Fannish Year in Review

[icepixie]

Eh, it's close enough to the end of the year for the annual meme. As usual, navel-gazing follows.

Stats

Fandoms: 13
Number of fics: 32
Fandoms:
due South: 9
Body of Proof: 5
Babylon 5: 4
Fringe, Northern Exposure, and Slings & Arrows: 3
Castle: 2
Caroline in the City, Corner Gas, Doctor Who, Follow the Fleet, Wonderfalls, and X-Files: 1
(The numbers won't add up because of crossovers.)

Total word count: 55,098


Looking back, did you write more fics than you thought you would this year, less than you thought, or about what you predicted?

This year's fic output shattered all previous records. 32 total, of which not quite half were for fandom_stocking. INSANITY. Also, I wrote way more long-for-me fic (4,000+ words) than I have in years.

What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January 2011?

Body of Proof, since I didn't even know it existed until a few weeks before the premiere in March. I also never really expected to write Castle fic until I got assigned it as a pinch hit fandom for fandom_stocking.

Aside from my Fringe/Babylon 5 crossover, also for fandom_stocking, I really thought Fringe was going to be one of those shows where the canon is enough for me and I didn't really feel the need to write fic. Then my fevered brain dreamt up the Fringe/Wonderfalls crossover, and it was off to the races. Or at least to the Olivia&Nina fic.

Also, Caroline in the City fic! Total blast from the past.

What’s your favorite story this year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you the happiest.

"To Give Life a Shape." I had so. much. fun. writing that. I got to write Geoffrey torturing Fraser and Thatcher via Shakespeare, Geoffrey being a bit mad, Geoffrey and Oliver conspiring, Geoffrey and Ellen reconciling, and because it was all from Geoffrey's POV, I got to incorporate a lot of offhand references to acting and Shakespeare and other fun topics.

I'm also very fond of "Out of the Ashes," because I'd been meaning to write it for years, and I got to write Maggie and Joel bantering in the neurotic, trainwrecky, but ultimately adorable way only they can.

I really like "Double Exposure" too, because I think the sci-fi concept I riffed on is interesting, and I really like the idea of Olivia and Nina trying to create a relationship like the one they had in the Amberverse basically from scratch.

Oh, and "This Gray Spirit Yearning," because DETAILS.

Okay, NOW your most popular story.

Rather insanely, "Muder Most Kindergarten," a little thing of about 200 words which I wrote as a pinch hit for fandom_stocking. I guess people responded to the humor of wee!Alexis writing murder mysteries just like her dad.

"Kate of Nine" was also very well-received. Apparently fandom likes short fics that lead up to a wacky punchline. My BoP fics in general have gotten quite a few comments and kudos and favorites, actually, particularly "Whatever Remains, However Improbable."

"Double Exposure" was quite popular as well, but that may just be because it's the biggest fandom I've written in this year.

Story most underappreciated by the universe?

"Out of the Ashes," but this is entirely because the fandom is tiny. For a tiny fandom, it got an excellent response. I just like it a lot and wish it could've had more.

Story that could have been better?

"Monkey Say, FBI Agent Do." I'm glad I wrote it, because it's been a loooong time since I had the jittery fun of scrambling to finish something before it got jossed by the show, but in doing so I wound up making it way more srs bzns than it should've been. The execution doesn't live up to the inherent hilarity of the idea.

Funniest story?

"To Give Life a Shape" and "Out of the Ashes" are strong contenders, but since I've talked about both of them already, I'll go with "Baby, Baby." Karen and Davis and a baby is inherently hilarious, IMO. "Down the Rabbit Hole" is pretty funny as well.

Sweetest story?

I'm largely a fluff writer, so there are many candidates. Maybe "Blushing Pilgrims," especially when Fraser quotes Shakespeare to Thatcher?

Saddest story?

"If Equal Affection Cannot Be." Marcus is always good for some angst. Marcus and poetry? Oh, yeah.

Most unique story?

Is anyone else out there going to cross over Fringe and Wonderfalls? "Begin the Beguine" also feels very me, because of the ballroom dancing.

Most personal story?

Basically everything Megan does in "A Beginning" is based on me. Yes, I am really, really awkward at carrying on a conversation in RL, down to asking questions because I think they're expected rather than because the conversation lends itself to that particular topic.

Hardest story to write?

"Increments" took for-freaking-ever to finish, something like seven or eight months. I wrote it mainly to fill a gap between "Snow Day" and "Sine Qua Non," and I think it suffered for that; I had an agenda, rather than an idea, and thus I never got quite as excited about it as it deserved.

Easiest story to write?

"Monkey Say, FBI Agent Do" literally came to me fully-formed in a dream, and I spent the day writing all 5,000 words of it. Cleaned it up the next day, proofread and posted the following afternoon. That's definitely the fastest I've ever written anything that size.

Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them?

I feel like I wrote more gen than usual this year, but...largely no. I'm just not a risk-taking writer, I guess.

Do you have any fanfic goals for the New Year?

There are a couple things I'd like to finish.

1. My "Joel returns to Alaska" NX fic, since I've been working on various versions of it in my head for ten years now.

2. The "Stella and Ray's relationship in ten dances" fic I started earlier this year and never got very far on.







Vidding Blather

I made seven vids this year, so instead of a meme, I'm just going to ramble about each of them for a while.

Sea-Changed – Made for raven for fandom_stocking. I intended it to use the idea of Fernando's father's body transforming under the sea presented in "Full Fathom Five" as an analog for the transformation of ordinary props, words, and people into a play, and I think that worked out well for me. Plus I finally vidded a Hem song! (Heh, that...became a theme this year.)

Build Your Own Cathedrals – "All your thoughts on Benton Fraser in three minutes and forty-five seconds, go." And yet somehow I still managed to finish this in less than two days. I DON'T EVEN KNOW. Perhaps I've reached a point with that canon where I can just move clips around in my head like a mental smartboard. Anyway, I've always seen Fraser as an essentially tragic character, who longs for permanent connection but can never really get it. He's too much aware of how individual everyone is, how impossible it is to really know someone; he's so good at using masks himself, he can't help but notice this. Once he accepts that it isn't possible to connect in the way he wants, he manages to find happiness. Depressing, maybe, but in that peculiar Frasery sort of way, also freeing.

Be My Honeypie – The thought process behind this was purely along the lines of, "Caroline and Richard are cute, this song is cute, and they'll be cute together." I think what actually started it was that in one episode, Richard and Caroline are swing dancing, and since the song has a swing beat that's particularly apparent at the beginning, I knew I could open with that and it would look cool. Beyond that, it was basically, "Aww, look how cute they are here! *adds to timeline*"

These Are Days – So much fun! Again, there's not really a story to this one. I was instead just trying to sum up some of the themes of the show, like its sense of community, its quirkiness, the benign strangeness of the magical realism, etc. A commenter said that they liked the home movie feel of it, and while I didn't plan it that way, I like that interpretation. Basically, this is ALL MY FEELINGS about Northern Exposure.

In a Barrel at Sea – My first Fringe vid! And I finally vidded a Hem song where Sally is actually singing. I really, really, really love the Olivia/Peter romance on the show, and how it is absolutely integral to the very sci-fi mythology they have going on. I love how Peter is Olivia's rock through all the craziness that is their life, and this is reflected in how his very presence helps her access her Cortexiphan powers. The song is a perfect encapsulation of that.

And the Birds of All Your Teacups Sing – Probably the first vid I've ever done because I was in love with the guitar riff. No, really, that's almost the entire reason I made this vid. That awesome riff (two of them, actually, with some variations), plus the song is of a mood that matches the wacky hijinks on the show, and the lyrics are reasonably appropriate for the idea of Jaye fighting against the talking tchotkes who bully her into becoming a better person. :D This was in some ways quite easy to make—once I got on the idea, the plot, such as it is, wrote itself—but the thing about this show is that the most iconic moments involve the animals and/or Jaye talking, so there's a lot of talky-face. Necessary, but still not the most aesthetically pleasing.

Identical Snowflakes – Fred, Ginger, and Hem all rolled together. Yeah, I think this is the vid I was born to make. The first time I heard the song, I was struck by how it's basically a modernized Tin Pan Alley song, with inventive lyrics, lushly sweet orchestration, and a gentle but slightly swingy pace. Literally less than an hour later, I was accosted by two dancers who insisted on dancing to it, and there I was in iMovie, putting clips on the timeline. The conceit of identical snowflakes and the brief mention of the sky as a mirror immediately suggested partner dancing, and the love story that ends bittersweetly worked nicely with dances from the points in the movies when it looks like all is lost, just before some machination of the screwball plot gives them a happy ending.

Goals for next year, most of them Fringey:

1. A vid about the beautiful and terrible love Walter has for Peter, set to Eric Whitacre's "Eyze Sheleg!" That piece gives me chills down my spine, and I think it'll work beautifully for Walter&Peter. It'll also be my first vid to a song without lyrics, which should be a fun challenge.

2. I would also like to do a happy, bouncy, "the wackiness of Fringe Division" vid to Great Big Sea's "Ordinary Day." I know that's a perennial fandom favorite song for vids, but I'm gonna do it anyway! (You know, maybe.)

3. The Innocence Mission's "North American Field Song" would make an excellent Olivia vid, I think. I'm mostly attracted by the tempo changes, which would allow me to use the fast cuts and action the show contains but not be a slave to them; the tone of the lyrics and general mood of the song are also very suited to the kind of loner Olivia is, although I'll have to construct a clear storyline for the vid to follow, because the actual content of the lyrics doesn't give me much to go on that relates to Olivia.

4. Alternately, "That Was Another Country" has excellent possibilities for the doppelganger replacement arc, or possibly the resolution of the Amberverse timeline if it goes the way I think it will. And there's another really great guitar riff that would be fun to vid. Hmmm.

5. I'm still tempted by Pärt's "Variations for the Healing of Arinushka" as a general Fringe vid, but it's less likely than the other four. It does seem like a very Olivia + angst sort of composition, though.

6. My screwball comedy vid to Iron & Wine's "Belated Promise Ring." I feel like this is going to be a multi-year project as I gradually watch more and more examples of the genre, but...someday it'll be done? (Though I might change the song. I like the lyrics, but the more I listen to it, the less like the vid I have in my head the music becomes.)

7. Related to that, the Puppini version of "I Got Rhythm" is demanding to be made into something, and I think it might be some kind of general movie musical vid of everything I can get my hands on. We'll see.

8. This will almost certainly never be made, because it would require a rewatch of BSG and I just don't have that in me, but: Iron & Wine's "Boy with a Coin" would make Viper footage look absolutely amazing.