2010 in fic
Ahaha, my paid account expired while I wrote this.
My year-in-fic! Like every year, I ended up writing a lot less than I'd have liked. I only managed one of my writing resolutions I made for 2010, and that was writing for yuletide. I also realized a few things about my writing (or more like, was reminded of a few things...), and the number one thing is...
- I cannot write without deadlines. The things I wrote this year were almost all for fic exchanges, or they had self-imposed deadlines. (And then there was NaNo with one of the toughest deadlines!)
Maybe I should set more self-imposed deadlines for myself.
My year in fic, in chronological order! This is me being way too wordy.
January
♥ Memories of the Future chapter 19 (Mekakushi no Kuni, 2,400 words)
One of my fic goals for 2010 was to finish Memories of the Future (I'm taking faaar too long with this fic), so it was awesome that I managed to finish chapter 19 in January! Great start, right? Except... I didn't manage to keep it up for the rest of the year. This chapter was the turning point of the story, but I so did not do it justice. I'm so going to need to reread the series and my fic before I can continue with this story.
February
♥ Famous Defense Attorney (Ace Attorney/Detective Conan fusion, 1,100 words)
This stars Phoenix Wright characters in Detective Conan roles and was written for the PW kink meme. I actually wrote this in January on a whim when I was supposed to be working on a Tenipuri Big Bang fic (that fic didn't get anywhere, but I did get to play around with Ryoma and Inui's thought processes a bit). I've written a number of PW fics for the kink meme, but this is the only one I managed to finish because it's short. I really hope I'll manage to finish the other fics someday. This one is in first person because that's what I felt worked for what I wanted to say. This could have become something huge, but I'm very glad I managed to exorcise that plunny early on.
March
&hearts Memories of the Future chapter 20 (Mekakushi no Kuni, 1,570 words)
Two months for one chapter, not bad, right? *sigh* But at least I was writing! I don't even remember what my thoughts were behind this chapter, but this chapter was just one long scene. There is no conflict in this fic. It's just one, long fluffy fic, seriously. XD; There seems to be new mods over at 30_kisses, but they haven't been around too much. Without the 2 month deadline being reinforced, I've been going at this story with my own pace. Which means, a very bad pace.
June
April to May, I was busy with my thesis and with colors_tcg (I was truly out of my mind starting a new TCG!). So, during one random day, I put up a drabble request post to get myself back into writing! Behold, drabbles. ;D I never did get around to the last three requests or so, but I managed a handful, more than I thought I'd be able to do! I reposted most of these over at AO3, but I haven't reposted them over at ffnet. Come to think of it, I haven't linked these in my master list here at LJ either...
♥ Dreams (Bokurano, 174 words)
For gottis_chan. I hadn't written any fic for two months, but this kicked me back into fic writing mode. This totally reminded me that I'd like to finish Those Left Behind too (it was one of my fic goals I made for 2009), so I went on to do that in August. 2 years later, but hey, I did it! ;)
♥ Untitled Oofuri drabble (Oofuri, 260 words)
For orechibisama. Not very good writing, sadly. )': I've never written Oofuri, and this was such a dismal attempt at it! I was trying to capture that train wreck moment where everything's happening at once, but I didn't do a very good job at it.
♥ Knives Over Staves (Fire Emblem 9/10, 411 words)
For just1kinkybitch. I really want to write a long FE9/10 fic one day, one where Soren first meets Ike, but this will have to do for now, especially since I'd need to replay the games if I ever wanted to get the characters right in a long fic. I sort of just poked fun at the fact that Soren (a mage) is able to kill heavy armor enemies with his heal staff. It's just... what the heck, right? The dialogue actually came quite easily here.
♥ Waiting (The World Ends With You, 575 words)
For tokki_chan. Prompt was the new iPhone. I believe at this time, the new iPhone had just come out. This was a really fun prompt for TWEWY since the characters rely on their cell phones a lot. My drabbles were starting to get longer by this point. I felt like I was getting warmed up. :)
♥ Monotony Broken (1/2 Prince, 497 words)
For darkicedragon. I adore Arctic Fox a whole lot, so being able to write him was So. Much. Fun. I wanted to write Kenshin's POV too and bring the ficlet to 1000 words, but... yeah, that didn't happen. I know what Arctic Fox is like offline (made me fangirl him even more), but that doesn't come until way later, so yeah, I stuck to what we've seen of him so far in the manhua, but I alluded to his offline persona a bit. ;) I love his interactions with Kenshin, especially the fact that they don't even need to talk to understand each other. XDDD He is my favorite character from 1/2 Prince. Okay, I'll stop before I end up rambling about Arctic Fox instead of the fics.
♥ Blinded (Basara, 546 words)
For jiichan00. I really didn't remember Basara much at all. Hopefully I wasn't overly OOC with this ficlet. I only have a few volumes of Basara that I bought, so I was flipping through those while I wrote this random ficlet about Asagi. I quite adore Asagi though! I tried to be ~deep~ with this ficlet (with the sun shining in his eyes and all) but I probably failed, haha.
♥ Alone (Harry Potter, 460 words)
For eternalkanda. About Snape, uh, alone in his classroom. A short snippet about some downtime. I was drawing on my own experience after a long day of teaching. XD; This is what I like to write best where the focus is on the character's thoughts and there's not much dialogue that I have to struggle through. That means I didn't really challenge myself...
These drabbles were great writing exercises for me! I got to pull random scenes and play around with them without having to think too much about them, and I sure got myself back in a writing mood. I felt so lethargic before this. I should do a drabble request post again sometime. :)
July
♥ Apple Turnovers (Prince of Tennis, 1,944 words)
This is a Fuji/Sakuno fic written for thesundaywriter for potcrackxchange. I labeled this part 1 out of 3 because I planned to do Sakuno's POV next followed by Yuuta's, but... I never did get back to it. At the time, I thought I'd be able to finish the next two POVs in one week. Now, it's already been months, and I feel especially bad since the ending was such a cliffie. ^^;; For this fic, I borrowed some dialogue directly from the game, Gakuensai no Oujisama where Fuji tells the protagonist about Yuuta's habits with sweets. I fell sick around the time the fic was due, so this came out of my fever addled brain. ^^; It's amazing what my mind comes up with sometimes.
August
♥ Memories of the Future chapter 21 (Mekakushi no Kuni, 1,980 words)
I cannot believe this is the last chapter I wrote for this fic for the year. That means I only ended up writing 3 new chapters for the fic in the entire year!! Such terrible progress. I started this part while I was at my anime convention in July, but I didn't finish it until a month later. Since the plan is for this fic to end at 30 chapters, there are only a few more chapters left to go. I've plotted out the rest of the fic, so I should have been able to finish the fic in 2010. Okay, 2011. FOR SURE. The fic has currently gotten around to New Years, so if I continue where I left off, the seasons will actually match with real life... I have plans for a Valentines scene too, so I better at least get that part out by Valentines in real life.
When August 15 rolled around, I decided I wanted to finish my Bokurano ficlet collection, Those Left Behind, that I started in 2008 for 31_days. I picked up where I left off with August 16 and proceeded to write a short ficlet every single day for the rest of August. The self-imposed deadline of one fic per day was a good thing! Otherwise, none of these ficlets would've happened.
♥ Evil is a good condition (405 words)
This one was for digi_dragon who requested something about Kazuki for the drabble request back in June! That was still fresh in my mind when I took a new look at the themes I had left for 31_days, so I decided to start with a Kazuki piece. I felt Maki fit the theme because her decision of annihilating the other world can be evil or good depending on who we're asking.
♥ Stop whispering, start shouting (802 words)
This one features Waku's parents. I chose Waku because I'll always remember him for shouting his heart out in that first episode. This is one of my favorites out of the batch because there's a kind of rhythm to it. Looking back at these now... man, I wish I could write short fic again. (I'm just vomiting words now after NaNo. I'm able to write so much without saying anything at all...)
♥ Centuries before I come to where you are (657 words)
Featuring Kokopelli! I don't really know his character all that well, but this theme made me wonder what he was like before he came to this current world. I reread parts of the manga where he showed up to try to get a better feel for him. I decided he'd be a little resigned, a little out-of-place, somewhat sorry, and also relieved that things would finally be over soon for him. I tried for a peaceful tone, showing that the rest of the world is quite beautiful, except none of them have any time to enjoy it.
♥ Bang, bang, blame (723 words)
I am a huuuge fan of Ushiro, so I wrote Ushiro at every chance I could. So yeah, Ushiro. This theme screamed Ushiro to me because gunshots + blame immediately made me think of Ushiro and that scene and how much he had to deal with by himself near the end of the series. He never explicitly says anything, but the expression on his face...
♥ I am to be pitied, not to be sold (846 words)
I have a soft spot for the dads that are involved with the fight and was really glad I got the chance to write them this time. First up was Akira, Aiko's dad! I chose him since Aiko had been glad that she was finally useful to her dad (he could report about her) when what they really needed was more time to bond outside of "news" and being useful. Since these were all part of my Bokurano collection, I didn't have to write summaries for each of these separately, but if I had, that first line "Tokosumi Akira returned home even less after his daughter's death" would've been a good one, haha. There's something about returning to empty homes that really struck me. I seem to return to this a lot with each of the different families.
♥ These hands made of splinters (688 words)
This was one that just came to me. I remember that Komoda's dad mentioned wanting to learn the piano, but he thought it'd make him too gentle. I thought it likely that he would try to hang on to something of his daughter's - the piano - in his grief, channeling his grief into a new hobby (fixing the piano and later, learning how to play it). I wanted to show how he'd stumble along with very little grace, but that's also a form of healing and trying to get closer to his daughter after the fact.
♥ Behind closed doors (734 words)
I had grand plans for this because Ushiro's dad was someone I didn't get to write about last time. I chose Ushiro's dad for this theme because Jun disappeared out of sight, just slightly beyond the door, and that must've hurt. Even though I wanted to write something impressive, this turned out more disjointed than anything. Still, I thought it worked! Ushiro's dad is a thinker to me, so I tried to show that here.
♥ Understand my hate for you (664 words)
It was a little harder for me to think of who would fit this theme. I immediately thought of Chizu's hate for Hatagai, but I'd already written about Hatagai and didn't really want to write another piece about him. Then, there was another love-hate relationship that I recalled - Kanji and Chutenro Tower. Does he like it, or does he hate it? Kanji's dad was very different from the other characters I wrote for this collection. I felt that, yeah, he'd feel grief, but he's not going to show it. Instead, he'd be more sarcastic and a little mean about it. The Chutenro Tower was really important for his whole family, so this ficlet ended up being him and his thoughts about the tower getting destroyed.
♥ The turn of her heel, the nape of her neck (713 words)
Again, I thought of Chizu for this theme, specifically Chizu and Hatagai, but I've written plenty of that already. Instead, I turned to Tanaka Miku and thought what she might have thought of her mother who was never home. I might have been stretching with this one! What I really wanted to write was what she thought of Jun, but she only ever saw a glimpse of him...
♥ God lives underwater (671 words)
A ficlet for Zearth! This is the theme I wanted to get to in 2008 but didn't manage to get to. I knew this had to be about Zearth because, god, living underwater? It's a perfect description of Zearth! I experimented with my writing with this one. I didn't use any names, and I didn't identify who the speakers were for any of the quotes. This was all stuff that happened in the series, but from a different perspective.
♥ You are all I know (815 words)
The other Machi was always someone that fascinated me. I wanted to explore alternative identities a bit with this one. I was going to write about Sasami until I realized he became Dung Beetle at the end (that completely changed my head canon for him). This Machi is someone that's out of the loop and hasn't exactly been affected by everything's that has happened (I'm very glad for her dad. he doesn't have to lose his daughter), but I feel that she must be a bit confused about her missing months, and maybe she'll one day get dragged into things because she's involved and not involved at the same time.
♥ Slightly out of character (933 words)
A ficlet for the Honda family because they're all such good people, but none of them had noticed what was affecting Chizu. I liked how this one turned out! If only I could write oneshots like this at the moment... short and effective. I didn't know this was going to turn out with this kind of structure, but I'm glad it did, because the three different views had a rhythmical feel to them and wouldn't have worked as well if it had been just one single scene.
♥ This conversation never happened (484 words)
If there was one conversation that shouldn't have happened, it was the one between Aiko and Komoda's dads. This was a conversation only fic. I restarted more than once and tried to write more than just dialogue, but I ended up taking the description out because it was unnecessary. This series of ficlets really made me try out lots of different things.
♥ The aftertaste is gonna break your heart (487 words)
I was running out of juice by this time... because I was trying to write my fics for switching_it_up at the same time. I'd written Miko before the first time around, but the manga showed that she was much more affected by what happened to Mako than I thought. I tried to show that here.
♥ beLIEve (512 words)
I brought two very unlikely characters together, Futaba and Souji, both connected by the lies they were told. I was going to throw Tsubasa and Nagi in the mix too, but I feel they're already starting to unravel the lies on their own. I know that Futaba and Souji are both young, and that's probably why they've been kept out of the loop, but when is it the "right" time to tell the truth? Waiting too long might make the lie become a reality.
♥ Forget whatever I said (428 words)
This was nothing profound, but I thought it was a fitting end for this series of short Bokurano ficlets. I returned to Ushiro and Machi and touched a little upon Machi teasing Ushiro over using "boku".
These Bokurano ficlets sure were another writing exercise for me! I got to try out various writing styles (even dialogue-only fic), and I sure wrote more angsty stuff than I've ever written before! The tone of the original series influenced that a whole lot. I also had to reread the series very carefully since I was writing a lot of very minor characters. Right now, I wish I could write short snippets like these that say everything that needs to be said in a short amount of words. *shakes head*
September
♥ One Last Memory (Prince of Tennis, 2,872 words)
This was a gift fic for the switching_it_up community with no recipient because my original recipient backed out. I dumped the fic I'd been planning for that person and wrote this instead. I didn't think anyone would want to read it since it's set during Shin Tenipuri, which I don't think a lot of people I know are following. I wanted to explore Shin Tenipuri a bit and how it was like to be separated from your teammates. Despite being a huge Tenipuri fan, I have practically no plunnies for the series, and no muse for the characters. Writing Niou and Yagyuu was really hard because I've seen lots of takes on Niou and Yagyuu, but my take was definitely different and probably not something anyone would find interesting. I found it hard to balance fanon and canon with them, and it was also majorly hard to even get them in the same scene.
♥ The Time In-Between (Prince of Tennis, 4,367 words)
This was a pinch hit for ketchupblood for switching_it_up. Basically my take on the time between Rikkai's two matches with Seigaku. We all know what happened in the end, so I stopped the fic without going into that. I can't seem to stick to one POV and switched between Niou and Yagyuu's POVs like crazy. There was a lot of canon that guided this fic. I had to research a lot to make sure I got all of the match ups correct. When I saw that Niou played with Marui and Yagyuu with Kirihara against Murigaoka, I thought it'd be perfect to write about what they thought of that. (I didn't realize until I actually got to that point that the reason the lineup was like that was probably because Murigaoka's a data gathering team, so of course they'd want to break up the usual doubles pairs. That kind of threw everything else I wrote down the drain, but I eventually chose to ignore that reasoning). After writing this, I've pretty much written all that I've wanted to write about Rikkai...
I realized a few things with writing these.
1. I have no Tenipuri muse.
2. I do not like AU fics all that much.
3. I like exploring missing canon scenes.
4. I suck at pairing fic.
5. I suck at sticking to one POV (this comes into play with my NaNo later on...)
6. Huh? People use spaces after their ellipses? Really? Have I been doing it wrong all this time? Basically, I was reading people's fics very closely to figure out who wrote what, and I noticed that a lot of people use... ellipses like so. I had always written it...like so. After this, I started using a space.
November
♥ Veline (Original, 50k+)
Haha, what to say about this? November made my fanfic count drop to 0 because NaNo slayed me. I did not think I'd be able to finish or that I'd even be able to start because I HAD NO PLOT. I still don't know what the point of the whole story was, and if anyone asked me, I wouldn't be able to summarize the story. I would like to say that NaNo has helped my writing speed... but it hasn't. XD; In fact, I think it's made me very, very wordy without saying anything at all! *flails* I wrote characters that I dreamed up when I was young, so that was kind of nostalgic. My world building sucked, but I hope the characters themselves were interesting enough. I did not manage to finish the story with 50k, so I'll need to do some more writing. Not sure when that's going to happen.
December
December, I only wrote for yuletide. :3 Sometimes, I also write for other Secret Santa exchanges around this time, but I decided not to be that crazy this year.
♥ Into the Light (Penguin Revolution, 5,038 words)
For bookchan. I reread the entire series and took a lot of notes (I might post those notes here. It's in chart form! Kind of interesting). The request was for future fic, which meant everyone would be 10 years older because the mangaka gave us a glimpse of what life was like 10 years later. I thought it'd be hard to imagine until I went, "Wait, 10 years later merely ages them up so that they're all my age. That's not hard to imagine at all." I was more interested in the time immediately after PEACOCK dissolved, but canon already brushed over that. Still, I might dabble in that someday. As for this fic, it was going to be named "Spreading Her Wings," but when I started writing the fic, there was one paragraph that I thought would make a perfect summary. I ended up grabbing the title from there. I still have a hard time imagining what kind of roles Japanese actors can get in America, but that was the stage the end of the manga outlined, so that's what I had to go with! bookchan asked that Narazaki be the love interest if romance were involved. In the end, there wasn't much romance, but the three males in Yukari's life each got a bit of the spotlight since they're all very important to her.
This is a fic that I thought should have been a lot shorter, but writing this right after NaNo made me very, very wordy. I rambled too much!
♥ Santa Said Come (Yoroshiku Master, 2,866 words)
For cairnsy. I've already said a lot about this fic, but I guess I still have some more to say. XD; I needed Rihito without his reins so that he'd feel that yes, this was his own decision. I didn't write that part very well, especially since Rihito and Daisuke just wanted to get into a fight way before any thinking got done. That's pretty much what I think about them - even if they decided to kiss every year to break off the link, their efforts would be entirely useless because they'd get into some sort of argument and end up reestablishing the link right away. XDD
I tried very hard to be less wordy and to make every word count (to say more with fewer words!), but this still ended up almost 3k words long. My oneshots all seem to be at least over 2k words long now.
&hearts Stuck on a Carpet (1/2 Prince, 4,140 words)
My last fic of the year, for darkicedragon. :) I couldn't remember if Sunshine went with Yang Ming and Lolidragon on their trip (it was hard to tell from the tiny little picture of them on the carpet, and even though the scanlation of the manhua said that Lolidragon, Sunshine, and Wu Qing went together, the original manhua just said "they"), but afterward I found a part where Fairsky was complaining to Prince about how he sent her lover away. Yang Ming + Lolidragon + Sunshine? What an awesome mix! I so wanted to write this!
While I was rereading the novel, I noticed that Lolidragon commented right after the bathroom incident (where Yang Ming told Lan that he knew who she was) that there was more to Lan's brother than she had first thought. Lolidragon and Yang Ming really drop a lot more hints about their romance in the novel. It is juicy. ;D I was rereading and laughing and just adoring the series all over again.
For this fic, the title happened first, and then the summary. XD; I had a summary before I had any words down. The title, I hoped, would show that it was a humorous fic (because it's quite a silly title), and the summary would show how out of it Yang Ming was. XDD The words kind of just... followed. But I again failed to write something short, haha. After I finished writing, I started thinking, man, my romantic comedies are so similar. Because this fic really parallels Give Me Your Hand a lot. I start with dialogue right off the bat, the POV is the guy who suddenly realizes halfway through that he's in love with the girl, there's texting/messaging going on in the middle of the fic, and the fic ends with no resolution to the romance part.
So, my oneshots (drabbles don't count...). They're all so long now compared to my oneshots from previous years. They're at least 2k or more. I seem to ramble a lot more, often without any evidence of there being a plot. *sigh* Though for my Bokurano drabbles, I did manage short ficlets packed with emotion... but that's only because most of the ficlets focus on one scene.
Anyway... moving on...
Total number of stories: 6 oneshots, 3 updates to my ongoing chapter fic, 23 ficlets (including the Bokurano ones), 1 newly started chapter fic, 1 way-too-long original story. (I learned and have stopped starting multi-parters without knowing when I can finish them. That newly started chapter fic... ugh, should've been finished months ago. Only 3 updates for my ongoing fics? That is sad.)
Total Word Count: 41,771 words in fanfic (wow, I didn't think I wrote that much, but even though I didn't write a lot of different stories, my word count is probably that high because I can't seem to end my oneshots with fewer words), 50k+ in original fic, making it more than 90k words for the whole year, OMG. Just the fanfic word count is double what I normally write each year.
Fandoms Written In: Mekakushi no Kuni, Ace Attorney, Prince of Tennis, Bokurano, Penguin Revolution, Yoroshiku Master, 1/2 Prince, Original, Ookiku Furikabutte, Fire Emblem, The World Ends With You, Basara, Harry Potter)
Leitmotif(s) of the year: Nostalgia (I seem to be writing a number of Future Fic, in which "nostalgia" is present in all of them). Not knowing someone as well as you thought. Seeing someone in a new light. Not letting go. Grief (this is mostly because of those Bokurano ficlets...). I need to write some more lighthearted stuff like Stuck on a Carpet. XD
Favorite fic: This is hard. Probably one of the Bokurano ficlets, like Stop Whispering, Start Shouting. I like the rhythmic feel to it, and I'm envious of my August self that was able to say stuff in less than 1000 words. XD
Best fic: I have no clue (I'm a terrible judge), but Stuck on a Carpet was exactly what I wanted it to be, so I'm very satisfied with it. Maybe this and "favorite fic" should be swapped. XD
Most popular fic: Going by reviews, that'd be Apple Turnovers, but I think it's only because I said it was part 1 out of 3, so people just want to see the next part already. =P And it's romance. People like romance.
Most underappreciated fic: Those Left Behind, totally. I am pretty proud of what I managed with these Bokurano ficlets, but there is not much of a readership for Bokurano fics is there...
Favorite first lines: "My name is Phoenix Wright, and I think I have memory problems." from Famous Defense Attorney. It was what got me writing that fic. XD
Most fun fic: Stuck on a Carpet. Romantic comedies are fun! I should write more of that genre...
Sexiest fic: Not even close. =P The closest thing would be Niou straddling Yagyuu on his bed in the dark in One Last Memory. Okay, that sounds maybe sexier than it actually is. *snorts*
Fic that shifted my own perceptions of the characters: Understand my hate for you from my Bokurano ficlets. It was more like, I didn't have any head canon for Kanji's dad before this.
New pairing/genre/fandom you never predicted writing in January: ORIGINAL FICTION. I did not think I would be doing NaNo and finishing, because I've only ever given it a halfhearted attempt before (and got nowhere with it).
Hardest fic to write: One Last Memory. I just couldn't write Niou and Yagyuu at all. =/ It got a little easier for The Time In-Between.
Biggest disappointment: Not finishing Memories of the Future. I decided that I was going to finish in 2010, yet I only updated it three times. The end is so near, and yet!!
Biggest surprise: Original fiction yet again. I still cannot believe I wrote that monster.
Most telling fic: Er, my original fiction? I blabbed so much in it that a lot of phrases seem like repeats of what I've written before. I know when I was writing Into the Light, I kept thinking, haven't I already used this very same phrase somewhere already??
What's next? Finishing Memories of the Future, seriously. It's taken me way too long. I also need to finish Apple Turnovers in a timely fashion, and I need to finish my original story! *flails* It's all about finishing stuff...
No, really, what's next? I'd like to finish this Ace Attorney fusion I've been working on forever, as well as that Hikaru no Go/Yu Yu Hakusho crossover that is itching to be revealed but isn't at that stage yet. I only have around 2k words of it done. These oneshots that aren't oneshots just won't end. =/ See? More finishing stuff...
My year-in-fic! Like every year, I ended up writing a lot less than I'd have liked. I only managed one of my writing resolutions I made for 2010, and that was writing for yuletide. I also realized a few things about my writing (or more like, was reminded of a few things...), and the number one thing is...
- I cannot write without deadlines. The things I wrote this year were almost all for fic exchanges, or they had self-imposed deadlines. (And then there was NaNo with one of the toughest deadlines!)
Maybe I should set more self-imposed deadlines for myself.
My year in fic, in chronological order! This is me being way too wordy.
January
♥ Memories of the Future chapter 19 (Mekakushi no Kuni, 2,400 words)
One of my fic goals for 2010 was to finish Memories of the Future (I'm taking faaar too long with this fic), so it was awesome that I managed to finish chapter 19 in January! Great start, right? Except... I didn't manage to keep it up for the rest of the year. This chapter was the turning point of the story, but I so did not do it justice. I'm so going to need to reread the series and my fic before I can continue with this story.
February
♥ Famous Defense Attorney (Ace Attorney/Detective Conan fusion, 1,100 words)
This stars Phoenix Wright characters in Detective Conan roles and was written for the PW kink meme. I actually wrote this in January on a whim when I was supposed to be working on a Tenipuri Big Bang fic (that fic didn't get anywhere, but I did get to play around with Ryoma and Inui's thought processes a bit). I've written a number of PW fics for the kink meme, but this is the only one I managed to finish because it's short. I really hope I'll manage to finish the other fics someday. This one is in first person because that's what I felt worked for what I wanted to say. This could have become something huge, but I'm very glad I managed to exorcise that plunny early on.
March
&hearts Memories of the Future chapter 20 (Mekakushi no Kuni, 1,570 words)
Two months for one chapter, not bad, right? *sigh* But at least I was writing! I don't even remember what my thoughts were behind this chapter, but this chapter was just one long scene. There is no conflict in this fic. It's just one, long fluffy fic, seriously. XD; There seems to be new mods over at 30_kisses, but they haven't been around too much. Without the 2 month deadline being reinforced, I've been going at this story with my own pace. Which means, a very bad pace.
June
April to May, I was busy with my thesis and with colors_tcg (I was truly out of my mind starting a new TCG!). So, during one random day, I put up a drabble request post to get myself back into writing! Behold, drabbles. ;D I never did get around to the last three requests or so, but I managed a handful, more than I thought I'd be able to do! I reposted most of these over at AO3, but I haven't reposted them over at ffnet. Come to think of it, I haven't linked these in my master list here at LJ either...
♥ Dreams (Bokurano, 174 words)
For gottis_chan. I hadn't written any fic for two months, but this kicked me back into fic writing mode. This totally reminded me that I'd like to finish Those Left Behind too (it was one of my fic goals I made for 2009), so I went on to do that in August. 2 years later, but hey, I did it! ;)
♥ Untitled Oofuri drabble (Oofuri, 260 words)
For orechibisama. Not very good writing, sadly. )': I've never written Oofuri, and this was such a dismal attempt at it! I was trying to capture that train wreck moment where everything's happening at once, but I didn't do a very good job at it.
♥ Knives Over Staves (Fire Emblem 9/10, 411 words)
For just1kinkybitch. I really want to write a long FE9/10 fic one day, one where Soren first meets Ike, but this will have to do for now, especially since I'd need to replay the games if I ever wanted to get the characters right in a long fic. I sort of just poked fun at the fact that Soren (a mage) is able to kill heavy armor enemies with his heal staff. It's just... what the heck, right? The dialogue actually came quite easily here.
♥ Waiting (The World Ends With You, 575 words)
For tokki_chan. Prompt was the new iPhone. I believe at this time, the new iPhone had just come out. This was a really fun prompt for TWEWY since the characters rely on their cell phones a lot. My drabbles were starting to get longer by this point. I felt like I was getting warmed up. :)
♥ Monotony Broken (1/2 Prince, 497 words)
For darkicedragon. I adore Arctic Fox a whole lot, so being able to write him was So. Much. Fun. I wanted to write Kenshin's POV too and bring the ficlet to 1000 words, but... yeah, that didn't happen. I know what Arctic Fox is like offline (made me fangirl him even more), but that doesn't come until way later, so yeah, I stuck to what we've seen of him so far in the manhua, but I alluded to his offline persona a bit. ;) I love his interactions with Kenshin, especially the fact that they don't even need to talk to understand each other. XDDD He is my favorite character from 1/2 Prince. Okay, I'll stop before I end up rambling about Arctic Fox instead of the fics.
♥ Blinded (Basara, 546 words)
For jiichan00. I really didn't remember Basara much at all. Hopefully I wasn't overly OOC with this ficlet. I only have a few volumes of Basara that I bought, so I was flipping through those while I wrote this random ficlet about Asagi. I quite adore Asagi though! I tried to be ~deep~ with this ficlet (with the sun shining in his eyes and all) but I probably failed, haha.
♥ Alone (Harry Potter, 460 words)
For eternalkanda. About Snape, uh, alone in his classroom. A short snippet about some downtime. I was drawing on my own experience after a long day of teaching. XD; This is what I like to write best where the focus is on the character's thoughts and there's not much dialogue that I have to struggle through. That means I didn't really challenge myself...
These drabbles were great writing exercises for me! I got to pull random scenes and play around with them without having to think too much about them, and I sure got myself back in a writing mood. I felt so lethargic before this. I should do a drabble request post again sometime. :)
July
♥ Apple Turnovers (Prince of Tennis, 1,944 words)
This is a Fuji/Sakuno fic written for thesundaywriter for potcrackxchange. I labeled this part 1 out of 3 because I planned to do Sakuno's POV next followed by Yuuta's, but... I never did get back to it. At the time, I thought I'd be able to finish the next two POVs in one week. Now, it's already been months, and I feel especially bad since the ending was such a cliffie. ^^;; For this fic, I borrowed some dialogue directly from the game, Gakuensai no Oujisama where Fuji tells the protagonist about Yuuta's habits with sweets. I fell sick around the time the fic was due, so this came out of my fever addled brain. ^^; It's amazing what my mind comes up with sometimes.
August
♥ Memories of the Future chapter 21 (Mekakushi no Kuni, 1,980 words)
I cannot believe this is the last chapter I wrote for this fic for the year. That means I only ended up writing 3 new chapters for the fic in the entire year!! Such terrible progress. I started this part while I was at my anime convention in July, but I didn't finish it until a month later. Since the plan is for this fic to end at 30 chapters, there are only a few more chapters left to go. I've plotted out the rest of the fic, so I should have been able to finish the fic in 2010. Okay, 2011. FOR SURE. The fic has currently gotten around to New Years, so if I continue where I left off, the seasons will actually match with real life... I have plans for a Valentines scene too, so I better at least get that part out by Valentines in real life.
When August 15 rolled around, I decided I wanted to finish my Bokurano ficlet collection, Those Left Behind, that I started in 2008 for 31_days. I picked up where I left off with August 16 and proceeded to write a short ficlet every single day for the rest of August. The self-imposed deadline of one fic per day was a good thing! Otherwise, none of these ficlets would've happened.
♥ Evil is a good condition (405 words)
This one was for digi_dragon who requested something about Kazuki for the drabble request back in June! That was still fresh in my mind when I took a new look at the themes I had left for 31_days, so I decided to start with a Kazuki piece. I felt Maki fit the theme because her decision of annihilating the other world can be evil or good depending on who we're asking.
♥ Stop whispering, start shouting (802 words)
This one features Waku's parents. I chose Waku because I'll always remember him for shouting his heart out in that first episode. This is one of my favorites out of the batch because there's a kind of rhythm to it. Looking back at these now... man, I wish I could write short fic again. (I'm just vomiting words now after NaNo. I'm able to write so much without saying anything at all...)
♥ Centuries before I come to where you are (657 words)
Featuring Kokopelli! I don't really know his character all that well, but this theme made me wonder what he was like before he came to this current world. I reread parts of the manga where he showed up to try to get a better feel for him. I decided he'd be a little resigned, a little out-of-place, somewhat sorry, and also relieved that things would finally be over soon for him. I tried for a peaceful tone, showing that the rest of the world is quite beautiful, except none of them have any time to enjoy it.
♥ Bang, bang, blame (723 words)
I am a huuuge fan of Ushiro, so I wrote Ushiro at every chance I could. So yeah, Ushiro. This theme screamed Ushiro to me because gunshots + blame immediately made me think of Ushiro and that scene and how much he had to deal with by himself near the end of the series. He never explicitly says anything, but the expression on his face...
♥ I am to be pitied, not to be sold (846 words)
I have a soft spot for the dads that are involved with the fight and was really glad I got the chance to write them this time. First up was Akira, Aiko's dad! I chose him since Aiko had been glad that she was finally useful to her dad (he could report about her) when what they really needed was more time to bond outside of "news" and being useful. Since these were all part of my Bokurano collection, I didn't have to write summaries for each of these separately, but if I had, that first line "Tokosumi Akira returned home even less after his daughter's death" would've been a good one, haha. There's something about returning to empty homes that really struck me. I seem to return to this a lot with each of the different families.
♥ These hands made of splinters (688 words)
This was one that just came to me. I remember that Komoda's dad mentioned wanting to learn the piano, but he thought it'd make him too gentle. I thought it likely that he would try to hang on to something of his daughter's - the piano - in his grief, channeling his grief into a new hobby (fixing the piano and later, learning how to play it). I wanted to show how he'd stumble along with very little grace, but that's also a form of healing and trying to get closer to his daughter after the fact.
♥ Behind closed doors (734 words)
I had grand plans for this because Ushiro's dad was someone I didn't get to write about last time. I chose Ushiro's dad for this theme because Jun disappeared out of sight, just slightly beyond the door, and that must've hurt. Even though I wanted to write something impressive, this turned out more disjointed than anything. Still, I thought it worked! Ushiro's dad is a thinker to me, so I tried to show that here.
♥ Understand my hate for you (664 words)
It was a little harder for me to think of who would fit this theme. I immediately thought of Chizu's hate for Hatagai, but I'd already written about Hatagai and didn't really want to write another piece about him. Then, there was another love-hate relationship that I recalled - Kanji and Chutenro Tower. Does he like it, or does he hate it? Kanji's dad was very different from the other characters I wrote for this collection. I felt that, yeah, he'd feel grief, but he's not going to show it. Instead, he'd be more sarcastic and a little mean about it. The Chutenro Tower was really important for his whole family, so this ficlet ended up being him and his thoughts about the tower getting destroyed.
♥ The turn of her heel, the nape of her neck (713 words)
Again, I thought of Chizu for this theme, specifically Chizu and Hatagai, but I've written plenty of that already. Instead, I turned to Tanaka Miku and thought what she might have thought of her mother who was never home. I might have been stretching with this one! What I really wanted to write was what she thought of Jun, but she only ever saw a glimpse of him...
♥ God lives underwater (671 words)
A ficlet for Zearth! This is the theme I wanted to get to in 2008 but didn't manage to get to. I knew this had to be about Zearth because, god, living underwater? It's a perfect description of Zearth! I experimented with my writing with this one. I didn't use any names, and I didn't identify who the speakers were for any of the quotes. This was all stuff that happened in the series, but from a different perspective.
♥ You are all I know (815 words)
The other Machi was always someone that fascinated me. I wanted to explore alternative identities a bit with this one. I was going to write about Sasami until I realized he became Dung Beetle at the end (that completely changed my head canon for him). This Machi is someone that's out of the loop and hasn't exactly been affected by everything's that has happened (I'm very glad for her dad. he doesn't have to lose his daughter), but I feel that she must be a bit confused about her missing months, and maybe she'll one day get dragged into things because she's involved and not involved at the same time.
♥ Slightly out of character (933 words)
A ficlet for the Honda family because they're all such good people, but none of them had noticed what was affecting Chizu. I liked how this one turned out! If only I could write oneshots like this at the moment... short and effective. I didn't know this was going to turn out with this kind of structure, but I'm glad it did, because the three different views had a rhythmical feel to them and wouldn't have worked as well if it had been just one single scene.
♥ This conversation never happened (484 words)
If there was one conversation that shouldn't have happened, it was the one between Aiko and Komoda's dads. This was a conversation only fic. I restarted more than once and tried to write more than just dialogue, but I ended up taking the description out because it was unnecessary. This series of ficlets really made me try out lots of different things.
♥ The aftertaste is gonna break your heart (487 words)
I was running out of juice by this time... because I was trying to write my fics for switching_it_up at the same time. I'd written Miko before the first time around, but the manga showed that she was much more affected by what happened to Mako than I thought. I tried to show that here.
♥ beLIEve (512 words)
I brought two very unlikely characters together, Futaba and Souji, both connected by the lies they were told. I was going to throw Tsubasa and Nagi in the mix too, but I feel they're already starting to unravel the lies on their own. I know that Futaba and Souji are both young, and that's probably why they've been kept out of the loop, but when is it the "right" time to tell the truth? Waiting too long might make the lie become a reality.
♥ Forget whatever I said (428 words)
This was nothing profound, but I thought it was a fitting end for this series of short Bokurano ficlets. I returned to Ushiro and Machi and touched a little upon Machi teasing Ushiro over using "boku".
These Bokurano ficlets sure were another writing exercise for me! I got to try out various writing styles (even dialogue-only fic), and I sure wrote more angsty stuff than I've ever written before! The tone of the original series influenced that a whole lot. I also had to reread the series very carefully since I was writing a lot of very minor characters. Right now, I wish I could write short snippets like these that say everything that needs to be said in a short amount of words. *shakes head*
September
♥ One Last Memory (Prince of Tennis, 2,872 words)
This was a gift fic for the switching_it_up community with no recipient because my original recipient backed out. I dumped the fic I'd been planning for that person and wrote this instead. I didn't think anyone would want to read it since it's set during Shin Tenipuri, which I don't think a lot of people I know are following. I wanted to explore Shin Tenipuri a bit and how it was like to be separated from your teammates. Despite being a huge Tenipuri fan, I have practically no plunnies for the series, and no muse for the characters. Writing Niou and Yagyuu was really hard because I've seen lots of takes on Niou and Yagyuu, but my take was definitely different and probably not something anyone would find interesting. I found it hard to balance fanon and canon with them, and it was also majorly hard to even get them in the same scene.
♥ The Time In-Between (Prince of Tennis, 4,367 words)
This was a pinch hit for ketchupblood for switching_it_up. Basically my take on the time between Rikkai's two matches with Seigaku. We all know what happened in the end, so I stopped the fic without going into that. I can't seem to stick to one POV and switched between Niou and Yagyuu's POVs like crazy. There was a lot of canon that guided this fic. I had to research a lot to make sure I got all of the match ups correct. When I saw that Niou played with Marui and Yagyuu with Kirihara against Murigaoka, I thought it'd be perfect to write about what they thought of that. (I didn't realize until I actually got to that point that the reason the lineup was like that was probably because Murigaoka's a data gathering team, so of course they'd want to break up the usual doubles pairs. That kind of threw everything else I wrote down the drain, but I eventually chose to ignore that reasoning). After writing this, I've pretty much written all that I've wanted to write about Rikkai...
I realized a few things with writing these.
1. I have no Tenipuri muse.
2. I do not like AU fics all that much.
3. I like exploring missing canon scenes.
4. I suck at pairing fic.
5. I suck at sticking to one POV (this comes into play with my NaNo later on...)
6. Huh? People use spaces after their ellipses? Really? Have I been doing it wrong all this time? Basically, I was reading people's fics very closely to figure out who wrote what, and I noticed that a lot of people use... ellipses like so. I had always written it...like so. After this, I started using a space.
November
♥ Veline (Original, 50k+)
Haha, what to say about this? November made my fanfic count drop to 0 because NaNo slayed me. I did not think I'd be able to finish or that I'd even be able to start because I HAD NO PLOT. I still don't know what the point of the whole story was, and if anyone asked me, I wouldn't be able to summarize the story. I would like to say that NaNo has helped my writing speed... but it hasn't. XD; In fact, I think it's made me very, very wordy without saying anything at all! *flails* I wrote characters that I dreamed up when I was young, so that was kind of nostalgic. My world building sucked, but I hope the characters themselves were interesting enough. I did not manage to finish the story with 50k, so I'll need to do some more writing. Not sure when that's going to happen.
December
December, I only wrote for yuletide. :3 Sometimes, I also write for other Secret Santa exchanges around this time, but I decided not to be that crazy this year.
♥ Into the Light (Penguin Revolution, 5,038 words)
For bookchan. I reread the entire series and took a lot of notes (I might post those notes here. It's in chart form! Kind of interesting). The request was for future fic, which meant everyone would be 10 years older because the mangaka gave us a glimpse of what life was like 10 years later. I thought it'd be hard to imagine until I went, "Wait, 10 years later merely ages them up so that they're all my age. That's not hard to imagine at all." I was more interested in the time immediately after PEACOCK dissolved, but canon already brushed over that. Still, I might dabble in that someday. As for this fic, it was going to be named "Spreading Her Wings," but when I started writing the fic, there was one paragraph that I thought would make a perfect summary. I ended up grabbing the title from there. I still have a hard time imagining what kind of roles Japanese actors can get in America, but that was the stage the end of the manga outlined, so that's what I had to go with! bookchan asked that Narazaki be the love interest if romance were involved. In the end, there wasn't much romance, but the three males in Yukari's life each got a bit of the spotlight since they're all very important to her.
This is a fic that I thought should have been a lot shorter, but writing this right after NaNo made me very, very wordy. I rambled too much!
♥ Santa Said Come (Yoroshiku Master, 2,866 words)
For cairnsy. I've already said a lot about this fic, but I guess I still have some more to say. XD; I needed Rihito without his reins so that he'd feel that yes, this was his own decision. I didn't write that part very well, especially since Rihito and Daisuke just wanted to get into a fight way before any thinking got done. That's pretty much what I think about them - even if they decided to kiss every year to break off the link, their efforts would be entirely useless because they'd get into some sort of argument and end up reestablishing the link right away. XDD
I tried very hard to be less wordy and to make every word count (to say more with fewer words!), but this still ended up almost 3k words long. My oneshots all seem to be at least over 2k words long now.
&hearts Stuck on a Carpet (1/2 Prince, 4,140 words)
My last fic of the year, for darkicedragon. :) I couldn't remember if Sunshine went with Yang Ming and Lolidragon on their trip (it was hard to tell from the tiny little picture of them on the carpet, and even though the scanlation of the manhua said that Lolidragon, Sunshine, and Wu Qing went together, the original manhua just said "they"), but afterward I found a part where Fairsky was complaining to Prince about how he sent her lover away. Yang Ming + Lolidragon + Sunshine? What an awesome mix! I so wanted to write this!
While I was rereading the novel, I noticed that Lolidragon commented right after the bathroom incident (where Yang Ming told Lan that he knew who she was) that there was more to Lan's brother than she had first thought. Lolidragon and Yang Ming really drop a lot more hints about their romance in the novel. It is juicy. ;D I was rereading and laughing and just adoring the series all over again.
For this fic, the title happened first, and then the summary. XD; I had a summary before I had any words down. The title, I hoped, would show that it was a humorous fic (because it's quite a silly title), and the summary would show how out of it Yang Ming was. XDD The words kind of just... followed. But I again failed to write something short, haha. After I finished writing, I started thinking, man, my romantic comedies are so similar. Because this fic really parallels Give Me Your Hand a lot. I start with dialogue right off the bat, the POV is the guy who suddenly realizes halfway through that he's in love with the girl, there's texting/messaging going on in the middle of the fic, and the fic ends with no resolution to the romance part.
So, my oneshots (drabbles don't count...). They're all so long now compared to my oneshots from previous years. They're at least 2k or more. I seem to ramble a lot more, often without any evidence of there being a plot. *sigh* Though for my Bokurano drabbles, I did manage short ficlets packed with emotion... but that's only because most of the ficlets focus on one scene.
Anyway... moving on...
Total number of stories: 6 oneshots, 3 updates to my ongoing chapter fic, 23 ficlets (including the Bokurano ones), 1 newly started chapter fic, 1 way-too-long original story. (I learned and have stopped starting multi-parters without knowing when I can finish them. That newly started chapter fic... ugh, should've been finished months ago. Only 3 updates for my ongoing fics? That is sad.)
Total Word Count: 41,771 words in fanfic (wow, I didn't think I wrote that much, but even though I didn't write a lot of different stories, my word count is probably that high because I can't seem to end my oneshots with fewer words), 50k+ in original fic, making it more than 90k words for the whole year, OMG. Just the fanfic word count is double what I normally write each year.
Fandoms Written In: Mekakushi no Kuni, Ace Attorney, Prince of Tennis, Bokurano, Penguin Revolution, Yoroshiku Master, 1/2 Prince, Original, Ookiku Furikabutte, Fire Emblem, The World Ends With You, Basara, Harry Potter)
Leitmotif(s) of the year: Nostalgia (I seem to be writing a number of Future Fic, in which "nostalgia" is present in all of them). Not knowing someone as well as you thought. Seeing someone in a new light. Not letting go. Grief (this is mostly because of those Bokurano ficlets...). I need to write some more lighthearted stuff like Stuck on a Carpet. XD
Favorite fic: This is hard. Probably one of the Bokurano ficlets, like Stop Whispering, Start Shouting. I like the rhythmic feel to it, and I'm envious of my August self that was able to say stuff in less than 1000 words. XD
Best fic: I have no clue (I'm a terrible judge), but Stuck on a Carpet was exactly what I wanted it to be, so I'm very satisfied with it. Maybe this and "favorite fic" should be swapped. XD
Most popular fic: Going by reviews, that'd be Apple Turnovers, but I think it's only because I said it was part 1 out of 3, so people just want to see the next part already. =P And it's romance. People like romance.
Most underappreciated fic: Those Left Behind, totally. I am pretty proud of what I managed with these Bokurano ficlets, but there is not much of a readership for Bokurano fics is there...
Favorite first lines: "My name is Phoenix Wright, and I think I have memory problems." from Famous Defense Attorney. It was what got me writing that fic. XD
Most fun fic: Stuck on a Carpet. Romantic comedies are fun! I should write more of that genre...
Sexiest fic: Not even close. =P The closest thing would be Niou straddling Yagyuu on his bed in the dark in One Last Memory. Okay, that sounds maybe sexier than it actually is. *snorts*
Fic that shifted my own perceptions of the characters: Understand my hate for you from my Bokurano ficlets. It was more like, I didn't have any head canon for Kanji's dad before this.
New pairing/genre/fandom you never predicted writing in January: ORIGINAL FICTION. I did not think I would be doing NaNo and finishing, because I've only ever given it a halfhearted attempt before (and got nowhere with it).
Hardest fic to write: One Last Memory. I just couldn't write Niou and Yagyuu at all. =/ It got a little easier for The Time In-Between.
Biggest disappointment: Not finishing Memories of the Future. I decided that I was going to finish in 2010, yet I only updated it three times. The end is so near, and yet!!
Biggest surprise: Original fiction yet again. I still cannot believe I wrote that monster.
Most telling fic: Er, my original fiction? I blabbed so much in it that a lot of phrases seem like repeats of what I've written before. I know when I was writing Into the Light, I kept thinking, haven't I already used this very same phrase somewhere already??
What's next? Finishing Memories of the Future, seriously. It's taken me way too long. I also need to finish Apple Turnovers in a timely fashion, and I need to finish my original story! *flails* It's all about finishing stuff...
No, really, what's next? I'd like to finish this Ace Attorney fusion I've been working on forever, as well as that Hikaru no Go/Yu Yu Hakusho crossover that is itching to be revealed but isn't at that stage yet. I only have around 2k words of it done. These oneshots that aren't oneshots just won't end. =/ See? More finishing stuff...