2023 Wrap Up Post
Jan. 1st, 2024 07:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
saiditallbeforeI really just wanted an excuse to talk about myself and especially the fic I wrote this year. So that's what this is.
This was, on the whole, a really rough year. My car was almost stolen once and actually stolen once, and both times I had to pay the full deductible for repairs and it was in the shop for weeks at a time. I was pretty isolated (partially because I spent most of the first half of the year with no transportation) and I had serious financial and mental health issues. It was a very bad year on top of a series of very bad years.
But it wasn't all bad! I turned thirty, I posted more to AO3 than ever before, and I got into a new-to-me fandom. I went to Seattle Pride for the first time, and I got back into meeting up with my IRL friends for board games. I didn't read as many books as I wanted to, but I finally read the Imperial Radch and Scholomance books, and I loved both of those series. There were a handful of other books, movies, and tv shows I read or watched and mostly liked, although most didn't really stick with me in a fannish way.
Sorry to all my mutuals and AO3 subscribers, I'm a DC comics fan (and specifically a Green Arrow fan) now, I guess. On the other hand, if you are a DC fan, I welcome any recs. (I'm not really interested in anything focused heavily on the Batfam, but other than that I'm open!) My main goals for the beginning of the year are to read Grell's Green Arrow run and to finish reading all of Fire & Ice's major appearances, and then moving on to whatever else looks interesting.
I'm only counting words posted to ao3, mostly because that's easiest. I wrote more words in various drafts that will probably eventually see the light of day, but I'm not counting those here.
Total words posted: 70,024
Total fics posted: 23
Number of fics written for exchanges: 13
Total kudos: 1.597
Total bookmarks: 348
Total comment threads: 94
Total number of fandoms written: 11
Number of fics rated E: 3
Number of fics rated M: 1
Number of fics rated T: 7
Number of fics rated G: 13
Number of Gen fics: 12
Number of M/F fics: 6
Number of F/F fics: 6
Pink (is my favorite part) - Barbie/Gloria smut
Break of Day - Pevensie sibling bonding as they learn to be Kings and Queens of Narnia. I had a blast with thinking about adventures they might have gone on in that first year.
ancient history - Doctor Who x Star Wars, River Song/Chelli Lona Aphra. Just a quick double drabble where they're exes, because good lord, there's so much potential here.
What You're Made Of - DCU x Percy Jackson, Stephanie Brown & Connor Stoll. Stephanie Brown is a daughter of Hermes. This is one of the first DC fics I actually wrote, and I think there's a couple of things I would tweak, but tbh I think I did a pretty okay job with it. It's also far and away the most popular thing I wrote this year, which is completely unsurprising.
aftershocks - Mia Dearden & Connor Hawke & Oliver Queen, missing scene after the Red Hood attacks Mia.
fault lines - Mia Dearden & Oliver Queen, missing scene after Mia kills Albert Davis. I don't know if you can tell, but I really love Mia, and especially her relationships with Connor and Ollie.
I Could Close The Curtains (But This is Too Much Fun) - Dinah/Zatanna, exhibitionism PWP. I have no idea where this one came from; I think I was possessed by the spirit of smut for this one. I like it though.
march of death, pulse of life - Xanthe Zhou & Stephie Zhou, post-Spirit World. Day-in-the-life adventures for Xanthe. I ended up reading a lot of comics this year, but Spirit World is one of the only series that I recommend wholeheartedly and without any caveats at all.
Breakfast and Conversation - Daisy & Nan, post-canon domestic fluff. I have such a soft spot for all of the characters from Little Men and Jo's Boys.
say you'll remember me - Andy/Nile, post-canon get-together. It turns out I still have a lot of feelings about the way these two parallel each other. Andy is so ancient and suddenly so mortal, and Nile is so comparatively young and now immortal and they're both soldiers and warriors and ugh I love them. Such an underrated ship.
until I finally reach the shore - Percy/Annabeth, road tripping across the country before their freshman year of college. I had tons of fun throwing in callbacks to their earlier quests.
Wedding of the Year - Percy/Annabeth wedding fic, set in the same universe as a Percabeth fic I wrote in 2022. Mostly an excuse to get a few specific scenes out of my head.
devil's in the details - El/Orion, post-canon angst and conversations. How do you talk to your boyfriend about his mother being mega super evil when he already knows and has forgiven her?
Not Entirely Useless - El/Liesel, character study of Liesel as she studies El. Liesel really snuck up on me as a favorite character in this series. I didn't think anything about her for her first few appearances, but by the midpoint of The Golden Enclaves she was easily one of my favorites outside of El. She's so ruthlessly pragmatic, and yet she derails her carefully made plans because she sees what El is going to do and thinks she's right to do it. Ugh, I love her.
a steady flame - Owen & Luke, pov outsider on time travel, triple drabble. I've had most of this little snippet from Owen's POV written for a while and decided to polish it up and get it posted to round out the year.
broken mirrors - Kylo Ren/Rey, soulmate AU. This was a fun AU in which soulmates can see each other's surroundings through reflections! Not much to say about this one, but I think the form I chose (drabble sequence) really worked for the AU.
In Memoriam - Padme Amidala & Royal Handmaidens. I really enjoyed getting to explore how the GFFA might view Padme's legacy, correctly or incorrectly. I also really liked getting to dive into the relationships she and her handmaidens had, and how they were all teenage girls and also politicians and bodyguards and spies and diplomats... as someone who once was a teenage girl, it's wild to think about.
Keep On Living - Cal Kestis & Cere Junda & Merrin, post Jedi: Fallen Order.(I'm still salty I can't play Jedi: Survivor on my console.) Adventures in archaeology! Archaeology as a metaphor! Talking about the Force and what it is while exploring the ruins of a temple built by an ancient Force-using civilization! You may notice a pattern this year in my Star Wars fics of characters digging into "what does it mean to be a Jedi", haha.
same set of questions, all different answers - Kylo Ren/Rey, AU in which Kylo Ren and Rey get pulled into another dimension where things went slightly differently and they meet their AU counterparts... who are married. I adore fic that deals with dimensional travel, and I had such a great time doing the worldbuilding for this fic (the alternate dimension splits off when Anakin and Padme's marriage is found out, and Anakin ends up founding a splinter sect of the Jedi. A lot of the worldbuilding didn't make it into the fic, but I sprinkled the parts that were important in there) and I had a lot of fun thinking about legacy and getting to choose your own path forward, and I really loved where I left our Rey and Kylo at the end. Unfortunately, this fic does not seem to have found readers that liked those things as much as I did, which makes me kind of sad.
Try, Try Again - Kylo Ren & Rey, AU ficlet where Kylo Ren lives. I will probably never come back to this AU but I love this concept.
The Worthwhile Fight - Poe/Rey, Pacific Rim fusion. Another one I had an absolute blast coming up with the worldbuilding for. Poe is a washed-up jaeger pilot who lost his drift partner, Rey is a pilot who can't find anyone she's drift compatible with. I wrote a lot of things I'm proud of this year but this might be one of the things I'm most proud of.
incremental - Kel, and the next generation of girls to want to become lady knights. Drabble.
entwined - Nynaeve & Moiraine, post S1 hair braiding. A soft moment between two women who aren't naturally very soft.
if loving you kills me - Egwene/Nynaeve, post S1 PWP.
Here's to a better 2024! <3
Personal Stuff
This was, on the whole, a really rough year. My car was almost stolen once and actually stolen once, and both times I had to pay the full deductible for repairs and it was in the shop for weeks at a time. I was pretty isolated (partially because I spent most of the first half of the year with no transportation) and I had serious financial and mental health issues. It was a very bad year on top of a series of very bad years.
But it wasn't all bad! I turned thirty, I posted more to AO3 than ever before, and I got into a new-to-me fandom. I went to Seattle Pride for the first time, and I got back into meeting up with my IRL friends for board games. I didn't read as many books as I wanted to, but I finally read the Imperial Radch and Scholomance books, and I loved both of those series. There were a handful of other books, movies, and tv shows I read or watched and mostly liked, although most didn't really stick with me in a fannish way.
Sorry to all my mutuals and AO3 subscribers, I'm a DC comics fan (and specifically a Green Arrow fan) now, I guess. On the other hand, if you are a DC fan, I welcome any recs. (I'm not really interested in anything focused heavily on the Batfam, but other than that I'm open!) My main goals for the beginning of the year are to read Grell's Green Arrow run and to finish reading all of Fire & Ice's major appearances, and then moving on to whatever else looks interesting.
General Stats
I'm only counting words posted to ao3, mostly because that's easiest. I wrote more words in various drafts that will probably eventually see the light of day, but I'm not counting those here.
Total words posted: 70,024
Total fics posted: 23
Number of fics written for exchanges: 13
Total kudos: 1.597
Total bookmarks: 348
Total comment threads: 94
Total number of fandoms written: 11
Number of fics rated E: 3
Number of fics rated M: 1
Number of fics rated T: 7
Number of fics rated G: 13
Number of Gen fics: 12
Number of M/F fics: 6
Number of F/F fics: 6
Everything I Wrote and General Musings
Barbie
Pink (is my favorite part) - Barbie/Gloria smut
Chronicles of Narnia
Break of Day - Pevensie sibling bonding as they learn to be Kings and Queens of Narnia. I had a blast with thinking about adventures they might have gone on in that first year.
Crossovers
ancient history - Doctor Who x Star Wars, River Song/Chelli Lona Aphra. Just a quick double drabble where they're exes, because good lord, there's so much potential here.
What You're Made Of - DCU x Percy Jackson, Stephanie Brown & Connor Stoll. Stephanie Brown is a daughter of Hermes. This is one of the first DC fics I actually wrote, and I think there's a couple of things I would tweak, but tbh I think I did a pretty okay job with it. It's also far and away the most popular thing I wrote this year, which is completely unsurprising.
DC Comics
aftershocks - Mia Dearden & Connor Hawke & Oliver Queen, missing scene after the Red Hood attacks Mia.
fault lines - Mia Dearden & Oliver Queen, missing scene after Mia kills Albert Davis. I don't know if you can tell, but I really love Mia, and especially her relationships with Connor and Ollie.
I Could Close The Curtains (But This is Too Much Fun) - Dinah/Zatanna, exhibitionism PWP. I have no idea where this one came from; I think I was possessed by the spirit of smut for this one. I like it though.
march of death, pulse of life - Xanthe Zhou & Stephie Zhou, post-Spirit World. Day-in-the-life adventures for Xanthe. I ended up reading a lot of comics this year, but Spirit World is one of the only series that I recommend wholeheartedly and without any caveats at all.
Little Women
Breakfast and Conversation - Daisy & Nan, post-canon domestic fluff. I have such a soft spot for all of the characters from Little Men and Jo's Boys.
The Old Guard
say you'll remember me - Andy/Nile, post-canon get-together. It turns out I still have a lot of feelings about the way these two parallel each other. Andy is so ancient and suddenly so mortal, and Nile is so comparatively young and now immortal and they're both soldiers and warriors and ugh I love them. Such an underrated ship.
Percy Jackson and the Olympians
until I finally reach the shore - Percy/Annabeth, road tripping across the country before their freshman year of college. I had tons of fun throwing in callbacks to their earlier quests.
Wedding of the Year - Percy/Annabeth wedding fic, set in the same universe as a Percabeth fic I wrote in 2022. Mostly an excuse to get a few specific scenes out of my head.
Scholomance
devil's in the details - El/Orion, post-canon angst and conversations. How do you talk to your boyfriend about his mother being mega super evil when he already knows and has forgiven her?
Not Entirely Useless - El/Liesel, character study of Liesel as she studies El. Liesel really snuck up on me as a favorite character in this series. I didn't think anything about her for her first few appearances, but by the midpoint of The Golden Enclaves she was easily one of my favorites outside of El. She's so ruthlessly pragmatic, and yet she derails her carefully made plans because she sees what El is going to do and thinks she's right to do it. Ugh, I love her.
Star Wars
a steady flame - Owen & Luke, pov outsider on time travel, triple drabble. I've had most of this little snippet from Owen's POV written for a while and decided to polish it up and get it posted to round out the year.
broken mirrors - Kylo Ren/Rey, soulmate AU. This was a fun AU in which soulmates can see each other's surroundings through reflections! Not much to say about this one, but I think the form I chose (drabble sequence) really worked for the AU.
In Memoriam - Padme Amidala & Royal Handmaidens. I really enjoyed getting to explore how the GFFA might view Padme's legacy, correctly or incorrectly. I also really liked getting to dive into the relationships she and her handmaidens had, and how they were all teenage girls and also politicians and bodyguards and spies and diplomats... as someone who once was a teenage girl, it's wild to think about.
Keep On Living - Cal Kestis & Cere Junda & Merrin, post Jedi: Fallen Order.
same set of questions, all different answers - Kylo Ren/Rey, AU in which Kylo Ren and Rey get pulled into another dimension where things went slightly differently and they meet their AU counterparts... who are married. I adore fic that deals with dimensional travel, and I had such a great time doing the worldbuilding for this fic (the alternate dimension splits off when Anakin and Padme's marriage is found out, and Anakin ends up founding a splinter sect of the Jedi. A lot of the worldbuilding didn't make it into the fic, but I sprinkled the parts that were important in there) and I had a lot of fun thinking about legacy and getting to choose your own path forward, and I really loved where I left our Rey and Kylo at the end. Unfortunately, this fic does not seem to have found readers that liked those things as much as I did, which makes me kind of sad.
Try, Try Again - Kylo Ren & Rey, AU ficlet where Kylo Ren lives. I will probably never come back to this AU but I love this concept.
The Worthwhile Fight - Poe/Rey, Pacific Rim fusion. Another one I had an absolute blast coming up with the worldbuilding for. Poe is a washed-up jaeger pilot who lost his drift partner, Rey is a pilot who can't find anyone she's drift compatible with. I wrote a lot of things I'm proud of this year but this might be one of the things I'm most proud of.
Tortall
incremental - Kel, and the next generation of girls to want to become lady knights. Drabble.
Wheel of Time
entwined - Nynaeve & Moiraine, post S1 hair braiding. A soft moment between two women who aren't naturally very soft.
if loving you kills me - Egwene/Nynaeve, post S1 PWP.
Here's to a better 2024! <3
no subject
Date: 2024-01-03 05:22 am (UTC)I hope your 2024 is much better!