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prophecydungeon · 5 months

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year in fic 2023

(crossposted from dreamwidth)

word count for posted works: 77,080 words word count for unposted works (incl. wips): 34,320 words total word count: 111,400 words

breakdown of works, meme, and goals below:

works posted to AO3 in 2023:

no quarter red vs blue, felix/locus, rated E 51,766 words — posted 4/23, finished 6/25

i wrote up a number of posts while working on this fic and idk if there's much left to say; this was one hell of an endeavor and i'm very proud of it.

exaptation (ficlet collection, ch. 7) bleach, grimmjow/ichigo, rated T (whole work) 2,416 words — posted 7/24

outside POV..... need i say more. this was a very Me™ fic to write and i'm really happy with how it turned out. here's to the next cour of TYBW also pulling fic out of me, whenever that happens.

neutron stars bleach, grimmjow/ichigo rated T 6,974 words — posted 8/29, finished 9/8

oh boy oh boy i love fics in the general roleswap/"X instead of Y"/"X but it happens to Y" category of canon divergence and it was SO much fun to write this one. the cool thing about this scenario is that it really wouldn't have changed much in the long run, which i think it precisely why it was so interesting to explore.

the blood of the covenant one piece, zoro/sanji, rated E 16,060 words — posted 11/9

i'm VERY happy with this fic, and it's also a victim of like, i started out wanting it to be lighthearted and uhhhh it is... not necessarily that. i also started this before reading the manga lmfao but shockingly, there wasn't much i got "wrong" or needed to change. still can't believe this was the year i got into one piece. lord.

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unfinished/unposted works in 2023:

current wips + personal project: 20,573 words

deleted fragments from multiple works: 12,742 words

my unposted word count this year is higher than it's ever been since i started doing this -- this personal project thing was kind of a whim (and i'm losing steam on it) but it's been insightful and pretty fun.

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end-of-year meme! trying a different one this year, nabbing from larissa.

Best title:

oooh that's tough... i did a good job with titles this year. let's go with the blood of the covenant since that evokes a lot of what the pov character's angst is about. (did you know that the whole thing about "actually, the full quote is [...]" is basically an unattributed asspull? not that it really matters; it's a great reinterpretation.)

Worst title:

cop-out answer, but the ficlet i added to exaptation didn't have a title, so that.

Best first line:

hmm. i don't think i had any standout banger opening lines, so let's go with the exaptation ficlet:

They’ve been around long enough to be us now and not me.

Worst first line:

again, didn't have any standout misses, so i'm going with no quarter's since it... idk, isn't a killer hook or anything? but it wasn't supposed to be, so 🤷‍♂️

The head of the hospital meets them outside, wearing an armor undersuit beneath her scrubs.

Best last line:

from neutron stars:

We have a score to settle, he reminds himself, and meets Kurosaki as he always has: hungry and ablaze, feeling the closest thing to alive since his death collapsed in on itself.

Worst last line:

another cop-out answer from exaptation, lol:

“Let’s get to it.”

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

a lot more! i originally thought that no quarter would be like, 20-30k or so? joke's on me, lol. i also very genuinely did not predict-- you know what, that's the next question, so:

What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted last year?

good lord never in a million years did i think that 2023 was going to be the year i got into one piece. i'm still not sure how that happened. i started writing no quarter at the very end of last year, but i also could not have predicted that to happen to me.

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

bit of recency bias here but the blood of the covenant! it was really fun and satisfying to write, and it's much more plainly happy/uplifting than any of the others.

Okay, NOW your most popular story.

in every category (kudos, hits, bookmarks) but comments, this goes to the blood of the covenant! i would say that this is unsurprising considering the fandom/ship, but it's more that everything else i've written is either for a relatively small fandom/ship or a dead one.

Story most underappreciated by the universe?

definitely no quarter. it's a sequel fic for a different ship than the first entry and in a dead fandom, to boot. this thing was doomed from the start.

Story that could have been better?

idk if i have anything here! i'm happy with everything i wrote.

Sexiest story?

i guess the blood of the covenant; no quarter has smut in it too but it's kinda weird and tbotc's is there to actually be Sexy™ rather than like. weird.

Saddest story?

hmm. the blood of the covenant again, i guess; the pov character is not especially happy for most of the fic.

Most fun?

okay so i'm interpreting this as most fun For Me To Write and that has to go to no quarter -- sinking back into the halo zone to write was sooo fun and fulfilling. it's like coming home, every time.

Story with single sweetest moment?

the blood of the covenant got super sappy (by my standards, at least), which was the whole point of it.

Most fucked-up story?

no quarter, i guess? hard to not be at least kinda fucky when dealing with felix and locus, but i wouldn't say this is particularly or especially fucked-up.

Hardest story to write?

woof..... no quarter. it was really challenging in general to get through the first draft (lots of planning and changes and planning and changes etc etc) and i edited the chapters between posting them weekly; that got really difficult to keep up for a number of reasons.

Easiest/most fun story to write?

hmmm. i think the exaptation ficlet; it's really fun to write something short right as it comes to me.

Did any stories shift your perception of the characters?

not..... really? though i did have to spend a lot of time thinking about felix and locus for no quarter, which didn't so much shift my perception of the characters as it solidified my interpretation.

Most overdue story?

giving this to the blood of the covenant; i never read one piece in the early 2000s boom (though i was obviously into bleach and nart) so a lot of what i'm feeling about it is, like, "oh, finally; it feels like i've found the missing piece; i understand now; the world feels a little more full."

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

yes indeed! no quarter was a departure from the norm for me in a lot of ways, from planning to posting. it had been a really long time since i posted a multi-chapter fic, and i wrote this one with very specific chapter breaks in mind; that changed my planning and writing process a lot. overall, it was really good for me -- chapters are something i've avoided for a long time and i still have no clue where or how i got the idea that they're... idk, bad or amateurish somehow. chapters were perfect for no quarter. my posting schedule was 1 chapter per week, which left me a week to edit the coming chapter into shape and pick at future sections too, which worked REALLY well for me. on the flip side, i really struggled with this fic emotionally when i was posting it; not getting "attention" when posting a fic very, very rarely gets me down at this point in my life and i've worked hard on that, but it definitely got me with this fic. so it goes! in retrospect, now, several months down the line, i am so proud of this fic and all the new and different things i tried with it. multiple/alternating POVs, too! that was a change for me and i liked how it came out.

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goals for next year:

1. write something humorous (preferably more than just one something)

my fics have humor in them, sure, but i want to write Comedy Fic without it veering irreversibly into Serious Fic like what's happened the past several times i've tried. this is one of my current wips and it's going pretty well so far.

2. try a different editing method

i've tried this kinda halfheartedly before, but i want to try editing something in a full side-by-side with the old draft in one window and the new draft in another. i might try this with an old fic of mine; not for posting or anything, just for The Exercise of it.

3. i've never had to set this as a goal but..... finish my wips!

i've still got that P vs NP re-re-edit cooking in the oven; i still feel kinda ??? about what i have written so far (it veered off into a completely different direction at one point) but i want to use the aforementioned editing method for this, probs after i finish a test run on something else. i've also got that b-side fic that's unfinished and i want to get that done first, since it's going to be a much shorter endeavor than rewriting close to 100k words.

#fic talk #ficposting #whew what a year

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tyrorexdmzapp · 1 year

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Mario Story/Paper Mario recreations- an ice day for a classic and a new one

Continuing one with the cubicized recreations of Mario Story/Paper Mario stages, I have two today- a classic one, and a new one. Interestingly, though, the tile and asset set is sourced from/inspired by the latter.

First up- Shiver Mountain, from Paper Mario 64! Minus a slight reinterpretation at the end and some new obstacles, it's mostly the same layout, or as close as possible when looking over old footage.

The opening area of Shiver Mountain. The switch is here as usual, causing the blocks below to go up and down. New, though, are those weird pink walls with cut-out lines. Mario might need a certain partner for those obstacles, which appear through the stage.

Then, both the second and third areas at once. For the former, the switch across the gap has been moved to the lower area that once housed a Pebble. The latter, meanwhile, receives a greater reworking. Since the intended threat/puzzle of not taking powerful items doesn't really work when you think about it- I mean, you just leave them in for the main story or swap them for a weaker item, then take them all on your way down- it's now a cut-out and poison tile area. The latter requires yet another partner, one I haven't designed yet to boot...

Now, the penultimate main area. Three big changes here. First, there's a simple maze to solve leading to the secret cave. Second, that secret area is both optional, and can be accessed an infinite number of times. Last, the area past the first flight of stairs is reworked into a second, slighty tougher maze.

Here, you see the secret area. It's...not quite as majestic, mysterious or otherworldly as its source counterpart, but I did what I could.

And here's the end goal area of Shiver Mountain. Since the stage just ends here with a Gold Star, there's no mirror area or door. That said, I decided to recreate the very end of Crystal Palace (you know the area) after the initial stairs and where the door would be.

Usually, things would end here. However, as I promised, this was a two-for-one deal. So here's the other stage using this setting's assets, and the true source of them- a cube recreation of Frullato Edge from my own fantopic, Mario Story Fruit Shake. For a refresher or glance on what this stage looks like, here's a link to that Tumblr post. https://at.tumblr.com/tyrorexdmzapp/some-more-location-screenies-for-mario-story-fruit/fs1cid6wqz6s

Due to how...accidentally short the earlier stages I physically designed are, this one's pretty short- only two simple screens. But that's part of an inherent reason why I'm doing these recreations (which is the same reason the Sonic Frontiers did the Cyberspace stages)- to study what works and what doesn't with the classic stages (...and some others...), then apply that knowledge to similar projects, whether it be Paper Mario/Mario Story.......or otherwise.

Also, more importantly and to be honest, I made this alongside the original rounded (or still jaggy) design.

So, first area. Pretty much the same, except cubier and with some changes to encourage looking around more. This screen also features snowflakes, courtesy of a particle system plane high above. I was going to put in the same particle system for the Shiver Mountain recreation. However, since the original Shiver Mountain didn't have snowing- only Shiver Fields and the highest part of Crystal Palace- I decided not to.

Last, the inner area of Frullato Edge. Here, like intended in the OG experience, Mario and friends would need to push snowballs into place to reach the Gold Star.

And that's all I got for today. I figured since it was winter, I could make and show these two stages.

#papermario #mariostory #mariostoryfruitshake #papermario64 #shivermountain #blender #blendercycles #blender3d #blender3dcycles

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