end of 2020 in fic
Nov. 20th, 2020 09:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
liptintedoh boy. here goes.
i'll be borrowing from different formats i've seen others do to make a frankenstein of a review so the order i'll do is stats > commentary and breakdown > highlights + wrapup > fic writing goals for next yr.
stats:
total word count: 33k+
fic count: 8 on ao3, 2 dw comment fics
fandoms: nct (nct dream, wayv), qcyn2/youth with you 2
commentary and breakdown:
february - all loud and millennial pink | 10.5k | lucas/hendery (wayv)
i can only remember pain upon writing this..dialogue hard. for some reason i remember that one comment i got that said op grew stressed reading this because the story got so tense at times, and now when i look back i'm like SAME...the direction i decided to take with this fic might not have fit the best, and i still went along and focused on hendery's ~character development~ besides the relationship development and the tone came off a little disarming at some point in the way that was like getting cold water splashed in your face lol (i felt this when i re-read it after some time). i wanted to write the fwb trope this way but it might have come off too strong for the pairing maybe? i contemplated moving this fic elsewhere for a bit but decided to leave it there. my favourite thing about writing this though was how i chose to write the ending. sometimes things are just left better off without a completely satisfying conclusion in the end and leave things offscreen since i didn't want to be too predictable with the trope.
march - make a mess of the milk blue sky | 2.5k | lucas/hendery (wayv)
supposed to be "first love is the hardest to let go of if you believe it to be your true love" set in high school that the fic title meme i did on twt helped give me, but i was like haha fuck hs and started typing about goldfish, egg tarts and lectures. this was the factory reset my brain needed in terms of writing, idk exactly what i went through writing this but i think this was the point during the quarantine where i was sooo stressed and reading a lot of poetry and rewatching some of my fave movies to cope. it is probably one of my favourites i've written tbh, and it's short too so this really felt like it hit a sweet spot between time and effort spent and satisfactory output.
july - dream lover | 2.5k | lucas/hendery (wayv)
the fic that me realise i will never be able to write longfic again. i was consuming a lot of old favourite fic to prepare myself to write this long slow burn of a monster i had in my head but then i asked myself: for what? since this is basically the prequel and hendery pov to make a mess of a milk blue sky i'm obliged to love this work too by association even if the writing styles are different.
august - metronome waves | 3.3k | wang chengxuan/yu yan (qcyn2)
[written for gg jukebox mixtape round]
i'm so happy about having written a pacrim fic. i just wanted to bring my lyx/yy drift partners agenda to life and throw in a ship i was fond of when i was watching qcyn2. the harder thing about writing this wasn't the worldbuilding and the research even though picking a jaeger name took up a good chunk of time but it was writing the lyx/yy's relationship adjacent to yy and wcx's developing romantic r/s, but that was the point i guess and i think i achieved success...the comments i've gotten on it were my favourite this year, ao3 user 4rl is too kind T__T
september - ginger | 3k | renjun/haechan (nct dream)
[written for kpop ficmix]
everything i know about nct dream are only things i've gleaned through osmosis and minimal observation of them through having dreamzen oomfs but thank god this is ficmix anyway right... if i have to say one thing i liked about this, it was how i ended it. the original fic did outline an unhealthy relationship and it fascinated me enough to make me want to explore the post-breakup aftermath and themes of letting go.
other fics, not on ao3 and less than 1k:
where we end and begin | 800 | gen lucas/yuqi (wayv, (g)-idle)
[written for a 2020 comment ficathon dw thread]
it's getting late | 700 words | saerom/jisun (fromis_9)
[written for a 2020 comment ficathon dw thread]
highlights + wrap-up:
favourite opening lines:
1. When Wong Yukhei turned one, his mother snapped a picture of him wearing new clothes for the Chinese New Year and millennium. There'd been a single candle on a smoothly iced cake, its flame licking at the darkness before the lights were turned on. In a second, they zapped out again thanks to a thunderstorm. In January? His father had said in the low-quality video tape, shaking his head but his smile stayed when his mother blew out the candle with Yukhei. -- make a mess of the milk blue sky ☆
2. Three weeks after the last reset of the clock in the Shatterdome, Orobos, a category three, had razed a near straight line halfway through Jakarta.
The reason why they needed a new plasmacaster rebuilt is almost entirely Yu Yan’s fault. She and Yuxin had beaten their own record of twenty kills for the price of Echo Saber looking like a real sight for sore eyes with the gaping hole in her right shoulder. The whole fucking arm just got fished out by the corps from somewhere at the bottom of the South China sea. -- metronome waves ☆
[skipping favourite closing lines whew i don't particularly love my closing lines too much to be able to pick favourites]
favourite lines in general:
1. Yuxin internalises most things well enough that they're buried away out of necessity; on top of being compatible, it made drifting so much easier. Half the psych tests back then still felt like bullshit, but their sparring matches and consequently piloting together made sense. Because they're both the kind of people who'd raze through the Pacific ocean without any doubt for what matters the most to them. -- metronome waves ☆
2. Sometimes it feels like the air is pocketed into something they both try to hold so they can feel what’s real. Sometimes you want something so bad, there’s a silent explosion and the bright, sweet splinters remain in the dusty corners and spaces under furniture like evidence.
[...]
The difference between them is that Hendery can write. Sort of. He's in Media Studies even though he's now convinced his interest for fictional literature hardly counts for anything school-related. Unfortunately, he still runs his mouth poetic in both Cantonese and Mandarin just to see Yukhei’s face twitch in embarrassment and something else that makes his cheeks burn. It's awful. Yukhei doesn’t know how to shut him up in any way that doesn’t involve looking at Hendery’s mouth and that’s just as bad. -- make a mess of the milk blue sky ☆
3. Hendery could do a million and one things if he had no fear. The problem would be not knowing when to stop. Fear is good, fear is needed. It keeps you safe. Fear of failure keeps them all in check.
[...]
“What would Wong Kunhang do,” Lucas starts, face flushed a healthy red from soju because this time he’s tipsy as fuck, “If he wanted someone to kiss him?” // “I need subtitles. Xuxi, what d’you say?” Yangyang grouses in Mandarin between them both at the kitchen table in their dorm. -- a little more spine ☆
fic writing goals for 2021 (we have goals?):- i would love to write a good idolverse fic that has actual thought and slightly heavier themes/ideas put into it. like just ONE would do.
- i'm thinking of trying to write almost exclusively for the few fests i'm still interested in just to see how that turns out and how it makes me feel ie. being selective on where to expend all my thinking juice on etc. last year i said i wanted to do a chaptered fic in my fic review post and i'm extremely glad i didn't put myself through that the hell (also rip to the wkw happy together au i wanted to do).
overall, i think it's been a good year in fic regardless!<3
i'll be borrowing from different formats i've seen others do to make a frankenstein of a review so the order i'll do is stats > commentary and breakdown > highlights + wrapup > fic writing goals for next yr.
stats:
total word count: 33k+
fic count: 8 on ao3, 2 dw comment fics
fandoms: nct (nct dream, wayv), qcyn2/youth with you 2
commentary and breakdown:
february - all loud and millennial pink | 10.5k | lucas/hendery (wayv)
i can only remember pain upon writing this..dialogue hard. for some reason i remember that one comment i got that said op grew stressed reading this because the story got so tense at times, and now when i look back i'm like SAME...the direction i decided to take with this fic might not have fit the best, and i still went along and focused on hendery's ~character development~ besides the relationship development and the tone came off a little disarming at some point in the way that was like getting cold water splashed in your face lol (i felt this when i re-read it after some time). i wanted to write the fwb trope this way but it might have come off too strong for the pairing maybe? i contemplated moving this fic elsewhere for a bit but decided to leave it there. my favourite thing about writing this though was how i chose to write the ending. sometimes things are just left better off without a completely satisfying conclusion in the end and leave things offscreen since i didn't want to be too predictable with the trope.
march - make a mess of the milk blue sky | 2.5k | lucas/hendery (wayv)
supposed to be "first love is the hardest to let go of if you believe it to be your true love" set in high school that the fic title meme i did on twt helped give me, but i was like haha fuck hs and started typing about goldfish, egg tarts and lectures. this was the factory reset my brain needed in terms of writing, idk exactly what i went through writing this but i think this was the point during the quarantine where i was sooo stressed and reading a lot of poetry and rewatching some of my fave movies to cope. it is probably one of my favourites i've written tbh, and it's short too so this really felt like it hit a sweet spot between time and effort spent and satisfactory output.
april - a little more spine | 3.3k | lucas/hendery (wayv)
pretty happy about this for a first-time attempt at canon luhen. i'm usually shaking in fear whenever i try to write idolverse bc i'm always afraid of never doing it justice, but i'm pleased since my perception of hendery finally translated into my ideal idol rpf characterisation. masterfully writing canon however way anyone does it is the true art form and i'm in awe of anyone who does it well.
june - re: a halfway heart | 4.8k | kun/ten/hendery (wayv)
i didn't achieve what i tried to do with this fic (tbh idk what it was supposed to be now) but i'm still glad i wrote this. i was also trying to explore and play around within the constraints of canon/idolverse here with the setting and premise. still i do have a soft spot for gen fic where nothing happens although i reread this just now and realised i could have cut this down to 2k at the risk of it being even more nonsensical.
and twist | 3k | kun/yangyang (wayv)
this made me question do i really know who i'm writing when i write kun and yangyang? i think not. surprisingly this turned out to be my most popular fic this year, i didn't know how much ppl wanted/liked cute kunyang or yangyang and had no idea what the pairing's ao3 tag was like when i wrote this (i kinda still don't, i exist within fandom almost blindly and am even more insular in ficdom and in terms of how ncity readership is like..just wanted to see if i could still write cute things lol), so that's pretty cool.
july - dream lover | 2.5k | lucas/hendery (wayv)
the fic that me realise i will never be able to write longfic again. i was consuming a lot of old favourite fic to prepare myself to write this long slow burn of a monster i had in my head but then i asked myself: for what? since this is basically the prequel and hendery pov to make a mess of a milk blue sky i'm obliged to love this work too by association even if the writing styles are different.
august - metronome waves | 3.3k | wang chengxuan/yu yan (qcyn2)
[written for gg jukebox mixtape round]
i'm so happy about having written a pacrim fic. i just wanted to bring my lyx/yy drift partners agenda to life and throw in a ship i was fond of when i was watching qcyn2. the harder thing about writing this wasn't the worldbuilding and the research even though picking a jaeger name took up a good chunk of time but it was writing the lyx/yy's relationship adjacent to yy and wcx's developing romantic r/s, but that was the point i guess and i think i achieved success...the comments i've gotten on it were my favourite this year, ao3 user 4rl is too kind T__T
september - ginger | 3k | renjun/haechan (nct dream)
[written for kpop ficmix]
everything i know about nct dream are only things i've gleaned through osmosis and minimal observation of them through having dreamzen oomfs but thank god this is ficmix anyway right... if i have to say one thing i liked about this, it was how i ended it. the original fic did outline an unhealthy relationship and it fascinated me enough to make me want to explore the post-breakup aftermath and themes of letting go.
other fics, not on ao3 and less than 1k:
where we end and begin | 800 | gen lucas/yuqi (wayv, (g)-idle)
[written for a 2020 comment ficathon dw thread]
it's getting late | 700 words | saerom/jisun (fromis_9)
[written for a 2020 comment ficathon dw thread]
highlights + wrap-up:
favourite opening lines:
1. When Wong Yukhei turned one, his mother snapped a picture of him wearing new clothes for the Chinese New Year and millennium. There'd been a single candle on a smoothly iced cake, its flame licking at the darkness before the lights were turned on. In a second, they zapped out again thanks to a thunderstorm. In January? His father had said in the low-quality video tape, shaking his head but his smile stayed when his mother blew out the candle with Yukhei. -- make a mess of the milk blue sky ☆
2. Three weeks after the last reset of the clock in the Shatterdome, Orobos, a category three, had razed a near straight line halfway through Jakarta.
The reason why they needed a new plasmacaster rebuilt is almost entirely Yu Yan’s fault. She and Yuxin had beaten their own record of twenty kills for the price of Echo Saber looking like a real sight for sore eyes with the gaping hole in her right shoulder. The whole fucking arm just got fished out by the corps from somewhere at the bottom of the South China sea. -- metronome waves ☆
[skipping favourite closing lines whew i don't particularly love my closing lines too much to be able to pick favourites]
favourite lines in general:
1. Yuxin internalises most things well enough that they're buried away out of necessity; on top of being compatible, it made drifting so much easier. Half the psych tests back then still felt like bullshit, but their sparring matches and consequently piloting together made sense. Because they're both the kind of people who'd raze through the Pacific ocean without any doubt for what matters the most to them. -- metronome waves ☆
2. Sometimes it feels like the air is pocketed into something they both try to hold so they can feel what’s real. Sometimes you want something so bad, there’s a silent explosion and the bright, sweet splinters remain in the dusty corners and spaces under furniture like evidence.
[...]
The difference between them is that Hendery can write. Sort of. He's in Media Studies even though he's now convinced his interest for fictional literature hardly counts for anything school-related. Unfortunately, he still runs his mouth poetic in both Cantonese and Mandarin just to see Yukhei’s face twitch in embarrassment and something else that makes his cheeks burn. It's awful. Yukhei doesn’t know how to shut him up in any way that doesn’t involve looking at Hendery’s mouth and that’s just as bad. -- make a mess of the milk blue sky ☆
3. Hendery could do a million and one things if he had no fear. The problem would be not knowing when to stop. Fear is good, fear is needed. It keeps you safe. Fear of failure keeps them all in check.
[...]
“What would Wong Kunhang do,” Lucas starts, face flushed a healthy red from soju because this time he’s tipsy as fuck, “If he wanted someone to kiss him?” // “I need subtitles. Xuxi, what d’you say?” Yangyang grouses in Mandarin between them both at the kitchen table in their dorm. -- a little more spine ☆
fic writing goals for 2021 (we have goals?):- i would love to write a good idolverse fic that has actual thought and slightly heavier themes/ideas put into it. like just ONE would do.
- i'm thinking of trying to write almost exclusively for the few fests i'm still interested in just to see how that turns out and how it makes me feel ie. being selective on where to expend all my thinking juice on etc. last year i said i wanted to do a chaptered fic in my fic review post and i'm extremely glad i didn't put myself through that the hell (also rip to the wkw happy together au i wanted to do).
overall, i think it's been a good year in fic regardless!<3