2025 Fanwork Round-Up

[mumblemumble]

(2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024)

2025 was the year I completely lost my writing mojo, and also the year of Zhang Kangle. For me, personally.

Just for the sake of completeness, I'm including things that were revealed in January, even though I already gathered them up in a separate post.


War of Faith

some faith in the unknown
» Shenlai | 2,000 words | E // for stultiloquentia | fandomtrees

in another time
» Shenlai | 2,200 words | T

swan song (and we carry on)
» Shenlai | 2,200 words | T // for 🦋shouzhudaitu | Yuletide



The Way Home

I'll build a house inside of you
» Jiashu x Jiahao | 7,800 words | M

Coda
» Jiashu x Jiahao | 2,000 words | E



Misc.

kiss by kiss
» Guardian RPF | Zhubai mini-fanmix // for kat_lair | fandomtrees

[to arrive where we started]
» Ted Lasso | 860 words | T // for onetruethree | fandomtrees

Good Bones
» Original Work | 1,850 words | G // for sysann | fandomtrees

I made a home here in unsteady things
» The Dauntless Youths | 5,000 words | M


Gosh, it really looks so sad, this short list of short things and a few longer stories I managed to squeeze out of my brain and onto the virtual page. I have a theory as to why I was so blocked this year, but it's stupid, so I'm going to hide it.

Silliness.

I started the year with some good feelings about my creative output, writing my little stories for a friendly little fandom (War of Faith) and brimming with ideas for a new fandom of one (The Way Home), and then I participated in the Rare Kink Buffet event, and uh.

See the thing is, I spent most of March writing some "original work" porn, i.e. literotica-style fantasies I'm not going to post on main, so I made a sock account and thought, you know, big kink event! At least the prompters will like it? Might get some comments from fellow perverts, it'll be nice. I was warned that the really filthy/taboo stuff usually doesn't get a lot of feedback, but I guess I was still being optimistic. A few fics, around 10k words total, some quality wank material if I do say so myself. It'll be fun! \o/

Anyway, and then reveals happened and I was not prepared for the total lack of engagement, and I guess it broke something inside me, lol.

And then I stopped writing for seven months.

I think the other thing is that I've been in small (c-drama) fandoms for so long now, I'd gotten used to at least having a few enthusiastic readers who'll leave comments or kudos, and yell about feelings with me. I'm never going to get Big Fandom levels of ~engagement, but this is nice. Cozy!

So feeling fannish about shows nobody else has watched (or only close friends 🥹🫶) just... made it really hard to get into writing mode. I've always found well-meaning advice along the lines of "write for yourself, don't care about numbers" kind of hollow, because why would I do that to myself? Writing is hard; if nobody's going to read it I can just stick with daydreaming! Or bounce ideas around in chat. Which is easy.

The thing that finally got me to write again was, of course, a Zhang Kangle drama, and only because the ending was so depressing and I had so many feelings about ✨The Blorbo✨ (incidentally, a character not played by Zhang Kangle), that I really wanted to write a fix-it and worked hard to make it happen. And I had a couple of friends to show it to, if not an audience.

Right now I have no idea how much writing will happen in the foreseeable future, if any. I'm just watching my little shows and making little threads about them on Bluesky, and I guess that can just be it for a while. Who knows!

Comments

[trobadora]

*HUGS*

I know what it's like when there's just no response. Come to think of it, my worst experience was also with porn - it was a porn exchange, I wrote a rarepair, and my recipient didn't even turn up. That story sat there for ages with zero comments; I don't think I really got over it until a random passer-by commented on it two years or so later.

I hope your writing mojo comes back in full force soon, and that your stories find their audience! ♥

[mumblemumble]

That kind of thing can be so crushing, yeah! Especially if you tailor a story to someone's likes and they don't respond at all. Ugh! And with porn it feels even more vulnerable, because it's... porn. I'm glad you got a comment eventually! <3

And thank you! *hugs*

[grayswandir]

Honestly this is all pretty relatable.

So feeling fannish about shows nobody else has watched (or only close friends 🥹🫶) just... made it really hard to get into writing mode. I've always found well-meaning advice along the lines of "write for yourself, don't care about numbers" kind of hollow, because why would I do that to myself?

XD Yeah, this is why I've never written anything for any of the fandoms I actually care about the most. I just request them in exchanges so I can yell enthusiastically in the comments of the gifts I get. Writing is hard -- why would I spend weeks or months working on something nobody except me is going to read anyway? Though I kind of feel this way even about fandoms that do have readers. It's still a lot of work to write something I think is good enough to be worth posting. I think that's why it's hard for me to write anything that's not for an exchange. At least in an exchange I'm getting something back for my effort, and there's a deadline so I can't just keep editing for eternity and never post, and theoretically I know at least one person actively wants to read the thing I'm writing. Though then we come to your other point about recipients who never bother to comment...

Which, yeah. :P Out of the last five exchange stories I've written, three never got a comment or even a kudos from the recipient. One of those stories got no comments at all until months after it was posted, which was pretty depressing, and another one is in a niche medium for ficinabox, so it has a few comments but still super low engagement for how popular the fandom is. So, yeah. I get why an experience like that would make it hard to get excited about writing again.

[mumblemumble]

Oh wow, that sounds like you're cursed, I'm so sorry! What a terrible string of bad exchange experiences. I hug you! Let me assure you, it has nothing to do with the quality of your writing. Maybe starting with this Yuletide, things will turn around? 🥹

Anyway, writing is hard. Yelling about blorbos with friends is fun! I hope you'll have more of the latter this year, and if the former happens, that people will appreciate it properly!

[grayswandir]

Hah, hopefully that didn't sound like I was making it about me! I do think I've just had some bad luck, but yeah, point being, I get what you mean about lack of feedback being demotivating (even if you theoretically knew beforehand that the kind of things you were writing might not get a ton of engagement, it still sucks when the lack of engagement actually happens), and I don't think it's silly. <3 At least not any sillier than being in fandom in the first place. ^_^'

Wishing you many comments on your writing and much yelling about blorbos in the new year. :D

[nnozomi]

I hope the writing feels come back in full soon (if you want them to). Your 2025 list looks pretty respectable to me!
I know what you mean in a way about the lack of engagement, especially when you love the characters so much and you just want someone to see what you did with them and take delight in it. Knock wood for fellow enthusiasts in future <3

[mumblemumble]

when you love the characters so much and you just want someone to see what you did with them and take delight in it

You get it. 🥹🥹🥹

Thank you for your kind words, and wishing you fellow enthusiasts too! <3