More end of year asks: 10, 16, 17, 24
10. A fic you wrote this year that was different from what you usually write
I'd say Unholy is stylistically different from what I usually write. I'm a bit elitist about 1st person POV (by which I mean, I'm tired of it being overused in YA fiction so I unconsciously slip into considering it a ‘less valid’ POV, which is really stupid but alas, I can’t quite shake it), but it’s actually really fun to do it in fanfic, especially with canon characters. (Here I’m also blowing a kiss to three of my favourite fics (1), (2), (3), which do 1st ppov MASTERFULLY. Please do read them!!) Anyway, I think I'd like to write more 1st ppov in the future, maybe it will fix me.
16. Two goals for next year
finish an original story (I tell myself this every year but maybe this time it will actually happen)
17. Two favourite lines/paragraphs/scenes from this year's fics
Well one is certainly the climax of chapter 15 of This Book Is Full of Lies. I will remain sick in the head about it until the day I pass on to greener pastures. On my deathbed, I will smile, knowing I have done one thing right in my life by writing this fic. I'm not sure it's a good fic, but it's mine! “The Witch-Queen is a shadow, a tower within a tower, a dark moon eclipising the light. It is only proper to feel fear.” And when I wrote “a girl and a god, face to face, at the end of a history”, I could feel my brain physically expand. I’d never felt so smart in my entire life.
Another is from Winding Acumen:
But the phrase sticks with her. She unravels it dutifully down to its thinnest fibres and then braids them again, reels on different spools, weaves new tapestries and rips them apart. She chews the words over. Nothing is fated, not ahead of time; the universe ticks on towards its grand design, but no one yet knows the shape it will take. Worms eat of the change between these shapes—anthem anatheme, wondrous and true. The future and the past are insubstantial. There is only that which |is|.
I’m pretty sure I wrote this paragraph drunk. That whole fic was just @euxiom and me trying to pin down the idea of fate as-seen-through-sword-logic, tie that into Dûl Incaru's themes of circular time and ever-returning, then there was the concept of the Fatesmiths as three Moiras spinning fate (or something), then Strand came into the picture… and we had to do all that in less than 2k words. I had so much fun but my brain hurt from all that thinking. I’m also kind of sad we had to cut the amazing conversation between Drachna and Toland that Eux wrote from the final piece.
24. Five ideas to work on next year
The Beyond Light rewrite (which is basically everything is the same except there's no Guardian and the Dark Vanguard go against Eramis instead), which I've fondly dubbed ‘Destiny 2: Better Lore’
The Final Shape missing scenes collection
More prompts for When the Long Night Comes, aka Peyri and Kamâr-Maht experiencing profound cultural clashes for everyone's amusement
A one-shot titled “Ulan-Tan Was Right” about Tevis meeting Pujari in the Black Garden and telling them about Ikora absolutely wrecking them in Chirality lol
I also have some general/disconnected ideas for Hive worldbuilding, mostly workshopped through conversations with friends. I’d like to dig into non-Lucent Hive philosophy more, especially different takes on the sword logic, how there could be a subset of “old Hive” who believe Oversouls and Throne Worlds to be cheating, or how some Hive would argue necromancy is perfectly compliant with the Logic, etc. Some Wizards go to Oryx to ask him to settle their dispute and he just kills them because that’s the final and surest argument in any discussion.
@the-goldendragon also seeded me with the idea of a Wizards vs. Knights class war the other day and I can't stop thinking about it.
