2007 Writing Roundup
2007 Writing Roundup
Prince of Tennis:
Penguins Don't Get Cancer, But Teenage Tennis Prodegies Do (Drabble) Seigaku PG
(391)
Snow Day YanaKiri NC 17
It's a snow day in Kanagawa. (4000)
Half a Confession Yagyuu/Niou Rish
In which Yagyuu is dumb and Niou wants to confess. (7300)
Thousand Yen Bet Osamu/Kura PG13
In which Kenya makes a bet with Kura to steal Osamu's hat. (4000)
Weekend Break Yuuta/Mizuki R
In which Mizuki and Yuuta go on a weekend break to Yamagata. (8500)
Fever Niou/Yagyuu NC17
Yagyuu is sick. Niou comes to visit. (3500)
Love Story SanaYuki Rish
Sanada struggles with a present for Yukimura's birthday. (6700)
Victory Spoils YanaKiri NC17
Renji made a promise to Kirihara. (4100)
Different Kind of Victory Chitose/Tachibana PG13 (links to Part 2/2)
Um, Tachibana joins a new team and Chitose hovers in the background like a phantom? (18 500)
Anniversary Yagyuu/Niou Drabble Rish
Yagyuu and Niou and anniversaries. (1600)
Competition Shitenhoji Drabble PG13
Kenya hates doubles and proposes a competition. (1500)
Secret Marui + Jackal Drabble G
Marui has a deep, dark secret. (1100)
Internet Politics: A Layman's Reference, by Inui Sadaharu PGish
Inui + facebook = NOTP. (2200)
Babysitting Jackal + Kirihara G
Jackal doesn't particularly like getting stuck babysitting all the time. (534)
Sleepover no Oujisama Rikkai Rish
Post Genius 341. Meanwhile, in Kanagawa.... (4200)
Untitled Oishi Drabble Gish
In which Oishi is a victim of fashion.... (937)
Growing Pains SanaYuki PG13
In which Sanada grows up... (8500)
Untitled Shitenhoji Drabble Sorta Osamu/Gin Gish
In which Osamu is really, really lazy... (831)
Stolen Niou/Yagyuu NC17
Yagyuu gets rather jealous when a woman shows up at tennis practice... (2400)
Untitled YanaKiri Puberty Drabble PGish
Er...Kirihara is definitely going through some changes right now ;) (499)
Let Them Eat Cake (Drabble) Marui + Jackal + Cake PG13
Marui loves his cake... (778)
Turning the Devious Into the Direct Sanada/Niou R
The devious is turned into the direct as Sanada discovers that what he wants might not be the same as what he's found. (9500)
Untitled YanaKiri Kirihara/Yanagi more like NC17
The night before the Nationals final... (4700)
Six Percent Doki Doki Niou/Kirihara + others (if you squint) NC17 (links to Part 5/5) written for rikkai_exchange
In High School, Kirihara realizes that something is wrong when Niou stops showing up to tennis practice. Tennis, misunderstandings and Genius abounds. (36 000)
The Great Rikkai Camping Adventure Rikkai ensemble + D1 NC17 (links to Part 3/3) written for rikkai_exchange
A fractured fairytale about the perils of camping with one’s teammates before the Nationals… (19 000)
Trial and Error InuKai NC17
Inui experiences a number of errors as he tries to rectify a difficult situation. (4100)
Diversion Tactics Oshitari/Atobe NC17
Atobe is sick and tired of Oshitari's laziness. (3100)
Untitled D1 Drabble Yagyuu/Niou height difference PG?
Yagyuu got taller… (110)
A Short…on Seigaku Shorts InuKai Drabble Rish
Kaidoh has to borrow some shorts... (319)
Untitled Little Yukimura Drabble Little Yukimura + Sanada PG
Little Yukimura. And tennis. And the pitfalls of having younger siblings born. (592)
Appropriation YanaKiri NC17 (links to Part 2/2)
After drifting apart over the years, Kirihara moves back into Renji's life. (17 000)
Quicken to Silver (Parts 35-finish) Ohtori/Shishido (Silver Pair) NC17 FINISHED!
In which time passes and people change and drift, but there is always tennis. (41 700)
Redirected YanaKiri NC17
Futurefic YanaKiri. Mostly pr0n. (2300)
Of Parfaits and Pedos Marui + Niou Drabble PG
Niou always said the dumbest shit. Marui + Niou antifriendship drabble. ;P (837)
Untitled Rikkai Halloween Crap Rikkai Drabble G
Sanada and his Halloween project? Tarundoru! (783)
More untitled Rikkai Halloween Crap Yagyuu/Niou Drabble R
Yagyuu + Niou + cosplay. Does it really need explaining? Semi-non-con implications. And grossness. (1069)
Even more untitled Rikkai Halloween Crap Rikkai Drabble R
Jackal and Marui at the school dance. And corny costumes. (962)
Yet even more untitled Rikkai Halloween Crap SanaYuki Drabble PG13ish
Sanada and Yukimura. And chocolate. (1374)
First Impressions Rikkai Drabble Gish
Rikkai is expecting a new kid on the team. Mostly D2 Gen. (1548)
Rewind Forward (Parts 15-39) Yagyuu/Niou NC17 Still unfinished…
Niou, meet Yagyuu. (129 418)
Totaled YanaKiri Drabble PG13
Yanagi and Kirihara total a car. Oops. (870)
Untitled SanaYuki Christmas Drabble SanaYuki PGish
Sanada is sick on Christmas eve. (540)
A Christmas Without Sanada SanaYuki NC17
What would happen if Sanada didn't exist? (27 000)
+ bits of D1 genderswitch (2000)
+ D1 foot (71)
+ D1 miscommunication (1900)
+ YanaKiri het (4300)
Tenimyu: *goes to hell*
Untitled Rikkaimyu Drabble Sorta Kojirou/Kane-chan PG
Rikkaimyu RPS is wrong! (>.<) (248)
Gokusen 2:
Post-Graduation Tsucchi/Take PG13?
In which people are beat up and lessons are learned. Much like every Gokusen 2 episode. (5800)
Turning the Takoyaki Yabuki/Yankumi R
In which a year has passed since he graduated and Hayato gets a new job. Sorta. (7000)
Total Number of Fics: 50, including drabbles and unposted chunks of crap. All but 3 were Tenipuri proper. o.0
Total 2007 Wordcount: 406 221 words, of which all but 13 048 were Tenipuri. This beats out last year by almost 90 000 words! All of which I accomplished while also doing my Master's dissertation too. Not bad, not bad at all….
Opinions on Said Fics
Favourite: It would be a lie to say anything but Rewind Forward. It is my love child. It is a pleasure to write it, although just as often it's a lot a lot of hard work and thinking about things often and clack-clacking away at my computer for an hour or so almost every day. It frustrates me, it excites me. It's such a mix of feelings I have for it, but it is my favourite, yes.
The Best: Maybe the "something else" one. I went out and had an Official Beta for that one and help from several people. So, in terms of polish, it received the most, which probably makes it the best in that regards.
Most underappreciated by the universe: Same as last year, Rewind Forward. Probably a combination of losing readers (for whatever their own personal reasons) and it being locked- I'd work on it really hard for a period of time and mention and mention it try to get people excited, then I'd post and….nothing. Like…I could hear the crickets chirping. Or, people would be all "yeah I love it I read it!!" and say nothing still. Or just say nothing. And it hurt, often, and I'd lose motivation. But the fact I posted large chunks at a time backfired as well- I'd always been of the assumption people love sitting down with large chunks more than constant snippets. That, and when I did constant snippets with Quicken to Silver people likewise lost interest. Which doesn't help me pinpoint anything. I might try a different posting style for it in 2008, but I'm not sure at the present what precise direction that will be.
Most fun to write: The Great Rikkai Camping Adventure. Crack, and yet…more crack. With sex. And holes. And YAGYUU TAKING A MORNING DUMP! Basically, everything you didn't want to know about what I really want to write. I love writing fics with cracked out antics. And combine that with a Familymart, allusions to personal experience of "hiking" in Japan (Ria would claim we did, I'd claim it was a "walk"), with Sanada and poison ivy?
You all love the crack, deep down. Don't deny it. And so do I. Nothing in life pleases me more than laughing until my sides hurt and I can't breathe. So yeah, this fic was fun to write. It was very nearly the "Great Rikkai Genderswitch Beach Afternoon", too btw…>:P
Sexiest: Turning the Devious Into the Direct
To which I say, SCREW YOU HATERS!!
To this day, even thinking about Sanada and Niou in a solitary school stairwell with bento boxes on their laps and sticky BBQ ribs in their hands makes me melt inside at the implications of quiet je ne sais quois emotions passing between the two of them unsaid. Understated sexy. That makes me wibble inside.
"Holy crap, that's wrong even for you": Maybe The Great Rikkai Camping Adventure, although to be honest, that's more of my "true" style- potty humour, tons of bad jokes, Sanadabuse and did I mention potty humour and toilet references? It's not that I'd consider it wrong, just that…a lot of bathroom functions mentioned in any sort of writing usually don't go over well, so I [used to] avoid them. This fic…sorta proved to myself I can get away with them sometimes. Be very afraid, dear readers, the truth has emerged…
Fic that shifted my own perceptions of the characters: Six Percent Doki Doki. The fact I made Yagyuu the bad guy and somehow almost managed to write a love triangle in the process? The fact I managed to make Niou/Kirihara work for myself, but also apparently for some others too? The fact I managed to write homophobia and an ostracized Niou and include bits of Tokyo and Japan from my visit there? I guess my whole experience of visiting in the summer gave me new ideas and I shifted my own perceptions- in some ways- of what I can do in fic.
Hardest to do: Finishing Quicken to Silver. I didn't want to leave it any more, but sometimes, even trying to sit down and write it felt like pulling teeth. I wrote myself into a tennis corner the previous year- too much tennis, too many things going on and it was just so much. Too much probably. So that was hard, but I had to, needed to, wanted to finish it. And I did.
Biggest disappointment: Different Kind of Victory, hands down. Very few noticed this, very few seemed to care. I was disappointed with that, given Chitose/Tachibana is supposedly a pairing a lot of people like. I was also disappointed with myself being unable to write smut of any form into the fic- I tried and tried and it never worked and the fic ended without it. Alas.
Biggest surprise: Having Love Story flamed by haters. I was immensely hurt by that and swore off writing Sanada/Yukimura for a long time afterwards. For whatever reason, some readers were incapable of reading the warnings and understanding the sort of humour I had in the fic and that surprised me: the violent reactions against it and their equally acerbic words.
Most telling: A cross between parts of Six Percent, Rewind Forward and "something else"- dealing with themes of ostracization, isolation and unappreciation, themes that I've related to on some level this past year. A lot of times, when I dig for emotion in characters, I have to dig into myself in the process, so even though they may not be my own, per se, I feel they reflect me nonetheless. And as a writer, it's somehow…very exposing to share things like that with others because I'm sharing an intimate part of myself (so to speak, although that sounds really bad and dumb). Writing hurt, anger, sadness, loneliness is very telling and very emotionally draining, and yet…I do it anyways because I don't want to gloss over things and make them all kira kira happy. I want to write things as they are, and that isn't always something happy and good. As much as I enjoy writing the happy and good, you often need sadness and desperation and gut-wrenching hurt to get there.
Plans for 2008:
1. To finish Rewind Forward. The most likely date of completion is October 2008, but I shall gambatte and work hard!
2. To write my balls_it_up fic, which will be the most deliciously awful and bad fic ever. Be prepared to hate me. And yet, god the idea is so simple and makes so so much sense.
3. To write some more Shitenhoji fic, maybe Kenya/Zaizen or the Idiot Couple.
4. To write awful genderswitch. Yes, pixxers, maybe that one. Or the one where Kirihara is Number One! Or the one where Niou has the baby in the toilet and Yagyuu wants to dispose of it in the garbage.
5. To challenge myself with new pairings.
6. To challenge myself with other fandoms. But what, I don't know. Maybe I'll be inspired by jdramas or books or something I don't even know yet. ^-^
7. To write the original piece this summer.
8. To improve my writing. To do my best and never be satisfied with mediocrity.
9. To write that fic where Yukimura and Sanada love each other from that first day of junior high when their eyes meet on the bus. I shall call it "Hatsukoi" and it will be deliciously melodramatic. And long.
10. To write Jackal/Marui. Hardcore Jackal/Marui. The one with Avril Lavigne.
11. To write Oishi/Kaidoh. And it'll be fucking awesome, too.
Prince of Tennis:
Penguins Don't Get Cancer, But Teenage Tennis Prodegies Do (Drabble) Seigaku PG
(391)
Snow Day YanaKiri NC 17
It's a snow day in Kanagawa. (4000)
Half a Confession Yagyuu/Niou Rish
In which Yagyuu is dumb and Niou wants to confess. (7300)
Thousand Yen Bet Osamu/Kura PG13
In which Kenya makes a bet with Kura to steal Osamu's hat. (4000)
Weekend Break Yuuta/Mizuki R
In which Mizuki and Yuuta go on a weekend break to Yamagata. (8500)
Fever Niou/Yagyuu NC17
Yagyuu is sick. Niou comes to visit. (3500)
Love Story SanaYuki Rish
Sanada struggles with a present for Yukimura's birthday. (6700)
Victory Spoils YanaKiri NC17
Renji made a promise to Kirihara. (4100)
Different Kind of Victory Chitose/Tachibana PG13 (links to Part 2/2)
Um, Tachibana joins a new team and Chitose hovers in the background like a phantom? (18 500)
Anniversary Yagyuu/Niou Drabble Rish
Yagyuu and Niou and anniversaries. (1600)
Competition Shitenhoji Drabble PG13
Kenya hates doubles and proposes a competition. (1500)
Secret Marui + Jackal Drabble G
Marui has a deep, dark secret. (1100)
Internet Politics: A Layman's Reference, by Inui Sadaharu PGish
Inui + facebook = NOTP. (2200)
Babysitting Jackal + Kirihara G
Jackal doesn't particularly like getting stuck babysitting all the time. (534)
Sleepover no Oujisama Rikkai Rish
Post Genius 341. Meanwhile, in Kanagawa.... (4200)
Untitled Oishi Drabble Gish
In which Oishi is a victim of fashion.... (937)
Growing Pains SanaYuki PG13
In which Sanada grows up... (8500)
Untitled Shitenhoji Drabble Sorta Osamu/Gin Gish
In which Osamu is really, really lazy... (831)
Stolen Niou/Yagyuu NC17
Yagyuu gets rather jealous when a woman shows up at tennis practice... (2400)
Untitled YanaKiri Puberty Drabble PGish
Er...Kirihara is definitely going through some changes right now ;) (499)
Let Them Eat Cake (Drabble) Marui + Jackal + Cake PG13
Marui loves his cake... (778)
Turning the Devious Into the Direct Sanada/Niou R
The devious is turned into the direct as Sanada discovers that what he wants might not be the same as what he's found. (9500)
Untitled YanaKiri Kirihara/Yanagi more like NC17
The night before the Nationals final... (4700)
Six Percent Doki Doki Niou/Kirihara + others (if you squint) NC17 (links to Part 5/5) written for rikkai_exchange
In High School, Kirihara realizes that something is wrong when Niou stops showing up to tennis practice. Tennis, misunderstandings and Genius abounds. (36 000)
The Great Rikkai Camping Adventure Rikkai ensemble + D1 NC17 (links to Part 3/3) written for rikkai_exchange
A fractured fairytale about the perils of camping with one’s teammates before the Nationals… (19 000)
Trial and Error InuKai NC17
Inui experiences a number of errors as he tries to rectify a difficult situation. (4100)
Diversion Tactics Oshitari/Atobe NC17
Atobe is sick and tired of Oshitari's laziness. (3100)
Untitled D1 Drabble Yagyuu/Niou height difference PG?
Yagyuu got taller… (110)
A Short…on Seigaku Shorts InuKai Drabble Rish
Kaidoh has to borrow some shorts... (319)
Untitled Little Yukimura Drabble Little Yukimura + Sanada PG
Little Yukimura. And tennis. And the pitfalls of having younger siblings born. (592)
Appropriation YanaKiri NC17 (links to Part 2/2)
After drifting apart over the years, Kirihara moves back into Renji's life. (17 000)
Quicken to Silver (Parts 35-finish) Ohtori/Shishido (Silver Pair) NC17 FINISHED!
In which time passes and people change and drift, but there is always tennis. (41 700)
Redirected YanaKiri NC17
Futurefic YanaKiri. Mostly pr0n. (2300)
Of Parfaits and Pedos Marui + Niou Drabble PG
Niou always said the dumbest shit. Marui + Niou antifriendship drabble. ;P (837)
Untitled Rikkai Halloween Crap Rikkai Drabble G
Sanada and his Halloween project? Tarundoru! (783)
More untitled Rikkai Halloween Crap Yagyuu/Niou Drabble R
Yagyuu + Niou + cosplay. Does it really need explaining? Semi-non-con implications. And grossness. (1069)
Even more untitled Rikkai Halloween Crap Rikkai Drabble R
Jackal and Marui at the school dance. And corny costumes. (962)
Yet even more untitled Rikkai Halloween Crap SanaYuki Drabble PG13ish
Sanada and Yukimura. And chocolate. (1374)
First Impressions Rikkai Drabble Gish
Rikkai is expecting a new kid on the team. Mostly D2 Gen. (1548)
Rewind Forward (Parts 15-39) Yagyuu/Niou NC17 Still unfinished…
Niou, meet Yagyuu. (129 418)
Totaled YanaKiri Drabble PG13
Yanagi and Kirihara total a car. Oops. (870)
Untitled SanaYuki Christmas Drabble SanaYuki PGish
Sanada is sick on Christmas eve. (540)
A Christmas Without Sanada SanaYuki NC17
What would happen if Sanada didn't exist? (27 000)
+ bits of D1 genderswitch (2000)
+ D1 foot (71)
+ D1 miscommunication (1900)
+ YanaKiri het (4300)
Tenimyu: *goes to hell*
Untitled Rikkaimyu Drabble Sorta Kojirou/Kane-chan PG
Rikkaimyu RPS is wrong! (>.<) (248)
Gokusen 2:
Post-Graduation Tsucchi/Take PG13?
In which people are beat up and lessons are learned. Much like every Gokusen 2 episode. (5800)
Turning the Takoyaki Yabuki/Yankumi R
In which a year has passed since he graduated and Hayato gets a new job. Sorta. (7000)
Total Number of Fics: 50, including drabbles and unposted chunks of crap. All but 3 were Tenipuri proper. o.0
Total 2007 Wordcount: 406 221 words, of which all but 13 048 were Tenipuri. This beats out last year by almost 90 000 words! All of which I accomplished while also doing my Master's dissertation too. Not bad, not bad at all….
Opinions on Said Fics
Favourite: It would be a lie to say anything but Rewind Forward. It is my love child. It is a pleasure to write it, although just as often it's a lot a lot of hard work and thinking about things often and clack-clacking away at my computer for an hour or so almost every day. It frustrates me, it excites me. It's such a mix of feelings I have for it, but it is my favourite, yes.
The Best: Maybe the "something else" one. I went out and had an Official Beta for that one and help from several people. So, in terms of polish, it received the most, which probably makes it the best in that regards.
Most underappreciated by the universe: Same as last year, Rewind Forward. Probably a combination of losing readers (for whatever their own personal reasons) and it being locked- I'd work on it really hard for a period of time and mention and mention it try to get people excited, then I'd post and….nothing. Like…I could hear the crickets chirping. Or, people would be all "yeah I love it I read it!!" and say nothing still. Or just say nothing. And it hurt, often, and I'd lose motivation. But the fact I posted large chunks at a time backfired as well- I'd always been of the assumption people love sitting down with large chunks more than constant snippets. That, and when I did constant snippets with Quicken to Silver people likewise lost interest. Which doesn't help me pinpoint anything. I might try a different posting style for it in 2008, but I'm not sure at the present what precise direction that will be.
Most fun to write: The Great Rikkai Camping Adventure. Crack, and yet…more crack. With sex. And holes. And YAGYUU TAKING A MORNING DUMP! Basically, everything you didn't want to know about what I really want to write. I love writing fics with cracked out antics. And combine that with a Familymart, allusions to personal experience of "hiking" in Japan (Ria would claim we did, I'd claim it was a "walk"), with Sanada and poison ivy?
You all love the crack, deep down. Don't deny it. And so do I. Nothing in life pleases me more than laughing until my sides hurt and I can't breathe. So yeah, this fic was fun to write. It was very nearly the "Great Rikkai Genderswitch Beach Afternoon", too btw…>:P
Sexiest: Turning the Devious Into the Direct
To which I say, SCREW YOU HATERS!!
To this day, even thinking about Sanada and Niou in a solitary school stairwell with bento boxes on their laps and sticky BBQ ribs in their hands makes me melt inside at the implications of quiet je ne sais quois emotions passing between the two of them unsaid. Understated sexy. That makes me wibble inside.
"Holy crap, that's wrong even for you": Maybe The Great Rikkai Camping Adventure, although to be honest, that's more of my "true" style- potty humour, tons of bad jokes, Sanadabuse and did I mention potty humour and toilet references? It's not that I'd consider it wrong, just that…a lot of bathroom functions mentioned in any sort of writing usually don't go over well, so I [used to] avoid them. This fic…sorta proved to myself I can get away with them sometimes. Be very afraid, dear readers, the truth has emerged…
Fic that shifted my own perceptions of the characters: Six Percent Doki Doki. The fact I made Yagyuu the bad guy and somehow almost managed to write a love triangle in the process? The fact I managed to make Niou/Kirihara work for myself, but also apparently for some others too? The fact I managed to write homophobia and an ostracized Niou and include bits of Tokyo and Japan from my visit there? I guess my whole experience of visiting in the summer gave me new ideas and I shifted my own perceptions- in some ways- of what I can do in fic.
Hardest to do: Finishing Quicken to Silver. I didn't want to leave it any more, but sometimes, even trying to sit down and write it felt like pulling teeth. I wrote myself into a tennis corner the previous year- too much tennis, too many things going on and it was just so much. Too much probably. So that was hard, but I had to, needed to, wanted to finish it. And I did.
Biggest disappointment: Different Kind of Victory, hands down. Very few noticed this, very few seemed to care. I was disappointed with that, given Chitose/Tachibana is supposedly a pairing a lot of people like. I was also disappointed with myself being unable to write smut of any form into the fic- I tried and tried and it never worked and the fic ended without it. Alas.
Biggest surprise: Having Love Story flamed by haters. I was immensely hurt by that and swore off writing Sanada/Yukimura for a long time afterwards. For whatever reason, some readers were incapable of reading the warnings and understanding the sort of humour I had in the fic and that surprised me: the violent reactions against it and their equally acerbic words.
Most telling: A cross between parts of Six Percent, Rewind Forward and "something else"- dealing with themes of ostracization, isolation and unappreciation, themes that I've related to on some level this past year. A lot of times, when I dig for emotion in characters, I have to dig into myself in the process, so even though they may not be my own, per se, I feel they reflect me nonetheless. And as a writer, it's somehow…very exposing to share things like that with others because I'm sharing an intimate part of myself (so to speak, although that sounds really bad and dumb). Writing hurt, anger, sadness, loneliness is very telling and very emotionally draining, and yet…I do it anyways because I don't want to gloss over things and make them all kira kira happy. I want to write things as they are, and that isn't always something happy and good. As much as I enjoy writing the happy and good, you often need sadness and desperation and gut-wrenching hurt to get there.
Plans for 2008:
1. To finish Rewind Forward. The most likely date of completion is October 2008, but I shall gambatte and work hard!
2. To write my balls_it_up fic, which will be the most deliciously awful and bad fic ever. Be prepared to hate me. And yet, god the idea is so simple and makes so so much sense.
3. To write some more Shitenhoji fic, maybe Kenya/Zaizen or the Idiot Couple.
4. To write awful genderswitch. Yes, pixxers, maybe that one. Or the one where Kirihara is Number One! Or the one where Niou has the baby in the toilet and Yagyuu wants to dispose of it in the garbage.
5. To challenge myself with new pairings.
6. To challenge myself with other fandoms. But what, I don't know. Maybe I'll be inspired by jdramas or books or something I don't even know yet. ^-^
7. To write the original piece this summer.
8. To improve my writing. To do my best and never be satisfied with mediocrity.
9. To write that fic where Yukimura and Sanada love each other from that first day of junior high when their eyes meet on the bus. I shall call it "Hatsukoi" and it will be deliciously melodramatic. And long.
10. To write Jackal/Marui. Hardcore Jackal/Marui. The one with Avril Lavigne.
11. To write Oishi/Kaidoh. And it'll be fucking awesome, too.