A Fic Year In Review - 2012
Is it New Year's Eve? It is! I almost forgot about it, honestly. It has been a busy week. I may post on all the shenanigans later.
But for now, as per tradition, this means it's time fo another ic Year In Review.
January
I basically didn’t get around to any of 2011’s Xmas prompts until 2012.
Xmas Giftfics 2011 Part 1
This one was the Fifth Act cross-dressing one.
It was a fun, but I have to say, it was around this point I started to get a little bit tired of writing Cloud cross-dressing fics. Never tired o readin it, never that, but I’m just about out of ideas on how to keep playing on this trope.
Xmas Giftfics Part 2
This included immortal!Ciel (Kuroshitsuji) and Cats the Musical
I had waaaay too much fun with both of these prompts. I’m actually really fond of the immortal!Ciel one, although admittedly the inclusion of real people (or rather, celebrity characters based on real people) felt a little odd. This is why I’ve never been able to get into real person fic - or even very many fandoms based on live-action. Comic book movie fandoms are pretty much the only exception to this, and this is probably because the characters greatly overshadow the actors.
Cats the Musical one resulted in me developing a conspiracy about Mr Mistoffoles which is now my new personal head canon.
Xmas Giftfics Part 3
Another Witchmaker Duran epilogue, happy AU epilogue to Dear Kunsel, Fifth Act ficlet where young Cloud discovers the true identity of his ‘uncle’.
On the first one, it was really, really odd revisiting such an incredibly old fic. My writing style has change a lot for the better, I hope), and it was something of a genre hop too, since Another Witchmaker was overwhelmingly romantic comedy and this prompt called for something more sombre. Duran POV as well. I am so terribly glad I chose to write that entire fic in Angela POV.
On the second, I had some misgivings about writing even a giftfic fill for Dear Kunsel, since I felt like it took away from the ending a little, but in the end guilt won out, and it was nice to write that scene.
I liked the Fifth Act ficlet too, although I had the feeling that I was still writing Cloud as a barely-twelve year old and not a fourteen year old.
February
Xmas Giftfics Part 4
This was ‘prequel’ to Allure of Honey, i.e. Duodecim edition, dealing with the Duodecim-specific cast.
I’d actually already toyed with the idea of writing this when Duodecim came out, so the prompt was a welcome excuse. I don’t think it’s nearly as good as Allure of Honey turned out, but it was still a lot of fun to write.
Xmas Giftfics Part 5
Fifth Act and Fallacious Deity crossover.
Fallacious Deity was a weird fic for me in that I liked the concept a lot, but I didn’t feel like I really hit my writing stride with it until the fic was almost over. So it was a big surprise to get any kind of prompt request for it - and even odder to get a crossover request! It felt very meta, somehow. It’s a universe I could easily write a lot more in though, if I ever got around to it… I do suck at the whole ‘sequels’ thing.
March
In March I finally grew tired of writing prompt fills and moved on to a new fic.
That new fic was Dissidia: Second String.
Dissidia: Second String, Round 1
Dissidia: Second String, Round 2
Dissidia: Second String, Round 3
April
Dissidia: Second String, Round 4
Dissidia: Second String, Round 5
Dissidia: Second String, Round 6
May
Dissidia: Second String, Final Round
Dissidia: Second String, Bonus Round
These were a series of connected ficlets, exploring what Dissidia might have been like if the cast were made up by th second ost significant character in their respective Final Fantasies (disqualifying Duodecim appearances such as Yuna, Kain and Tifa.) The format was a little lazy - it was my attempt at making dealing with such a large cast more manageable, not really sure it was at all effective. Either way, not many people read it, so I have no idea if it worked or not. (Or maybe people did read it and it didn’t work and they were simply too polite to say?) Another thing I’ve discovered is that when writing Dissidia fic I have a weird habit of cutting away the actual battle scenes. Thinking on it, I realised this is entirely because I was thinking of it like writing cutscenes before and after the gameplay sections in Dissidia. Dammit, brain!
June
The rest of the year more or less just belonged to Beloved.
Beloved, Prologue
Beloved, Chapter 1
Beloved Chapter 2
Beloved Chapter 3
Beloved Chapter 4
July
Beloved Chapter 5
Beloved Chapter 6
Beloved Chapter 7
Beloved Chapter 8
August
Beloved Chapter 9
Beloved Chapter 10
Beloved Chapter 11
September
Beloved Chapter 12
Beloved Chapter 13
Beloved Chapter 14
Beloved Chapter 15
Beloved Chapter 16
October
Beloved Chapter 17
Beloved Chapter 18
Beloved Chapter 19
Beloved Chapter 20
November
November was a scarce month! Thinking back, there was a lot going on November, so that was probably why. Ouch!
Beloved Chapter 21
December
Beloved Chapter 22
Beloved Chapter 23
Beloved Chapter 24
Last Beloved chapter of the year! Only maybe three to four chapters left of this. It’s already longer than it was supposed to be. I originally planned for it to max out around 18 chapters. Whoops.
I still don’t quite know how I feel about Beloved - I was definitely unfocused while writing it, if I could go back in time there’s a lot I’d do differently. It grew a little bit more organically than normal - but in that sort of wild weed way, where you are only barely controlling it and it looks kind of pretty when it flowers but you can’t quite forget it’s a weed and there are meant to be other things growing there but it’s all out of your control really, short of ripping the field up and starting again. I'm glad I decided to take the plunge and use a beta for it because it needed it and has helped keep it on track. In any case, I am fond of it on a chapter-to-chapter basis, but as a whole? Not so sure. Probably won’t know until I post the last chapter.
Xmas Gifts 2012 Part 1
The first time in a long time I have actually been remotely punctual with even a couple of Christmas giftfics. This one included yet another Fifth Act spinoff (though this one a further spinoff from a previous prompt), a Fallacious Deity spin off (which I totally cheated with since I had a tiny block of dialogue already written to expand upon), and a straight up Dissidia prompt which spontaneously made me decide to ship Warrior of Light and Cloud, because… well, I don’t actually have a good reason. It made sense in my head at the time. I might have been tipsy on too much Christmas booze. I had an errant thought that WoL was a bit like Sephiroth and ran with it.
This set wound up being a bit melancholy overall though. Don’t know how that happened. I’ve been writing moody and dark fics all year, but I’ve not been depressed or anything, which is the usual source of moody fics. I need to look at injecting a bit more crack back into my writing before it becomes oppressively heavy.
So that's it for the year!
Total Year’s Output: pprox 110,000 words.
Up from last year! I have reversed the downward trend, success! And this is only counting posted fic. If I can keep it around this level I will be happy.
Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year or less than what you’d predicted?
About what I predicted, although I posted somethin every single month. This is the first time I’ve done that since I first started doing Fic Years in revie back in 2008.
Then again, that year was just stupid. It’s insane now that I look back at it.
What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January 2012?
There weren’t actually any surprises here at all - I’d had the Dissidia idea rolling around in my head before even Duodecim, and a Genesis/Cloud fic since somewhere near the end of The Fifth Act. The only real surprises were in the Christmas giftfics, but those don’t really count.
What’s your favourite story of the year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you happiest.
There aren’t exactly many to choose from! Beloved, I guess. Although I was also really fond of the Kuroshitsuji giftfic.
Do you have any fanfic goals for the New Year?
Want to square awa Beloved and also get through as many of the Xmas prompts as I can before I lose momentum. After that, I have an Avengers one-shot which is something like 70% finished that has stalled. And a couple of others FF7 fics I’d like to write, at which point I feel like I will have fulfilled all of my wishes in that fandom.
This is the part where I as you uys for feedback. Concrit, favourite/least favourites and why, posting suggestions, writing methodology discussion, anything you feel like sharing should the urge strike you. If not, thanks for another year!