2018 in Review

[extrapenguin]

Using a splattering of isis's freeform questions, as usual.

AO3 Stats

Stat	2018	2017	total	2018 as % of total
User Subscriptions:	36	5	-	-
Kudos:	1563	594	4195	37%
Comment Threads:	269	87	661	41%
Bookmarks:	370	93	635	58%
Subscriptions:	139	6	160	87%
Word Count:	147639	27618	262090	56%
Hits:	19170	7289	68780	28%

...or, in other words, I more than doubled my AO3 wordcount! I also got a lot more subscriptions, both to my works and me, since I started posting WIPs on the regular. In general, my works grew longer and more explicit, as I learned to meld worldbuilding into shipfic.

Specific Stories

Most Hits & Comment Threads
Questions at Dusk, 18k of E-rated Wei Wuxian/Lan Wangji, Modao Zushi. It's longish E-rated for the main couple, and published at a time when a bunch of people were desperate for any fic but the archive wasn't oversaturated yet.

Most Kudos & Bookmarks
Date of Rebirth, 7.7k of E-rated Song Lan/Xiao Xingchen, Modao Zushi. It seems this one is the go-to "but canon did them wrong, pls fix" fic people rec to their friends, ergo kudos and bookmarks.

Most Subscriptions
Rediscovery, Reconstruction, 27k of M-rated Wei Wuxian-centric, Modao Zushi. 50 subscriptions, down from a max of 54 as people unsubscribe when it ends. It's my most recent multiparter, posted once a week over a month, and hefty; I'm not surprised people subscribed to it, even if it's not the juggernaut and the subject matter (CSA recovery) is quite heavy reading.

Longest
Heaven and Earth, 31k of E-rated Song Lan/Xiao Xingchen/Xue Yang, Modao Zushi. This one was very well-received, and people discover it even later on, as I still get new readers even now, over 6 months after it was posted. It's also omegaverse mpreg, but at least one person has read it and been thrilled despite being squicked by the entire concept behind it.

Favorite title
I wrote an entire post on my titles' sources, and my fave is When the Honor Comes too Late, from Sarah Williams' The Old Astronomer, since the content of the line fits so well – the honor of resurrection comes to Wei Wuxian too late for him to ever meet any of his friends or acquaintances again – but also the context of the stanza also fits, and the very famous lines that follow, "Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light / I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night", both fit Wei Wuxian (he wouldn't fear the night) and offer the hope of his reputation rising again.

Favorite opening line
Snow Over Old Tracks, 2.2k of M/M origfic:

Zin Rihks had committed a terrible error in judgment.

It's a hook, it sets up the scene, it's accurate yet not. (The rest of my opening lines tend to be setups for zingers of opening paragraphs rather than excellent opening lines in their own stead.)

Favorite closing line
If I Must Leave the Long River of Time, 3.6k of gen origfic:

"I will show you something beautiful," she whispered, and held on to Maria as they were pulled upwards.

This is a very good way to end the fic in question, trust me! It shows the change in the characters' relations over the course of the fic!

Favorite line from anywhere
Alarms Will Ring for Eternity, 1k of gen origfic:

It was a remarkably pleasant day to be a soulless not-quite-corpse, broken and dying on the ocean rocks.

The protagonist here, Chila, owes quite a bit to Wei Wuxian. It turns out that I like necromancers!

Some questions from chromemuffin:
Which story that you wrote this year did you like the most?
Rediscovery, Reconstruction! It's long, I got to do research and worldbuilding, I got to write a positive mentor figure, there was research and discovery happening in the fic, and Wei Wuxian got a happy ending. I'm proud of it.

Which gave you the most trouble to write for whatever reason?
My Unconquerable Soul (Modao Zushi) is currently on hiatus, despite having a finished outline, a casualty of burning out from the fandom at large and also the translation jumping around back to the present when I needed it to stay in the past. I do have an aside that's written and unpublished, and the outline, I just ... can't find it in myself. Let's see what the situation looks like next year/when I've done logistics and have free time.

General Writing Questions

What things did you write that you couldn't have predicted last year?
AHAHA all of it? I've written 31k of a single fic! I've written omegaverse! Mpreg! Incest! Canon character/OFC! I doubled my AO3 wordcount!

Predictions for 2019?
At least somewhat less porn, especially at the start of the year – I feel like my sex scenes are a bit repetitive. Or I'll just vary it up with kinks so the characters can do more diverse stuff that I still find sexy. There will be more research overkill, and I will be happy to do it. I will wangst about a lack of comments. (Honestly, most of my wangst about lack of comments is because I want at least one person to say "You've obviously put in a great deal of work, and the result has been both emotionally fulfilling and thought provoking!" at length.)

2019 Resolutions

I have a list!

• Write at least 100k of words onto AO3
• Write at least one of the following, porn edition:
  • Yu Ziyuan/Wang Lingjiao F/F rape with whipping, set during the time Wang Lingjiao appears at the Lotus Pier
  • fill my own Zhao Yunlan/Shen Wei rape roleplay kinkmeme prompt
  • novelverse Zhao Yunlan/Shen Wei that investigates Shen Wei's utter unwillingness to bottom and has him have to shed his disguise; armadda has an outline
  • Lan Wangji/Wei Wuxian, except Lan Wangji is a trans man
• Write at least one of the following, MDZS longfic edition:
  • setting addition AU: name magic
  • canon divergence + setting addition AU: Sunshot Campaign AU
  • finish My Unconquerable Soul
  • setting change AU: it's modern, and Lan Wangji summons a dragon Wei Wuxian based on instructions from a cereal package, then goes to live at the temple Jiang Fengmian is a priest at
  • canon divergence: Wei Wuxian ends up at Baoshan Sanren's mountain instead of Dafan Mountain
  • canon divergence: Mo Xuanyu doesn't bring back Wei Wuxian and instead exacts revenge for himself, darkfic
• Write at least one of the following, Guardian longfic edition:
  • canon divergence: Ye Zun is redeemed via praise kink and sex pollen, thus OT3 Zhao Yunlan/Shen Wei/Ye Zun
  • canon divergence + setting addition AU: omegaverse where Shen Wei has a teenage daughter, and Zhao Yunlan sets on wooing him – before tripping over and accidentally also bonding with Ye Zun; eventual OT3
  • crossover where Wei Wuxian falls down into Ye Zun's pillar, then gets them out and somehow enrols into the same genetics classes as Shen Wei; this'd let me do stuff on how the cultivator society survived into the modern era and allow me to use the Best Name Jiang Rengliu 江仍流
• Go through the WIPs folders and see if there's anything easyishly finishable – there's a half-done and outlined Nirvana in Fire fic there which sees Prince Yu redeemed, at least; perhaps finish that one, or something else in there

If any of those sound more intriguing than the others in its category, feel free to discuss in the comments! I may or may not divulge more information – for the Sunshot Campaign AU one I kinda want to keep everyone as unspoiled as possible, including for the relationships. Worldbuilding notes I am willing to share for all, to at least some extent, and potential pairings for all but the aforementioned. An outline or snippet for some. One even has a summary already written. Save the published WIP, the most I have written is 7k, and a few aren't outlined anywhere but my mind. Come chat!

Comments

[naye]

So many words! Good luck with your goals - you have an amazing number of ideas. I'm so impressed!

[extrapenguin]

So many words! I have more ideas than time. I hope I can write at least 4 of these ideas before getting overloaded with more. If only I had an auto-dictating robot that'd write the fic straight out of my brain...

[naye]

If you had such a robots you could sell it to all writers and make ALL THE MONEY oh man I only wish... ;_;

Writing is hard! Good luck! :D

[isis]

Wow, you were super prolific!

[extrapenguin]

Indeed! I have no idea how I doubled my AO3 wordcount, but I don't expect to repeat the feat.

[chromemuffin]

I would love to see more research-requiring content from you! It worked so well in Rediscovery, Reconstruction. I loved how excited you (and Wei Wuxian) got with the inventive process- which I personally found very insightful.

[extrapenguin]

Pretty much everything save the PWPs will contain research; such is the penguinly nature. There'll definitely be more invention and ingenuity from anything with Wei Wuxian POV! :)

[ehyde]

I am interested in the crossover even though I have not seen Guardian, because the magic words "cultivator society survived into the modern era" caught my eye. (I am interested in Guardian, but I don't know whether to read or watch as I understand the novel and drama are pretty different; I prefer reading but I only hear people talk about the drama?)

[extrapenguin]

Guardian the novel is urban fantasy BL. NovelUpdates. Translation is a WIP, currently at 76/106 chapters. Guardian the webdrama was changed into science fiction "bromance" (the censor was sleeping on the job), and is available in full, subtitled, on YouTube.

rheasilvia has written a primer post on the drama. There is ... a very loud strain of thought that goes "the drama sucks, it is terrible, the only reason people watch is for the chemistry" which is wrong – there are plenty of interesting things other than that – and then they go write fic that is nominally drama but contaminated with novel characterization when they really should be kept separate. unrelaxing has a moderately spoilery post on the differences; the comments really articulated that the type of story and its themes differ a lot between the original and adaptation – the novel is about maintaining order, while the drama is about seeing the humanity in aliens, basically. Let me quote:

Somehow, in their attempt to get around censorship, the series created a more politically charged, maybe even politically relevant, narrative.

That this plot won’t be fully realised in the show is a given, but the building blocks of it are there. A people in discontent - living without education or healthcare in an archaic society while a different group of people get to live in a metophorical and literal light. Yunlan’s realisation that this group of people are just like them, with their own hopes and dreams, and that a lot of what’s making them ‘evil’ is nothing more than their lack of opprtunity, fate and circumstance — that was very powerful to me.

I did try reading the novel, twice, but bounced off both times. I also bounced off of the other novel of the author's I tried; I guess it's the author/too grimdark. The drama is more appealing to my id, so the crossover I write will be trying to meld the Chinese mythology aspects of MDZS with the sci-fi of Guardian the TV series (instead of the Chinese mythology of Guardian the novel, lol). Ye Zun, the other character mentioned, is drama-only/changed a whole lot in the adaptation. Based on everything I've heard about the novel, the significant adaptation changes to theme, characters, and worldbuilding all made the drama more in line with my tastes than the novel.

As for why you only hear about the drama, it's been out in full for a while (while the novel's still a WIP), and I think audiovisual works get a larger fandom than books do as a rule. Plus it really is an enjoyable sci-fi romp, even if prestige television it is not.

(The actual crossover, I think I'd add enough exposition that anyone unfamiliar with one canon could quickly catch up with the basics of the other one without much trouble, hopefully increasing the potential readerbase.)

[ehyde]

the fact that it's science fiction is itself enough to make me more interested in the drama. The time I have available for watching tv is fairly limited, but I'll see if I can give the first few episodes a try at the very least.

[extrapenguin]

Welcome! :D Here's the YouTube link to all 40 episodes.