end-of-the-year memes...

[ninety6tears]

+Trading Cards (Dublin Murder Squad; gen)
+Safekeeping (Tiger & Bunny; Barnaby/Kotetsu)
+Dry the Rain (Battlestar Galactica; Kara/Lee, Kara/Zak)
+[a few trope fics] (multi-fandom)
+You Can Tell Me If Anyone Can (The Stand; Larry/Lucy) (I'm counting it because it would have been up sooner if not for LJ issues)
+ACTIVE WIPS
-- In Our Nature: Book Two (Star Trek) (UGH. Already kicking my own ass into trying to get this up by the Into Darkness release.)
-- One-Life Stands (working title) (Dublin Murder Squad) (This one has been like 95% ready to post for forever, I just need to figure out the whole...thing with the thing.)
-- Fugue (working title) (Dublin Murder Squad)




My favorite story this year (of my own): My Stand fic, I think.

My best story this year: This year I find this very hard to say about anything I completed, so I'm going to say Fugue. I kinda think what I've written of it is far and away better than the DMS stuff I've already posted. Book II of ION is going well too but I've had the whole thing so well-outlined in my head for so long that my excitement about it is kind of old news, haha.

My not-best story this year: Trading Cards. It's a warm-up.

Most successful story: See, every single fandom I newly wrote for this year would qualify as a small fandom, and the amount of success in smaller fandoms is really hard to gauge. But I guess "Trading Cards" got quite a bit more attention than I expected it to get.

Story most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion: Safekeeping, I guess; I don't feel very snobby pointing out that it's not like the fandom sets a very high bar.

Sexiest story/Story with the single sexiest moment: Well, Safekeeping is certainly the porniest...

Easiest story to write: Hehh I have to say Dry the Rain because a lot of it was written when I had a lot less issues getting things on the page.

Hardest story to write: "One-Life Stands" is kicking my ass. I just can't seem to get the characters to do things because they would actually do them rather than because I need them to do those things in order to serve the whole premise.

Writing technique or style you’ve done well: I never seem to have any idea how to answer this question.

Something you’d like to work on in future: I just know I'm putting more thought into controlling the flow of the scene with what I choose to describe/make the reader aware foremost of what the character is perceiving instead of describing omnisciently, if that makes any sense...It's important for describing all kinds of action or general WTF situations.

Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you'd predicted? I definitely would like to have posted more, but I did have months of very zippy productivity on some WIPs. Unfortunately somewhere around the end of November that slowed down a lot.

Did you take any writing risks this year? Uh, not really? I'm not good with risk-taking when I don't consistently have a beta reader and I didn't this year. I do think I did a couple things with characterization that people could easily find debatable even though it's not strictly OOC.

Favourite OC: There were barely any OCs in anything I posted, so I'll go with the guy I'm working on in "Fugue," who Rob has to somewhat grudgingly accept as a kind of mentor figure.

Biggest surprise: That I actually ended up starting to write "Fugue"? It's really not a fusion but just a rip-off in some basic ways of the novella Cabal. I didn't love the book but a couple of the plot elements struck me as intriguing for a Cassie/Rob story because I am always thinking in fusions when I'm really obsessed with something. But I didn't think I would actually write it until I was wondering how far I could stretch the fantasy in the DMS universe, and 15,000 words later I'm still figuring it out.

Overall thoughts: I'm beginning to think that having a job that allows a good amount of thinking time makes the plot bunnies go somehow more out of control than they do when I'm unemployed. I had to really pare down my priorities and just let go of a lot of ideas I had that I really wanted to do and I'm still very torn between the two longer WIPs at this point. I'm pretty good at circulating between a couple things, but it's overwhelming when I feel like I should also be finally cracking away on my novel.



TOP FIVES OF 2012

Movies:
(I tried to rank these but it was way too hard)
The Avengers
Django Unchained
The Hunger Games
The Dark Knight Rises
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey


Books (that were new to me...only one of these came out this year. BTW I wasn't blown away by many books this year, I was just really fangirly about some aspects of several, and with my attempt to be objective the ranking contradicts my goodreads ratings):
1. The Stand by Stephen King
2. Broken Harbour by Tana French
3. Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith
4. Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
5. The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson


Fandoms:
1. Dublin Murder Squad
2. Tiger & Bunny
3. Avengers
4. Battlestar Galactica
5. The Stand


TV Shows:
1. Southland
2. Mad Men
3. Supernatural
4. Twin Peaks
5. Walking Dead


1. Your main fandom of the year: Avengers feels like it because I read a hell of a lot of fic for it.

2. Your favorite Film this year: I don't know, but I really really did love The Dark Knight Rises and that's kind of what my gut is telling me. This was an amazing movie year though? I can't believe Looper and Skyfall didn't even get to make my top five.

3. Your favorite Book read this year: I feel loyally split between Broken Harbor and The Stand on this. They both have their flaws but they will both stay with me for a very long time.

4. Your favorite Album or Song this year: Tame Impala's Lonerism. "Breath of Life" by Florence + the Machine.

5. Your favorite TV Show this year: Southland was the only thing I was pressed to keep up with as it was airing, though I do feel guilty for falling behind on SPN.

6. Your favorite LJ Community this year: no_takebacks for still being there.

7. Your best new Fandom Discovery of the Year? The Stand, as it will probably be quite a gateway.

8. Your biggest Fandom Disappointment of the Year? Too many dead fandoms. FF.net's yucky reorganization. My usual failure to navigate/participate in Yuletide.

9. Your Celebrity Boyfriend of the year: meh

10. Your Celebrity Girlfriend of the year: Jennifer Lawrence

11. Your biggest Squee moment of the year? Probably the Star Trek teaser trailer XD

12. Your most Missed Old Fandom? Star Trek (come back to meee)

13. Your Fandom that you haven't Tried Yet, but want to? THE HOUR. HOW HAVE I STILL NOT WATCHED THIS.

12. Your Biggest Anticipations of the New Year? Getting fic done? Heh.

Comments

[cosetteferaud.livejournal.com]

Oh, I love The Hour. Ben Whishaw + Romola Garai + Dominic West = <333 (though I really love the whole cast). I’ve been meaning to make a post about it because I finished S2 a couple of weeks ago and it gave me many, many feels, and I feel like nobody on my flist knows about its existence, and it’s a real shame. But I am swamped with things at the moment and I have no time for fangirly business :/. The show is fairly plotty in the sense that it tackles big social and cultural themes (with varying degrees of success IMO), and I see why this can become kinda dull for some, but the characters are fascinating and the show is really well done overall. So, totally worth it.

Dude, Southland is amazing! My favorite TV discovery in 2012 for sure --I wonder why there aren’t more people watching this? I marathoned the first four seasons last summer with the BF and it’s just… Wow. So intense. I still remember how I was in Ibiza and one night we were watching what was supposed to be another episode; and then the Nate and Sammy thing happened and pretty much devastated me --to the point I had to take a break from it, lol. Gah, I love everything about it.

And yay for your DMS fics! Reading your progress makes me pretty excited because, as you know, I’ve been quite obsessed with the books for a couple of years now and I can’t quite believe someone is writing fic for them, lol. Besides, I like anything you write, so double excitement. (I don’t care what you say, I love “Trading Cards” :p).

[ninety6tears.livejournal.com]

I remember meaning to catch The Hour before it had even started airing, and even though it doesn't seem like many people watch it I've only heard pretty good things. So yeah, when I'm not in the middle of several others shows I'll have to watch it :)

OMG, I just finally got my sister into Southland and she's been watching a lot of it without me, and today she was like, "Dude, I really like Nate!" and I had to very neutrally be like "Yeah...everyone likes Nate." *sniff* I feel like that episode especially came as a shock cause you expect that type of thing to be the season finale, and it wasn't. That scene at the hospital with Sammy and Nate's wife...gah, it's sad.
One of the things that sticks out to me about Southland is that there's a pretty frequent turnaround of characters/partnerships but in a way that keeps it really interesting. Sammy and Ben's prank war was one of my favorite things about the last season.

I am of course forever in gratitude that there's even someone out there who wants to read for DMS so <3

[cosetteferaud.livejournal.com]

Aw, I am sorry for your sister when she finds out. I was soooo upset, especially because it came as a totally unexpected development, yeah. Truth is, I didn’t realize that that was it until that last scene with Nate’s wife, and it was so gutting. I hate (and love) when fiction makes me feel this way. I agree that one of the things that make Southland so different is how the writers have no qualms about getting rid of certain characters (though I wouldn’t have minded more Chickie, dammit), but always find interesting ways to make the remaining ones interact. I really liked the Ben and Sammy material from S4 (especially earlier in the season) and the rise and fall of the Cooper/Tang partnership probably was my favorite story arc. So glad that S5 kicks off in February!

(Also, I was curious and checked out that Cabal novella you mentioned as your source of inspiration for Fugue. Oooh, very intriguing).