Year-end fic meme

[nonelvis]

Fic written in 2016
At the Crown and Country Inn (Eight/Romana, Adult)
An Afternoon With Uncle Beazley (The Americans; Gabriel, Claudia; All Ages)
The Very Honoured Guests of the Grelvakian Scientific Society (Twelve/Clara, Adult)
The Scientific Method (Liz Shaw, brief Liz/Kate Stewart and reference to Liz/Brig, Miss Quill; Teen)
The Children of the Moon Are Heavy as Stones (Crossover with Class; Twelve/Miss Quill; Adult)

Leitmotif of the year
Does "not writing fic" count as a leitmotif?

Overall thoughts
This was a shitty year in a lot of ways, not in the least for me personally because I couldn't find the mental energy to write. Admittedly, even if none of the political bullshit had happened this year, I would have had less time to write simply because of a work-adjacent writing project that sucked up most of my writing brain between mid-August and the end of November. But I spent a lot of this year feeling creatively drained to the point where I wasn't even enjoying reading books. I'm hoping 2017 will be better in this respect, since obviously I can't count on it being any better politically for some time to come.

My best story of the year
I dunno, they're all ... fine? Reasonably good? Good enough to post? There are individual parts of all of them that I love, but I frankly feel I've had better years, and not just because there isn't any one fic of mine that really stands out for me this time around.

... my God, I think I've just No Awarded myself.

My favorite story of the year
I'm slightly torn between An Afternoon With Uncle Beazley and The Children of the Moon Are Heavy as Stones, simply because each hits a different button of mine: the former is a huge nostalgia trip for me, and the latter features a pairing I've been wanting to write for a while, because they're fucking hot together.

Most fun story to write
An Afternoon With Uncle Beazley, definitely. Finally, a use for 35-year-old memories of Washington, DC! The Mall just isn't the same without you, Uncle Beazley.

Story with the single sexiest moment
Oddly enough, given that 60% of my pitiful fic output this year is adult-rated, the sexiest moment to me is in an otherwise gen story: it's Kate seducing Liz in The Scientific Method.

Most "holy crap, that's wrong, even for you" story
I'm not sure anything I wrote this year has a "that's wrong, even for you" moment, although I'm fond of every smartass line in The Very Honoured Guests of the Grelvakian Scientific Society, and there are a lot of smartass lines in that story.

Story that shifted my own perception of the characters
I don't know that any of them shifted my perceptions of the characters, but it was nice to explore characters I hadn't written before: Gabriel and Claudia from The Americans and Miss Quill from Class, all of whom I adore. It doesn't hurt that each of them is an absolute blast to write dialogue for.

Hardest story to write
I was going to hand this to The Scientific Method, because literally the only thing that kept me working on this story was my absolute refusal to drop out of who_at_50's fanwork-a-thon just because I couldn't cudgel my brain into writing anything. But I have spent months thinking I needed to write Twelve/Miss Quill, had finally written down a couple of hundred words but couldn't turn them into anything resembling a plot, and swore I would finish something new before the end of the year ... except literally the only time I made progress on the story was lying in bed at night, trying to fall asleep, when my brain would suddenly wake up and give me bits of dialogue. So yesterday, I took those few fragments and wrote 2,000 new words, and posted The Children of the Moon Are Heavy as Stones on the last day of 2016. FUCKIN' BRAINS, HOW DO THEY WORK

Biggest disappointment
The Very Honoured Guests of the Grelvakian Scientific Society feels slightly half-assed to me, but ...

Biggest surprise
... people love the story, so, uh, thanks for liking my half-assedness, I guess.

Most unintentionally telling story
None of them, since the one that comes closest -- An Afternoon With Uncle Beazley -- is an intentionally telling story partially written because I had setting and time period knowledge that made me uniquely qualified to write for this fandom. I suspect I have some of the American History Museum internal geography slightly off, which is what happens when you're mining childhood memories, but it's close enough for ficcing purposes. Also, dammit, Smithsonian, I still can't believe you took out that pendulum, which I loved almost as much as the fiberglass triceratops.

Story I haven't written yet, but intend to
I had really wanted to write a Twelve-and-Quill-have-sexy-adventures-in-space story this year, but that requires plot and is therefore very unlikely to happen. So, I don't know what I'm going to write, though once I hear more of Bill's voice, I'm sure I'll want to write for her.