2025 Writing (Year in Review)
Jan. 1st, 2026 12:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yelpThis year I posted 65k words on AO3. Over a third of it (25k!) was posted on (or redated to) 12/21, so I was again heavily backloaded to the end of the year. I was a lot more tired in these later months than I remember feeling in the first half of the year. Perhaps that's why I had the energy back then to write fics that no one even asked me to write!
I did mostly the same exchanges as last year, except I (unintentionally) swapped Yuletide for IPQ. Most of my works were again T and Gen or M/M. I think I just generally rate my fics T when I don't have a clear reason to pick something different (smut). The average wordcount was about 5k words and the median was 4k, which is a bit longer than I remember advising myself to make my exchange fics in one of these past reviews. The shortest fic I posted was just over 2k words.
Meme questions
Best title: "A Steady and Pleasing Cultivar" - Hmm, at the time I wasn't so sure about it, but it seems to have grown on me (the title itself proving steady and pleasing??). The story involves tea and quiet, enduring loyalty, and the title suits it well.
Worst title: "How to Win Friends and Influence People (crime edition)" - I'm actually impressed with myself for actually coming back to update this WIP again. But that does mean it gets to take "worst title" again.
Longest title: "How to Win Friends and Influence People (crime edition)" again!
Shortest title: "Sword in Hand"
Best first line: Being brought back from the dead is disorienting, not least because the world has moved on while he was on ice. (from "A Demonstration of Trust")
I generally like how the start of this fic turned out. The rest of the story is just porn, but here I enjoyed exploring Tsukasa's adjustment to the changes while he was dead, something that canon glossed over.
Worst first line: The most disconcerting aspect of humanity, the one that even now caught him by surprise, was how very quickly humans changed. (from "Constant as the Day Will Dawn")
By contrast, this story also had a very different start to the focus of the rest of the fic, but it really didn't work well here (which I already talked about in my FIAB roundup post). Actually, now that I think about it, the narrator of both fics are in quite similar situations. I think the main difference between the good and bad executions were 1) the time spent in pure introspection was shorter, and we became grounded in the action sooner, and 2) coming back from the dead to find the people you were at war with are now your allies is interesting and novel (IMO), but waking up after centuries of sleep to find the human race has evolved is kinda boring and overdone.
Best last line: Something about the way they were gazing at each other, even in front of a full room, proved too private for him to witness. (from "Prove and Witness")
Originally this ended with "...was too private for him to witness". Sometime after reveals, I belatedly realized I could fully complete the pun on the title by altering one word. I resisted because 1) puns and 2) it had already been published so long. But today in the course of writing this Year in Review, I decided to just go ahead and change it lol. I don't think that makes it the best last line, but it is the one that made me childishly snicker the most in writing this post, so here you are.
Worst last line: Besides, if I break something too badly, I know who I can count on to fix me. (from "To Burn, To Fuse, to Sweetly Use")
I'm sorry, this is a terrible last line. The mechanic literally said earlier that he fixes mechs, not humans. He helped a bit with medical issues issues but if the speaker breaks something he should really go to a real doctor. I justified it to myself by saying this was a continuation of his identity issues with separating himself from the mech he pilots. But in general I wasn't super satisfied with the conclusion of that last scene.
Looking back, did you write more fics than you thought you would this year, less than you thought, or about what you predicted? I forgot to write a prediction last year! (But interestingly, in 2023 I predicted I'd write 60k words in 2024, which is about how many words I wrote for 2025.) Still, it's more than I expected, nearly 2x how much I wrote last year. Before this I had a trend of -15k per year, so for I'll continue that and predict 45k next year.
What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted last year? I'm sooo surprised I wrote even 1, much less 4, fics for Noblesse in the year 2025. I used to read the Noblesse manhwa back when it was still running (probably in the early 2010s?) but hadn't thought of it much since then. Over last year's winter holidays, my IRL friend who we both pretend doesn't know about this fandom identity (yelp) casually mentioned the Noblesse anime existed. This inspired me to write a Noblesse fic for Bulletproof soon after, and accidentally intrigued someone enough that they now know way more about the canon than me, and we've been writing each other exchange fics back and forth since then. So... thanks for the random comment, IRL friend hahaha. I still never checked out the Noblesse anime adaptation btw.
What’s your favorite story this year? Uhh, all that being said, actually that first Noblesse fic I mentioned, "With Clenched and Bloodied Fists", wins this category. I wrote it for Bulletproof Exchange, which I took as carte blanche to go as deep into my favoritest, iddiest, bulletproof trope as I wanted. I might also have tapped into some latent iddy feelings from a decade+ ago, idk.
Okay, NOW your most popular story. Oh, it's "Sword in Hand", the other fic I wrote for Bulletproof! Same iddy tropes, different fandom (The Witcher - a bigger fandom which btw has a lot of appreciaters of this trope). With the usual caveat that this was written at the start of the year so it always looks the best stats-wise in year-end reviews!
Story most underappreciated by the universe? Again, nothing really to put here. This is kind of stupid, but I secretly think if I had written my Étoile fic as a Yuletide treat like I was originally planning, instead of as a FIAB pinch hit, it would have gotten more exposure and appreciation. But it's not a big deal, and the story may have turned out differently with a different recipient to target.
Story that could have been better? Several strong contenders for this category, but as mentioned above, I wasn't so satisfied with how the end of "To Burn, to Fuse, To Sweetly Use" turned out. I think especially for original works I often have a lot more ideas I want to explore in the world, and I'm not so strong at building characters and dynamics from scratch.
Saddest story? "The Dragon and the Damselfly" - the overall tone of the story is not too sad, but I characterized the princess as someone who was very deferential in love and that was sad to me. I wrote her this way based on some of my recip's likes, and it seemed to be the most commented aspect of the story, so I feel it may have struck a cord with some readers too.
Most fun? "Rest and Resentment" for the ES21 winter gift exchange. I was really on the fence about signing up because I hadn't thought about ES21 in a while. But I did it anyway, and my prompt referenced a very specific scene in the manga, and as soon as I went back for canon review, I was suddenly falling in love with the manga all over again lol. I'm hopeless. Anyway, the fic I write for this exchange always tends to have a fun tone, matching the manic energy of the canon and the characters, and because it's a holiday gift which kind of impacts the kind of mood I go for.
Most fucked-up story? I guess "A Demonstration of Trust" simply due to lack of competition, for the characters exploring a slightly risky kink based on latent feelings from that time one murdered the other (oops). I got one of my favorite ever bookmark comments on this fic: "senku is squished like buge (erotically)".
Hardest story to write? I struggled a lot with my WIPs this year. I really wanted to make progress with them but it turns out after you throw a bunch of fun ideas into the earlier chapters you actually have to build on them, who knew?
Easiest/most fun story to write? Actually, the other two non-exchange works came out quite easily. One was "With Cries of Pain and Penance", a sequel to "With Clenched and Bloodied Fists", and the other was "A Demonstration of Trust", inspired by a work by kaiosea. For both of these, the ideas came quite naturally and it was easy to get them on paper. What is the lesson here? Maybe standalone sequels contain more inspiration and drive than simply the next chapter of a story. Perhaps that means I should be more willing to skip scenes in my chaptered stories and jump ahead to the next exciting moment to capture that same energy.
Top five scenes you would like to see illustrated: Having his mech repaired while Percy is still hooked up ("To Burn, to Fuse, to Sweetly Use"), M-21 imploring Raizel for help ("With Clenched and Bloodied Fists"), Adaline with the peacocks ("The Dragon and the Damselfly"), Habashira duct taping Hiruma's oxygen capsule to a segway and getting snarked at the whole time ("Rest and Resentment"), also Tsukasa squishing Senku like buge (erotically) ("A Demonstration of Trust").
Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them? Not too much writing risks, but I did explore some things I've never written about before, such as mechs, transmigration, and... breathplay? I also created my first two AO3 Series after using the site for....... some time. I always hated series because you can't see them on your stats page and as far I can tell there's actually no way to see private stats like number of subscriptions and private bookmarks. But I bit the bullet and it's okay, I guess?
What are your fic writing goals for next year? For this question, I always say I should work on my WIPs and my personal projects, and this year I kind of did that, a bit. I continued 2 WIPs and I have a rough draft of a short story I'd like to try to publish under my real name. I put a lot of unnecessary pressure on myself for this latter kind of writing, and it's hard to make progress, even though it's essentially the same damn thing. For fanfic, the stakes are low, and plus I've done it before, a lot, and I know it will turn out reasonably in the end. But if I slap on the goal of "submit it to a literary magazine", it's all over. Anyway, in spite of irrational mental blocks, I made a little progress this year, so let's try to do more in 2026!
I did mostly the same exchanges as last year, except I (unintentionally) swapped Yuletide for IPQ. Most of my works were again T and Gen or M/M. I think I just generally rate my fics T when I don't have a clear reason to pick something different (smut). The average wordcount was about 5k words and the median was 4k, which is a bit longer than I remember advising myself to make my exchange fics in one of these past reviews. The shortest fic I posted was just over 2k words.
| Title | Rating | Category | Wordcount | Updated | Written for | Fandom |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| With Clenched and Bloodied Fists | T | Gen | 6,200 | 02/09 | Bulletproof | Noblesse |
| Sword in Hand | T | M/M | 6,417 | 02/09 | Bulletproof | The Witcher |
| A Demonstration of Trust | E | M/M | 2,102 | 03/09 | - | Dr. Stone |
| With Cries of Pain and Penance | T | Gen | 4,400 | 04/06 | - | Noblesse |
| How to Win Friends and Influence People (crime edition) | T | Gen | 2,307 | 05/18 | - | Genshin Impact |
| To Burn, to Fuse, To Sweetly Use | T | M/M | 8,725 | 06/30 | Id Pro Quo | Original Work |
| A Steady and Pleasing Cultivar | E | M/M | 2,157 | 06/30 | Id Pro Quo | Noblesse |
| You Are Pain Pinned to Muscle | T | M/M | 6,974 | 08/07 | - | Dr. Stone |
| Constant as the Day Will Dawn | T | M/M | 3,798 | 12/21 | Fic in a Box | Noblesse |
| The Dragon and the Damselfly | T | F/F | 10,806 | 12/21 | Fic in a Box | Original Work |
| A Primal Point of View | T | M/M | 3,797 | 12/21 | Fic in a Box | Dr. Stone |
| Prove and Witness | T | M/M | 3,907 | 12/21 | Fic in a Box | Étoile |
| Rest and Resentment | T | M/M | 3,005 | 12/21 | ES21 Gift Ex | Eyeshield 21 |
Meme questions
Best title: "A Steady and Pleasing Cultivar" - Hmm, at the time I wasn't so sure about it, but it seems to have grown on me (the title itself proving steady and pleasing??). The story involves tea and quiet, enduring loyalty, and the title suits it well.
Worst title: "How to Win Friends and Influence People (crime edition)" - I'm actually impressed with myself for actually coming back to update this WIP again. But that does mean it gets to take "worst title" again.
Longest title: "How to Win Friends and Influence People (crime edition)" again!
Shortest title: "Sword in Hand"
Best first line: Being brought back from the dead is disorienting, not least because the world has moved on while he was on ice. (from "A Demonstration of Trust")
I generally like how the start of this fic turned out. The rest of the story is just porn, but here I enjoyed exploring Tsukasa's adjustment to the changes while he was dead, something that canon glossed over.
Worst first line: The most disconcerting aspect of humanity, the one that even now caught him by surprise, was how very quickly humans changed. (from "Constant as the Day Will Dawn")
By contrast, this story also had a very different start to the focus of the rest of the fic, but it really didn't work well here (which I already talked about in my FIAB roundup post). Actually, now that I think about it, the narrator of both fics are in quite similar situations. I think the main difference between the good and bad executions were 1) the time spent in pure introspection was shorter, and we became grounded in the action sooner, and 2) coming back from the dead to find the people you were at war with are now your allies is interesting and novel (IMO), but waking up after centuries of sleep to find the human race has evolved is kinda boring and overdone.
Best last line: Something about the way they were gazing at each other, even in front of a full room, proved too private for him to witness. (from "Prove and Witness")
Originally this ended with "...was too private for him to witness". Sometime after reveals, I belatedly realized I could fully complete the pun on the title by altering one word. I resisted because 1) puns and 2) it had already been published so long. But today in the course of writing this Year in Review, I decided to just go ahead and change it lol. I don't think that makes it the best last line, but it is the one that made me childishly snicker the most in writing this post, so here you are.
Worst last line: Besides, if I break something too badly, I know who I can count on to fix me. (from "To Burn, To Fuse, to Sweetly Use")
I'm sorry, this is a terrible last line. The mechanic literally said earlier that he fixes mechs, not humans. He helped a bit with medical issues issues but if the speaker breaks something he should really go to a real doctor. I justified it to myself by saying this was a continuation of his identity issues with separating himself from the mech he pilots. But in general I wasn't super satisfied with the conclusion of that last scene.
Looking back, did you write more fics than you thought you would this year, less than you thought, or about what you predicted? I forgot to write a prediction last year! (But interestingly, in 2023 I predicted I'd write 60k words in 2024, which is about how many words I wrote for 2025.) Still, it's more than I expected, nearly 2x how much I wrote last year. Before this I had a trend of -15k per year, so for I'll continue that and predict 45k next year.
What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted last year? I'm sooo surprised I wrote even 1, much less 4, fics for Noblesse in the year 2025. I used to read the Noblesse manhwa back when it was still running (probably in the early 2010s?) but hadn't thought of it much since then. Over last year's winter holidays, my IRL friend who we both pretend doesn't know about this fandom identity (yelp) casually mentioned the Noblesse anime existed. This inspired me to write a Noblesse fic for Bulletproof soon after, and accidentally intrigued someone enough that they now know way more about the canon than me, and we've been writing each other exchange fics back and forth since then. So... thanks for the random comment, IRL friend hahaha. I still never checked out the Noblesse anime adaptation btw.
What’s your favorite story this year? Uhh, all that being said, actually that first Noblesse fic I mentioned, "With Clenched and Bloodied Fists", wins this category. I wrote it for Bulletproof Exchange, which I took as carte blanche to go as deep into my favoritest, iddiest, bulletproof trope as I wanted. I might also have tapped into some latent iddy feelings from a decade+ ago, idk.
Okay, NOW your most popular story. Oh, it's "Sword in Hand", the other fic I wrote for Bulletproof! Same iddy tropes, different fandom (The Witcher - a bigger fandom which btw has a lot of appreciaters of this trope). With the usual caveat that this was written at the start of the year so it always looks the best stats-wise in year-end reviews!
Story most underappreciated by the universe? Again, nothing really to put here. This is kind of stupid, but I secretly think if I had written my Étoile fic as a Yuletide treat like I was originally planning, instead of as a FIAB pinch hit, it would have gotten more exposure and appreciation. But it's not a big deal, and the story may have turned out differently with a different recipient to target.
Story that could have been better? Several strong contenders for this category, but as mentioned above, I wasn't so satisfied with how the end of "To Burn, to Fuse, To Sweetly Use" turned out. I think especially for original works I often have a lot more ideas I want to explore in the world, and I'm not so strong at building characters and dynamics from scratch.
Saddest story? "The Dragon and the Damselfly" - the overall tone of the story is not too sad, but I characterized the princess as someone who was very deferential in love and that was sad to me. I wrote her this way based on some of my recip's likes, and it seemed to be the most commented aspect of the story, so I feel it may have struck a cord with some readers too.
Most fun? "Rest and Resentment" for the ES21 winter gift exchange. I was really on the fence about signing up because I hadn't thought about ES21 in a while. But I did it anyway, and my prompt referenced a very specific scene in the manga, and as soon as I went back for canon review, I was suddenly falling in love with the manga all over again lol. I'm hopeless. Anyway, the fic I write for this exchange always tends to have a fun tone, matching the manic energy of the canon and the characters, and because it's a holiday gift which kind of impacts the kind of mood I go for.
Most fucked-up story? I guess "A Demonstration of Trust" simply due to lack of competition, for the characters exploring a slightly risky kink based on latent feelings from that time one murdered the other (oops). I got one of my favorite ever bookmark comments on this fic: "senku is squished like buge (erotically)".
Hardest story to write? I struggled a lot with my WIPs this year. I really wanted to make progress with them but it turns out after you throw a bunch of fun ideas into the earlier chapters you actually have to build on them, who knew?
Easiest/most fun story to write? Actually, the other two non-exchange works came out quite easily. One was "With Cries of Pain and Penance", a sequel to "With Clenched and Bloodied Fists", and the other was "A Demonstration of Trust", inspired by a work by kaiosea. For both of these, the ideas came quite naturally and it was easy to get them on paper. What is the lesson here? Maybe standalone sequels contain more inspiration and drive than simply the next chapter of a story. Perhaps that means I should be more willing to skip scenes in my chaptered stories and jump ahead to the next exciting moment to capture that same energy.
Top five scenes you would like to see illustrated: Having his mech repaired while Percy is still hooked up ("To Burn, to Fuse, to Sweetly Use"), M-21 imploring Raizel for help ("With Clenched and Bloodied Fists"), Adaline with the peacocks ("The Dragon and the Damselfly"), Habashira duct taping Hiruma's oxygen capsule to a segway and getting snarked at the whole time ("Rest and Resentment"), also Tsukasa squishing Senku like buge (erotically) ("A Demonstration of Trust").
Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them? Not too much writing risks, but I did explore some things I've never written about before, such as mechs, transmigration, and... breathplay? I also created my first two AO3 Series after using the site for....... some time. I always hated series because you can't see them on your stats page and as far I can tell there's actually no way to see private stats like number of subscriptions and private bookmarks. But I bit the bullet and it's okay, I guess?
What are your fic writing goals for next year? For this question, I always say I should work on my WIPs and my personal projects, and this year I kind of did that, a bit. I continued 2 WIPs and I have a rough draft of a short story I'd like to try to publish under my real name. I put a lot of unnecessary pressure on myself for this latter kind of writing, and it's hard to make progress, even though it's essentially the same damn thing. For fanfic, the stakes are low, and plus I've done it before, a lot, and I know it will turn out reasonably in the end. But if I slap on the goal of "submit it to a literary magazine", it's all over. Anyway, in spite of irrational mental blocks, I made a little progress this year, so let's try to do more in 2026!
