End of Year fanfic meme 2019
Haven't done this one for a couple of years... borrowed from ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
thisbluespirit as always!
Stats:
List of Completed Fics:
Sensual - Swallows and Amazons; Timothy Stedding/James Turner; 500 words; G
Study Notes - One Day at a Time (2017); Penelope Alvarez, Elena Alvarez, Lydia Riera; 825 words; G
Do Not Go Gentle - Swallows and Amazons; John Walker, Titty Walker, Nancy Blackett, Susan Walker, Roger Walker, Peggy Blackett; 500 words; G
Burn - Swallows and Amazons; Nancy Blackett/John Walker; 500 words; M
Caught Up - Critical Role C1; Percy de Rolo/Vex’ahlia; 1399 words; G
A Daughter of the Everlight - Critical Role C1; Pike Trickfoot; 85 words; G
All That Glitters - Swallows and Amazons; Peggy Blackett, Nancy Blackett; 937 words; G
Touch - Swallows and Amazons; Timothy Stedding/James Turner; 500 words; G
Need - Elementary; Sherlock Holmes, Joan Watson; 337 words; G
Words, words, words - Good Omens (TV); Aziraphale, Crowley; 827 words; G
Dance With Her Ghosts - Critical Role C1; Keyleth; 287 words; G
Last Night on the Sea Bear - Swallows and Amazons; Nancy Blackett, Susan Walker; 500 words; G
Return from the Nighteye - High Rollers Aerois; Aila; 668 words; G
Speak Low - High Rollers Aerois; Qillek Ad Khollar/Lucius Virion-Elluin Elenasto; 1615 words; G
A Friend in Need - High Rollers Aerois; Qillek Ad Khollar & Sentry; 2183 words; G
As The Rains Come - High Rollers Aerois; Qillek Ad Khollar/Lucius Virion-Elluin Elenasto; 2174 words; G
Conversations - High Rollers Aerois; Lucius Virion-Elluin Elenasto, Qillek Ad Khollar, Nova V'ger, Sentry, Aila; 1505 words; G
Fall Down or Fly - High Rollers Aerois; Qillek Ad Khollar & Sentry; 878 words; G
Answers and Questions - High Rollers Aerois; Qillek Ad Khollar&/Lucius Virion-Elluin Elenasto; 1681 words; G
A Quiet Moment - High Rollers Aerois; Qillek Ad Khollar&/Lucius Virion-Elluin Elenasto; 823 words; G
First Mate of the Stormchaser - High Rollers Aerois; Oriya Marius, Aila, Lucius Virion-Elluin Elenasto, Qillek Ad Khollar; 3276 words; G
Proud of You - High Rollers Aerois; Nova V’Ger & Lucius Virion-Elluin Elenasto; 429 words; G
See It With The Lights Out - High Rollers Aerois; Qillek Ad Khollar/Lucius Virion-Elluin Elenasto; 1584 words; G
Total number:
23 fics.
Total word count:
24013 words (for an average of 1044 words per fic - sounds about right for me!).
Ship/character breakdown:
Ships:
Qillek Ad Khollar/Lucius Virion-Elluin Elenasto - 3 to 5 depending how you count the borderline &/ ones
Timothy Stedding/James Turner - 2
John Walker/Nancy Blackett - 1
Percy de Rolo/Vex’ahlia - 1
I am not even going to *try* to do a character breakdown! (Especially as the Aerois folks’ tags aren’t canonical, so I can’t even use the AO3 sidebar one). Quill’s probably in the lead, I think? I wrote a lot with him the second part of this year... And as ever, more gen than ship-fic!
Specifics:
Best/worst title?
For best, I’m quite fond of “As The Rains Come”, “All That Glitters”, “Do Not Go Gentle” (which, yes, I do realise are quotes from other sources! But they’re all apt). But I think I’ll go with “A Friend in Need”, because it works on multiple levels with Quill and Sentry both needing and helping each other - so it's both literally "a friend needing help" and a reference to the "a friend in need is a friend indeed" saying. Worst… possibly “Study Notes”? I think that was a despairing "I have to post it now because deadline's approaching and I have nothing better" one.
Best/worst summary?
I think my favourites are:
“Lucius knows he should be paying attention to the noises from the street, to any sign of the guards returning; but all he can focus on is Quill.” (See It With The Lights Out)
“Thunder roars continuously above them, and Aila almost wants to go outside and roar back.” (Return From the Nighteye)
"It’s torture, to be so near Jim and yet so far; to want so badly to reach out and touch him, to be certain he’ll never dare." (Sensual)
(All quotes from the fics themselves! Summaries and titles are the bane of my existence…)
Best/worst first line?
There are a lot of things in Percy de Rolo’s life that could hold claim to being the weirdest, but being semi-regularly woken up by a bear licking his face is definitely on the list. (Caught Up)
The children of Zephrah ask, sometimes, when they see the Voice of the Tempest whirling and swaying on her own. (Dance With Her Ghosts)
Aila glares out into the rising storm, watching as the first showers of rain turn into torrents, and the fierce winds sweep her attempted barriers away like twigs. Of course they did, what else was she expecting today? (Return from the Nighteye)
Quill shoots bolt upright on his pallet, shaking, the blinding lightning that flashed through his nightmare still far more vivid than the dark cell he’s in. (A Quiet Moment)
Best/worst last line?
And, having thus settled what he would not be doing to his own satisfaction, Crowley proceeded to do precisely that. (Words, words, words)
Was that the first light of dawn, over in the east? “And you needn’t worry about it just yet, there’s still one last day of sailing.” (Last Night on the Sea Bear)
Sentry’s still wary of the skyship, and suspects she always will be, but it means so much to her friends - giving Lucius something beside his loss to focus on, Nova a new outlet for her learning, Quill this chance to fly again - that she thinks she can learn to love it too, for their sakes. (Fall Down or Fly)
He’d let his friend have his secret if he wanted it to be one, what harm could it do? (Answers and Questions - this one mainly for the narrative irony of “that secret ended up with a blackout drunk marriage, that's the harm it could do!”)
All that matters is that now he’s finally realized how much he cares for Birdie, and somehow, amazingly, Birdie cares for him too. (See It With The Lights Out)
General questions:
Looking back, did you write more fics than you thought you would this year, less than you thought, or about what you predicted?
I didn’t do this meme last year, but it’s rather more than I thought I’d written, especially considering I also wrote a thesis!
What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted last year?
I definitely wasn’t expecting to fall in love with Aerois in general, and Quill/Lucius as a ship in particular! I think at least part of it is that the tumblr/AO3 fandom is a nice goldilocks size - enough active people to *be* a fandom, but small enough to not be overwhelming? And lovely people in it, too! (But also it’s a wonderful series and you should watch it!)
What's your favourite story this year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you the happiest.
I wrote “When the Rains Come” as essentially a self-birthday-present, so I think I have to go with that one! It is super indulgent sappy AU fluff and I love it with all my heart.
Okay, NOW your most popular story.
Using AO3 stats, Return from the Nighteye and A Friend in Need by comment threads (5 each), and Caught Up by kudos (83! Apparently the key to popularity is Percy/Vex :P).
Story most underappreciated by the universe?
Using AO3 stats as a metric once more, “A Daughter of the Everlight” (2 kudos, no comments) - but that one’s poetry, always a harder sell. The other two with no comments are “All That Glitters” and “A Quiet Moment” (that one got some nice comments on tumblr, though).
Story that could have been better?
Well, all of them naturally! I’m not sure I have a specific stand-out… I had a few drafts of a second chapter for See It With The Lights Out that never worked out? But really I think it works best ending where it does.
Sexiest story?
Given it’s the only one not rated G, I think it has to be “Burn” by default! Which is still a fade-to-black… Honorable mention to “Caught Up”, where the ending *strongly* implies Percy and Vex are off to have some fun with ropes ;) Also, shout-out to me for taking the prompts “touch” and “sensual” and producing G-rated stories!
Saddest story?
This pretty much has to be “Do Not Go Gentle” (WWII future fic, I killed *everyone*). Honourable mention to “Return from the Nighteye” (set right after a canon character death), and “Dance With Her Ghosts (D&D mechanics mean one character will outlive all her friends by centuries).
Most fun?
“Study notes” or “Words, words, words”, I’d say (If I’m correct in reading the question as “most humourous”).
Story with single sweetest moment?
Hmmm… maybe “See It With The Lights Out” or “As The Rains Come”, they’re both very fluffy Quill/Lucius. Or “Touch”, Jim and Timothy are pretty sweet there... Alternatively, on a gen note, “Proud Of You” and “A Friend In Need” are very sweet friendship moments!
Hardest story to write?
Not the writing itself, that was fun, but “First Mate of the Stormchaser” involved a lot of canon review (because Yuletide, I get very obsessive about stuff being *right*) and reviewing a bunch of 3h episodes takes time! "Do Not Go Gentle” was tough partly because, again, I killed everyone (look, I had “death” as a prompt and these kids would canonically grow up into WWII…), but also it’s one of the ones in the 50x500 series I most struggled to get down to 500 words exactly.
Easiest/most fun story to write?
“See It With The Lights Out” was a delight to write (though a pain in the ass to give a title to! I was scouring poetry and song lyrics for ages).
Did any stories shift your perceptions of the characters?
I don’t know about *shifting* my perceptions… I did enjoy getting into Oriya’s head and getting to know her better for “First Mate of the Stormchaser”.
Most overdue story?
“Do Not Go Gentle” and “Burn” had been WIPs for a good while.
Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them?
Possibly writing for the open canon that is the Aerois campaign? I've written for open canons before, but never so much. I guess I learned that sometimes canon will invalidate your story (e.g. parts of "Conversations", magic item clarifications mean some of it no longer strictly works) and that's ok - especially as on the flip side, sometimes super random headcanons will get validated! (e.g. "A Friend In Need", where I decided aarakocra would be cool with social nudity as they have feathers - I nearly fell off my chair when that subsequently became canon!).I also learnt to spell Lucius and Quill's annoyingly hard full names as the AO3 tags aren't canonical so you have to input them each time.
This year's theme and the story that demonstrates it most:
I always struggle with this question… possibly "relationships"? As a whole, familial and friendship as well as romantic. Plus two sub-themes of "the year I actually wrote some more of the Swallows and Amazons 50x500 prompts" for the first half of the year, and "the year I fell in love with High Rollers (and quillucius)" for the second? So I'll pick two stories, "Last Night on the Sea Bear" for the first half - one of the rarer friendship pairs in Nancy and Susan as main characters, plus mentions/hints of others. And for the second half… hmm… “Conversations”, maybe? It’s the one that focuses on the party as a whole the most, and there’s some hints of quillucius in it.
What are your fic writing goals for next year?
"Write more" goes without saying I think! More specifically… get back into rhythm with![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fan_flashworks , I haven't been keeping up with that so much; do some more of the 50x500 ones; more on the 100fandoms challenge I had forgotten even existed!
thisbluespirit as always!Stats:
List of Completed Fics:
Sensual - Swallows and Amazons; Timothy Stedding/James Turner; 500 words; G
Study Notes - One Day at a Time (2017); Penelope Alvarez, Elena Alvarez, Lydia Riera; 825 words; G
Do Not Go Gentle - Swallows and Amazons; John Walker, Titty Walker, Nancy Blackett, Susan Walker, Roger Walker, Peggy Blackett; 500 words; G
Burn - Swallows and Amazons; Nancy Blackett/John Walker; 500 words; M
Caught Up - Critical Role C1; Percy de Rolo/Vex’ahlia; 1399 words; G
A Daughter of the Everlight - Critical Role C1; Pike Trickfoot; 85 words; G
All That Glitters - Swallows and Amazons; Peggy Blackett, Nancy Blackett; 937 words; G
Touch - Swallows and Amazons; Timothy Stedding/James Turner; 500 words; G
Need - Elementary; Sherlock Holmes, Joan Watson; 337 words; G
Words, words, words - Good Omens (TV); Aziraphale, Crowley; 827 words; G
Dance With Her Ghosts - Critical Role C1; Keyleth; 287 words; G
Last Night on the Sea Bear - Swallows and Amazons; Nancy Blackett, Susan Walker; 500 words; G
Return from the Nighteye - High Rollers Aerois; Aila; 668 words; G
Speak Low - High Rollers Aerois; Qillek Ad Khollar/Lucius Virion-Elluin Elenasto; 1615 words; G
A Friend in Need - High Rollers Aerois; Qillek Ad Khollar & Sentry; 2183 words; G
As The Rains Come - High Rollers Aerois; Qillek Ad Khollar/Lucius Virion-Elluin Elenasto; 2174 words; G
Conversations - High Rollers Aerois; Lucius Virion-Elluin Elenasto, Qillek Ad Khollar, Nova V'ger, Sentry, Aila; 1505 words; G
Fall Down or Fly - High Rollers Aerois; Qillek Ad Khollar & Sentry; 878 words; G
Answers and Questions - High Rollers Aerois; Qillek Ad Khollar&/Lucius Virion-Elluin Elenasto; 1681 words; G
A Quiet Moment - High Rollers Aerois; Qillek Ad Khollar&/Lucius Virion-Elluin Elenasto; 823 words; G
First Mate of the Stormchaser - High Rollers Aerois; Oriya Marius, Aila, Lucius Virion-Elluin Elenasto, Qillek Ad Khollar; 3276 words; G
Proud of You - High Rollers Aerois; Nova V’Ger & Lucius Virion-Elluin Elenasto; 429 words; G
See It With The Lights Out - High Rollers Aerois; Qillek Ad Khollar/Lucius Virion-Elluin Elenasto; 1584 words; G
Total number:
23 fics.
Total word count:
24013 words (for an average of 1044 words per fic - sounds about right for me!).
Ship/character breakdown:
Ships:
Qillek Ad Khollar/Lucius Virion-Elluin Elenasto - 3 to 5 depending how you count the borderline &/ ones
Timothy Stedding/James Turner - 2
John Walker/Nancy Blackett - 1
Percy de Rolo/Vex’ahlia - 1
I am not even going to *try* to do a character breakdown! (Especially as the Aerois folks’ tags aren’t canonical, so I can’t even use the AO3 sidebar one). Quill’s probably in the lead, I think? I wrote a lot with him the second part of this year... And as ever, more gen than ship-fic!
Specifics:
Best/worst title?
For best, I’m quite fond of “As The Rains Come”, “All That Glitters”, “Do Not Go Gentle” (which, yes, I do realise are quotes from other sources! But they’re all apt). But I think I’ll go with “A Friend in Need”, because it works on multiple levels with Quill and Sentry both needing and helping each other - so it's both literally "a friend needing help" and a reference to the "a friend in need is a friend indeed" saying. Worst… possibly “Study Notes”? I think that was a despairing "I have to post it now because deadline's approaching and I have nothing better" one.
Best/
I think my favourites are:
“Lucius knows he should be paying attention to the noises from the street, to any sign of the guards returning; but all he can focus on is Quill.” (See It With The Lights Out)
“Thunder roars continuously above them, and Aila almost wants to go outside and roar back.” (Return From the Nighteye)
"It’s torture, to be so near Jim and yet so far; to want so badly to reach out and touch him, to be certain he’ll never dare." (Sensual)
(All quotes from the fics themselves! Summaries and titles are the bane of my existence…)
Best/
There are a lot of things in Percy de Rolo’s life that could hold claim to being the weirdest, but being semi-regularly woken up by a bear licking his face is definitely on the list. (Caught Up)
The children of Zephrah ask, sometimes, when they see the Voice of the Tempest whirling and swaying on her own. (Dance With Her Ghosts)
Aila glares out into the rising storm, watching as the first showers of rain turn into torrents, and the fierce winds sweep her attempted barriers away like twigs. Of course they did, what else was she expecting today? (Return from the Nighteye)
Quill shoots bolt upright on his pallet, shaking, the blinding lightning that flashed through his nightmare still far more vivid than the dark cell he’s in. (A Quiet Moment)
Best/
And, having thus settled what he would not be doing to his own satisfaction, Crowley proceeded to do precisely that. (Words, words, words)
Was that the first light of dawn, over in the east? “And you needn’t worry about it just yet, there’s still one last day of sailing.” (Last Night on the Sea Bear)
Sentry’s still wary of the skyship, and suspects she always will be, but it means so much to her friends - giving Lucius something beside his loss to focus on, Nova a new outlet for her learning, Quill this chance to fly again - that she thinks she can learn to love it too, for their sakes. (Fall Down or Fly)
He’d let his friend have his secret if he wanted it to be one, what harm could it do? (Answers and Questions - this one mainly for the narrative irony of “that secret ended up with a blackout drunk marriage, that's the harm it could do!”)
All that matters is that now he’s finally realized how much he cares for Birdie, and somehow, amazingly, Birdie cares for him too. (See It With The Lights Out)
General questions:
Looking back, did you write more fics than you thought you would this year, less than you thought, or about what you predicted?
I didn’t do this meme last year, but it’s rather more than I thought I’d written, especially considering I also wrote a thesis!
What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted last year?
I definitely wasn’t expecting to fall in love with Aerois in general, and Quill/Lucius as a ship in particular! I think at least part of it is that the tumblr/AO3 fandom is a nice goldilocks size - enough active people to *be* a fandom, but small enough to not be overwhelming? And lovely people in it, too! (But also it’s a wonderful series and you should watch it!)
What's your favourite story this year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you the happiest.
I wrote “When the Rains Come” as essentially a self-birthday-present, so I think I have to go with that one! It is super indulgent sappy AU fluff and I love it with all my heart.
Okay, NOW your most popular story.
Using AO3 stats, Return from the Nighteye and A Friend in Need by comment threads (5 each), and Caught Up by kudos (83! Apparently the key to popularity is Percy/Vex :P).
Story most underappreciated by the universe?
Using AO3 stats as a metric once more, “A Daughter of the Everlight” (2 kudos, no comments) - but that one’s poetry, always a harder sell. The other two with no comments are “All That Glitters” and “A Quiet Moment” (that one got some nice comments on tumblr, though).
Story that could have been better?
Well, all of them naturally! I’m not sure I have a specific stand-out… I had a few drafts of a second chapter for See It With The Lights Out that never worked out? But really I think it works best ending where it does.
Sexiest story?
Given it’s the only one not rated G, I think it has to be “Burn” by default! Which is still a fade-to-black… Honorable mention to “Caught Up”, where the ending *strongly* implies Percy and Vex are off to have some fun with ropes ;) Also, shout-out to me for taking the prompts “touch” and “sensual” and producing G-rated stories!
Saddest story?
This pretty much has to be “Do Not Go Gentle” (WWII future fic, I killed *everyone*). Honourable mention to “Return from the Nighteye” (set right after a canon character death), and “Dance With Her Ghosts (D&D mechanics mean one character will outlive all her friends by centuries).
Most fun?
“Study notes” or “Words, words, words”, I’d say (If I’m correct in reading the question as “most humourous”).
Story with single sweetest moment?
Hmmm… maybe “See It With The Lights Out” or “As The Rains Come”, they’re both very fluffy Quill/Lucius. Or “Touch”, Jim and Timothy are pretty sweet there... Alternatively, on a gen note, “Proud Of You” and “A Friend In Need” are very sweet friendship moments!
Hardest story to write?
Not the writing itself, that was fun, but “First Mate of the Stormchaser” involved a lot of canon review (because Yuletide, I get very obsessive about stuff being *right*) and reviewing a bunch of 3h episodes takes time! "Do Not Go Gentle” was tough partly because, again, I killed everyone (look, I had “death” as a prompt and these kids would canonically grow up into WWII…), but also it’s one of the ones in the 50x500 series I most struggled to get down to 500 words exactly.
Easiest/most fun story to write?
“See It With The Lights Out” was a delight to write (though a pain in the ass to give a title to! I was scouring poetry and song lyrics for ages).
Did any stories shift your perceptions of the characters?
I don’t know about *shifting* my perceptions… I did enjoy getting into Oriya’s head and getting to know her better for “First Mate of the Stormchaser”.
Most overdue story?
“Do Not Go Gentle” and “Burn” had been WIPs for a good while.
Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them?
Possibly writing for the open canon that is the Aerois campaign? I've written for open canons before, but never so much. I guess I learned that sometimes canon will invalidate your story (e.g. parts of "Conversations", magic item clarifications mean some of it no longer strictly works) and that's ok - especially as on the flip side, sometimes super random headcanons will get validated! (e.g. "A Friend In Need", where I decided aarakocra would be cool with social nudity as they have feathers - I nearly fell off my chair when that subsequently became canon!).
This year's theme and the story that demonstrates it most:
I always struggle with this question… possibly "relationships"? As a whole, familial and friendship as well as romantic. Plus two sub-themes of "the year I actually wrote some more of the Swallows and Amazons 50x500 prompts" for the first half of the year, and "the year I fell in love with High Rollers (and quillucius)" for the second? So I'll pick two stories, "Last Night on the Sea Bear" for the first half - one of the rarer friendship pairs in Nancy and Susan as main characters, plus mentions/hints of others. And for the second half… hmm… “Conversations”, maybe? It’s the one that focuses on the party as a whole the most, and there’s some hints of quillucius in it.
What are your fic writing goals for next year?
"Write more" goes without saying I think! More specifically… get back into rhythm with
fan_flashworks , I haven't been keeping up with that so much; do some more of the 50x500 ones; more on the 100fandoms challenge I had forgotten even existed!