ao3 user changgus wrapped 2021
Jan. 5th, 2022 05:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hwitaeksso we already covered the things i let go in 2021, let's get into what i didn't.
my original plan for the year was to focus on longer, plot-heavier stuff which i really only managed to do once but hey....there's always this year. even though i ended up writing less than i planned to, i'm still pretty happy with everything i got done. published my first long (for me) fic, dabbled in posting new fandoms, even did two fests back to back (technically a 2020 activity but we're counting it).
wrote 30,836 words across 5 works and 3 fandoms. not super wild numbers but they are mine!
given how the past year has gone my writing goal for 2022 is to just vibe. what happens happens. and no more fests, i mean it this time.
that all being said - here's a breakdown of everything i published in 2021:
lips pressed close, hoshi/jun, e
to be honest this fic happened entirely because the prompt made me laugh. i did not think about the fact that i have never properly written svt in all my years of caratism or that i had no idea what this dynamic in particular looked like. i was entirely motivated by the intricate ritual of kissin' the homies goodnight.
this fic kicked my ass. in its earliest form it was idolverse and was going to be much longer. i think i still have the first couple paragraphs of that version saved somewhere in the dark corners of my google docs.
between real life goings on and the ptg fest writing period largely being at the same time, most of my original plans for this one got thrown out the window. instead, we went college au. idolverse is, as many of you may know, my favorite thing to write. however despite how much i love seventeen and how long i've just never gotten into their lore the way i have with my other groups? obviously i know things but not to level i personally would like for writing in that setting. i think removing any pressure about getting the history right was really necessary to getting this one done at all.
so no idolverse, but the college setting i think lends itself to the general themes i wanted to get across about family of choice, intimacy in friendship, watching wen junhui finger himself in a mirror.
in addition to the pairing, the format and flow of this fic were also a bit different for me. not necessarily quite linear, smaller vignettes of scenes. i think i put a lot of pressure on myself when it comes to the fandoms i write more regularly and not having that here really led me just try things.
also soonyoung is a very fun pov to write i would love to revisit him.
my love to lean on, hyojin/seungjoon, e
my baby, my darling, whom i carried for six months despite finishing the last 4k in a fevered 24 hours fueled by getting your first win on the 14th anniversary of meeting your boy best friends
this is to date the longest and most researched fic i have done. i think i could blink the berlin vlogs frame by frame like a human projector at this point. combing every piece of social media onf has ever even thought of having, spending three hours reading about german grocery stores, watching pov walk-throughs of routes in berlin where it feels like a youtube man is carrying you in a baby bjorn, zooming in on a blurry napkin to find the name of a cafe - this fic really put me to work.
but the fact that the berlin trip happened, the vlogs happened, and no one had done anything about it? could not stand.
by nature of this being a bigger project, i had to plan things a little differently than i normally do. for most of my fic once i have the base idea, whatever made me want to write that story in the first place, i usually just wing it. maybe i make a few notes somewhere if a scene is giving me trouble or i know i'm going to be putting the doc down for awhile and don't want to forget something. for this fic i planned everything before i started, mainly so i knew what direction i needed to research in.
i ended up scrapping a lot from my original notes and hand writing three pages of new ones instead, but the overall progression stayed the same.
i made notes of any scenes from the vlogs that felt important, any gaps i felt needed filling, certain emotional beats i wanted to hit. ex)
there are really only two big changes i can think of from the earliest versions of this in my head to the final product:
1) changyoon was originally going to play a much larger role. i really like writing his friendship with hyojin and i think even through the reduced screen time i ended up giving him you can tell that he's an important support to hyojin, as much as hyojin will let him be. there was a version of this fic where they were in berlin for longer and after seungjoon kisses hyojin, hyojin was going to call changyoon and tell him everything. it was going to be through that conversation that hyojin realized that loving seungjoon was something he was allowed to do.
ultimately i feel like keeping the focus of the story really narrowed on the bubble of hyojin and seungjoon made way more sense. the other members are on their minds, but this trip is about them.
2) seungjoon's pov. there was an earlier version that included a lot more of seungjoon's side of things. writing it out and having it in mind was definitely helpful in the scheme of things, but this one really needed to be about hyojin. about the specific ways his fears manifest and the way he navigates the world through them.
there are also things that stayed the same. i chose the title 'my love to lean on' way before i ever committed to making this fic anything. that's what's up by edward sharpe and the magnetic zeros has been on every hyojoon playlist i've made since i've known who hyojin and seungjoon are.
i also really wanted touch to be very important from the beginning. 90% of the earliest conversations i had about this fic and the hyojin characterization in particular were about touch, what it means, when he reaches out and how. we don't hold hands but why?
i was really conscious of every time hyojin is the one to initiate touching seungjoon and tried to keep it limited before and even after the confession. the shower, under the blankets, on the plane ride home. touch comes easier for seungjoon, he craves it. he'll do anything to get hyojin to touch him, even if it's in the form of smacking him around. YouCreateIntricateRituals.jpg for hyojin it's about control and responsibility. rules he has set for himself and will not break.
i made a point of having seungjoon touch hyojin's tattoos for this reason as well. hyojin's tattoos are something he has always hidden publicly but there's a vulnerability he allows himself with seungjoon when they're alone. seungjoon touches him in all his softest places and he lets him.
the ending, hyojin reaching out and taking seungjoon's hand, was also always the ending. there was never another option.
everything else i published this year were smaller projects so we'll lightning round through them.
if only for one second, shinwon/hongseok, e - my only pentagon production of the year which feels crazy. a bandom au was inevitable from me. a bandom au with the academy is... lyrics as the title even moreseo. with this one i wanted to try something different from my usual pattern with these two. also sprinkling a little bottom hongseok into the tag, because once again i am me.
out of here, changyoon/wyatt, e - this fic took so much longer to write than it had any reason to and i have no idea why. stole the prompt from a tweet pen made, was supposed to be just a light, silly little one-shot, somehow sprinkled feelings in there. it's what it's. i am happy with how this one came out. even if it was like pulling teeth to get there. one day i will not walk into a small fandom and say give me your rarest pair, this was not that day. shift into wytion mode with me friends.
as though it were you, hyojin/seungjoon, e - what is there to say about this one? what was i to do when given what we were given? we had briefly discussed in the gc going in a somno direction, i don't remember if anyone was committing to doing that. i don't feel like checking if this is true or not, but this felt like the most dialogue heavy thing i've written. they could not stop talking. anyway i think i've made tender melancholy idolverse my wheelhouse so this one was a good return to writing to wrap up the year.
so that's it folks! if anyone has any specific questions about these fics (or anything i'm doing) you can find my retrospring here.
my original plan for the year was to focus on longer, plot-heavier stuff which i really only managed to do once but hey....there's always this year. even though i ended up writing less than i planned to, i'm still pretty happy with everything i got done. published my first long (for me) fic, dabbled in posting new fandoms, even did two fests back to back (technically a 2020 activity but we're counting it).
wrote 30,836 words across 5 works and 3 fandoms. not super wild numbers but they are mine!
given how the past year has gone my writing goal for 2022 is to just vibe. what happens happens. and no more fests, i mean it this time.
that all being said - here's a breakdown of everything i published in 2021:
lips pressed close, hoshi/jun, e
to be honest this fic happened entirely because the prompt made me laugh. i did not think about the fact that i have never properly written svt in all my years of caratism or that i had no idea what this dynamic in particular looked like. i was entirely motivated by the intricate ritual of kissin' the homies goodnight.
this fic kicked my ass. in its earliest form it was idolverse and was going to be much longer. i think i still have the first couple paragraphs of that version saved somewhere in the dark corners of my google docs.
between real life goings on and the ptg fest writing period largely being at the same time, most of my original plans for this one got thrown out the window. instead, we went college au. idolverse is, as many of you may know, my favorite thing to write. however despite how much i love seventeen and how long i've just never gotten into their lore the way i have with my other groups? obviously i know things but not to level i personally would like for writing in that setting. i think removing any pressure about getting the history right was really necessary to getting this one done at all.
so no idolverse, but the college setting i think lends itself to the general themes i wanted to get across about family of choice, intimacy in friendship, watching wen junhui finger himself in a mirror.
in addition to the pairing, the format and flow of this fic were also a bit different for me. not necessarily quite linear, smaller vignettes of scenes. i think i put a lot of pressure on myself when it comes to the fandoms i write more regularly and not having that here really led me just try things.
also soonyoung is a very fun pov to write i would love to revisit him.
my love to lean on, hyojin/seungjoon, e
my baby, my darling, whom i carried for six months despite finishing the last 4k in a fevered 24 hours fueled by getting your first win on the 14th anniversary of meeting your boy best friends
this is to date the longest and most researched fic i have done. i think i could blink the berlin vlogs frame by frame like a human projector at this point. combing every piece of social media onf has ever even thought of having, spending three hours reading about german grocery stores, watching pov walk-throughs of routes in berlin where it feels like a youtube man is carrying you in a baby bjorn, zooming in on a blurry napkin to find the name of a cafe - this fic really put me to work.
but the fact that the berlin trip happened, the vlogs happened, and no one had done anything about it? could not stand.
by nature of this being a bigger project, i had to plan things a little differently than i normally do. for most of my fic once i have the base idea, whatever made me want to write that story in the first place, i usually just wing it. maybe i make a few notes somewhere if a scene is giving me trouble or i know i'm going to be putting the doc down for awhile and don't want to forget something. for this fic i planned everything before i started, mainly so i knew what direction i needed to research in.
i ended up scrapping a lot from my original notes and hand writing three pages of new ones instead, but the overall progression stayed the same.
i made notes of any scenes from the vlogs that felt important, any gaps i felt needed filling, certain emotional beats i wanted to hit. ex)
- so for seungjoon touching hyojin is easy not because he doesn’t have the same concerns but where hyojin wants to keep things private to make them real seungjoon feels like he doesn’t want to hide and that he’s in a way reclaiming something when he reaches for hyojin even on camera like it’s as much a part of him as anything else so why should he hide it for other people’s sake? seungjoon can hide in the veneer of fan service where as hyojin feels exposed by it
there are really only two big changes i can think of from the earliest versions of this in my head to the final product:
1) changyoon was originally going to play a much larger role. i really like writing his friendship with hyojin and i think even through the reduced screen time i ended up giving him you can tell that he's an important support to hyojin, as much as hyojin will let him be. there was a version of this fic where they were in berlin for longer and after seungjoon kisses hyojin, hyojin was going to call changyoon and tell him everything. it was going to be through that conversation that hyojin realized that loving seungjoon was something he was allowed to do.
ultimately i feel like keeping the focus of the story really narrowed on the bubble of hyojin and seungjoon made way more sense. the other members are on their minds, but this trip is about them.
2) seungjoon's pov. there was an earlier version that included a lot more of seungjoon's side of things. writing it out and having it in mind was definitely helpful in the scheme of things, but this one really needed to be about hyojin. about the specific ways his fears manifest and the way he navigates the world through them.
there are also things that stayed the same. i chose the title 'my love to lean on' way before i ever committed to making this fic anything. that's what's up by edward sharpe and the magnetic zeros has been on every hyojoon playlist i've made since i've known who hyojin and seungjoon are.
Well I was feeling such a mess I thought you'd leave me behind
Well I was feeling so upset I thought the sun never shined
Then I found forever
Hey hey love
We've been best friends forever darling
That's what's up
Forever
No matter what
You've got my love to lean on darling
That's what's up
You've got my love to lean on darling
No matter what
i also really wanted touch to be very important from the beginning. 90% of the earliest conversations i had about this fic and the hyojin characterization in particular were about touch, what it means, when he reaches out and how. we don't hold hands but why?
i was really conscious of every time hyojin is the one to initiate touching seungjoon and tried to keep it limited before and even after the confession. the shower, under the blankets, on the plane ride home. touch comes easier for seungjoon, he craves it. he'll do anything to get hyojin to touch him, even if it's in the form of smacking him around. YouCreateIntricateRituals.jpg for hyojin it's about control and responsibility. rules he has set for himself and will not break.
i made a point of having seungjoon touch hyojin's tattoos for this reason as well. hyojin's tattoos are something he has always hidden publicly but there's a vulnerability he allows himself with seungjoon when they're alone. seungjoon touches him in all his softest places and he lets him.
the ending, hyojin reaching out and taking seungjoon's hand, was also always the ending. there was never another option.
everything else i published this year were smaller projects so we'll lightning round through them.
if only for one second, shinwon/hongseok, e - my only pentagon production of the year which feels crazy. a bandom au was inevitable from me. a bandom au with the academy is... lyrics as the title even moreseo. with this one i wanted to try something different from my usual pattern with these two. also sprinkling a little bottom hongseok into the tag, because once again i am me.
out of here, changyoon/wyatt, e - this fic took so much longer to write than it had any reason to and i have no idea why. stole the prompt from a tweet pen made, was supposed to be just a light, silly little one-shot, somehow sprinkled feelings in there. it's what it's. i am happy with how this one came out. even if it was like pulling teeth to get there. one day i will not walk into a small fandom and say give me your rarest pair, this was not that day. shift into wytion mode with me friends.
as though it were you, hyojin/seungjoon, e - what is there to say about this one? what was i to do when given what we were given? we had briefly discussed in the gc going in a somno direction, i don't remember if anyone was committing to doing that. i don't feel like checking if this is true or not, but this felt like the most dialogue heavy thing i've written. they could not stop talking. anyway i think i've made tender melancholy idolverse my wheelhouse so this one was a good return to writing to wrap up the year.
so that's it folks! if anyone has any specific questions about these fics (or anything i'm doing) you can find my retrospring here.
