#forgive the posters I got too fucking ambitious with very little space

[m3gahet]

Ooh, ooh, Chéri! Love her! What kind of music do you suppose she likes? Is she a fan of Baen-Shee or Stiletto, maybe? 🤭🖤

“Hell yeah I am!”

[learned-foot]

(Belated) 2019 in (Fic Writing) Review

Okay, guys, forgive me getting a little belatedly self-indulgent. But as I start thinking about my fic writing projects for next year, I can’t help but look back on the past year. I wrote exactly 290k in 2019—the vast majority of which was Starker—and I’m pretty proud of what I wrote. So, some reflections on my own work, for posterity’s sake if nothing else:

Personal Favorite Fic

Never Fail to Be Ironically, my very favorite fic was not Peter/Tony at all, but this crossover about the Thirteenth Doctor meeting Kylo Ren. It is very rare for a fic to come to me fully formed, let alone a fic about two characters who I’ve never written before and who don’t even interact in canon. And yet, that is exactly how I feel about this one. It was so exactly everything I wanted it to be—and, frankly, I think it has one of the few truly great endings I’ve ever written. It just makes me really, really happy. Runner up: Still Right Here I had to pick a Starker fave, right? After a bit of reflection, this is the winner for me. IDK if it is my single best Peter/Tony fic—I have no idea how I would even define that, and it’s certainly not near my most popular—but it was the one that put the biggest smile on my face when I was thinking over my work. This one has one of my weirder concepts, and allowed me to play around with some of my favorite tropes: hurt/comfort in both directions; huddling for warmth; resurrected Tony not being sure how to handle being resurrected; an older, slightly jaded Peter; and even a tiny bit of suit kink. I remain super pleased with how it came out, on both a technical and emotional level. 

Favorite Drabbles

For the first time this year I tried my hand at writing drabbles/drabble series. Here are my three faves: All Day I wanted to see if I could write exactly 100 words of porn. I think it went pretty well. Only In Dreams Peter/Mysterio manipulation fun. The Same Nebula/Nebula. I think maybe my most effect use of the 100 word format to convey a lot in a little space. Honorable Mention: I really like the proposal I wrote as the final drabble in this series

Most Popular Fic

Still Use Work This wins by both hits and kudos. People like kinky for!science porn, and I’m not mad about it. This is also the fic where I learned to really, fully embrace my id in porn, and I am very pleased with that.

Longest Fic

Far From Okay [27.6k] Most ambitious in scope. I’m not sure I entirely stuck the landing in all ways I wanted to, but I still had a lot of fun translating Far From Home into a world where Tony is alive and Beck is a lot rapier.

Biggest Surprise to Myself

Breaking Point

Expiration Date

Under Someone Else

This set of three goes together. Did you guys know that when I started the year I thought of myself as a not particularly tropey writer? L.O.L. This is the year I learned to brace the tropey, romantic goodness, and these three fics are the most extreme example of this. Weird curses that force people together! Miscommunications! Romance and wooing and chasing your love interest to another country to stop them from hooking up with someone else! I really had so much fun, and the end results are fics that I love, and that other people seem to really enjoy, too.

Biggest Risks

Stumbling Towards Better This was my Yuletide assignment. It was for Russian Doll, and my recipient was really interested in seeing the show's Jewish themes explored further. My first response was no fucking way. Like any good culturally Jewish atheist, I feel too outside my own heritage and culture to feel entitled to write about it. But after reviewing the show, I realized that I could harness that exact feeling, since Nadia also has a complicated relationship to her Judaism. In the end, I am really happy with it, but as I was writing it I was so worried it would go horribly wrong, and it feels frighteningly personal in a way none of my other fics do. Obvious I was so nervous about this fic for a number of reasons. It’s time loops, which are hard to pace. I wanted to hint at the reason the loop was happening without it being too obvious, which was a hard line to walk. It gets dark af, to the point where I wondered, “is this too dark?” But it is also one of my favorites in the end, and I’m glad that I went for it and didn’t hold back anything. seen the hunger in my eyes from space Another personal favorite, I felt like this had the potential to fall completely flat. It’s a “married in a dreamworld they must realize/escape” type setup, and I knew that if the part in the dream was too boring, the whole thing would fall apart. So doing the balancing act of it being a perfect whirlwind romance with no conflict—since that was the fantasy of the world that was trying to trap them—while still making it compelling to read and hinting that there was actually something very wrong was a real challenge.

Hardest to Write

Your Face Becomes Her This is another Doctor Who crossover, with a focus on Amy and Nebula. It took me a really long time to figure out what I wanted this fic to BE, and I’m still not entirely sure about the pacing, but I think I eventually got a story out of it. But seriously, I spent a lot of time just kind of writing scenes to see how these characters would bounce off each other. Feels Like Something, Maybe It Fits I wrote the first scene of this fic in a flash, and then spent literal months finishing it. Like, I meant to gift it several exchanges before I did. It’s more lyrical than my usual style, and the emotional beats are a bit different, and for the longest time I just could not figure out what I wanted to do with it.

Easiest to Write

The Pieces

Further Assistance

Resilience

as long as it takes

Not so Bad

These were each written in one sitting (or two, for The Pieces, just because I got tired), and required very little editing. They were almost all written for flash exchanges, and I am very pleased with the results in all cases.

Fic Goals for Next Year

Write the several-years post-FFH Tony resurrection time loop Peter/Tony longfic that has been kicking around my head for a while. It is going to be so angsty and I can’t wait. Peter is not in a good place. Tony is not in a good place. They are forced together. I can’t wait

Do less exchanges, and write less for the exchanges I do take part in. I have so much fun with them, but I want to be able to focus on my own projects more, and I've been feeling burnt out.

More variety. Peter/Tony is my one true love and I don’t plan on stopping writing it anytime soon, but I want to stretch my writing muscles and spend a bit more time writing other combos and canons. I started by not even offering Peter/Tony for Chocolate Box. It’ll be fun to see what I match on instead!