Try To Keep It To A Single Speech Bubble.
It's time for the end-of-year fic meme! I realise December has only just started and it's not impossible I'll write more before the year is out, but I'm impatient and I really enjoy doing this meme.
Number of fics written in 2023: twenty-four. You can find them in my 'fanfiction (really this time)' tag or on my AO3 account: .
Fandoms: Person of Interest, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Lost, Zanki Zero, Little Hope, The Quarry, Final Fantasy XVI, Death Note, The Last of Us. Five videogame fandoms, two television fandoms, one anime/manga fandom, one film fandom. I went through several distinct fandom phases this year - Person of Interest, then Lost, then The Quarry, then Death Note - so I did a little less rocketing around than usual.
One crossover: Connecting Strands (Person of Interest/Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse). While it's not strictly a crossover, there's also Across the Ocean, a Lost fic inspired by Sense8.
Best title: I really like Stormchasers (The Quarry) for my fic about Travis and Laura becoming travelling monster hunters.
Worst title: I don't hate it wouldn't give us any closure (The Quarry, Laura/Travis) as a title, but it did feel weird to name a serious fic after a line from Kirin J Callinan's 'Big Enough', the song with the screaming cowboy in the sky.
Best first line: Laura jerks awake with blood in her mouth and seven stab wounds in her chest. (it wouldn't give us any closure, The Quarry, Laura/Travis)
Worst first line: “So what happens to us if we manage this rewriting-the-past thing?” Kate asks. (Haunt Me, Lost) - it does the job of telling you where this conversation comes in canon, but as an opening it's a little jarring and abrupt.
Best last line: He knew all along that finding your soulmate was nothing but trouble. (Shackles, Death Note, Light/L)
Worst last line: She smiles at him and keeps walking up the road, heading away from the town. (Bleeding Through, Little Hope) - it's fine, but I wanted to get this image across in a slightly snappier or more subtle way. The 'heading away from the town' ended up feeling a bit obtrusive.
Looking back, did you write more than you thought you would this year, less than you thought, or about what you predicted?
Definitely more! 66,000 words. My wordcount in 2022 was down a little from 2021, so I assumed I was on a downward trajectory, but this year it jumped back up.
What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted last year?
I still can't believe I wrote a soulmate AU (Shackles, Death Note, Light/L). I don't know anything about soulmate AUs. I had a blast with it, though.
On the pairing front, there's Business or Pleasure (Final Fantasy XVI, Clive/Charon). Although Final Fantasy XVI hadn't come out last year and I wasn't yet acquainted with the characters, I suspect I'd still have been mildly surprised if you'd come up to me and gone, 'Hey, next year you're going to pair Final Fantasy XVI's strapping young protagonist up with a minor NPC shopkeeper in her sixties.'
What’s your favourite story this year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you the happiest.
Earlier in the year, I was convinced my answer to this question would be Interweave (Lost, everyone/everyone), an intensely self-indulgent fic in which I throw every Lost character I can manage into a weird poly arrangement. I desperately needed that collection of traumatised plane crash survivors to kiss.
I think Shackles (Death Note, Light/L) might have beaten it, though. I just love the idea of Light and L falling in love with each other and, without hesitation, using that love to destroy each other.
Okay, NOW your most popular story.
My favourite fic and my most popular fic are actually one and the same this year! It's Shackles (Death Note, Light/L), by a long way; it has over three hundred kudos, whereas nothing else I've written this year has broken a hundred.
Story most underappreciated by the universe?
My fic with the fewest kudos is Scenes from the End of the World (Zanki Zero: Last Beginning, everyone/everyone), with eight, but, to be honest, I think it deserves that position. (Spoiler: it's going to be my answer to the 'story that could have been better' question.)
I suppose I'll say Pressure Valve (Person of Interest, Reese/Shaw). I'm not surprised it didn't have a huge reception; it's not exactly a popular pairing! But I really liked the idea of Reese and Shaw having no-strings-attached sex to channel their adrenaline after a shootout, and I was hoping more people would enjoy reading it.
Story that could have been better?
I think Scenes from the End of the World (Zanki Zero: Last Beginning, everyone/everyone) needed individual scenes between Haruto and each of the other clones. As it stands, with Haruto only having individual scenes with some of the other clones, it just feels a bit unstructured.
Sexiest story?
I'm going to say Pressure Valve (Person of Interest, Reese/Shaw), pretty much entirely for the line “Want me to hold you at gunpoint while you eat me out?”
Saddest story?
Little Talks (Little Hope), about lifelong guilt and grief after a tragedy. This game really upset me, and apparently I decided to deal with that by further upsetting myself in fanfiction.
Most fun?
I didn't really write any humour this year, come to think of it! Maybe Connecting Strands (Person of Interest/Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse), which is fun in more of a 'getting to see John Reese and Miles Morales team up' way.
Story with single sweetest moment?
Maybe Talking Strategy (Final Fantasy XVI, Clive/Jill/Cid), when Jill and Clive tell Cid that their relationship wouldn't feel complete without him.
Most fucked-up story?
drowning in the ocean (Lost, Jack/Kate), in which Kate simultaneously stabs Jack to death and makes out with him. Maybe I should have named this one for 'sexiest story'.
Hardest story to write?
The Other Option (The Last of Us, Ellie/Abby) was a real challenge. The problem with writing hatesex is that you have to get these characters who hate each other to have sex! It's particularly tricky when they're holding weapons and you need to get rid of those, because one character attempting to kiss another and immediately getting murdered would be pretty inconvenient.
Easiest/most fun story to write?
I'm going to say Across the Ocean (Lost, Jack/Kate). I loved writing about these two getting to know each other in a Sense8-esque 'teleporting into each other's lives' way. I'm still delighted that my mum enjoyed this fic.
Did any stories shift your perception of the characters?
I feel I learn something new about Light Yagami every time I write a fic about him! My perception of him doesn't necessarily change, but it solidifies. In particular, I found Up Close really interesting to write; even if Light hates the fact that he killed someone with his own hands, he's always careful to construct his thinking in a way that lets him avoid remorse specifically for the act of murder. The problem isn't that he killed her; the problem is that he killed her in such an ugly, inconvenient way.
Most overdue story?
Having shipped Light/himself for fourteen years, I was delighted to finally write about Light giving himself a dubcon blowjob in Awakening (Death Note, Light/himself).
Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them?
Writing a soulmate AU felt like a risk! I'd never written one before, and I don't typically read soulmate AUs either, so I didn't really know any of the conventions of the genre; I just wandered in blindly, making up my own soulmate system as I went. I was concerned that the result would feel strange or offputting for fans of this sort of AU, but Shackles (Death Note, Light/L) ended up being by far my most popular fic of the year.
I suppose I learnt that it's okay to depart from convention or put your own spin on a genre. Or, to put it less generously, I suppose I learnt that sometimes you can do very little research and it'll turn out fine.
The Quarry might be a bit underrepresented here because I wrote six thematically similar fics for it in the space of a month. I had a blast with all of them, but it can be a little hard to distinguish them in my memory!
Number of fics written in 2023: twenty-four. You can find them in my 'fanfiction (really this time)' tag or on my AO3 account: .
Fandoms: Person of Interest, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Lost, Zanki Zero, Little Hope, The Quarry, Final Fantasy XVI, Death Note, The Last of Us. Five videogame fandoms, two television fandoms, one anime/manga fandom, one film fandom. I went through several distinct fandom phases this year - Person of Interest, then Lost, then The Quarry, then Death Note - so I did a little less rocketing around than usual.
One crossover: Connecting Strands (Person of Interest/Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse). While it's not strictly a crossover, there's also Across the Ocean, a Lost fic inspired by Sense8.
Best title: I really like Stormchasers (The Quarry) for my fic about Travis and Laura becoming travelling monster hunters.
Worst title: I don't hate it wouldn't give us any closure (The Quarry, Laura/Travis) as a title, but it did feel weird to name a serious fic after a line from Kirin J Callinan's 'Big Enough', the song with the screaming cowboy in the sky.
Best first line: Laura jerks awake with blood in her mouth and seven stab wounds in her chest. (it wouldn't give us any closure, The Quarry, Laura/Travis)
Worst first line: “So what happens to us if we manage this rewriting-the-past thing?” Kate asks. (Haunt Me, Lost) - it does the job of telling you where this conversation comes in canon, but as an opening it's a little jarring and abrupt.
Best last line: He knew all along that finding your soulmate was nothing but trouble. (Shackles, Death Note, Light/L)
Worst last line: She smiles at him and keeps walking up the road, heading away from the town. (Bleeding Through, Little Hope) - it's fine, but I wanted to get this image across in a slightly snappier or more subtle way. The 'heading away from the town' ended up feeling a bit obtrusive.
Looking back, did you write more than you thought you would this year, less than you thought, or about what you predicted?
Definitely more! 66,000 words. My wordcount in 2022 was down a little from 2021, so I assumed I was on a downward trajectory, but this year it jumped back up.
What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted last year?
I still can't believe I wrote a soulmate AU (Shackles, Death Note, Light/L). I don't know anything about soulmate AUs. I had a blast with it, though.
On the pairing front, there's Business or Pleasure (Final Fantasy XVI, Clive/Charon). Although Final Fantasy XVI hadn't come out last year and I wasn't yet acquainted with the characters, I suspect I'd still have been mildly surprised if you'd come up to me and gone, 'Hey, next year you're going to pair Final Fantasy XVI's strapping young protagonist up with a minor NPC shopkeeper in her sixties.'
What’s your favourite story this year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you the happiest.
Earlier in the year, I was convinced my answer to this question would be Interweave (Lost, everyone/everyone), an intensely self-indulgent fic in which I throw every Lost character I can manage into a weird poly arrangement. I desperately needed that collection of traumatised plane crash survivors to kiss.
I think Shackles (Death Note, Light/L) might have beaten it, though. I just love the idea of Light and L falling in love with each other and, without hesitation, using that love to destroy each other.
Okay, NOW your most popular story.
My favourite fic and my most popular fic are actually one and the same this year! It's Shackles (Death Note, Light/L), by a long way; it has over three hundred kudos, whereas nothing else I've written this year has broken a hundred.
Story most underappreciated by the universe?
My fic with the fewest kudos is Scenes from the End of the World (Zanki Zero: Last Beginning, everyone/everyone), with eight, but, to be honest, I think it deserves that position. (Spoiler: it's going to be my answer to the 'story that could have been better' question.)
I suppose I'll say Pressure Valve (Person of Interest, Reese/Shaw). I'm not surprised it didn't have a huge reception; it's not exactly a popular pairing! But I really liked the idea of Reese and Shaw having no-strings-attached sex to channel their adrenaline after a shootout, and I was hoping more people would enjoy reading it.
Story that could have been better?
I think Scenes from the End of the World (Zanki Zero: Last Beginning, everyone/everyone) needed individual scenes between Haruto and each of the other clones. As it stands, with Haruto only having individual scenes with some of the other clones, it just feels a bit unstructured.
Sexiest story?
I'm going to say Pressure Valve (Person of Interest, Reese/Shaw), pretty much entirely for the line “Want me to hold you at gunpoint while you eat me out?”
Saddest story?
Little Talks (Little Hope), about lifelong guilt and grief after a tragedy. This game really upset me, and apparently I decided to deal with that by further upsetting myself in fanfiction.
Most fun?
I didn't really write any humour this year, come to think of it! Maybe Connecting Strands (Person of Interest/Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse), which is fun in more of a 'getting to see John Reese and Miles Morales team up' way.
Story with single sweetest moment?
Maybe Talking Strategy (Final Fantasy XVI, Clive/Jill/Cid), when Jill and Clive tell Cid that their relationship wouldn't feel complete without him.
Most fucked-up story?
drowning in the ocean (Lost, Jack/Kate), in which Kate simultaneously stabs Jack to death and makes out with him. Maybe I should have named this one for 'sexiest story'.
Hardest story to write?
The Other Option (The Last of Us, Ellie/Abby) was a real challenge. The problem with writing hatesex is that you have to get these characters who hate each other to have sex! It's particularly tricky when they're holding weapons and you need to get rid of those, because one character attempting to kiss another and immediately getting murdered would be pretty inconvenient.
Easiest/most fun story to write?
I'm going to say Across the Ocean (Lost, Jack/Kate). I loved writing about these two getting to know each other in a Sense8-esque 'teleporting into each other's lives' way. I'm still delighted that my mum enjoyed this fic.
Did any stories shift your perception of the characters?
I feel I learn something new about Light Yagami every time I write a fic about him! My perception of him doesn't necessarily change, but it solidifies. In particular, I found Up Close really interesting to write; even if Light hates the fact that he killed someone with his own hands, he's always careful to construct his thinking in a way that lets him avoid remorse specifically for the act of murder. The problem isn't that he killed her; the problem is that he killed her in such an ugly, inconvenient way.
Most overdue story?
Having shipped Light/himself for fourteen years, I was delighted to finally write about Light giving himself a dubcon blowjob in Awakening (Death Note, Light/himself).
Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them?
Writing a soulmate AU felt like a risk! I'd never written one before, and I don't typically read soulmate AUs either, so I didn't really know any of the conventions of the genre; I just wandered in blindly, making up my own soulmate system as I went. I was concerned that the result would feel strange or offputting for fans of this sort of AU, but Shackles (Death Note, Light/L) ended up being by far my most popular fic of the year.
I suppose I learnt that it's okay to depart from convention or put your own spin on a genre. Or, to put it less generously, I suppose I learnt that sometimes you can do very little research and it'll turn out fine.
The Quarry might be a bit underrepresented here because I wrote six thematically similar fics for it in the space of a month. I had a blast with all of them, but it can be a little hard to distinguish them in my memory!