THIS WOULD BE LESS ANON IF I POSTED IT ON FANDOMSECRETS
WHY, BRAIN, WHY
Look, it makes total sense. Not. I blame the lack of defined canon in both instances ;_; That, and an unhealthy number of inside jokes ranging from "Super Saavedro Age" downwards.
Under the cut, the mandatory "year in fics" meme.
...Oh, brain. Brain. Brain. ;_; We were getting along so well, brain.
Total: 46, most of which drabbles and ficlets + my longest one yet (for BB).
Fandoms: lots and lots of FFX, despite Uru Live's reopening (or because of it? Maybe I got my D'ni fix by living the thing instead of writing about it?) and the activity around the movie blog (which is actually spawning a ficlet right now :grin: ). Anyway, 2010 was the year FFX got an actual core of active fans ficcing and gifting and bouncing back ideas, which I would credit as the main reason for my defaulting to that fandom. Thanks, y'all (y'all four of you), you are awesome :D
I also made my peace with FFXII and, although writing about it still requires an unhealthy amount of research, things may take up steam as they go on. "Things" should also maybe kinda stop featuring Vaan, bu whatever. Then I started testing my OCs, who'll see more light in the following months, hopefully. Last but not least, I may be overcoming my fear of touch-and-go fandoms, if the attempts at Doctor Who, Assassin's Creed, Monster Hunter, Skies of Arcadia, The Arrival, Layton, Lupin III and even stuff I don't actually like (Legend of Dragoon's plot has cooties, trufax) are anything to go by. 2011's shaping up nicely with Mario Galaxy already :)
Wordcount: too lazy to count.
My favorite story of 2010 (of my own): It may just be the 50sentence challenges, both of them. One helped me define two of my OC mains and lift them out of fanfic-leftovers-land; the other set my crazy headcanon for Zandi and Yeesha (Watson purportedly ships them, I don't - but I love to see them as sharing a deep albeit distant friendship in their Yeesha's own strange way).
My best story this year: The very first one, Lontani dalla patria comune ('So far removed from a shared home', five connected ficlets on the relationship between five D'ni exiles and their home: Esher, Gehn, Calam, Atrus... John Loftin). I think it's got a strong overall structure and strong episodes with a chronological order that also makes sense as a progression, although the writing could be clearer. Bonus cookies for Calam. And Fighting Branch, heh.
Story most underappreciated by the universe, in my opinion: Can't complain, at least one person liked almost everything and that's all I need.
Relatively speaking, I should be a bit baffled that my AC crackfic (Altaïr/haystack OTP!!!1) was 5x more appreciated than a honest-to-goodnes attempt to draw new parallels within the endgame, buuuuuut really I am aware that that's how the ficworld goes^^
Most fun story: Pearl Fey's POV was so cute to write, the Monster Hunter ficlet was hilarious and so was SoA's but, first and foremost, the two Doctor Who ones. For me, writing DW means that you're either playing with language and having lots of fun or doing it wrong.
Most sexy story: yeah, good luck finding that.
Most unintentionally *telling* story: Sert signals “shut up”, so I'm not sayi... oooh, *telling* about me? Anything Myst, I'd guess, since I relate to the characters so much. Ideals on relationships, moral values and so on. Look up my Yeesha, Catherine, Zandi, even Atrus and Watson. There's also the thing with that fandom and self-insertions, who, you know, being 'me'...
Story that shifted my own perceptions of the characters: Oh dear. All of them? I'll give you one hint, the character's name begins like that of a famous FF main character and CANNOT GET THE HECK OUT OF MY FICS. One could argue that it may not so much of a shifted perception but rather a ficwriter's Stockholm syndrome...
Biggest surprise: I went to a GoMe meeting, weeks after GO! #1 came out, and got an unprompted “You, that fic of yours, loved it!” from a fellow explorer :) Made my day :)
Also coming back from Lucca Comics and finding TWELVE new reviews on Verso Zanarkand (To Zanarkand), which was more than I had ever gotten on a single story. That one's a collection of ficlets, but still. Since then, I've had at least two reviews on every FFX story I posted. I am amazed.
Biggest disappointment: alas, I had such high hopes for Portò la morte a Zanarkand ('Bringing death to Zanarkand', which is less of a 'bringing owls to Athens' than it sounds). The finished product lived up to maybe half of them. Other butchered Bestest Ideas Ever include Il serpente del mondo ('World's snake', being a vignette on Atrus, Catherine and modernity) and the first chapter of Pellegrinaggio inverso ('Reverse pilgrimage', my version of that huge missing moment before FFX's ending speech).
Worst story: Trekking col morto ('Trekking with the dead man', on Dart and Albert's friendship after Lavitz). I had to let out that one plot bunny for a game whose character development I found laughable, I couldn't care enough to polish it.
Hardest story to write: anything FFXII! In addition to that, RL was intense this past year, which meant that I had little time to concentrate on my writing. Since my memory is awful, that meant that all the brilliant ideas I had for linking paragraphs and themes and character motivations had long gone out of the window by the time I was actually writing the fic. I usually remembered having a solution, but not what the solution was. Frustration ensued. C'è un mondo là fuori ('There's a world out there', with fayth!Jecht getting a crash course by the Fayths on what being Sin means) is a prime offender.
Easiest story to write: The one with Braska, Auron and the cat that played with pyreflies: four pages that wrote themselves. The hardest part was making my peace with the idea that Braska wasn't a summoner before his wife's death. I had been able to stay vague until then. Darn consistent headcanon!
"Holy crap, that's wrong, even for you" story: still flirting with borderline, kinda canon RPF and that's as risqué as I'll go (Le sconvolgenti origini della saga - 'The amazing origins of the saga', being a five-parter on RAW*cough* Dr. Watson's heroic efforts to keep his canon straight, outsourcing and all). I'll call you back when I switch fandoms and actually slash Nomura in a threesome with a zipper and a bottle of glittered hairspray, promise.
Awards: I can't remember and can't even be bothered to edit the fanfics themselves to add the placements. Almost everything I wrote this year was an entry for an initiative of some kind, many of which were contests. Most of the fics I wrote for contests got a placement. End of story.