profic goals for the new year? - yes and no. i don’t really have any structured or numeric goals. mainly i just want to remain comfortable and happy, and i want to write things that i am proud of. there have been instances this year where i have considered changing my writing style or changing the types of stories i’m willing to write in order to garner more engagement or to feel like my content has value. so, next year, i don’t want to ever back myself into a corner where i make myself think those are my only options. my goal is to continue writing for me first, that’s all.

most popular story of the year - in terms of kudos, we’ve become trees! and jeez louise i am so grateful for the love that fic has gotten, i don’t even know how to articulate it. if we’re talking hits, then let slip the dogs of war. but uh. we do not talk about that fic.

story of mine most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion - i would probably say mark me like a bloodstain, which is just a shame because @seanchaidh7 made such gorgeous art for it and she deserves all the recognition in the world.

most fun story to write - oh definitely echolalia, which i wrote with @jaskie. getting to include so many different elements was just so fun and also coming up with a fake tv show and its characters and an entirely different universe was so awesome. it helps that poe is just, like, the best ever <3

most unintentionally telling story - we’ve become trees. this fic became something entirely different than i’d intended. i was in a pretty uh just not good place when i started writing it for the big bang. i basically began using it as an outlet for a bunch of internal negativity that i had no place for. there is a lot of me and my heartache embedded into that story and so it just means a lot to me.

biggest disappointment - in general, i do think i write things that most people don’t want to read. and that’s okay! but, it can get discouraging at times to work really hard on something and get, like, 10 kudos. but, at the same time, i do genuinely cherish and appreciate all the support i get and i memorize the names of the people who leave kudos and comments and i see when they read/comment on several of my fics and it just makes me feel good. i will say i do also get a lot of comments! so, it’s a toss up, really. i try not to get disappointed because this is supposed to be fun!

my favorite part of fandom this year - all the friends i’ve made! i got to meet so many wonderful people this year who have just meant so much to me. i have met people who have helped me become a better writer, people who i yell at about firefighters on tv, people who i know i can text in the middle of the night to tell, in detail, some very odd idea that came to me in a dream or something. i have met people who care about me and it has been a great year because of them!

well, that’s a wrap! i am tagging anyone who feels like doing this. have at it! <3

[darkisrising]

are you surprised at how far youve come this year? (for example sparking the BDL revolution lol) and also, do you have any plans for the next year of writing?

LOLOL I mean, I don't know how much sparking I did so much as tricking people into writing exactly what I wanted to read, so in that sense: mwahahahaha, everything is going according to plan. But in the broader sense, no, haha, I never thought I'd ever get this deep into fandom or fanfic and yes it is absolutely a shock to look back and see so much fic written, and friends made, and a server managed(ish), and an interview series that's posting... yeah, who could have predicted all that?? This coming year, I have no plans, honestly. I'm intrigued by Trent/Ted from Ted Lasso, but is it enough to write that pairing? Who knows. I know I'll be working on some of my own content, so I'll probably be posting less.... then again I spent all day yesterday editing my own project and by evening was like I JUST WANT TO WRITE so I wound up throwing together a short Teen Wolf ditty that I posted on ao3 impulsively even though it was only 711 words. I guess that's the exciting thing about this fandom venture. Just throwing yourself into whatever endeavor and if it doesn't work out you can just disappear entirely, come back as a new pseud, and no one needs to know how horribly you disgraced yourself. Or so I keep telling myself 😂 Thanks for playing!! * AMA game

[noonaishere]

@luvvvx lol, thank you. I’m glad you like it, it was very difficult considering my cat was assaulting me the whole time I was trying to put it together 🤣🤣 (Sort of like right now, lol)

(Putting a read more because this ended up being longer than I expected)

See it’s actually because I learned from trying - years ago - that I can’t write serially. Like, I can’t just sit down once a week and write a chapter of a fic and upload it and then go off and live the rest of my life and expect to sit down a week later and still have the same level of interest in the project; I still have an unfinished fic on my AO3 that is testament to this. I really envy people that can do that, because unless I ride that hyperfixation wave all the way up to the shore of Actually Finishing Something, it’s never going to get done. (Like, I was one of those students who waited until the last second to do anything because that’s the only time the deadline felt like it was real at all?? If that makes sense lol) This normally manifests in me doing some variation of a Nanowrimo-style thing working on something for a straight month until it’s done and I’m mildly burned out on it and can’t even look at it for a week after.

Basically, I wrote this for every Fri-Sun during May of this year (as I had work from Mon-Thu); then divided it into “parts” for upload (roughly based around scene changes or time jumps); made all the text screenshots (which was probably the worst part, my carpal tunnel was like “SURPRISE BITCH!” from all the typing on my phone and I was like “Dear GOD, no!!”); then I made this tumblr and premade the posts as drafts so they were all in number order and I could add the pictures and/or text after; added all the pictures and text once they were all done; figured out the dates that everything would have to update and then put them into a document (so I would never have to figure them out again because oh my god, that was tedious lol) and copy/pasted the dates into the schedule part of each post and scheduled them.

... then as it started uploading, I realized I needed to have a couple more scenes to make a few points a bit clearer (and I just finished the last one and still have to make a post lol)

So like, it was a lot of work in the behind the scenes sense, but now I get to kind of chill while it updates on its own and enjoy everyone’s reactions to it without the pressure of “Shit, I have to write this week’s thing.”

As for new stories...

I thought of maybe doing kind of a “choose your own adventure” (like a Twine or something) style fic with Ateez where you get to choose which member you have important moments of the story with and which one you end the story with, but that would require writing certain scenes 8 times and that’s..... a lot, lol. So idk about that one. (That might actually be easier if I had someone else to write it with lol)

I also have been having ideas for an original story that takes place in the kpop industry, but that’s not a fanfic, soooo...

I was also thinking of finishing the unfinished fic I mentioned, since I still have most of the original notes and maybe turning it into an enemies to lovers or something? It wasn’t kpop though lol

And then I also have like... four original things that I need to so something with. Like... a something that involves me getting paid for having written it lolol. Like, I’d love to find an artist and do them as webcomics, honestly.

But if you’re interested, I have some older fics on my AO3:

An oc/Deucalion (Teen Wolf) fic. My first one. I think there’s some formatting funkiness in there somewhere, but I might have fixed it? I literally can’t remember anymore. This has smut.

An oc/Loki (MCU) one. This has smut as well. One chapter is just 10k of almost all smut.

An oc/Malachi (Riverdale). This doesn’t have smut, but it’s also the unfinished one.

An oc/real person fic (Henry Cavill), which is only like 30k (smutless), and I wrote it because I wanted to try writing something with the structure of the first season of The Witcher (re: time jumps and that narrative circle).

Soooo, yeah. I tend to jump from fandom to fandom as I find interesting things or get bored of them lol.

I’m not totally sure what I’m going to work on next 🤣

[stilestilikeslydia]

A Totally Objective and Unemotional Recap of Teen Wolf Episode 6x12: Raw Talent

@wellsjahasghost hasn’t gotten a chance to watch the episode yet, so I told her I’d write her a recap, and....... yeah, this is about as far from objective as it gets.

friends, i really hated this episode, and this recap is almost entirely negative, so if you really liked the episode, you probably want to skip this post lol. if you're also bitter and want to enjoy 2.5k of someone else ranting, please read on!

The real title of this text post: 

Anya Discusses Plot Holes, #recycledplotlines, and Casual Racism in Episode 6x12

*ahem* 

The show begins. The0 R@eken, sleeping in his car because he is homeless and friendless and irredeemable, is awoken multiple times, in multiple locations and at multiple times of day, by police officers rapping on his window and telling him to get up and leave. It takes me three minutes to figure out that it's him for sure because he's grown out his hair a bit to look more Boyish, Unkempt, and Vulnerable and I can no longer tell white boys on Teen Wolf apart. By the time I've reached 95% certainty that it is, in fact, the white boy who literally killed Scott and is still stanned by tw fans everywhere, he's waking up in the middle of the night to a spider crawling on his hand. He watches it, fascinated and unafraid, probably because he's like "yo this thing looks as evil as I am lolol." Then the spider burrows under his skin.

Cue The0 breaking into Deaton's vet office to stab the spider crawling around in his back with a scalpel and pull it out of him. Cue me gagging. Then the spider disappears in a puff of black smoke/gunpowder dust bc like... why not.

The police montage continues. And continues. I'm bored. Then - gasp! - the next police are nOt In fAcT CoPs bUt mEN wItH gUnS wHo wAnT To kiLL thE0. They shoot into his car repeatedly, and the scene ends.

(This would be a good cliffhanger if tw trailers didn't already show him appearing in future episodes smh.)

I refuse to watch the episode again, so I'm just going to say that I'm pretty sure the mcmartate scene is next. I'm not going to recap it fully because it was actually pretty good and this recap is not about Accuracy, it's about Salt. In short, the Scott laser scene happens but it turns out that the lasers were actually police flashlight beams (why were they in the woods?!?! who the heck knows. oh wait p@rrish exists, i forgot. maybe he told them about getting beat up by a hellhound wearing matching boxer briefs) and he was hallucinating. he's panicked enough to wolf out before he realizes it's a hallucination and the entire police department sees his eyes glowing red. great great great my son is hallucinating yET AGAIN, i really needed him to suffer more. also he pockets the Argent bullet shell case and mcmartate decides to talk to Chris Argent before they involve Papa Stilinski.

Mcmartate is a Good group. "Maybe this episode won't be so bad," I think.

*sighs*

idk what order the next scenes happen in, so i'm just going to tackle each subplot separately lol.

2.0:

Mason and Liam are chatting in the boys' locker room before lacrosse practice about the supernatural evil threatening Beacon Hills, surrounded by tons of freshmen who could easily overhear them. Liam's giving an extra practice to the freshmen so they have a chance of making first line, even though Mason thinks this is foolish. Liam explains that Brett is helping him, which makes no sense, but I don't mind because this sequence happens:

M: Brett? Incredibly... HOT Brett, with the 8-pack abs?

L (sounding mildly disgruntled... iS SOMEONE JEALOUS R U SURE UR STRAIGHT KIDDO): Pretty sure it's just Brett.

M: He has an 8-PACK. Do y- do you know how hard it is for the human body to have an 8-pack??? *music swells dramatically and then cuts off* ...God.

Also, at the end, Liam tosses Mason over his shoulder and carries him out of the locker room because he was accidentally discouraging the freshmen.

This is the best scene in the episode.

Next, both Liam and Corey failing to do a decent job at playing lacrosse. This is ostensibly an extra practice for the freshmen, and yet Brett, Liam, and Corey are the only ones playing. Brett outclasses them both in looks, swagger, and skill. Liam has no control as usual and Brett tells him to get it together. Audience reaction: Writers are recycling Liam's s4 plotline bc they ran out of ideas for his character; Brett is so clearly superior to Corey that we don't understand why Mason and Corey didn't break up during the hiatus so Brason could happen. Also, guidance counselor watches Brett score on Corey and hears Corey reply, "Wait, I'm not actually invisible right now, am I?" Nice subtlety, Corey.

Liam is pissed bc #recycledplotlines and punches out a locker. Somehow stays there all day because by the time Mason and Corey go to find him, it's after dark??? And since it's summer, it must be like 9:30??? "We need to study for a history test" hOW IS THE SCHOOL STILL OPEN THIS LATE i will never understand.

Oh yeah I forgot, while Liam was still working through his anger issues on the lacrosse field, a bunch of spiders crawl into a freshman boy's helmet in the locker room, and when he puts it on, they invade his body and then start crawling out of his mouth. So when Mason and Corey go to find Liam, they notice a smeared blood trail on the locker room floor and follow it to the showers, where there is an..... unidentifiable bloody mass on the floor. I am disturbed.

Brett:

After obliterating Liam and Corey, it is somehow magically nighttime and he's heading towards his car when the guidance counselor shows up, holding a lacrosse ball that rolled off the field. She compliments his abnormal skill level and tosses him the ball.... which turns out to be covered in wolfsbane. She claims it's "nothing personal,” but no one deserves that much power, and then tries to kill him. I think she stabs him??? I forget the details of their fight. Anyway, he manages to escape.

Scott and Malia:

They go looking for Chris at his... house? bunker? who knows. He has crates full of guns, surprising no one. They have #wittybanter and #chemistry, surprising no one. (i’m sorry i’m sorry i just feel like sc@lia is forced i’m sorry) Scott tells Malia it's okay to break into Chris's computer to find his calendar, and she is turned on by his rule-bending. All of the passwords she guesses involve her capitalizing the first word and adding spaces, because that's how passwords work. Scott picks up a bow and has a Revelation, immediately going to Chris's computer to type in ALLISON as the password. It's the second #recycledplotine of the night. Not to mention that as much as Chris loves his daughter, he is much too practical to have such an easily hackable password.

Questionable computer security aside, they show up in the middle of one of Chris's gun deals right after his fake military buyers pull out their guns, realizing that Chris knows they're fake military and is trying to find out who their boss is. Chris is annoyed with them for intervening and claims that he had an inside man that they just took out while trying to help him, which is yet another plot hole bc Chris shouldn't need to ask about bosses if he has an inside man. In the following chaos-ridden action scene, Scott drops the Argent shell casing. Chris says it's okay and they'll just find the actual bullet in the woods.

Best line of the episode: After Scott and Malia ask if the shell casing belongs to him, Chris says, "I haven't stamped a bullet since Allison died." Our hearts all break a little.

Anyway, despite their plans to go to the woods TOGETHER, Chris is mysteriously nowhere in sight so Scott and Malia can have ~time alone~. Malia shows concern for Scott's well-being. They smile at each other, and thanks to compulsive heterosexuality, this clearly means they've just caught feelings. I'm definitely not still bitter that the writers didn't bring back Kira and give Malia a girlfriend instead.

(in all honesty, however, i can admit that this scene was objectively cute, and it was great character development that already happened in s5 but again #recycledplotlines to see Malia actively caring about other people. I’m really happy for sc@lia shippers because I know you were all really excited about that scene.)

Chris comes back. They find a bullet in a tree thanks to its infared heat signature or smthg (idk i'm spaced out at this point). It's a silver bullet, meaning that the guidance counselor is just a wannabe Hunter, not the Genuine Article.

Lydia and Toast:

At the sheriff's station, Lydia??? hears some noise in her premonitions and decides to tell Toast and not her bf's dad for??? some completely valid reason i'm sure??? tbh i have no idea what the premise of this scene is, but Lydia realizes that the noise she keeps hearing is the key card reader from Eichen House. Apparently that means something bad is happening there so she tells Toast that they need to go check it out. Toast tells her that there's no way he's "letting her" go back there - because clearly he owns her and she can't make decisions for herself - and decides to go alone instead, because once again, that clearly makes so much more sense than telling the Sheriff. The whole scene is written to make it sound like Toast is the only one who cares about Lydia's well-being - because it's definitely not like she has a pack full of friends who care about her and a boyfriend who would do anything for her - and therefore is in charge of protecting her in a creepily possessive way. Aka, tw writers are still pandering to M@rrish fans even after Stydia is canon, and I don't know why I'm surprised.

So Toast goes to Eichen, meets Creepy Doctor who accidentally released Other Hellhound last week, and tells him to let him into the closed ward after hearing a woman begging for help. Doctor refuses. Toast shows him his glowing eyes as an... intimidation tactic??? Doctor complies but locks the door behind Toast after he enters.

Toast finds the woman in a communal-shower-type room (which???? okay), lying on the floor with an open electric cable sparking her body every few seconds, surrounded by a bunch of other apparently dead supernatural creatures. When Doctor arrives and Toast tells him to help, plot twist! Doctor is the one who put them there. (Oh, look, electricity........ I wonder who would be helpful....... in this........ situation........)

Doctor gets Toast locked up in room where Other Hellhound used to reside and turns down the temperature, telling Toast that he'll freeze him from the inside out or smthg.

Meanwhile, Lydia's just been hanging out at the sheriff station and waiting for Toast instead of registering for MIT because according to a reminder on her phone, this is the ~last day~ for her to do so and Lydia "IQ of 170" Martin OBVIOUSLY would have put off registration until the last minute. OF COURSE. She ignores the notification bc apparently college isn't important and steals one of the deputies' walkie talkies after she hears strange noises emitting from it. Her absurd attempts to sneak casually would have made Stiles Stilinski proud af.

However, her next move would NOT have made Stiles Stilinski proud af, as she hears the Doctor threatening Toast and immediately decides to go after him alone instead of

1) calling Scott so that Scott and Malia can come with her or

2) taking the Sheriff, seeing as he is her BOYFRIEND'S DAD and also CONVENIENTLY LOCATED IN THE SAME BUILDING AS HER AT THAT MOMENT.

So. Naturally. She goes to Eichen alone, and every sound she hears, every sight she sees, is immensely triggering. For the first time, Teen Wolf actually somewhat addresses the fact that Lydia has PTSD after everything she's been through. This is a good thing. I would be happy with this development if, again, Lydia wasn't alone throughout the entire experience. Clearly, Teen Wolf writers have decided that Strong Female Characters must always face their fears alone if they want to remain Strong Female Characters. Clearly, having her friends there to ground her would have taken away from her character development. Clearly, it wouldn't have been amazing to see Lydia accept her friends' help when s1 Lydia Martin never would have shown weakness around others. Clearly, having a support network when you've faced immense trauma isn't important at all. CLEARLY.

(Clearly I didn't have to pause my TV at this point because I was so horrified and angry that the TW writers placed her in a situation where she was surrounded by a myriad of triggers, on the verge of a panic attack, and completely alone.)

Anyway, Lydia reaches a turning point where she is somehow able to push aside all of those horrible memories and find Toast, who's been slowly freezing to death while watching Doctor hold a gun with shaking hands. Doctor's been explaining that he hates guns and has always been opposed to violence, but his fear of supernatural creatures has led him to believe that eradicating them all is the only way to ensure normal humans' safety.

Lydia runs into the cell just as Doctor raises the gun to shoot Toast in the head. She screams, knocking Doctor back and killing him. GREAT. LET'S ADD ANOTHER TRAUMATIC EICHEN MEMORY TO THE PILE. LYDIA DEFINITELY NEEDED TO KILL SOMEONE ELSE. THAT WOULDN'T BE EMOTIONALLY SCARRING AT ALL. OF COURSE STILES IS ENTITLED TO AN ENTIRE SEASON OF ANGST AFTER KILLING DONOVAN IN SELF-DEFENSE, BUT LYDIA KILLING MULTIPLE PEOPLE WOULDN'T HAVE ANY EMOTIONAL RAMIFICATIONS. OF COURSE.

End scenes:

2.0: Suddenly realizing that freshman boy (I think his name is Aaron) is missing, they go running around the school looking for him and eventually find him in a classroom, magically unharmed. "What are you doing here?" they ask. "Just remembered we have a history test," he replies. I thought this boy was a freshman. smh.

McMarTate: Clearly not scarred from her experiences at all, Lydia rejoins Malia and Scott to discuss their discoveries. Cue "what is everyone afraid of?"/"us" scene combined with a montage of everyone looking away from Liam in slow motion at school the next day, apparently afraid of him. Which is definitely because they magically know he's a werewolf, and not because they don't want to catch the disease that gave him his awful haircut.

Brett: Brett pounces on the guidance counselor, who's looking for him in the woods, and they start fighting. It looks like he's going to win, but then he gets shot in the chest with an arrow and runs off.

The arrow was shot by Gerard.

He tells wannabe hunter/guidance counselor that she has potential.

Huzzah, what a great episode.

Bonus casual racism: Now that Kira's gone, wannabe hunter/guidance counselor (who still doesn't have a name...... oh hey, look, mORE CASUAL RACISM) is the only woman of color on the show... and she's a Black antagonist. This is clearly Not Problematic At All.

Of course, thanks to theories that will be discussed in this week's episode of stydiacast, it's possible that this casting decision is entirely legitimate.

HOWEVER, one other poc was introduced in this episode...... and Aaron, poor young freshman lacrosse player, is now possibly being possessed by spiders and will likely also be a Black antagonist, albeit one with no control over his actions.

Oh, hey, doesn't..... that...... sound..... familiar? It's.... almost like..... another problematic #recycledplotline. *looks at s5 Mason Hewitt*

Thanks, Teen Wolf.