2012 Year End Fic Meme
This year I wrote and posted*:
*These are AO3 links. You can find everything on my LJ under the "fic" tag (and my master list, once I can be arsed to update it).
3 Chris/Zach (ST RPF): Wrecked, Paperback Writer, Tribute
2 Garcia/Reid (Criminal Minds): Variables, Strange Attractors
8 Derek/Stiles (Teen Wolf): The Perils of Fungi, Mercy Has a Human Heart, Chaos Theory, Said the Joker to the Thief, Don’t Want to Waste It, P and Not-P, Kick at the Darkness ‘Til It Bleeds Daylight, Cherrybomb
Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you'd predicted? In 2010, I wrote 238,879 words. Last year, it was 122,277. This year, it’s 80,197 words, which - while not as much as I wanted - is still more than I thought I’d written. And that’s not taking into account the ~55K-word fic I’ve written but not yet posted, so… wow, I guess about the same number of words as last year, just fewer fics.
What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January? Ahaha. Ha. ::buries face in hands:: teenwolf
What's your own favorite story of the year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you happiest? Hmm… Strange Attractors, maybe? Something about Garcia/Reid makes so much sense to me (canon be damned), and of my fic that could be considered “canon-compliant,” I guess this is the one I feel is the most authentic, the best way I can say here, this is how it happens.
Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them? Writing het, a rare pairing, and an overage/underage pairing. What did I learn? Hmm… to be more open to writing new things, whether it’s a pairing that has almost no foundation whatsoever in canon or something that used to squick me pretty hardcore. And to be less judgmental of myself when writing these things - one day I swear I’ll enter a new fandom without apologizing for it first. Baby steps.
From my past year of writing, what was . . .
My best story of this year: Oh lord, I don't know. You pick one.
My most popular story of this year: By AO3 hits, Cherrybomb, though the most intense emotional responses I got were from Tribute. If you want to get mathematical (and who doesn’t?) my highest hit-to-kudos ratio came, very surprisingly, from Said the Joker to the Thief, followed closely by P and Not-P.
Story of mine most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion: I feel bad saying this in light of what I just wrote a second ago, but… Tribute. I worked really hard and put a lot of myself into that, and it just so happens I posted it at a time when Trek RPF - already a small fandom - isn’t very active. And I hate to complain, because the comments I did get were wonderful, I just wanted more of them because I am greedy. Maybe when more Pinto interviews start to come out and I finally write that sequel that I went and promised…
Most fun story to write: The Perils of Fungi, probably, because I was just so far out of my comfort zone anyway, writing underage in a new fandom, that I just went for broke. I need to write more cracky Teen Wolf - the angst is great and all, but there is the possibility for so much silliness.
Story with the single sexiest moment: Kick at the Darkness, when Stiles grabs Derek’s bound hands. It was actually the mental image (aside from the original picture) that drove the progression of the fic. Though Stiles going down on girl!Derek in Don’t Want to Waste It is a close second.
Most "Holy crap, that's wrong, even for you" story: Anything with underage (The Perils of Fungi, Chaos Theory, P and Not-P). As I’ve said before, it’s always been a huge squick of mine, and I was sort of appalled at myself for falling so hard for Derek/Stiles. Dipping my toes into TW fandom has been a wakeup call into how Not a Big Deal this is to most everyone else, even on actual TV, but I don’t think I’ll ever really be comfortable with it. I age the characters up whenever I can.
Story that shifted my own perceptions of the characters: Probably Mercy Has a Human Heart, because it was only the second TW fic I wrote and it forced me to get inside Derek’s head and just rrrrrroll around in the angst.
Hardest story to write: Actually, nothing fought back very hard this year; I don't know whether that's a good thing or not. I think I put the most time and effort into Tribute, though.
Biggest Disappointment: Apart from wishing I’d written more, my biggest disappointment is less with my writing than with the few (and there really weren't that many) nastygrams and just flat-out bewildering comments on a couple of my TW fics. But even though I had a few days of “Fuck this, I’m taking my ball and going home,” they didn’t stick with me quite as much as they might have a year or two ago.
Biggest Surprise: Have I mentioned Teen Wolf?
Most Unintentionally Telling Story: I feel like you, the reader, should be the one answering this question - though I’m not entirely sure I’d want to hear the answer. Maybe Don’t Want to Waste it, because girl!Derek and, um, yeah. Though I don’t think that was unintentional.
My fic writing goals for 2013: Okay, I will be specific this year:
1) Edit and post the 55K beast
2) Write the sequel to Tribute
3) Write the little Kirk/Spock/Uhura post-volcano idea that’s been floating around in my head
4) Finish the Garcia/Reid fic that’s about ¾ of the way done but got abandoned when I got hit upside the head by fuckin’ Teen Wolf
5) MOAR PINTO
Favorite 5 Opening Line(s):
“I’m going to kill you, Cho. I’m going to stab you in the jugular with this pen.”
(Paperback Writer)
SOS 911 GET TO STILES HOUSE *NOW* DO NOT USE WINDOW
(The Perils of Fungi)
Danny knows this particular set of moves. Knows them very personally. There’s the “sit on one buttcheek ‘til it goes numb, then switch to the other” technique. But that only works for so long; the chairs in the chemistry classroom - hell, all the classrooms - are brutal.
(P and Not-P)
Stiles always takes his time buckling the collar around Derek’s throat. It’s something that should be appreciated: the thick, worn, fleece-lined leather dark and heavy against pale skin.
(Kick at the Darkness ‘Til it Bleeds Daylight)
Shit, shit, shit. Stiles is so totally fucked.
(Cherrybomb)
Favorite 5 Closing Line(s):
“I do totally owe you, though,” Stiles says solemnly.
“Yeah, I just saved your life.” Probably. That’s probably what this was about.
“Well, yeah, that. But mostly you saved me from boning Scott. Sadly, it is a debt so great I can never truly repay it. Unless you get mushroom-roofied and try to bone-”
Derek is so glad he can stop that sentence. With his tongue.
(The Perils of Fungi)
“Thank you, butterfly, wherever you are,” Stiles whispers, letting the sex-coma take him away in its pillowy arms of pillowiness.
“Weren’t wrong about the aneurysm” is the last thing he hears before he drifts offs.
(Chaos Theory)
Until then, all Derek could do was wait. Wait, and finish off the twice-stolen whiskey that wouldn’t even get him drunk. He slouched back against the rock to look up again at the moon, which was on the wane. It wouldn’t last, of course; soon enough he’d be dealing with another round of three - no, four now - barely-controllable betas on a full moon.
But not until after the moon had waned into full darkness.
(Said the Joker to the Thief)
Three
The last thing Chris saw before the darkness swallowed him were Zach’s burning dark eyes, and a quick nod that told him he could do this. He could survive.
Two
One
(Tribute)
Eyebrow configuration #31: The things that come out of your mouth are absurd, but I put up with you because you totally sex me up right.
Yeah, #31 is Stiles’ favorite.
(P and Not-P)
Favorite 10 20 (screw you, I’ll do what I want) Line(s) from Anywhere:
“Your argument would be much more, ah, persuasive,” Chris says, reaching up to grab the headboard, “if you weren’t currently sucking my left nut.”
A wet popping sound, then: “You complaining?”
“No, just pointing out that my right one’s getting a bit lone-hnnngh, fuck, there we go.”
(Wrecked)
“Yeah, you want any baked goods tonight, you’ll be paying for them yourself.” Zach paused. “That might have been an innuendo. I’m not entirely sure.” (Paperback Writer)
Acting on impulse, she stands and makes her way over to Reid, takes each of his broad hands in her smaller ones. He stares down at them, like he can’t quite believe that someone’s touching him, and it breaks Garcia’s heart a little. That’s what hands were made for, baby boy.
(Strange Attractors)
Scott looks at him, but his eyes still don’t quite focus. “We were in the woods. And there was this… weird looking purple mushroom thing. We didn’t get that close to it, Derek, I swear to God, but it burst open and there were these spores-”
Derek groans. “Stiles poked it with a stick, didn’t he?”
That makes Scott snap out of it for a second. “Yeah, he did. How’d you know?”
Derek shouldn’t have to explain to Scott that Stiles lives to poke things with sticks - mostly metaphorically, but apparently literally, too - so he just growls, for real this time, and says, “Get out of the way.”
(The Perils of Fungi)
“Stiles, get the fuck off me,” Derek growls, skipping to full-on Alpha mode, which would be a lot more intimidating if Stiles would stop sucking on his neck long enough to see Derek’s eyes go red.
But apparently Stiles takes the growing tension in Derek’s body as an invitation to just go ahead and start rolling his hips against Derek’s body slowly, almost lovingly. “Fuck, yeah, boss me around,” Stiles whimpers against Derek’s skin. “Tell me what to do.”
The irony is completely lost on Stiles, which is sort of tragic in its own way.
(The Perils of Fungi)
The worst, Derek knows, are on his chest: yes, there was an actual harpy, and yes, it got its claws in Stiles’ chest before he could mace the everloving hell out of it. Because yes, Stiles brought mace to a harpy fight. (“It’s got eyes. And if it’s got eyes, I’m gonna mace it. Cryptozoology Combat 101.”)
(Mercy Has a Human Heart)
He could no more resist this than he could the power of the full moon, and that’s the one thing, the one hold over him that isn’t frightening. Never has been, not for him. It’s in his blood, tempting and familiar and irresistible. It only hurts if he tries to fight it.
(Mercy Has a Human Heart)
“I can actually hear you guilt-tripping, you know. It’s my own personal superpower. If I had a choice, I’d probably have gone with flight or laser vision or the ability to, like, make Jackson inexplicably itchy in bad places at will. But instead I got ‘Derek thinks he can’t have nice things’ radar. And let me tell you, it is supremely annoying. I’ve decided to dedicate this entire week to sexing you out of it. Because I am a very nice thing.”
(Mercy Has a Human Heart)
It’s probably a horrific oversimplification of a very intricate theory, but Stiles just decides to go with it: somewhere in Malaysia last week, a butterfly flapped its wings, weather patterns were forever altered, the barometric pressure dropped, and now Derek Hale is stretched out naked on Stiles’ bed, head tipped back over the side, mouth open and waiting for Stiles’ cock.
(Chaos Theory)
Stiles glanced over and his eyes narrowed. “Oh, perfect. No, really, just cosmically… superlative. The very last person on earth I want to see shows up. No, sorry, second to last. Forgot about Jackson there for a moment. A really good moment. And wait, Peter’s back from the fucking dead, so third. Congratulations, Derek, according to the Stilinksi Asshole Index, you are the third most awful person I know. Cheers.”
(Said the Joker to the Thief)
“Thanks, Zoe,” Chris said. “Any advice?”
He’d been referring to the interview, but Zoe’s face went deadly serious for a moment, and Chris had the fleeting thought that she’d be a terrifying threat in the arena. “Don’t let your guard down. Don’t hesitate. And don’t leave someone wounded. I know you think you aren’t a killer, but you aren’t doing them a favor, and it could save your life later on. If you need to take someone down, make sure you take them out.”
(Tribute)
“Come on. Grab your knife and let’s go kill Big Bird.”
That earns her a distressingly enthusiastic “Yes, ma’am.”
(Don’t Want to Waste It)
“The puffy kind or the regular?”
“Puffy? What the hell, man, you know I’m a traditionalist.”
“Yeah, sorry, sorry.”
“Puffy Cheetos, honest to god…” Stiles trails off. Then hangs up.
(P and Not-P)
“Since when is Lydia thinking about your ass?”
“See, I want to say ‘since always’ and have it secretly be true, but I also want a set of solid gold hubcaps and a special law of physics that allows for a real, working lightsaber, but none of that’s happening.”
(P and Not-P)
They don’t really have rules for this. Maybe they should, maybe that’s what responsible people do, but Stiles makes no claims to responsibility and Derek only half-fits the “people” bit anyway, so they make it up as they go along.
(Kick at the Darkness ‘Til it Bleeds Daylight)
Stiles finds all this out from a very loquacious transvestite (transgendered? Stiles isn’t certain of the proper nomenclature here, but he wants to be respectful) prostitute as they both wait at the station to get processed. Connie Lingus is quite impressed with Officer Hale, however, and she seems very regretful that he hasn’t been the one to bust her yet. Stiles assures her that there’s still time. This pleases Ms. Lingus greatly.
(Cherrybomb)
But then Derek’s pulling up in front of the school, telling Stiles to get his ass in the building, using nothing but his eyebrows. Is that something they teach at the New York police academy? “You shouldn’t have,” Stiles says.
“You’re welcome.”
“No, I mean you really shouldn’t have. I’m just in time for chemistry. I could go in there and invent ice-nine and destroy the world.”
(Cherrybomb)
Stiles’ arms and his jaw go immediately slack, all rational thought gone, because a) his mom knows about his unofficial criminal record, and b) his mom just said “penis.” Twice.
(Cherrybomb)
Suddenly, something slots into place in his brain and he feels incredibly childish for not having known: his mom has a life. She doesn’t just work and cook and fret about Stiles. She has friends she goes to lunch with while Stiles is out destroying things.
(Cherrybomb)
And now he’s definitely high, because he looks down at the despoiled hood of the Camaro and giggles. “Hope you wanted racing stripes.” (Cherrybomb)