End of year fanwork round-up
Dec. 24th, 2017 04:42 pmIs this a meme? I dunno, I just snurched the questions from ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
pearwaldorf.
List of fanworks
"Notification" (DSC, Kat, gen)
"Mother-In-Law's Tongue" (DSC, Cornwell/Lorca)
"edges clean" (DSC, Cornwell/Lorca)
"a fountain of blood in the shape of a woman" (DSC, Kat, Philippa, gen)
"Diplomatic Channels" (LoK, Korra, Lin, gen-ish)
"Detour" (LoK, Lin/Tenzin)
"Avalanche" (LoK, Lin/Tenzin)
"The Birthday Party" (LoK, Lin/Tenzin kid fic)
"Balancing Act" (LoK, Lin/Tenzin/Pema)
Total word count for the year
33,590
Overall thoughts
I posted three fics in 2016, all in January. This year I posted nine, including four Legend of Korra fics set in a timeline I've been thinking about for years, and another four in a whole new (old) fandom. I'm calling that a win.
Personal best/favourite
"a fountain of blood in the shape of a woman", because, hi, my average fic tops out at about 2000 words and it can still take me a few months to write it. Then Disco came along and I wrote 14,000 words of action-adventure gen featuring two middle-aged women in two weeks.
(Then I had to cancel my NaNo plans and not look at Google Docs for a few weeks while I recovered.)
I also have about 9,000 words of Kat fic which might get finished by the end of the year. Because it doesn't seem to have a plot beyond "Kat recovers from her injuries and mourns the end of her friendship with Lorca", it's difficult to say when/if/how it will ever end. (Why does it have 9,000 words and counting? I don't know! This has never happened to me before, I've decided to just go with it and see what happens.)
Most underappreciated (imo)
I honestly can't answer that. My LoK fic was decidedly niche and super self-indulgent, and people have been really nice about my Disco fic. (It turns out that comment culture is alive and well on AO3, provided you're writing Kat Cornwell fic.)
Most popular
"edges clean" by kudos to hit ratio, but multiple people have asked if they can borrow my idea for Lorca's mothers in "Mother-In-Law's Tongue", which delights me unspeakably since they're not even in it. And also no one has ever asked to use my headcanons before.
(From my notes at the end: I kind of conceived his mothers as Frank and Claire in House of Cards, only lesbians and not literally murderers. They're just the types of loving, distant parents who, if their son was replaced by his Mirror Universe counterpart, would only notice insofar as they think it's good that he finally has his priorities in order.)
Story with the sexiest moment
Does "Lorca watches as Kat rips out Chang's eyeball" count?
Story that shifted my own perceptions of a character
"edges clean" started out as a plain old missing scene/angst wallow, but the more I wrote, the more my whole idea of what happened between Lorca and Cornwell in "Lethe" changed. Leaving her with more agency, but less justifiable rage about being sent into a trap, so it's sort of a win/lose situation.
Most fun story to write
Probably "fountain of blood..."? It just came so easily, and the more I threw at it, the more fun I had.
Hardest
"Avalanche" -- I was setting up a new timeline, establishing a bunch of OCs, and upending it right away. And it was difficult to get the right balance of genuine self-interest versus "the greater good is genuinely also good for Lin", without making her look terrible.
Biggest surprise/s
How difficult Michael Burnham was to write in "fountain of blood...". She's a very complicated character, and I'm still getting a handle on her -- and I was perceiving her largely through Philippa's POV after she's been through a lot.
Biggest disappointment
I wanted to write fic in the President Beifong AU from the POV of all the main characters -- so Lin, Tenzin, all three of their kids, and Korra. But I never got the Tenzin or Jinora fics off the ground. I started them both three or four times each, but it never came together.
Most unintentionally telling story
I honestly don't think I can answer that.
Favourite lines/scenes
Big chunks of "fountain of blood..." including the aforementioned eyeball scene, and Kat's line to Lorca, which I'm not copying and pasting here on account of it being quite gross.
Ehhhh, I'm in a good mood, I just skimmed through all my fics from this year and liked every one, but there weren't that many punchy lines that are easy to excerpt.
Lines/scenes you'd change
Once again, the answer is "fountain of blood..." -- just small things to do with setting, mostly. I had only rewatched "Lethe", oh, three or four times when I wrote that, and didn't twig that Cornwell had arrived by shuttle, which landed outside the peace conference venue. And I thought the bridge of the Ship of the Dead seemed way too large, and figured that parts of it were actually separate chambers -- only for its massive size to be a plot point in "Into the Forest I Go".
Otherwise, just those small, annoying things where I read back over a fic and realise I've used the same word twice in a paragraph. (This only happens when I don't makenonelvis beta for me. I can't even begin to tell you how much I owe her.)
Top five scenes you wish would be illustrated
Write my Disco Hiatus Exchange fic. Work on my damn novels, get the first boarding school book out to a sensitivity reader and then off to query. Finish the 9,000 words of plotless feelings. Pray that Disco doesn't kill off Admiral Kat in the second half of the first season; keep finding new ways to make her suffer.
pearwaldorf.List of fanworks
"Notification" (DSC, Kat, gen)
"Mother-In-Law's Tongue" (DSC, Cornwell/Lorca)
"edges clean" (DSC, Cornwell/Lorca)
"a fountain of blood in the shape of a woman" (DSC, Kat, Philippa, gen)
"Diplomatic Channels" (LoK, Korra, Lin, gen-ish)
"Detour" (LoK, Lin/Tenzin)
"Avalanche" (LoK, Lin/Tenzin)
"The Birthday Party" (LoK, Lin/Tenzin kid fic)
"Balancing Act" (LoK, Lin/Tenzin/Pema)
Total word count for the year
33,590
Overall thoughts
I posted three fics in 2016, all in January. This year I posted nine, including four Legend of Korra fics set in a timeline I've been thinking about for years, and another four in a whole new (old) fandom. I'm calling that a win.
Personal best/favourite
"a fountain of blood in the shape of a woman", because, hi, my average fic tops out at about 2000 words and it can still take me a few months to write it. Then Disco came along and I wrote 14,000 words of action-adventure gen featuring two middle-aged women in two weeks.
(Then I had to cancel my NaNo plans and not look at Google Docs for a few weeks while I recovered.)
I also have about 9,000 words of Kat fic which might get finished by the end of the year. Because it doesn't seem to have a plot beyond "Kat recovers from her injuries and mourns the end of her friendship with Lorca", it's difficult to say when/if/how it will ever end. (Why does it have 9,000 words and counting? I don't know! This has never happened to me before, I've decided to just go with it and see what happens.)
Most underappreciated (imo)
I honestly can't answer that. My LoK fic was decidedly niche and super self-indulgent, and people have been really nice about my Disco fic. (It turns out that comment culture is alive and well on AO3, provided you're writing Kat Cornwell fic.)
Most popular
"edges clean" by kudos to hit ratio, but multiple people have asked if they can borrow my idea for Lorca's mothers in "Mother-In-Law's Tongue", which delights me unspeakably since they're not even in it. And also no one has ever asked to use my headcanons before.
(From my notes at the end: I kind of conceived his mothers as Frank and Claire in House of Cards, only lesbians and not literally murderers. They're just the types of loving, distant parents who, if their son was replaced by his Mirror Universe counterpart, would only notice insofar as they think it's good that he finally has his priorities in order.)
Story with the sexiest moment
Does "Lorca watches as Kat rips out Chang's eyeball" count?
Story that shifted my own perceptions of a character
"edges clean" started out as a plain old missing scene/angst wallow, but the more I wrote, the more my whole idea of what happened between Lorca and Cornwell in "Lethe" changed. Leaving her with more agency, but less justifiable rage about being sent into a trap, so it's sort of a win/lose situation.
Most fun story to write
Probably "fountain of blood..."? It just came so easily, and the more I threw at it, the more fun I had.
Hardest
"Avalanche" -- I was setting up a new timeline, establishing a bunch of OCs, and upending it right away. And it was difficult to get the right balance of genuine self-interest versus "the greater good is genuinely also good for Lin", without making her look terrible.
Biggest surprise/s
How difficult Michael Burnham was to write in "fountain of blood...". She's a very complicated character, and I'm still getting a handle on her -- and I was perceiving her largely through Philippa's POV after she's been through a lot.
Biggest disappointment
I wanted to write fic in the President Beifong AU from the POV of all the main characters -- so Lin, Tenzin, all three of their kids, and Korra. But I never got the Tenzin or Jinora fics off the ground. I started them both three or four times each, but it never came together.
Most unintentionally telling story
I honestly don't think I can answer that.
Favourite lines/scenes
Big chunks of "fountain of blood..." including the aforementioned eyeball scene, and Kat's line to Lorca, which I'm not copying and pasting here on account of it being quite gross.
Ehhhh, I'm in a good mood, I just skimmed through all my fics from this year and liked every one, but there weren't that many punchy lines that are easy to excerpt.
Lines/scenes you'd change
Once again, the answer is "fountain of blood..." -- just small things to do with setting, mostly. I had only rewatched "Lethe", oh, three or four times when I wrote that, and didn't twig that Cornwell had arrived by shuttle, which landed outside the peace conference venue. And I thought the bridge of the Ship of the Dead seemed way too large, and figured that parts of it were actually separate chambers -- only for its massive size to be a plot point in "Into the Forest I Go".
Otherwise, just those small, annoying things where I read back over a fic and realise I've used the same word twice in a paragraph. (This only happens when I don't make
nonelvis beta for me. I can't even begin to tell you how much I owe her.)Top five scenes you wish would be illustrated
- Kat and Philippa fight off the boarding party on Discovery OH WAIT SOMEONE ALREADY ILLUSTRATED THAT AND IT'S AMAZING -- I can't believe I got that lucky
- The Beifong family portrait in the President Beifong AU, mostly because I can't even tell you how many times I have tried and failed to do it myself
- That's it, honestly.
Write my Disco Hiatus Exchange fic. Work on my damn novels, get the first boarding school book out to a sensitivity reader and then off to query. Finish the 9,000 words of plotless feelings. Pray that Disco doesn't kill off Admiral Kat in the second half of the first season; keep finding new ways to make her suffer.
