feversend | deadwine's ao3 wrapped 2023

A look at my 2023 as both a fic writer and reader.

STATS COUNTER
▷ AO3 WORKS: 34 (▽2)
▷ AO3 WORD COUNT: 68.5k (△21k)
▷ FANDOMS: 11 (=)
✧ BTS: 13 (=)
✧ SVT: 13 (▽1)
✧ Haikyuu: 3 (▽4)
✧ TWICE: 3 (NEW)
✧ SHINee: 2 (▽1)
✧ EVERGLOW: 2 (NEW)
✧ EXO (▽2), Red Velvet (=), GFriend (NEW), ITZY (NEW), Made in Heaven TV (NEW): 1
▷ CATEGORIES: M/M (21), Gen (8), F/F (7), F/M & Multi (1)
▷ CHARACTERS: Xu Minghao (8), Min Yoongi (7), Jeon Jungkook (6)
▷ RELATIONSHIPS: Jungkook/Minghao (3)

▶ Favourite fic written this year

How can I have a favourite fic I should say but like. This year? With as biased as I am? There can only be one. Of course it's night flight.

▶ Favourite fic written this year....everyone's allowed a second favourite

Fucking hard to choose because I personally think there are a few I'm proud of but ehhh I'm very soft on my yoonjinkooks so probably cities built of our clamshells or baby, you're all blue because it's packs a lot into its wordcount.

▶ Favourite titles used this year

loved, but not in love for which thank you to Mr, Hanif Abdurraqib. And also i kiss the flooding and it kisses me back, thank you Muriel Leung, because it's probably the one that ties into the fic most seamlessly?

▶ Favourite dialogue snippets

From loved, but not in love:

"Jihyo gives Nayeon her undivided attention before she gives her an answer. “Unnie. The days when I would keep myself wet and ready for just one woman to fuck me and ditch me are long gone.”

From night flight:

Minghao’s lips tremble as a smile is nudged back onto his face. “Yeah, I can see that. Seokmin and you would duet. Probably. I would have to get Junhui to talk me down from all the last-minute nerves and cold feet. Only he could do it.”

“You wouldn’t get cold feet.” Jungkook tells him seriously.

Mingao sucks in a breath. “No, I wouldn’t.”

“Neither of us would.”

“I’d like to think at least the party would be—”

“—on a boat. Somewhere out at sea.”

From one for the laugh, two for the show:

“What would you do?” He begins, voice just a little more subdued than when he was teasing, “If you could quit your job. What would you do?”

“Something for my kids.”

It’s heartening to see Minho flinch and then try to play it off as nothing. “Your kids?”

He’s lucky Kibum’s too shit-faced to carry through with a long gag right now. “My poodles.”

The sigh of relief is immediate—and gratifying. “Ah. What for them?”

From skinning the sun:

Seokmin pushes one of the peeled oranges towards him and smiles, softer than a morning kiss.

“You know I love you, right?”

Hansol still doesn’t stop breathing.

“I know.” He echoes.

▶ Favourite paragraphs

The whole section under 'vino' in night flight. It reminds me of 'strawberry moon' in spring at the moon, which is the kind of descriptive setting+character writing done at once that I honestly couldn't replicate if I actively tried to so the fact that this reminds me of that is a big, big deal to me.

From my dear you've always been my spring:

Sometimes Nayeon kisses her at the door—hands pressed to the door frame and the weight of their bodies resting entirely on their point of contact. Eager, wanting mouths doing the heavy lifting their bodies seem not to.

Sometimes Nayeon kisses her before she’s even said hello, like it’s instinct to want Jihyo that close, like even speech is a language not entirely theirs the way this is.

From 한여름 밤의 dream, my dream:

Namjoon takes him to his first exhibit in Dongdaemun for his coming-of-age day—months of tutoring money saved up for the trip down Subway Line 1, the farthest Taehyung has ever come from their neighbourhood.

It's like a festival more than an exhibit, hall after hall, park after park brimming with things to see and learn—and people flocking to soak it all in, just like them.

Taehyung’s never been more glad to be alive.

Standing at the windy steps outside the station when they return, Namjoon apologises for the lack of a cake, roses—all things traditional that should make up this day—for his savings extending only so far.

Taehyung laughs and steals the one traditional thing Namjoon can’t deny him right off Namjoon’s parted lips.

It’s not their first but it feels like it. The whole world shines bright and new.

From again we begin this blue and soggy song:

Sometimes time strikes Taehyung like lightning. Months and years condense into flashes of ill-preserved memory that stir back into consciousness only when teased out with care—with long hours sitting next to a window-pane, smelling the jasmine wafting over from the steaming cups that lingered on the ledge next to the window, just as they did.

Just as time lingers, too, loathe to part from the caress of Minghao’s sighs so it distills itself into pockets of rain that greet Minghao at the subway stop; umbrella perennially forgotten on the doorstep where he puts on his shoes while heading out.

From saathiya:

A gentle kiss to the knuckles can never go wrong, not when Minho loves Kibum’s mouth on his fingers; not when Kibum loves Minho’s fingers gripping his jaw.

The kiss turns into a trail of his tongue from the knuckles to the tips of Minho’s fingers, still so gentle and slow it could be mistaken for a passing breeze.

Well—maybe not a breeze, Kibum thinks, sucking Minho’s ring finger into his mouth wholly.

A drizzle.

A summer storm that lands outside the doorstep at midnight but has already departed come dawn, cleaning the streets and leaving behind nothing but a whiff of it on the shrubs of indigo-periwinkle hydrangeas.

▶ Favourite POVs to write

Xu Minghao, clearly, LOL. Not all the fics featuring him are from his POV but enough are, imo. I don't when the 'be the xmh pov you want to see in the world' became 'can't write non xmhs' but while writing the long haokook this year I had to actively get out that and be like. Write the goddamn Jungkook POV, too. Who I missed terribly and enjoyed coming back to more this year. Also Kibum. Turns out I cannot write a minkey fic where Kibum isn't giving a full-scale mental breakdown of everything or pretending to be chill or..you get the gist. Every single one of them I've ever written are from his POV. Can't not talk about Jihyo, who friends will Know, has been inside my brain for years but somehow I could never get it out and then bam. Here we are. 3 fics, 3 from her POV and uhh 3 other WIPS with Jihyo ruminating possibly.

▶ Events partaken in

Eight: 17hols 3 (2022-23), Years of Us (Shinee Fest), KOlymfics 2023, For The Record Fest (Carly Rae Jepsen), Summer of Shinee Round 5 (2023), Kpop Ficmix 2023, Girls' Halloween (Scarygirlynight 2023), Emo K-fic Fest 2023. I do believe I was crazy and I have fully avenged 2020-21 me who dropped out of most things. But also, never again.

▶ Longest fic

night flight. it's ten fucking k, folks. a cataclysmic event and made all the more special by the fact that it's for a ship im making, building and carrying on my bare back. writing ten k with the expectation of nothing from anyone else is hard no matter how much i love writing self-indulgent fic but i had an idea (structuring a fic along the alphabet) i really wanted to execute for a long time and well. with a dream and half a rupee your guy made it. clap, please. or better yet, read my baby. for it IS my baby.

▶ Shortest fic

it takes two to. my beloved ennoshita/futakuchi fic that i got the idea for in late 2021 or early 2022 and had hoped to expand on one day. oh, well. it makes for a pretty good bite-sized glimpse at a fun possibility.

▶ Most Read

saathiya closely followed by one for the laugh, two for the show. both shinee minkey fics. every other fic has been left in the dust btw. i have never seen stats hits like this in all my years of posting fic. not even for my minkeys last year.

▶ Most under-the-radar

As a rarepair writer, there's a lot of these - the majority of my fic really, and it's a very relative thing. The distance between most-read and least is not that vast, usually (this year the shinee fic stats are kinda crazy) But I think I'll go with skinning the sun and fly.

▶ Hardest to write

Impossible not to bring up night flight as it's 10k and such a particular format that drove me nuts; I was annoying friends for months asking for words starting with specific alphabets and/or haokook scenaios they wanted to see written. And even when that was all there it was so fucking hard. It's ten times longer than my average fic. The last time I did it was 2021 which feels a decade ago. The other is probably little black cloud, little black umbrella for a mix of reasons: new fandom (Everglow), new fest (KOlympfics) and just the very real anxiety of the group's future at the time I was writing mixed with the total lack of information about what was really happening behind the scenes last year, which is when my fic is set.

▶ Funnest to write

beg you on my knees to stay. no competition. lilli and i wrote it in the span of hours, her while i slept and me while she slept and the majority of mine was written on my phone at the waiting room at my dentist's. but she had already done all the hard work and i just had to get in the doc and stir shit up. writing with and for a friend are two of the most pleasurable things about fic writing to me, always.

▶ Favourite comments received

I have received three comments this past week on fics that i have written for friends on their birthdays this year and I can't repost them here, I can't even look at them too closely for fear I burst into flame. Each one of those comments is...possibly longer than my actual fic and makes me feel like a ball of pure emotion, like I should never look at my phone again or just live in it, inside those comments. I am so very lucky to have friends like these. I absolutely have to mention ao3 geryoneis who has left me many, many, many essay-length heartrending comments this year, making my whole month every time they do.

Also loved, on so fast you'd outpace the dawn, clown saying this: "i really admire your word economy like you fully flesh out ideas and emotions and dynamics so well in just like! 1k words! it's amazing it's like a beautiful little snow globe!!."

Word economy. Loved that phrase.

And of course, klav on love is a violence: "PB T_________T THANK YOU FRIEND THIS IS A LIVING HEARTBREAK I AM FALLING THROUGH THE FLOOR IN AGONY... WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU (ILY)!!!!"

I'll have you know, klav says "I'm falling through the floor" on every single fic I write for her. All the time. It's the kind of continuity I live for, personally.

▶ Any surprises while writing this year

Loads. Did not anticipate diving so fully into ggfic though I've always wanted to. I'm glad for it. My fics also got longer? Not the fact that I wrote two fics >5k but in general, there were several times when I set out to write 400-700 words and wrote 1200-1500 and I'm still figuring out whether that was for the better or not. I think this was a year I really explored dialogue writing to the fullest, not just in tiny snippets but within longer conversations and a longer context of a relationship/world within the story and it's made me slightly more confident about the same. Which I wouldn't have counted on happening ever since my go-to is just writing environmental description+introspection at one go and just. Stopping when it feels right.

▶ Other writing thoughts

I think earlier on when I was writing fic I used to conflate writing longer fic with being intentional. This year in particular kind of cleared that up for me because I found myself going over the wordcount I had decided for myself many a times and then wondering what was wrong with me. Old me would have rejoiced at a writing a longer fic and wrapped up that thought. Not saying I'm always objective about my own writing. I'm not and it's impossible to be. But I'm learning how to judge my writing better? Bit by bit and with a lot of help from writer friends who read my fics, beta for me let me beta for them and share their process online too.

▶ Writing goals/WIP ideas for next year

Firstly, I want to write fic commentaries for both loved, but not in love and night flight. They're much longer than my normal fics and I want to write about the process of writing them before it's been too long and I forget. If you are interested feel free to pull me up and hold me accountable because I am bound to let it slip for my mind - I'm good at that shit.

More gen fic, definitely. More gg fic too. I had such a good time with that this year.

I also want to go back and explore all the Haikyuu ideas I have left untouched this year because I know there were more than a few.

There is a personal fic about family and personhood and queerness, partly inspired by life and partly by Welcome to Samdal-ri I hope to start thinking about in the coming months.

More poetry also, definitely. Prose poem or otherwise. They're such an interesting medium to explore.

Non-commission or giveaway wips that I'm hoping to finish are a Seulgi/Jihyo set in my emofic universe, an oikkagehina pwp-ish fic, a genfic inspired by My Liberation Notes and a haokook sea-based character study. The last one is a long shot since I know it'll be a long one and I need both rest and time to marinate.

Theme-wise I want to try writing about the body, I always do. I tend to run away from it and I hope I get better at not..doing that.

And now *jazz hands* for my favourite part of this whole thing.

▶ Favourite fics read this year, in no particular order:

⧐ gay-romance by fisticuffs (lowblow) - ENHYPEN (1000/10 hilarious, i have reread it 500 times)
⧐ Cheapskate by salines - TWICE (the nicest unrequited love thesis ever)
⧐ my bones into your bones by deathlessaphrodite - The Raven Cycle (my favourite fic of the year by the favourite author I discovered this year)
⧐ leave me an island by geryoneis - Seventeen (this fic was written For Me. no it wasn't but it was. the sea, haohoon and hai cheng. what else could one ask for?)
⧐ reach (repeat) by saira (owle) - Haikyuu (ushioi and a 'what happens after you've lived past your precipice' fic that is so, so gentle)
⧐ Friends We Keep by pinkhorizon - The Raven Cycle (55k and it had me feeling every emotion alive the whole time. another one of my favourite+most read writers this year)
⧐ till i hear the answer by renefae - คาธ | The Eclipse (TV 2022) (an au that isn't quite an au and ayan only meets akk in the aftermath of suppalo. also. of course the were roommates<3)
⧐ somehow you arrived by thantawan (chronoshift) - 나의 별에게 | To My Star (TV) (the slice of life beauty that this show deserves)
⧐ just as hungry, as empty by atramental - Seventeen (gorgeous vernon character study)
⧐ love comes, and remains strange by deathlessaphrodite - The Raven Cycle (the tags on this might throw you off but like. trust me. it's sooo worth it.)
⧐ we got history by (circularity) linearity - ENHYPEN (if i could erase this fic from my mind so i could read it all over again, i would. childhood friends to lovers masterpiece)
⧐ You Are Where I Have to Be by cangse-sanren (zeesqueere) - CLA$$ (TV 2023) (whose bones are we stepping on, as s. asian queers living in 2023?)

⧐ kageyama tobio vs the world: avventure in quel di roma by mandarino_o - Haikyuu (i looove fics that are as much about places as bout people)
⧐ what useless tool ourselves by shinealightonme - The Raven Cycle (okay yeah i was thinking of this for not-so-great reasons recently but i HAD reread this series in September and was reminded of how insanely good it is and how original it is. i could go on and on.)

⧐ i say, i loved you, i loved you by forestday - TWICE (post-disbandment is a theme i wish i could read more of and this is just done so, so well)

⧐ remember the rush by starryboy - ENHYPEN (tropey wholesome goodness. i claim these idiots!)
⧐ 삼족오: samjoko by disillusioned (miscalculated) - BTS (the richness of the worldbuilding in this...chefs kiss)

⧐ if you say the word by sleeptodream - The Raven Cycle (customary fwb to lovers goodness)

⧐ longing for surrender by johhnyfucksup - คาธ | The Eclipse (TV 2022) (the best akk character study series i have come across yet)

⧐ run with you by staygame - NINE.i (possibly my favourite idolverse fic this year?)

⧐ if there's a shadow, there must be light by ooline - fromis_9, IVE (or was This my favourite idolverse fic this year?)
⧐ Two Point Perspective by cheeryos - The Raven Cycle (such a fun and well-done au, the world-building is sooo impressive, and idk coworkers who hate e/o but dont? Yes.)

Thank you for writing and reading with me this year too <3 (If the spacing on this is wonky pls forgive me i have zero patience for fixing the html rn)