Meme: Fic Wrap-up, 2021 edition!

[mumblemumble]

I've never done this before; I'm so excited. Format was snagged from china_shop, with some adaptations! This took me several days to complete, and I don't expect anyone to actually read the whole thing, but it was nice to take some time and reminisce.

Fanworks

RPF
» (a quiet place)
    If you're near, it's quiet (13,912 words)
    wish list (you're a new line) (8,776 words)
    (that nothing is faded) (2,308 words)
    Something bigger than the sky (9,321 words)
    deep water, a little deeper than you thought (3,636 words)
» Tactical Advantage
    Reconnaissance (4,165 words)
    Route, Area, Zone (4,891 words)
    Rendezvous Point (7,437 words)
[bright lights when i see you] (610 words)


Guardian
[Tumblr] And I thought the world / was about this leaving
[Tumblr] you are in love / what does love look like
[Fanmix] Higher Ground (12 songs, 50 mins)
[Fanmix] Pull Apart the Dark (12 songs, 40 minutes)
[Fanmix] better than what came before (10 songs, 34 mins)
» knew it would get dark
    we both swam out to sea (2,558 words)
    everything to help you stay (2,618 words)
[Fanmix] Instrumental Weilan (10 songs, 40 mins)
[higher calling] (364 words)
[a hand to hold, a song to sing] (549 words)
[longing for the storm to still] (887 words)
blue like that before (860 words)
Better Days (5,029 words)
every day discovering something new (2,214 words)


Granting You a Dreamlike Life/Memory Lost
» Savior Complex
    start a big fire in a one room apartment (5,969 words)
    six. (2,013 words)
    five. (2,033 words)
    two. (2,020 words)
    armistice (1,098 words)


Other
Cherry Magic: [Tumblr] *click*
Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty: calm and blazing both existing (600 words)
Ted Lasso: [and know the place for the first time] (628 words)


Unfinished Fragments
Merlin/Discworld: We bankrupt all invaders, we sell them souvenirs (4,981 words)
Takers (2010): family business (everybody standing with us) (380 words)
Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty: take that fear and wear it like a crown (430 words)


Fandoms and Trends

Oh, Guardian, what would I have done without you last year. Probably not written 84,496 words of fic! (1,228 of those words were for unrelated fandoms, I feel the need to clarify.) I seriously can't overstate how much of a new thing this is for me. It was a weird, difficult, sometimes joyous year, and Guardian fandom was responsible for a lot of the joy (and escapism). Stupid little show. 🥲

I don't know how to calculate the average/median word count, but I've mostly written stuff in the 2k-5k range, with a bunch of shorter ficlets and a few longer pieces. Mostly porny things. Almost entirely pairings that are either played by Zhu Yilong and Bai Yu or, you know, RPF involving Zhu Yilong and Bai Yu.

I also dusted off a couple of super old WIPs and posted them to the brilliant Shiny Bits collection, which felt very freeing.

Meme

My favourite fanworks this year
Part four in a series, so not the most immediately accessible, but Something bigger than the sky contains some of my favourite scenes and my favourite ending and my favourite... mood? The whole series holds a very special place in my heart.

I also really like the Higher Ground fanmix, and you are in love / what does love look like, which was my first and last foray into gif-making. 😅


My best fanwork this year
Hmm. I think the knew it would get dark diptych, which started out as "what if! tender tent sex!" and then kind of turned into my personal ship manifesto. Before that, I still thought "I've been looking for you for 10,000 years" was a writing blooper, what with the dirt nap and all, but no! You just have to work with the text and suddenly it all makes sense!


My most popular fanwork this year
Part one of said diptych, we both swam out to sea (which has the tender tent sex). Most kudos by far (182 right now), also most comments and bookmarks. Made me very happy!

Oh, and *click* recently surpassed 200 notes on Tumblr, which is also very nice!


Most fun fanwork to make/write
If you're near, it's quiet, just because it started everything, and because I remember taking nice, long walks in early spring while thinking about it and typing little ideas into my phone and then laboriously turning them into full scenes at home, which I would then shove at aurum in Slack. And that's how 14k of fic came into being over a period of six weeks or so. O_O Cannot thank aurum enough!

I also really enjoy the process of putting a fanmix together, so all of those were generally fun.


Most sexy fanwork
I think the Luo Fusheng/Han Chen crossover series? The extras are more focused on sex (and endless! bickering!), whereas the main fic has a lot of "we shouldn't be together, but THE OVERWHELMING DESIRE" tropes that live in the periphery of actual fucking. Although it does have fucking, too.

(I basically wrote the whole thing because of one (1) Twitter friend who's deeply into the pairing and kept singing its praises until I succumbed, and who then also gave me a detailed summary of Memory Lost and all sorts of fun ideas to work with. 😀)


Most underappreciated fanwork
THE FANMIXES. 😅 In all seriousness, Guardian fandom has been super lovely and supportive ever since my first shy RPF offering, and the "why not more comments on this one? 🥺" brain weasels are just that, so I'm trying to ignore them when I can.


Biggest surprise
Probably Reconnaissance and the two fics that followed. Did not expect to write Zhu Yilong with someone other than Bai Yu, much less an actual threesome, but once I started thinking about Wang Yang's cute little crush on ZYL in the context of an established Zhubai relationship, things just... kept happening. Writing each of these was an adventure; none of them turned out anything like the vague outline I had in mind when I started jotting down scenes.


Favourite premises
HOT, SAD CAGE FIGHTER CHU SHUZHI. Considering I wrote Better Days for the Spicy Advent Calendar, it's way more reverent touches and longing glances than any actual spice, but sometimes you just want to write all your favourite ~bad boy falling in love with the soft nerd~ tropes, you know?


Favourite opening/closing lines, and favourite scene from anywhere
Most of my opening and closing lines are kind of "eh, I'll think of something better later" placeholders that I'm always too lazy to fix in the end. I do like the beginning and end of each knew it would get dark fic. I like how the last lines complement each other.

Also, let's say:

First line: They would meet up every Wednesday night, only Wednesday nights, and then they slowly added mornings and weekends and every other day of the week, until they were living together. It was one way to make a home. --armistice

Last line: He watched and he learned and he stopped needing other people. One day, as his last act of service, he'd stop needing her. --calm and blazing both existing

To pick a favourite scene, I really like how this one from start a big fire in a one room apartment dips and flows and crests.

His knife is on the night stand, next to Han Chen's gun, looking out of place on the white lace. They both prefer their bare fists in a fight, but there's something to be said for a threatening piece of metal you can just flash at someone to save yourself some effort.

"Remember what you said the first time?" Fusheng says, his eyes still on the gun. He knows what it looks like in Han Chen's hand; knows he never misses his aim.

"Hmm?" Han Chen says. It sounds like he had been close to dozing off.

"I won't kill you while you have my dick in your mouth," Fusheng quotes in a snippy tone, exaggerating only a little bit. "Why would I do that to myself."

Han Chen snorts. "You could always kill me afterwards," he replies in a high-pitched sing-song, his eyes still closed. Fusheng punches him in the shoulder, just enough to jostle him.

"Princess," he says, deepening his voice, "if I still have the energy to kill you afterwards, we didn't do it right."

Han Chen laughs, and finally opens his eyes. "I don't sound like that."

"That's exactly what you sound like," Fusheng replies. "It's unbearable."

"Worked on you."

"I was in a compromised state."

"Please, you were barely tipsy."

Lonely, he thinks. He was lonely. He hadn't noticed before, hadn't felt that way in years, hadn't wanted. Until an insufferable stranger had shown up at Mei Gao Mei and gotten under his skin, just like that, and then vanished again, just like that. The shape of his absence lingered, disorienting.

When they met again, it was as second in command of the Hong family, and leader of the Hei Dun gang--new in town and making enemies fast.

It was reckless. It was stupid. It wasn't even so much a bad idea as an impulse, acted on without any thought for the consequences. He didn't want to think about the consequences. He wanted to be selfish, just for one night.

He wanted.

And that, in the end, had been the first time.

Favourite title/summary/tags
Title: [longing for the storm to still] (from Heaven by Galleaux)
Summary: He's going to kiss the young general, because the professor never once looked at him like he hadn't. --we both swam out to sea
Tags: The Softest Exploration of Kink | Verbal Hostility as Foreplay | Science (seductive)


This year's themes, and the fanworks that demonstrate it most
Happy! Soft! Warm! Nobody dies! They are so in love! If you need a soft blanket, may I offer this tender little fic about boys? It also has gentle bickering.

I think blue like that before is a good example of my 2021 writings, in that it starts in medias res, handwaves the tiniest bit of backstory, does some happy intimacy, and then tip-toes out again.


Exchanges, fests, and other events taken part in
guardian_wishlist, Kissathon, Spicy Advent, WeilanWeek


Goals for this year?
As I told my friend when she asked me the same question: I posted watersports this year, I feel I've kind of peaked in terms of putting myself out there.

There are some Weilan ideas I want to explore, and a couple more extras I want to write for the Savior Complex series, but I can't think of many kinks, tropes, or themes I haven't written yet. Maybe I'll do puppy play in 2022, who knows! Lingerie? Maybe! Angst and sadness? Definitely not!


And that's it, that's all the questions I could think up answers for. Thank you, Guardian fandom. ♥

Comments

[marycrawford]

ONE THOUSAND EMOTIONS. ALL THE TIME. DON'T TOUCH ME.

AW I feel that. It is such an emotional rollercoaster, this show - also, for me, when I started REwatching, the way a little line of dialogue can hit like a hammerblow the second time round is really something.

ender little fics will be waiting for you whenever you're ready.

<3 this should be a marketing slogan for the AO3, honestly.

[mumblemumble]

I haven't done a full rewatch yet, I wonder if my little heart could take it now. 😅 I also had a lot of Zhu Yilong and Zhubai feelings on top of all the THEY DIDN'T! EVEN! GET!! A HUG!!! feelings about their characters. Just a lot going on, feelings-wise.

this should be a marketing slogan for the AO3, honestly.

I feel that. <3

[marycrawford]

THEY DIDN'T! EVEN! GET!! A HUG!!!

Oh man yes, that was my feeling too. Weilan made up for it with the burning intensity and teary-eyed expressions, but I desperately wanted more physical contact at the end, sigh. (To appease your Zhubai feelings as well as this whole Thing, did you look at the behind the scenes footage and photos? There are some actual hugs as well as lovely other moments...)

[mumblemumble]

The teary-eyed intensity made up for a lot (and is, of course, the reason we're all trapped in this fandom forever :-D) but gosh, the fact that they weren't even allowed a tiny bit of physical contact AFTER DEATH. *sigh* But hey, that's what fanfic is for!

And yes! I very, very slowly worked my way through the primer (because every little factoid I learned and interview snippet I watched caused a whole new cascade of emotions 😅) and ended up channeling all my feelings into a fic I did *not* expect to write, but somehow did. So that was kind of productive.

(Their hugssssss! 🥲)