Fanworks Wot I Created in 2012
This is usually fic only, but this year, I branched out a little. Also, the list of fic only looks way pathetic, so including the two others is better :). Also, they took time and effort and I'm quite proud of them, so they definitely should count.
Comparison with previous years: In 2011, I wrote six fics (and drew one piece of art that I forgot to add to my end of year list), and in 2010 I wrote 9. Going down by increments of three? But, well, I will definitely be writing fics this year, so I'm unlikely to go lower than three, since I achieve that by writing for Dysfuncentine, Beholder and Hoggywarty, which I will always participate in.
In other fannish and non-fannish pursuits: in 2012, I joined quibbler_report as an editor, and also I went back to uni, where I wrote several awesome essays that earned me High Distinctions (>90%). So even if I write less fic than usual, that didn't mean I stopped writing anything.
This year, I am posting list, and I'm going to try my hand at the meme and see if I can do it, even if it might be weird with only three fics. And I thought I might also put up a list if the WIPs on my hard-drive, because I have a tendency to never finish something once I stop writing it, but these three ideas/partially completed works are things that I really would like to get done at some point.
So, the list:
February 28 - Never Hearts and Flowers - Rita Skeeter, R
May 8 - Chosen and Accepted - Andromeda Tonks/Augusta Longbottom, PG
September 3 - Podfic, The Secret Language of Cats by thistlerose - Remus, Gen, PG
October 19 - Need - Amelia Bones/Bellatrix Lestrange, PG-13
December 28 - Art, Mistletoe - Rosmerta/Rita, PG (possibly nws? idk)
And that would be it. This year, I intend to participate in yuletide again. Took a year off because of not completeing last time, and also I could not bear the thought of another deadline after all the uni stuff. Hoggywarty was enough, and quite late as it was. Turned out well, since it seems I used up all my writes on those English essays.
But, now, here's the meme!
Longest Story Written: Chosen and Accepted, 4000 words
Shortest Story Written: Never Hearts and Flowers, 666 words (no, really, I just checked)
My favourite story of this year: Need. I am rather proud of it. I was aiming for something sharp and tight, and I think that's what I achieved. Then and in hindsight, that was really satisfying, because it's the only time I managed what I intended last year. I was also really excited by the prompts, and the prospect of writing a darker Amelia, or at least exploring what could push a good woman right to the edge. I'm very happy with it, despite my longer, larger offerings of previous years.
My best story this year: See above. I've always thought these two were a hard distinction to make, and I find it impossible this year.
Best received story: I always feel that my work gets plenty of love. I don't think anything got more love than everything else this year.
Story most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion: Like I said, everything got plenty of love. I did notice that my Hoggywarty submish didn't get recc'd anywhere, but that's kind of clutching at straws (and speaks extremely well of how privileged I usually am). I was quite proud of it, but I am aware that my art is nowhere near up to the standards of many other (actual) fanartists (certainly not to the standards of others in that fest). Fine, but not Great, is how I would describe my artistic skill. And this is not a plea for everyone to tell me how awesome I am or go rec my art out of pity or anything. I just like to be honest with myself in this meme.
Most fun story: The podfic. It was really awesome to try my hand at something I'd never done before, even if the sound of my own voice makes cringe. I managed to get over that for the duration of the recording, though with some distance I find it uncomfortable listening to it again. But yes. I will definitely podfic again if the fest runs this year.
Hardest story to write: Chosen and Accepted. God, that was so late, and I had to stop in the middle and write a fucking essay, and just. God. I'm mostly happy with how it turned out, but I did have to whip it out of myself.
"Holy crap, that's *wrong*, even for you" story: Well, I was going to try one of those last year. In fact, I said it was my resolution, in this meme last time. And I did try. It was the story I started for Dysfuncentine, and it was all kinds of fucked up, but it was TOO LONG omg, with the preparing to go back to uni and the modding duties that are always more than you remember them being, and in the end I put it on hold and wrote the short Rita piece instead, because that was easy and comfy like putting on a, well, not a fluffy pair of socks, really, since Rita is never like that, but like a well borken-in pair of stilettos, perhaps.
Story that shifted my own perceptions of the characters: I'd never written Andromeda before Beholder, nor a fic about Augusta, so I guess I formed some perceptions and shifted others in writing that fic. The similarities in their situations was something I'd never really thought about before I decided to write them as a pairing.
Biggest disappointment: The number of things I started but didn't finish, omg.
Biggest surprise: That people actually like to listen to Australian accents reading fic.
Most unintentionally telling story: I don't know about unintentional, since I deliberately decided to include it, but Amelia's nicotine withdrawal in 'Need' was very much 'write what you know'. The week before I started writing it, I had just failed at another quitting attempt. I stopped smoking in semester break, and I did fine right up until the first essay was due the following semester, at which point I caved and bought a pack (there's something about it, you know, the five minute break you get from writing and thinking about writing that doesn't turn into half an hour of procrastination, the change of scenery, the stimulant buzz; fuck sometimes I tell myself that I can't write if I'm not smoking, especially with my failure this Christmas, but then I remind myself that I wrote Blindness and Stars while I was not smoking, and so that excuse is fucking bullshit). Anyway, yes. After the essay was done, I tried to stop again without going back to square one with the NRT, and then at work on the Friday night I had a fucking meltdown which involved me yelling at the Assistant Store Manager over some stupid thing he expected me to do, then going off and crying in the loo for no reason. And so when I came to write 'Need', I remembered that, the tense grating-ness of it, and the out-of-control irrationality that you are dimly aware of the whole time it's happening, and I channelled it into Amelia. I hope I managed to put it into words that described some measure of what it feels like and effect it has on your behaviour.
Sexiest story: I didn't publish a SINGLE PORNY STORY last year. Whaaaaaaaat. That must be a first. Even the art was tame. Holy crap. That situation needs to be rectified this year.
Favourite summary: Amelia Bones is the consummate Auror: stoic, professional, moral. But even the most dependable individuals have their moments of madness.
Favourite opening line: After the war, the funerals go backwards.
Favourite closing line: She wishes she knew how to be someone other than who she’s become. (Ow. Sometimes, Rita is as uncompromising with herself as she is with her stories. Just sometimes, but when she is it's fucking owie)
Favourite lines from anywhere:
“Come on now,” she says, rocking him. “There’s a time for crying and there’s a time for sleep, and you’ve got it all mixed up.” She looks down at him and he looks back, all chubby features and blonde hair, just like Frank was at that age. “And we’ll have none of that, thank you,” she snaps, and the whip-crack of her voice shocks him so much that his hair goes red.
Amelia can feel it in her blood, the lack. It’s like wild magic, unchannelled and crackling, like sandpaper rasping the inside of her skin, but it feels appropriate.
--
And for the curious, a list of the WIPs I want to finish
*Rita/Lucius, Rita/Narcissa, Narcissa/Lucius. Originally began this one for last year's Dysfuncentine, but had to abandon it when it was too ambitious for the timeframe and mod duties. You guys, this one is seriously fucked up. It involves Rita being truly nasty and manipulative, fucking Lucius in the dirtiest ways she can imagine because his wife would never do those things, then involving herself with Narcissa on an emotional and sexual level, fulfilling Narcissa's desire to use her brain, because oh honey you know your husband would never let you do those things. And not because she actually wants either of them, more to bring them down, because they have everything, and she is bitter. Not even justifiably bitter, either. She resents the old money and the social status it gives them, even though she is comfortably middle-class pureblood herself, raised in privilege.
*Poppy Pomfrey/Minerva McGonagall, Munchausen by proxy. This is one of those things I have been leaving in prompt posts all over the shop for ages, and then eventually decided I would like to write it myself. I began to do so for last year's minerva_fest, but then the uni work was too much and I couldn't finish it because LONG (notice a theme here?). This one is also a postwar story that turns Hogwarts into a gothic space, because the moment the possibility of doing that occurred to me, I wanted to do it. The whole notion of the uncanny, of things familiar becoming things alien and scary, I wanted to write a decaying postwar castle affected by the horrors it has seen in the previous year, and mirrored in Poppy, traumatised by what she had to deal with in the DH year and slowly descending into madness. Fuck, I want to finish this one SO BAD.
*Rita/Kingsley, originally begun for Hoggywarty. I wanted to finally writing a story for a Christmas fest that actually featured some Christmas, and then I listened to this fucking song, and seriously, all the Kingsley/Rita feels. Here is an excerpt from it:
So let me hammer this point home:
I see us all as lonely fires
that have burned alive as long as we remember.
But like all fireworks and all sunsets,
we all burn in different ways:
You are a vast explosion,
and I'm the embers.
And though your flames are quick and mean,
they will not last the year,
but expire like a sudden falling star,
that only nightingales had seen,
before migrating to southern jungles.
And in this way you will come find me in December.
So, like, part SHH but hopefully made my own, changed to fit with the canon we got in DH. Kingsley and Rita have a history, an intense and fucked up history begun in the HBO year when Kingsley was fucked off to work with the Muggles and Rita was punished for not giving the Prophet that exclusive with Harry Potter by bveing fucked off to work Muggle press relations. And they get together all resentful at the world and stuff, but actually it's fucking amazing and intense, too intense for Rita to handle, and so it ends, but then in DH year Rita reads that Kingsley is Missing Presumed Dead because he's gone on the run, and it's like being punched in the gut. But then she runs into him and he isn't dead and something something something didn't quite work that part out and it's all awesome and intense again and fuck they're amazing but then Rita fucks it all up again. But then the war ends and Kinsgely is Minister and there is a Yule log or something in December and Rita comes and finds him. And who knows. Maybe they can make it work. She's the vast explosion, btw. And he's the embers. If you didn't get that.
So yeah. They're the things I want to finish.
Annnd now my stepfather is snoring again, so I'mma go watch the rest of Firefly, which is fucking awesome, can I just say.
Comparison with previous years: In 2011, I wrote six fics (and drew one piece of art that I forgot to add to my end of year list), and in 2010 I wrote 9. Going down by increments of three? But, well, I will definitely be writing fics this year, so I'm unlikely to go lower than three, since I achieve that by writing for Dysfuncentine, Beholder and Hoggywarty, which I will always participate in.
In other fannish and non-fannish pursuits: in 2012, I joined quibbler_report as an editor, and also I went back to uni, where I wrote several awesome essays that earned me High Distinctions (>90%). So even if I write less fic than usual, that didn't mean I stopped writing anything.
This year, I am posting list, and I'm going to try my hand at the meme and see if I can do it, even if it might be weird with only three fics. And I thought I might also put up a list if the WIPs on my hard-drive, because I have a tendency to never finish something once I stop writing it, but these three ideas/partially completed works are things that I really would like to get done at some point.
So, the list:
February 28 - Never Hearts and Flowers - Rita Skeeter, R
May 8 - Chosen and Accepted - Andromeda Tonks/Augusta Longbottom, PG
September 3 - Podfic, The Secret Language of Cats by thistlerose - Remus, Gen, PG
October 19 - Need - Amelia Bones/Bellatrix Lestrange, PG-13
December 28 - Art, Mistletoe - Rosmerta/Rita, PG (possibly nws? idk)
And that would be it. This year, I intend to participate in yuletide again. Took a year off because of not completeing last time, and also I could not bear the thought of another deadline after all the uni stuff. Hoggywarty was enough, and quite late as it was. Turned out well, since it seems I used up all my writes on those English essays.
But, now, here's the meme!
Longest Story Written: Chosen and Accepted, 4000 words
Shortest Story Written: Never Hearts and Flowers, 666 words (no, really, I just checked)
My favourite story of this year: Need. I am rather proud of it. I was aiming for something sharp and tight, and I think that's what I achieved. Then and in hindsight, that was really satisfying, because it's the only time I managed what I intended last year. I was also really excited by the prompts, and the prospect of writing a darker Amelia, or at least exploring what could push a good woman right to the edge. I'm very happy with it, despite my longer, larger offerings of previous years.
My best story this year: See above. I've always thought these two were a hard distinction to make, and I find it impossible this year.
Best received story: I always feel that my work gets plenty of love. I don't think anything got more love than everything else this year.
Story most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion: Like I said, everything got plenty of love. I did notice that my Hoggywarty submish didn't get recc'd anywhere, but that's kind of clutching at straws (and speaks extremely well of how privileged I usually am). I was quite proud of it, but I am aware that my art is nowhere near up to the standards of many other (actual) fanartists (certainly not to the standards of others in that fest). Fine, but not Great, is how I would describe my artistic skill. And this is not a plea for everyone to tell me how awesome I am or go rec my art out of pity or anything. I just like to be honest with myself in this meme.
Most fun story: The podfic. It was really awesome to try my hand at something I'd never done before, even if the sound of my own voice makes cringe. I managed to get over that for the duration of the recording, though with some distance I find it uncomfortable listening to it again. But yes. I will definitely podfic again if the fest runs this year.
Hardest story to write: Chosen and Accepted. God, that was so late, and I had to stop in the middle and write a fucking essay, and just. God. I'm mostly happy with how it turned out, but I did have to whip it out of myself.
"Holy crap, that's *wrong*, even for you" story: Well, I was going to try one of those last year. In fact, I said it was my resolution, in this meme last time. And I did try. It was the story I started for Dysfuncentine, and it was all kinds of fucked up, but it was TOO LONG omg, with the preparing to go back to uni and the modding duties that are always more than you remember them being, and in the end I put it on hold and wrote the short Rita piece instead, because that was easy and comfy like putting on a, well, not a fluffy pair of socks, really, since Rita is never like that, but like a well borken-in pair of stilettos, perhaps.
Story that shifted my own perceptions of the characters: I'd never written Andromeda before Beholder, nor a fic about Augusta, so I guess I formed some perceptions and shifted others in writing that fic. The similarities in their situations was something I'd never really thought about before I decided to write them as a pairing.
Biggest disappointment: The number of things I started but didn't finish, omg.
Biggest surprise: That people actually like to listen to Australian accents reading fic.
Most unintentionally telling story: I don't know about unintentional, since I deliberately decided to include it, but Amelia's nicotine withdrawal in 'Need' was very much 'write what you know'. The week before I started writing it, I had just failed at another quitting attempt. I stopped smoking in semester break, and I did fine right up until the first essay was due the following semester, at which point I caved and bought a pack (there's something about it, you know, the five minute break you get from writing and thinking about writing that doesn't turn into half an hour of procrastination, the change of scenery, the stimulant buzz; fuck sometimes I tell myself that I can't write if I'm not smoking, especially with my failure this Christmas, but then I remind myself that I wrote Blindness and Stars while I was not smoking, and so that excuse is fucking bullshit). Anyway, yes. After the essay was done, I tried to stop again without going back to square one with the NRT, and then at work on the Friday night I had a fucking meltdown which involved me yelling at the Assistant Store Manager over some stupid thing he expected me to do, then going off and crying in the loo for no reason. And so when I came to write 'Need', I remembered that, the tense grating-ness of it, and the out-of-control irrationality that you are dimly aware of the whole time it's happening, and I channelled it into Amelia. I hope I managed to put it into words that described some measure of what it feels like and effect it has on your behaviour.
Sexiest story: I didn't publish a SINGLE PORNY STORY last year. Whaaaaaaaat. That must be a first. Even the art was tame. Holy crap. That situation needs to be rectified this year.
Favourite summary: Amelia Bones is the consummate Auror: stoic, professional, moral. But even the most dependable individuals have their moments of madness.
Favourite opening line: After the war, the funerals go backwards.
Favourite closing line: She wishes she knew how to be someone other than who she’s become. (Ow. Sometimes, Rita is as uncompromising with herself as she is with her stories. Just sometimes, but when she is it's fucking owie)
Favourite lines from anywhere:
“Come on now,” she says, rocking him. “There’s a time for crying and there’s a time for sleep, and you’ve got it all mixed up.” She looks down at him and he looks back, all chubby features and blonde hair, just like Frank was at that age. “And we’ll have none of that, thank you,” she snaps, and the whip-crack of her voice shocks him so much that his hair goes red.
Amelia can feel it in her blood, the lack. It’s like wild magic, unchannelled and crackling, like sandpaper rasping the inside of her skin, but it feels appropriate.
--
And for the curious, a list of the WIPs I want to finish
*Rita/Lucius, Rita/Narcissa, Narcissa/Lucius. Originally began this one for last year's Dysfuncentine, but had to abandon it when it was too ambitious for the timeframe and mod duties. You guys, this one is seriously fucked up. It involves Rita being truly nasty and manipulative, fucking Lucius in the dirtiest ways she can imagine because his wife would never do those things, then involving herself with Narcissa on an emotional and sexual level, fulfilling Narcissa's desire to use her brain, because oh honey you know your husband would never let you do those things. And not because she actually wants either of them, more to bring them down, because they have everything, and she is bitter. Not even justifiably bitter, either. She resents the old money and the social status it gives them, even though she is comfortably middle-class pureblood herself, raised in privilege.
*Poppy Pomfrey/Minerva McGonagall, Munchausen by proxy. This is one of those things I have been leaving in prompt posts all over the shop for ages, and then eventually decided I would like to write it myself. I began to do so for last year's minerva_fest, but then the uni work was too much and I couldn't finish it because LONG (notice a theme here?). This one is also a postwar story that turns Hogwarts into a gothic space, because the moment the possibility of doing that occurred to me, I wanted to do it. The whole notion of the uncanny, of things familiar becoming things alien and scary, I wanted to write a decaying postwar castle affected by the horrors it has seen in the previous year, and mirrored in Poppy, traumatised by what she had to deal with in the DH year and slowly descending into madness. Fuck, I want to finish this one SO BAD.
*Rita/Kingsley, originally begun for Hoggywarty. I wanted to finally writing a story for a Christmas fest that actually featured some Christmas, and then I listened to this fucking song, and seriously, all the Kingsley/Rita feels. Here is an excerpt from it:
So let me hammer this point home:
I see us all as lonely fires
that have burned alive as long as we remember.
But like all fireworks and all sunsets,
we all burn in different ways:
You are a vast explosion,
and I'm the embers.
And though your flames are quick and mean,
they will not last the year,
but expire like a sudden falling star,
that only nightingales had seen,
before migrating to southern jungles.
And in this way you will come find me in December.
So, like, part SHH but hopefully made my own, changed to fit with the canon we got in DH. Kingsley and Rita have a history, an intense and fucked up history begun in the HBO year when Kingsley was fucked off to work with the Muggles and Rita was punished for not giving the Prophet that exclusive with Harry Potter by bveing fucked off to work Muggle press relations. And they get together all resentful at the world and stuff, but actually it's fucking amazing and intense, too intense for Rita to handle, and so it ends, but then in DH year Rita reads that Kingsley is Missing Presumed Dead because he's gone on the run, and it's like being punched in the gut. But then she runs into him and he isn't dead and something something something didn't quite work that part out and it's all awesome and intense again and fuck they're amazing but then Rita fucks it all up again. But then the war ends and Kinsgely is Minister and there is a Yule log or something in December and Rita comes and finds him. And who knows. Maybe they can make it work. She's the vast explosion, btw. And he's the embers. If you didn't get that.
So yeah. They're the things I want to finish.
Annnd now my stepfather is snoring again, so I'mma go watch the rest of Firefly, which is fucking awesome, can I just say.