marsdragon (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
marsdragon) wrote2024-01-03 09:45 pm
marsdragon) wrote2024-01-03 09:45 pm
2023 look-back post
I'll at least try to make this into an annual thing. I have totally forgotten what happened in the first part of the year. Dang.
I wrote a lot less in general. In the first part of the year I was frantically translating for Psychic Fire, but that stalled when Might's Gamest script was a huge pain in the ass. And it's not like I was working on the Mad SNK Project either, because I didn't finish KoF95 by the end of the year like I wanted either. I feel like I really let my hobbies down in 2023, though I did do a lot of yarn stuff. I really need to be better about scheduling and dedication.
I did make good on my wish to write more Psychic Force, but not nearly as much as I wanted and it was all concentrated in the front of the year. Sorry, Psychic Force.
04 Feb 2023
Duties and Responsibilities
Psychic Force
Like I said in the author's notes, I wrote this after playing Psychic Force and thinking "man, how crazy would it be to look out the window and see one of these fights? It would be so crazy". I originally thought this while playing on the Highway stage, but it ended up on the Eclipse stage instead. Hard to get a good view when you're speeding along the highway, after all. I'm also just sort of fascinated by what normal people would be thinking in this crazy psychic world. Like, realistically, of course they're all going to hate and fear psychics, the main guy arguing for psychics is a genocidal terrorist. Not an effective one, but still.
Anyway, I was thinking about all of that and I realised the battle where Gudeath kills Regina on Carlo's route is one we never see, but has some pretty big implications. I liked the reader having more knowledge about what the fight was about and what the consequences would be than the narrator. Sucks to be Regina, though.
There's also a bunch in there about helplessness and responsibility and talking shit on the other side of a screen. Good (?) lessons for the modern age. (THE NARRATOR IS US WE ARE THE NARRATOR)
16 Feb 2023
Chapter 10 of Fire and Ice
Psychic Force
As usual, I put out a little Burn/Keith fic for Keith's birthday. I really had just zero ideas last year, so I scrambled around for a bit and finally hit on "Puzzle Taisen fluff!" Hey, it got the job done.
A couple weeks afterwards I realised that 2023 was Keith's 30th birthday and that would allow a ton of angsty philosophizing, then I did literally nothing for the entire rest of the year. I spent months planning a Christmas fic and then spent my Christmas vacation reading Dante's Inferno instead. I'm terrible at this stuff.
16 Feb 2023
Electricity
Psychic Force
I mostly had this written in 2022, but I had to do a lot of polishing on it, just like Time last year. It feels a bit less well-put together than Time did, though. I think it's because with Time I had one very clear point, while Eletrcity is all over the place. Okay, time to establish Might's life in the future (that I had to totally make up!)! And his little sister! And his actual original mission! And how it got messed up! And fast! Yeah, it didn't work out so hot. Did you notice how in the ruined future, psychics all have nicknames based on the industrial items they're replacing? Yeah, I liked that bit.
The original nub of this fic was that Might's orders were encoded in a song and that's the song Patty sings, it all fits together...and that only ended up partially true and mostly just heavily implied. The encoding in a song was Patty's changing his orders to try and undo the bad future at the cost of her life, but it all related back to Might and Kate's song anyway (which was originally Patty's).
Anyway, I still like the fic. I like Wong winning and running everything into the ground, I like Kate, I like trying-to-be-a-good-brother Might, I like NOA being a mix of humans and psychics, I like I was able to fit a real yojijukugo in there.
Then I completely failed to write any more Psychic Force for the entire rest of the year aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
18 Mar 2023
From Ash, From Dust
Chrono Trigger
Written for silveradept in Worldbuilding Exchange 2023
The theme of exchange fics this year is struggle. Not a single one of these came easy. Every single one fought me every step of the way, and it starts here.
I had such big plans for this one. It would start with the Day of Lavos, go into what 1999 was like, go into how they survived, depending on robots for everything, then the hope at the end that the reader knows is the oncoming train. Noah and Athy were going to have a kid themselves and feel incredibly guilty about it. ...but it was all too ambitious and I had to keep cutting it down until arriving at the finished fic. I've still got 1.2K of Day of Lavos sitting on my hard drive, not doing anything.
A lot of the themes here are similar to Duties and Responsibilities. I was in a mood.
I do like my little tangent about lost history in the Chrono Trigger world. I love stuff like that.
09 May 2023
Chapter 21 of Legion (saint)
Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow
It's my AoS 20th anniversary ficlet! I can't believe it came out 20 years ago! Meditate on the all-devouring maw of time and know that you too will die and be forgotten!
Anyway, I had a ton of plans for my dual AoS-and-LoI anniversary fic. It would delicately intertwine both games into a beautiful tapestry! It would have flashbacks and flashforwards! It would have all sort of dramatic irony! It would contrast of comfort of an imagined past against the beauty of an imagined future and question what is real! It would have sixteen parts!
...anyway, that never had a chance of happening, especially not in such a low creative output year. I got to the deadline, realised it was never happening, and grabbed out a theme I could at least fit something into. So here's J, unknowing of his past, hesitant to find out but also unable to escape.
My original idea was so cool. But never happening.
Bits from my notes:
Soma remembers in the castle, Mathias dreams with Leon.
Soma loses himself in the castle, Julius finds himself
AoS:
Comfort, imagined past - flashbacks to truth (?)
Library - Soma - weird memories (the library his only comfort) - and like that he could almost pretend it was still 1086 and he was happy. Maybe he even had been
Chapel - Julius - a sense of the holy, but the church repels him, doesn't know if that's right (stories from Charlotte: the church once came to the Belmonts on bended knee)
Inner Quarters - Soma - meets Julius, weird and familiar, sees Leon within him without knowing (they walked together in Constantinople and for a moment it was all glorious)
Underground Cemetery - Julius - someone told him once there is nothing to fear from the dead (stories from Jonathan: the piles of bodies in a circus)
Clock Tower - Soma - the gears clicking in the rhythm of his heart. There's an old friend here, and the call grows ever louder (do you believe the world is ordered? - three times, each waifu and Death)
Arena - Julius - the stories never mentioned throwing up afterwards (what he has always suspected: there is no rest for those who return)
Throne Room - Soma - all the other Belmont battles, this is familiar, this is the rut of history (but there is more, castle politics and dancing)
Clock Tower - Julius (where VK is) - the heroes of the past have all been here, their names a burden on their descendants (Sara has watched them all, and they all stood in the clock tower and asked her: is the world is ordered?)
Chaotic Realm - Soma - 1999, to die drowning in regret is still to be at peace (but the resurrection goes on)
06 Jul 2023
Screws Fall Out
Nightwalker: The Midnight Detective
Written for Rose_Argent in Nonconathon 2023.
And here's another fic that was nothing but struggle. I had to bring my laptop with me when I went on vacation for the 4th of July just to force myself to work on it while I was sitting on the train. That did totally work, so I can't complain.
I had this idea a few years ago, because I knew I'd eventually be writing Nightwalker fic for Rose. The key nub was Riho charging Cain to save Shido while Shido was naked and mindfucked. And yeah, the final action sequence came pretty easily! It was the actual noncon that was a problem. I struggled a lot with how to handle that, since I wrote myself into a corner where Shido was mindfucked enough to enjoy it, but I wasn't sure if that really counted, so I had to break the mind fuckery a bit, but not all that much...it was a huge pain. That scene was what I was working on right up until the very last minute.
Everything else I had a great time with. I had a lot of fun with Yayoi's secret weapon - the original is Riki-Oh's weakness of bullets cast over a burning Bible, fired to make the shape of an inverted pentagram in his chest (or was it a Star of David? I forget), but amped up a bit for Cain. And bringing in the little girl vampire from the well episode was fun, even if I'm not sure how obvious it was that it was her. Anyway, all those bits were fun, it was just the sex that gave me fits. But boy howdy did it give me some fits.
27 Jul 2023
The Edge of Tomorrow
Ashita no Joe
I wrote this actual years ago, just never posted it. I finally got off my butt in July, but this really shouldn't count as 2023 writing. I didn't even polish it up in 2023 like I did for Snow on the Ashes of Victory last year.
Anyway, I do like Joe having half-awake dreams about Rikiishi that might be being haunted. God, Joe is so good.
02 Sep 2023
Delights of the Heart
Fatal Fury
"Hm, I should write more SNK fic...and it should definitely be about characters who never appear in the games, using background from an untranslated, Japan-only book that was published in the 90s"
Yep, that's my style all right.
This was another one where my original ambitions were greater than the fic, but I think it's better that I pared this one down. It's all one narrow little point, after all. And that narrow little point is ideally the bit where the reader realises that Elsa is a self-justifying monster. Then again, that would require there being readers in the first place, which I'm not convinced happened. I don't care what the AO3 stats say.
It was originally a bit more rapey, but you can't have everything. Like, they'd get to the six before Elsa has her breakdown, but I couldn't drag it out any longer. So it goes.
Please notice how Rudolf's gaze is always described as things that weigh you down, and Elsa's touches are things that ensnare. That's on purpose! I was very clever!
21 Oct 2023
Chapter 22 of Legion (saint)
Castlevania: Lament of Innocence
This was a lot easier, because after I gave up on the original idea all I had to do was deliberately mirror the AoS fic. So here's Leon post-game, in contrast to J pre-game. They both met a happy family they can't belong to they have to help - J doing it voluntarily because that's all he knows, Leon unwillingly because that's what he can do. They both have automatic translators, J from technology and Leon from magic, and they're both suspicious of them. J can't remember, Leon can't forget.
I like Leon being completely unable to let go of his whip, and thinking of it as Sara. I don't care if it's not in the game.
I had vague ideas of writing Leon vs the spirit as a proper sword and sorcery tale, but ha ha, that's never happening.
More notes from the original, wild ambition:
Leon thinking of Mathias: men thought him cold, but Leon knew he loved deeply and grief would destroy him. Leon wonders what grief would do to him
Leon becomes considerate by rote, but cold inside.
Mathias thinking of Leon: loves and admires but a part of him wanted to see Leon hurt, so he would not suffer alone
Mathias becomes regretful, but uncaring
Eight flashforwards:
Leon on his deathbed
Dracula and Alucard, before
Leon and his sons
Dracula and emptiness - a Belmont is close?
Leon and his (then future) wife
Dracula and Death, after Lisa dying
The Belmonts getting kicked out of a village
CVIII - Dracula dying for the first time
(there's an old fic idea I stole from another a long time ago that heavily informed these ideas, it goes like this: "And I know this is overly specific, but Leon/Mathias tragic romance or friendship where they try to close their pre-LoI relationship on good terms because they both feel duty bound to sire heirs and also genuinely fell for two noblewomen and they're both discussing their hopes and worries about their children and generations to come but it's all interlaced with flash forwards of Leon drilling his personal crusade to kill the night into his children and young!Alucard is getting earfuls of rage and hatred for humanity from his dad and they're both effectively dooming their descendants to centuries of pain and conflict but when the story returns to Leon/Mathias they're both genuinely hopeful about the future." I do still want to write it...someday)
16 Dec 2023
Beyond the Time
Universal Century Gundam
Written for preppymadness in Yuletide 2023
And to close out the year, another exchange fic I struggled with up until the very last moment. But this one I didn't have any good ideas and it took me weeks to even sort out something worth writing down. And then I struggled with writing properly Tomino dialog, and with the overall arc making sense because even if Tomino is a space alien with a tin ear for dialog, he really does have a good grasp of how humans behave. Characters lie without saying they're lying, confidently say what they believe to be true instead of what is true, make assumptions about other character's motivations, and talk past each other constantly. It's just that all that's combined with completely bizarre dialog that no one would ever say, making everyone sound crazy.
Char's Counterattack adds on completely break-neck pacing, so even though everything is explained in the movie, it's really easy to miss stuff. Bright and Amuro explain everything that's going on (except Char's motivations, which honestly I don't think even Char understands - another very realistic detail), it's just that they do it in like a line and you're supposed to remember everything perfectly for the entire movie. It's brutal.
So all of that was a struggle, and since I was trying to imitate Tomino I also had to add in sex without adding in sex directly and that's also hard. Especially since I couldn't have the Sazabi remind Amuro of Char's dick. I wanted to give Char volume, but I don't think I succeeded. It's even harder because fundamentally I'm in the Obari "In the end, giant robots fight each other" camp.
So I dunno. 2023 was a year of writing struggle. Was it worth it?
...maybe?
I wrote a lot less in general. In the first part of the year I was frantically translating for Psychic Fire, but that stalled when Might's Gamest script was a huge pain in the ass. And it's not like I was working on the Mad SNK Project either, because I didn't finish KoF95 by the end of the year like I wanted either. I feel like I really let my hobbies down in 2023, though I did do a lot of yarn stuff. I really need to be better about scheduling and dedication.
I did make good on my wish to write more Psychic Force, but not nearly as much as I wanted and it was all concentrated in the front of the year. Sorry, Psychic Force.
04 Feb 2023
Duties and Responsibilities
Psychic Force
Like I said in the author's notes, I wrote this after playing Psychic Force and thinking "man, how crazy would it be to look out the window and see one of these fights? It would be so crazy". I originally thought this while playing on the Highway stage, but it ended up on the Eclipse stage instead. Hard to get a good view when you're speeding along the highway, after all. I'm also just sort of fascinated by what normal people would be thinking in this crazy psychic world. Like, realistically, of course they're all going to hate and fear psychics, the main guy arguing for psychics is a genocidal terrorist. Not an effective one, but still.
Anyway, I was thinking about all of that and I realised the battle where Gudeath kills Regina on Carlo's route is one we never see, but has some pretty big implications. I liked the reader having more knowledge about what the fight was about and what the consequences would be than the narrator. Sucks to be Regina, though.
There's also a bunch in there about helplessness and responsibility and talking shit on the other side of a screen. Good (?) lessons for the modern age. (THE NARRATOR IS US WE ARE THE NARRATOR)
16 Feb 2023
Chapter 10 of Fire and Ice
Psychic Force
As usual, I put out a little Burn/Keith fic for Keith's birthday. I really had just zero ideas last year, so I scrambled around for a bit and finally hit on "Puzzle Taisen fluff!" Hey, it got the job done.
A couple weeks afterwards I realised that 2023 was Keith's 30th birthday and that would allow a ton of angsty philosophizing, then I did literally nothing for the entire rest of the year. I spent months planning a Christmas fic and then spent my Christmas vacation reading Dante's Inferno instead. I'm terrible at this stuff.
16 Feb 2023
Electricity
Psychic Force
I mostly had this written in 2022, but I had to do a lot of polishing on it, just like Time last year. It feels a bit less well-put together than Time did, though. I think it's because with Time I had one very clear point, while Eletrcity is all over the place. Okay, time to establish Might's life in the future (that I had to totally make up!)! And his little sister! And his actual original mission! And how it got messed up! And fast! Yeah, it didn't work out so hot. Did you notice how in the ruined future, psychics all have nicknames based on the industrial items they're replacing? Yeah, I liked that bit.
The original nub of this fic was that Might's orders were encoded in a song and that's the song Patty sings, it all fits together...and that only ended up partially true and mostly just heavily implied. The encoding in a song was Patty's changing his orders to try and undo the bad future at the cost of her life, but it all related back to Might and Kate's song anyway (which was originally Patty's).
Anyway, I still like the fic. I like Wong winning and running everything into the ground, I like Kate, I like trying-to-be-a-good-brother Might, I like NOA being a mix of humans and psychics, I like I was able to fit a real yojijukugo in there.
Then I completely failed to write any more Psychic Force for the entire rest of the year aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
18 Mar 2023
From Ash, From Dust
Chrono Trigger
Written for silveradept in Worldbuilding Exchange 2023
The theme of exchange fics this year is struggle. Not a single one of these came easy. Every single one fought me every step of the way, and it starts here.
I had such big plans for this one. It would start with the Day of Lavos, go into what 1999 was like, go into how they survived, depending on robots for everything, then the hope at the end that the reader knows is the oncoming train. Noah and Athy were going to have a kid themselves and feel incredibly guilty about it. ...but it was all too ambitious and I had to keep cutting it down until arriving at the finished fic. I've still got 1.2K of Day of Lavos sitting on my hard drive, not doing anything.
A lot of the themes here are similar to Duties and Responsibilities. I was in a mood.
I do like my little tangent about lost history in the Chrono Trigger world. I love stuff like that.
09 May 2023
Chapter 21 of Legion (saint)
Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow
It's my AoS 20th anniversary ficlet! I can't believe it came out 20 years ago! Meditate on the all-devouring maw of time and know that you too will die and be forgotten!
Anyway, I had a ton of plans for my dual AoS-and-LoI anniversary fic. It would delicately intertwine both games into a beautiful tapestry! It would have flashbacks and flashforwards! It would have all sort of dramatic irony! It would contrast of comfort of an imagined past against the beauty of an imagined future and question what is real! It would have sixteen parts!
...anyway, that never had a chance of happening, especially not in such a low creative output year. I got to the deadline, realised it was never happening, and grabbed out a theme I could at least fit something into. So here's J, unknowing of his past, hesitant to find out but also unable to escape.
My original idea was so cool. But never happening.
Bits from my notes:
Soma remembers in the castle, Mathias dreams with Leon.
Soma loses himself in the castle, Julius finds himself
AoS:
Comfort, imagined past - flashbacks to truth (?)
Library - Soma - weird memories (the library his only comfort) - and like that he could almost pretend it was still 1086 and he was happy. Maybe he even had been
Chapel - Julius - a sense of the holy, but the church repels him, doesn't know if that's right (stories from Charlotte: the church once came to the Belmonts on bended knee)
Inner Quarters - Soma - meets Julius, weird and familiar, sees Leon within him without knowing (they walked together in Constantinople and for a moment it was all glorious)
Underground Cemetery - Julius - someone told him once there is nothing to fear from the dead (stories from Jonathan: the piles of bodies in a circus)
Clock Tower - Soma - the gears clicking in the rhythm of his heart. There's an old friend here, and the call grows ever louder (do you believe the world is ordered? - three times, each waifu and Death)
Arena - Julius - the stories never mentioned throwing up afterwards (what he has always suspected: there is no rest for those who return)
Throne Room - Soma - all the other Belmont battles, this is familiar, this is the rut of history (but there is more, castle politics and dancing)
Clock Tower - Julius (where VK is) - the heroes of the past have all been here, their names a burden on their descendants (Sara has watched them all, and they all stood in the clock tower and asked her: is the world is ordered?)
Chaotic Realm - Soma - 1999, to die drowning in regret is still to be at peace (but the resurrection goes on)
06 Jul 2023
Screws Fall Out
Nightwalker: The Midnight Detective
Written for Rose_Argent in Nonconathon 2023.
And here's another fic that was nothing but struggle. I had to bring my laptop with me when I went on vacation for the 4th of July just to force myself to work on it while I was sitting on the train. That did totally work, so I can't complain.
I had this idea a few years ago, because I knew I'd eventually be writing Nightwalker fic for Rose. The key nub was Riho charging Cain to save Shido while Shido was naked and mindfucked. And yeah, the final action sequence came pretty easily! It was the actual noncon that was a problem. I struggled a lot with how to handle that, since I wrote myself into a corner where Shido was mindfucked enough to enjoy it, but I wasn't sure if that really counted, so I had to break the mind fuckery a bit, but not all that much...it was a huge pain. That scene was what I was working on right up until the very last minute.
Everything else I had a great time with. I had a lot of fun with Yayoi's secret weapon - the original is Riki-Oh's weakness of bullets cast over a burning Bible, fired to make the shape of an inverted pentagram in his chest (or was it a Star of David? I forget), but amped up a bit for Cain. And bringing in the little girl vampire from the well episode was fun, even if I'm not sure how obvious it was that it was her. Anyway, all those bits were fun, it was just the sex that gave me fits. But boy howdy did it give me some fits.
27 Jul 2023
The Edge of Tomorrow
Ashita no Joe
I wrote this actual years ago, just never posted it. I finally got off my butt in July, but this really shouldn't count as 2023 writing. I didn't even polish it up in 2023 like I did for Snow on the Ashes of Victory last year.
Anyway, I do like Joe having half-awake dreams about Rikiishi that might be being haunted. God, Joe is so good.
02 Sep 2023
Delights of the Heart
Fatal Fury
"Hm, I should write more SNK fic...and it should definitely be about characters who never appear in the games, using background from an untranslated, Japan-only book that was published in the 90s"
Yep, that's my style all right.
This was another one where my original ambitions were greater than the fic, but I think it's better that I pared this one down. It's all one narrow little point, after all. And that narrow little point is ideally the bit where the reader realises that Elsa is a self-justifying monster. Then again, that would require there being readers in the first place, which I'm not convinced happened. I don't care what the AO3 stats say.
It was originally a bit more rapey, but you can't have everything. Like, they'd get to the six before Elsa has her breakdown, but I couldn't drag it out any longer. So it goes.
Please notice how Rudolf's gaze is always described as things that weigh you down, and Elsa's touches are things that ensnare. That's on purpose! I was very clever!
21 Oct 2023
Chapter 22 of Legion (saint)
Castlevania: Lament of Innocence
This was a lot easier, because after I gave up on the original idea all I had to do was deliberately mirror the AoS fic. So here's Leon post-game, in contrast to J pre-game. They both met a happy family they can't belong to they have to help - J doing it voluntarily because that's all he knows, Leon unwillingly because that's what he can do. They both have automatic translators, J from technology and Leon from magic, and they're both suspicious of them. J can't remember, Leon can't forget.
I like Leon being completely unable to let go of his whip, and thinking of it as Sara. I don't care if it's not in the game.
I had vague ideas of writing Leon vs the spirit as a proper sword and sorcery tale, but ha ha, that's never happening.
More notes from the original, wild ambition:
Leon thinking of Mathias: men thought him cold, but Leon knew he loved deeply and grief would destroy him. Leon wonders what grief would do to him
Leon becomes considerate by rote, but cold inside.
Mathias thinking of Leon: loves and admires but a part of him wanted to see Leon hurt, so he would not suffer alone
Mathias becomes regretful, but uncaring
Eight flashforwards:
Leon on his deathbed
Dracula and Alucard, before
Leon and his sons
Dracula and emptiness - a Belmont is close?
Leon and his (then future) wife
Dracula and Death, after Lisa dying
The Belmonts getting kicked out of a village
CVIII - Dracula dying for the first time
(there's an old fic idea I stole from another a long time ago that heavily informed these ideas, it goes like this: "And I know this is overly specific, but Leon/Mathias tragic romance or friendship where they try to close their pre-LoI relationship on good terms because they both feel duty bound to sire heirs and also genuinely fell for two noblewomen and they're both discussing their hopes and worries about their children and generations to come but it's all interlaced with flash forwards of Leon drilling his personal crusade to kill the night into his children and young!Alucard is getting earfuls of rage and hatred for humanity from his dad and they're both effectively dooming their descendants to centuries of pain and conflict but when the story returns to Leon/Mathias they're both genuinely hopeful about the future." I do still want to write it...someday)
16 Dec 2023
Beyond the Time
Universal Century Gundam
Written for preppymadness in Yuletide 2023
And to close out the year, another exchange fic I struggled with up until the very last moment. But this one I didn't have any good ideas and it took me weeks to even sort out something worth writing down. And then I struggled with writing properly Tomino dialog, and with the overall arc making sense because even if Tomino is a space alien with a tin ear for dialog, he really does have a good grasp of how humans behave. Characters lie without saying they're lying, confidently say what they believe to be true instead of what is true, make assumptions about other character's motivations, and talk past each other constantly. It's just that all that's combined with completely bizarre dialog that no one would ever say, making everyone sound crazy.
Char's Counterattack adds on completely break-neck pacing, so even though everything is explained in the movie, it's really easy to miss stuff. Bright and Amuro explain everything that's going on (except Char's motivations, which honestly I don't think even Char understands - another very realistic detail), it's just that they do it in like a line and you're supposed to remember everything perfectly for the entire movie. It's brutal.
So all of that was a struggle, and since I was trying to imitate Tomino I also had to add in sex without adding in sex directly and that's also hard. Especially since I couldn't have the Sazabi remind Amuro of Char's dick. I wanted to give Char volume, but I don't think I succeeded. It's even harder because fundamentally I'm in the Obari "In the end, giant robots fight each other" camp.
So I dunno. 2023 was a year of writing struggle. Was it worth it?
...maybe?