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My favourite story this year:

I'm going to cheat and link my Dating Show AU series with scytale! I'm very fond of this AU despite it being centred around a trope I usually DNW (break-ups), and working on it has been one of the most fun things for me in 2023. The main 'canon' for it, so to speak, is my WIP Transit Love: INTO1 Edition, but me being who I am most of the writing is miscellaneous short fics (I got a lot of mileage out of this AU for Battleship). And I really am cheating because none of the individual fics would make the cut for being my exact favourite, but taken all together, the AU is probably one of my favourite things that I've posted. <3

Honourable mentions to Ginger Tea and Crackers, because after complaining about wanting mpreg-based h/c for my fave for half a year, I finally wrote it; Sun and Star for being the self-indulgent kidfic of my heart; and Discount Lovers which is possibly the recency effect at work, but I angled for a romcom tone and like how it turned out!

My favourite art is put the stars in your eyes without doubt. I managed to draw my RPF fave! And the performance this piece is based on will forever have a special place in my heart for being one of the most important turning points in Liu Yu securing his spot as my fave. My first attempt was a lot clumsier, but I like how this one ended up turning out.

Most popular work:

It was a small fandom year for me! After a couple of years of primarily writing for Genshin, the contrast tickles me. As it is, because I wrote one (1) Genshin work this year, Genshin still takes the crown for the fourth year running with Phoenix of the Dragons — which pleases me greatly, because it's an Azhdaha/Zhongli/Xiao threesome that would most likely have languished somewhere at the bottom of the stats page if I'd still been active in Genshin fandom. But now it's the only work to break 1k hits! Nothing else even breaks 300 as of the time I started working on this (Christmas Day).

An honourable mention to the breakout Nine/Liu Yu fic (for the small fandom's definition of 'breakout' which is 16! whole! kudos!), Second Best Thing; I'm relatively sure it reached my fellow Liu Yu h/c appreciators on the Chinese side of fandom. It has markedly more hits that everything else (that's not E-rated), and I got a scattered little set of guest kudos over a few days at one point!

Work most underappreciated by the universe, in my opinion:

HA. I have 39 small fandom fics I can trot out! But among them, poor Wisteria by Night is absolutely my pick, because it's actually my only true zero kudos fic (the one kudos it has is a 'well, I like you!' kudos I gave it while logged out and I'm not afraid to admit that). Who would've expected that nobody would read Part 3 of a niche AU that doesn't make sense without the previous instalments, right? :p (But I know my recip and know they appreciate the AU, whether or not they manage to get around to it!)

Most controversial work:

Ehhh. I would've thought I might have something more controversial this year now that I'm back in RPF, but… everything still feels uncontroversial to me. Have I spent too long in fandom? I guess I wrote RPF mpreg? Dual genitalia porn? Well, my comments have been blissfully uncontroversial and I'm pleased with that.

Most fun to write/draw:

I'll give this award to Discount Lovers! It started as a shameless Battleship gremlin idea where I wanted to combine a dozen tropes that we needed; I didn't have time to write it during Battleship because I knew its scope would be bigger than what I'd want to bother doing while tag-rushing, so I let it percolate until its chance arose during FIAB. It needed a little refinement and some brainstorming with a friend before the concept came together properly, but the actual writing process amounted to a series of sprints in one night. It flowed very smoothly and was an extremely satisfying experience :D

But with that said, honourable mention to my Bad Bang fic (I'm not pasting that whole damn title in LOL) — it was very fun letting loose and not thinking about making something good and readable and indulging in RANDOM CAPS! [and the mid-fic A/N.] The end result is 100% too self-indulgent and me-specific to be a fic for general enjoyment, since I took the opportunity to poke fun at my faves/fandoms of yore and my own personal tastes, but it was a fun exercise for sure.

Hardest to write/draw:

A Path of Silver Flowers started as a Battleship Test fic, got wildly out of hand, demanded multiple rewrites and scene restructures, forced me to retool and add a bunch of scenes, then forced me to delete/combine a few scenes, and THEN finally after a lot of fighting with it, I managed to finish it for the same recip in H/C Ex 4 months after Battleship Test concluded LOL. I'm dearly fond of it and it's my longest completed fic to date, but it wasn't easy! Pour one out for the scenes that never were. (Which is why I took 'favourite fic' away from it. I love it but I also love other fics that required less suffering, thanks.)

And I can't not mention my lengthy personal project, because it took me 9 months to finish one (1) chapter of Transit Love: INTO1 Edition. I really don't want Chapter 2 to also take 9 months, but it's already been 3 months since Chapter 1 and I'm only about halfway through Chapter 2 LOL

Also, in contrast to my longer fics, Lap Cat was surprisingly difficult to get together. Admittedly, it might have something to do with the fact that it was the fic where I was experimenting if 4thewords would work for me (spoiler: 4thewords does not work for me).

Easiest to write/draw:

Looking over my stats, I have a surprisingly high number of extremely cooperative fics this year, so I'll stick to the ones with the higher word counts. The longest one-and-done fic is my Bad Bang fic, which I wrote in a single go without pausing, but after that it's probably Multiplayer Marriage Online, which I wrote for Shiritori and was the fastest turnaround I ever had for it — I received the words, had an idea instantly, and was done writing only a few hours after getting the words.

My longer FIAB fics also came together nicely! Discount Lovers was mentioned above, and I was especially surprised by how easy it was to write Unravel and Rewind — although it was my first time writing the fandom (and also my first time writing second person POV), I didn't end up struggling too much with any particular part of it. It ended up growing an extra 3k or so past the amount I claimed, but without interrupting my initial structure and plan overmuch (I'm going to continue judging a certain path of silver flowers).

And once again, Battleship inspired me to make plenty of one and done fics:

• Good Boy (I actually took a nap in the middle of writing it because I was too sleepy, but then still managed to finish it immediately after waking up without losing any momentum, which is a feat I've never achieved with any other fic in my life LOL)
• Picture Perfect
• Pink Lace
• Wildfire
• Clean Break

Biggest disappointment:

I regretted missing the deadline for adding fandoms to my request for FIAB, LOL. I had a nice slate planned out then realised I messed the date up. I threw that slate into Candy Hearts though, so I can make it up to myself!

Biggest surprise:

My fave is still my fave and my OTP is still my OTP, but I'm way more into Santa, AK, and Santa/AK than I expected. I threw them together as a crackship more than anything and because dating show AUs are the best excuse ever for rarepairs nobody has ever heard of! They… are probably now the pairing I ship most aside from Liu Yu/Nine, no thanks to scytale's efforts.

Favourite titles:

A Path of Silver Flowers - I like the flow of it!

The Honour of Your Presence is Requested - Combined with the summary, it gives me a chance to poke fun at Jiayuan, which I never pass up.

Multiplayer Marriage Online - this one is by scytale :D

Least favourite titles:

Worth It - You can tell I had no idea what to title this.

Second Blanket - Same here, with the added un-bonus that I couldn't find any way to make it sound nice in Chinese. (I never did seriously try to translate any of my fics, but it's a consideration!)

That Feeling When Your Not-Boyfriend's Brain is Smoother Than His Former Glasses - I find it sort of funny, but it's too long and not very relevant.

Stupidest title-related things:

This year's earworm song fic titles are One More and Wildfire. One More (which is slightly dated K-pop lol) is definitely dominant though.

Saddest work:

It's between Clean Break and Tonight is for Music for me; just a question of which pair of miserable fucked up exes should get the award. I think Tonight is for Music is more direct whereas Clean Break is subtler but they're both pretty miserable to me lol.

Most fun:

Discount Lovers is shamelessly my brand of fluffy romcom. I got to make Jiayuan a disaster! Force Keyu to pine against his own good judgement! Include a shovel talk! I like the tone of the end result and it also wins most fun to write so it wins on all metrics :D

Art-wise, honourable mention to Kitty Akademiya. I kept adding more cats. I'll admit that I was openly gaming the Battleship system for points, but no regrets.

Most fucked up:

Clean Break - I genuinely did not mean to make Bo Yuan/Liu Yu QUITE that toxic in my AU. I meant to fix them. This is the original plan I had in my notes: 'A sweet, warm love affair that fell apart because both of them built up too much resentment accommodating each other, ending in bitterness and misery that MUST! BE! FIXED!'

In hindsight I should probably have seen where that was going, but I didn't, so this is the note added later: 'I made them the most toxic and miserable relationship entirely by goddamn accident.' …Which is encapsulated in this fic. Oops. (Are they going to be fixed? Uhhhhh… yeah idk.)

Favourite opening line:

"I didn't mean to take it home," Santa says earnestly. "It followed me."

- By Any Other Name

The collar is buried at the very bottom of the box, beneath a stack of clothes that Liu Zhang hasn't worn in years.

- Good Boy

Least favourite opening line:

"Someone get Mocha out of the way! I will not be responsible if he burns his nose."

- Worth It

"Mocha is underfoot! Send him out of the room!"

- Maybe This Kid Will Be Tall

Me when I don't know how to start a fic: okay let's get rid of the dog I guess (*who then does cease to be relevant)

Favourite closing line:

After all, if it's up to him, Nine wants to be ready with an umbrella for Liu Yu on every rainy day to come.

- Umbrella for a Rainy Day

I wrote this fic for this line. <3 I did just cheat slightly, I'll admit. I made a stealth edit after deciding I preferred how it flowed that way. But!! It was a little flow thing and it always ended on the perfect note to me so it wasn't a big cheat. :p

Honourable mentions:

Behind them, thunder rumbles, engulfing the smoke in a torrent of rain.

- Wildfire

Hopefully the rain will stop soon, but for now, he doesn't mind being caught in the storm either.

- caught in a storm at eleven p.m.

With the wisteria drifting around them, filling the air with their sweet fragrance, every dream suddenly feels a step closer.

- Wisteria by Night

I like my weather phenomena/nature ending lines apparently!

The one beautiful thing in this bewildering, broken world is being Nine's, and for that, Liu Yu would die a thousand times over.

- Alive (Again)

"Yes!" Liu Yu's never closed a door so fast in his life — and then he locks it too, for good measure. Just in case.

- Close the Door

Least favourite closing line:

"Always."

- Wish Upon a Star

I consciously used this exact closing line (well, word) in Warmth Yet to Fade in 2021 and both times, it was a case of 'fuck I don't know how to end this', which brings this down from 'not great but not bad I guess' to 'nope nope nope'.

Dishonourable mention:

Laughing, Liu Yu cuddles closer, warm and content.

- Ginger Tea and Crackers

It's just uninspired.

Extra super special dishonourable mentions:

"Feel better soon, baobei."

- Second Blanket

"Feel better soon, baobei," he whispers. "Love you too."

- Second Best Thing

Yes, I'm noticing right now that I ended these two fics the EXACT SAME WAY LOL (and with the title similarities too, they probably look like almost the exact same fic…)

Other thoughts on opening/closing lines:

I have a higher proportion of meh closing lines in 2023, I think. In comparison, I think most of my opening lines are really functional even if they're not all bangers. I started and ended with dialogue a lot more frequently too, which somehow checks out for my main fandom.

Playing Shiritori was a fun opening/closing line shakeup! Most of the lines I get aren't lines I'd normally open with. For endings, sometimes I write towards a specific line or vibe and other times I just let it be and it ends where it ends. I'm on a hiatus from it but I do want to go back a little later into the year.

Did I write more, less, or about what I’d expected?

I almost hit 100k posted! So just under twice as much as 2022, and only a little less than 2021. It's more than I expected because I thought 2021 was an outlier, but it seems more like a trend? I conclude that I apparently have cycles of productive and less productive years, so maybe next year is a 50k year.

Pairing/genre/fandom that I wrote that I never would have predicted in January?

I fully expected this year to be a 100% monofannish INTO1 year, so the fact that I wrote any non-INTO1 fic at all is very surprising to me!

Though my most surprising of those works isn't even on AO3… because I went back to Neopets and then wrote something for the Neopian Times for fun LOL. I was too late for Christmas (look, I didn't realise the Christmas issue was published on the 17th and the actual soft deadline was about 14th-ish!) but I flung it in afterwards and it'll turn up on the uhhhh. 12th of January or something? It's gen of the Darigan Yooyuball Team with subtle Tandrak Shaye/Layton Vickles smarm because kiddy me always thought it would be a fun ship, lol. But no, I did not expect that I would be writing Neopets fanfic in the year 2023.

Story that could have been better?

That Feeling When Your Not-Boyfriend's Brain is Smoother Than His Former Glasses was written for Battleship tags… as were many others, but I liked those better LOL. It's actually well-received relative to many fics of my OTP because it's of a more popular ship, but I find it to be a solidly average fic. To be fair though, if you ask me if it could be better… I have no answer to that LOL.

Writing risks this year, and lessons learned:

This year, I tried more alternative formatting/POVs. The main one is Transit Love: INTO1 Edition, which is entirely in script format, but Unravel and Rewind is also from a POV I've never written before (second person). Transit Love's workskin is pretty time-consuming to format, but I like how it looks haha.

My writing plans from last year’s post, and how they panned out:

My plans last year were:

• Don't sign up for so many auctions. Achieved! I signed up for none (not even TC prizes this year). But minus credit because I still owe one old commitment to a very patient friend who keeps giving me extensions. Thank you and sorry, scytale :'D
• Post a fic for INTO1: Needless to say I achieved this, because I posted 39 fics for INTO1 (and 2 art). I grew my OTP tag by a LOT and I'm proud of myself! Nine/Liu Yu is now my overall most-written ship at 23 works… of a ship with 44 works total (36 if we filter out Chinese, lol), so I wrote more than half of this tag. And 8 of the remaining English works are gifts for me so I'd like to claim credit for being involved in 31/36 works in this tag, thanks ;D
• Writing more fic in Chinese: Nope, no full fics. But I continue to have spare lines and paragraphs that start out as Chinese (such as many of the texts in my Dating Show AU) which I then back translate to English. I'm comfy enough with the level of fluency I have in Chinese at this point, honestly. I read a lot faster than before and I can understand everything at 1.5-2x with some subtitle help, the same as English, which is good enough. I'll never be a Chinese writer and I'm fine with that.

What next for 2024?

I'm going to make Liu Yu/Nine the top ship in EN for INTO1/P101. This is pretty low-hanging fruit. The top ship (Keyu/Patrick) only has 41 works in the INTO1 tag/43 works in the P101 tag, so even if I also make Kepat works, I only need to create 6/8 + however many Kepat works I make to make Liu Yu/Nine the top EN ship. I'm making it happen. May Battleship be my guide.

Also stretch goal to get Liu Yu/Nine into the top 10 ships of the general P101 tag without language filtering. Tag #10 is at 57 works, so assuming nobody else makes anything for the tag, I'll need to make 22 works to get them there.

(Being into a small fandom is kind of fun. I enjoy engaging in blatant stats manipulation. :p)

I also WILL post Chapter 2 of Transit Love, damn it. And ideally also more chapters but I'm not going to push my luck.

And if I have to be honest with myself, there are a couple of other Neopets things I'd like to try writing before I get bored of the site and wander off again.

Other than that… I'm not sure! I have the sense that by the end of this year, I might start winding down with INTO1. Who knows what will replace it? Or if it'll end up having surprising longevity, even. (Not putting any money on that though, my hyperfoci have a consistent trend of expiring after ~2 years.)