Year In Review: 2014

[ceu]

Your main fandom of the year?

I want to say Haikyuu!!, undoubtedly because it basically swallowed my life whole since September. The first half of the year was occupied with real life drama, anyway. Haikyuu!! is the fandom I've had the most presence in this year.

Your favorite film you watched this year?

Book of Life, followed quickly by Annie. BoL is fantastic and deserves more money than it will ever receive (even if it gets back 10x of the production money); the animation is gorgeous and the plot and characters are flawless and it's hardly problematic! Annie is also good and adorable and fun and just all-around a great family movie (there were a few comments in the movie that made me go "ehhh " though) and also deserves more money than it gets!

Your favorite book read this year?

I. Er. Well I read parts of Green Girl but didn't like it too much. Other than that I don't think I read any books.

Your favorite tv show of the year?

Um, Haikyuu!! I guess. Also Lost.

Your best new fandom discovery of the year?

Sports anime! I say this collectively because I also watched Free! for the first time this year.

Your biggest fandom disappointment of the year?

Naruto.

Your biggest squee moment of the year?

Korra/Asami being canon I CRIED FOR TWO HOURS AND THEN CRIED FOR THE DAYS THAT FOLLOWED INCLUDING NOW

Your biggest fan anticipations for the coming year?

Haikyuu!! season two. Yeah, that's all I got for now.

//

End of the Year Writing meme:

Total number of stories worked on: 25 WIPs (4 chaptered) + 53 complete = 78
Total number of completed stories: 53
Fandoms written in: One Direction, Teen Wolf, Powerpuff Girls, Avatar: The Last Airbender/Korra, No Breathing, LOST, Iron Giant, Ouran High School Host Club, Pokemon, Attack on Titan and Glee (crossover WIPs), Free!, Harry Potter, Haikyuu!!, Hunger Games
Total word count: 194700 (completed) + 28000 (WIP) = 222700

January:
- Periphery (original)
- you've got me moving too fast (One Direction HP AU)
- freedom of speech (One Direction, unposted)
- stay stay stay (Teen Wolf)

February:
- go back to yesterday (Alice In Wonderland)
- why bury stardust (original)
- Vein Red (original)

March:

April:

May:
- never be (Lost)

June:
- rains when you're here (original)
- a la brave (One Direction)
- se proteger eux-meme (Teen Wolf)

July:
- Fortunate Ones (Powerpuff Girls)
- take the cloud down (Avatar: The Last Airbender)
- Land Fishes (No Breathing)
- merry men (Lost)
- Up on the sun (One Direction)
- our love is strongest today (Ouran High School Host Club)
- Pursuit (Pokemon)
- fanservice (Free!)
- Side Crawl (Free!)

August:
- Brave and Wild (Pokemon)
- starlight (Free!)
- got the sunshine (Harry Potter)
- had you figured out (Harry Potter)
- make the moves up (Haikyuu!!)
- Witches Weekly (Harry Potter)

September:
- Open Water (Free!)
- Double Quick (Haikyuu!!)
- Flew me to places I'd never been (Pokemon)
- Make you (Haikyuu!!)
- with some indie record that's much cooler than mine (Haikyuu!!)
- best thing (Free!)
- don't wanna fly if you're still on the ground (Haikyuu!!)
- play it again (Free!)
- so baby, make me fly (Haikyuu!!)
- riding shotgun, hair undone (Haikyuu!!)

October:
- then fall into me (Haikyuu!!)
- haven't seen it in a while (Haikyuu!!)
- strike a match (Haikyuu!!)
- sport for our neighbors (Haikyuu!!)
- morning glories (Free!)
- Mintonette (Haikyuu!!)
- Rotation (Haikyuu!!)
- Friendly Fire (Haikyuu!!)
- Game Face (Haikyuu!!)

November:
- wanted something more (Haikyuu!!)

December:
- Gap Theory (Hunger Games)
- how kageyama stole christmas (Haikyuu!!)
- Lose, Lose (Haikyuu!!)
- all said and done (Haikyuu!!)
- as the crow flies (Haikyuu!!)
- Win Some (Haikyuu!!)
- birds of a (Haikyuu!!)

Overall Thoughts

Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you’d predicted?

I think I wrote just enough! I wanted to write the equivalent of one a week and didn't do exactly that, but in moderation I did? Rushed at the end, though.

What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January?

Well a lot of my fic/fandoms were new this year; I'd say probably Powerpuff Girls and Ouran High School Host Club, though, because those are things I've liked and been into for a long time now and probably wouldn't have imagined writing fic for them. The PPG one was actually something I started over two years ago? and decided to finish during the summer. olist was inspired after loud headcanoning at Jess over twitter about Ouran HP houses and such.

I also wrote a ton of things in the present tense. Didn't quite expect that, either.

What’s your own favorite story of the year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you happiest?

I had a really good turn out this year, so there's no way I could just pick one.

ygmmtf is probably my favorite One Direction fic by myself overall, so it's definitely one of my favorites this year. It has everything I like in it - Liam/Harry and Zayn/Niall - plus Hogwarts AU, which is my favorite AU to write and often to read! It's also named after my favorite 1D song.

rwyh is just really meaningful to me and generally helped me cope with everything that happened this year, tbh. I've found myself rereading it several times this year whenever I felt particularly down, and it made me feel better and lifted me up.

ttcd reminds me why I like Kataang so much! and also because I basically consider it canon in my head, so.

I also really like olist, BaW, hyfo, and Game Face.

Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them?

Yes. I got back into a Japanese fandom for the first time since... ever, I think? When I wrote a few things Way Back When I didn't pay so much attention to the honorifics, but I've been doing that this year. It's my first time learning about Japanese honorifics which is kind of pathetic considering I've been pretty into anime since late middle school.

Another thing I did was work on that Iron Giant chaptered fic. It's been on hiatus and incomplete for a bit; I need to get to working on it this year.

Do you have any fanfic or profic goals for the New Year?

Not particularly. I suppose I do want to get published more, but I just want to keep a regular writing schedule and, as always, stop being so self-conscious about feedback. Like any other writer, loving feedback creates a terrible dependency on it, especially when one gets comparative. I want to write to write. As I always do.

But writing about writing on this journal usually gets me into the mood, or at least marginally more inspired. So that's good.

My goals from last year were:

- again, write a fic once a month at the least if not once a week (although that might still be reaching but we’ll see!) Idk I don’t like having phases; I prefer consistency so
- give myself some sort of writing schedule? maybe?
- GET DEEPER INTO 1D FANDOM??? ANOTHER MAYBE??
- get published more?? do more ~professional editing??

For the first part: I didn't do this quite literally, but the goal was to get at least fifty-two stories in, and I did! I actually got fifty-three stories in :3c Rushed a little at the end, but what can you do.
- I did attempt this early this year, stopped when the angst happened. I tried again in the summer, adjusting it to two stories per week, but that fell short pretty quickly after a month. When the school year came I attempted yet again, but turned to ignoring my alerts for writing. I need to stop doing that.
- 1D fandom, yeah, no; I wrote my last (as of now) fic for that back in the summer. I did get really deep into Haikyuu!! fandom though... heh
- I submitted to two journals and got rejected; bummer! Didn't really edit professionally, considering I've only been writing fanfiction lately...

From my past year of writing, what was…

My best story of this year:

Objectively best, I would probably say Game Face, Lose Lose, and ygmmtf. I say these because they're the ones with the most interesting plots, are well-paced, have few to no errors (at least from my standpoint), and are likable.

My most popular story of this year:

My most popular stories overall were written this year! Rotation, Open Water, and Game Face.

Story of mine most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion:

Ah. Hmm. I guess 'how kageyama stole christmas.' Heh.

Most fun story to write:

sfon was hands down the most fun story to write. It literally means nothing and accomplishes nothing; I just like the idea of the Karasuno kids plus Kuroo and Kenma yelling at each other because they're trying to recreate a silly vlog series. Also, Caroline Oikawa.

Story with the single sexiest moment:

Lose, Lose. It has the most sexy moments so.

Also the crossdressing scene (which I kind of want to... bring back.)

Most “Holy crap, that’s wrong, even for you” story:

Aha, hmm. Probably alb, mostly because like. Bear!Liam? Really? Oh well.

Story that shifted my own perceptions of the characters:

Lose, Lose. I actually didn't know where I was going with the characterizations when I started this, but it soon turned into a characterization driven story, with Oikawa's (obvious) flaws being the main point of the conflict, and Kuroo's characteristics being what drove him to come in and out. I mean, I felt like I knew the characters pretty well - I really enjoy writing the both of them - but 30k words spent on these two shifted them a lot.

Hardest story to write:

Double Quick was surprisingly hard. While I knew what I wanted to do and where I was going, there was something about it that always felt slowed and behind that it bothered me.

Side Crawl and go back to yesterday were also difficult, but mostly because I wasn't focused enough and felt too aware while I was writing.

Biggest Surprise:

Lose, Lose - First of all because getting into Haikyuu!! I didn't think I'd write Oikuro so soon, and also not that much. When I got the assignment (from myself to be fair) I was like "this will be long!" but not... this long. Woop. I like it, though.

Also, Open Water - I guess Free! 2.11 hit me so hard that I managed out 14k in like, three days. I mean, that's not an usual pace for me, but. I like it, I just didn't think I could actually do it.

In conclusion:

I think this year's turn out was good; there's an interesting rift between the amount of WIPs I had compared to the completed stories, but they're both enough. Not in terms of numbers, but hard work, I guess. I did more than I thought I could this year probably because of the early year heartbreak. But I toughed it out.

{ 2015 will be the year I- }

Continue writing regularly - not in terms of how much I complete, but how much I literally write. I also kind of want to start a multifandom poly exchange?!

I want to try out different fandoms or remain faithful to fandoms I already have. One, the other, or both.