JajaLala

Time to look back on the fic I posted in 2025! This year I wrote less than previous years, primarily due to doing grad school part time during the whole year. Though education is good, it made me sad to not have as much free time for hobbies... Oh well! I still found ways to write some :D. Pretty much all My Hero Academia... despite the manga being over, somehow I'm still obsessed.

Boku No Hero Academia
( My Whole Life for Yours )

( Nagantbot )

( Dear Himiko, )

( Magical Girl All Might )

( A 'Straight' Girl's Guide to Dating Your Best Friend )


No fandom
( Comprehensive Ao3 Fic In a Fic (Dark/Light Mode Compatible) )

Technically, I started posting SushiLover69 left a comment... this year (AKA the reason I was working out that Fic-within-a-fic stuff), but that's incomplete so I'll discuss it more on the year I finish it.

As with last year, the NWA Fic Fight was a great way to stimulate my creativity and push out a few oneshots in June. Aside from that though, I just finished up a big multichapter from last year, pushed out a short concept multichapter in October (and I guess started posting the SushiLover69 fic towards the end with no set update schedule). Most years I have a big multichapter project that takes up much of the year, but I had to scale back. Looking at my word count on AO3 for the year, this year had the lowest word count in the past five years.

Which makes me EXTRA excited for this coming year! Without grad school, I'll have more free time and energy that could potentially include fic time. I'm currently dealing with an excess of WIPs--while being unable to commit to posting a scheduled multichapter, I nevertheless have been puttering and starting/stopping various concepts, and now I'm in a place where I kinda gotta choose one and commit, but making that choice is hard.

For now, I'm in the midst of putting together a more manageable 5-6 chapter fic that I wanna use to ease back into posting. I also technically have SushiLover69 going, but I wanna keep that very casual and unscheduled.

Of course, since I'm done with grad school I ALSO have committed to wanting to do more "for fun" classes and activities (dancing, guitar, etc) that might end up leading to me still not having as much fanfic time as I would like... but at least I won't have so much homework!

Yayyyyy I got to the end of the first draft of my "Vampires and Werewolves in Space" romance/adventure story....

...Now I have to edit XD.

I have a tendency to leave a lot of [CHECK] or [CHANGE X] or [ONE WEEK? TWO WEEK?] kinds of notes or even whole [GO BACK AND ADD INJURY EARLIER] type scene-adding notes while I'm writing, so since I got to the end of the draft I've been gradually going back and editing those, plus trying to lay out a proper timeline for the events so when characters say "I last saw this person [X] days ago" I know how long to put XD.

There are one or two people in my writing group (and my roommate) who have expressed an interest in reading it... I want to share in three parts, maybe finish editing the first part, share that, then work on editing the 2nd and 3rd part while they read the first etc... but also I worry that while editing the other parts I'll want to go back and edit the first part in some major way, so I feel like I have to have it ALL done before sharing... but then again, it'll probably keep changing and adjusting for a long while, and it's okay if the literal first readers see it in a slightly malleable state, and their feedback might be able to help guide the edits.

Anyways, now that I've at least completed the first draft of this original project, I've recently found myself drawn to fanfic once again...

( Fanfic Projects in the works )

Although I'm easily fired up by fanfic (I think the larger/easier amount of external validation AND the worldbuilding/characters being done so I can just mess around makes it appealing), it's been gratifying for the past ~8 months or so to focus on some original stuff and relearning how to exercise those muscles that require developing a world and characters from the ground up. I think I'll continue my policy of only working on original stuff during my weekly writing group. Although I originally set that policy out of embarrassment and not wanting to talk fanfic with the writer's group, I like that it forces me to stay connected with original project(s) even as I play with fanfic on other days of the week.

For now I'll probably spend most of writer's group editing, but at some point, I may start that lesbian regency idea involving the dominant femme duke's daughter and the submissive butch marquis's daughter... but editing comes first!

The trials and travails I mentioned in my previous post about my current writing project (werewolves+vampires in space) continue...

I thought adjusting some things and committing to a unique location was going to fix my meandering problem, but I ended up writing myself into another hole... I outlined to some degree, but part of my outline was pretty much "figure out what happens so [X] can happen!" and then I got there and was like... "HMMM...."

Once I got to sort-of the final fight scene of this larger section, I sat down to write it and when pausing to think about the mechanics, I asked myself "What does this fight scene provide? What is it pushing forward? How can it be unique and tell us something about the characters?" and somehow every way I rotated it all I could think was that it was convoluted and unnecessary and I didn't want to write it, but having no final fight there was unrealistic, and oof... Suddenly I had to confront the fact that despite my efforts, the direction I chose for this section was unstructured and messy and rife with issues caused by me just saying to myself "I'll figure out when I get there."

( More detailed specifics )

So I've got a lot of throwing stuff out and editing for the past 3-4 chapters to do :'(. Alas, it will make the story stronger.

I'm going to do my best to learn from this for the third section... Right now the third section's outline is literally just like, a few lines. Before I dive into it, I better really properly flesh out the outline so I don't end up writing myself into a corner and having to throw a bunch of stuff out again.

But hey! That's a Future Me problem! My current problem is to handle this section... I'll deal with the rest later :D

I've been going to a writer's group every week which is super fun and good for my sanity, but even though I'm a fanficcer most the time I decided to work on original stories while at the group. For awhile I was working on a novella with a different format than I usually do--diary entries by a woman in a haunted house who slowly realizes her boyfriend might be the real horror. I finished a first draft for that (ignoring all my "[LOOK UP X]" notes anyway), and I think it was fun to do and a nice low-pressure project to work on in a room full of other people, but now I want to dive back into writing original stuff that has more of a traditional story structure. Also, the haunted house story was kind of heavy/real/depressing, so I want to go the opposite direction with something light-hearted and fantastical... and what's more fun than vampires and werewolves?

( Details on the concept and its development )

Now here comes the struggle: After so long of writing fanfic, I'm suddenly having to WORLDBUILD again and I'm like "uh oh.... how does one do this??" Fanfic has opportunities to build and develop on what's there... but there's something there already! I can reference a wiki! I'm not working from scratch, I'm just using what's there or adding my own elaboration/details on what already exists. It provides a great foundation and structure.

Now as I'm writing this original story, I'm struggling almost every step of the way. I know what I want scenes in general to look like, but I try to describe a person and I'm like "Wait what kind of clothes would make sense for them to wear considering the planet and the history of the planet they're from?" and then I'm also like "they're an insular society whose main export is trees, are they still using the modern tech/buildings of the people who originally touched down on this planet, or have they gone more towards letting go of that to build with the resources that they develop for themselves rather than trading? Or is it the high-technology disguised as aesthetic trees/cabins etc to create a cohesive image which maintaining tech advantages?" and there's not necessarily a "right"' answer but I have to make a DECISION about what I want it to be, but also I don't feel INFORMED enough to make that decision... and every decision affects every other aspect of the world/universe/society....

Auhgudihgduhg it's a lot of work! I've been writing and trying to put stuff down as I get to it, but the spontaneous decisions I make along the way kind of don't make sense when you examine them, so I need to take a pause and pin down some things, especially about the planets/cultures and the overall design/intent with the spaceships. Otherwise I'm going to keep writing a bunch of nebulous stuff that will have to be heavily edited later.

But I wanna wriiiiite not worldbuild :'(. Really it's just that I'm not used to worldbuilding, so I've started dragging my feet and getting hesitant. To develop as a writer, I'm going to have to bite the bullet and properly face this task to become stronger.

I've asked my dear roommate (an author who comes up with creative/unique and nicely developed worlds that aren't too overwhelming) to share some of her wisdom with me tonight, but do any of y'all also have any thoughts/advice on world building? If you have any advice for spaceship design that's a bonus, but I'm also in general trying to develop certain cultures/planets as well, so I think anything helps.

So I finished a big longfic awhile back and have been in a break period. Specifically a break period from posting, I am still writing, but am mostly building up a new multichapter and an original story on occasion.

However... it turns out I have two oneshots in the wings that kind of snuck up on me. One of them is for a zine that's been puttering for awhile, I've had the oneshot finished for awhile but then put it down for ages until I realized it was due recently and finally went through to edit.

Then another is something that popped up recently--I joined an exchange event as a cheerleader/pinch hitter bc I was busy, but I still liked the theme and wanted to keep an eye on it... Well a mod reached out to me just a few days after I finished that final chapter of the big multichapter, and I was like "Whoa perfect timing a bunch of freetime just opened up"... and so I wrote 75% of a oneshot in a nice little flurry, and just recently went through and wrapped up that last 15% for a full draft.

Now I'm sitting pretty on two just-about complete oneshots like "Whoa! These popped out nicely." Though it's going to be a bit before I can "release" them.

( My ideal events )

So thesis statement: I shall continue to be a little picky about events, lean away from bangs, and maybe focus in on more pinch hit opportunities for exchange themes I like. To me I think that encourages the best kinds of oneshots for me... even though multichapters are still highkey my favorite type of story to write, an occasional oneshot is refreshing.

Okay I'm just gonna list out a bunch of different projects haunting my mind atm so I can lay them out and decide prioritization

( Currently posting huge multichapter fic )

( Multichapter in the wings )

( A shocking twist: M/F smut )

( Zine fic )

( Scripting a musical podcast? )

( Tragic Revolutionary Girl Utena fic )

( Angsty My Hero Academia fic )

Now please don't mind that I wrote this post instead of actually WORKING on any of these projects.... oop ^_^. I really should focus on my current multichapter, but I enjoy poking around at the other things as well...

I recently finished up my latest multichapter, the BNHA Villain!Momo fic. It's one I was really vibing with, I love raging women on a downward spiral, but I covered all the things I wanted to so it was time to wrap it up.

( What is past )

( What is current )

( What is future )

ACK I've been p absent from dw due to general busy-ness and some February blues, but I've been typing and typing, and finally finished typing up the last chapter of a fic I'm working on! It's a currently-posting multichapter with a buffer, so it'll be awhile before I actually get to post that final chapter, but that means I have some time to read through and edit those last chapters at a leisurely pace.

There was a final scene that I've been dying to write since the beginning, and as I was writing it out I literally started crying... which tbh is a lot of just me crying at the slightest provocation (if a movie's designed to make me cry, I'm all tears) but it felt cathartic! Hopefully when I reread to edit it'll still feel as moving XD. Endings are real hard, this one might seem too open-ended to some folks, but it resolves a central theme I've been hammering throughout, so I'm happy to end it on that note.

With that done, I'll finally be able to focus on some other fics guilt free... but there's a lot of directions to go! Currently....

( Possible next projects: )

ACK! It makes me a lil sad bc I love having long, rich plodding multichapters, and I think my next projects coming back to the front don't necessarily lend themselves to that, but it might be good to have a little drift time for awhile where I work on some relatively shorter things for awhile.

Woohoo! Return of the yearly Fic Retrospective! Last year I did a series for a couple years at once, since I had recently joined DW and wanted to collate a bunch of thoughts together, and DWs long formatting was PERFECT for it. I guess this means I've now been on DW for around a year, which wow!

Anyways 2022 I think was the year of trying out Big Bangs, Exchanges, Theme Weeks, and other such events XD. I've talked in my journal about various reflections on that in more detail, but I'll touch on some thoughts as I delve into the works themselves. Still, I luckily found some time to buckle down and focus on a few personal multichapters, though there were definitely moments I felt myself flagging. I also got a ergonomic keyboard and learned some VERY helpful wrist exercises that significantly helped some wrist issues that had been holding me back for the first half of the year or so.

So let's dive into it!

Boku no Hero Academia
( Dress Her Up )

( Ice in the Hot Springs  )

( To Ensnare a Rabbit )

( Kiss Her Knife's Edge )

( You say you hate my guts, but you're still coming back for more )

Fire Emblem: Three Houses
( Where Is My Werewolf Lover? )

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power
( Their Last Embrace )

Disney (Frozen/Sleeping Beauty)
( Careful Who You Don't Invite )

Basically I participated in a bunch of events. I branched out a bit more (especially thanks to exchanges due to the prompt nature of it) and tried some new things. Although events were fun, I think I'm gonna take a step back and focus more on personally-driven projects for 2023 (perhaps one or two exchanges/fan weeks). I learned that I really DO prefer multichapters over oneshots, so I think certain fan events just aren't the most suited to my preferred storytelling style. I'm at a pretty good spot in my life so I've had time/energy to write which has been lovely. I've also got some new tools to help with wrist issues which also helped me be pretty prolific this year.

Currently I do have one other work that I technically wrote during 2022, but have not posted bc it's for a Big Bang and my artist is delayed (or maybe dropping? Waiting to hear back from them, but I'm hoping to post with or without art soon bc it is long past deadlines). I also started publishing a new multichapter... a teen-rated BNHA fic focusing on Villain/Information Broker Momo, which I have a lot of ideas and a big outline for. I guess I'll have to review that for my 2023 retrospective!

hoo boy I am a slut for the little "complete" symbol on AO3 when I get to the end of a long multichapter, but ngl I feel some pressure when I get to the final chapter(s).

I'm gonna be posting my final chapter for a fic on Thursday, and ack. I have a draft written for it, read/edited once (but probably will again), but it doesn't quite feel like a huge bang to end on... I think for this work in particular, I had a very strong scene I really wanted to write that I considered the actual emotional climax that was written like, two or three chapters ago. Now the past few chapters have sort of been some aftermath stuff and working through some plotty things, and this final chapter I'm trying to resolve things but there's not really a "bang" to the ending if that makes sense.

I worry that it won't be fully satisfactory, but also I would rather just let it end than attempt to drag it on because I don't know what I'm doing. I also know there COULD be more and deeper to explore, but it's all stuff that I'm just not interested in writing. I got through my big emotional chapter, now I just wanna give some closure.

To be honest I almost always feel this way about endings... They're so hard, especially for long works where so much has built up over time, but I'm the kind of person who eventually loses interest and wants to end things properly, so forcing myself through the brutal wringer of "ending" things it is.