Year in Writing

[clachnaben]

Stats:

 

Written and posted: 116,854 (without yuletide)

Written and not posted: countless 

Written in chatfic: as uncountable as grains of sand on the shore

 

Shortest fic: hard to hold back

Longest fic: A Gentleman’s Engagement

Most kudos: Oceans Come (From Easy Streams)

Most comments: A Gentleman’s Engagement

Most bookmarks: in the yellow and green

 

My one goal this year was to post something every month, which I successfully did in every month except July. Truthfully, I think that was the hangover from discovering hockey. I fell into hockey late May, and while I managed to keep to some of my writing routines through June, I spent most of July reading all the hockey fic I could get my hands on and consuming as much canon as I could. 

 

I guess made up for it for posting more than one thing in some other months, but still, no July. I wrote way more this year than I’ve ever written before, and my momentum only seems to be picking up, which is kind of insane. I guess it’s a product of a couple things. I have much more of routine now and am better at fitting writing into it. I write on my commute, which is like a solid 90 minutes in a day where I’m writing, and now I make myself write when ever I’m on the tube, which is obviously a lot. Also, I’m so inspired!!! Hockey is like a parasite that’s taken up residence in my brain and I keep thinking of new stuff I want to write! I’m blessed to have people in my life (growlery and frecklebombfic ) chatficcing with me every day and we churn out solid gold ideas on the regular. 

 

It’s felt pretty awesome. Like I used to think it was a given that I would never write anything over a couple of thousand words, but now I can do a 10k story easy! It’s so surprising!! Also the stories I want to read I can ….make them?? Like I’m like oh what if X and then I can write X???? Amazing. 

 

I like talking about my writing, so I’m gonna do a little thing on each fic I posted this year. It’ll be long but whatever. Dreamwidth allows longform!

 

of all stars the most beautiful (Menalippe/Antiope, Wonder Woman)

 

I started this last year, and kind of worked on it through the holidays. The title is a line from a Sappho poem, which I obviously had to pick when writing about ancient greek lesbians. I did a bit of research for this, mostly about Menalippe. She isn't named in the film, but gets a credit (the actress who runs screaming to Antiope after she’s killed is credited as Menalippe) and Menalippe is a ‘real’ named Amazon and appears in the myths. I also wanted to use ancient greek words for things, like the naval vessels and their clothes, and all the Amazons who are named in the story have ancient Greek names. Hence why Theseus is mentioned as her lover - she’s named in some of his myths. 

 

I guess the thing I really wanted to explore with the story was about the life of an Amazon, and the community they might have, which some people commented on. I wanted to give Menalippe this rich life around her, hence the invention of Stavra, and her past lovers. Sometimes stories like this can be so bland, like the Amazons were just soldiers who turn off or disappear when they're not fighting, so I wanted to dive into the backstory and the lives they had. And also obviously Menalippe & Antiope's love story, which I had a lot of fun with. 

 

 

our hearts are restless (Granby/Little, Temeraire)

 

I wasn't really at the writing pace I am now in February, and this actually partially something I had in my old WIPs that I finished in order to publish something in February. 

 

The title is a famous quote by Augustine, “our hearts are restless, until they find their rest in you” which one of my theology professors was fond of quoting to end lectures. (Me putting that degree to use here) It's kind of a pun, since Little's first name is canonically Augustine. 

 

Definitely my favorite line is the first one, “Little knew he was one of the few aviators who kept up with church going, although he rather thought a life spent regularly nearly falling to your death ought to inspire a greater appreciation for God's providence.” especially the last bit. I really wanted to capture that kind of sarcastic formal humour of the regency/napoleonic wars. If you read my later commentary on A Gentleman's Engagement you'll hear a bit more of that. 

 

in search of your glory (Mikey/Patrick, bandom)

 

I wrote this for no_tags this year (although I think it ran twice?) and really enjoyed it. no_tags was where I wrote some of my first bandom fics, and was kind of my first intro to social style fandom, so it's cool to get to keep doing it. 

 

This is the first/only a/b/o fic I've ever written. Don't get me wrong, I love the trope and I read it all the time. I like the stuff that takes it seriously and does it as a gender/oppression metaphor and I like the stuff that doesn't take it seriously and uses it as a chance for fun porn. Tropes are fun! I liked getting to do what I thought of as a subtle trope inversion - Patrick doesn't like all the baggage that comes with being an alpha, so I tried to incorporate as subtle/not so subtle cues about the role reversal, and that being what attracts him to Mikey.

The title is from last of the real ones because bandom truly does never die.

 

A Gentleman’s Engagement (Tommy/Lovett, podsa)

 

So this was basically one of the funnest fics to write ever. croissantkatie was my beta/cheerleader/all round fic fixer and working with her was so much fun. Opening my doc to see her comments always made my absolute day, so much so that I think if I’d never posted this I would have still had the most fun. 

 

This has a mix of inspirations - it’s pretty heavily inspired by an ever-fixed mark by amarguerite. Confusingly for not being a huge pride and prejudice fan, this is one of my favorite fics ever (it’s a soulmark au for pride and prejudice), and one of the elements of the AU is that same-sex relationships are known/tolerated, although still looked down upon. I spent a few days after I had the idea of making it a historical au trying to figure out how to make fake-dating work in a world where being queer was illegal and then I thought…..I don’t have to exactly follow history?? It can be whatever I want?? And made it an AU, and it worked 100 times better. 

 

I’m not super happy with the like ~plot reasons for why stuff is happening, but I decided to just go with what I had, instead of spending ages agonising to find the perfect reason. I was reading K.J. Charles’ magpie books at the time, hence the China connection. Nian was originally going to be a much more central character, but it made the story really weird and took away from the actual fake engagement, so I cut it down. Please just accept she was very awesome in my head.

 

I really liked getting to write a regency AU. coming up with period appropriate ways of phrasing things was very fun, and I really like that kind of sarcastic, formal tone of regency or fake-regency writing. I don’t really have a favorite line since I love the whole thing really! Also the longest thing I wrote this year!

 

Oceans Come (From Easy Streams) (Maria/Natasha, MCU)

 

Again this was something I basically had written - glitteryv and I had talked about it for a pod_together  ages ago and then just...not done it. I don’t remember why we didn’t finish it, but I asked if she’d mind if I tidied it up and posted it so I posted it as a gift for her. I remember doing a lot of research for this dumb little fic. Sunburst is a real place, they really elect their sheriff, all the geography is accurate, stuff like that. 

 

For reasons that completely escape me, this is one of my most popular fics ever?? This tiny femslash with one kiss AU?? I will never understand what fandom wants.

 

In the yellow and green (M'Baku/Bucky, MCU)

 

Okay so I originally started writing this because I realised the ship name for M’Baku/Bucky would be M’Backy, and I was like s c r e a m I need to be the change I want to see in the world and make this happen. And then I wrote a kinda emotional fic about journeys. 

 

I talked a little in the comments of the fic about this, but one of the things I loved about Black Panther is that it has such an intense sense of place, and connectedness to that place. I think it’s a great example of how that can be done even in fantasy storytelling, because like obviously Wakanda isn’t real. Other Marvel films really don’t do this, and Black Panther does. So something I tried to get through the fic was the sense of connectedness to a place, the sense of being firmly in one place and not wanting to be anywhere else, since that’s really fundamental to the idea of M’Baku as a character. 

 

I think the plotting could have been a little tighter (why does Bucky have to go with M’Baku? Why does M’Baku decide not to take him to Ghekre? I don’t really have reasons for those things other than...I needed them to for the story. Plot weaknesses remain a theme, as you will notice). I’m also not super happy with the Bucky-and-M’Baku go clubbing scene. I kept waffling about taking it out, and then putting it back in, and then taking out for ages, until I finally just went “fuck it” and left it in. Whatever, it doesn’t have to be perfect. 

 

growlery made a podfic for this that made me feel so many feelings, like it’s a hundred times better read in her voice, so you should go listen to that. Listening to some of the descriptions in her reading gave me shivers. 

 

(all my friends were) glorious (nicky/ovi, the whole team gsf, hockey)

 

THE START OF THE HOCKEY!!!! MY BOYS WON THE STANLEY CUP!!!!!!!! IN VEGAS!!!!!!!

 

NICKE AND OVI ARE IN LOVE AND HAVE BEEN IN LOVE FOR ELEVEN (11) YEARS

 

*deep breath* uh so obviously I read my first hockey fic in May and it was Nicky/Ovi, and then I read the ENTIRE Nicky/Ovi tag one by one and then I realised that hockey was still happening??? In May??? I thought it was a winter sport??? And I watched all the stanley cup finals (I stayed up till 3am!!) and absolutely 4000% fell in love. And obviously I like and care about lots of teams now but the caps are my forever team. my big dumb boys. Ovi, the OG big and dumb boy. ;__________;

 

On the fic: like, I dunno. It’s not supposed to be good? It was one of the first fics where I just pushed myself to goddamn write it, instead of worrying about whether it was ~perfect, and it’s just a drunk vegas wedding and then drunk sex on a plane. If it’s not good, what does it matter? It’s dumb wish fulfillment, and I love it. :shrug: It felt really freeing to write something without pushing myself to make it perfect, and I think that translated into the rest of the fics I wrote this year (and also probably helped improve my writing speed).

 

The best line is definitely “Nastya made eye contact with him over Ovi’s head, and the both smiled fondly. They had never been lovers, but loving Alex was a two full time people kind of job.” which sort of gives the wrong impression of the fic which is mostly sex and dirty drunk boys. 

Here's another picture of Ovi and Nicky

 

living arrows sent forth (nate/tyson, avs, hockey)

 

So my comments about wish fulfillment definitely apply here. As you could probably deduce. I dunno. I spent half the summer with baby on the brain, just my brain screaming BABIES. WE WANT A BABY. and me along for the ride like ?????? what ?? the ??fuck ????? so I channeled all that into writing a fic where Nate and Tyson get a wishbaby. I just wanted to write something soft and dumb, and I instead wrote it like 40% soft and dumb and the rest is intense emotional turmoil where Nate realises he is not as good of a boyfriend as he thought he was. Again, who knows. I wrote what came to me and I just kept writing until there was over 10k of ridiculous wishbaby nonsense. I loved every second of it. 

 

The title is from one of my fave poems of all time, On Children by Kahlil Gibran

“You are the bows from which your children

as living arrows are sent forth”

 

This definitely has some weaknesses - I could NOT keep the tense the way I wanted it to be, so some of the sentences are clearly confused about tense agreement, which is a bit annoying, but I’m happy with the emotional beats it hit. Also the jokes about naming the baby were fun. Learned an important lesson about only writing in past tense. 

 

I wrote the epilogue because in my head I wanted to write the 20k version where they are dads and then Gabe makes his stupid, emotionally  incompetent move on nate and tyson by moving in but not saying anything else. But I didn’t write that, I just wrote the epilogue. I knew this would happen when I decided to include it, and a bunch of the comments just ended up being requests to write a sequel/write more, which….. all comments are nice and I’m happy people liked it enough to want more! But also “please write more!” doesn’t leave much to say in response. And I always feel like the grinch for thinking it.  

 

a collaborative condition (gen, star trek)

 

I started out kinda of not sure about what I wrote for this, and now I love it! I do pod_together  every year, and this is the second time I’ve done writing for two groups and every time I say I won’t do it and then I do it and every year it’s stressful. Never again!! I had a great time in my groups and I liked the fics I produced but man I don’t have the brain space to write two fics at once. Note to self: do not do this next year when you inevitably think about doing it. 

 

The podfic that rose and tinypinkmouse made for this was really, really, really great. Like do not go read this, go listen to it. The music they added and the voices they do, and the back and forth between their two voices is really good. I love this little gen fic so much <3 <3 <3 <3

 

I especially liked the spock POV, and some of the humour, which I personally thought was very funny. And Kirk being a big dumb idiot who loves his crew. 

 

Amidala’s Five (gen, star wars)

I am a little conflicted about this, because on the one hand the concept is GENIUS and knight_tracer  made an insanely good (as usual) podfic out of it, however I do not think I am a good enough writer to do this concept justice. Obviously, because it is genius, the concept came from knight. 

I really like the first half of the fic, but I definitely bit off more than I could chew doing two groups and one of those groups having a fic with Plot. as in like, a heist has to have plot to make sense, and uh, me and plots have some philosophical disagreements. For instance, I am bad at them.

 

I’m still happy with it, and I’m happy I challenged myself with it, and I hope knight liked it, and I hope people liked it. I also loved writing Padme, and including Ahsoka, and the handmaidens. My dream would be to suddenly become someone who can write plot and rewrite this so it’s a snappy casefic with heists, and then it’ll be amazing. But seeing as that probably won't happen overnight, it was fun to write heist and futurefic with padme going on adventures and stealing stuff. Be gay do crimes guys. 

 

(PLOTS. They’re hard!!!)

 

sex is fire (dream about that casual touch) (nate/gabe/tyson, avs, hockey)

 

what can i say frecklebombfic and growlery are really inspiring. this concept was in one of our chatfics, and i was just like, what if I actually wrote it, and like powered through to write it and send it to them in a couple of days cause I wanted it to be a fun surprise. 

 

I've been kind of pushing myself to write more sex scenes, because it is something I want to get better at, and eventually I just had to have a stern talk with myself where I was like you'll never get better at writing sex if you don't actually write it and just started making myself write sex scenes. I don't think I'm great at them but practice makes perfect I guess. I can't write good sex scenes without writing some mediocre ones first, which means you guys get subjected to the mediocre ones. 

 

misprintify made this a lot better, and so did frecklebombfic , cause there was originally several instances where Nate would use his hands despite his hands being tied being the point of the fic because logistics are hard! what are everyone's hands doing! 

 

anyway, I've always liked this kind of story, you know kinky, but kind of subverting the idea of who is dominating who. Like I think sometimes we write domination stuff as too clearly a one way street, when that isn't really how it always works. the original idea what gabe topping tyson topping nate and the draft doc for this was called “dom inception” lol. There are a lot of good parts to this fic but basically the best part is Nathan Mackinnon gets tied up. Love it. 

 

The title is from a hayley kiyoko because she writes sexy songs and it needed a sexy title. 

 

a perfect game (nate/tyson, avs, hockey)

 

I wrote this for the avsfam challenge, and really surprised myself with making it so long. Pining! Lots of pining! Nathan Mackinnon’s emotions! Tyson being messy! 

 

I’m not super hot on the ending - I had to rush a little to wrap it up, and I’m not jazzed about the transition into them getting together. I think the story would be a lot better with another several thousand words, but at that point I was all out of words, so what it has is what it has. And I’m happy with it honestly. I wanted the ending to be kind of straightforward and uncomplicated, like Nate’s feelings have gotten complicated and mixed up and huge, but they haven’t necessarily made the world like that, the way your feelings can be A Lot but the solution is simple. And I think I got that.  

 

I think this is the “best” line “Nate’s used to the pain of longing now, the way it'll flare up suddenly and strangely without warning, but he's used to injuries now too and the pain of a broken bone, a sprained shoulder, each of them is new and different, impossible to prepare for.”

 

 But my actual personally favorite bit is actually:

 

“Nate felt this way every time Tyson broke up with whoever he was dating, and it always resolved itself eventually, back into the fond friendship that Nate honestly thought he preferred. He was lucky. He'd had such a crush on Tyson in his rookie year, when he was young and dumb and Tyson was older and had been in the show a couple years already, and was handsome and funny. Nate still cringed internally thinking about the intensity of the crush,and it had been nice to come back from his first offseason to realise that he liked Tyson, that Tys liked him too, that they were friends. That was worth a lot more than a stupid crush, and the ghost of soft emotion that crush had left behind.”

 

followed by a moonshadow (nate/gabe/tyson, avs, hockey)

 

More self-indulgent nonsense that I love. For some reason, after perfect game this was the only thing I actually felt like writing. I tried other stuff but this was the only thing that seemed actually fun, so I rolled with it. Werewolves! Team feels! This turned out surprisingly more emotional than I intended, with Tyson’s sad trade thoughts. Writing a werewolf fic from the perspective of not a werewolf was fun, and I liked writing an OT3 (I always like writing an OT3!)

 

The title is from moonshadow by cat stevens because I googled “songs about the moon” and this had the best vibe. 

(Secretly my favorite part of this fic is all the dumb werewolves jokes I put in, especially Tyson telling Gabe to "keep his fur on" and Nate-the-dog guilting Tyson into letting him sleep on the bed.)

 

hard to hold back (colin wilson/gabe, avs, hockey)

 

Colin Wilson is my favorite slice of white bread in hockey. He is an important addition to the many Big Blonde Beefy Boys of the Avalanche, and he is definitely Tyson’s boyfriend, and I love him. Anyway, he scored a goal in a game and then the Avs insta story had a video of him about to be interviewed breathing really hard and I was like :eyes emoji: and growlery and frecklebombfic and I said he had been having sex with his boys and then had to rush to interview so I wrote this. 

 

The only fic tagged “hockey sex rituals” on the archive, which makes no sense but whatever. People can keep NOT tagging things hockey sex rituals IF THEY WANT. 

(the title is from Ariana Grande's successful.) 
 

Here’s some pictures of Colin:

 

  

 

assorted hockey ficlets (hockey)

 

One of these I wrote for frecklebombfic to bribe her into writing her own words, and the others I wrote for the Magical Realism Fest. I think they’re really the symptom of me getting better and better at just being like “No fucking around, just write the words.” Also me just digging into tropes I already like. Monsters, psychic bonds, wishbabies. I probably love the Radulov/Tyler one the most, because Rads is Tyler’s toothless ugly boyfriend and Tyler thinks he’s super hot and everyone else is like ?????. What a stupid disaster boy. 

 

the damp grass that yields to me (mitch/auston, hockey)

 

I also wrote this for the Magical Realism Fest but it got over 1k so it gets its own post. I love this. Auston’s little succulent! Mitch’s giant Canadian tree literally rooted to the ground of Toronto! Auston’s succulent grows when he’s in love! Also the prompt is genius. SOUL. PLANTS. C'mon, what's not to love

 

I wrote this for the prompt from growlery , and I’m happy she likes it! Someone commented asking what happens when Auston’s succulent buds and ……..uh obviously Auston becomes pregnant?? Like duh??? Anyway now I’m committed to writing soulplant mpreg, like a normal person. 

 

The title is from a hozier song, because I started relistening to hozier at the end of the year for some reason. 

 

This is definitely my favorite part:

 

“Hey little buddy,” Mitch said wondrously, one of his fingers resting against the glass. Auston came to stand behind him, and Mitch craned his neck backwards to look at him. “He’s so small. And you’re so…” He gestured the span of Auston’s shoulders. “..not”.”

 

(fully formed) ready to run (mikko/nate, hockey)

 

Mikko fic! Apparently the first fic to the archive for Mikko/Nate, which is a bit ridiculous. Mikko is the best! NHL points leader, and a big goofy idiot. I love his big goofy self. Look at him!


 

 

Uh, I write about sleep a lot apparently? Like I would never have thought I did, but when I think about it, and read through my fics, characters think about sleep a lot, and also I do my scene cuts usually when characters fall asleep or wake up. I think this is partially because I never know how to end a scene, and usually just make my characters fall asleep as the clear ending to the scene, but also I think I’m really interested in how people sleep? Sleeping is so intimate, and the act of falling asleep is so strange, apparently I like writing about it. Who knew. 

 

I liked writing this a lot in general - it was a lot of fun to write from Mikko’s perspective, and try and communicate Nate’s grumpy, embarrassed crush from an outside perspective. I liked writing the dream sequences, and especially Nate’s stupid hockey dreams. What idiots, I love them.

Comments

[growlery]

i love hearing your thoughts on the fic you've written! i love hearing your thoughts in general, but this was really interesting and funny and insightful. and it's really cool that you've got to this point where you can just push through with ideas, and are fully committing to your fav tropes (great tropes). long may this continue!! hopefully into soul plant mpreg among other things!!!!!

also the visual aids! EXCELLENT.

also also your favourite bit from the nate/tyson fic is also MY favourite bit from the nate/tyson fic, so that made me feel a bunch.

[clachnaben]

<3 <3

Turns out Growing As A Creative Person is really neat!

visual aids: always necessary. i looked long and hard for the pic in your icon but couldn't find it so their Canon Marriage Pic is the visual aid instead

[growlery]

friend. FRIEND.



no i'm not making it any smaller, it's Very Important that the fine details are visible!!!!!!!

[seascribble]

Hockey fandom is SO GREAT for my id wants this and it wants it NOW and damn if it's not perfect, my id has NEEDS.

Speaking of which, I see there are some wishbabies I haven't read yet.

Consider me your personal cheerleading for Auston's soulplant mpreg, also.

[clachnaben]

yes! hockey is being good to my id, and I am being good to my id by feeding it regularly with fic writing.

it is my wishbaby masterpiece and you are the wishbaby connoisseur so I hope you like it :)

gonna make auston SO soulplant pregnant