rionaleonhart | Far Across The Distance And Spaces Between Us.

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Far Across The Distance And Spaces Between Us.

It is once again time for the end-of-year fic meme!

Number of fics written in 2022: nineteen. (EDIT: Actually twenty, now that I've posted To a Flame!) You can find them on my AO3 account:

Riona. (Except my sole Taskmaster fic, which I posted to my secondary account

rionaleonhart. I originally created this account just for backdated older fanfiction, but it's where all my RPF lives, so it seemed the most appropriate place for my unexpected venture back into real-person fandom.)

Fandoms: The Book of Mormon, Do Revenge, Doctor Who, Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VIII, Final Fantasy X, Final Fantasy XV, Full Moon wo Sagashite, Horizon Forbidden West, How to Get Away with Murder, Life Is Strange, Life Is Strange: True Colors, Persona 5, Revolutionary Girl Utena, Taskmaster, Zanki Zero: Last Beginning. Nine videogame fandoms, two television fandoms, two anime fandoms, one film fandom, one real-person fandom, one stage musical. Mostly fandoms I'd written for already, although I ventured into a few new ones. (EDIT: With the addition of Life Is Strange 2, it's now ten videogame fandoms.)

Two crossovers: Across the Distance (Final Fantasy VII/Final Fantasy X) and Negi Ramen Blasts Off (a Pokémon fusion for Full Moon wo Sagashite). (EDIT: To a Flame (Life Is Strange/Life Is Strange 2) brings this number up to three.)

Best title: I don't really have any standout titles, but I like Empty Space as a title for my Revolutionary Girl Utena Miki/Kozue fic; I think it feels tonally fitting.

Worst title: Very unfortunately, Across the Distance (Final Fantasy VII/Final Fantasy X) is the second fic I've named after the same line from Celine Dion's 'My Heart Will Go On'. (The first was my 2021 Persona 4 fic Between Us.) Negi Ramen Blasts Off (Full Moon wo Sagashite/Pokémon) is also pretty bad.

Best first line: Squall chokes back to consciousness, his eyes flying open, a thousand things rushing into his mind at once. (Truth, Final Fantasy VIII)

Worst first line: A sound. Footsteps, breaking into a run. (Wasteland, Final Fantasy VIII) - it's not horrendous, but I think I launched slightly too abruptly into this fic and I should have included at least a few lines before Zell showed up. It's strange that both my best and my worst first lines are very abrupt openings to Final Fantasy VIII fics, but the opening of Truth is supposed to be abrupt and overwhelming. Being abrupt doesn't really fit the tone of Wasteland: the slow but inescapable realisation that there's no way out.

Best last line: “Plus he’s got a nice ass,” Jack says. (Three Sides, Doctor Who) - I make no apologies. I also like 'They’re touching each other with blood on their hands, yes. But they’re still touching each other, and that’s better than murder, at least.' (Handprints, How to Get Away with Murder)

Worst last line: Actually, looking through my last lines this year, I'm okay with all of them!

Looking back, did you write more than you thought you would this year, less than you thought, or about what you predicted?

Maybe slightly less? At the moment, I expect about 50,000 words of fanfiction a year; I wrote 42,000 in 2022. I also wrote over 16,000 words of fiction for the project I mentioned in this access-locked post, though.

(EDIT: To a Flame brings the wordcount up to 47,000, pretty much exactly hitting expectations.)

What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted last year?

Writing Doctor Who fanfiction for the first time in a decade (Three Sides) was a bit of a surprise, but it's nothing compared to my bewilderment at writing for Taskmaster (If No One Moves, archive-locked). I genuinely thought I'd never write RPF again! Somehow I have learnt nothing from my extensive track record of going 'I'm definitely not going to write this' and then writing it.

What’s your favorite story this year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you the happiest.

I spent a while combing through my fics from the year, desperately hoping my answer would not be the Taskmaster fic, but I'm afraid it's the Taskmaster fic (If No One Moves, archive-locked). Greg and Alex's on-screen dynamic is just so weird, and I had a blast working with it.

Okay, NOW your most popular story.

By a long way, it's Material Evidence (Do Revenge), with 533 kudos. Do Revenge had a short-lived but intense fandom; it only has 88 works on AO3, but evidently a fair few people were interested in reading fanfiction for it, possibly because Drea and Eleanor had incredible chemistry and yet failed to make out in canon.

Story most underappreciated by the universe?

Negi Ramen Blasts Off (Full Moon wo Sagashite/Pokémon) got a grand total of nineteen hits and four kudos, but Full Moon wo Sagashite is a long-dormant fandom, so I wasn't really expecting it to have much of an audience. Sometimes you have to write things solely for yourself!

Honestly, since posting my Last of Us Part II fic In Fainter Ink in 2020, I've realised any reception that's not 'four different people commented on this fic to say how much they hated it' is a good reception.

Story that could have been better?

I'm a little dissatisfied with Debts (Final Fantasy XV), but maybe it's unfair of me to hold it to high standards when it was just a quick fic for a fun little promptfest. I might just be uneasy that it's one of the most-kudosed things I wrote this year, even though most of the other things I wrote were more polished. Maybe I should just accept the fact that people seemed to enjoy it.

Sexiest story?

Probably Handprints (How to Get Away with Murder), specifically the part that draws parallels between the sex and the murder/body disposal the characters previously carried out together, because apparently that's what I'm into.

Saddest story?

I think it's got to be Truth (Final Fantasy VIII), in which Squall and Rinoa grapple with the deaths of their friends and the potential end of the world.

Most fun?

Both Material Evidence (Do Revenge) and If No One Moves (Taskmaster, archive-locked) are about fucked-up relationships with a lot of conflict and a lot of chemistry, making them extremely fun to work with.

Story with single sweetest moment?

Redrawing the Map (The Book of Mormon) includes Elder Cunningham writing a commandment into his holy text with the specific aim of making Elder McKinley feel better, which I suppose is pretty sweet?

Most fucked-up story?

Empty Space (Revolutionary Girl Utena) is about Miki struggling with uncertainty over whether he banged his own twin sister or not, which is admittedly pretty fucked up.

Hardest story to write?

Possibly Bound Together (Zanki Zero: Last Beginning). I'll be honest: it's hard to get seven people into a situation where they might plausibly bang, and I'm still not entirely sure I managed it.

Easiest/most fun story to write?

I had a great time writing Something Incredible (The Book of Mormon), in which God starts talking to Kevin and Kevin can't handle it. I love watching Kevin get overwhelmed in canon, so it was a lot of fun to come up with a concept calculated to overwhelm him.

Did any stories shift your perception of the characters?

Writing from the perspective of the mostly-silent Persona 5 protagonist in Puppetry was a really interesting experience! I think it helped to define his character more clearly in my head.

It was also interesting to write about Ted Faro in The End (Horizon Forbidden West). Like everyone else, I walked away from Horizon Zero Dawn going 'Ted Faro is unequivocally the worst and I hate him', but then Horizon Forbidden West made him interesting to me! Sympathising with him as I wrote this fic was a very weird experience.

Most overdue story?

I started writing Negi Ramen Blasts Off (Full Moon wo Sagashite/Pokémon) nine years ago, although I never got more than a couple of hundred words in. After finishing a Full Moon rewatch and getting reinvested, I finally blew the dust off it and ended up with a 6,000-word fic.

Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them?

I really struggle with writing sex scenes, even non-explicit ones, and it always feels like a risk to try. I'm glad I made the effort with Handprints (How to Get Away with Murder). The characters discussed having an orgy in canon; someone had to write it! I hope, in the future, I can continue tackling ideas even if they touch on areas where I lack confidence as a writer.

Empty Space (Revolutionary Girl Utena) was also the first incest fic I've written in over a decade, and, now that large sections of fandom are strangely puritanical about what it's okay to depict in fiction, I wondered whether anyone would give me a hard time about it. But it was fine! Although I suppose any Utena fan who's opposed to fictional depictions of incest is in the wrong fandom.

It's the fifth time I've done this meme, and I always enjoy it! It's a nice way to reflect on the year.

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Ooh, you had a prolific year!

I like that "They're touching each other with blood on their hands" line!

...yeah, if someone is outraged by fictional incest, Revolutionary Girl Utena would be a weird choice for them to be a fan of.

Thank you!

I did once see an Utena fan on Tumblr who had 'Proshippers fuck off' in their bio and had reblogged multiple posts about how writing fanfiction about incest is bad, and I've been puzzling over it ever since.

I loved Truth. I meant to go back and leave a longer comment but suddenly it was many weeks later and I've lost all sense of time and space. But what I wanted to remark on is that Rinoa's actions are only what a teenager would think was appropriate in that situation, and I was so about that.

But your dip into the Do Revenge pool was 100% the MVP.

Thank you so much! Although obviously Rinoa makes only the best, most grown-up decisions in that fic and I don't know what you're talking about.

I love that your vote for sexiest story is a How To Get Away With Murder fic. Never change!

I'm always astounded by the fictional output you can sustain while also having a job and working on other projects. I'm also always impressed by the array of fandoms you write for; when I'm in a heavy writing time (not for over a decade now) it tends to be because I've fallen into a fandom to an obsessional degree and all my output gets centred on that fandom. I think it's great though! I kind of miss being able to do these kinds of memes, which I still wouldn't be able to do very well at the end of December, but since my sole fictional output this year is my ongoing Yuletide fic right now I can very helpfully just say the answer to all is Undisclosed Title in Undisclosed Fandom!! Super mysterious, haha. Now I shall go back to poring over my characterisation.

-timydamonkey

I sometimes feel a little bad for writing for so many different fandoms; presumably there are people who've subscribed to me in the hope that I'll put out more for something specific, and instead I'm zooming around, writing for anything that catches my attention. I just don't have the attention span to put down roots in one place!

I think I'd get restless if I didn't write about everything I loved, though. It's part of the way I process and understand fiction. If I finish a game but don't write fanfiction for it, have I really finished the game?

Good luck with your Yuletide fic!

I must admit, I originally started reading your journal hoping for more infinitely depressing fic about James Sunderland - you had extra here (well, as in on LJ, I mean) due to fanfic100! Then I stayed as I enjoyed reading your impressions and having fun discussions!

I do understand! I don't always fic these days and when I've really enjoyed something or been fascinated by it, I go into a bit of a stupor and think of nothing else and very much go into my own little world. I seek fanfic, but as we know, what I'm interested in is often at odds with fandom so I don't tend to find reams of it these days. I don't have anybody IRL to tell about my impressions, and with the closure of forums and the rise of social media networks, this is largely the only place I come now to discuss anything fannish as while we don't share every fandom, we have very similar tastes and it's just nice to be able to enthuse over things. I miss being able to go and read through forum impressions because it all gets caught in live feeds and if you're not reading it at the time, it's gone.

Thank you for the luck! I'm at the traditional part of writing where you think it's the worst thing you have ever written, but that happens every time I write these days and I will come out of it, because I always do - worrying at the time though!

Infinitely depressing fic about James Sunderland is clearly the best way to meet someone.

I'm glad I can provide a space for enthusing over things! I really appreciate Dreamwidth for preserving the social long-form blogging format of original Livejournal; I know the internet's moved from text-based social media through image-based social media and into video-based social media, but text is still what I'm most comfortable with. It's good to know there are still places online where you can just talk, even if Dreamwidth is never going to be the biggest social media site.

Wow! I always knew that you were a pretty prolific writer, but I had no idea that your average annual word count was so high. Congratulations on all the work, especially the secret project!

I haven't read any of your fics from this year (lots of fandoms I don't know), but I did enjoy reading your thoughts on them! I might grab this meme format and do a recap of all my fics from the last decade for it. 🤔

Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed reading this, and I encourage doing this meme; it's a fun way to reflect.

Okay, to try and stop myself commenting “I only wrote one story and I can’t even talk about it” every year, I’ve decided to have a go at this using all the stories I have posted on AO3. This excludes many, many FFN only fics so it does its job in just being a “sample” of my writing, even if it is a sample over a long period of time.

Amount of fics counted: 18

Fandoms covered: Heavy Rain, Harry Potter, The Walking Dead Video Game, Hannibal, Warchild Series, 999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors, Demonata Series, New Tricks, Exit/Corners. 4 video games, 3 book series, 2 TV series.

Crossovers: Kingdom Hearts/D.Gray-Man

Best title:

A Sight For Sore Eyes (Demonata). I like my pun or humorous only to me titles, and this one works on multiple levels: a twisting of the saying itself, where Lord Loss is pleased to see Kernel and his general misery, at the beginning Kernel is pleased to find an end to his loneliness, and also the double meaning for Kernel (who experiences canonical eye gore twice, and I do press on this particular point in the fic). As a bonus it also rhymes with “you look a fright”, which Kernel definitely does for some of this story. I felt it was an extremely fitting title and the recipient also commented on the title, so at least it didn’t only amuse me!

Worst title:

Reflections (Warchild) It’s just a bit generic, I think?

Best first line:

Tie between

“There’s a man walking in the kitchen and he might not be alive.” - Fairy Tale (The Walking Dead Video Game)

“It starts not with a presence, but an absence.” - A Sight For Sore Eyes (Demonata)

Worst first line:

I’ve never noticed except when writing this where I’ve gone through a bunch of my stories back to back, but I use variants of “It started like this” as openings way too much. Though how well they work is variable – you’ll notice I liked the one above, whereas I didn’t like this one.

“It began on a station.” - The Many Facets of Home (Warchild)

Best last line:

It’s a tie again.

“I sit. There’s nothing else I can do. I’d already done it all.” - In the Moment (999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors) This is happening concurrently with the incinerator scene, when our intrepid narrator is no longer able to take any action despite their general actions within the game, as they simply have to rely on what had already been and on Junpei. I think it has a nice sense of finality as well as a sense of helplessness.

“So many people were dead. She couldn't afford to break now, because she was alive. She had to live. It felt like a punishment.” - Liturgy (Heavy Rain). I liked the idea that Lauren, in mourning, would feel that given everything that had happened in the course of the game, her surviving and living on despite all the vast trails of destruction would seem more like a punishment than anything helpful.

Worst last line:

“Just watch us!” - A Sight For Sore Eyes (Demonata). I always feel this one sounds like I’ve asked myself “how do I end this scene?” then shrugged and went with this, but at the time I felt it was a canon like exchange. It just doesn’t necessarily hold up very well.

What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted?

A Trip Down Memory Lane - I watch very little TV so me writing New Tricks fic was definitely a surprise, but I was actually really pleased with how it came out and I got to explore my favourite character. I’d originally considered writing from Brian’s POV but I got the impression the recipient wasn’t too big of a fan of present tense, and I would have only written Brian’s POV in present tense – past tense is too ‘together’ seeming for a character who is distinctly quirky, paranoid and a conspiracy theorist. So I wrote from Esther’s POV instead but I’m proud of it.

What’s your favorite story? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you the happiest.

Cycles (Heavy Rain) – I had the most fun with the narrative of this one.

The Many Facets of Home (Warchild) – This might be cheating a little bit since this is really three stories thematically exploring the idea of home, but I was very proud of not only producing three fics, and taking three very different narratives and opinions. I am proud of all three of them, but particularly the second chapter/story.

Okay, NOW your most popular story.

Fairy Tale (The Walking Dead Video Game) – 97 kudos, 8 comment threads. (By contrast my next highest kudos is Cycles with 42 so it is significantly so.) It was, if I recall, the second fic on AO3 for this fandom at the time of writing (possibly also the time of posting).

Honourable mention to A Trip Down Memory Lane (New Tricks) which picked up not only a few nice comments but a rec on the dreamwidth Yuletide community for the first time ever – not bad for a genfic about a middle-aged married couple in a pretty obscure fandom.

Story most underappreciated by the universe?

Looking at comments for this one, and I’d say probably A Sight For Sore Eyes (Demonata)? It’s very much a fic of two halves: I’m very proud of the Lord Loss POV at the beginning which I could write disturbingly well, then it takes Kernel’s POV in the first person which isn’t as strong but I think it hits the canon voice well enough and I always found Kernel and Lord Loss’ interactions to be fascinating. I do think the Lord Loss POV is noticeably stronger though so the fic’s voice gets weaker. In any case, the Demonata is not a big fandom, with very few readers, and the characters I’m interested in are different to the very tiny fandom in any case, and it shows.

Story that could have been better?

Short Sighted (Hannibal) – is intended as a bit of a character study, but even by my bar, it doesn’t really go anywhere. I think if I were to write it nowadays it’d be quite a bit longer and explore more of Will’s revelation and probably would contrast it with his total confusion – I’d just approach the story differently.

Sexiest story?

I laughed at this given I really don’t write anything sexy nor do I intend to.

Maybe The Many Facets of Home (Warchild), story 2: Patchwork (Yuri’s POV)? I guess it would be this by default as I was writing the POV of a character who was effectively a prostitute for a long while and is very unashamed of this in their narrative. I wondered how to deal with that in his POV given my retinence to write about certain subjects but the writing style in the series lends itself quite well to addressing things without addressing them in detail as such, so all the side on references I got in there genuinely somehow makes it the sexiest story, by my standards? Haha.

(I actually went through the fic for this meme and got more references in that I remembered:

“I paint on a smile like geisha paint, and focus on feeling again. If I smile enough, maybe I’ll feel it, all the way down to my heart.”
“My heart left the pirate mindset years ago, though my head didn’t. But you didn’t need to have heart to screw people. That was practically a pirate motto.”
“Fuck a pirate and get fucked in return, it seems.”)

Saddest story?

Fairy Tale (The Walking Dead Video Game) – it was always going to be with that ending. I loved Lee and Clem’s interactions – found family is totally my thing – and as a story fully exploring their friendship it was always going to have to end in only one way.

Most fun?

Gosh, I don’t know if you’d exactly call any of my stories fun to read. Maybe Wager (D.Gray-Man/Kingdom Hearts crossover) because instead of it being focused on anything heavy like my normal subject matter, it is literally an excuse to throw Allen, Tyki and Luxord together as they all play cards and I thought Nobodies went quite amusingly alongside Tyki’s whole “I can grab your heart out of your chest and kill you” thing.

Fun to write? I enjoyed Cycles (Heavy Rain) a lot, with its narrative being heavily self-deceptive and unreliable, until the killer admits their motives to themselves and drops a good chunk of the self-deception. I enjoy unreliable narrators and don’t often get such an opportunity to write them.

Story with single sweetest moment?

Fairy Tale (The Walking Dead Video Game) – Is this unexpected due to it also being saddest story? It does have some pretty sweet moments though, I’m particularly fond of Clem’s dream of Lee being a knight coming to rescue her in a fairy tale, before of course reality ensues.

Most fucked-up story?

Possibly Cycles (Heavy Rain), given its unapologetic voice of a serial killer? Or A Sight For Sore Eyes (Demonata) for the fact I literally wrote a section of the fic about Kernel’s eye trauma, both the initial one and where his ally rips his eyes out again? I guess that’s pretty fucked up though both events are in canon!

Hardest story to write?

The Heart of the Matter (Exit/Corners). For a few different reasons – I wanted to create a stilted point of view that broke down into something more human as Sent awoke emotions, effectively, but I didn’t want it to sound like parody, so that was difficulty one. In all honesty, the hardest bit was that I was always going to write it from the third person, but I could not settle on what pronouns to use for “I’m not a man”, “I’m not a woman” Sent. In the initial draft I went with he, since that’s what I tend to default to when I think about Sent – and I believe Sent is referred to as “he” in at least one of the ‘previously’ recaps, though I’m pretty sure that’s before said not a man/not a woman conversations. After days of stressing over what sounded right or not and about feeling like there was no right answer, in the end I realised that since I was writing for Yuletide, it was really my recipient that I had to try and get it right for. In the end I went back to the recipient letter to see what they went with, and they’d gone with ‘their’ so they and their it became.

Easiest story to write?

Seventeen Years (Harry Potter) – This very bitter Snape POV and character study was surprisingly easy to write, flowed really well, and was all written in one sitting which is rare for me nowadays.

Did any stories shift your perception of the characters?

I feel like I came to understand the killer’s character more via writing Cycles (Heavy Rain) since the game doesn’t really give a satisfactory look into the killer’s head simply because it would give too much away. Having to work out how the character justified certain things led to me appreciating the character more.

For similar reasons, In the Moment (999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors) takes Akane’s POV and tries to look at her view of the events of the Nonary Game and her interpretation of events, given she has a more unique perspective. It was written pre-Zero Time Dilemma so it probably doesn’t hold up as well, but it was a very interesting perspective to tackle and I enjoyed it a lot.

Most overdue story?

I can’t really say this for anything posted, but I really need to finish that Warchild fic that I started a few years ago and didn’t get the time to finish, as what I have written of it is genuinely some of my favourite writing, but I’m sort of worried to start writing again as I feel the writing will plummet downhill from the break.

Did you take any writing risks? What did you learn from them?

That to some degree you need to move past doubts, because if you don’t, you’ll never actually write anything – The Heart of the Matter (Exit/Corners) has had a fairly nice reception as far as I’m concerned, but my writing of it and even my posting of it kept stalling over my worry of how to approach it, which would have prevented me from writing a fic that I really quite like.

-

One thing that occurs to me is that if you looked at my “recent” stories, you’d think my preference is for first person fic, but I actually strongly prefer third person. (I’m a big fan of second person too, but only where I feel it’s appropriate to use it – used well, it is excellent. Used poorly, it’s awful.) But if I’m writing from a book series written in first person, I’ll take to first person – for Warchild in particular, writing not in first person just seems wrong (except for Ryan). The writing style lends itself much better to first person and it explores the characters better, and given my penchant for being assigned Warchild for Yuletide there’s a lot of first person fic there.

-timydamonkey

Nice work on the title A Sight for Sore Eyes! I'm very bad at titles and I'm always impressed when someone comes up with the perfect one.

I love your picks for best first/last lines, especially the ending of Liturgy.

past tense is too ‘together’ seeming for a character who is distinctly quirky, paranoid and a conspiracy theorist.

This is really interesting! I know what you mean; past tense does feel more composed than present, in a way.

I have to applaud you for writing from Sent's perspective; that sounds incredibly difficult to me. I wouldn't know where to start.

Hi!! I was skimming back since you subscribed and reading that you got four reviews from people literally telling you they hated the thing actually made me angry on your behalf lol.

Nice to meet you, anyway! Did you find me through Sholio's post? I'm also Senri on AO3, loved your Hunger Games/Animorphs crossover!

Hello! You've correctly identified the route I took to find you; I spotted you in

sholio's comments and was intrigued by your icon of Joshua Kiryu, who is a terrible little shit I'm extremely fond of. It's nice to meet you!

reading that you got four reviews from people literally telling you they hated the thing actually made me angry on your behalf lol.

Ha, I appreciate it! It turns out a lot of people don't like introducing polyamory to a popular canonical pairing, which is fair enough, but in that case I'm not sure why so many of them clicked on a fic that was clearly labelled as polyamory.

Thank you for your kind comment on the Hunger Games/Animorphs crossover, too! I enjoyed writing that one a lot, and it's nice to be reminded of it.

Not clicking and not saying shit is FREE, people!!!! I think some people just don't read tags, or mentally block them out somehow? I skimmed through the fic and it seemed perfectly fine. I'm not canon familiar, but the one thing I might say is I osmosed it introduced a male character to a f/f ship? People might be more sensitive because of that, I guess - but tbh I am still of the opinion that playing around with ships in any permutation is FINE when it comes to fanfic. People just don't pay attention lol

Nice to meet another TWEWY fan too! To this day I love that game; I watched the anime and started a replay this summer before stalling out on the first time playing Reaper Creeper (I am so BAD AT IT) and school starting. Still would love to do a replay one of these days. Joshua and Shiki are my faves, but as a whole the game's world is just delightfully realized, which is why I think it's had such long staying power for me.

:D :D :D Nice to meet you too and glad to review! I grew up reading Animorphs and am always so glad to run across new and unfamiliar fic for it.

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Far Across The Distance And Spaces Between Us.

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