2016: A Retrospective
2 Jan 2017 20:39![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
extrapenguinFrom a personal POV, it was a good year: I got my shit together re: studying, hit my groove working, and in general grew out of being a socially awkward dork and into my own skin. (It's an ongoing process, but this year was especially productive.) Fandom-wise, I got a new fandom (The Goblin Emperor) and new friends – and an IRC chatroom, which I find a natural environment for socialization.
Fanfics of 2016
2016 total stats: (2015 in brackets)
User Subscriptions: 5 (5)
Kudos: 475 (646)
Comment Threads: 119 (99)
Bookmarks: 51 (37)
Subscriptions: 4 (7)
Word Count: 41140 (27042)
Hits: 7461 (8946)
So, more words, comments, and bookmarks, with less hits and kudos. Comes from going into a smaller fandom.
Top 3 by hits:
1. Occupational Hazards (2988) TGE but readable without prior fandom knowledge, has almost 3k hits. It's tentacle rape oviposition and has a lot of people coming in that way.
2. The Four Motivations of Man (504), Vorkosigan saga, has a bit over a sixth of Occupational Hazards' hits. It's short and silly.
(Then come my three fanarts. Did I mention that I started doing fanart treats/assignments for exchanges?)
3. Five fiancé(e)s Stano Bazhevin married (and one she didn't) (214), TGE crackish, a blatant 5+1 things fic that's also funny.
Top 3 by kudos:
1. Occupational Hazards (59)
2. The Four Motivations of Man (36)
3. Optimization (30), yet another TGE OC fic! This time with an OFC engineer who improves the pneumatic tube system. Really, this fandom spoils me. People read gen OC worldbuildy fic.
Top 3 by comment threads:
1. A Special Speck of Dust (11) for a 5-minute-fandom gets the Yuletide boost. I like this one, and was Sad it wasn't doing that well, but then it magically got a load of comments and kudos in the final days. And a rec on _coal!
1. Selected Correspondence of Aris Merrick, Martian Surveyor (11) is also a 5-minute fandom with a Yuletide boost. This one's epistolatory and only 2k!
3. Protector in the Night (8), a TGE Cala/Maia fraught moment. Something of an exchange boost here, too.
3. Occupational Hazards (8), also with an exchange boost.
Top 3 by bookmarks:
1. Occupational Hazards (11), of which 8 are public and 3 private.
2. A Special Speck of Dust (7), of which 6 are public and 1 private.
3. Selected Correspondence of Aris Merrick, Martian Surveyor (5), all of which are public.
+ The "Someone subscribed to my one-shot?????" edition:
1. Occupational Hazards: 3 subscriptions. Tentacle porn aficionados are nothing if not tenacious.
2. Nazhmorhathverain rodraa zeustumoran, my self-indulgent linguistics conlanging TGE fic, has one subscriber. Let's be friends forever?
Modded meme thing:
Trends you've noticed?
Floofy fics get more kudos but less comments or bookmarks. Porn that has a rareish kink gets lots of (anon) kudos. For comments, gen worldbuilding in a small fandom, or during Yuletide.
What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January?
Dazhis/Maia, in Illusions of the Self.
Hardest and easiest story to write?
Hardest was Protector in the Night, because it's ... very much not my typical style. Very understated and emotional. Now, I'm proud of myself for being able to do it, but it was hard.
Easiest was Selected Correspondence of Aris Merrick, which just flowed out in an hour or so, and is so successful that just as I was compiling this post, I got a comment e-mail for a comment on it that went "Subscribed. Just in case of more." so all the stats involving it are wrong. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
New Year's Resolutions
I'll write more words – I got 41k this year, let's see if I can get 50k! (That should also bring my AO3 total wordcount to >100k from its current 86k.) I'll also write some explicit F/F. (Ana Khouri/Ilia Volyova, perhaps?) I'll investigate the Culture series and The Traitor Baru Cormorant, sincekaranguni's id is apparently my id, and there are Yuletide requests to write. I'll finish that WIP I promised james. And continue the Vorkosigan reread.
Oh, and I'll try to convert people into Uplift fandom. It's a space opera setting taken to 11, and I think there'd be a lot of nice room for fandom.
Fanfics of 2016
2016 total stats: (2015 in brackets)
User Subscriptions: 5 (5)
Kudos: 475 (646)
Comment Threads: 119 (99)
Bookmarks: 51 (37)
Subscriptions: 4 (7)
Word Count: 41140 (27042)
Hits: 7461 (8946)
So, more words, comments, and bookmarks, with less hits and kudos. Comes from going into a smaller fandom.
Top 3 by hits:
1. Occupational Hazards (2988) TGE but readable without prior fandom knowledge, has almost 3k hits. It's tentacle rape oviposition and has a lot of people coming in that way.
2. The Four Motivations of Man (504), Vorkosigan saga, has a bit over a sixth of Occupational Hazards' hits. It's short and silly.
(Then come my three fanarts. Did I mention that I started doing fanart treats/assignments for exchanges?)
3. Five fiancé(e)s Stano Bazhevin married (and one she didn't) (214), TGE crackish, a blatant 5+1 things fic that's also funny.
Top 3 by kudos:
1. Occupational Hazards (59)
2. The Four Motivations of Man (36)
3. Optimization (30), yet another TGE OC fic! This time with an OFC engineer who improves the pneumatic tube system. Really, this fandom spoils me. People read gen OC worldbuildy fic.
Top 3 by comment threads:
1. A Special Speck of Dust (11) for a 5-minute-fandom gets the Yuletide boost. I like this one, and was Sad it wasn't doing that well, but then it magically got a load of comments and kudos in the final days. And a rec on _coal!
1. Selected Correspondence of Aris Merrick, Martian Surveyor (11) is also a 5-minute fandom with a Yuletide boost. This one's epistolatory and only 2k!
3. Protector in the Night (8), a TGE Cala/Maia fraught moment. Something of an exchange boost here, too.
3. Occupational Hazards (8), also with an exchange boost.
Top 3 by bookmarks:
1. Occupational Hazards (11), of which 8 are public and 3 private.
2. A Special Speck of Dust (7), of which 6 are public and 1 private.
3. Selected Correspondence of Aris Merrick, Martian Surveyor (5), all of which are public.
+ The "Someone subscribed to my one-shot?????" edition:
1. Occupational Hazards: 3 subscriptions. Tentacle porn aficionados are nothing if not tenacious.
2. Nazhmorhathverain rodraa zeustumoran, my self-indulgent linguistics conlanging TGE fic, has one subscriber. Let's be friends forever?
Modded meme thing:
Trends you've noticed?
Floofy fics get more kudos but less comments or bookmarks. Porn that has a rareish kink gets lots of (anon) kudos. For comments, gen worldbuilding in a small fandom, or during Yuletide.
What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January?
Dazhis/Maia, in Illusions of the Self.
Hardest and easiest story to write?
Hardest was Protector in the Night, because it's ... very much not my typical style. Very understated and emotional. Now, I'm proud of myself for being able to do it, but it was hard.
Easiest was Selected Correspondence of Aris Merrick, which just flowed out in an hour or so, and is so successful that just as I was compiling this post, I got a comment e-mail for a comment on it that went "Subscribed. Just in case of more." so all the stats involving it are wrong. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
New Year's Resolutions
I'll write more words – I got 41k this year, let's see if I can get 50k! (That should also bring my AO3 total wordcount to >100k from its current 86k.) I'll also write some explicit F/F. (Ana Khouri/Ilia Volyova, perhaps?) I'll investigate the Culture series and The Traitor Baru Cormorant, since
karanguni's id is apparently my id, and there are Yuletide requests to write. I'll finish that WIP I promised james. And continue the Vorkosigan reread.Oh, and I'll try to convert people into Uplift fandom. It's a space opera setting taken to 11, and I think there'd be a lot of nice room for fandom.
no subject
Date: 2017-01-03 04:59 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-01-03 10:27 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-01-03 15:21 (UTC)I'd skip Consider Phlebas first, even though it's got a lot of worldbuild - it's not very gripping as a first book. Choose between Player of Games and Use of Weapons depending on what you like to read - Player of Games is more cerebral and about, well, games, while Use of Weapons is like a marvellous James Bond flick.
If either of those maintains your interest, I'd then read from a mix of Surface Detail (great, great characters) or Excession (if you like the Ship AIs). At that point you'll either love 'im or hate 'im enough to go off of summaries for the rest.
no subject
Date: 2017-01-03 20:42 (UTC)