Year in Review: 2020

[ceu]

Well, for the first time in three years...

Your main fandom of the year? So in 2018, while I was on my hiatus, I got very emotionally invested in a very old fandom. Earlier this year I got back into it for rereading and also, uh, wrote some stuff. Like three things.

But anyway, my main fandom since I've come off hiatus/semi-hiatus is Mo Dao Zu Shi, and iterations.

Your favorite film you watched this year? I didn't watch much this year! I guess my favorite new thing I watched was... hm wow. I guess I'll go with Pokemon Mewtwo Strikes Back: Evolution??? because the original holds nostalgia for me??? But uh yeah I really didn't watch anything this year, much less anything good lmao.

Your favorite book read this year? N/A :(

Your favorite tv show of the year? N.../A? I did rewatch all of Lost, though.

Your best new fandom discovery of the year? MDZS, which is hilarious when I just finished CQL two nights ago. It's also not my favorite version of the story - the donghua is (I did finish that in like, October), and I also like the manhua a lot. I... still have to read the novel in its entirety, from beginning to end. But I will.

Your biggest fandom disappointment of the year? Nothing specific, I just feel better when I remember that MDZS fandom is just me and my friends, not the overwhelmingly amount of white people in it.

Your biggest squee moment of the year? Wangxians again. Although, I did do Yuletide! Yuletide is always fun.

Your biggest fan anticipations for the coming year? Nothing beyond "okay let's see how many of these Wangxian ideas I can write"

//

EOTY Music Meme

Favorite albums that came out this year? (Max 5)

Not in order:
1. Confetti - Little Mix
2. evermore - Taylor Swift
3. Razzmatazz - iDKHOW
4. Dedicated Side B - CRJ
5. Half Written Story - Hailee Stenfield

Favorite songs that came out this year? (Max 10)

Not in order:
1-3. Leave Me Alone, New Invention, Lights Go Down - iDKHOW
4-7. the lakes, august, cardigan, willow - Taylor Swift
8. A Mess (Happy 4 U) - Little Mix
9. Toxic (cover) - Walk Off The Earth
10. WAP I guess??

Favorite songs that didn't come out this year but that you discovered this year? (Max 10)

Oh boy. These are all covers btw (mostly)
1. bad guy - Citizen Queen
2. Gangsta - Will Jay
3. If I Ever Fall In Love - Pentatonix ft Jason Derulo
4. Zombie - Bad Wolves
5. basically all of MCR's Black Parade album
6. Wuji???
7. MAYDAY - TheFatRat
8. Send My Love - KHS
9. I Don't Wanna Live Forever - KHS
10. Beauty & a Beat - Alex Groot ft Christina Constanza

This year was weird

Favorite artists you discovered: Citizen Queen I guess?

Favorite artists you rediscovered: MCR & Neon Jungle

Favorite old songs you knew before but couldn't stop listening to again at some point this year: Hamilton soundtrack, Neon Jungle's Welcome To the Jungle album

Total # of Songs This Year: 85... oof

//

End of the Year Writing meme

WIPs from 2018-2019: 12,583

Total number of stories worked on: 14, including my HTTYD AU threadfic
Total number of completed stories: 12
Fandoms written in: 3
Total word count: 146,006
- Completed: 119,305
- WIP(s): 26,701 (this is all one fic), plus whatever my word count is on HTTYD AU. I'll figure that out when I actually finish it.

Writing again is wild.

January: 0

February: 0

March: 0

April: 0

May: 0 complete

I am only sharing this for posterity.

A groan again. “Ross, what the fuck time is it?”

"Way later than we said we'd meet, that's for sure." Ryan's fingers twitch from the instinct of wanting to pull the covers back. That's had bad results exactly once and Ryan doesn't really want to do it again - he can never tell if Brendon's half nakedness is truly just *half* nakedness.

Brendon peeks one bleary eye at him. "And you were definitely on time, huh."

"That's not relevant," Ryan says, even though he totally knows it is.

June: 0

July: 3 complete, 2 unposted
- posted: the first time it was sung

August: 0 complete

September: 0 complete

October: 4
- without a warning
- bless my soul (i'm losing control)
- your honor i'm a freak bitch
- Play It By Ear

Lan Xichen looks fondly at Wen Yuan, and around the temple. “I am proud of you, Wangji. For dedicating your life to this, aiding the poor and the old and the young.” He tucks back a lock of Wen Yuan’s hair. “For building a sect with Wei Wuxian.”

Lan Wangji does not need his brother’s approval. But knowing that the rest of the Gusu Lan Sect will never think the same and will always think of him as a traitor, suddenly his throat feels tight.

“Thank you, Zewu-jun,” he says.

November: 0 complete

"Hi!" Wei Ying says excitedly when the call starts. "Guess what I have?"

"A new single that reached number one on Billboard in twelve hours?" Jiang Cheng asks drily.

"What—that fast?" Wei Ying turns to Lan Zhan, who doesn't look up from his laptop but nods. "No, I mean—wait, A-Cheng, how do you know?"

"I'm on Twitter," Jiang Cheng says, as if that explains anything.

"We're all on Twitter," Yanli says genially. "A-Ying, what do you have?"

December: 5
- a girl like you should wear a warning
- the ruins left inside you
- ever get the feeling
- the key that our souls were singing
- a thing static_abyss is currently beta reading for me <3

Jin Guangyao's expression turns hurt. Not enough for Nie Mingjue to feel guilt about it. "But I was, Da-ge, I was with Jin-furen. She was shaking in my arms." A frown creases over his face, concerned. "But it was all so much to take in, Da-ge, so I'm not surprised. You wouldn't remember me."

"No," Nie Mingjue says, because he would've. Wouldn't he? "I—"

"A-Yao did tell me how you found his father's body. How emotionless you were when you called for everyone," Lan Xichen puts in. "Mingjue, no one blames you."

"But—" Nie Mingjue swallows, swallows again. Why does his throat feel full, teeth feel stained? He licks his lips.

Overall Thoughts

Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you’d predicted? I don't know, tbh; I wasn't in school by January but I think I'd wanted to apply for a summer semester before covid hit (and I can't do online classes so when that became a thing I was like, welp, no school for me for a bit.) I'm a little astonished that I got into a new fandom/found inspo to write at all, but now that I am, my current output is... uh, pretty expected of me.

What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January? Nothing re: fandom or pairing, but the horror was a surprise. First time ever, actually.

What’s your own favorite story of the year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you happiest? the ruins left inside you, largely because Bri helped make it so good. But it's so good.

Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them? I'm trying this thing called 'playing the tropes straight' - I used to have a difficult time of following predictable plot patterns that are still enjoyable to read. Especially tropes, because I'm kind of scared of them. But I'm doing that now.

--

From my past year of writing, what was…
My most popular story of this year: your honor i'm a freak bitch; people be loving bottom WWX and porn

Story of mine most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion: the ruins left inside you but also it just got de-anoned, so ha

Most fun story to write: Hmm, actually a girl like you should wear a warning came really easily to me! I wrote it all during work and certainly didn't expect it to be as long as it is.

Story with the single sexiest moment: This thing that static_abyss is still beta reading for me :sweats:

Most “Holy crap, that’s wrong, even for you” story: the ruins left inside you, but like, in a good way? I used to write edgy shit but for the sake of being edgy. This one took things a little bit more seriously.

Story that shifted my own perceptions of the characters: Also the fic that static_abyss is beta reading for me, it gave me a lot of unexpected feelings lmao

Biggest Surprise: bless my soul (i'm losing control) - I didn't expect it to turn as thorough or as long as it did. Honestly, I was estimating around 12k just based on premise alone. It, uh, is more than that.

In conclusion: I'm happy to find a muse again, and to chat with people again! Writing-wise, I'm really learning to prioritize to just get the words out, so that's a really good motivator for next year's goals. Which...

2021 will be the year I:
- After two years of hiatus, finish/post something each month.
- Tighten/polish up my beta reading.
- Try to absorb new content; I've honestly been in a feedback loop of like, the same things all year this year.
- On that note: also, read books. (Buy them??)
- Finish my NaNo in February.
- Write my MDZS magnum opus tbh. It won't be my last MDZS fic obvs but it will be my most important one.
- And if I'm feeling really ambitious, write a MDZS longfic per month. Or finish one. I have too many ideas, and I've only been here for a few months.
- Oh also: Actually read the MDZS novel in full from beginning to end (do not @ me), get into SVSSS and TGCF?, play FE3H (next month?)

//



And then we have... this.

1. Fun, fluffy, and slightly dramatic get togethers.

2. This year? Hm, without a warning actually. Mostly because it was my first fic in a long time that I was actually trying at. Also, I was handwriting it. It took about a week I think.

3. Uh, the key that our souls were singing. I banged that out in like, three hours. Looked it over, posted it before the Yuletide deadline. I don't know how.

4. Like, ever ever? 'Cause we're gonna go back a few years for that. I'm going to pretend we're talking about this year, and I'm going to admit, I'm really happy with the way "the ruins left inside you" turned out - although that wouldn't have happened without the help of magicites.

5. I usually write from start to finish, unless a fic is kicking my ass (like this year's NaNo, coughs) then I like to take a short break. Or, I guess, a long one, depending.

6. Yes lmao but usually really old shit. Actually this year I deleted a bunch of really old kpop fic on AO3. Don't worry though, whatever I don't mind people accidentally coming across is still up on prettyquills.

7. Hashtag get your words out? But actually I think it was something that a friend from high school said to me, which isn't necessarily from her - but just that the memory of her saying it to me is what stands out to me the most. "Easy reading is hard writing," cr. Hemingway. Oh, you alcoholic misogynist.

8. Oh man. I'm really just thinking of when someone in my classes told me in 2018, during my fandom hiatus, that I looked like I write fanfiction. That's not even bad advice, it just embarrasses me.

9. Yes, all the time! necessarian and I have, like, twice in public (and many other times in private.) I've round robined a few things with other friends, too. I'm usually down to collab, but mostly with only one writer at a time. It also depends on where we're starting and how we're going about the collaboration proces.

10. T... wo....? (Maybe one at the time of posting this, which would be my NaNo.) (Not counting HTTYD threadfic.) Although there is one thing I haven't written a word of but have a title for. But that's a bit of a surprise ;)

11. I'm going to pretend these questions are applying to this year, so - my longfics! Vampirefic, Jennifer's Body xover fusion, and my upcoming fic (which may or may not be completed by the time I post this.

12. I think my favorite story I read this year was Don't Forget. I've read a lot of good MDZS fics since I got into it, of course, but I just remember the impact of this one and how much I just... want more words for it. I could read so much of this fic/verse/author, so yeah, it secures my number one spot for 2020.

13. This year it'll have to be this comment I got on to sing of the damage. It's like, a full 5 paragraph essay. I'm still stunned.

14. An annoying early Y------e comment that I'm not going to go into.

15. Uh, haha, I already have an idea for this but it's for the other fandom, which, *handwaves.* So I'm not gonna get into that either.

16. Yes...

17. *shrug*

18. Currently, it's Lan Wangji. He comes easy to me. Xue Yang and Jingyi are fun to write too. I usually like writing ENTPs except Wei Wuxian is a main character and very annoying so writing from his POV actually gives me trouble frequently.

19. I don't have a least favorite character to write, usually! If a character is challenging to me it's... a challenge, haha. But I prefer writing characters I think I understand a bit of a psyche of, so if I don't I usually have no interest in writing them in at all.

20. Yes - it's the best way for me to get shit done. Nearly all of my recent fics have been finished because of this - usually hard external deadlines, or personal goals I'm very dedicated to. I should probably set one for NaNo, especially since I barely committed to it during November.

I'm skipping 21 for A Variety Of Reasons!

22. I have a post of that here - but, specifically, and also especially for Wangxian, I'd like to try arranged marriage, veelafic, aaaand maybe reincarnation. I actually have a plot in mind for the first two, but not the third.

23. Space AU. Maybe?

24. This is such a silly question LMAO but I've been sharing my stories on the internet for the past thirteen years - about half my life.

25. Like, my writing writing? My prose? Because a lot of the time it's just pulled from what I've read recently, or how I'd like my writing to read. I've been working on improving and polishing my writing for years - still am, by all technicalities - so at this point it's a mishmash of fanfiction influence, children's lit influence, and original slash influence. Plus that time when I was 16 that I had Drarry brainworms for three straight months and literally could not think about anything else.

26. I think just dedication and work ethic. Committing to getting words out on the page, rather than trying to perfect what you write firsthand. Discipline.

27. Aha, for me it's just pacing. I'm a very time-based writer, conscious of how much time the reader is spending in the scene/emotion as well as the character. Pacing comes pretty naturally to me these days, espcially since I'm not kind of floundering around at the end and now I'm trying to tell sensible stories with satisfying endings.

28. The clout and feedback LMAO But also the emotions and indulgence! The characters live rent-free in my head; I don't have OCs here.

29. Ahahaha noooo it's just my NaNo and it's just a pretty straightforward romcom. Also a secret I guess because I usually like to keep my premises secret. Nothing weird about trust, I just like giving and receiving surprises :P

30. I think just a stroke of indulgence, of id. Even when I'm writing a fic for someone, I make sure that there's something in there that's specifically for me - whether it's a detail in the porn, or an agenda that I might happen to share with the prompter (cough sexy blood drinking cough), or the feeling of being in a collegetown again, or the absolutely positively hilarity of a fixit fic having a horrible ending. Idk, I just make sure that the fic I write feels also like a fic I'll read.

But also specifically: eyes. My writing is so focused on eyes.