fic writer wrapped 2025

[deepestbluesky]

minnarr tagged me on tumblr for this but i’m just putting it over here as my yearly fic writing wrap-up post! as it turns out, this is heavily about hockey rpf. sorry about that.

1. how many words have you written this year?
if we count published fics, 19,060. if we count [redacted] wip, add another 12k-ish to that

2. how many fics did you publish?
4 on ao3, 1 on dw

3. what fic are you most proud of?
i mean, it’s ‘if the right one don’t get you.’ i started this fic back in 2019 and i finally finished it. i’m very very ambivalent about the fact that i went back to writing hockey rpf this year but i AM very proud of finally finishing this.

4. what fic has the most hits?
‘rest your head,’ the korrasami i wrote for ficlets4ficlets!

5. what fic got more feedback than expected?
okay this is barely a fic, but ‘Urgent Calls’ is a very quick and silly superman comic i drew on post-its which i haven’t even been counting in all this, but i DID get more interaction than i expected on it and it was very enjoyable

6. favorite title you used?
if the right one don’t get you. it’s from sixteen tons and i think the levels it works on are SO tasty. the full lyric is “One fist of iron, the other of steel / If the right one don't get you then the left one will” so we’ve right off the bat got violence in the form of punches (hockey fights called to mind). then we have the double meaning of right—not right and left but right and wrong. claude is the wrong person to be helping here but when that’s all that’s left, that’s who has to come through. and lastly, this is a fic that isn’t NOT about being exploited by your job, so sixteen tons is an intentional pull for that reason.

7. if you use song lyrics, what artist did you pull from most?
i don’t think i doubled up this year! i didn’t even pick an artist/cover of sixteen tons (and the chapter titles from that fic are from lorde and johnny hollow), abba, crosby stills nash and young, and the weeknd.

8. pairing you wrote the most for this year?
um. i didn’t technically repeat a pairing and honestly barely had any pairings at all. however, if we include the inspiration for The Monster’s Hunt and also the dw-only fic, i think it’s connor & leon. did i mention i got stockholm syndromed into liking the oilers this year?

9. favorite pairing you wrote for this year?
KORRASAMI!!!!! i love them so muchhhhhh and i’m always craving more korrasami so i’m glad i wrote a little bit even if it was small.

10. what fic was the quickest to write?
well. “when i started yesterday at midnight i had 321 words. as of 2:45am when i finished i have 5415 words.” this is about The Monster’s Hunt. so uh. that one.

11. what fic took the longest to write?
again, i started if the right one don’t get you in twenty nineteen. finishing it this year wasn’t quick either.

12. how many wips do you have in your docs for next year?
i am going to curse [redacted] wip till the day i die. by which i mean the day i finish it. i’ve also got a steve strangerthings fic about him being a springsteen fan i want to finish, along with… idk what’s in there? hang on. OH RIGHT the caoxiang winter olympics au i want to write before/for the olympics in february. some assorted ST AUs that may or may not get finished but which i would like to write a bit more of at least. game changer deja vu actual timeloop fic.

13. what’s your longest fic of the year?
counting published fic, if the right one don’t get you! the power of thinking about hockey mythology.

14. what’s your shortest fic of the year?
rest your head, the korrasami! it was written for ficlets4ficlets, which had a max word count of 1k.

15. what fic are you taking into next year with you?
[redacted] wip. obviously. hopefully i can defeat it next year and move the fuck on with my life.

16. what’s your most common “additional tags” tag?
uhhh i mean basically nothing. canon-typical violence was spiritually used twice, and again if we’re talking in spirit, fluff was also used twice.

17. your favorite character to write this year?
sigh it’s not my FAULT that i had a lot of emotions about connor mcdavid this year OKAY???

18. the character that gave you the most trouble this year?
claude gave me some trouble in if the right one don’t get you, because that story calls for him to do some things that are OUT THERE and it felt like the right move for him to make but it was hard for me to figure out how to sell that to readers.

19. what pairing do you want to explore next year?
PLEASE ANYTHING OTHER THAN HOCKEY. i would really like to write some more stranger things!!! no ships in particular but i’d like to write nancy and also max.

20. which fic of yours have you reread the most?
ever? i mean. as a result of the hockey of it all, i went back to a lot of my old fics this year, and the glamor fades was a good ‘hit me with all the flower feelings’ one (which was obvs relevant this year).

21. how many kudos in total did you get this year?
assuming this means on fics i posted this year, since anything else is uncalculatable, 80.

22. which fic has the most comments?
Urgent Calls! 5 comment threads, almost entirely from fellow ficlets lmao

23. did you do any collaborative works this year?
no :( i mean YES but not that count in this wrap-up. check back in for podfic later.

24. did you write any gifts this year?
i did not! rest your head was written for a prompt but it’s not really a gift in the same way. also, i had to drop out of yuletide :(

25. did you receive any gifts this year?
i DID, in that same ficlets4ficlets (this is accidentally a thinly veiled plug for the fic clique podcast and discord server i think) fest, i got a lovely modern hockey au for robin and nancy strangerthings

26. whats your most common category?
gen… i guess… (we have: 2 gen, 1 multi, 1 f/f, 1 uncategorized, and 1 gen and m/m)

27. what did you listen to while writing?
hmm i didn’t have any playlists specific to writing this year! i should probably make one for ANR 2 (aka [redacted] wip) given how much more i need to write and how specific of a vibe that is. but given how much i listened to it overall, the brain marination playlist really carried my year in general.

28. favorite fic you wrote this year?
chase the shadows away :’) despite all my ambivalence-to-negativity about writing hockey again, i still am sooo fond of bill and alex and i love to paddle my rare pair canoe long after everyone else has stopped caring about them.

29. favorite line/passage you wrote this year?
writing The Monster’s Hunt was SO fun because of the voice/style, so it’s gotta be from that. i think maybe this section is the best encapsulation of it:

Finally, the monster moved, prowling to one side, drawing the shadows around itself to let only glimpses of fur and claw and bulk show through to the human. “You flatter me,” the monster said. “And you also don’t run. I respect those that can stand before me, human. I’ll give you a boon this day.”
The human said nothing, only turned steadily to keep his eyes locked to the monster’s. “I’ll give you a head start. I will wait to the count of thirty, and if you can give me the gift of a challenge, when I catch you, I may be generous.”
“A challenge?” the human said, and if the monster understood the timbre of human voices, he sounded surprised. “Well and good,” he said, and darted into the forest before the monster even could respond.

30. biggest surprise while writing this year?
[gestures at output] I Didn’t Mean To Write Hockey Fic Again!!!! i actually genuinely did not realize how much it took over basically everything i wrote this year slash i didn’t realize how little else i wrote until looking over what i published this year for this post.

see you again soon for podfic and fanbinding wrap-ups :D