extrapenguin | Entries tagged with type: retrospective

This year I, Certified Vidder, made 5 vids.

SW ST: Return to the Sea

vid_bingo
For All Mankind: Northwest Passage

festivids

vid_bingo
baihe short films: Until Eternity

vid_bingo
SW ST: Break the Chain

vidukon_cardiff

vid_bingo
SW PT + OT + ST: Still Alive! >:D

vidukon_cardiff

( 2024 vid review )

AO3 Stats

Stat	2024	2023 then	2023 now	All years
User Subscriptions:	269	235	-	-
Kudos:	410	2002	3605	51585
Comment Threads:	99	147	209	3254
Bookmarks:	59	619	1212	11888
Subscriptions:	1	60	103	1364
Word Count:	9238	70555	70555	912252
Hits:	3550	15074	28713	528382

I did not even break 10k, which explains the entire rest of the stats lol. Not surprised given the creative and other sort of burnout I have been experiencing due to RL stuff. Partly also 2023 exacting its revenge once I ran out of fumes to run on.

I posted 23 things to AO3 in 2024. Mostly for Battleship – some fic, some art, a few vids, one fanmix.

Popularity

( Read more... )

Self-recs

Art/Comics
This year, I think my favorite is actually a solo art piece featuring a lava mermaid:
Hot Pool

Fanmix
I made another Expanse fanmix! This one is about the Ring Worlds and humanity's settlement of them: ::: our destiny, the void ::: there, the alien ::: there, a home ::: and in the end, we alone :::
Distant Skies, My Destiny

Vid
I only made five. I like all of them, so I'll rec the only one not shown at any sort of vidcon:
Return to the Sea

Fic
Not much this year, so have only one:

Yet the skies always sing to me is a gen pre-canon fic for the Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, ft. Shmi and the Force.

2024 Resolutions & did I do them

Find love
No. My international move did not happen in 2024; instead, it will happen in February. Did not even consider this.

Do [redacted RL sports thingamajig]
Done! Successfully! GJ me!

Finish the work project
Done! Successfully! Woohoo!

Make a vid from a baihe short film
Done! Until Eternity features several in a reincarnation theme thingy.

Finish my vid_bingo card
Done! In July, I got a line bingo. Link to card.

Write some fic that is weird/wild/experimental
Not really? Did not write much of anything tbh.

2025 Resolutions

I have my RL todos already, so a small amount of fandom stuff for this year.

Write 10k
Should be doable if I sign up for Battleship again and maybe write people OW boob porn treats, since that's everything my brain is capable of nowadays lol.

Be more present on DW
Music posts, if nothing else. I enjoy my community of pocket friends but have been feeling burnt out of everything (see also: giant backlog of not-replied-to AO3 comments...) and hopefully reattaching myself somehow will help with the sense of burnout/"I am too tired to do anything" etc.

Get a new vid_bingo card and make at least one vid
Possibly a 3×3 so I can attempt a blackout bingo this time! I'll see if any of the readymade 3×3s look nice (music, character, theme – probably not music, given that I am picky about music and want my vidsong to be listenable) and if not, idk, generate my own.

As I am now A Vidder ig, I am going to also do a vid review. I made 7 vids! All of them are some variety of Star Wars.

SWTOR: Begin Again

vid_bingo
OT: Burn It Down

vidukon_cardiff
SWTOR: Come What May

vidukon_cardiff
PT: You Know My Name

vidukon_cardiff
PT: Culmination

vid_bingo
TCW: Resisting Fate

ficinabox
ST + PT + OT: Reincarnation

fanworks

( 2023 vid review )

Now actually posted on the 1st!

AO3 Stats

Stat	2023	2022 then	2022 now	All years
User Subscriptions:	235	203	-	-
Kudos:	2002	2826	4449	43877
Comment Threads:	147	178	220	2960
Bookmarks:	619	648	1117	9631
Subscriptions:	60	77	113	1218
Word Count:	70555	68204	68204	903014
Hits:	15074	22390	35448	456741

Miraculously, I wrote more in 2023 than in 2022. Only by 2k, but considering the RL year I've had, I was not expecting anything along the lines. I had a nice October, but the rest of the year was kind of 0/10. 2024 would have to expend some serious effort to be as bad.

I posted 47 things to AO3 in 2023. Mostly fic, a bunch of art and vids, also a fanmix and an IF.

Popularity

( Read more... )

Self-recs

Interactive Fiction
I made one. I like it! You play as Maul and you're investigating rumors that Obi-Wan Kenobi has been seen at the local university:
Crossing Over

Art/Comics
I think the Expert Judgement on ... comic with the explorer and her kitty is the best art of mine:
Intrusion Into

Fanmix
I made a fanmix and posted it onto AO3! I should perhaps crosspost it here at some point. It's for the Investigator from the Expanse (books), and thus engages also with the worldbuilding about the Builders. I think I should maybe make a post on the book series actually.
Wake the World for Me

Vid
Y'all already know what I'll rec.
Reincarnation

Fic
Here I have four "main" recs that all do something different.

Force-Found, Fetter-Free is a gen TPM canon divergence fixit and also the longest thing I wrote this year (at under 12k, but w/e). I like the POV structure and the fact that the concept is not the most popular one.

Desert Sons is a gen post-AotC fic where Anakin confesses his Tusken massacre to A'Sharad Hett. It is a serious fic with themes like law relativism and restitution and I think I tackled the topic well.

In the Shadow of Korriban is a gen crossover between SW PT and Babylon 5. I like how I interwove the worldbuilding here.

Starless Void of Ageless Night is 442 words of gen for Europa Report, but readable canon-blind. It's in future tense! I think I did it well. I like being experimental.

There's some other honorable mentions as well – I liked the traps I constructed for the tomb in Beyond the Thunder Sounds (SWTOR), the mythology ~vibes~ of Trust in the Might of a Miracle (SW PT), and the dark mood and such of Ascent (The Luminous Dead).

2023 Resolutions & did I do them

Comments with critical praise
LOL no. 2023 was terrible IRL and I simply did not have the brain to anything like this.

Finish All That is Solid Melts into Air
No. I did add some words, but I did not have the wherewithal in me to sink into a long word-based project.

Find some workable longform writing meta
No. To be fair, I don't think I tried at all. I just forgot this was a thing I resolved to do and it whooshed out of my brain by the 6th.

Write some fic just for me
Yes! Desert Sons, mostly, and In the Shadow of Korriban, definitely.

Improve my vidding skillz
Yes! I think I leveled up with Begin Again (process notes), and then again with Reincarnation (very brief notes). I should probably post full process notes on Reincarnation at some point.

2024 Resolutions

I've decided to include some RL ones this time, since those are ones I should 100% be able to tick off the next time I'm making this post.

Find love
I'll be moving, possibly internationally, later this year. I'll give Tinder etc a second chance there. I want to love and be loved and be physically close with someone. I want to fuck a hot chick. I guess I can suffer through ten billion awkward first dates that people agree to solely on the basis that I am one of the few people in the queer woman dating pool capable of asking people out.

~~Do [redacted RL sports thingamajig]~~
The next stage of commitment, if you will. Redaction because the community is small enough I might be doxxable if I mention it.

Finish the work project
It was supposed to be done in October, but shit broke. I want to be fucking done with it so I can move on with my life.

~~Make a vid from a baihe short film~~
Either from something longform, like Legend of Yunze, or a patchwork of different sources like for the reincarnation romance project (notes the first, notes the second).

Finish my vid_bingo card
This will include:
- Return to the Sea. A Rey/Leia vid to Sirens - Of Blood and Water by Epica. Technically done, but I need to rip out and redo the first verse.
- character study of [redacted] to [redacted] by [redacted]. I just need to clip it.
- the reincarnation romance project above to Until Eternity by Blackbriar. I need to decide on the source set and figure out how to run cleancredits.
- 00's music. Possibly a Rey vid to either Mortalitas Part IV: From Beneath You It Devours by Nemesea or Show Me the Way by Elis (or the shorter version or original version of the latter). The music deep dive was worth it, esp. when I realized Metal Archives has a Related Bands tab for each entry! Though Elis I found when it was mentioned in a review for a completely different album, so you should read the reviews as well. :)

Write some fic that is weird/wild/experimental
I like doing this. I want to stretch my wings. I want to become me, blobbing out of the boxes of typicality and write something utterly and completely deranged.

Current Mood: melancholy
Current Music: Elis - Show Me the Way

This might be a few days late, but in my defense, I had the flu, and then when I got home I had to reinstall GRUB because my desktop wouldn't boot...

AO3 Stats

Stat	2022	2021 then	2021 now	All years
User Subscriptions:	203	180	-	-
Kudos:	2826	2276	6675	35646
Comment Threads:	178	228	312	2661
Bookmarks:	648	470	1082	7236
Subscriptions:	77	83	131	977
Word Count:	68204	101347	101347	832459
Hits:	22390	13784	28371	383803

Oof. I continued my MMO lifestyle, but the fact I have 50k of WIP on my hard drive is ... noticeable in my output. Also, RL is not being terribly conducive to, well, stuff. I think it will get worse before it gets better. Or that's just the fact I'm still sniffly from the influenza talking.

Most popular story this year
No Death, Only the Force – most hits, kudos, comments, bookmarks, and subscriptions. Even before it was recced by local BNF

gffa
Star Wars Prequel Trilogy canon divergence, Mace Windu & Shmi Skywalker, Anakin Skywalker & Depa Billaba

Anakin Skywalker is just about to to free his mother from the Tuskens when the Force rudely yanks him to the Jedi Temple on Coruscant – and into Mace Windu's body. Mace, on the other hand, gets tossed into Anakin's body on Tatooine.

I understand perfectly why this is at the top: it's funny and short, easy to read and rec.

Longest
Daybreak (10k)
Star Wars Prequel Trilogy canon divergence, Mace Windu & Katooni, T-rated

Palpatine is dead, but then the Coruscant Guard turns up in his office and starts shooting. Mace discovers that Sidious has left a final trap for the Jedi, and now it's a race against time to dismantle it and free the clone troopers before they break through the Temple doors.

Fun fact: "Daybreak" was originally supposed to be a placeholder title. I then spent 5min explaining to my rubber goose on Discord why it was the perfect title thematically and that I should change it. Then I came to my senses. *g* (It's a reference to Operation Knightfall, a.k.a. Order 66.)

Author's choice
Undertow
Star Wars PT, post-canon, Mace Windu & Maul, T-rated

An unwitting Imperial has in her hands an Orb of Scrying, a Dark Side artefact that allows one to find any given person with pinpoint accuracy. As the nascent Rebellion doesn't appreciate the danger this could pose, Mace Windu has to seek help from someone he never would have imagined teaming up with.

I think this is the most unique fic of the year, thematically, and with the above two, it's part of the trifecta of perfect titles.

Everything I made in 2022 (AO3)

Visions for 2023

Critical praise
In searching through ~~relics of the past~~ vidding meta, I came acros the linked journal post by

heresluck, and felt one of those transformative moments of OMG. So that's why I like some comments more than others! (Praise >>> approval >>> love, in the terms of the linked post.) I know I can do approval, and I reach for that more than straightforward love, but I would like to try including more praise in my comments when possible. Detailed, thoughtful, critical praise. Not on every fic – some don't have enough things for my brain to digest – but where I can. Because I want there to be more of it in the world. Because it might make an author's day, like it would mine – and even if it doesn't, it is still positive attention, so no-one should be upset.

Improvement of the craft
Part of the fun of writing (and vidding) for me is getting better at it. In writing, I have a sense that I've plateaued. I think my longfic skills are worse than my shortfic ones, but improving those obviously takes longer, and I think I have reached either a limit or a region of diminishing returns in my self-improvement skills. OTOH, all the concrit events are (for obvious reasons) geared towards shorter works (

concrit_x has a 10k max), which is firmly in my comfort zone, where I know I can choose the method of approach which suits the fic idea best, rather than be confined to my comfort zone. I would look to meta on this ... except it's all 100% geared towards getting your professionally published book written to market standards, which is not what I want at all. Urgh. And the rest seems catered at people whose writing methods are not mine at all. I just fundamentally do not relate to pinch points or Save the Cat structure. Perhaps I should try, artificial as that would feel? Bleh.

The other option for improvement is to basically pour rhetoric down my throat and improve sentence-level craft. I think I'll have to do this at some point, too.

I also think I need some "me time" with fic – a lot of my output the past year(s) has been exchange fic, which is nice as a way of getting me to write something, but inevitably some of it ends up feeling :( to me because I want my recipient to be happy, and sometimes what gives my recipient joy to read is not at all what gives me joy to write.

With vidding I'm still new/bad enough that there's significant improvement year-on-year, and there is a whole lot of vidding meta from the 2000s mirrored to DW. (

heresluck and

laurashapiro at least, and

vidding_livejournal_ark2) I also came up with an idea that requires effects (or, well, 6 tracks of video) for the

vid_bingo same song round, so I'll get to flex my technical muscles there. And I discovered I can, actually, play SWTOR with Ultra graphics, so I've remade my Consular and screen recorded my way through Tython with the UI hidden. I think after I'm done with that, I'll remake my

vexercises Consular & Syo vid, and expand my first pechakucha to be the song's length. Y'know. 8 minutes. Using only 6s cuts from the source. I never claimed to be sane.

Resolutions

Leave comments with critical praise whenever possible
Finish All that is Solid Melts into Air (hopefully less than 30k left?)
Find some workable longform writing meta (links welcome)
Write some fic just for me
Improve my vidding skillz

Last year's goals post. I have no idea what I was hoping for, having forgotten about it by March, but let's see:

Write at least 150k onto AO3. LOL, no. I discovered an MMO and only through the power of Morne's WDLF exchanges reached 100k.

Do an art every week. Again, no, though I did do my traditional bit of art for ficinabox.

Write at least one longfic (50k+). Sing Dead the Dark, my longest fic of the year, was only 25k.

Write non-fannish original fiction. I don't think this happened.
Read at least one book a month. This was going very badly, but then I started reading the New Jedi Order Star Wars tie-in novels and read 3½ books in December. I am pretty sure I've read at least one non-NJO book earlier in the year so 4½/12.

Finish one WIP from the WIP folder. I fell out of all my prior fandoms and got into Star Wars instead. Did not happen.

0/6! Going very well. In my defense, I think what got in the way of #1 and #3 was Star Wars: the Old Republic, my MMO of choice. Some people discover Jesus; I discovered an MMO. Anyway, I'm not that sad about it. I can't do worse next year, after all!

2022 goals:

Write at least 100k on to AO3. Yes, I'm going back to the easy thing that I have achieved 4 years in a row. The pledge doesn't seem to improve my wordcount at all, so let's go back to the thing that gave me 245k in 2020.

Write a non-exchange WIP. I have a few ideas! They are Long canon divergences, Star Wars prequels/TCW era. I'm probably going to write the one which has Anakin fall asleep and not interrupt Mace's duel with Palpatine and then expands into a canon divergence on the early rebellion years and what happens to the Jedi after the evil is vanquished (probably going to be split into three), but the one where Anakin, Ahsoka, and Obi-Wan travel to an alternate universe and interact with canon divergence AU versions of themselves is also on the table, if only because I have the very cool pun of:
AU Anakin: "I guess I'll have to call you Obi-Two."
Obi-Wan: "..."
Anakin: "Don't worry, Master, you'll always be Obi-One in my heart."

Complete all SWTOR class stories & have fun. I'm currently 6/8 and strong at work on #7.

Post more meta and meta-y thoughts to DW. Let's say once per month or more. Currently I'm on a Star Wars kick so probably SW prequels to start with.

Continue with music spotlight posts. They're a relatively easy way to keep up the "hey, I still exist, here's stuff" dripfeed of stuff.

Since I discovered NYRs don't really encourage me to do anything, I decided to focus on stuff you might end up seeing/mission statements for 2022 and my fannish presence therein.

We Die Like Fen reveals post coming ... tomorrow, probably.

Using a splattering of

isis's freeform questions, as usual.

AO3 Stats

Stat	2021	2020 then	2020 now	total	All years
User Subscriptions:	180	144	-	-	-
Kudos:	2276	4825	6675	20518	27912
Comment Threads:	228	487	548	1963	2342
Bookmarks:	470	720	1009	3920	5408
Subscriptions:	83	115	144	628	799
Word Count:*	101347	258666	245905	675669	787680
Hits:	13784	33986	49995	236776	309631

* published. WIPs are counted as belonging to the year the last chapter was published in, and redating stuff for exchanges moves it as well. I wrote 23k for We Die Like Fen that was redated to 1.1.2022 despite being written in December and is not included in these statistics.

In general, I wrote fewer words and fewer works (40 vs 105), so there's less for people to kudos. Also I skipped Yuletide this year due to just not feeling it (a good decision, too, given WDLF and Heart Attack + Fic in a Box) so I didn't get the standard Yuletide kudos and comments burst. I also transitioned completely from Guardian into Star Wars, where my little niche of weird-ish Prequels/TCW gen isn't as popular as the Guardian shipfic I was churning out.

Specific Stories

Most popular
The Will of the Force (Mayday, Mayday), (2.1k of Star Wars PT gen comedy)
This is a quick read, funny, and thus the most clicked on, most kudosed, most bookmarked, and most commented-upon fic of the year. Despite being a oneshot, it also has the second-most subscriptions (because people use those as private bookmarks apparently). Since this dominated everything so thoroughly, I decided to look at the runners-up.

Runner-up: hits & comments
Sing Dead the Dark (24.5k of Star Wars PT gen fixit)
I liked this one! It's perhaps the one whose title I most like, and my long WIP of the year. As my only multichapter work, this one also handily won on subscriptions. The multichapterness also gave it a leg up on hits and comment threads.

Runner-up: kudos
Break Free (3.5k of Star Wars PT Obimaul time loop)
Runner-up: bookmarks
Running from the Half-Truth (3.2k of Star Wars TCW Obimaul)
This is moderately hilarious, since these fics both have the exact same ship, are similar lengths, and I wrote them for the same exchange! (We Die Like Fen: Time Loop) They were also originally bore each other's titles. Then I realized they'd work much better switched around so I did that. I guess Obimaul fandom likes

Favorite title
Sing Dead the Dark

Author's choice
Lightbringer (5.1k of SWPT Shmi Skywalker/OFC fixit)
I like what I did here! Please go look.

I am too brain dead to go through everything and try to find a favorite line, so if you have any favorite lines from my fics, or some work of mine that stuck in your mind somehow, the comments are yours! NYRs come tomorrow.

Last year's goals post. I was hoping for at least three, so let's take a look:

Write 100k onto AO3. Check.

Write a Guardian casefic. Check. Every Door a Death stands finished and posted on AO3.

Write at least one of three select WIP ideas. Nope – I haven't even outlined. (And the Ye Zun redemption idea especially is IIRC very heavily based on where I was mentally last new year's/December 2019, so it's ... not happening.)

Complete an old WIP. Check, surprisingly enough! Fate's True North now has a sequel, Lodestone of the Heart.

Sign up for exchanges. Check – of the mentioned, I skipped Jukebox and Fandom5k due to travel overlapping with them. Of course, then the travel got canceled due to covid. I did get to participate in a We Die Like Fen round out of it, though.

Go pro. Half a checkmark? I did write one thing for one anthology, but it wasn't accepted (which I anticipated, tbh), and then the rest of 2020 happened.

4.5/5 – not bad, especially given my track record with New Year's Resolutions. Though two of those were things I'd have done anyway, so it's not that impressive? Eh. I get the pleasure of checking checkmarks! \o/

2021 goals:

Write at least 150k onto AO3. I am upgrading my traditional pledge a little bit. Let's see whether I get it!

Do an art every week. I got more art supplies. I never use my art supplies. Art is meditative. Ergo, do more art. Almost certainly not for exchange gifts – I don't consider myself that good – but it's fun. I'll aim for daily when I'm home and off work, but weekly otherwise.

Write at least one longfic. I'm defining this as 50k+.

Write non-fannish original fiction. As last year, my goal is more to go pro in the sense of getting my name in the credits of something rather than Be Super Famous or Get Mega Rich or whatever. To do that, I think I need practice, and also to:
Read at least one book a month. Ideas in! Prose in! Things to think about! Maybe even a Yuletide fandom?

Finish one WIP from the WIP folder. Maybe the "Shen Wei transmigrates into KOTOR2" one, maybe another. Let's see.

2020 also had the pleasure of actually getting me into Star Wars fandom via the Clone Wars show. (I'd previously been in KOTOR fandom, but that wasn't terribly active of me and also had enough of a remove ) I will participate through exchanges and reading fic. My Femslash February participation will be more measured and sane than last year – maybe a fic every weekend, instead of a ficlet every day – and I'll see about KOTOR femslash ships. Maybe SWTOR as well, if I can get that running on my machine.

Using a splattering of

isis's freeform questions, as usual.

AO3 Stats

Stat	2020	2019 then	2019 now	total	2020 as % of total
User Subscriptions:	144	78	-	-	-
Kudos:	4825	3910	6459	20518	24%
Comment Threads:	487	536	598	1963	25%
Bookmarks:	720	587	1117	3920	18%
Subscriptions:	115	159	173	628	18%
Word Count:*	258666	181118	153635	675669	38%
Hits:	33986	36238	62666	236776	14%

* published. WIPs are counted as belonging to the year the last chapter was published in, so the discrepancy of figures for 2019 is due to me updating For No Cradle Lasts Forever in 2020, transferring it wholly into 2020's count, including the 27k published in 2019. It's 75k, of which maybe 70k was written in 2019. I also have some unrevealed exchange fics that I'll redate to 2021 once they're revealed, bringing their wordcount out of 2020's bucket again. I also wrote 48k of Shen Wei transmigrating into a video game, but that's pure drawerfic at this point.

Specific Stories

Most Hits, Kudos, and Bookmarks
Caught Red-Handed (900w of T-rated Lan Wangji/Wei Wuxian, The Untamed)
This wins its categories due to being a quick read in a megafandom for a juggernaut. It also has the second-most subscriptions, despite being a short one-shot.

Most Comments, Subscriptions, and Words
For No Cradle Lasts Forever (75k of M-rated Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan, Guardian)
Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan deal with moving all the Dixingians up to Haixing (because Dixing is going away), combined with some B-plot relationship development and a throughthread about family in there in the background. Also an alien.

Favorite title
On one sort of meta level, But for Me It Was Tuesday (800w of M-rated Lan Wangji/Wei Wuxian, Modao Zushi), because it's an exchange fic for

tuesday and the title works really well with that and the summary: Wei Wuxian's body congeals out of the dust it had turned to, and then Lan Wangji comes to fuck the corpse. His life (or in this case, death) keeps getting weirder.

On another sort of meta level, A Friend Indeed (3k of T-rated Plo Koon & Ahsoka Tano, The Clone Wars), since it's set after the Kadavo arc and the canon episode that happens after the Kadavo arc is called A Friend in Need and I think that's a nice parallel.

On a non-meta level, I think my favorite is Fell High from the Zenith (1k of T-rated Lan Wangji/Wei Wuxian, Modao Zushi, Star Wars AU) because Wei Wuxian fell (and Fell, since Star Wars) and it sounds cool. (This is also for tuesday, whose exchange superpower is apparently making me come up with rad titles.)

Fic I'm most proud of
Every Door a Death (30k, E, Guardian), because casefic with a twist! I managed it! I am very proud of myself for succeeding at this endeavor.

First fic for X
Witness Now My Wrath (500w, T-rated Xiao Rufeng/Ye Xiaoqi, Sect Leader and Little Shimei) is the first fic for the fandom on AO3.

(In All My Battles) Fight as My Comrade (3k, T-rated f!Revan/Yuthura Ban, KOTOR) is the first fic for the ship on AO3.

Favorite lines
I wrote too much to have the brain to go through every single thing I've written. The one paragraph I'm most proud of atm is one of those unrevealed fics, too, so: no. Instead, if you link to a fic of mine, I'll tell you my favorite line from it.

2020 goals vs reality, 2021 goals

Coming Soon (TM). (goals)

Using a splattering of

isis's freeform questions, as usual.

AO3 Stats

Stat	2019	2018	total	2018 as % of total
User Subscriptions:	78	36	-	-
Kudos:	3910	1563	10479	37%
Comment Threads:	536	269	1301	41%
Bookmarks:	587	370	1856	32%
Subscriptions:	159	139	401	40%
Word Count:	181118*	147639	443208	41%
Hits:	36238	19170	139413	26%

* published. I'm sitting on over 40k of For No Cradle Lasts Forever, so my total wordcount written for 2019 was over 200k.
In general, I've continued my slight wordcountage boost, and things seem to be trucking along as they were last year.

Specific Stories

Most Popular (by all metrics)
From Ashes of Sunlight, 44k of E-rated Wei Wuxian/Lan Qiren, Modao Zushi. While this is not the type to win the fandom, it's the only MDZS longfic I published this year, and that's apparently a megafandom nowadays? So I got the sweet megafandom WIP kudos and comments and subscriptions. People even seemed to enjoy it, despite the admittedly cracky pairing.

Longest
For No Cradle Lasts Forever, 70k+ of M-rated Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan, Guardian (though only 27k has been published to date). It has Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan deal with moving all the Dixingians up to Haixing (because Dixing is going away), combined with some B-plot relationship development and a throughthread about family in there in the background.

Favorite title
This is a tough one, this year! I think I'll go with Calling the Lost Sheep Home (T, Guardian, Zhu Jiu-centric), since that one's both apt and sounds neat. It's sort of inspired by a line from Delain's Don't Let Go, "It's the foghorn that's calling the last ships home" (though that lyric is apparently remarkably easy to mishear). Other finalists include Fate's True North (T, Guardian, Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan, soulmates) and Overwritable (T, Guardian, Ye Zun-centric, Peggy Sue).

Favorite opening line
Li Qian did not jump at the shadows. Or perhaps she should say lack of shadows; Dixing didn't have any light to cast them. (Running Against the Wind)
As usual, my lines are more utilitarian than fancy, but this one pretty clearly establishes where we are and raises the question of WTF Li Qian is doing there.

Favorite closing line
Zhao Yunlan clasped his shoulder. “Sometimes, reality has nothing we'd want to escape from.” (Under Rusted Skies)
It's a very nice sentiment in general, and also something of a wrap-up to both Ye Zun's situation in the fic and Zhao Yunlan's thoughts re: Shen Wei and the time travel and how the situation might be weird, he doesn't want to escape.

Favorite line from anywhere
This isn't published yet, but For No Cradle Lasts Forever will contain the line Disappointment rose up his throat like acid reflux, which I am very proud of!

General Writing Questions

What things did you write that you couldn't have predicted last year?
Compared to last year, I returned more to my usual haunts of crack and worldbuilding. Though I couldn't have predicted the flash exchange mania or the casefic.

Predictions for 2020?
More crack, more flash exchanges, I'll post my 200th fic onto AO3. (I'm currently at 188, and have 2 more ready to go.)

2020 Visions will appear tomorrow, maybe.

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.

( more questions )

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!

Nabbed from

isis's 2016 in review post. Only doing questions rather than "Top Three By X", because that's a drudge.

My favorite story this year:
Waves from Eternity, in which I got to combine my loves for poetry of both regular and vaguely pretentious sort, and spaaaaace! Bits of it are hard science fiction; others, songs. Writing it was enjoyable!

( Read more... )

What's next for 2018?
More Nirvana in Fire, more exchanges, reading new books and maybe watching stuff, too. I'll try to art, perhaps. I don't feel like making any NYRs.

Last year's NYR

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.

50k in 2017: ahahaha nope
explicit F/F: yes, twice, though not Ana Khouri/Ilia Volyova
Culture series: investigated, bounced off
Baru Cormorant: read, liked
WIP: ahahaha nope
Vorkosigan reread: nope
Summa summarum: 3 out of 6, or 50% done on NYRs.

Oh, and there's a post-Yuletide friending meme ongoing! Be sure to take a peek.

From 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( statses! )

Modded meme thing:
( questions aplenty )

Now that 2015 is done, I'll do some retrospective thinking on 2015.

In 2015, I found a few new fandoms (Rivers of London, Imperial Radch, Goblin Emperor), and re-joined Fandom properly after taking most of 2014 off due to The Busy. I did well in my studies, got a long-term summer job as a research assistant (and maybe eventual PhD student if I play my cards right), and acquired a dishwasher, which saved my sanity. I wrote a total of over 27k words over 21 works,

Ficwise, the top 3 in some categories:
( 2015: very adequate )

Profile

ExtraPenguin

Navigation

July 2025

M	T	W	T	F	S	S
	1	2	3	4	5	6
7	8	9	10	11	12	13
14	15	16	17	18	19	20
21	22	23	24	25	26	27
28	29	30	31

Syndicate

Active Entries

1: Premiere: Is There Anybody Out There?
2: (no subject)
3: Poetry in translation: Chinese to Finnish
4: Torilla tavataan
5: For all my fellow insomniacs
6: Poetic Fic Meme
7: Eunuch Rating System
8: AO3 meme

Style Credit

Style: Night Sea for Tranquility III by branchandroot

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags

Page generated 17 Jul 2025 11:27

# If you're great at leaping — bite the sun! #

Entries tagged with type: retrospective

AO3 Stats

Popularity

Self-recs

2024 Resolutions & did I do them

2025 Resolutions

AO3 Stats

Popularity

Self-recs

2023 Resolutions & did I do them

2024 Resolutions

AO3 Stats

Visions for 2023

Resolutions

AO3 Stats

Specific Stories

AO3 Stats

Specific Stories

2020 goals vs reality, 2021 goals

AO3 Stats

Specific Stories

General Writing Questions

AO3 Stats

Specific Stories

2019 Resolutions

Navigation

Syndicate

Page Summary

Active Entries

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags