#I’m almost sad it ended up being to cracky to keep in the story

[ghost-bxrd]

Jason opens his mouth to retort when his phone starts ringing.

And not any kind of ringing, no. It’s the fucking Spooky-Scary-Skeletons song.

This is a goddamn nightmare. He should have stayed in bed.

He has exactly two options.

One, not pick up.

Which would be a good option, the best option, if it were anybody else. Because Jason knows the fucker isn’t above trying to ring up the manor itself if he feels slighted.

Two, pick up. And suffer the most awkward birthday congratulations since… well, last year.

Jason glares at each and every curious Bat watching him from the sofa as he excuses himself and heads into the hall, pressing the green button with a long suffering sigh.

“What?”

“It has come to my attention that you have not yet contacted my daughter for your name day well wishes.“

Jason thunks his head against the wall.

“I’m busy.”

“I am aware,” Ra’s says smoothly, and Jason just knows the bastard is stirring his sinfully expensive blend of tea with some golden spoon, “And yet this has not stopped you before.”

“Is there a point to this call?”

“Yes. Do make sure to call my daughter soon. She is being quite insufferable.”

Righteous indignation rises inside Jason like hot coals.

“She isn’t—“

“She has disposed of three potential tutors since this morning,” Ra’s cuts him off, and Jason’s mouth snaps shut, “Yes, I do consider this to be insufferable. And your brother has brought it to my attention that the likely cause of her irritability is your lack of communication.”

“I’m busy.” Jason repeats, but it sounds petulant even to his own ears, “Look, I’ll call her as soon as I get out of here, ok?”

“Make sure that you do. Finding instructors is a difficult enough task without my daughter culling half their numbers before they even stepped across the threshold.”

“Maybe mom wouldn’t have to dispose of them if they were skilled enough to evade her.”

“Oh, some of them were,” Ra’s says drily, “But it proved to be for naught when she decided the your brother’s pets hadn’t had enough sustenance for the day.”

…so, maybe Jason should have called.

— silly little outtake of chpt X of What You’re Longing For (you claim to abhor)

[artbyblastweave]

BLASTWEAVE what does steven universe have in common with watchmen?

Both Steven Universe and Watchmen are groundbreaking entries in their respective genres that demonstrate a deep understanding of the appeal of the genre they’re working in, and engage with their ideas on a previously unheard-of level for the medium. That breaks ground and clears the way for what other works in the genre can get away with. 

Steven Universe showed that, well, first of all that you can make a cartoon that’s fundamentally ideologically queer beyond a few side characters, but also that you can have an emotionally intelligent and mature children's cartoon where the character nuance and depth and development are all taken very seriously. Watchmen showed that you could write serious and interesting narratives about superheroes if you were willing to roll with the crazy. (Neither of them was the first to do the things I’m ascribing to them, but I do think that they’re what made it stick for their respective fields.)

In doing so, though, both works create/created a catch 22 for all future works in their genre. Part of what made both of them so good is that they were willing to critically unpack and air out the ugly implications of their format that usually get chalked up to suspension of disbelief, and now that that’s out in the open it becomes very difficult not to think about how any other given work is or isn’t addressing those issues- even if they aren’t equipped to address those issues in the scope of the story they’re trying to tell. Watchmen asked questions about who sanctions superheroes, what qualifies you to do that work, where the line is between heroism and fascism or if there even is one, whether the agency to act means you have a right or a duty to act, whether anyone who seriously bought into the superhero thing could possibly be doing it for good reasons, and, if they somehow were, how long you can care with the intensity necessary to be an effective hero without suffering burnout (not long.) I literally can’t think of a single superhero thing worth reading that isn’t in some way in conversation with Watchmen - you now kind of have to answer those questions, explicitly or implicitly, even if your books thesis is “Alan Moore sucks eggs and being a superhero is very sustainable and fantastic.” If you just leave the question of whether your superheroes are justified completely unaddressed, there’s an uncomfortable discordance there, because we’ve seen the extreme end of that sliding scale in the form of the Comedian and if the narrative doesn’t engage with what makes the protagonist not Edward Blake, it can feel worrisome. If they try and then botch it it can feel alarming.

Steven Universe has a similar thing going on, at least for me. It’s the only unironic, non-parodic children’s series that’s really, seriously unpacked how fucked up and traumatic it would be to grow up as the archetypical All-loving Spirited Saturday Morning Cartoon Protagonist, how warped and dysfunctional a household that enabled that lifestyle could be at its worst, and what the future looks like when your whole childhood was centered on a now-ended conflict. ( a lot of cartoons flirt with that last one but don’t commit.) I’ve seen jokes and intended-as-cracky fan theories about this for years, surrounding lots of other cartoons (Ben 10, Pokemon, Powerpuff Girls) but almost never with the assumption that the creators are on the same page as them. I’ve seen stories that are post-modern reimaginings using the same general archetypes or whatever (Venture Brothers) but that’s not this! SU told an entertaining story earnestly, and then engaged with the emotional fallout of the story it told, with an unheard-of breadth and depth. A whole season of unpacking! No other show has ever been allowed to sink that much effort into closure. That’s usually what Fanfic is for.

I think it’s great, and that shows like Infinity Train and The Owl House are able to go as hard as they do largely because of Steven Universe’s precedent- but no matter how good a cartoon is, I can’t watch them without having this voice in the back of my head going “Oh, these children are going to grow up to be broken wrecks, bar an extensive and harsh healing process that kinda hurts to watch, huh.”

The issue is that not every cartoon can be Steven Universe, where the project was to thoughtfully and sensitively unpack this stuff. It’s a fair bet that we’ll probably never see a show with that exact project again (not least because of the loss of novelty value.) You’ve got your own stories you wanna tell that’ll run their own course, mostly aimed at children, there objectively isn’t narrative or financial room for most stories to unpack these assumptions if that wasn’t the goal going in. For example, Gravity Falls had pretty tight storytelling and a narrative that absolutely had room for a post-script "where-do-we-go-from-here” plot- it sped-run the “oh no, childhood’s ending” thing- and it’s pretty telling that the aftermath, healing process, interpersonal relationships and so forth are one of the things that that fandom heavily fixates on. The narrative had such a clean ending that it made people go looking for the mess. That’s not bad! It’s how most storytelling works! But now I look at any cartoon with kid heroes that’s meant to be taken even marginally seriously and go, Oh. Win the battle, lose the war. Then I feel sad. The contrast, of course, is that most superhero works actually can be, and in fact benefit from trying to be like Watchmen, because all the questions Watchmen raises about the ethics of power are also just.... like.... the most interesting storytelling hooks if you want to write a cape thing with real themes. They’re the kind of stories we’d have gotten years prior naturally if not for the CCA boondoggle. Admittedly it kinda creates a different problem where most “good” cape media is inescapably self-referential and draws on picking apart the conventions of a 60-70-year old canon that hasn’t been in wide circulation in years. But! I also think there’s a stronger obligation there to keep superhero fans in check- if your superhero thing isn’t making the reader question the ethics of violence and individual heroism in the face of systemic injustice, you wind up with people who unironically think Frank Castle is a role model to be emulated. We all know that guy. Children’s media doesn’t really produce that guy the same way, although it can draw them in from other corners. Superhero media often needs to be self-critical in a way children’s cartoons don’t always have to be.

[laufire]

And you know I am always here for any crumbs of the Belaatiel AU or Ruby's Terror Twins xDD

Belastiel AU

I'm trying to find stuff that I haven't told you about already xD, and that isn't too spoilery lol. Hmm. Okay. I can't resist the idea of still keeping the canon s5 Megstiel moment, since there's no reason not to. Since the fic is solely from Bela's POV I'll get creative on how she witness it/finds out about it, because a little petty jealousy is fun to write xD

I'm taking Bela along for the Endverse to meet her future self, as you know (she's going to be more openly questioning on whether it's a real future or a simulation than Dean was, but it's not going to be confirmed either way because I love the doubt. Although in fics I tend to operate on the premise that it's a genuine possible future For Reasons). The first thing she's going to ask to endverse!Bela when they're alone is if she's told her Castiel about her past, which tells you a lot of where she stands with him in the present time, that she can imagine telling him.

I'm also bringing her into the past to meet young Mary and John Winchester, because apparently I have a huge witness for Bela meeting and being affected by mothers who actually care and show devotion to their children (but then trying to dissuade them from dying for them lmao). I've written a little of this part and there's probably going to be some unintentional comedy there.

-*Anna plans to kill John and Mary to prevent the apocalypse* / Bela: hmm, the world would keep spinning so it's not a bad plan. But oh well, Sam and I are sort of friends, Castiel would be sad, and most importantly I'd still be stuck in Hell. Let's not rock the boat.

-*Sam and Dean try to convince Mary to leave John and save herself and the world* / Mary: but I'm already pregnant with Dean! / Bela: girl, that has a very easy solution.

BTW, thinking about she meeting them made me start headcanoning that she did meet future John once. He never wrote it in his little hunter journal because she conned him in a most humiliating way. She took care of keeping tabs on him so they wouldn't cross paths again because she has survival instincts (and anticipating the moment she could raid his hidden storages for occult objects lol).

The first time she wants to kiss Castiel is when he comes to let her know Alastair, the demon in charge of torture in Hell, is dead. It's not necessarily the first time she acknowledges (to herself, vaguely) that there are some pesky feelings there, but it's the first time they express themselves in such an ~earthly way lol (Castiel and earthly are two concepts she'd struggle to mix at first, probably).

Ruby's Terror Twins

For those not In The Know lol, this story was inspired by a ridiculous dream I had where Ruby yelled "I'm pregnant!" before Dean stabbed her, startling so she could grab her knife and get away. She returned later with a toddler alternately called Lucille or Angelica. I couldn't decide which name I liked better, so I made them twins. This WIP will consist of series of one-shots without following a strict chronological order, all of them cracky mixed with horrifying concepts (because kids lol).

Other than the very beginning, more focuses on Ruby and on Sam, I look forward to writing them a little more grown up, with more developed personalities. I'm even on the verge of making them grow a little faster than humans, thought not by much, so I can get there more quickly. Physically they're both brunette; Lucille has Sam's hazel eyes and Angelica Ruby's brown ones, and they'll both grow to be enormously tall.

Lucille is the """nice""" twin (kind of hate describing them like this given all the things I've seen in the Legacies fandom lol -a show that definitely influences how I think of this series a little-, but still). It's in large part a reaction to others' perception of her and her demonic nature, striving to be as gentle as possible, to make Sam proud instead of wary, to connect with people etc. She has psychic powers like Sam, and a temper she struggles to control.

Angelica is more abrasive and difficult. She went the opposite direction: if they're going to hate me for being part demon, fuck them, I'll give them demon XD. She's far less in touch with her powers, practicing magic to compensate (Rowena finds teaching her a delight lol. Ruby is a far more impatient teacher). She's very jealous of Jack and Jack-Sam (frankly, Lucille is too, but she deals with it by welcoming him with open arms. Angelica found him easier to stomach when Dean hated him and she could find some sisterly ~solidarity with Jack there). The first time Sam went to hold her she showed her demon eyes and he almost drops her xD

Family wise, they're fiercely devoted to each other, even if they often fight for their very different approaches to... anything lol. They have a complicated relationship with Ruby, who lbr would be a terrible mother xD, yet they're both huge mommy's girls at the end of the day. Huge daddy's girls too, but mommy comes first xD. They're both a bit afraid of Dean. I haven't thought that much about them meeting Mary, but I could imagine it going in different ways. OTOH grandchildren?? And half demons at that. OTOH they're kids, which might be easier for Mary to deal with than meeting their sons as older than her.

Lucille's first proto-crush was Bela (who never died in this AU cause I said so). Angelica's was Meg. They both think Castiel is incredibly cool, to almost everyone's bafflement lol. Crowley sometimes jokes about making them heirs to his throne just to piss off Sam. Their favourite family, however, is Jody, who never treated them as anything other than two kids deserving of kindness.

Send me a potential AU and I’ll tell you five fun facts that would happen in a story.

[breadclubrising]

What is Kenny wins, and he chooses to fight Kota? Especially since if he then loses, it strengthens Kota’s position where right now he’s a bit adrift and seems to be thrown under the bus a lot. (I don’t want them to fight but it seems inevitable that they eventually be forced to, surely it could be a positive if they played it right?)

Yeah, I’m not excited about this. I think Kenny will win at Dominion, but I don’t see any universe in which Kota wins the belt from Kenny in the event of an Omega vs. Ibushi match at Wrestle Kingdom. I actually don’t think we’re getting that match anyway; it doesn’t seem like Kota’s important enough within NJPW to merit main-eventing Wrestle Kingdom.

But if it does happen, I don’t think Kenny will challenge Kota outright. In-storyline Kenny is not in any way looking to fight his Golden Lover. And I don’t think that Kota would challenge him, either, nor do I foresee a heel turn or betrayal. I mean… I know it’s wrestling but they’ve been building an epic love story for the past nine years, and we’d be meant to believe that it would all end over a championship belt? I hope they won’t go that route.

But it doesn’t fucking matter how they get there, because all roads involving Ibushi lead to Omega winning at Wrestle Kingdom. The most likely way to get Kota as the challenger is to have him win the G1, and the G1 winner has never won at WK, for one thing. For another, Kenny’s like… the biggest wrestling star in the world right now. And Kota probably hasn’t signed a full-time contract with NJPW. Plus, Kenny’s never beaten Kota (they’ve had two matches against each other), so it’s probably time for that to come full circle. I guess. 

BUUUUUT below the cut are TWO booking ideas for Omega to retain the IWGP Heavyweight belt against Ibushi at WK 13:

One that’s in the realm of possibility and is interesting-ish, and makes Ibushi look as good as possible (which is not very good).

One that is completely batshit but super fun, is technically possible, and most importantly wouldn’t bury Ibushi or the Golden Lovers.

Here’s my realistic-ish booking, if we really have to do this: 

Give Ibushi a monster G1 run, but have him still lose, either in the final or in the block finals, and make it very dicey whether he lost because he didn’t want to fight Kenny, or because he just plain lost. 

Have the G1 winner call out Ibushi as the challenger for the briefcase defense, because it wouldn’t be believable that he’d make the challenge himself. 

Cody would be the best story-wise, although chances are basically nonexistent that he’d win the G1 (Kenny was the first gaijin to do it ever, in 2016). But you can totally see Cody calling out Ibushi just to fuck with him some more, and twist the knife by making Ibushi choose between losing to Cody or fighting Kenny at Wrestle Kingdom.

Naito and Tanahashi both have reasons why they’d call out Ibushi, and so would ZSJ or even Okada (he wants someone who’s going to give him a real fight, maybe). Basically, give Ibushi a situation where he can’t really let himself lose so he doesn’t have to fight Kenny.

Anyway, no one has ever lost their briefcase defense. Make Ibushi the first person to beat the briefcase holder and steal the WK main event.

Then you have the Golden Lovers, who tried everything to avoid fighting each other, forced to fight at WK. You get an angsty buildup where instead of shit-talking and peacocking it’s like, ‘well this is how it has to be and I’m gonna do my best’. (V says there should be at least one pull-apart but this is my crack booking and I don’t want that.)

Optionally, make it extra awful by at some point having them win the heavyweight tag belts and later have to vacate them so they can fight at Wrestle Kingdom. Very symbolic, being forced to give up something they won as a team so they can be opponents.

Yawn. I’ve got something much stupider in mind:

Here’s an impossibly cracky ridiculous booking that would still let Omega win at WK, but not bury Ibushi or the Golden Lovers:

Kota challenges Naito for the IC belt, and wins. (LET MY MANS WIN A FUCKING TITLE FOR FUCK’S SAKE. He has never won a heavyweight title in NJPW, and has challenged for all the singles titles except the US belt.)

Or, have him challenge for the US belt, and win it at G1 USA so I can cry about it in person, while wearing Kota Ibushi themed clothing. (The US belt REALLY needs someone like Kota. Omega vs. Jericho semi-main eventing WK has fallen within a few months to Jay White vs. David Finlay at a road-to show. It needs some help. And to not be the fucking Gaijin Belt.)

The Golden Lovers win the heavyweight tag belts.

Put Ibushi and Omega in the same G1 block, and have Ibushi win their match. (I know no one wants to blow this load in the G1, but I think it could work, especially if Ibushi wins, since Omega has never beaten him.)

Have Omega win the G1 as champ, in which case he gets to choose his challenger. 

Omega says ‘hey babe, you wanna do Wrestle Kingdom? One more fight, for the fans?’ Kota having beaten him in the block matches means he has the right to challenge at some point.

Then these idiots together have the top two belts in the company (or the top belt and the US belt), the heavyweight tag belts, and in a sense they co-won the G1. TL;DR, book them as a monstrous unstoppable power couple fueled by the strength of their love and lulz.

Okada challenges for the briefcase, because he’s still salty over losing the belt to Omega. He loses, and it’s made even worse because Omega’s in Ibushi’s corner for the briefcase defense. We get an Okada vs. Ibushi match out of this deal, and Ibushi gets to win this time. (He’s had two matches with Okada, one in NJPW and one in DDT, and lost both. His friend Tiger Mask W also lost to Okada.) 

This would mean that Okada would be in the same G1 block as Omega, and would have to lose AGAINNNN to Omega. Extra salt. But it also means he’d have to beat Ibushi, for a third time, before Ibushi’s ultimately victorious when it matters most………… PARALLELS???!?! HARBINGERS OF WHAT’S TO COME!?!

Ibushi defends the IC/US belt successfully, so he has to vacate it, and NJPW has a fucking awesome ladder match for the IC/US title at Wrestle Kingdom. (PLEASE Gedo!)

Have the Golden Lovers lose the tag titles to the Young Bucks, basically as a subplot, have them keep trading the titles back and forth (this would elevate the tag titles because of the star power of the two teams, IMO).

Basically, they show up at WK ready to go nuts and have the time of their lives together. Their fight at WK is not angsty sad-we-have-to-fight, but a chance for them, at the top of their game, to put on the show they’ve always wanted to on the world’s second grandest stage. 

And book it like that, like they believe the outcome is almost secondary to them achieving their dream together. ‘Yeah I’m here to win, make no mistake, but I’m also so fucking pumped to main event Wrestle Kingdom with my bff like we used to talk about like 10 years ago when we were dumbasses in DDT.’ They’re opponents, and they’re playing to win, but they’re still, and always, the Golden Lovers.

And… make it A Thing that Kenny still hasn’t beaten Ibushi, and he’s the motherfucking IWGP heavyweight champion. Make that an important stake in this, because it would be to him/them.

This doesn’t bury Ibushi as much, even if (when) he loses, because he still looks like a fucking boss: he had a singles title that he did not lose (and could easily challenge for again), he beat Omega once in the process; part of Omega’s goal was just to beat him for once. And of course, the Golden Lovers remain as strong as ever.

Anyway that won’t happen and Ibushi is going to get buried and I’m already salty about it; having gotten a head start as soon as Okada called out Omega.

THANK YOU FOR COMING TO MY TED TALK AND FOR BELIEVING IN THE POWER OF LOVE.

[fourteenacross]

2017 Fic Year in Review

2017 in fic! I still have to get used to this looking so different to how it looked from like, 2007 to 2015. I also did a lot of like...weird not!quite!fic things? Which I’m counting in my word count, just because I did put thought into them? But I’m not sure if I should? I don’t know. Anyway, I’ve had two glasses of champagne and a glass of red wine, so WHATEVER. Hamilton: Ghosthunters full-length fic Birthday Shots (2069) Commercialism, Merit Badges, and Liquid Courage (8179) Communicable (24382) Well Deserved Recognition (3738) Truth or Dare, Jungle Juice, and a Linen Closet (8532) Q&A Saturday - June 6, 2015 (1120) everyone must breathe until their dying breath (116,690*)

Ghosthunters ficlets: Mattie and Alex texting (1708) John and Francis at boarding school (794) Washington after the air grows cold around me and you (423) August 14 (573) Molly and the haunted chair (1159) Laf's sad Christmas (1656) John on the phone with his dad (1543) John's PoV on Alex's birthday body shots (1606) Alex and John's tattoo (2326) John at the beginning of but i won't go far away (1032) John draws Alex (1888) John is reckless (2036) John explains his tattoo (1307) John and Alex eat poptarts in bed (1924) Jo and Mattie, Jo realizes she's in love (715) John's birthday and turtles (1275)

Ghosthunters apocrypha: John's in the hospital (840) The Schuyler-Hamilton-Laurenses get a dog (332) July 12 (1634) August 27 (1535) November 24 (4020)

Three sentence ficlets: Herc and breakfast (129) Angelica leaving for London (canon fic) (133) John falling in love (102) Alex and art (119) Ghosthunters + tetanus shots (161) Eliza, first day of summer (113) Laf meeting George and Martha for the first time (180) John, first kiss with a boy (165) Burr, drunk and alone (172) John and Francis, getting together (164)

Ghosthunters Not!Fic: John and Mattie, fake dating (2563)

Non-Ghosthunters Hamilton fic: John and Alex share a bed on a roadtrip (2396) Supplemental not!fic to the above (2497) Alex and John on the dance floor with a surprise slow song (2038) Alex and John, almost drowning (3076) Supplement to the above (2335)

Not!Fic: John and his ghost boyfriend (4555) John and Alex, "summer in the city" roommates for a summer internship AU (1491) John and Alex, "may we meet again" teen besties meet again as adults and fall in love AU (2347) Hamilton noir AU, "we get the job done" (1522) Alex and John, "the world turned upside down" BFFs -> lovers AU (6161) Fem4Ham, "helpless" soulmate AU (6613)

Gravity Falls: Mabel, first crush on a girl (118)

Great Comet Not!Fic: Sonya, No One is Alone (756)

MCU: Sam and Steve and trick-or-treaters (467)

Grand Total Fandoms: 4 Total Full Length Fic: 7 Total Ficlets: 46 Grand Total Stories: 53 Grand Total Word Count: 235,409* 

* I'm including all the words of the ghosthunters summer story that I’ve written so far, even the ones that haven’t been posted.

Overall Thoughts: Man, this list looks so long, but it’s still so far off the mark that I had intended to hit.

This was a hard year, creatively. It was for everyone, I think, but after having a really great upswing in 2016 when my meds had leveled out, it felt particularly dire to me, even though I knew I wasn’t alone. It’s hard to absorb that sometimes, you know?

I’m disappointed I didn’t finish this summer story before the end of the year. I was making very good time this summer and cranked out like 60k words on a really good schedule. I took a break for DragonCon and the associated scrambling and packing, and then never got back on the horse. It’s one of those things where I can’t tell if it was self-discipline or brain stuff or exhaustion, but I’m mad at myself all the same, cause I’m like that. I’ve still got another 30k to write and I’m going to try to get back on a schedule and stick to it to push out these last couple scenes, but I still keep kicking myself about the whole thing.

A lot of it comes back to something I was talking about in last year’s round up, which is not having, essentially, @pearlo in this fandom. I spent like, five years sending Erica a constant stream of fic ideas and dialogue snippets and talking out every fic idea and texting her in the middle of the night with AUs and all sorts of other shit and it’s a hard transition to not having that built in. It was how I worked out a lot of issues and also expressed a lot of joy. It feels a little like screaming into a void on here, at times, and while you’re all lovely and I appreciate all your encouragement and feedback, talking about your own work all the time occasionally makes one feel like an egomaniac. So...that’s a thing.

On to more positive things! I really liked doing those sort of not!fic things--it got some of my creative juices flowing when I was blocked on ghosthunters and scratched the itch of starting a zillion stories that I had great ideas for but no time to actually follow to the finish line. Doing ficlet memes and stuff, too, felt really good, taking requests and such. Holding in-person writing dates was super helpful, and having @lisapizza around to occasionally badger into hanging out with me so I could talk about this shit.

Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you'd predicted? I definitely expected to finish more, but numberwise and contentwise. I probably shouldn’t be surprised that I got much less done than I intended, given how weird the whole year has been, but I’m still kind of bummed. What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January? Hmmmmm....I don’t know that there’s anything that I wouldn’t have predicted? Everything is pretty on par with what I’ve been doing for the past couple years? What's your own favorite story of the year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you happiest? I loved a lot of the stories I wrote this year, because I'm super obsessed with myself. [[< -- I think I've kept that sentence in for the past few years because it remains true]] It’s hard to name anything other than everyone must breathe until their dying breath. I’ve been working on it for two years, on and off, and it was one of the first bits of character building I did as I started to create the verse. There are a lot of wonderful little character moments in it and a lot of parts I really just genuinely enjoyed writing.

Communicable was also something I was working on for a while, and there are so many lovely quiet moments. @the-everqueen actually pulled out my favorite bit of that story for commentary--that whole night they spend together at the Washingtons’ and John’s conversation with Martha the next morning were a joy to write.

Outside of the ghosthunters, the #fem4ham soulmate AU has eaten my brain and soul, and the ficlet about John and Alex sharing a bed really made me wish I had a million extra hours in the day to write about that universe’s John and his struggles. Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them? Not any huge ones? I think my biggest “risk” is the same mistake I make over and over again--feeling pressured to give people an ETA on the next story and then....totally missing that deadline. I’ve gotta stop doing that, for serious. My best story of this year: Definitely everyone must breathe until their dying breath. There are a LOT of moving parts on that thing that are still only slowly unfurling. I wish I had finished the whole thing in 2017 /o\ My most popular story of this year: Okay, see, chaptered stories totally throw off AO3 stats. Hit counts, kudos count, comment count...all of that is inflated by repeatedly pushing those fics to the top of the tags and having people come back for each chapter and all of that. Also, timing? The stuff that was up in January obviously has more hits than the stuff that only just came up in December. 

That being said, I think everyone must breathe is probably my most popular fic, but who really knows? Story of mine most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion: I wouldn’t say any of the full-length fics are under-appreciated, but I’m so obsessed with the #fem4ham that I sometimes forget that it has less than thirty notes and no one but @lisapizza (and @charmingpplincardigans, based on her comments today at brunch) really cared about it when I posted it XD

Most fun story to write: I wrote Birthday Shots in one sitting and it was the kind of doofy, dialogue-based stuff that’s always pretty fun to play around with. I also liked the ghosthunters apocrypha with John being loopy on anesthesia, which I wrote entirely on the plane to Heroes. John’s ghost boyfriend not!fic was also the first of those that I did and it was pretty fun! Story with the single sexiest moment: Deffo the sex in the woods in VII of everyone must breathe until their dying breath. Story with the single sweetest moment: Hm. There’s a lot of sweet, that’s kind of my whole deal. I think maybe the first house-sitting scene or the train ride after seeing Ned in everyone must breathe until their dying breath. Most "Holy crap, that's wrong, even for you" story: Nothing really. Nothing cracky for me this year. Story that shifted my own perceptions of the characters: The sharing a bed story and its backstory supplement were probably the things that had characterizations most different from the ghosthunters. It was a very different world to pick apart as I was thinking those through. Hardest story to write: Seeing as how I’m STILL WRITING everyone must breathe until their dying breath it is DEFINITELY THAT ONE  Biggest Disappointment: Just that I didn't finish more, I think. Biggest Surprise: That dumb bedsharing ficlet has over a hundred notes on tumblr. What the hell. I mean, I’m glad, but also surprised! Otherwise, I’m honestly just surprised you guys have stuck with me this long and been so incredibly patient 💜 Most Unintentionally Telling Story: Everything with Molly in everyone must breathe until their dying breath, for reasons that I’m foolishly hoping end up being moot, but realistically suspect are not going to come to fruition.  Plans for the next year: Goals for 2018! 300,000 words! Getting through two more anchor stories! Writing a non-ghosthunters Ham!fic! Work on my dumb novel! Maybe try some nonfiction stuff! I don’t know, just try to be more flexible and kinder to myself, but also get things done? God, who knows, the world is on fire.

[velcroboyfriends]

2016 Year in Fic

I really enjoyed doing this write-up last year, and damn, a lot has changed! So I thought I’d do this again and take stock of my writing this past year.

I was ridiculously prolific last year, but due to a variety of factors I really didn’t keep up that volume this year. As someone who doesn’t often feel the spark to write, what kept me going this year were fic exchanges and prompt memes. I feel fortunate to have communities like AO3 and DW to keep me writing even when I’m drained and anxious and feel incapable of it. 

So here are the results:

Fic List

1. Miles High - 1853 words. It’s quite telling about my early-2016 experience that I didn’t write a single word of fic between January and April. Disaster had struck in my work life, but I made the decision to sign up for Smut Swap 2016 anyway, and I was glad for it. This was my first Poe/Finn/Rey fic; we’ll see if I have another in me when Episode VIII rolls around. I just really wanted to write the three of them fucking in a spaceship, okay?

2. Slash: Romance Without Boundaries - 2516 words. I have only the AO3 volunteer community to thank/blame for this pile of trash. They play a game called Slash, in which competitors are challenged to write cracky pairings in weird situations. This led to me writing such pairings as Batman/Grantaire, James Bond/Remus Lupin and Will Graham & Tigger, as well as a very bizarre song parody about Aaron Burr’s encounters with a Drumpf-shaped sex doll. idk you guys. I’m sorry.

3. Bluebeard’s Wives - 1661 painstaking words. I wrote this for Not Prime Time 2016, and I’m really glad the exchange forced me to, because otherwise I would never have written the work I’m most proud of. I wanted to write something dark and twisted and beautiful, and to capture Hannibal’s inner monologue with all its vivid imagery, and somehow I halfway managed it. This was the first fic that ever earned me a place in a fandom spotlight post, and I’m very proud of that. It was my first Hannibal work and will probably be my last, but I enjoyed it.

4. On Not Being Alone - 4103 words. It took me til August this year to write something born purely of the desire to write, not a deadline. I’d been binge-watching Critical Role all summer, and after I reached the scene that precedes this fic in canon, I found myself in a whirlwind of writing. I wrote this near-obsessively over the course of 24-ish hours, and it was incredibly exciting to want to write again. It’s just a PWP, but it was so refreshing.

5. In the Middle of Summer - 2344 words. This was the only Richlee fic I wrote all year, and I’m sad to say it’ll probably be my last. There’s a chance I might pick up interest in participating in the fandom again - and I still get stupid hearteyes over the both of them - but the spark has just waned. I wrote this for a challenge for Richard’s birthday, and without that event I probably wouldn’t have written it. However, I did have fun with one last hurrah.

6. Between the Two of Us - 4584 words. Aand this is where I embraced my trash-goblin self and started writing Critical Role RPF. Even while I was gorging on CR all spring and summer, it never occurred to me that people would write RPF about the cast until I stumbled upon the awesome Five Minute Break. At first I was like ‘ew no’ but then I read it and was hooked. My giant crush on Liam melded with my new-found fascination with sub!Matt and a new fandom obsession was born. This was also my first seriously kinky fic!

7. Girls’ Night - 3218 words. This was partially written because of the criticalkink kink meme, but also because I felt bad leaving Marisha out of the fun in my Liam/Matt fic. It was my first time writing any sort of femslash, and I loved it.

8. I’ll Pencil You In - 3107 words. I entirely wrote this because of criticalkink and the little Liam/anyone reverse-prompt I set up in there. Normally I would never have thought to write Liam/Sam, but I ended up enjoying it a lot, primarily because of how the power dynamic shifted their characters. It was also my first time writing kink negotiation, which was really fun.

9. Break Time - 996 words. Again, this was written for criticalkink. The prompt got into my head and wouldn’t go away. I tend to struggle with writing kissing, so this was a fun little challenge to write a fic that simply consisted of the build-up and the kiss.

10. Like the Bright Morning Stars - 3855 words. This was written for Yuletide. I was scared of this fic for the longest time, because smut is (obviously) my favored terrain and my recipient specifically said they did not want any sexual content. So for once I had to focus on plot and emotions and world-building, and that is HARD, Y’ALL. It’s very easy to churn out some sex; not so much to craft love. But it really paid off, because I loved this and it seems like a lot of other people did as well!

11. Into My Arms - 1843 words. Another prompt-fill from criticalkink. I had a lot of fun writing something simple and sweet and in a position/circumstance I had never written before. I also enjoy a good text convo in fic, so that was fun as an opener.

Total Word Count: (so far) 30,080 words. 

Overall Thoughts: Word-count-wise, I wrote less than half of what I wrote last year, but just as many individual works, which is pretty good. And it’s far, far better than 0, which had been my usual word-count for the past five years before last year. If last year was an exercise in writing for fun, this year was an exercise in pushing myself to write even when I was tired or sad or anxious, and I learned that I’m capable of a lot more than I thought.

Personal Best Story: 100% Bluebeard’s Wives. The vignette style, the imagery, the spare narration, the nuance - I’m proud of every word. If I ever write something better than this, that will be an enormous victory.

Personal Favorite Story: I really like I’ll Pencil You In. It was the first CR RPF story where I really felt like I knew what I was doing, and I really like that even in a scene of bondage and domination, there’s palpable softness, intimacy and sweetness between two friends.

Most Underappreciated Story: I was expecting a lot more traffic on Miles High, because I was writing a really popular pairing in a very popular fandom - but I suppose that when there are a lot of works going up in a fandom at once, it can be even harder to get recognition than it is when you’re writing for a very small fandom. And I don’t think my heart was really in it, which probably showed in the writing.

Most Popular Story: By hits alone, it’s On Not Being Alone, which makes sense, as it’s a simple PWP about a popular pairing in a small-but-growing fandom. By kudos, it’s Like the Bright Morning Stars, which is nice, given that I really didn’t think it was that good until it got such a fervent response. It also wins for kudos-per-hit, with ~19% of viewers giving kudos.

Story with the Sexiest Moment: Girls’ Night, man. Every inch of that is ridiculously sexy to me. The face-sitting, the manhandling, the dualingus... yes. Last year in my response to this question I mentioned that I felt my sex writing was getting a bit stale, and in the latter half of this year I feel I rose to the challenge and really mixed things up.

Most “Holy Crap That’s Wrong Even for Me” Moment: Basically all of Bluebeard’s Wives. There’s gore, there’s murder, there’s twisted relationship dynamics... yeahh. I also felt very wrong writing CR RPF, and continue to feel a bit weird about it - but I love it too much to give it up.

Story That Shifted My Perceptions of a Character: I felt like I really got to know Hannibal through writing Bluebeard’s Wives. I began to understand his way of thinking. I also really changed my perceptions of Sam through I’ll Pencil You In, by exploring him in a completely unfamiliar situation and entering subspace for the first time.

Most Fun to Write: Writing those crackfics for the Slash games was really fun, but also nerve-wracking. It’s hard to say if anything I wrote was purely fun with no worry involved, but I probably enjoyed myself the most writing my two Liam/Sam works, because they’re so good for one another and Sam is just a ball of joy.

Hardest Story to Write: Bluebeard’s Wives was a slog through hell as far as the writing process went. When I was done I was happy, but up until that point I had no clue what I was doing and nothing felt good enough. I considered every single word to within an inch of its life. But it all paid off, I think.

Favorite OC: The only OC I wrote this year was the nameless girl from Bluebeard’s Wives. I liked her, though - she was defiant until the end. She didn’t buy into Hannibal’s shit.

Biggest Surprise: Every moment of my Slash game fics was a surprise. Buffy almost getting the Half-Blood Prince’s book, Batman rescuing Grantaire, Hannibal eating Voldy, “The World Was Wide Enough” being rewritten about a Drumpf sex doll, AVPM!Ron seducing Voldemort with Red Vines, Will Graham shooting Tigger, James Bond kissing Remus, Jack Sparrow rescuing Enjolras... it’s all fucking weird and surprising, and that’s the beauty of the game.

Most Unintentionally Personal Story: I really can’t say any of my works this year ended up very personal. Perhaps what’s personal is how many of my kinks and trash-goblin shipping tendencies I revealed.

Favorite Lines/Scenes:

The morning-after scene in Between the Two of Us feels very true to Matt and Liam’s dynamic, and very tender.

I loved writing kink negotiation in I’ll Pencil You In.

From my Slash fics: “There were many reasons why Buffy always avoided the Hogwarts library. One was that studying was, like, so 1996, and that any sixth-year worth her salt (liberally sprinkled in a circle to ward off whatever) did not bother with books. The other was that creepy librarian who kept telling her it was her destiny to save the world from vampires or whatever. That was super species-ist, for one thing - didn't Professor Giles know that anti-vampire bias was waaay 15th-century? Buffy had hoped the world had come further than that. It was sad enough when that werewolf professor had to quit without her adding to the whole problem. As if.”

From Bluebeard’s Wives: “He cooks a wonderful meal for the three of them. He offers to give up his portion. He washes their hair in the bath. He washes their feet. He sketches Abigail into a copy of Gentileschi's Judith Slaying Holofernes, Bedelia by her side, holding the figure of Holofernes - Hannibal himself, in this copy, although he has never been a self-portraitist - as Abigail slices at his neck. Blood sprays forth in a fountain. Will hangs it upon the wall unsmiling. He brings home a scrappy little spinone, the lovely thing's ears drooping with long fur. Will says the city is no place for a dog. And none of it is enough.“

All of Girls’ Night. Just all of it.

Lines/Scenes I’d Like to Change:

Basically all of Like the Bright Morning Stars. But it seemed to work for readers, so what do I know?

I’d like to let Finn shine more in Miles High; ditto for Laura in Girls’ Night.

The pacing in Break Time could have been a little more leisurely; same for Into My Arms.

Top Five Scenes I Wish Could Be Illustrated:

Vox Machina taking the stage in Like the Bright Morning Stars

Hannibal’s copy of Judith Slaying Holofernes in Bluebeard’s Wives

Basically all of Girls’ Night

James Bond kissing Remus and then being decked by Sirius

The kiss from Break Time

2017 Writing Ambitions:

I just want to keep writing, be it fic or RP or the possibility of non-fannish fiction. I’m not going to set an ideal wordcount, because I’ll end up disappointed, but I just want to write more than 0 words. And I want to write at least one thing I’m truly proud of.

Fic ideas for this year:

Sequel to Like the Bright Morning Stars - titled Like the Rolling Waters and in the works for SFBB 2017!

The last two reverse-prompts from criticalkink: Liam/Matt playful jokeyness and Liam/Laura/Travis threesome (!!!!)

MOAR POLYMACHINA

And whatever the hell I think of next!