The Year End Fic Meme
This time, I'm actually doing the slightly longer version of this meme, cheerfully stolen from 
thisbluespirit. I've kind of already addressed some of this stuff a bit in the end of the year question meme, but I am entirely happy to talk about it again, at greater length. Indeed, I fear you may be in for entirely too much rambling from me this time.
Anyway. On to the meme!
Stats
List of Completed Fic
Note: as usual, I'm only including fic that I posted to AO3. I know there was at least one little drabble I tossed off for a writing meme thing that didn't make it onto the list. I'm also including anything posted this year, although there is one drabble here (the Discworld one) that I actually wrote ages ago that just didn't see the light until now.
"Watch Out, You Have Me Outnumbered!" (Doctor Who, The Doctor, 403 words, written for Gen Prompt Bingo round 14)
"Unless Acted Upon by an External Force" (The Orville, Claire/Isaac, 2504 words, written for Gen Prompt Bingo round 15)
"How to Tell When Your Mom Is Dating a Robot" (The Orville, Claire/Isaac, Marcus Finn, 1631 words, written for Gen Prompt Bingo round 15)
"As You Are" (The Orville, Claire/Isaac, 2543 words, written for Gen Prompt Bingo round 15)
"What You Need Is a Friend to Guide You to the Light" (Undertale, Alphys, 617 words, written for Gen Prompt Bingo round 15)
"It's Always Awkward Shopping with Your Dad" (Discworld, Death, Ysabel, 100 words, written (or at least posted) for Gen Prompt Bingo round 15)
"Lessons in Difficult Chords" (The Orville, Claire/Isaac, Ty Finn, 1573 words, written for Gen Prompt Bingo round 16)
"Dreams in the Light of Day" (The Orville, Claire/Isaac, 4105 words, written for Gen Prompt Bingo round 16)
"Into the Sunset" (Good Omens, Aziraphale/Crowley, 506 words, written for Gen Prompt Bingo round 16)
"Bugger This for a Game of Soldiers" (Good Omens, Azriaphale, Crowley, 793 words, written for Gen Prompt Bingo round 16)
"And God Said, Be Fruitful" (Good Omens, Aziraphale/Crowley, 1230 words, written for Gen Prompt Bingo round 16)
"Time in a Circle Like a Wedding Ring" (Doctor Who, Jack Harkness/Eighth Doctor, 4065 words, written for Just Married Exchange)
"Comparative Theology" (Good Omens/The Good Place, Aziraphale, Tahani, 5149 words, written for A Ficathon Goes Into a Bar)
"Photographs and Memories (The Restless Sleepers Remix)" (Doctor Who, Twelfth Doctor, 1024 words, written for Remix Revival)
"That Thing They Say About the Road to Hell" (Good Omens, Aziraphale/Crowley, 2066 words, written for Hurt/Comfort Bingo round 10)
"The Ineffable Miracle of Birth" (Good Omens, Aziraphale/Crowley, 1432 words, written for Hurt/Comfort Bingo round 10)
"Love the Drops, and Let the River Flow" (Good Omens, Aziraphale/Crowley, 1601 words, written for Hurt/Comfort Bingo round 10)
"On with the Show" (Good Omens, Aziraphale/Crowley, 1533 words, written for Hurt/Comfort Bingo round 10)
"And the Antichrist Makes Three" (Good Omens, Aziraphale/Crowley, Adam, 18,408 words, written for Multifandom Tropefest)
"Evil May Triumph When Good Angels Do Nothing" (Good Omens, Aziraphale, Crowley, 1076 words, written for Hurt/Comfort Bingo round 10)
"The Sunshine of Your Love" (Good Omens, Aziraphale/Crowley, Crowley's houseplants, 100 words, written for Gen Prompt Bingo round 17)
"Ex Nihilo, Ex Amore, Ex Libris (Good Omens, Aziraphale/Crowley, 1938 words, written for Gen Prompt Bingo round 17)
"New Skins, New Ceremony" (Good Omens, Aziraphale/Crowley, 471 words, written for Gen Prompt Bingo round 17)
"Captive Audience" (The Good Place, Janet, Vicky, 1613 words, written for Yuletide)
"I Could Give All to Time Except" (Good Omens, Aziraphale, 722 words, written for Gen Prompt Bingo round 17)
Total number: 25
Total word count: 57,925
Which is probably more fics than I've written in one year since my long-ago glory days in Farscape fandom. No doubt this is partly due to having my brain eaten by not one but two fannish obsessions in rapid succession, and partly due to the motivation and inspiration provided by all those bingo cards. The fact that I found myself missing the days when I did lots of exchanges and sought out a couple of them to participate in no doubt helped a little, too.
I haven't kept track of my word count in recent years, but there's no doubt in my mind that that's a very high number for me, too. As you can see from the list above, if you weren't aware by now, my natural length is very, very short. But all those short things do add up, and I also produced my longest fic ever this year, too. (I know there are people who can easily hit 60,000 words on a single story, but I don't understand how those people's writing brains work at all.)
Ship/character breakdown:
Ships:
Claire/Isaac (5)
Aziraphale/Crowley (11-ish)
Eight Doctor/Jack Harkness (1)
Spot the one I wrote just because it was requested for an exchange! (Not that the one wasn't fun to write. Jack Harkness is never not fun to write.) The Aziraphale/Crowley count is listed as "ish" because it's actually hard to define what does or doesn't count as a shipfic for them. For some of these, it may just be sort of very vaguely implied or even very vaguely implied UST or something.
Characters:
Aziraphale (14)
Crowley (12)
Isaac (4)
Claire Finn (3)
The Doctor (3)
And one appearance each for: Marcus Finn, Ty Finn, Alphys, Death, Ysabel, Jack Harkness, Tahani Al-Jamil, Adam Young, Crowley's houseplants, Janet, and Vicky.
Those numbers look a little weird when you compare the character totals to the ship totals because of things like that one shipfic that's entirely about one character's kid thinking about his mom's relationship, with neither member of the pairing really appearing in the fic.
Specifics:
Best/worst title?
Ugh, I'm not sure I'm happy with any of these titles, to be honest. Titles are so haaaard! I've been trying for more creativity with them lately, but I fear some of these just feel kind of clunky. Or pretentious. I'm definitely afraid some of the Good Omens ones are too pretentious, because pretentious is one thing the show absolutely isn't.
I was rather pleased with "And the Antichrist Makes Three," until I realized, far too late to change it, that someone else had already used that title for a fic with a very similar premise. Now I just feel awkward about it. I suppose I do kind of like "And God Said, Be Fruitful" as a title, even if the fic itself is weirdly embarrassing to me. Even so, I really need to stop starting fics with the word "And." I genuinely have no idea why I keep doing it. I told myself this year that I was going to stop, but look how that turned out.
Of all those titles, the one I'm least happy with, awkward accidental stealing of titles from other people aside, is "What You Need Is a Friend to Guide You to the Light." I kept fiddling with it, changing it back and forth from that to "What You Need Is a Friend to Guide You Through the Maze," and I am entirely convinced I settled on the wrong choice.
Best /worst summary?
I kind of like "Unless Acted Upon by an External Force"'s "It is an unprecedented circumstance: Isaac no longer has a directive." It also happens to be the first line, and using a quote from the fic as the summary isn't something I'm always very keen on. But I think it captures exactly what it's about very well.
The one for "Comparative Theology" amuses me, too, especially as I struggled with it a little bit: "Aziraphale goes to Hell. Fortunately, it's the wrong one. Then he goes out for FroYo. It's hard to know whether he or the young woman he's just encountered is more confused by this. "
There are a lot of others I find I rather like as well, which is nice. I think I'm better with summaries than I am with titles. Even though it can be really hard to think of good summaries when you're just writing short, plotless character pieces. As I so often am.
As for the worst, maybe "Aziraphale smiles at the plants." I mean, what is that? It's boring! And also yet another use of the first line for the summary. But how else are you going to sum up 100 words about Azirapahle, y'know, smiling at Crowley's plants?
Best first line?
I'm still fond of "It is an unprecedented circumstance: Isaac no longer has a directive." But I might give an honorable mention to "He puts the pictures on his desk because that's what you're supposed to do," from "Photographs and Memories (The Restless Sleepers Remix)." That might just be because I'm weirdly obsessed with those photos on the Doctor's desk, though.
Best last line?
Looking them over, I see a lot of last lines I'm quite happy with, which is nice. Last lines are something I really care about, and they can be the hardest thing in the entire fic to get right. Forced to pick one, though, I might go with "He wonders what it is like to cry," from "Lessons in Difficult Chords." That's how you write robot angst, am I right? (Well, I hope I'm right, anyway.)
General questions:
Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less than you thought, or about what you predicted?
More. Definitely more.
What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted last year?
Almost all of them! Seriously, this was basically the year of writing stuff I never would have predicted.
The first half of the year was dominated by Claire/Isaac from The Orville. I never, ever expected I'd find myself as obsessed with The Orville as I was for a while there. Especially as I had it down in my mind as a silly Trek parody full of crude humor. Which arguably it sort of is. But even once people started telling me it was also a lot more than that, it was hard for me to believe it. Hell, even once I started watching it, it was hard to believe it. Until, suddenly, it wasn't. And my fascination with that particular pairing snuck up on me, too. I even tried being in denial about it for a while, but obviously that didn't work. Especially once canon went... the places it went with it.
And then the second half of the year was utterly dominated by Good Omens and by Aziraphale/Crowley, and yeah, that took me completely by surprise as well. I mean, OK, I expected to like the series. Gaiman's involvement augured well, the casting was obviously great, and the previews looked fun. And I liked the book. But the truth is, I didn't like the book this much. I read it when it first came out (or very near to it), and I certainly enjoyed it, but I remember thinking that overall I much preferred both authors' solo efforts.
I also remember noting, sometime in the last several years, that Aziraphale/Crowley - the book version - seemed to be a fairly popular minor ship among people putting in requests in fic exchanges and such. And I remember being surprised by that. Seriously, I actually remember thinking, "Huh. Well, now that I think about it, I can see how people who are into slashy ships in general might find that character dynamic appealing. Never would have occurred to me, though. Well, to each their own." Or words very much to that effect. Which is quite a contrast to my experience watching the show. Somewhere in episode three - I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to guess exactly where - I found myself, very literally, leaning forward in my seat and murmuring "Oh my god, that demon is totally in love with you. You do realize that, right?" out loud in the direction of my TV.
Even given that, though, I never expected my brain to latch onto Good Omens this hard, or to produce so much fic for it without even stopping to consult me on the matter. And that kind of snuck up on me, too.
What's your favourite story this year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you the happiest.
It might be "And the Antichrist Makes Three." There are parts of it that I'm just incredibly fond of, and while I'm sure it's very far from flawless, it's amazing to me that it even works at all. There were certainly times during the writing of it that I doubted it would.
Okay, NOW your most popular story.
Still "And the Antichrist Makes Three"! Which is now the number three most kudosed fic I've ever written. Between this and "While We Wait for a Better World," which I wrote a couple of years ago, it has become clear to me that the secret to fannish success, if for some reason you define "fannish success" as "large numbers of AO3 kudos," is to write multi-chaptered shippy AU kidfic in a fandom that is currently ridiculously popular. Although, really, I could probably have guessed that.
Story most underappreciated by the universe?
"What You Need Is a Friend to Guide You to the Light," which got the fewest hits of anything I wrote this year. Poor Alphys. Re-reading it now, though, I can't decide whether it deserves the obscurity or not. It's possible that trying to write in Alphys's voice just ends up looking a lot like bad writing. I do like the ending, though. Even if the title is crap.
Story that could have been better?
Geez, I don't know, probably most of them? I feel like someone better at writing long-form stuff than me might have done a meatier job with "And the Antichrist Makes Three," but that doesn't stop me from liking my version.
Sexiest story?
Since I didn't finish the story I'm currently working on in time to post it last year, there's very little competition for this. I think the only story with actual explicit sex in it is "As You Are." Which I do think is pretty sexy. Even if it does feature a robot with no genitalia. Um.
Saddest story?
"That Thing They Say About the Road to Hell" is certainly the angstiest, but I think the saddest may be "Lessons in Difficult Chords."
Most fun?
Maybe "Comparative Theology"? People seem to have really enjoyed the footnotes.
Although my vote for most fun scene in anything goes to the bit in "And the Antichrist Makes Three" when young Adam accidentally walks in on Aziraphale and Crowley having sex -- don't worry, he didn't see much! -- and then they talk about what to say to him afterward. Because, what, I ask you, is the point of writing ancient characters full of deep cultural and religious resonances, if you can't leverage that into amusingly snarky domestic banter? Plus, I will never cease to be entertained by the thought that, if you look at it the right way, literally everything is Crowley's fault. Especially humans being weird about sex.
Story with single sweetest moment?
Maybe "Love the Drops, and Let the River Flow"? The ending of that is pretty sweet, I think. Or warm. Or something.
Hardest story to write?
"Dreams in the Light of Day." That one was a pain. Not least because I had a vague general idea of where it was going, and then Isaac managed to derail the whole thing by saying exactly the wrong thing. Or maybe exactly the right thing, from his point of view. I think I probably wrote at least four different versions of the ending, after that, before I found one that maybe worked. Which is almost unheard of for me. I'm still not sure about that fic as a whole, honestly.
Easiest/most fun story to write?
Seriously, it's amazing how easy most of these Good Omens fics have been to write. Many of them honestly seem to have just... fallen right out of my brain. In one notable case - "And God Said, Be Fruitful" - I tried very hard not to write it, and failed completely.
"And the Antichrist Makes Three," while not the easiest, may have been the most fun. Even the challenge of it was fun. And it was much, much easier than it seems like it ought to have been, too.
Most overdue story?
I have never missed a deadline yet, for a fic that had one. But I really did hope to get the bingo fic I'm currently working on posted before the end of the year. It's kinda-sorta done, but I really think it's going to need some polishing and tweaking before it does quite what I want it to. Or even something vaguely like what I want it to.
Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them?
I spent 18,000 words basically re-writing my own version of Good Omens canon. Which is nuts, and more than once while I was writing that thing I found myself despairingly thinking that I was an idiot for trying it, as I am neither Neil Gaiman nor Terry Pratchett, and I was just just entirely doomed to fuck up all the thematic stuff in canon that I loved so much. But... it kind of worked? So I guess I learned that sort of thing can kind of work.
Also, in "Comparative Theology" I used footnotes in a fic for the first time ever. Which means I learned how to do footnotes on AO3. Unfortunately, I also learned that doing footnotes on AO3 is a pain.
This year's theme and the story that demonstrates it most:
There may be a lot of themes, I dunno, but the one thing that really jumps out at me is that almost every single story I wrote this year can be categorized as being about immortal (or effectively immortal) characters and their relationships. I think the only one that doesn't qualify by any stretch is "What You Need Is a Friend to Guide You to the Light." Because, while we don't know how long lizard monsters live, canonically we do know they're not immortal. Otherwise... Yeah. We've got a robot with a millions-of-years life expectancy, a Time Lord whose life expectancy is now utterly indefinite, and an angel and demon who have been around since before the world began and could theoretically go on literally forever. Also Jack Harkness, who might be the most immortal immortal who ever immortaled. And a bunch of these fics very explicitly deal with that immortality. Probably the most obvious examples are "Photographs and Memories (The Restless Sleepers Remix)", "I Could Give All to Time Except," "Time in a Circle Like A Wedding Ring," and maybe "Into the Sunset."
What are your fic writing goals for next year?
Hey, for once I actually have some!
I have decided I really do want to go for the blackout bingo on my Gen Prompt Bingo card, which will be quite a challenge. I've already written five out of twenty-five fics, though. Plus the one that's nearly done, which I hope to get into shape in the not too distant future. I've also got notes on two more that hopefully shouldn't take too long to write once I finally get to them. Except for my Yuletide story, which I'm using to cover one of the squares, all of those are Good Omens fic, unsurprisingly, but I am really hoping to sprinkle a few fics for other fandoms in there, too.
I also have to write my Past Imperfect, Future Unknown fic. I'm starting to feel the deadline looming in the distance, and I haven't even figured out what I'm writing for it yet. I got a terrific assignment, with lots of lots of possibilities to write all kinds of things that could be right up my alley. But that's making it very hard to settle on something to do!
This entry was originally posted at https://astrogirl.dreamwidth.org/969059.html. Comment here or there, whichever you like.
thisbluespirit. I've kind of already addressed some of this stuff a bit in the end of the year question meme, but I am entirely happy to talk about it again, at greater length. Indeed, I fear you may be in for entirely too much rambling from me this time.
Anyway. On to the meme!
Stats
List of Completed Fic
Note: as usual, I'm only including fic that I posted to AO3. I know there was at least one little drabble I tossed off for a writing meme thing that didn't make it onto the list. I'm also including anything posted this year, although there is one drabble here (the Discworld one) that I actually wrote ages ago that just didn't see the light until now.
"Watch Out, You Have Me Outnumbered!" (Doctor Who, The Doctor, 403 words, written for Gen Prompt Bingo round 14)
"Unless Acted Upon by an External Force" (The Orville, Claire/Isaac, 2504 words, written for Gen Prompt Bingo round 15)
"How to Tell When Your Mom Is Dating a Robot" (The Orville, Claire/Isaac, Marcus Finn, 1631 words, written for Gen Prompt Bingo round 15)
"As You Are" (The Orville, Claire/Isaac, 2543 words, written for Gen Prompt Bingo round 15)
"What You Need Is a Friend to Guide You to the Light" (Undertale, Alphys, 617 words, written for Gen Prompt Bingo round 15)
"It's Always Awkward Shopping with Your Dad" (Discworld, Death, Ysabel, 100 words, written (or at least posted) for Gen Prompt Bingo round 15)
"Lessons in Difficult Chords" (The Orville, Claire/Isaac, Ty Finn, 1573 words, written for Gen Prompt Bingo round 16)
"Dreams in the Light of Day" (The Orville, Claire/Isaac, 4105 words, written for Gen Prompt Bingo round 16)
"Into the Sunset" (Good Omens, Aziraphale/Crowley, 506 words, written for Gen Prompt Bingo round 16)
"Bugger This for a Game of Soldiers" (Good Omens, Azriaphale, Crowley, 793 words, written for Gen Prompt Bingo round 16)
"And God Said, Be Fruitful" (Good Omens, Aziraphale/Crowley, 1230 words, written for Gen Prompt Bingo round 16)
"Time in a Circle Like a Wedding Ring" (Doctor Who, Jack Harkness/Eighth Doctor, 4065 words, written for Just Married Exchange)
"Comparative Theology" (Good Omens/The Good Place, Aziraphale, Tahani, 5149 words, written for A Ficathon Goes Into a Bar)
"Photographs and Memories (The Restless Sleepers Remix)" (Doctor Who, Twelfth Doctor, 1024 words, written for Remix Revival)
"That Thing They Say About the Road to Hell" (Good Omens, Aziraphale/Crowley, 2066 words, written for Hurt/Comfort Bingo round 10)
"The Ineffable Miracle of Birth" (Good Omens, Aziraphale/Crowley, 1432 words, written for Hurt/Comfort Bingo round 10)
"Love the Drops, and Let the River Flow" (Good Omens, Aziraphale/Crowley, 1601 words, written for Hurt/Comfort Bingo round 10)
"On with the Show" (Good Omens, Aziraphale/Crowley, 1533 words, written for Hurt/Comfort Bingo round 10)
"And the Antichrist Makes Three" (Good Omens, Aziraphale/Crowley, Adam, 18,408 words, written for Multifandom Tropefest)
"Evil May Triumph When Good Angels Do Nothing" (Good Omens, Aziraphale, Crowley, 1076 words, written for Hurt/Comfort Bingo round 10)
"The Sunshine of Your Love" (Good Omens, Aziraphale/Crowley, Crowley's houseplants, 100 words, written for Gen Prompt Bingo round 17)
"Ex Nihilo, Ex Amore, Ex Libris (Good Omens, Aziraphale/Crowley, 1938 words, written for Gen Prompt Bingo round 17)
"New Skins, New Ceremony" (Good Omens, Aziraphale/Crowley, 471 words, written for Gen Prompt Bingo round 17)
"Captive Audience" (The Good Place, Janet, Vicky, 1613 words, written for Yuletide)
"I Could Give All to Time Except" (Good Omens, Aziraphale, 722 words, written for Gen Prompt Bingo round 17)
Total number: 25
Total word count: 57,925
Which is probably more fics than I've written in one year since my long-ago glory days in Farscape fandom. No doubt this is partly due to having my brain eaten by not one but two fannish obsessions in rapid succession, and partly due to the motivation and inspiration provided by all those bingo cards. The fact that I found myself missing the days when I did lots of exchanges and sought out a couple of them to participate in no doubt helped a little, too.
I haven't kept track of my word count in recent years, but there's no doubt in my mind that that's a very high number for me, too. As you can see from the list above, if you weren't aware by now, my natural length is very, very short. But all those short things do add up, and I also produced my longest fic ever this year, too. (I know there are people who can easily hit 60,000 words on a single story, but I don't understand how those people's writing brains work at all.)
Ship/character breakdown:
Ships:
Claire/Isaac (5)
Aziraphale/Crowley (11-ish)
Eight Doctor/Jack Harkness (1)
Spot the one I wrote just because it was requested for an exchange! (Not that the one wasn't fun to write. Jack Harkness is never not fun to write.) The Aziraphale/Crowley count is listed as "ish" because it's actually hard to define what does or doesn't count as a shipfic for them. For some of these, it may just be sort of very vaguely implied or even very vaguely implied UST or something.
Characters:
Aziraphale (14)
Crowley (12)
Isaac (4)
Claire Finn (3)
The Doctor (3)
And one appearance each for: Marcus Finn, Ty Finn, Alphys, Death, Ysabel, Jack Harkness, Tahani Al-Jamil, Adam Young, Crowley's houseplants, Janet, and Vicky.
Those numbers look a little weird when you compare the character totals to the ship totals because of things like that one shipfic that's entirely about one character's kid thinking about his mom's relationship, with neither member of the pairing really appearing in the fic.
Specifics:
Best/worst title?
Ugh, I'm not sure I'm happy with any of these titles, to be honest. Titles are so haaaard! I've been trying for more creativity with them lately, but I fear some of these just feel kind of clunky. Or pretentious. I'm definitely afraid some of the Good Omens ones are too pretentious, because pretentious is one thing the show absolutely isn't.
I was rather pleased with "And the Antichrist Makes Three," until I realized, far too late to change it, that someone else had already used that title for a fic with a very similar premise. Now I just feel awkward about it. I suppose I do kind of like "And God Said, Be Fruitful" as a title, even if the fic itself is weirdly embarrassing to me. Even so, I really need to stop starting fics with the word "And." I genuinely have no idea why I keep doing it. I told myself this year that I was going to stop, but look how that turned out.
Of all those titles, the one I'm least happy with, awkward accidental stealing of titles from other people aside, is "What You Need Is a Friend to Guide You to the Light." I kept fiddling with it, changing it back and forth from that to "What You Need Is a Friend to Guide You Through the Maze," and I am entirely convinced I settled on the wrong choice.
Best /worst summary?
I kind of like "Unless Acted Upon by an External Force"'s "It is an unprecedented circumstance: Isaac no longer has a directive." It also happens to be the first line, and using a quote from the fic as the summary isn't something I'm always very keen on. But I think it captures exactly what it's about very well.
The one for "Comparative Theology" amuses me, too, especially as I struggled with it a little bit: "Aziraphale goes to Hell. Fortunately, it's the wrong one. Then he goes out for FroYo. It's hard to know whether he or the young woman he's just encountered is more confused by this. "
There are a lot of others I find I rather like as well, which is nice. I think I'm better with summaries than I am with titles. Even though it can be really hard to think of good summaries when you're just writing short, plotless character pieces. As I so often am.
As for the worst, maybe "Aziraphale smiles at the plants." I mean, what is that? It's boring! And also yet another use of the first line for the summary. But how else are you going to sum up 100 words about Azirapahle, y'know, smiling at Crowley's plants?
Best first line?
I'm still fond of "It is an unprecedented circumstance: Isaac no longer has a directive." But I might give an honorable mention to "He puts the pictures on his desk because that's what you're supposed to do," from "Photographs and Memories (The Restless Sleepers Remix)." That might just be because I'm weirdly obsessed with those photos on the Doctor's desk, though.
Best last line?
Looking them over, I see a lot of last lines I'm quite happy with, which is nice. Last lines are something I really care about, and they can be the hardest thing in the entire fic to get right. Forced to pick one, though, I might go with "He wonders what it is like to cry," from "Lessons in Difficult Chords." That's how you write robot angst, am I right? (Well, I hope I'm right, anyway.)
General questions:
Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less than you thought, or about what you predicted?
More. Definitely more.
What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted last year?
Almost all of them! Seriously, this was basically the year of writing stuff I never would have predicted.
The first half of the year was dominated by Claire/Isaac from The Orville. I never, ever expected I'd find myself as obsessed with The Orville as I was for a while there. Especially as I had it down in my mind as a silly Trek parody full of crude humor. Which arguably it sort of is. But even once people started telling me it was also a lot more than that, it was hard for me to believe it. Hell, even once I started watching it, it was hard to believe it. Until, suddenly, it wasn't. And my fascination with that particular pairing snuck up on me, too. I even tried being in denial about it for a while, but obviously that didn't work. Especially once canon went... the places it went with it.
And then the second half of the year was utterly dominated by Good Omens and by Aziraphale/Crowley, and yeah, that took me completely by surprise as well. I mean, OK, I expected to like the series. Gaiman's involvement augured well, the casting was obviously great, and the previews looked fun. And I liked the book. But the truth is, I didn't like the book this much. I read it when it first came out (or very near to it), and I certainly enjoyed it, but I remember thinking that overall I much preferred both authors' solo efforts.
I also remember noting, sometime in the last several years, that Aziraphale/Crowley - the book version - seemed to be a fairly popular minor ship among people putting in requests in fic exchanges and such. And I remember being surprised by that. Seriously, I actually remember thinking, "Huh. Well, now that I think about it, I can see how people who are into slashy ships in general might find that character dynamic appealing. Never would have occurred to me, though. Well, to each their own." Or words very much to that effect. Which is quite a contrast to my experience watching the show. Somewhere in episode three - I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to guess exactly where - I found myself, very literally, leaning forward in my seat and murmuring "Oh my god, that demon is totally in love with you. You do realize that, right?" out loud in the direction of my TV.
Even given that, though, I never expected my brain to latch onto Good Omens this hard, or to produce so much fic for it without even stopping to consult me on the matter. And that kind of snuck up on me, too.
What's your favourite story this year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you the happiest.
It might be "And the Antichrist Makes Three." There are parts of it that I'm just incredibly fond of, and while I'm sure it's very far from flawless, it's amazing to me that it even works at all. There were certainly times during the writing of it that I doubted it would.
Okay, NOW your most popular story.
Still "And the Antichrist Makes Three"! Which is now the number three most kudosed fic I've ever written. Between this and "While We Wait for a Better World," which I wrote a couple of years ago, it has become clear to me that the secret to fannish success, if for some reason you define "fannish success" as "large numbers of AO3 kudos," is to write multi-chaptered shippy AU kidfic in a fandom that is currently ridiculously popular. Although, really, I could probably have guessed that.
Story most underappreciated by the universe?
"What You Need Is a Friend to Guide You to the Light," which got the fewest hits of anything I wrote this year. Poor Alphys. Re-reading it now, though, I can't decide whether it deserves the obscurity or not. It's possible that trying to write in Alphys's voice just ends up looking a lot like bad writing. I do like the ending, though. Even if the title is crap.
Story that could have been better?
Geez, I don't know, probably most of them? I feel like someone better at writing long-form stuff than me might have done a meatier job with "And the Antichrist Makes Three," but that doesn't stop me from liking my version.
Sexiest story?
Since I didn't finish the story I'm currently working on in time to post it last year, there's very little competition for this. I think the only story with actual explicit sex in it is "As You Are." Which I do think is pretty sexy. Even if it does feature a robot with no genitalia. Um.
Saddest story?
"That Thing They Say About the Road to Hell" is certainly the angstiest, but I think the saddest may be "Lessons in Difficult Chords."
Most fun?
Maybe "Comparative Theology"? People seem to have really enjoyed the footnotes.
Although my vote for most fun scene in anything goes to the bit in "And the Antichrist Makes Three" when young Adam accidentally walks in on Aziraphale and Crowley having sex -- don't worry, he didn't see much! -- and then they talk about what to say to him afterward. Because, what, I ask you, is the point of writing ancient characters full of deep cultural and religious resonances, if you can't leverage that into amusingly snarky domestic banter? Plus, I will never cease to be entertained by the thought that, if you look at it the right way, literally everything is Crowley's fault. Especially humans being weird about sex.
Story with single sweetest moment?
Maybe "Love the Drops, and Let the River Flow"? The ending of that is pretty sweet, I think. Or warm. Or something.
Hardest story to write?
"Dreams in the Light of Day." That one was a pain. Not least because I had a vague general idea of where it was going, and then Isaac managed to derail the whole thing by saying exactly the wrong thing. Or maybe exactly the right thing, from his point of view. I think I probably wrote at least four different versions of the ending, after that, before I found one that maybe worked. Which is almost unheard of for me. I'm still not sure about that fic as a whole, honestly.
Easiest/most fun story to write?
Seriously, it's amazing how easy most of these Good Omens fics have been to write. Many of them honestly seem to have just... fallen right out of my brain. In one notable case - "And God Said, Be Fruitful" - I tried very hard not to write it, and failed completely.
"And the Antichrist Makes Three," while not the easiest, may have been the most fun. Even the challenge of it was fun. And it was much, much easier than it seems like it ought to have been, too.
Most overdue story?
I have never missed a deadline yet, for a fic that had one. But I really did hope to get the bingo fic I'm currently working on posted before the end of the year. It's kinda-sorta done, but I really think it's going to need some polishing and tweaking before it does quite what I want it to. Or even something vaguely like what I want it to.
Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them?
I spent 18,000 words basically re-writing my own version of Good Omens canon. Which is nuts, and more than once while I was writing that thing I found myself despairingly thinking that I was an idiot for trying it, as I am neither Neil Gaiman nor Terry Pratchett, and I was just just entirely doomed to fuck up all the thematic stuff in canon that I loved so much. But... it kind of worked? So I guess I learned that sort of thing can kind of work.
Also, in "Comparative Theology" I used footnotes in a fic for the first time ever. Which means I learned how to do footnotes on AO3. Unfortunately, I also learned that doing footnotes on AO3 is a pain.
This year's theme and the story that demonstrates it most:
There may be a lot of themes, I dunno, but the one thing that really jumps out at me is that almost every single story I wrote this year can be categorized as being about immortal (or effectively immortal) characters and their relationships. I think the only one that doesn't qualify by any stretch is "What You Need Is a Friend to Guide You to the Light." Because, while we don't know how long lizard monsters live, canonically we do know they're not immortal. Otherwise... Yeah. We've got a robot with a millions-of-years life expectancy, a Time Lord whose life expectancy is now utterly indefinite, and an angel and demon who have been around since before the world began and could theoretically go on literally forever. Also Jack Harkness, who might be the most immortal immortal who ever immortaled. And a bunch of these fics very explicitly deal with that immortality. Probably the most obvious examples are "Photographs and Memories (The Restless Sleepers Remix)", "I Could Give All to Time Except," "Time in a Circle Like A Wedding Ring," and maybe "Into the Sunset."
What are your fic writing goals for next year?
Hey, for once I actually have some!
I have decided I really do want to go for the blackout bingo on my Gen Prompt Bingo card, which will be quite a challenge. I've already written five out of twenty-five fics, though. Plus the one that's nearly done, which I hope to get into shape in the not too distant future. I've also got notes on two more that hopefully shouldn't take too long to write once I finally get to them. Except for my Yuletide story, which I'm using to cover one of the squares, all of those are Good Omens fic, unsurprisingly, but I am really hoping to sprinkle a few fics for other fandoms in there, too.
I also have to write my Past Imperfect, Future Unknown fic. I'm starting to feel the deadline looming in the distance, and I haven't even figured out what I'm writing for it yet. I got a terrific assignment, with lots of lots of possibilities to write all kinds of things that could be right up my alley. But that's making it very hard to settle on something to do!
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