2014 Year-in-Fic
Jan. 3rd, 2015 05:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
netgirl_y2kThe Sisters Black (ASOIAF, All female Night's Watch AU, Arya Stark, 12k)
Kiss The Boys And Make Them Cry (ASOIAF, Dany/Jon, Dany/Aegon, 4k)
Lessons Learned (a little bit of history repeating remix) (Merlin, Merlin/Arthur, 3k)
The Sun's Daughter (ASOIAF, Arianne Martell, 5k)
Live For Just These Twenty Years (the wolves in sheep's clothing remix) (ASOIAF, Lyanna Stark, Bran Stark, Cersei Lannister, Jon Snow, 7k)
I Love To Live So Pleasantly (OUaT, coffee shop AU, Emma/Regina, 1k)
Keep the Bouquets, Throw Away the Grooms (GoT, arranged marriage AU, Sansa/Margaery, 3k)
Lessons in Lock-Picking (Elementary, Sherlock, Joan, Ms. Hudson, 1k)
Only Love Can Break Your Heart (LotS, soulmate markings AU, Cara/Kahlan, 1k)
Practice Makes Perfect (GoT, high school AU, Sansa/Margaery)
No Gravity, No Fallen Angels (Merlin, angels & demons AU, Gwen & Morgana, 2k)
A Westeros Fairytale (ASOIAF, story within a story, Elia/Lyanna, 3k)
About As Helpful As You Can Be (without being any help at all) (Merlin, Gwen/Morgana, 500 words)
Taste Your Words (Kushiel's Legacy, Ysande/Phedre, 500 words)
Teenage Kicks (GoT, modern AU, Sansa/Margaery, 1k)
Gymnophoria (ASOIAF, Sansa/Margaery, 1K)
Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost (some are taking an extended walking holiday) (Discworld, Susan/Angua, 500 words)
Snakes in the Grass (ASOIAF, Arianne Martell, Sand Snakes, 700 words)
Home To A Place You Have Never Been (GoT, Sansa & Shae, 700 words)
Freedom and Safety in Madness (Merlin, Morgana/Freya, 1k)
The Game of Courtship (ASOIAF, Sansa/Margaery, 9k)
Abu el Banat (ASOIAF, Oberyn Martell, Sand Snakes, 4k)
22 Fics.
13 ASOIAF/GOT. 4 Merlin. 1 Once Upon a Time. 1 Legend of the Seeker. 1 Kushiel's Legacy. 1 Elementary. 1 Discworld.
13 femslash. 8 gen. 1 slash.
66,000 words.
Ahem. Jeepers.
Overall Thoughts:
Dear God, somebody take the semicolon away from me before I hurt myself.
Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you'd predicted:
More. A lot more. And a good balance between longer fics that I really put my back into, and shorter off-the-cuff ficlets, I think.
What's your own favorite story of the year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you happiest:
The Game of Courtship. I wrote a lot of Sansa/Margaery this year, but this is the one I'm really rather proud of, and stays closest to my headcanon for both characters. I had a lot of fun writing the doomed romance of a slightly too ambitious Margaery and a slightly too willfully niave Sansa.
Sansa/Margaery is one of those ships that gets looked at through rose coloured glasses at lot (it reminds me of Gwen/Morgana in the early days on Merlin in that, actually) and that's valid, but I do love a slightly darker take on them.
Plus I seemed to fuck people up a bit with the ending I chose, so that was nice.
Now Your most popular:
Keep the Bouquets, Throw Away the Grooms. Apparently a lot of people were quite keen on the idea of Sansa/Margaery arranged marriage fic. I love people.
I don't know, I say as much as anyone that I wish femslash had more of those gleefully ridiculous tropes you see in boyslash - and be the change you want to see in fandom and all that.
My best story of this year:
Kiss The Boys And Make Them Cry. This the story that got me a whole slew of comments that started "...I don't usually like Dany, but", and I do like Dany, so I don't always know how to feel about those comments. But I still like it a lot, and another people seemed to, too, so it's all good I guess!
Story of mine most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion:
I don't know if it was that rarewomen was a low-feedback fest all round this year, the fact that Arianne Martell isn't exactly a character who sets the fandom alight, or the background cousincest, but The Sun's Daughter sank like a stone - I really like it, though.
Most fun story to write:
The Sisters Black. Working out a plausible reason for the Night's Watch to be an all-female order, and the canon implications of things like Lyanna having lived long enough to take the black are fun to me.
I need to get out more, I know.
Story with the single sexiest moment:
I still can't write sexy stuff. For proof look no further than Gymnophoria. I do think there's an interesting fic in Sansa having an affair with her husband's sister, I just don't think this is it.
Story that shifted my own perceptions of the characters:
Live For Just These Twenty Years (the wolves in sheep's clothing remix). Remixes are great for character studies; so are ASOIAF characters are brought up different Houses AUs. I especially liked my Bran brought up on Pyke section, because I'd never written Bran before, and I really wanted to get into how the Iron Islands affected Theon (apparently a sweet kid like Bran in his youth) and Asha (a woman of relative power in a culture built on rape). I liked Cersei being brought up in Winterfell too, because Cersei and Lyanna as best frenemies is one of those crack character combinations that I think has legs.
Basically, I think it's the best remix I ever wrote, and I was bummed that the remixee never commented.
Hardest story to write:
Lessons Learned (a little bit of history repeating remix). Writing a fic about why I think the Merlin/Arthur relationship is codependent and creepy and awful for an audience of people who really like that relationship and those characters, without behaving like a dick. That was a little bit of a balancing act. It seemed to go over well, though.
In failing to not behave like a dick, though, I never answered the comments on it, because I couldn't figure out how to do it gracefully.
Anyway, this was a banner year for me and remixes.
Biggest Disappointment:
Freedom and Safety in Madness is a clunker. It's either too dark, or not quite dark enough, I'm not sure. Terrible title, too.
Biggest Surprise:
The name of your soulmate is written on your wrist AU is a trope that passed me by, rather, and even when I discovered it I sort of side-eyed it, because what?. So I was surprised how much I dug writing Only Love Can Break Your Heart, and how well the trope worked with Cara and Kahlan.
I think it's a trope I'll always like to see deconstructed more than played straight, but all the same, that'll teach me to be such a snob.
Most Unintentionally Telling Story:
It's not unintentional, or even subtle, it's all feminist propaganda and girls kissing.
Oh, though. The reason there's so much dwelling on Sansa's dog in The Game of Courtship was, yes, as a placeholder for Lady, and so I could make references to Sansa's hound and have it be an actual, you know, hound, but mostly it was because my dog died when I was writing it and I was really sad about it.
Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them?
Not a risk, as such. But I was writing an Elia/Lyanna fic for got_exchange, and I was plodding along writing an AU where they both survived the rebellion, and I wasn't feeling it. So at the last minute I scrapped it and wrote A Westeros Fairytale.
The story within a story was a structure I'd never used before, and I would like to have had more nods to how Meera's story of the beginning of Elia and Lyanna's romance was perhaps no closer to the truth than her canon story about the knight of the laughing tree was to the truth about the tourney of Harrenhal.
I guess I learned - when in doubt, panic!
Fic-writing goals for 2015:
I don't really have any? I'm devoid of ideas at the moment; not in a crummy writer's block way, just in a something will come to me when it comes type way.
I would like to write another fic in my all female Night's Watch AU series. I've had it planned out for ages; it's about Asha Greyjoy and Alysane Mormont, and is much more overtly femslash-y than The Sisters Black.
I'm at 177 works on AO3, and I might like to get to 200. But, then, I might like to write fewer fics which are longer. Ho hum.
I would like to comment and kudos more - and not just for karmic reasons.
Kiss The Boys And Make Them Cry (ASOIAF, Dany/Jon, Dany/Aegon, 4k)
Lessons Learned (a little bit of history repeating remix) (Merlin, Merlin/Arthur, 3k)
The Sun's Daughter (ASOIAF, Arianne Martell, 5k)
Live For Just These Twenty Years (the wolves in sheep's clothing remix) (ASOIAF, Lyanna Stark, Bran Stark, Cersei Lannister, Jon Snow, 7k)
I Love To Live So Pleasantly (OUaT, coffee shop AU, Emma/Regina, 1k)
Keep the Bouquets, Throw Away the Grooms (GoT, arranged marriage AU, Sansa/Margaery, 3k)
Lessons in Lock-Picking (Elementary, Sherlock, Joan, Ms. Hudson, 1k)
Only Love Can Break Your Heart (LotS, soulmate markings AU, Cara/Kahlan, 1k)
Practice Makes Perfect (GoT, high school AU, Sansa/Margaery)
No Gravity, No Fallen Angels (Merlin, angels & demons AU, Gwen & Morgana, 2k)
A Westeros Fairytale (ASOIAF, story within a story, Elia/Lyanna, 3k)
About As Helpful As You Can Be (without being any help at all) (Merlin, Gwen/Morgana, 500 words)
Taste Your Words (Kushiel's Legacy, Ysande/Phedre, 500 words)
Teenage Kicks (GoT, modern AU, Sansa/Margaery, 1k)
Gymnophoria (ASOIAF, Sansa/Margaery, 1K)
Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost (some are taking an extended walking holiday) (Discworld, Susan/Angua, 500 words)
Snakes in the Grass (ASOIAF, Arianne Martell, Sand Snakes, 700 words)
Home To A Place You Have Never Been (GoT, Sansa & Shae, 700 words)
Freedom and Safety in Madness (Merlin, Morgana/Freya, 1k)
The Game of Courtship (ASOIAF, Sansa/Margaery, 9k)
Abu el Banat (ASOIAF, Oberyn Martell, Sand Snakes, 4k)
22 Fics.
13 ASOIAF/GOT. 4 Merlin. 1 Once Upon a Time. 1 Legend of the Seeker. 1 Kushiel's Legacy. 1 Elementary. 1 Discworld.
13 femslash. 8 gen. 1 slash.
66,000 words.
Ahem. Jeepers.
Overall Thoughts:
Dear God, somebody take the semicolon away from me before I hurt myself.
Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you'd predicted:
More. A lot more. And a good balance between longer fics that I really put my back into, and shorter off-the-cuff ficlets, I think.
What's your own favorite story of the year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you happiest:
The Game of Courtship. I wrote a lot of Sansa/Margaery this year, but this is the one I'm really rather proud of, and stays closest to my headcanon for both characters. I had a lot of fun writing the doomed romance of a slightly too ambitious Margaery and a slightly too willfully niave Sansa.
Sansa/Margaery is one of those ships that gets looked at through rose coloured glasses at lot (it reminds me of Gwen/Morgana in the early days on Merlin in that, actually) and that's valid, but I do love a slightly darker take on them.
Plus I seemed to fuck people up a bit with the ending I chose, so that was nice.
Now Your most popular:
Keep the Bouquets, Throw Away the Grooms. Apparently a lot of people were quite keen on the idea of Sansa/Margaery arranged marriage fic. I love people.
I don't know, I say as much as anyone that I wish femslash had more of those gleefully ridiculous tropes you see in boyslash - and be the change you want to see in fandom and all that.
My best story of this year:
Kiss The Boys And Make Them Cry. This the story that got me a whole slew of comments that started "...I don't usually like Dany, but", and I do like Dany, so I don't always know how to feel about those comments. But I still like it a lot, and another people seemed to, too, so it's all good I guess!
Story of mine most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion:
I don't know if it was that rarewomen was a low-feedback fest all round this year, the fact that Arianne Martell isn't exactly a character who sets the fandom alight, or the background cousincest, but The Sun's Daughter sank like a stone - I really like it, though.
Most fun story to write:
The Sisters Black. Working out a plausible reason for the Night's Watch to be an all-female order, and the canon implications of things like Lyanna having lived long enough to take the black are fun to me.
I need to get out more, I know.
Story with the single sexiest moment:
I still can't write sexy stuff. For proof look no further than Gymnophoria. I do think there's an interesting fic in Sansa having an affair with her husband's sister, I just don't think this is it.
Story that shifted my own perceptions of the characters:
Live For Just These Twenty Years (the wolves in sheep's clothing remix). Remixes are great for character studies; so are ASOIAF characters are brought up different Houses AUs. I especially liked my Bran brought up on Pyke section, because I'd never written Bran before, and I really wanted to get into how the Iron Islands affected Theon (apparently a sweet kid like Bran in his youth) and Asha (a woman of relative power in a culture built on rape). I liked Cersei being brought up in Winterfell too, because Cersei and Lyanna as best frenemies is one of those crack character combinations that I think has legs.
Basically, I think it's the best remix I ever wrote, and I was bummed that the remixee never commented.
Hardest story to write:
Lessons Learned (a little bit of history repeating remix). Writing a fic about why I think the Merlin/Arthur relationship is codependent and creepy and awful for an audience of people who really like that relationship and those characters, without behaving like a dick. That was a little bit of a balancing act. It seemed to go over well, though.
In failing to not behave like a dick, though, I never answered the comments on it, because I couldn't figure out how to do it gracefully.
Anyway, this was a banner year for me and remixes.
Biggest Disappointment:
Freedom and Safety in Madness is a clunker. It's either too dark, or not quite dark enough, I'm not sure. Terrible title, too.
Biggest Surprise:
The name of your soulmate is written on your wrist AU is a trope that passed me by, rather, and even when I discovered it I sort of side-eyed it, because what?. So I was surprised how much I dug writing Only Love Can Break Your Heart, and how well the trope worked with Cara and Kahlan.
I think it's a trope I'll always like to see deconstructed more than played straight, but all the same, that'll teach me to be such a snob.
Most Unintentionally Telling Story:
It's not unintentional, or even subtle, it's all feminist propaganda and girls kissing.
Oh, though. The reason there's so much dwelling on Sansa's dog in The Game of Courtship was, yes, as a placeholder for Lady, and so I could make references to Sansa's hound and have it be an actual, you know, hound, but mostly it was because my dog died when I was writing it and I was really sad about it.
Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them?
Not a risk, as such. But I was writing an Elia/Lyanna fic for got_exchange, and I was plodding along writing an AU where they both survived the rebellion, and I wasn't feeling it. So at the last minute I scrapped it and wrote A Westeros Fairytale.
The story within a story was a structure I'd never used before, and I would like to have had more nods to how Meera's story of the beginning of Elia and Lyanna's romance was perhaps no closer to the truth than her canon story about the knight of the laughing tree was to the truth about the tourney of Harrenhal.
I guess I learned - when in doubt, panic!
Fic-writing goals for 2015:
I don't really have any? I'm devoid of ideas at the moment; not in a crummy writer's block way, just in a something will come to me when it comes type way.
I would like to write another fic in my all female Night's Watch AU series. I've had it planned out for ages; it's about Asha Greyjoy and Alysane Mormont, and is much more overtly femslash-y than The Sisters Black.
I'm at 177 works on AO3, and I might like to get to 200. But, then, I might like to write fewer fics which are longer. Ho hum.
I would like to comment and kudos more - and not just for karmic reasons.