#and it was a goal of mine to get more of my WIPs complete before working on other big projects

[payphoneangel]

Vinny's 2023 fics!!

I'm so proud of all the writing I did in 2023!! I learned so much that I'm so excited to apply to my projects for 2024 <3

Not Whole, Not Holy Rating: Explicit Word count: 2,752

Moody, quiet, and introspective, this piece explores endverse!Cas and endverse!Dean finding a little bit of solace in each other among their crumbling world. Best described by the tag: Not hurt/comfort, not hurt/no comfort, but some secret third thing.

A Midsummer Night's Dean Rating: Teen+ Word count: 16,948

A wild ride of a casefic loosely based on Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Featuring love potions, Dean having chronic foot-in-mouth-disease, Cas being SO down bad it's dangerous, and Sam wanting to be literally anywhere else but here. I've been told this fic has made people laugh so hard, it has awoken children and brought concerned family members a'knocking on doors.

Innervate A series currently containing two fics, with a few more additions planned! This series follows Cas' developing relationship to his body and how he navigates through the world with it. It's full of fun science and anatomy, alternate angel lore, and LOTS of UST between Dean and Cas (don't worry, it will get resolved... eventually lol. This is a series-long slow burn)

Check out Prelude as a sampler for vibes (full disclosure-- this was a WIP for a LOOOOOONG time so while this fic was uploaded in 2023 the writing is far older than that)

Then for a more cohesive story (and tbqh way stronger writing), pop on over to Ask Me Why My Heart's Inside My Throat

Spellbound Rating: Explicit Word count: 4,764

A one-shot exploring the Master/Apprentice relationship of Sam and Rowena. Let's be real here. They have insane magic sex and I feel like not enough ppl talk about it. EYE barely even scratched the surface with this one. The quickest summary I got for this one: Sam's cardinal virtue is that when a hot woman speaks, he listens.

Long Black Cloud Coming Down Rating: Gen Word Count: 3,540

Taking place prior to s1, teen!Dean has to act quick and think fast when Sammy suddenly comes down with a fever. He can't let his thoughts race too far though, or he just might start believing that whatever's going on is more than just a fever and a snow storm.

[bebewrites]

I promise I searched your blog, but how do you (specifically) zero draft? The post that showed up in a search of your blog was like, bullet point writing whatever is in your head for the.wip, which I think is v cool and would help me finish lofm! So I'm curious how you do it!

Oh yes, okay! I don't think I've actually explained it anywhere, but I love talking about this.

what is a zero draft?

The great thing about a zero draft is that you can pretty much make it whatever you need it to be. For me, I was having a hard time with the middle of my story. I've started and stopped this wip so many times, always getting hung up at the same part as I approach the middle. I've always had a very clear picture of the beginning and the end, but never how to get all the way through from point A to point B. My original outline had things in brackets like [character growth] and [plot stuff], but what does that mean!?

My goal was to get all the way through. So I opened a blank document, started at the beginning, and literally rambled and talked my way through the entire story. I didn't write real prose. It was all stream of consciousness. It was me describing what happens in the story as if I was telling it to a friend. The zero draft was my rubber duck. This was my brainstorming document. I used common vernacular and slang and abbreviations. There are bullet points, numbered lists, sidebars where I rambled about a scene I completely forgot to mention in a previous section. Lots of comments about things I need to include in the next draft. Literally anything and everything I thought of went into the zero draft.

A zero draft can be as long or short as you need it to be. Mine ended up being around 40k words. But I've seen other people say a zero draft is 10k to 20k words. It's really up to you! And when you feel like you've covered enough of the story to move on to the next draft.

And you don't have to go about a zero draft the way I did! Recently, an author I love and follow on instagram (Casey McQuiston) shared in their stories that when they were writing their most recent book, they zero drafted each chapter before they wrote it out. Casey said that because of this, it was first time they didn't have major edits and rewrites afterwards. So if you find yourself needing a little more structure and sense of where you're going, I think a zero draft could be super helpful!

Of course you don't have to have a zero draft, and if you've got a good sense of the plot and character arcs, you might not need one. But it can be a great way to brainstorm and figure out those things if you need to!

[addledmongoose]

Good Omens Fanfic Rec (26 Jul 2024)

No pattern to my list this week.

roots (10K; Rated M) by @forineffablereasons

A bit of silliness, a bit of angst, and a lot of sweetness in this short story that takes place in South Downs after they prevented the apocalypse.

Have you ever said something, and known, deep in the pit of your stomach, before anybody could even react, that you shouldn't have said it? That horrible, wretched feeling that makes you instantly want to take the words back?

Crowley did not have that feeling, and so plunged on.

“I didn’t even know your roots were that dark,” he said. “You could just miracle them, you know.”

***

blessed be (5K; Rated M) by @rainwritings

Crowley gets captured and held by occultists, and Aziraphale comes to his rescue. While the story says it's M-rated, it's a very, very light M for the non-graphic aftermath of torture.

***

The Mills of God Grind Slowly (9K; Rated E) by @a-causidicus

Aziraphale signs up for Grindr. Crowley does not care for it.

***

Thieves of Mercy (64K; Rated T) by @amuseoffyre

Human AU. Aziraphale and Crowley are rival master art thieves. They're both very, very good at their careers, but they have different methods of achieving their goals. A bit of Leverage meets Good Omens. I know there are a few art thief stories, but I don't know if I've seen this one recommended before.

The Serpent has a reputation in the art world. A master thief who can wriggle into the tightest spots and extract the most well-protected paintings from the richest people in the world. He’s never even come close to being caught.

Except just now. For a crime he didn’t commit. In a museum where he was scoping out his next job.

Crowley’s not one to be petty but he’s not about to let anyone frame him, even if the person in question seems to be nothing more than an innocent, wide-eyed art restorer who works in the museum…

***

Tenderfoot (37K; Rated E) by @snae-b

Human AU. Another fantastic, recently-completed sci-fi story by snae_b. Far in the future, humans have started colonizing other planets. Aziraphale is a guardian, tasked with protecting the colonists of the planet, Earendel. Crowley is a newly-arrived colonist from the dangerous and troubled station, Ophiuchus, who is willing to do anything to keep his nephew, Adam, back on Ophiuchus, from falling down the same path he fell down. Good thing the mining corporation running the colony isn't evil or anything.

***

Also, while I don't normally rec WIPs in my Friday threads unless they're only a chapter or two away from the end, I've been beta-reading this amazing story, The Last Angel (78K currently; Rated E) by @bellisima-writes, where Aziraphale and Crowley never met and Hell won the war. So very addictive and so very much worth diving into and subscribing to.

[raina-at]

Year in fic review 2023

Total number of completed stories: 4, I finished Spare Parts in 2022, just finished posting in 2023.

Total word count: About 50 k (published, god knows how many words of unfinished WIPS and abandoned one-shots)

Fandoms written in: BBC Sherlock, I'm a one-trick pony these days ;-)

Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you’d expected?

Hm, I suppose less? And not the things I expected. I started writing a lot of long, plotty fics but apparently, it wasn't the year for long and plotty fics. I suppose I didn't have the brain space for long and plotty.

What’s your own favorite story of the year?

Probably Nothing Gold Can Stay, because I had this idea months and months ago, of John having a bit of a crisis before his wedding. I had this one piece of a core of a fic, the whole nucleus where John tells Sherlock nobody ever sticks with him, ever. And then I had three different fragments of fics trying to make it work, and every one had something amazing in it, but I just couldn't make it gel. And then I thought of the famous The thing you wanted to say, say it now, and the scene on the bench in TSOT, and bam, I had a fic. It came out in stops and starts of 200-word chunks, while John laboured with whether and how and when to trust enough, to have faith enough to actually say how he feels. I'm really proud of how it came out in the end, and I'm very happy you guys responded to it the way you did.

Did you take any writing risks this year?

I don't know about risks, but I wrote 31 ficlets in pretty much a month, which came out to 26000 words, and that was no mean feat. And I actually still like most of them. Gave me a bit of writers' burn-out, I won't lie, but what a ride!

Do you have any fanfic goals for the new year?

I want to finish my Christmas fic. I would like to re-visit the Nothing Gold boys because I think there's meat on these bones and I always wanted to do a series of shorter fics that hang together. So maybe I can do something with that. But last year was so stressful at work and I don't see this year going any better (we have three big conferences this summer, so it's probably going to be So Much Worse). So, I'll be grateful for what I can accomplish, and accept that it might not be everything I want.

Most popular story of the year?

Nothing Gold Can Stay for sure.

Story of mine most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion:

Hm, I got a lot of lovely feedback this year, so I generally feel loved and appreciated by fandom. My May ficlets especially got a lot of responses here on tumblr, and I loved that dynamic interchange between writing and reading and commeting, especially with the others who did the challenge.

If I had to pick one underappreciated story, my Spare Parts 'verse January 29th fic The Stars Walk Backward didn't get a lot of eyeballs, but it's understandable given that it's a one-shot in a 'verse that not that many people are famliar with in the first place. It's a bit of a stepchild of a 'verse, but I love it, and I love this story for its unabashed sentimentality. It's very sweet and very calm and has a lot of 'we're back together and I don't want to fuck this up again' energy. I love re-visiting this fic if I need a quick pick-me-up, so. You know.

Most fun story to write:

Most of the ficlets were fun to write, and Tipping Point was somehow the opposite of Nothing Gold Can Stay in that it came out in a big rush over four days, like a writing tsunami. But my Christmas fic is also super fun to write, I just hope I can sustain the fun and actually finish it.

Most unintentionally telling story:

Probably Nothing Gold Can Stay, I suppose. Grief is really complicated, and it's difficult to come to terms with the fact that you can sort of stumble into pockets of it, and that you sometimes grieve things that are technically still there but have changed a lot. Essentially, the story is about a John who has to stop running away from his grief and turn around and face it, and a Sherlock who sees that if he wants to truly get John back, he has to face it with him.

Biggest disappointment:

With myself for being unable to finish the many, many, many fics I've stared but didn't remotely finish. But also gracious to myself for letting life happen.

Biggest surprise:

Not surprise but gratitude for the love and support of this fandom. You guys are awesome. I'm so grateful whenever someone tells me that something I wrote made them Feel Something(TM). It's the greatest compliment a writer can receive, and I feel truly blessed that I heard this a fair bit this year. I write because it makes me happy, and if people reading my fics experience something similar, then that makes me even happier. So thank you, fandom.

[shares-a-vest]

💖 Fic Writing Review 2023 💖

I was tagged by @penny00dreadful @rocknrollsalad @cranberrymoons and @unclewaynemunson Thanks everyone! You all smashed it in 2023. Here's to more words wording and fun fandom times with our faves.

Tbh, it took me a good month minute to work out how to do this, seeing as I don't post much to ao3 (something I intend on mending in 2024). I'm very much going with the 'feel free to show whatever stats you like' aspect of the rules.

But before all that, I'd like to use this post as an opportunity to acknowledge everyone who enjoys my writing. I kinda just fell into writing in this fandom and discovered that I love it!

I'm also sending love and appreciation to my beloved moots and everyone in the stwg discord server. Here's to another year of creating, sharing and interacting 💖

This fandom really is my happy place a lot of the time, a much-needed creative outlet and a space where I can talk to people who let me be my silly little old self.

I have so much I want to write in 2024 (including some in-the-works stuff listed below). One goal I know I have in 2024 is to write what I'll temporarily title, 'The Origin of Joanie Munson'. I would really like to knuckle down and write a looonnnggg fic this year that would tell that story.

Anyway, enough of me talking, I'll stop before I get too sappy...

Top 5 Posts by Notes:

Wayne and Claudia to Steve's Rescue

I'm Dating Garfield

My Prince

Eddie gets stuck in Steve's shower after the power goes off

Eddie Munson: Sparkly Vampire Boyfriend

Proudest Work & Reflections:

Wayne and Steve get hearing aids: This post was very much inspired by my pop's ongoing struggle with his hearing aids. HoH Steve is a beloved headcanon of mine so I was happy to receive so much love for a little ficlet that came from a very real place.

Steve spends Father's Day with the Buckleys: If there's one Steve trope I will write, it's Steve Has Bad Parents™. I always find myself writing this trope and getting Steve all sad and angsty as a personal coping mechanism/outlet for irl Dad Stuff™. I was a pile of goo over the tags and comments saying this ficlet resonated with readers! We really are just out here projecting onto our blorbos to get through shit.

Joanie Munson's First Word: I love my Joanie Munson AU. And one thing I love writing into it is Wayne being a doting Grandpa. It was a WIP for quite a while and I remember waking up at like 3am, unable to sleep and bam I finished it, proving that sometimes it's worth letting something linger in the drafts until the moment strikes.

My Fandom Events in 2023 (I did a sprinkling of others, but these I completed/worked on consistently):

Spicy Six Fanworks Challenge SPRING and SUMMER

Steddie Week 2023

Steddiemas

Upcoming Works & Events (aka, next in the pipeline):

Spicy Six Fanworks Challenge WINTER

Clarkson Mixtape Fic

STWG Hozier Project

Tagging some precious moots (plus those above) to send my love and good New Year vibes to! @thefreakandthehair @tboyeddie @steventhusiast @imfinereallyy @hbyrde36 @spicysix @momotonescreaming @withacapitalp @farahsamboolents @hellion-child @sidekick-hero (also feel free to do this tag game too if you'd like/haven't already!)

Rules: Feel free to show whatever stats you have. Only want to show Ao3 stats? Rock on. Want to include some quantitative info instead of stats? Please do this. Want to change how yours is presented? Absolutely do that. Would rather eat glass than do this? Please don’t eat glass but don’t feel like you have to do this either.

[lololollywrites]

20 questions for fic writers

Thank you for the tag, @discordantwords!

1. How many works do you have on AO3? I have 10 as of now (7 for Sherlock and 3 for Harry Potter, though the HP fics were either begun or completed in 2012 (first posted on ff.net)... in other words, before I knew about JK's raging transphobia. I finally finished a HP WIP in 2020 that I had abandoned years ago, after my resulting disillusionment, because I decided that my work didn't deserve to be in vain. I'm so glad I did!

2. What's your total A03 word count? 168,333

3. What fandoms do you write for? On AO3, just BBC Sherlock and HP, though I have Smallville, Supernatural, and even a Gilmore Girls fic on my ff.net account (the earliest of them written in 2006) that I will NOT be linking here. 😂

4. What are your top five fics by kudos? (Since I've only been posting Sherlock fics on AO3 since September 2021, there's not a ton of variation between these):

The Waning of Withdrawal

Of Sweat, Sociopathy, Scars, and Secrets

Never Been Better

Pressure Points

Genius is a Star Whose Light (is Soon to Sink in Endless Night); I think I may change the title soon since it's so unwieldy)

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? Yes! Mainly because I love when authors reply to mine - it acknowledges my gratitude and can open a line of communication. Plus, I just get so excited by every single comment notification that I need to squee and send hearts to the sender.

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? None of my Sherlock fics have angsty endings, though that was my original goal for Never Been Better. It originally ended with Chapter 1, but I added two more chapters upon popular demand to fix things. :) It's a classic Sherlock-leaves-John's-wedding-early fic, so I'd intended to explore what may have happened within canon as sort of a missing scene/character exploration. Ultimately, however, I decided to throw a bone to poor Sherlock and disregard canon events.

However, my Harry Potter fic The Burn of the Phoenix, which I migrated to AO3 in 2020 after it's huge reception on ff.net back in 2012 (it's a 13k-word oneshot with 273 reviews and 951 favorites, though I'd definitely not write it the same way today), is definitely angsty. The end is hopeful, but ultimately... I killed Harry Potter. So. 😂 The ending, as it doesn't miraculously entail Harry coming back to life, can certainly be considered angsty as well. The entire fic is from Dudley's perspective as he learns of Harry's death (an alternate version of canon) and attends his funeral.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? As described above, all of my fics have happy endings! Though I'd say the one that's most unabashedly happy with minimal lingering pain and turmoil is Cold Inside. Genius comes close, but Sherlock is horrifically injured even despite happy news that comes in the last chapter so there's still an uphill battle ahead.

8. Do you get hate on fics? No, though I did get a very direct comment on The Waning of Withdrawal - the first time I ever wrote smut - that said the following (the "At all" was particularly harsh):

"I loved the fic and the way you formed everything with the comforting,and the understanding,the guilt and stuff and angst in the main part of the fic but I'm not a huge fan of how much detail went into their love part and stuff.. Not saying it's bad! I'm sure some people absolutely love it but I'm personally not a huge fan of the sex scene. At all."

(Luckily, two other commenters jumped in to my defense!) It seems innocuous enough, but I'd included an A/N that said it was my first time writing a love scene, despite it being brief, so "please go easy on me". The rating and tags were appropriate, too, so it seemed a bit out of the blue. That one little comment knocked my confidence for a while and made it impossible for me to re-read the fic without cringing.

9. Do you write smut? Just two of my Sherlock fics so far are rated E for smut. The Waning of Withdrawal, as described above, and Cold Inside, which has a lengthy sex scene in Chapter 4. It was so much harder than I thought to write - there's nothing quite like meticulously editing writing comprised of graphic depictions of anal sex, haha.

10. Do you write crossovers? No, nor do I usually enjoy them. I really admire the creativity, but tend to prefer fics that are plausible and in-canon; it's just a preference (with exceptions, of course!) That being said, crossovers that could happen between comparable universes - such as Sherlock and Hannibal - really appeal to me in theory.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not that I'm aware.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? No, but I'd be so thrilled!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? No, nor do I have a beta. I'm sure it could improve my work, but I feel horrifically self conscious during any editing process that involves another person. It's something I need to work on!

14. What's your all-time favourite ship? Sherlock & John and Arthur & Merlin are pretty neck-in-neck. I don't have many Merlin bookmarks, as it was my prior obsession before Sherlock, but I've been delving more into the Merlin fandom lately. Writing for it just seems harder for me - accounting for historical accuracy (though the show isn't historically accurate at all, it's just an entirely different universe) and the bounds of Merlin's magic would be tricky. Maybe one day.

15. What's the WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? HAHAHAHAHA so... I did use to write more than one fic at once, waaaay back in the day, but have long since learned my lesson. I refuse to have true WIPs anymore - I only develop one idea at a time - and don't even publish a story until it's complete or almost complete (and fully outlined). Why? Well, there's one WIP I will NEVER finish. It's a Supernatural fic on ff.net with 6 chapters (out of a planned minimum of 10), first published in March of 2007 and last updated in February of 2008. Ooops.

It most recently received a review in 2015, which reads as follows: "WOW! ...update any time soon?...PLEASE...k"

Yeah. So. Never again for me.

16. What are your writing strengths? Based on the comments I receive, I think my strengths are characterization and dialogue. Oddly enough, these are two of my insecurities, but I think that my hyperfixation on both (knowing that I need to consciously work on them) has led to vast improvement.

17. What are your writing weaknesses? I often have a difficult time coming up with the initial premise, and am not nearly as creative as many of the writers out there I admire. Ideas usually come without me trying - such as late at night or in the shower - so I jot them down whenever that happens. That's all that seems to work for me. FTH was great in that it took a bit of the burden off and allowed me to elicit prompts from bidders instead.

I also struggle to weave incredibly complex stories. I don't think I'll ever be one of those writers who can write 100k-plus fics full of twists and turns. My plots tend to be more narrow, focused, and immediate.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic? As cool as this is - and I may be able to do this with Spanish, as it was my university minor - I wouldn't want dialogue to read as clunky or unnatural to a native speaker or to impede the flow of the prose (I'd want to add translations when possible in parentheses so as not to discourage readers who are not bilingual, unless the dialogue is short and can be translated in an end note).

In Genius, I have excerpts here and there in Serbian, but I ultimately use English to express longer Serbian dialogue (between <brackets> rather than "quotation marks" to indicate the difference in language being spoken and with the acknowledgement that translations are never 1-1. For me, this also helped preserve Sherlock's personality and ensure it could shine through.

19. First fandom you wrote for? Smallville! Way back in 2006. It was terrible; I killed Clark in an alternate version of S5's Hidden. I'm not sure what used to be the appeal of character death to me. You'd never catch me writing it now.

20. Favourite fic you've ever written? It's hard to choose, but I have two answers for different reasons. The fic I'm most proud of writing is Genius. I worked SO, SO hard on the story outline, plot, and the symbolism and clues thrown in throughout. It's my longest and most complex story so far at 51K words, too.

The story I believe to be my best is Never Been Better; specifically, its first chapter. I don't think I've since written a more in-character version of Sherlock or a starker portrayal of his emotions.

I also have a huge soft spot for my Harry Potter fic The Truth at Last, which is the first fic I ever posted to AO3. It marks a huge improvement in my writing from when I first started it in 2012, as I was able to return to it in 2019/20 with a more mature perspective.

I'll tag anyone who hasn't yet been tagged and would like to join! (Sorry for the lack of creativity there - I'm always afraid I'll forget someone).

[goddess47]

20 Questions for Writers

I was tagged by the lovely @thekristen999

-----

How many works do you have on ao3?

1173 at the moment

What's your total ao3 word count?

1,794,075 words  (I *know*... where did that come from?)  I have a bunch of older fic on Live Journal and Dreamwidth that I keep meaning to move over for completeness but never take the time to do the work. So there's more out there...

What fandoms do you write for?

I mostly write for: Stargate Atlantis and SG-1, Harry Potter, Teen Wolf, 9-1-1. My dashboard says I have 23 fic in Shadowhunters but that's misleading because I borrowed Magnus and Alec for a Teen Wolf fic.

Top five fics by kudos:

The Wedding Planner

Forced Bonding

Breaking Point

What You Ask For

Broken Pack Bonds

Huh. All Teen Wolf fic... interesting

Do you respond to comments?

Not as well as I should... meep! (And I'm sorry if I owe you a response to something!)

What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I know there's something out there... Embrace the Silence - an SGA fic for an 'apocalypse' fest where I killed almost everyone off!

What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Writing happy endings is my goal; there are mostly happy endings out there.  Not sure I could pick which one has the happiest ending.  

Do you get hate on fics?

Not really. I get an occasional snippy comment about something nitpicky or a choice I made that the commenter didn't like.

Do you write smut?

Actually, not as much as I used to... LOL...

Craziest crossover:

For the "Into a bar..." fest, I wrote a Stargate SG-1 and Check, Please crossover.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

There was a 'thing' a while ago where someone stole hundreds of fic and tried to pass them off on Amazon. One of mine got scooped up but it was quickly taken down.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Lots of times. I have open permission for translations in my profile. But most stop by and ask.

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Not really

All time favourite ship?

Oh, man. That's hard. I love my boys... I'm going to go back to John Sheppard/Rodney McKay in Stargate Atlantis. My first love.

What's a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

A Disturbance in the Force - set up as a series and a crossover between Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, and 9-1-1.

What are your writing strengths?

I think I'm decent at dialog. And writing short. I've written lots and lots of drabbles in the past few years.

What are your writing weaknesses?

Descriptions. I don't always add the cues for what the setting of the story is.

Thoughts on dialogue in another language?

I borrow foreign words for 'alien' words but rarely use dialog in another language because I know I'm not good at it.

First fandom you wrote in?

Stargate SG-1

Favorite fic you've written?

In Plain Sight, which is listed as a series but I was filling daily prompts for an AU fest. It's a Harry Potter story that I was very pleased with.

[spacegoathours]

alright this has been sitting in my wips for weeks and it was gonna be a ref sheet but I sort of already did one so /shrug

since I did a buncha your OCs today now you get to hear ‘bout mine here goes

some stuff that will probably contradict itself bc I’m bad at writing AND!! bad at continuity. but here’s A LOT of story/personality stuff.

while on Irk in the “early years” whatever you wanna call her smeethood until whenever she gets banished, Callie gets away with small things that other Irkens wouldn’t get away with simply bc she’s Tallest Miyuki’s…idk…protege? she’s expected to be as powerful and successful as she is.. especially after Miyuki dies in the vort station 9 accident

by small things I mean wearing an outfit that doesn’t fit normal Irken-in-training or Irken Elite standards (she’s elite right before being forced away from Irk). and stepping out of line when talking with her peers and ESPECIALLY when talking with those taller than her. and befriending Vortians while observing the research teams. she gets away with all of this bc if someone were to speak up they’d get in trooooubleeee

Callie can be very cheeky sometimes but doesn’t necessarily take advantage of her unwanted “status” while on Irk. things like hanging out with the Vortian scientists and dressing slightly differently than her Irken peers are very normal, to her at least. it’s fucked up Irken society that doesn’t allow anyone else to converse with those filthy Vorts or wear whatever they want.

Despite thinking differently - and of course knowing early on that this means she’s defective - Callie feels a ton of regret and anxiety when she’s banished for going against the new Tallests’ plans for her. she knows deep down that it’s fine to be your own person and make your own way, but again, ✨Irken society baybeeeeeee✨ and she carries that anxiety, well, forever after that.

(I basically always skip the Earth portion of Callie’s story bc I wrote it when I was 14 and it was bad and stupid. All you need to know is that Callie REALLY LOVES EARTH. yes this doesn’t match the vibe of the show at all but who cares: she learns that being herself and engaging in her true interests and goals is ALLOWED and even ENCOURAGED on earth and her anxiety ebbs away while she lives there. then she dies. oh well. as to who’s fault that is, it used to be Zim’s fault in my old story but I just HAVE NOT visited this enough to work out why/how that would even happen.)

Her human disguise was a design I used to draw ALL THE TIME in 2005 and even a bit in 2019. good times! she dressed very grunge/emo which is how I dressed in high school bc of course!!! of course she is more of a self-insert than I WANT her to be and always was!!! AUGRHHRGGH

After Callie is revived by the Resisty - attaching her dormant PAK to Nyx’s dying body - she looks like the bottom left pic. wears a beat up hospital gown all the time, still has a good amount of Nyx’s attributes, and is HIGHLY irritable and actually, really fucking dangerous. she’s aware that she’s Callie, but is experiencing some serious trauma: this isn’t her fucking body, she’s in severe pain and has to eat and sleep while her PAK tries to heal her, and she’s been ripped away from Earth where she finally felt safe and happy away from her old, demanding life.

She nearly kills Lard Nar at least once, trying to convince him to bring her back to Earth. the rest of the crew thinks their captain has completely lost it allowing a mentally unstable Irken on board. or really an Irken at all for that matter considering uhhh the whole reason the Resisty exists in the first place. Lard Nar tries to get his crew to understand that Callie is not a threat (knows this bc they knew each other on vort research station 9) and would be a great asset to the resistance once she recovers

but yknow it’s not going well. Callie is NOT NICE to anyone on the ship, least of all Laksa, the nurse trying to help her recover, and a lot of this has to do with the fact that Nyx’s attributes are still present. Callie’s defective PAK, while mostly functional, is taking ages compared to a healthy PAK to make this new body completely “her” again. I mean, side note, Nyx was a model Irken: so uh, ASSHOLE. and did her job well, nearly getting the Resisty killed. so having all of THAT basically still present…..hmmm, bad.

Luckily Laksa has endless patience and Callie does start to recover, and her eyes start working their way back to just blue as opposed to the one blue and one teal when she first woke up. looks like the bottom center pic. she starts to calm down and fly off the handle way less. Starts appreciating Laksa for all the work she’s tirelessly put in to make sure Callie is okay. she’s still really far from ok and processing all the trauma from her past and present.

that’s where all the angst happens that I’ve been writing oops we won’t get into THAT (something something callie and lard nar eventually end up as a couple bc I need to live my life sorry guys. I’ll talk about that uhhhhh ANOTHER TIME…or never.)

and finally after all THAT that we won’t talk about for the moment she’s much better, lost her right antennae and is essentially deaf on that side but is otherwise back to her old self but BETTER!! last pic on the right. someone made her a new uniform or something idk but she does want to dress the way she used to in the end. (does she or does her creator just really like drawing it so she has to? we may never know)

so like. Now you know where she is in the timeline based on how I draw her???? No one cares about this but me???????? Why does my dumb brain tell me I need to explain anything I slap down on this tallest forsaken website fuck it all

[pennywaltzy]

Fanfic asks for the new year -- 2, 3, 7, 9, 11

2. Will you participate in any fandom exchanges or fic challenges, etc? I will definitely be running another regular round of @wipbigbang this year (and I'm probably going to do art again for the unclaimed fics and actually stay on top of it this time...whether I try finishing any of my WIPs is another matter) and I am currently running the International Fanworks Day Mini-Bang at the aforementioned big bang. I may do a fic for that as well, since it's really laid back.

I will also be finishing up the five prompts I got in December for @mollyappreciationweek at some point in the early half of the year (and I'll be running a February week-long round for Valentine's Day/Galentine's Day/Singles Awareness Day as well as another prompt-a-thon in December), and if you do Christmas In July again I'll take prompts. I may do the Spook Me Ficathon instead of Fictober...not sure. But I do plan on doing Spook Me this year after missing the sign-ups the last few years. And if I get enough participants, I'll do another round of @sherlollysecretsanta and make mod gfts as well (which reminds me...got to email participants in this round about the fic covers).

3. Do you anticipate writing for a new fandom this year? Which one? I do! One of the WIPs I'm bouncing around finishing for WIPBB is the Knives Out Cablanca fic you are letting me finish, and I've never written Knives Out before. As for all mine fics? It's not entirely new, but I tossed out a Marvel's What If...? fix-it idea for Peggy/1602!Steve which I might write, which will be my first time writing specifically for that show.

7. Will you change anything about the way you interact with other writers? I'm going to try and read more fic written by people other than @dreaminonao3 (I have a backlog of @sobeautifullyobsessed's fic that I'm going to read when I have a good chunk of time to donate to reading some of her long WIPs, and I have a ton of bookmarked fics across a bunch of different fandoms on my Firefox account), and make damn sure I comment and comment often. I'm also going to try and reblog more fic recs over on @mousedetective, where I have a bigger audience.

9. Short term goals… what do you hope to complete this week or in January? Since I finally seem to be over my food poisoning, this week I hope to do the mod gifts for Sherlolly Secret Santa and write at least one or two things for @greenskyoverme, including the newest chapter of "What Stork Brings." As for January? I want to get as much art done for the 2023 round of WIPBB that I owe as I can. I also want to write something new for my birthday on the 23rd, since I'm not expecting a whole lot this year.

11. Would you like to try any new fanfic genres or tropes this year? Not really? There isn't much I haven't tried at least once in the 25 1/2 years I've been writing fic.

Now, new ships, on the other hand? That I'm game for...

[chloebeale]

hi! i hope everybody has had a happy and safe holiday season, whatever you may celebrate (if anything)! i’ve had a bit of free time recently, hence writing up my very last minute christmas one-shot the other day. while reading through all of your lovely comments, i noticed i had some on some of my unfinished multi-chapters asking if i was going to continue them. my plan for the new year, while i don’t think i’ll be writing any new things, is to work on finishing all of my current ongoing multi-chapters. those are:

i chase the feeling, ‘cause you keep me dreaming (christmas fic)

sight unseen

chloe and aubrey need wedding dates

lilacs for lucy

‘cause you weren’t mine to lose

and maybe ‘please, just remember, forever and always’, but i will admit that’s probably my lowest priority for now. my current WIP is the christmas fic; i’d like to get it completed and posted in the next week or so before we all lose the christmas spirit for the year!!

i’m currently taking a creative writing class as part of my degree, and i’ve found through exercises in class that i’m more comfortable writing in past tense, so i will likely go through what’s already posted of my multi-chapters and edit the tense so it’s easier for me to work on new chapters, since most of them are currently written in present tense and that no longer feels natural to me. i don’t know how long it’s going to take me to do that, but i do plan to get all of the above done in 2023, and i appreciate so much all of the people who read, have read, or will read my stories! i’m also very appreciative of everybody’s patience - i know it can be frustrating to read an unfinished story and have to wait a long time for an update, but i promise i’m trying to get those done and posted... little 2023 writing goal for me :)

love you all! - i know i don’t get on here much anymore, but i appreciate everyone who still follows me and sends me sweet messages, and i hope you’re all well, safe and happy! <3

[lalaurelia]

2023 Fic in Review

Another year gone, so let's see how it was for me writing-wise. I haven't written a lot in English this year because I was still hijacked by the game, and then by the Russian fandom-wide event that stretched on for months, and then the work was hectic - you know, the usual. On top of all the rest that's been going on.

Okay. So. I think it's the first time I'd be counting my Russian-language stories in this review, because without them it's gonna look very sad.

total number of completed stories: 19, but 7 of these are translations, and 4 were, I think, written earlier than 2023 but I don't know the exact date - but I brought them over to Ao3 in 2023, and so be it. +1 micro game for the fandom event.

total word count: 45046 words. And maybe around, like... 10K into the game and the fandom extras.

fandoms written in: It's still exclusively Gotham and Gobblepot.

looking back, did you expect to write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you’d expected? This was probably one of the years when I was being realistic and thinking I would write very little. But then somehow the event sparked some kind of competitiveness in me that urged me to finish some of my myriad of WIPs and edit the ones that have been lying around ready for years. Oh, and there was this time when I whipped up a story in like an hour or so and completed it five minutes before the fandom event deadline closing and published it mere seconds before the event closed. That was fun XD I wouldn't have done anything like that without that kind of fucked up motivation lol

what’s your own favorite story of the year? You know what, it's probably that quickie one I mentioned previously - К вопросу об устрицах. Yup, sorry, no English translation available yet. It was fun to write though.

did you take any writing risks this year? Well, getting involved in that fandom event was a risk XD But when it comes to writing per se, hm... I suppose The Coffee Place counts - as I've wanted to do an outsider perspective fic for a while, and somehow it mashed up with Coffeeshop AU in my mind, and I kinda liked the result.

do you have any fanfic or profit goals for the new year? This time I'm kind of intrigued by what is meant by 'profit goals' in this question. I guess I'm mildly curious if I'd be able to produce something people would want to pay for - but it is a pipe dream on so many levels right now. So, anyway. Fanfic goals for the new year? Finish at least some of the WIPs. We'll see how it goes from there.

best story of the year? I think it would be Выбор для живых - yeah, sorry, no translation for that one either yet. But it's an alternative take on that one ep where Jim ends up in Valeska's blown up maze. So he's lying buried underground and contemplates things, and Oswald as well, and then rescue comes unexpectedly.

most popular story of the year? Ao3 stats tell me it's Ice, and other things which is not surprising, since it was the first story I put out once the year began. It had some time to accumulate kudos xD

story of mine most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion: I can't name a single one, to be honest. The ones I've written in Russian aren't very popular, which I expected to happen. The ones in English are being read, so. There's that.

most fun story to write: Hmmm, I guess it would be И кое-что еще, because I needed to write a short and I wanted it to be sexy without being explicit, so I had some little fun with words there.

story with the single sexiest moment: Now that would be Skirting Around, no doubt.

sweetest story: I don't think I had anything particularly sweet written this year. It just wasn't a year for that.

“holy crap, thats wrong, even for you!” story: You know what, I'll just skip this one, because I always give the same answer here. Write whatever you want, just tag it appropriately.

story that shifted my own perceptions of the characters & most unintentionally telling story: Nothing for this one either, sorry.

hardest story to write: I'm afraid it's Skirting Around. I've been stuck at several spots in it for ages, and I'm still not completely satisfied by the ending. I'm not sure if I'm going to do anything about it. We'll see.

biggest disappointment: How little energy I seem to have for writing - doing anything, really. These past years haven't been kind and the emotional drain and constant fear are very exhausting. So every written word is a win. I can't be disappointed with what I manage to create.

biggest surprise: That there are still people I can make happy with my Gobblepot stories. It's really nice when I think about it. So thank you for that.

Not tagging anyone, but I'd be curious to see if you guys do year reviews of your stories.

[talesofsorrowandofruin]

2022 Writer Year-in-Review

Thanks for tagging me, @radiowrites! :D

I decided to answer both sets of questions :D Under the cut because this is looooong:

Total Number of Completed Works: 5 (one novel, two short stories and two novellas... Well, one of the novellas is book one of Like Snow on Hungry Graves, but it isn’t long enough to be called a novel)

Total Number of WIPs Worked on This Year: 10

WIPs Neglected This Year: 3. 1 already written and not yet edited (Death and the Emperor) and 2 that I didn’t get around to starting (The Sun Sets at Dawn and Death Waits for Some Men).

Fandoms I’ve Written In: I haven’t written any fanfiction this year, but previously I’ve written for The Silmarillion/The Hobbit/LOTR, Thor/The Avengers, How to Train Your Dragon (I need to continue that series...), and The Prisoner of Zenda.

Looking Back, Did You Write More Than You Thought You Would This Year, Less, Or About What You’d Expected?: Less. I expected to finish Totentanz, but I ran out of inspiration ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Did You Take Any Writing Risks This Year?: I started a WIP with an extended prologue (Like Snow on Hungry Graves) and I wrote a horror novella where I killed off the entire cast (Gracemeadow Manor), neither of which I’d done before.

Do You Have Any Writing Goals For The New Year?: Yep! I listed them here :D

Biggest Disappointment: I hoped to finish Totentanz and start the third book in the Death series. Didn’t get to do either :(

Biggest Surprise: I managed to keep to my original plan for Gracemeadow Manor in spite of the characters’ best efforts to run away with the story.

Most Popular Story Of The Year: Umm... I don’t get many comments on my stories so I don’t know how to measure this... I’ll go with The Power and the Glory, because it got shortlisted for the Watty awards.

What’s Your Own Favourite Story Of The Year?: A tie between Like Snow on Hungry Graves and Gracemeadow Manor.

Story Of Mine Most Under-Appreciated By The Universe, In My Opinion: All of them :P But if I have to pick just one, Totentanz. A lot of readers on Critique Circle complained that the “protagonists” are bad people. That’s the point.

Most Fun Story To Write: A Strange Event on Old Junction Road. It was great fun to write a mystery that never gets solved, though I suspect readers might disagree :P

Most Unintentionally Telling Story: Between Haliran in TPATG, Ketevan in LSOHG, and now Rachael in The Unfortunate Moth, I’m begging to realise my abusive teacher did more damage than I knew. It’s been 15+ years since I left that school but when I set out to make a really revolting character I automatically make them an older woman emotionally abusing a much younger person. I didn’t pick up on it with Haliran and Ketevan because they’re worse than my teacher ever was, but the more I write about Rachael the more I realise she’s a dead ringer for her.

My Favourite Part Of Fandom This Year: The snarky reactions to Persuasion and Rings of Power. “I’m all agony and no hope” has become my favourite way to describe a bad adaptation.

Tagging @eccaiia, @jessica-writes22, @pluttskutt, @weaver-of-fantasies-and-fables, @primroseprime2019, and anyone else who wants to do this! :D

[ragecndybars]

Fic in Review 2022

tagged by @bi-demon-ium :D thanks!!

Total Number of Completed Stories: Nine this year if you count my little Fuuka birthday drabble! :D I'm pretty proud of myself tbh

Total Word Count: 61,000 posted on AO3 this year, which makes 400,000 on AO3 in total! I... don't even wanna guess how many words are in WIPs in my google drive 😅

Fandoms Written In: Persona 3, Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon, and Fire Emblem Awakening :D Mostly Persona 3, lmao.

Looking back did you expect to write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you’d expect:

I wrote probably about as many words as I usually write in a year, but I definitely posted more fics this year than I would have expected! Especially since I've... kinda been going thru it this year lmao, so I'm pretty happy. :) Definitely still have wayyy more unfinished WIPs than published works tho, which may not ever change given how many silly little ideas I always get lmao

What’s your own favorite story of the year?:

Probably Always Wanna Play (But You Never Wanna Lose), given how much effort I poured into it, lmao. I was pretty proud of some of my Whumptober works too though!

Did you take any writing risks this year?:

Not really, to be honest, lmao. I guess I experimented a bit with my writing style in System Error, but I'll talk more about that in a minute lmao.

Do you have any fanfic goals for the New Year?:

I have a couple of specific WIPs that I would like to finish and post next year, but, more generally, I kind of want to diversify and post more character studies and plot-focused works rather than just angst, lmao

Best story of the year:

I think the one that turned out the strongest, other than my fave (which I've already talked about lmao), was System Error :D Like I said, the style here was a little experimental, since I was playing around with a more clinical POV from Aigis, mixed with some memory loss and gaslighting from Ikutsuki that jumbles her ability to properly categorize her own feelings on what's happening, and I really like how it turned out.

Most popular story of the year:

Always Wanna Play (But You Never Wanna Lose) was my most-viewed, most-bookmarked, most-kudosed, and most-commented-on fic of the year, which makes me really happy tbh 😊 That one definitely had the most work put into it so I feel like that paid off, if that makes sense?

Story of mine most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion:

I was pretty blown away by how nice everyone's been about my fics this year, though the glitter dancing on the skin didn't get a lot of attention, which was predictable, lmao. Pannelivia isn't exactly a popular ship and it was a pretty quick and relatively underdeveloped fic tbh.

Most fun story to write:

Fair Trade fought me a little since I was rushing to get it out before Oct 4th ended, but I found it very fun and intuitive to write!

Story with the sexiest moment:

None of them this year, lmao.

Sweetest story:

I don't... write a ton of sweet stuff, lmao... but my Fuuka birthday drabble was short and sweet! :)

“Holy crap that’s wrong even for you!” story:

Hm, I guess that would mean the darkest story of this year for me? Which kind of depends on your perspective. Always Wanna Play But You Never Wanna Lose had some mild gore and a LOT of blood, with Minato coming very, very close to death, which could be seen as the darkest this year. But System Error I think takes the cake for being much more bleak without a happy ending, what with the mind control and memory removal 😅

Hardest story to write:

Tantrum has been fighting me for the past several YEARS, so I feel like I have to say that one, lmao

Biggest disappointment:

Hm, I don't know. I guess I'm pretty disappointed that I wasn't able to post a couple more whumptober fics -- two in particular that I wrote 5-10K for but just couldn't wrap up to my satisfaction -- but that's not really a disappointment given that I still wrote was more than I'd expected.

Biggest surprise:

How many comments I got on my fics 😭 thank you everyone who commented, it really kept me going this year <3

I Tag:

uhhhh @wizard-finix @misty-wisp if y'all wanna, and anybody else who sees this and wants to, go ahead!!! every time i get to one of these points in a tag challenge I forget about every person I have ever met hsjkhfls

[natigail]

August 2023 - natigail

It was time for my Posting Every Day In August (PEDIA) challenge, so I posted 31 chapters/one shots/excerpts this month!

I posted all six chapters of my skz ace/sex worker AU - oh, you kissed me just to kiss me

I posted all five chapters of the side piece to my skz wolfpack AU - What if I Told You I'm a Mastermind?

I posted the December chapter of my phan Stardew AU - Broke, Gay and New in Town

I posted four new chapters of my skz wolfpack AU - Rest in the Belly of the Wolf

I posted a one shot prologue of Seungcheol to my svt mafia AU - 돈’t Blink (at least not here) 

I posted a chapter to another svt mafia AU prologue, this time about verkwan - 돈’t Resist (at least not me) 

I posted both chapters of my Legend of Zelda fic focusing on optaining the Master Sword - to become an immortal dragon is to lose oneself (why did you do it?) 

I posted the first chapter to my bts insomniac/baker AU - the donuts are warm for you

I posted my Good Omens one shot focusing on the season 2 finale - contains information in a tuneful way (stop, you’re losing me)

I posted three excerpts from an original novel wip of mine (x, x, x)

I posted a bts one shot focusing on Yoongi getting his 7 tattoo - Future's gonna be okay 

I posted my The Untamed one shot about Lan Wangji’s grief - you can’t talk me through the fall if we don’t know if i can land 

I posted my phan one shot inspired by Taylor Swift’s Timeless - In another life you still would’ve turned my head

I posted my Nimona one shot focusing on a scene from the film - Say that I'm a monster

I posted my phan one shot about not attending pride - so tell me i’m a rainbow (it makes me feel alright)

I posted my Good Omens one shot about Aziraphale doing an apology dance - it ends with a garden (and a cottage in the south downs) 

Bloody hell, that’s one hell of a list. And it’s not likely the last one I’ll do, I think I’m going to do one with their summaries and stuff too but I wanted to have my usual monthly recap, even if PEDIA always messes with everything in the best way. Same can be seen on this pie chart.

I didn’t even attempt to untangle all the small entries that’s about 1-0% in the grand scheme of things. It’s the fics that were done before this month but needed to be edited before posting. I had given myself the goal of 2k a day because I knew I needed write a lot to complete PEDIA but I also needed to spend a lot of time editing, but I still went past the goal and almost hit 75k.

That definitely held true, but man, I’m still so proud of myself for managing to keep up even while feeling burned out and getting sick. Like, look! I did it. Yay. You’ll get my monthly overview of PEDIA as well, because why not?

Over 253k words posted! Not my record for a PEDIA but it’s the third most I’ve ever done during one of these challenges, which I’ve been doing since 2017 (except my thesis year). Like this month is kind of stressful and getting into a bit of grind with it all, but the sense of accomplishment when sitting back is indescribable. And I still try so very hard to keep the quality top notch, because despite how I like to get lost in my stats - it’ll always be the words that matter more than the numbers.

I’m going to take a very chill time in September. I’ll still keep up with my daily writing habit but we’re aiming for 1k a day instead, and for this coming week, I am going to maybe only keep up with the journalling to take a break.

[greenapricot]

2022 fic year in review

Total number of completed stories: 7

Total word count: 73,146

Fandoms written in: Our Flag Means Death (3), Lewis (2), Shetland (2)

Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you’d expected? More fic by word count, but less by number of fics.

For the past couple of years I'd been fixated of the idea of posting a fic a month (which did help me get through the early part of the pandemic) but it also kept me from writing anything long. So, in 2022, I decided to let the one fic a month thing go and try to write something longer (which led to me accidentally writing the longest thing I've ever written).

What’s your own favorite story of the year? This actually really hard for me to decide because I spent the second half of the year working on one fic, but I think I’ll have to go with The time it takes to get from here to there (Lewis, James/Robbie). I’ve been meaning to write a story that focuses on the Soul of Genius for years and not only did I finally manged but I also think it’s very true to the vibe that the episode deserves.

Did you take any writing risks this year? I wrote the longest thing I’ve ever written which is also a full AU and in a new fandom: Riches and Wonders (OFMD, blackbonnet, modern AU). But I think of it as more of an experiment than a risk.

I didn’t actually intend to write something novel-length when I started and once I realized that was what was happening I’d already written half of it. So then it became a game of can I write something that long in less than a year and could I start posting it before it was 100% complete and still finish it. The answer is yes to all of that and I’m super proud of myself for getting there and sticking with it.

Do you have any fanfic or profic goals for the new year? I said this last year too, but I really do want to finish the sequel to Lead me wild to your dark roads (Lewis/Shetland xover, James goes walking in Shetland). I was working on it pretty steadily before I started the little OFMD modern AU that turned into R&W.

Then, there are those three Lewis casefics that I’ve got mostly plotted that I would like to finish someday, plus I’d like to write some Izzy POV (possibly in the R&W universe). And there are a few other WIPs an new ideas kicking around. But mostly I just want to keep writing things that make me happy.

Most popular story of the year? Riches and Wonder by all possible metrics (which is probably a bit unfair it being in a far bigger fandom than I’ve written in in years and 15 chapters long). It’s actually one of my most popular fics period at this point. Second most popular by kudos is It’s misery loves you and by comments is The time it takes to get from here to there.

Story of mine most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion: Don’t go dark on me (Shetland, Jimmy/Duncan). Part of my s6 missing scenes series that takes place before the first episode.

Most fun story to write: It's misery loves you (OFMD, blackbonnet, Izzy POV) Writing Izzy watching Ed and Stede reuniting and being absolutely fucking livid about it was so much fun. I think the final count was 38 fucks in a 1900 word fic. I love writing unreliable narrators and his utter impotent rage just made me snicker all the way through. Definitely want to write some more Izzy POV this year. 

Here comes your man (Lewis, James/Robbie) was also very fun, getting James all flustered after seeing old photos of Robbie in his rugby shorts.

Most unintentionally telling story: I hardly ever have a good answer to this question and I feel like I have even less of one than usual for 2022 since more than six months of it was spent working on R&W (which is a blatant romantic comedy with a dash of angst in the middle for flavor). Maybe that’s something telling? Really what I want is a story with a bit of angst and an HEA (this is not at all surprising).

Biggest disappointment: For the past few years I’ve has a goal of finishing one of my three Lewis casefics and I didn’t do that again in 2022. But I did write the longest thing I’ve ever written in 7 months so I feel like that’s a good compromise. Also, the fact that I was able to finish something so long in (for me) in such a short time gives me hope that I will finish one of those casefics one day.

Biggest surprise: Being inspired to write in a new fandom which is a really big fandom and writing the longest fic I’ve even written, and completely without intending to. Also, apparently I didn’t write any Endeavour fic in 2022, so here’s hoping I get inspired by s9.

I don’t know how many people have done this (or something like it) already but I’ll tag: @thankyouforbeingsowrong @bryndeavour @vita-s-west @mcgstarroar @mr-iskender @femmenerdy @philleegirl @swimmingfoxsticks @desperately-human and anyone else who wants to do this.

List of the fics I wrote in 2022 under the cut:

Don't go dark on me - Shetland (1,159 words) Jimmy/Duncan - teen - Established Relationship, Emotional Hurt/Comfort

Jimmy’s brow furrows into that pursed-lipped annoyed look of his, he shakes his head. “You’re just going to leave it to chance? See what happens and then sort out the fallout later?”

“No,” Duncan says, he puts two pairs of wool socks into Jimmy’s suitcase, then a third, trying to keep his tone even. “I’m going to make a deliberate decision to support my partner after the death of his mum.”

Here Comes Your Man - Lewis (4,046 words) James/Robbie - explicit - Robbie Lewis in rugby shorts, thirsty pining, Oral Sex

“Find something interesting?” Lewis asks. He sounds amused.   

“Um.” James’ face goes hot. Every potential quip dries up on the tip of his tongue. He is still holding the rugby photo, the other three photos next to him on the table, clear evidence of his prying. He’s sat in one of Lewis’ dining chairs, but he has no memory of sitting down, and he— “I suppose you could say that,” James says feebly.

The time it takes to get from here to there - Lewis (6,445 words) James/Robbie - teen - The Soul of Genius, Mutual Pining, Angst with a Happy Ending

Lewis is right, James does want someone in his life. Need, he’s not so sure about, but he is intimately acquainted with want. Trouble is, that person is sitting across the table from him, oblivious, and telling him to go find someone else.

It's misery loves you - Our Flag Means Death (1,908 words) Ed/Stede - mature - Reunions, Izzy POV, Izzy-typical overuse of the word fuck Pirate-typical violence

“Ed!” someone shouts.

Izzy spins around, following Blackbeard’s gaze. Who the fuck dares?

And fucking, fuck. Walking toward Blackbeard through the smoke and fog like he has any fucking right to be here, as if anyone fucking wants him here, is Stede fucking Bonnet.

A tunnel to crawl through - Our Flag Means Death (2,361 words) Ed/Stede - mature - Reunions, Pirate-typical violence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort

“Ed?” Stede’s hand touches his arm, his fingers are rough in a way they weren’t before, when Stede passed him teacups and fine fabrics, when they— “Edward, are you okay?”

Blackbeard looks down at Stede’s hand on his arm, at Stede’s face so close to his own, at the dagger he’s still holding to Stede’s throat which he has made no effort to step away from. His hand is shaking, the blade trembling against Stede’s skin. Stede who is here. Stede who is right fucking in front of him, close enough to smell if Blackbeard were to take a breath.

Never quite like this - Shetland (753 words) Jimmy/Duncan - teen - First Kiss

“Hey,” Jimmy says, as if he hasn’t said just that to Duncan a thousand times over the years in a thousand ways; exhausted, exasperated, teasing, content, relieved, fond even. But he’s never said it quite like this. Never with his face so close to Duncan’s it’s barely in focus. Never with that soft look in his eyes.

“Hey,” Duncan says, more of a sigh than a word.

Riches and Wonders - Our Flag Means Death (56,474 words) Ed/Stede - explicit - Modern AU, Mutual Pining, while also spending all their time together, a bit of angst, with a happy ending (in both senses of the word), So Much Softness

“Yes,” Stede says, sitting up a little taller on his bar stool. “I would love a drink.” He holds out his hand. “I’m Stede.”   

“Stede,” Mr Gorgeous Brown Eyes says. “Unusual. I like it.” And Stede likes the way his name sounds on the man’s lips. “I’m Ed.”   

Ed’s handshake is firm, his fingers warm and a bit calloused, the leather of his fingerless gloves smooth and soft. Stede’s eyes are drawn to the tattoos circling his arm as the handshake lingers maybe a bit too long.

[jrow]

Fic year in review

@calaisreno and @raina-at both tagged me (and Raina said some really nice stuff!) so I figure, why not do this? For the record, I’ve stolen Raina’s format ;):

I am pretty happy with my fic output this year. It’s been a busy, stressful one in the non-digital world, and I was very glad to have fandom to unwind in. Things are getting busier and far more stressful in my offline life (work, volunteering I’ve started, young kids, stuff) but keeping some time aside to write/edit is pretty important for my mental health. Sometimes it’s just a couple hundred words a week (with millions of imagined words in my mind) or betaing a few pages, but it’s still very needed.

Total number of completed stories: 5

Total word count: about 110k published, but I know I wrote about 20k of that in 2021. Plus there is probably 10k or so words in WIPs (that may or may not see the light of day)

Fandoms written in: BBC Sherlock

Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you’d expected?: Probably about what I expected. If I had put money on it, I would have said 100k. I’d make the same guess for 2023...

What’s your own favorite story of the year? Depends on the day....potentially Jam, because I’m pretty proud of the epilogue. But I suspect that The Man in the Cartier Frames is the one I’ll reread the most.

Did you take any writing risks this year?: I participated in FTH which was a little nerve-wracking, but it turned out really! I am not sure I would have overcome writer’s block if I didn’t have those pieces to work on. I like a bit of pressure sometimes. In terms of writing, I took fewer risks than I would have liked, but the alternating perspective in Jam certainly felt like a risk.

I also started beta’ing this year, which was a bit of a risk, I suppose. It also worked out really well though. It’s something I think I’m good at. It’s also easy when you are beta’ing for people whose stories you really, really like! And for the record, a co-worker of mine suggested earlier this year that I make an easy shortcut for em-dashes (I use them a lot in my work) and it’s honestly changed my life. It’s why I’m so quick to insert/correct them when beta’ing now! I do love an em-dash.

Do you have any fanfic or profic goals for the new year?: Post at least a part of an AU. So far, all of my posted works have been basically in canon. I have a handful of AUs sketched out or, in two cases, partly written. But, I have a lot more trouble sticking with them. I think it’s the world-building aspect (something both @calaisreno and @raina-at are amazing at!) and fear that what I develop won’t read true. I do a ton of research for all my fics, regardless of when/where they take place (I like to be accurate when I can), but world building is a step beyond researching. The reality is, that (at least some) of the AUs I want to write won’t be as popular as my regular stuff...I am fine with that most of the time, but sometimes there’s a worry you will be writing for no one but yourself (which shouldn’t matter, but some days does ;) )

Most popular story of the year?“ Hmmm...in terms of kudos and general love, it’s definitely The Man with the Cartier Frames. People love parentlock and I do think I write it well (it helps that my kids are good ages to model Rosie). But I got a lot of love and really amazing comments on Blue Plaques too.

Story of mine most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion: I’m not sure anything this year was under-appreciated. Possibly 5mm (a very short (and fluffy established relationship fic), but it’s the third in my That Time of Year series, so I expected small numbers.

Most fun story to write: Blue Plaques. Figuring out a ridiculous mystery that would give the ending I wanted (I knew the solution before I knew anything else), and researching about blue plaques and random spots in London was a ton of fun.

Most unintentionally telling story: Oooohhh. That’d probably be The Man With the Cartier Frames. There is lots of my daughter (M) in Rosie in this story. This includes a freak accident that made my partner (M’s father) an absolute mess at the hospital (that Sherlock sobbing scene was inspired by real life). M was totally fine (I still don’t know how but am so thankful) but that moment was the seed that led to this fic.

Biggest disappointment: Probably that I didn’t post an AU? But honestly, I am not really disappointed with this year’s writing or reception.

Biggest surprise: The engagement I got from some of my favourite authors (including art!!) this year. It’s a real honour when people whose writing you admire start commenting on your stuff. It’s worked the other way too, I have started reading people’s because they comment on my stuff and it ends up being amazing! I was going to tag people here, but I’m afraid of forgetting someone...if you’ve commented on my stuff and you write, I’m probably talking about you!

I’ll nominate anyone who wants to reflect on the past year :).