ficinabox Reveals!

[yelp]

• Works in the collection: 787
• Works I commented on: 70
• Works I made: 7

I collected these stats yesterday, but I won't update them because they are more numerically pleasing this way :) Unfortunately, I didn't meet my commenting goal of 10% during the two-week anon period, but holy cow did people create a lot of things!!

Not sure what magic causes it, but I always have an amazing time with this exchange. There were a lot of great things to check out - most especially the wonderful gifts I received. Exchange collections are marvelous things in that way: this assortment of works that we each painstakingly tailored to a different recipient, so that so many people can look at it thinking their gifts were clearly the best things in the collection, and all be simultaneously correct. I managed to get my rec list in right at the end!

One of my favorite parts of FIAB is swaps, where you can trade away pieces of your initial assignment. I love being able to write for many different people, especially the knowledge that they'll also be receiving many (or at least plural) gifts. It makes me feel better if mine misses the mark for some reason. That being said, I went a little overboard, and swapped my original 10k assignment for 6 mini-assignments of 1-2k each. There's a lot of overhead in writing a gift, and obviously each time you try to target a certain wordcount, you'll go over a little, which is how I wound up writing 19k words in total.

The other unique aspect of FIAB is that you're encouraged to create for a variety of different mediums besides the traditional fic and art (if the recipient opted in to it). It's a bit ironic, considering the exchange is one of the few to actually have "fic" in the name :). I usually stick to only fic, but this time I decided to try my hand at Reddit posts and making a few other skins. I'm not totally sure how I feel about it. Creating them was fun, and made me feel like I was getting into the FIAB spirit more, but I still feel more confident with plain prose. 

Details of my works behind the cut!

Hungry Eyes (in Every Guise)
Fandom: The Sandman (TV)
Characters: The Corinthian, Hob Gadling, Dream
Warnings: Torture, non-permanent character death
My first time writing for this fandom! The first idea that came to me for the requested pairings was kind of dark, but I was happy to find my recipient's prompts seemed to lean in that direction. The more I wrote it, the more I felt there were interesting connections to be drawn between The Corinthian and Hob. 

Devil’s in the Defaults
Fandom: Original Work (or perhaps AO3 Fandom Exchanges)
Pairing: Desperate Exchange Mod Who Finds Entrance To Underworld & Pinch Hitter Who Died Before Posting
Medium: Some
I loved having the opportunity to poke fun at this weird exchange thing we all do. I also made some custom skins for a DW message and an AO3 assignment. I thought about posting it as a separate skin tutorial, but I decided it was too small (and my css too messy) to bother. It wasn't even a requestable medium, so I didn't tag it, and didn't show up on any unique mediums reading list.

Apocalypse When
Fandom: Eyeshield 21
Pairing: Mamori & Hiruma & Yukimitsu
One of the only other times I got to write ES21 in a multifandom exchange was FIAB two years ago - and I'm happy it could happen again! My recip gave a delightful prompt, and I hope I did it justice.

I saw a scary space lady haunting a family at work
Fandom: The Sandman (TV)
Medium: Rashomon-style conflicting Reddit posts
Warnings: canon-typical child abuse
I thought I was being clever because the recipient requested Reddit posts, and had other requests where they asked for Rashomon-style conflicting narratives, so I decided to combine the two. 
 

Wall and Void

Fandom: Original Work
Pairing: Desperate Superhero Whose Life is in Danger/Supervillain He Reluctantly Goes to for Help
I write a lot of superhero OW for exchanges, don't I? This ended up being the longest thing I wrote, because once again I underestimated how much prose is needed to tell a story without a canon to anchor it. 

Love Advice for the Great Duke of Hell
Fandom: Love Advice from the Great Duke of Hell
Medium: Reddit post
I was so surprised to see someone request this fandom! It didn't exist on AO3, so I had to create the tags myself. (Later I saw that someone else wrote for this recip too, but chose slightly different tags than I did! Luckily, the tag seems to have been standardized and even canonicalized by now, hooray!) 

Of Promises Unkept the Night Flowers Speak
Fandom: Genshin Impact
Pairing: Albedo/Kazuha
Warnings: Somewhat explicit, bondage, introspection

Another delightful prompt from the recip! I CANNOT believe canon gave us Kazuha in bondage and this never occurred to me. Once again, I hope I did it justice. 

Comments

[muccamukk]

That's excellent! I was also aiming for 10% and probably hit like 5%, but better than 0%. People sure made a lot of things! I'm going to keep looking at them for a while, I hope, though the anon period is such a kick in the ass in terms of momentum.

[yelp]

Hey now, comments aside, I've seen how much you contributed to this exchange already with gifts/pinch hits! Most impressive!