state of sekrit's fanfic life, summer 2014
I did this last year and found it useful for me. Basically, what am I currently working on? Well.
Craig/Clyde fic. I think I started writing this as a response to SOT, because I was interested in how stuff went down with Craig and Clyde there. In that way it’s sort of a response to canon like how L&K was a response to Mysterion. To be honest this is basically a will they/won’t they fic and guess what, they do, so it’s rather short on plot. I hope that finding out how they do is interesting at least. Like everything I write there’s a S/K subplot, but mostly I’m using this to really think about Craig, okay, he’s a very important character. This fic’s not very good, don’t get excited.
RIAT prequel. Ostensibly for julads, so I feel bad about bouncing this to work on the above story, but as this is something it’s taken me a long time to write with a healthy amount of research about something with which I’m not immediately familiar (namely, the academic culture of Oxford in the mid-late 1960s) I’d rather make it sound legitimate than just dash it off to finish it. I feel bad that much of the stuff on this list doesn’t have a whole lot of plot but in this case I do have a relatively concrete idea about what the characters want and where they’re going. Since RIAT is a thing (thought admittedly not a popular thing) there is some pointlessness in this fic, as you might as well know if you’re interested that Stan and Kyle don’t get together at the end of the fic or anything like that, so a lot of the will they/won’t they that gives a fic like this (about pining, I mean, at its core) its weight is automatically negligible. At the same time it’s also about the cultural and sexual mores of postwar Britain right at the moment when the 1960s counterculture forces many to step out of repression and into the climate of sexual liberation. In this dumb timeline this coincides with the characters ending their educations and moving into “adult” society. So that’s my next thing after I finish the C/C fic. Honestly of all the things in this post, this fic is probably the only item of discernible quality! Except for Vikings, of course, see below.
70s fic. I have not done much work on this in the past year, though I have advanced it a bit. It’s still at about 100k and I still plan to finish it, seriously edit it, and post it. The main reason I haven’t worked on it in a while is that the vast majority of my attention since the last time this was my main focus went to finishing last year’s big bang and finishing the eighth chapter of RIAT. Part of why I’m not bothered by taking so long is that the story’s not especially good; it’s fun to write and a lot of it is gratifying, but the plot is essentially “Stan and Kyle have gay sex in the 1970s” which sounds fun but I think 110+k of that isn’t actually going to result in a fic many people like.
FTM Kyle 3. Nervous to work on this at all because honestly it’s not super great or super compelling. I was very proud of the first two parts and I’m not sure I can close this thing out with any kind of skill. The conceit of the whole thing is ridiculous; I’ve never felt comfortable with the idea and had locked the original fic so it was friends-only, but then I got positive feedback on it and was encouraged to unlock it for all to enjoy. Then the follow-up didn’t get a lot of comments and what comments I did get on it seemed to say that it wasn’t as good as the first part. So basically I have written a lot of this and I think as a story (you know, about the arc of Kyle’s and Stan’s lives) is incomplete - but, I’m afraid of doing a bad job and/or ruining what I’ve already written, and/or pissing people off. Hard life, friends.
~
On the docket:
RIAT 9. Since it took me two years to finish and post the last chapter surely I can wait another two years to post the next chapter!
SOT AU. I’m very very excited to write this, though I also assume no one’s excited about the game anymore and I lost my good window. Anyway, it’s an AU set in the world of the game, Zaron or whatever. A great human/elf war has been raging for a while to the point where Cartman and Kyle are both getting kind of desperate to bring the fighting to a close. It would take something crazy for either of them to concede, though, which leaves a dearth of options. Just so you know I plan on incorporating mpreg into this. I mean, it’s a game with a huge magic element, so that’s not so weird? she wrote, trying to justify it.
Vikings. I have written about this before. Basically there’s a blood feud, etc. Icelandic saga language and so on.
TA fic. Stan is Kyle’s TA in an AU setting where they don’t know each other.
Kenny/Cartman. One day I shall finish this, my magnum opus. This is apparently the only non-AU on this list besides Craig/Clyde; how sad is that?
Purim fic. I started writing this and it’s funny but it admittedly made more sense back around Purim. Seriously, look up the story of Purim and tell me a South Park Purim AU isn’t basically perfect.
Halloween fic. Given the speed at which I write I am going to have drop some other project from the list up there in order to have this done by the end of the year, let alone October 31, 2014.
~
last year’s list: updates
FTM Kyle #2 - posted it here
RIAT ch. 8 - posted it here (!!!)
70s fic - see above
Everything I rated “Enthusiastic to finish” - currently above!
"St. Rosa and the Swallows, or, Notes on Camp" - posted it here as a scrap
Love Boat (With Men) - was never something I meant to finish, though I recently reread the first three chapters and was like, jesus christ, this story is actually pretty decently written
Butters/Craig fic - nothing doing
Physiotherapy - still convinced this is a great idea, but with a million other things to write I don’t know that I’ll ever circle back round to it, even as I refuse to let go of the concept
maritime AU - now part of Halloween fic, above
Kyle is drag queen - someone else should write this so I can read it
Kyle is a mermaid - not going to happen, though negniahn makes some quality mermaid Kyle art
Craig/Clyde fic. I think I started writing this as a response to SOT, because I was interested in how stuff went down with Craig and Clyde there. In that way it’s sort of a response to canon like how L&K was a response to Mysterion. To be honest this is basically a will they/won’t they fic and guess what, they do, so it’s rather short on plot. I hope that finding out how they do is interesting at least. Like everything I write there’s a S/K subplot, but mostly I’m using this to really think about Craig, okay, he’s a very important character. This fic’s not very good, don’t get excited.
RIAT prequel. Ostensibly for julads, so I feel bad about bouncing this to work on the above story, but as this is something it’s taken me a long time to write with a healthy amount of research about something with which I’m not immediately familiar (namely, the academic culture of Oxford in the mid-late 1960s) I’d rather make it sound legitimate than just dash it off to finish it. I feel bad that much of the stuff on this list doesn’t have a whole lot of plot but in this case I do have a relatively concrete idea about what the characters want and where they’re going. Since RIAT is a thing (thought admittedly not a popular thing) there is some pointlessness in this fic, as you might as well know if you’re interested that Stan and Kyle don’t get together at the end of the fic or anything like that, so a lot of the will they/won’t they that gives a fic like this (about pining, I mean, at its core) its weight is automatically negligible. At the same time it’s also about the cultural and sexual mores of postwar Britain right at the moment when the 1960s counterculture forces many to step out of repression and into the climate of sexual liberation. In this dumb timeline this coincides with the characters ending their educations and moving into “adult” society. So that’s my next thing after I finish the C/C fic. Honestly of all the things in this post, this fic is probably the only item of discernible quality! Except for Vikings, of course, see below.
70s fic. I have not done much work on this in the past year, though I have advanced it a bit. It’s still at about 100k and I still plan to finish it, seriously edit it, and post it. The main reason I haven’t worked on it in a while is that the vast majority of my attention since the last time this was my main focus went to finishing last year’s big bang and finishing the eighth chapter of RIAT. Part of why I’m not bothered by taking so long is that the story’s not especially good; it’s fun to write and a lot of it is gratifying, but the plot is essentially “Stan and Kyle have gay sex in the 1970s” which sounds fun but I think 110+k of that isn’t actually going to result in a fic many people like.
FTM Kyle 3. Nervous to work on this at all because honestly it’s not super great or super compelling. I was very proud of the first two parts and I’m not sure I can close this thing out with any kind of skill. The conceit of the whole thing is ridiculous; I’ve never felt comfortable with the idea and had locked the original fic so it was friends-only, but then I got positive feedback on it and was encouraged to unlock it for all to enjoy. Then the follow-up didn’t get a lot of comments and what comments I did get on it seemed to say that it wasn’t as good as the first part. So basically I have written a lot of this and I think as a story (you know, about the arc of Kyle’s and Stan’s lives) is incomplete - but, I’m afraid of doing a bad job and/or ruining what I’ve already written, and/or pissing people off. Hard life, friends.
~
On the docket:
RIAT 9. Since it took me two years to finish and post the last chapter surely I can wait another two years to post the next chapter!
SOT AU. I’m very very excited to write this, though I also assume no one’s excited about the game anymore and I lost my good window. Anyway, it’s an AU set in the world of the game, Zaron or whatever. A great human/elf war has been raging for a while to the point where Cartman and Kyle are both getting kind of desperate to bring the fighting to a close. It would take something crazy for either of them to concede, though, which leaves a dearth of options. Just so you know I plan on incorporating mpreg into this. I mean, it’s a game with a huge magic element, so that’s not so weird? she wrote, trying to justify it.
Vikings. I have written about this before. Basically there’s a blood feud, etc. Icelandic saga language and so on.
TA fic. Stan is Kyle’s TA in an AU setting where they don’t know each other.
Kenny/Cartman. One day I shall finish this, my magnum opus. This is apparently the only non-AU on this list besides Craig/Clyde; how sad is that?
Purim fic. I started writing this and it’s funny but it admittedly made more sense back around Purim. Seriously, look up the story of Purim and tell me a South Park Purim AU isn’t basically perfect.
Halloween fic. Given the speed at which I write I am going to have drop some other project from the list up there in order to have this done by the end of the year, let alone October 31, 2014.
~
last year’s list: updates
FTM Kyle #2 - posted it here
RIAT ch. 8 - posted it here (!!!)
70s fic - see above
Everything I rated “Enthusiastic to finish” - currently above!
"St. Rosa and the Swallows, or, Notes on Camp" - posted it here as a scrap
Love Boat (With Men) - was never something I meant to finish, though I recently reread the first three chapters and was like, jesus christ, this story is actually pretty decently written
Butters/Craig fic - nothing doing
Physiotherapy - still convinced this is a great idea, but with a million other things to write I don’t know that I’ll ever circle back round to it, even as I refuse to let go of the concept
maritime AU - now part of Halloween fic, above
Kyle is drag queen - someone else should write this so I can read it
Kyle is a mermaid - not going to happen, though negniahn makes some quality mermaid Kyle art