2020 + 2021 IN FIC

[kisoap]

GENERAL OVERVIEW

AO3 FICS: 10 (5 posted in 2020, 5 posted in 2021)
DW + TWITTER SHORTS: 9 (7 posted in 2020, 2 posted in 2021)
TOTAL AO3 WORD COUNT: 41,860 (22,870 in 2020, 18,990 in 2021)

FANDOMS WRITTEN FOR

SEVENTEEN (3)
SEVENTEEN/PRISTIN (3)
ENHYPEN (2)
NCT (2)
AESPA/ENHYPEN, DAY6/TWICE, G-IDLE/NCT/TWICE, GOT7/MISS A, NCT/SOLO, NCT/TXT, TWICE, TXT (1)

LIST OF COMPLETED STORIES

AO3
i'd draw you in my favorite color (suzy/jinyoung)
그냥 (nayoung/jeonghan)
perfect girl revolution (nayeon/jeongyeon)
EVERY PIECE OF ME WANTS EVERY PIECE OF YOU (nayeon/young k)
dance to this electrolyte beat! (jaemin/renjun)
velocity (sunghoon/jake)
have one on me (winter/heeseung)
sentimentalist / how we make gods (nayoung/jeonghan)
無人知曉 (wonwoo/jun)
WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT ME (heeseung/jay)

DW + TWITTER SHORTS
유행가 (doyoung/baek yerin)
JÓGA (wonwoo/jun)
懸日 (shuhua, tzuyu, yangyang)
mouth mantra (jaemin/yangyang)
I'M A MISFIT! (beomgyu, chenle, sungchan)
"HOMESWEETHOME" (beomgyu/taehyun)
they assume you know nothing (nayoung/jeonghan)
then i knew what i wanted (joshua/woozi)
pretend that i'm the only one (mingyu/seokmin)

INTERIM REFLECTION POSTS

2020 ytd fic reflection + future works??
#NICEGUYSFINISHLAST EXCEPT UR SIMJAKE AND SUNGHOON KEEPS CHOOSING U FIRST [velocity fic commentary]
[ACCESS LOCKED] ABOUT THE FIC SHE REFUSES TO UN-ANON [redacted fic commentary]
TOO MUCH INTENTION FOR MEDIOCORE FIC RESULTS [sentimentalist / how we make gods fic commentary]
ONE LAST BORING AND DEPRESSING FIC FOR 2021 [WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT ME fic commentary]

OVERALL

looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you'd predicted?
i'd say more...? since for the past 2 years i've had no expectations regarding writing at all @@ i also haven't been tracking word count so i was surprised that it only added up to < 42k for 2020 and 2021 combined - i feel like the amount of writing suffering™ i endured made me think i had written a lot more!

what pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in january?
[shida voice] emdash... unfortunately sometimes you can just be gotten by two dudes who use arm wrestling as an excuse to hold hands :_)

did you take any writing risks this year?
not particularly nor intentionally, but i feel like every fic i write seems complete and separate from the ones i've written before. like, yes it's all ao3 tag Alternate Universe - Modern Setting boring and depressing fic! but either because 1. i have way too much downtime in between fics or 2. i approach the subject matter differently each time, it can still feel fresh and novel to me. or maybe it's because i completely forget that i ever wrote the fic as soon as i post it!

events you participated in this year:

2020 - #teamprocrastinators' holiday fic exchange 2019, gg jukebox round 2, director's cut round 1, k-pop ficmix 2020 [pinch hit], 2020 mini comment ficathon, 17hols 2021
2021 - k-pop ficmix 2021, 17hols 2022


BEST AND WORST

your own favorite story of the year
DOES THIS EXIST? sorry in advance for being horrible at actually reflecting on what i've written... uh, i guess i'll say 그냥 despite the after-the-fact complications of the media it's based on. i think it's just a nice, quiet, and mundane story about gradually coming to terms of your feelings about someone TT

best story of the year
i would say sentimentalist / how we make gods - i think it has some of my most polished writing since i'd warmed up enough after my writing hiatus, and it's not overly long but it doesn't suffer from being prematurely cut-off (usually from me running into the deadline :_)) either. i have my reservations about it and still have this sense that it could've been "better" but well! 2020 and 2021 are very slim pickings for yoonbot (iverins) fic TT___TT

most popular story of the year
perfect girl revolution! i didn't expect it to get such a response because i didn't think it was good upon posting it, but after reading all the kind comments i received, i do see some of its merits and i'm really thankful for that ♡

most under-appreciated story, in my opinion
most under-appreciated by me was i'd draw you in my favorite color. why did i spend so much time hating this fic - it's not even that bad! weirdly enough, i hadn't followed jinyoung or suzy closely for years when i wrote this, but sometimes the idols you have the most distance from can be the easiest to write, and that can make it easier to write compelling and complicated narratives for them. i think i was initially dissatisfied with the rushed ending, but logically there was no way to create a happy ending for them in this universe!

most fun story to write
nothing is ever fun to write! but have one on me did give me a few laughs... sometimes writing hot mess girls and awful ill-advised threesomes and #loserheeseunglee can be so satisfying!

hardest story to write
dance to this electrolyte beat!... and it shows! i think i started writing this before the idea had really crystallized in my mind (again because of running into the deadline :_)) and i had a lot of threads that i wanted to run through it, but ultimately didn't have time to actualize all of them T__T and when i went back to finish writing the fic, the first half hadn't adequately set up for the more complex ideas i had for the second half so i just did what i could with what was there lol! i also think i had the most awful writer's block around this time so i just really wanted the fic to be done and to never look at it again. i remember giving it a re-read last january and wanting to make a lot of edits, but now i think i'm too far removed from it to want to "open" the file again...

biggest disappointment
i was going to say "that i didn't write much" but i don't think writing more was feasible with my schedule, so i won't guilt myself there! i guess i'll say: it feels like it's been a long time since i've written a fic that meant a lot to me. like even when i wrote fics that were horrible and cringey, i would be fond of them because of the intention! i think i mentioned this in my 2020 year-to-date wrap up and i still agree with it - i'm no longer at the point where i really worry about my prose or style when it comes to writing, and i only write the ideas i want to write anyway so there's no problem there, but i feel so wholly removed from the emotional aspect of writing that i look at this list of fics i've written over the past 2 years and only remember them for the novelty of the idea and nothing else. if that makes sense!

biggest surprise
ok, i might've been insane for writing the winter/heeseung fic in the first place but 104 others were crazier for kudos-ing it!! [this is not a jab by the way, thank you for supporting my awful tinhettery T___T ♡]


HIGHLIGHTS

funniest line(s):

from dance to this electrolyte beat!

So – in his humble opinion – he'd never taken that as a true instance of failure, but apparently Jaemin was a fetid pit of too many bad hot takes that no one else who knew the both of them AND possessed a decent sense of self-preservation would reasonably take his side.

Effectively, Mark Lee is questionable on the latter. Which is why Jaemin’s sitting on the same sofa that he yakked all over two weeks prior, in complete defiance of Mark’s apartment mate Chanhee’s vague edict-slash-threat written in high school science hypothesis format: IF I see you in our apartment again, THEN I will… And, to be fair, Jaemin does not want to know what’s on the other side of that ellipsis

from have one on me

Minjeong Kim
stoppppppppp
how do u even have his theater photos u didn’t even come with me to see their cats production for extra credit bitch!

Aeri Uchinaga
who do u think was on yearbook committee
u think i WANTED to spend 0 period staring at heeseung lee in bad stage makeup??

Minjeong Kim
ok but tbh he got sooooo much hotter after the braces came off

It might be worth mentioning but: when Minjeong was in eleventh grade and waiting for the japchae at a post-service lunch buffet, her mother looked her in the eye and said, “You should date a boy like Lee Heeseung.”

Minjeong glanced down the line to where Heeseung was shelling out a tong full of bean sprouts to a halmoni. He’d had a boxy grown-out Supercuts haircut that – “Looks like a Lego,” Aeri had commented when they were playing hooky from their youth group the week before by hiding next to the compost bins, “I can’t tell if he’s going for an intentional or unintentional mullet?” – and was wearing a BTS Wings tour shirt, practicing idolatry right smack dab in the house of God. Point B of her let me go to Homecoming with the nice boy from the soccer team who asked me out presentation died on her tongue in favor of, "that Lee Heeseung, mom?”

from velocity

“I really liked you,” Nayoung hiccuped in between crying after Sunghoon had broken her heart. “Even when I knew that you’d never like me back. I liked you so much that it made no sense.”

Sunghoon, truthfully, hadn’t noticed the brunt of her feelings until she’d started tearing up. “Thank you for caring for someone like me,” he responded, helpless.

favorite passages in general:

from i'd draw you in my favorite color

Jinyoung had this innate tendency to measure his connections with people by how much he could potentially hurt them. As horrible as it could've been, this did not make him a bad person by nature, and he'd mostly outgrown the habit over the years – that, or he'd become such a stranger to Suzy that she could no longer read his carefully constructed facade, even in the warm lights of her new apartment. Both possibilities were equally probable, and terrifying.

from 유행가

They say Yerin grew up in a cushy neighborhood in Seoul before moving to New York with her family for high school. She'd gotten into Juilliard her senior year but dropped it all to move back to Korea and sing on the streets. That, in two sentences, is why Doyoung can only really be terrified of her.

from "HOMESWEETHOME"

And when Taehyun finally chalked up the courage to ask him what he wanted for his birthday over Christmas, Beomgyu had looked at him with something between a joke and unbridled sincerity tugging at his mouth before saying, “You.”

from they assume you know nothing

"I wasn't supposed to like you," she tells him, which is admission enough. Idly, she thinks about all the reasons she should hate him.

"I've liked you for a long time," he says so readily that it can't not be true.

from 無人知曉

Tinted blue and suspended in a rip of gravity, the water suddenly buoys all these swallowed words out from Wonwoo's throat. "I like you," he mouths before he can lose his courage. These admissions float to the surface, inconsequential for now. "I've liked you for a long time."

Jun unfurls himself then, his eyes still closed, before pushing up for air. Wonwoo watches him go with lungs burning. A human heart was anatomically not meant to feel this full to bursting, caged in the thoracic cavity. And then Wonwoo follows suit, and resurfaces.

from sentimentalist / how we make gods

Jeonghan smiled. “I think Nayoung only likes me because I’m nice to her.”

Sojung laughed at that. “Wouldn’t it be more of an issue if she did and you weren’t?”

“But wouldn’t that make it genuine?” And he’d always wanted it to be, foolishly.

from velocity

Why, Sunghoon wanted to ask. Jake had always been so good at saying things so sincerely that, upon second thought, they lost all meaning. But Sunghoon had learned to file down all the sharp edges of his want, make it harmless, domesticate his fever.

That didn’t mean the instinct wasn’t still there, though. Vestigial organs persisted, even after millennia of evolution. The last week before summer break their second year, Jake got appendicitis and sat through all his exams pale as a sheet. “It hurt so bad I thought I was gonna die,” he told Sunghoon afterwards. And to think an appendix was relatively useless.

from have one one me

Minjeong rolls off the bed just as Beomgyu groans loud enough for Heeseung’s entire apartment building to hear. “Well, gentlemen,” and her backpack just has to be on the floor right next to them. She buttons her jeans with one hand, looking at the ceiling while pawing for a strap with the other, lest she catch an accidental glimpse of Beomgyu’s dick again. “It’s been real. But I just remembered I have a Physics test on Monday.”

Heeseung looks at her with a more focused concern than she thought would be humanly possible post-coital. Beomgyu pushes his sweaty hair out of his own face and points out, “Aren’t we in the same class?”

“Why aren’t you studying then?” Minjeong laughs nervously, walking backward out of Heeseung’s room. She bangs her shoulder against the doorframe.

from WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT ME

Heeseung tightened his fingers around his takeout coffee cup. “I never wanted to hurt your feelings,” he professed, feeling a belated shame for all the things he hadn’t tried to be.

“Oh, and you’re so kind,” Sieun smarted as she stood up. Then her face evened into a cold impassivity again, which was almost worse. She corrected, “You’ve only ever been as kind as your predisposition to inaction,” before pushing her chair back in with a scrape and storming off.

WRAP UP

general writing goals

1. direct overflow of 2021 fic ideas: ggjb based off of iu - twenty-three annyeongz canon divergence, sunghoon/bananayoung college au, chaeryeong/jaemin clueless au
2. my other hubris is still being interested in my fic ideas from 2017 and thinking i will write them
3. shida birthday fic n__n + more dedicated-to-friends fic if i can get my pea-sized brain rattling enough!

general reflections
i think it's interesting to trend the kinds of fics i've been writing over the years @@ i feel like 2018/2019, every other fic i wrote had a coming-of-age sense or motif and i think that really spoke to the discovery i was doing at the time. 2020/2021 - i haven't done so much au-focused writing, and i've always been writing explorations of relationship dynamics and (kind of?) introspective character study but these past 2 years it's really just been that taken to a microscopic level. though i still have to write the occasional ridiculous het fic so i don't have That many boring and depressing fics on my user in a row! just some food for thought on how our focuses change... ♡

in conclusion
this reflection post actually took me so long to write because i couldn't remember anything about what i'd written these past 2 years, to the point that i had to go back and skim through it all kjaskklgjsk! i really appreciate all the kind words and if you've read any of these silly fics of mine TT___TT ♡ i'm just a hag who's still in this corner of kpop ficdom it seems! i hope that 2022 has only good things in store for all of us ^___^ ♡♡♡