#remember when i estimated this fic would be 100k words. well i was just being silly back then....

[rollercoasterwords]

in other news. wfrau has hit 100k words in my word doc...let's all clap & cheer together....

[wichols]

Hello everyone! 2021 was absolutely wild! If you are new or have been here since the beginning of 2021 you should remember that I was doing monthly wrap ups (except for the later half of the year, we don’t talk about that.). But now that the year is complete it is time to do the yearly wrap up! If you don’t know what I am talking about, then buckle up! I started an excel spreadsheet so I could document everything that I had read in 2021, mostly because I had consumed so much fic in 2020 that I was having a hard time remembering what I had and hadn’t read. To all those who have stuck around even though I have fallen off the face of the earth. It was a year of trudging through the mental health hellscape. But the fun thing about all this information and charts is that I can chart when I was having really bad months and recognizing some months that actually weren’t all the bad. Thank you for however you have chosen to interact with this blog and over on my AO3. So if charts, graphs, and numbers aren’t your thing just stop here! But for those who would like to judge my taste and poke around my brain in the form of charts and graphs, keep reading! (Also I include some fic recs at the end of the post if you were curious about some of my favorites and longest read fics of 2021!)

Writing Stats:

Total Published Works: 6 (2 being tiny micro fictions) Total Published Word Count: 18,813

March was the most productive month for writing reaching 21,651 words in total.

Total Writing Word Count: 59,952 (Though I more than likely exceeded over 100k with the amount of Discord Rps I picked up at about the middle of the year.)

Reading Stats:

Total Read Word Count: 12,241,999 (This was mostly quantified by reading works through AO3, though again, I did pick up reading Twitter threads for fun in the last quarter of the year so I am actually estimating my word count to being closer to 12,275,000.)

So for my first time doing an excel spreadsheet for this sort of thing I decided to keep it simple, just so it didn’t feel like so much extra work to keep up with it. The spreadsheet was organized by title (but if it was incomplete I included chapters read in that sitting), rating, word count, ship, and a primary tag (this got super messy because I wasn’t so much worried about consistency which was a real issue when it came to making readable graphs). Also some portions of the graph are a little wonky because I was also keeping up with weekly chapter updates and reusing the same identifiers multiple times. So first up we have ratings. And to no one’s surprise Explicit was the biggest chunk. Some of this was because of being horny on main I suppose but a decent chunk was also explicit because of reading potential triggering or problematic content. 

Next we have ships!

You see that giant blue chunk? Victuuri...consumed my soul. But also I was just following some awesome authors that were posting banger after banger! How could I not follow along?? And if you were curious here is the entire list of ships I had read. Anyone else a multishipper? Cause same!

Next we have tags! And honestly, judge if you want but I like what I like! 

And lastly a nice little bar chart of fic word counts!

You see those three highest bars? I just couldn’t help but include them in this post too!!

Let Me Fall For You by HuntressFirefall

Twitter: @HuntresFirefall (Victuuri, Canon Divergence, Explicit, 397,436)

Summary: Victor Nikiforov was on his way to becoming a Living Legend in the sport of figure skating. After hitting his stride and winning back-to-back World Championships, the sport's biggest star was the overwhelming favorite to win gold in his third Olympics on home ice in Sochi, Russia.

But when Yuri Katsuki pulls off the upset victory in Sochi at the young age of 21 and takes the gold, Victor begins to see his world and the people in it in a very different light -- and it turns out they see him differently as well.

No longer knowing who he can rely on and finding he didn't know those close to him as well as he thought, when his skating career falters Victor makes a shocking choice that turns his world upside down in ways he did -- and didn't -- expect.

Those Under the Same Stars by PerpetuallyPerturbed Twitter: @PerpetualPrturb (Bakugou Katsuki/Midoriya Izuku, Omegaverse, Mature, 325,553)

Summary: When Katsuki Bakugo left Izuku Midoriya five years ago, he thought it was for forever. He put aside dreams and wishes of the omega to focus on his career. He was going to be the best hero, after all. He couldn't have an omega getting in his way. So when he's stopped on the streets one day by a pup begging for help for his mom, he isn't prepared to face what he gave up, and what the consequences of his actions were.

Now with a traumatized pup to take care of and the horrifying thought that he's going to watch Izuku die because he wasn't there to protect him, Katsuki knows he's going to have to do better. He's going to be the best alpha ever and protect and serve his family, as he should have done years ago. He just hopes it's not too late.

The Rules For Lovers by ADreamingSongbird

Twitter: @SongbirdRimi

Tumblr: @adreamingsongbird​

(Victuuri, Royalty, Mature, 323,342)

Summary: Prince Yuuri Katsuki has a duty to his country, above all else (his desires, his dreams, and his happiness included), and he knows this alliance will help to ensure the safety of his people. That’s the only reason he accepts Prince Nikiforov’s hand in marriage. The pleasant surprise, of course, is the part where they fall in love along the way. The unpleasant one, well…

That’s a long story.

 And as a little bonus this story also has a podfic in the works! 

Found Here By esbielle

Twitter: @esbielle

Tumblr: @esbielle​

​

Favorite Completed Works:

For He Had Eyes and Chose Me by theangryuniverse

(Victuuri, Omegaverse, Explicit, 100,110)

Twitter: twitter.com/myangryuniverse

Summary: Heavy is the head that wears the crown.

It is a truth that is universally acknowledged, and it is a burden that threatens to suffocate Victor every single day.

But as duty calls and traditions demand to be fulfilled, a young man named Yuuri comes into Victor’s life like a breathtaking force – and with him, the potential to shake the kingdom to its core.

Never has Victor played a more dangerous game.

Never has the price been so enchanting.

Presence by kakikaeru

(Victuuri, Dalai Lama AU, General, 24,934)

Tumblr

Summary: Atop his platform the Kuninotokotachi smiled, raised hands that were white and clean. He spoke clearly and evenly in his own flowing language, giving benediction and reassurance to the camp of refugees that had been accumulating in this village in Calabria in the last four years. Victor didn't know Japanese, didn't understand what was spoken, but the soft voice washed over him like a river, seemed responsible for the gentle breeze that blew into the proceedings and disrupted the intentions of the merciless sun. A young man in blue under a white umbrella, with his eyes shining, and a smile in his words.

Christophe tugged on his elbow. "Did you hear me, Victor?"

"Mm?" Victor shook his head, trying to clear it.

"I asked if you were ready to meet him."

Victor Nikiforov, reporter for the New York Times, goes to Italy to interview a shinto priest in exile, and makes a friend.

The Noblest Form of Affection by lucycamui

(Victuuri, Victorian, Explicit, 38,143)

Tumblr: @lucycamui​

Summary: The duty of a valet appears deceptively simple on the surface: his sole job is to wait upon his master. Yuuri prides himself on his skills as a valet, but will the challenges and heartaches that come hand in hand with serving the lovely and eccentric Mister Nikiforov prove to be too great a hurdle?

A Ticket to the Ballet by Multiple_Universes

Tumblr: @witharthurkirkland​

(Victuuri, Ballet, Explicit, 104,460)

Summary: Victor grew up to think that he always had to deal with all his troubles on his own. He never asked himself why he was doing something and he never thought of himself as lonely, but one day there he was – wondering what was the point of it all. And along came Yuuri Katsuki – one of the best ballet dancers the world has ever seen.

Room for Cream by Shippeh

Twitter: @Shippehbitch!

Tumblr: @shippeh​

(Kirishima/Bakugou, Omegaverse, Explicit, 117,267)

Summary: Fated mates don't exist, but Bakugou doesn't have any other explanation for the way his heart twists when he sees him- Kirishima, a brilliant, vibrant Omega behind the coffeeshop counter, all bold smiles and sharp teeth, wearing a collar with glittering spines. Bakugou's quickly swept up in him, forced to figure out rituals he's never bothered with before and desperate to impress.

Kirishima's more than just a perfect barista, and Bakugou's in way over his head- but he's an Alpha ready to drown.

The Giver and The Given by ItaminoSakka

(TodoDeku, Royalty, Mature, 78,221)

Summary: “I’m the son of your enemy.”

“We don’t have any enemies,” Midoriya said, his sad green eyes on Shouto’s mismatched ones. “And even if we did, we wouldn’t treat them like this.” He stood, holding out a hand toward Shouto. “Come. Let’s rid your body of the signs of its journey.”

As Shouto looked up into Midoriya’s face, Bakugou could see the wonder and pain in his eyes, as if he were glancing up into the sun, both blinded by and in awe of its brightness. He smiled a little to himself; it was an appropriate response to the wonder that was King Midoriya.

In which Todoroki Enji does the only good thing he's ever done for his son, and sends him to the Bakugou-Midoriya kingdom as a prisoner.

Killshot by surveycorpsjean

Twitter: https://twitter.com/zanzimez

(EndHawks, Mafia, Explicit, 43,475)

Summary:

You hear a lot of names in the streets. If you’re smart, you remember them.

[ljandersen]

More 100 Days of Writing!  Yay!  I love that I get a hundred days of seeing everyone's writing process on my dash.  I’m not strictly following the questions in order or posting every day, but it’s fun to still play along.  Thanks, @the-wip-project !

--------------‐-----------------

Question from Day 2 (I know it’s not day two, but I’m erratically cheating, remember?)  For your current WIP:  Do you have many WIPs?  What motivates you to write this specific story?  What makes this story special for you?  Is there a special twist/trope/setting you wanted to explore?  What got you started on this particular story?

My current WIP is “Sideways,” a 5-part fShenko post-war long fic.  I’m posting it like a box set, essentially all the parts (books) in one big post on AO3.  I have the first draft written for all five parts and am currently posting part 3.

What motivated me to write this story was a string of “what if” questions that haunted me after finishing my 300k fShenko post-war long fic, “Burning Barriers.”  My mind kept spinning on questions about human-asari relationships.  What would it be like to be with someone who would live a thousand years?  You’re just a blip on their radar, while they’re you’re whole life.  

What would it be like to have a child who’s another species?  Asari have unique abilities like mindmelding, strong biotics, long lifespan, monogendered, not to mention unique culture.  Would the child feel less “yours” for being so . . . well, alien (pun intended)?  How would it feel knowing your partner and child would live on long after you?  

That’s when I started thinking, what if the asari parent died?  Whoa.  Then my mind was blown by the complexity.  Your child would be another species, bound to live a thousand years, and the parent meant to take care of them is gone.  Since your partner was going to live hundreds of more years, the human partner probably never even considered the possibility of losing them.  Now the human parent is all this alien child has.  It had so many implications, my mind kept going.

I wanted to explore these ideas in a story, but I didn’t want to write an AU of my own fanfiction.  I didn’t want to write a story that wasn’t fShenko.  FemShep and Kaidan are my favorite characters, and it’s their relationship I find compelling.  

That’s when I thought, what would Shepard think of this alternate storyline?  It’s interesting enough to think of her outside perspective, but what if it was further removed than even that.  What if she saw it like I did having this other canon story ending in mind?  What if the Shepard who finished my story in “Burning Barriers” and who ended up with Kaidan went to this other AU reality?  

I could follow an idea from “Burning Barriers” that wasn’t realized but intrigued me.  Kaidan’s asari wife is dead.  He has an asari child now.  How much better if he and Shepard are even enemies?  Maybe Shepard has been a bad person in this timeline.  After all, Mass Effect is all about the Paragon and Renegade timelines. Add in this story being told from the POV of the Shepard who’s been happily married to him in the “real” timeline, then the complexity and nuances expanded.  How would she reconcile his identity to her, being both the person she knows and loves the best, but also the person she knows the least and who is also an adversary?  

Then, I thought . . . What is Bad Shepard took my canon Shepard’s place?  I ended “Burning Barriers” with Shepard being human Councilor.  She lives on the Pacific with Kaidan and their daughter.  That was already there in my post-10 year epilogue.  What if this switch went both ways?  It’s always a fascinating trope taking someone who’s a maverick loner and dropping them into a family situation.  Do they become a better person?  

False identities always interest me, and both stories lines would play so well to that interest.  How would this imposter function?  Both Shepards would be taken as the their altero ego, at least, initially if not longer.

So I started writing “Sideways.”  I needed to tell the backstories to fill in the ten years of lost time for both timelines.  But how to do it?  Just through present-day revelations?  A bit boring.  Flashbacks are often considered unnecessary and needlessly complicate a story.  

What if the flashbacks had more meaning beyond just revealing the past though?  What if they provided a ticking clock.  I needed a ticking clock, after all, and this was the perfect way to hit two birds with one stone.  The present day revelations about the past could provide tantalizing clues and hint toward scenes that aren’t revealed yet.  There would be gradual progression of stories from the past connecting to the present storyline.  Perfect.

I actually wrote several chapters of “Sideways” and then discarded it.  I didn’t want to pour myself into more fanfiction.  It was time to move on.  Do something original.  Who would read a long fShenko fic that jumped off my 300k story?  “Burning Barriers” wasn’t read.  I think a year after posting, it had 25 kudos, under a thousand hits, and was pretty stagnant with the hit count even moving.  I had a few wonderful people who made the process worthwhile through their generous comments and friendship. It would go on to get a lot of great feedback that would change my feelings about it, but at the time, the story’s reception was disappointing.  It seemed unwise to take an already abysmal turnout for 300k words and cut the readership even further for a new story +100k story.  So I tossed my first few chapters of “Sideways” aside.

I came across the chapters again a while later.  I still had these ideas in my head for it that I was trying to squelch while I focused on ideas for an original sci fi series.  When I was flipping through a notebook, I came across the story I had abandoned, and I started to read it.  By the end, I was left thinking, “But then what happened?  This is actually pretty good.”  At that point, I decided I had to write it.  I had too much passion in the project, and I had to see it through. 

I decided for it to be successful (or at least, not catastrophically unsuccessful), it had to stand on its own.  Hardly anyone had read the preceding 300 k story, which I had made the mistake of posting all at once.  I needed this to be its own story.  It had to be less words than “Burning Barriers,” which at 300 k was already too much of an investment.  

Then I started writing my new story . . . 800 k words later (or so I estimate), I obviously didn’t meet my goal.  But I loved writing every word, and I love how the story progresses and develops.  It had a good pace, and I’m proud of it.  It lent itself naturally to being divided into a series, since it had mini-arcs with mini-villains and achievements being reached.  By editing each part separately, I was able to start posting, which after two years of writing the story was beginning to feel like would never happen.

Now, here I am posting part 3.  I have amazing people who support me and have made the experience rewarding by sharing their enthusiasm and thoughts in comments and tags.  “Sideways” surpassed “Burning Barriers” initially low turn out and has managed to stand on its own as I hoped.  For a story that took so long to make it to this point, it’s been fulfilling to have so many fandom friends who cheer me on.  I appreciate everyone who supports “Sideway” and just me in general as part of the fandom community.  

And that’s how my supersized story came into being.    

[leopah]

NAF: Afterword

Since the epilogue of my fic gets posted today, it’s finally time to post the afterword I wrote when I first finished it.

At the time I write this, May 3rd, 2017, I have just completed NAF! I know you guys won’t see the final chapter until early August, but I have to write out my gratitude while I’m still overflowing with emotions.

So, top of my list, huge thank you to my beta Madi, who was cool enough to read over my chapters before I posted and hang out with me on Discord. Even though you were too busy to help me out during the final arc, I couldn’t have done this without you, seriously. You’ve taught me a lot about adverbs and other things, and I’ll do my best to keep those in mind as I move forward.

Next off, thanks to the Skype squad, aka the hell chat, all 25+ of you in your chaotic glory. You guys stuck with me through the whole thing from the initial planning all through my work on it, and being able to talk with you guys and throw random lines at you out of context really did help when I was having a hard time. I doubt I ever would have had the courage to even start this thing without you guys, either. Your support means the world.

On that note, thank you to Scarf and Gio especially, for your words of encouragement when I lost my confidence (which happened a lot), as well as for jumping in as my betas when Madi was unable to. I really don’t think I would have been able to finish this huge project without your support. I’ve never finished a long-form story before, and I honestly wasn’t sure if I’d make it until I did. I love you both, and by the time you read this, the three of us should have met at Anime Expo if all goes well on our respective ends. <3 (Update: we did and it was wonderful)

Thank you to all my readers! When I started I wasn’t sure if anyone would read this, but every comment and kudos I got made me smile. Whether you were here from the beginning or just read recently, I value you all so much.

Will I write another Noragami fic? Mm, it’s hard to say. I have some ideas in the works, but we’ll see they come to fruition in a meaningful way. Also, I spent a good 8-9 months married to my story while I wrote it, meaning I worked on nothing besides it and the drabbles. I really want to work on original stuff as a priority, but we’ll see how it goes. I’ll leave you guys with an optimistic “Maybe!” (which is probably a yes since I’m trash).

And of course I still have the drabbles to work on at this time. Remember, if you want more material pertaining to this fic, check those out! They’re a light version of what you see in the main story, and it’s basically where I shoved all the fluffy/shippy stuff so it didn’t mess with the main flow of the story. I know I love my cliffhangers.

I first got the idea for this in August 2016. It seems like it was just yesterday, but what happened was I woke up one day while on vacation and thought, what if Yato severed Hiyori’s cord during the hospital arc and made her his shinki? Before I knew it, most of the first chapter had fallen into place and I knew I had to write this thing. I turned over the idea in my head for a few more weeks with planning, concept sketching, jotting things down on my phone while I was away from my computer, and wondering if I was ready to be committed. I started actually writing in early September, and worked on it pretty regularly until now, in May. I took a month-long break after writing each arc, but those were unplanned and just how my schedule with school and everything ended up working out.

When I first started planning the story arcs, I thought this fic would end up pretty long (IF I finished it, was the nagging thought at the back of my mind). I thought around 50k would be the total word count, in the beginning. But once the story arcs started taking their own shape, my outlines for my chapters got more complex, and the chapters themselves grew longer, my new estimate was about 75k, and I still thought that was overshooting. I ended up going about to 80k with 27 chapters and an epilogue, plus the drabbles, which finished at 25k, so ending up with 100k, a 400-page novel equivalent on my first serious attempt at writing? Not bad, if I do say so myself. Especially considering I didn’t write creatively for six whole years before this. I will always credit this fic as the sole reason my writer’s block (which I thought was insurmountable) got crushed for good.

The writing was really rough around the edges at first, seeing as I was out of practice and out of my depth. That being said, I hope you guys can see the writing changing and improving through the chapters as much as I can. I’m such a perfectionist with myself that even the tiniest mistake makes me lose my footing, but I really tried to make each chapter the best it could be for all of you with all my constant editing and nitpicking.

Ahah I’m so emotional right now. I just can’t believe it’s really finished. I never feel like the work is done because of the sheer amount of time I spent editing every single chapter until they satisfied my needs, up until the final week, but the story itself is done and it feels kind of surreal. Especially since I was always working so far ahead of what was being posted, now that the two have caught up it still doesn’t feel real.

But that rambling aside, thank you guys for making this journey with me. Again, thank you. You haven’t seen the last of me, I guarantee it.