Fic year in review meme

[sophinisba]

Here is the fic year in review meme, which I look forward to every year! I wrote a lot less fic in 2010 than in 2009, but this edition of the meme is more exciting than past ones because I've added graphs!!

Part 1: ALL the fics

These links all go to the AO3, taking advantage of their new "Share" button (with some fiddling).

January
Into His Own (5006 words)
Fandom: Merlin (BBC)
Rating: General Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Morgana, Arthur, Morgause, Merlin, Gwen

We'll Slide Down the Surface of Things (5740 words)
Fandom: Merlin (BBC)
Rating: Explicit
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Arthur/Gwen, Arthur/Gwen/Merlin

Little Illusions (500 words)
Fandom: Lord of the Rings - Tolkien, Lord of the Rings (2001 2002 2003)
Rating: General Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Rose Cotton, Frodo Baggins, Sam Gamgee

February
Mexico (1803 words)
Fandom: El Laberinto del Fauno | Pan's Labyrinth (2006)
Rating: General Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Mercedes

Whose Hands These Are (600 words)
Fandom: Merlin (BBC)
Rating: Mature
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Morgana/Morgause, Morgana/other

March
Nothing

April
Elemental (417 words) (collaboration with zephrene)
Fandom: Merlin (BBC)
Rating: General Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: OT4 - Pairing, Arthur/Gwen/Merlin/Morgana

May
Talking Books and Burning Sticks (The Excellent Adventure Remix) (5842 words)
Fandom: Merlin (BBC)
Rating: Mature
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Gwen/Merlin, Arthur/Gwen/Merlin

June
Prison of Love (1274 words)
Fandom: Merlin (BBC)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Arthur/Lancelot, Gwen/Lancelot, Lancelot/Original Male Character

July
Be So Bold (3832 words)
Fandom: Merlin (BBC)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Gwen/Morgana

August
My Best Kept Secret (1902 words)
Fandom: Merlin (BBC)
Rating: Mature
Warning: Consent issues
Relationships: Freya/Merlin

Make Myself Up (1141 words)
Fandom: Lord of the Rings (2001 2002 2003), Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Rating: Mature
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Frodo/Merry

Lessons of the Lake (2417 words)
Fandom: Merlin (BBC)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Freya/Sophia

Who Taught You How to Fall (2856 words)
Fandom: Saving Face (2004)
Rating: Mature
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Wilhelmina Pang/Vivian Shing

September
Nothing

October
Then Willingly, O Willingly (2148 words)
Fandom: Merlin (BBC)
Rating: Explicit
Warning: Consent issues
Relationships: Merlin/Morgana

Slipped the Dragon's Mind (The Sekrit OTP Remix) (1478 words)
Fandom: Merlin (BBC)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Gwen/Morgana

November
Nothing

December
I Ache Myself for More (434 words)
Fandom: Merlin (BBC)
Rating: Mature
Warning: Non-Con
Relationships: Gwen/Morgana

Any Story We Know (1555 words)
Fandom: Fucking Åmål | Show Me Love (1998), Merlin (BBC)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Agnes/Elin

I also wrote a few thousand words as Randall for risingsunpub (a Merlin shared universe) between April and June, but I don't have an exact count and it's not exactly fic, so I haven't put that in my numbers here.


Part 2: Numbers and graphs!

Back in February I did a post with a bunch of pie charts comparing the genres of fics I've written in different fandoms with more general numbers on the AO3, and it got me thinking this could be something to start putting in my end of the year memes too. I didn't do it last year and anyway that would have been difficult because I, uh, posted about 80 fics last year (counting a lot of drabbles). This year I only posted 17 stories, so adding up the numbers was a lot easier, and I had fun making the graphs.

Only then when I got done I found out that Google Docs had changed their way of letting you share charts, so now instead of an image link it's this crazy Javascript that doesn't show up on LJ/DW at all. Gah! So then I almost decided to skip the graphs and never use them again. But they were so pretty! So I saved them to my computer and uploaded them to Photobucket, and now they're all blurry and not as pretty. :( And the fact that I spent so much time on them makes me even more embarrassed than usual about the self-centeredness of this kind of post.

But anyway!



Even though I love graphs, these two make me kinda sad. I started the year strong with a pinch hit for camelotsolstice and a long-ish kink meme fic, but the last few months have not been very good for writing (although they've been good for podficcing). In 2009 I wrote a ton of drabbles (the 100-word kind), and also one fic that was over 25K, and the average wordcount per story was just 794. This year all my stories were between 400 and 6000 words, for a total of just over 39,000, and an average of 2297. I think this is mostly to do with the challenges I've been doing. In 2009 I participated in several rounds of writing_game and remixthedrabble, both of which have low maximum wordcounts. This year a lot of my fics were for kink_bingo, which has a minimum of 500.



All my fics in the first half of the year were gen and multiple pairings/threesomes (including two longish Arthur/Gwen/Merlin ones). In the second half I did a lot more femslash, and I did well with the goal I set in this meme last year, which was to write more femslash stories with happy endings. It was funny, actually, there was an anon love meme where someone said my journal was a good place for femslash fun, and I thought, Whoa, that is very different from when my journal was all about the extreme Frodo angst.



In the past I had written a LOT more gen and PG-rated fic. I will probably go back to doing more of that in 2011, but we'll see.



I was surprised by these numbers because I didn't think I was writing that much about white guys. But looking at it I realized that both of my two longest fics were Arthur/Gwen/Merlin ones where the POV character (Arthur in one, Merlin in the other) was head over heals for Gwen, and the other white guy was more of a secondary character. If I count how many stories prominently feature a character of color (like as part of the main pairing, or on equal footing with the others in a gen fic) then I get slightly less than half by number of fics but more than half by wordcount. So, idk, that's something to be aware of, and I should see about writing more men of color. (It would be nice if they would live through an episode of Merlin more often, but I can't let that be an excuse.)

In other demographics/representation observations, I wrote two fics about canon lesbians this year (the Saving Face and Fucking Åmål ones). I have yet to write a fic about a trans character, but I sort of have one in the works, so we'll see how that goes. I didn't write any fics about characters with disabilities this year and I'm not sure what I would do, considering my fandoms, but it's something else to keep in mind.


Leitmotif(s) of the year: Kink is one, if not always in a very explicit way. I enjoyed a couple of slightly kinky and porny stories I did late in 2009 (sex magic, quietsex), and then I kept going with my one kinkme_merlin fic in January, my one kinkelot in February, and a bunch of kink_bingo fics later in the year, though I ended up filling more of my squares with podfics than new stories.

Another trend that this list doesn't show is that it's been a big year for collaborations and multimedia projects for me, the highlights of which were the Artword project I did with zephre, and running camelotremix with a lot of help from friends. I've been doing remixes for almost as long as I've been writing fics, but I had never worked with an artist before, and that was awesome, and I had never podficced before and now I've done a whole bunch of those, plus made cover graphics for a few of them, and had other people make covers or help out in other ways. I also wrote a fannish song (though I said I was going to do a better recording and I still haven't done that) and an episode commentary (which I'm still supposed to redo and edit I'm really sorry you guys) and I made some attempts to learn how to vid. These didn't amount to much but I will keep trying. I really want to make at least one vid in 2011.

My best story of this year: Oh, I never know. I'm still proud of "Mexico", and I like "We'll Slide Down the Surface of Things" a lot, despite realizing that there are Problems with genderswap as a genre that my story perpetuates.

My favorite story of this year: Probably "Be So Bold" - I'm not sure if it's the one I like most on its own but it was exciting to have it win an Arbitrary Mod Prize at kink_bingo and get comments from people I didn't know, and then when significantowl remixed it that was one of the best things ever. Doing the podfic of these stories this past week reminded me of how much I like them both.

My most popular story this year: The two remixes have the highest hitcount at the AO3, but that's where they were first posted. I think "Be So Bold" ended up with the most comments but "We'll Slide Down the Surface of Things" probably had more readers since it was porn and posted at the kink meme.

Story of mine most underappreciated by the universe, in my opinion: "Lessons of the Lake". Awww! My poor little PG-13 rated rarepair femslash watersports story (written for kink-bingo but not posted to the comm during the main challenge period)! With so many strikes against it it's no wonder it was not a massive hit. It did give me one of those "Everybody says they want more femslash..." moments (or, you know, weeks), but I got over it. (ILU, Merlin femslash fandom!)

Most fun story to write: "Slipped the Dragon's Mind" was great fun in that way that silly meta stories are fun.

Story with the single sexiest moment: I like the last sex scene in "We'll Slide Down the Surface of Things".

Most "Holy crap, that's wrong, even for you" story: "My Best Kept Secret" was the one I was most nervous about posting, and then I was surprised at the positive reaction it got. That tends to be the way with stories I'm nervous about, I mean, not so much that they get a positive reaction, but that it's just not that big a deal. I'm always afraid they'll be the thing that makes people decide not to be friends with me anymore or something, but in general people who don't like a certain kind of fic will just scroll by, and maybe it will attract a few people who don't normally read my fic or who don't normally read in the fandom.

Story that shifted my own perceptions of the characters: "We'll Slide Down the Surface of Things" was one of the longer stories I wrote and it was Arthur POV, which I haven't written much, so that was challenging and different. "Prison of Love" gave me a lot to think about with Lancelot.

Hardest story to write: "Talking Books and Burning Sticks" was challenging and was for a big-profile challenge, which always makes me more nervous. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, though it did get one of the most negative comments I've had on a story.

Biggest Disappointment: I'm still feeling pretty awful about dropping out of merlinfemfest. Of the fics I did finish and post, I think "Prison of Love" didn't really turn out the way I wanted it to.

Biggest Surprise: Maybe "Slipped the Dragon's Mind". I usually agonize over my challenge fics and spend a lot of time on them, and this one I think I wrote over two days and just had fun with. It was great.

Most Unintentionally Telling Story: "Be So Bold" gave me the strongest feeling of "HERE IS ME NAKED ON THE INTERNET" by far, but then several people ended up commenting on how in-character Gwen was. This is always a nice kind of comment to get, especially on an AU fic, and in this case made me feel like, hey, either it wasn't as much of a self-insert as I thought, or else I'm just really similar to Gwen. Either way, I win!

That's the telling-ness I'm aware of though. I don't actually know what the most unintentionally telling story was.

Story I haven't yet written, but intend to:
I've started two more Merlin fics for kink_bingo, one Arthur/Merlin and one Morgana/Morgause, and I have ideas for a few others. I also have 11,000 of a Gwenfic that I'd already started working on when I did this meme last year and that I would really like to finish someday. Maybe if camelot_fleet does a second Finishathon. You guys gave me a bunch of good prompts a couple weeks ago and I only wrote one of them. :/ I'll do more soon.

There's a story I started in November for a Yuletide request. I quit working on it in part because of angst about potentially stepping on an assigned writer's toes, and because of several "writing the other" representation/appropriation type issues, and also because of general, you know, Writing Is Hard. But that request didn't get written so I will try to finish it as a New Year's Resolution.

I don't know what challenges I'll join this year but I'll probably do Remix Redux and kink-bingo again, and I hope to go back to Yuletide next year. I would love it if there were a separate (giant) multifandom challenge for movie fandoms, which is the main thing I do with Yuletide, and/or one for songs, albums, and music videos as source texts.


<b>Leitmotif(s) of the year:</b> <b>My best story of this year:</b> <b>My favorite story of this year:</b> <b>Story of mine most underappreciated by the universe, in my opinion:</b> <b>Most fun story to write:</b> <b>Story with the single sexiest moment:</b> <b>Most "Holy crap, that's wrong, even for you" story:</b> <b>Story that shifted my own perceptions of the characters:</b> <b>Hardest story to write:</b> <b>Biggest Disappointment:</b> <b>Biggest Surprise:</b> <b>Most Unintentionally Telling Story:</b> <b>Story I haven't yet written, but intend to:</b>

Comments

[themadlurker]

Your graphs are the greatest! I am really envious of your pie charts. (Mmm, pie...)

[sophinisba]

Google uses such pretty colors for them!

[such_heights]

Oh, I love the graphs, thanks for sharing them! And yay, look at all the lovely fic, well done etc. :D

[sophinisba]

I always look forward to this meme, and not that it has the added fun of graphs I sort of can't wait to do it again, though I hope Google makes the sharing easier by next year. :)

[torachan]

I like the graphs and I always like reading people's year in review fic posts. I don't think it's particularly self-indulgent, and if it is, so what? It's your journal. :)

[sophinisba]

It is one of those things where I always think, "I could've spent that time reading fic!" but of course it doesn't really work that way.

[jain]

Ooh, interesting! I love the graphs.

[sophinisba]

Thanks! It'll be neat if I can keep them going and do comparisons between years.

[zulu]

Ooh, pretty graphs! It is interesting to see how much white male POV you wrote, because the same probably applies to me. I tend to see myself as someone who writes a lot about Foreman, and a third of my stories this year were girlslash, and yet I'm sure House's POV dominates, by wordcount certainly (because of my big bang) but quite possibly by storycount as well. Maybe in 2011 I will relegate him to the background!

[sophinisba]

Yeah, that one definitely surprised me, I think for a combination of reasons including this giant unfinished Gwenfic on my hard drive, and the fact that I identify with her so strongly (hence feeling so exposed when I posted the backpacking AU), and that those two longer Arthur/Gwen/Merlin fics were earlier in the year... I just feel like I write her all the time, but obviously that's not the case.

I wonder if another factor is, like, last night I picked up an abandoned Arthur/Merlin fic that was in Arthur's POV and started adding to it, and I find he is such an insensitive and insecure little bunny that it's easy to write long when I'm being him, even though I don't feel like I have much in common with him at all. Like, he is just the kind of person to go into lots of asides about how great he is and how annoying other people are for not understanding that, whereas Gwen is more of a sensible person who tells it like it is (although she also tends to ramble when she talks out loud). I would think a similar kind of thing might happen with House's snark.