forestofglory

My Very Own Star (15102 words) by Forestofglory
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 山河令 | Word of Honor (TV 2021)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Wen Kexing/Zhou Zishu
Characters: Wen Kexing, Zhou Zishu, Zhang Chengling, Gu Xiang (Faraway Wanderers), Han Ying (Word of Honor), Qin Jiuxiao, Ye Baiyi, Luo Fumeng
Additional Tags: Howl’s Moving Castle AU, Zhu Zishu as Sophie, Wen Kexing as Howl, because we all know which one of them would throw a green slime fit over a minor hair problem, xianxia setting, the indignity of being followed around by a magical tower, Found Family
Summary:

To escape his life in the capital Zhou Zishu curses himself transforming into an old man. He planned to spend his few remaining days wandering from place to place enjoying the small pleasures of life. He’s not expecting to be responsible for a bereaved teenager or have to deal with a mysterious moving tower and its annoying occupant.

Or a Howl’s Moving Castle fusion.

I've been working on this of and on for almost a year and I'm excited to finally have posted it!

With Your Road so Long and Difficult (3426 words) by Forestofglory
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 陈情令 | The Untamed (TV)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn & Wēn Qíng
Characters: Wēn Qíng (Módào Zǔshī), Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn, Granny Wēn (Módào Zǔshī), Lán Yuàn | Lán Sīzhuī
Additional Tags: Space AU, In SPAAAACE with magic, Gardening, Worldbuilding, ancient unknowable technology, Found Family
Series: Part 3 of The Other End of the Sky
Summary:

On a mysterious abandoned spaceship a family grows.

This the first fic I've posted this year! I thought I was done with this space AU after I hacked a bit out of the longer story I abandoned to post "Gone to the Other End of the Sky" but a few months ago I was thinking about it again and got the idea for this fic.

2021 was not the best writing year for me, a lot of the time writing was difficult, and I was only able to write small amounts at a time. Nonetheless those added up, and I wrote some things I’m proud of.

I wrote four pieces for Lady Business:
Short & Sweet: Very Short Fiction
Short & Sweet: Blast from the Past
Adventures in Classical Chinese
The Layered Pleasures of Alternative Universe Fic

Two of these posts were for Short & Sweet, my column about short SFF. Sometime in the middle of the year I realized that I was not reading enough short SFF to continue writing about it regularly, which is a bummer! I like short SFF and I think it doesn't get talked about enough. However I just haven’t had the focus to read it since the pandemic started.

Then I wrote about my new fandom adjacent hobby of learning Classical Chinese. And finally I wrote about AUs! It was fun to write a critical essay about fanfic, and I’m especially proud of that piece.

Another writing milestone for 2021 was that I was long listed for the Best Fanwriter Hugo! It’s an honor that I was not expecting at all.

Over the year I kept up with a couple of recurring series here. One was Observations my twice monthly posts about natural and built environments. I also posted Media Round Ups at least monthly where I talked about things I had been reading and watching recently. Over the year I managed to post here at least once every week.

As well as writing criticism I wrote fanfiction as well. In 2021 I posted seven fics and 39,372 words of fic to AO3.

The first four of the fics I posted where for The Untamed:

Gone to the Other End of the Sky
(5,168 words, Gen Space AU) This was part of the longer space AU project that I started and abandoned. This section works ok on its own, so I cleaned it up and posted it.

Family Economy (10889 words, Jing Ling & Luo "Mian Mian" Qingyang) The third story in my series “Your Life Again, Your Life Anew”

Letters (1633 words, gen) After reading Letters and Epistolary Culture in Early Medieval China by Antje Richter I wanted to try writing letters in the format mentioned so I asked for prompts on Twitter.

To Live Without Regrets (16,341 words, Teen, Lan Wangji/Wei Wuxian) I wanted to write a fic exploring Lan Wangji's Chief Cultivatorship, and his post-cannon feeling about justice and I was finally able to do that here.

Then I wrote three short Word of Honor fics. These are all a bit structurally weird, but I enjoyed writing them!

Knowing Everything in the World (1393 words, Gen, Chengling focused) I wrote this mostly to play around with the idea that Drunk like a Dream is memory enhancing drug.

The River Moon is Waiting (2260 words, teen, Space AU told in vignettes) I had a lot of worldbuilding ideas for this Space AU but not a lot of plot ideas, so I wrote this to play around with the world.

Correspondence (1688, Gen, Zhang Nianxiang centric, epistolary) I really love writing epistolary fic, and it was fun to play around with some minor characters that I like.

This year so many people encouraged me to write, spitballed ideas with me, helped me with research questions, read and commented on drafts, and copy edited my work. None of this would have been written or posted without help. Thank you so much to everyone who supported me!

Overall, 2021 was a year of slow but steady writing for me. In terms of criticism I was not as prolific as in 2020, but I still wrote some good pieces. I posted slightly more fic in 2021 than in 2020. I hope that in this new year I’ll be able to find more time and energy for writing. I'm excited to write more criticism about transformative fandom, and to work on my story crafting skills.

My write for 15 minutes every day plan has resulted in another small weird fic. This one is mostly space AU worldbuilding without a lot of plot, because space worldbuilding is fun.

The River Moon is Waiting (2260 words) by Forestofglory
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 山河令 | Word of Honor (TV 2021)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Wen Kexing, Zhou Zishu
Additional Tags: Space AU, Gardens, Vignettes, Worldbuilding, Implied Child Abuse, canon typical suicidal ideation, Self Harm
Summary:

Ghost Station is falling apart. It has been since long before the boy came here.

In the far future, two boys grow up.

I have now posted all chapters of "To Live without Regrets" This fic took me a long time to write, even longer if you count all the time I was thinking about writing something like this. I'm happy with how it came out.

To Live Without Regrets (16341 words) by Forestofglory
Chapters: 6/6
Fandom: 陈情令 | The Untamed (TV)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Lán Zhàn | Lán Wàngjī/Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn, Lan Wangji & Jin Ling
Characters: Lán Zhàn | Lán Wàngjī, Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn, Ōuyáng Zǐzhēn, Jīn Líng | Jīn Rúlán, Luó "Mián Mián" Qīngyáng
Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Letters, Chief Cultivator Lán Zhàn | Lán Wàngjī, Traveling, Cultivation Sect Politics (Módào Zǔshī), Lan Wangji has feelings about justice, Wei Wuxain invents things, Lan Wangji is petty, Mention of past cannon suicide
Summary:

If the leader is not righteous, how can the followers be righteous?” Ouyang Zizhen says hotly, and Lan Wangji can’t help but smile a little at the young man’s faith in him.

“Well, of course, but what I mean is that going where the chaos is requires different skills than being Chief Cultivator,” the young woman replies

Lan Wangji’s duties as chief cultivator separate and reunite him with Wei Wuxian. Together, and apart, they solve mysteries, reunite with old friends and meet new ones, and work out how they want to live in the world.

I haven't done a Sunday writing update for a long time, but I started a doc for a fic idea I've been mulling over for a long time and I'm excited about it. It's a complicated idea and I'm honestly not sure if I can pull it off but I'm excited to try. I have an very rough outline and some idea for how I want this first section to go. I'm enjoying the process so far!

Family Economy (10889 words) by Forestofglory
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 陈情令 | The Untamed (TV)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Jīn Líng | Jīn Rúlán & Luó "Mián Mián" Qīngyáng, Jīn Líng | Jīn Rúlán & Lán Yuàn | Lán Sīzhuī
Characters: Jin Ling | Jin Rulan, Luo "Mian Mian" Qingyang, Luo "Mian Mian" Qingyang's Daughter, Luo "Mian Mian" Qingyang's Husband, Wen Qing (Módào Zǔshī), Lan Yuan | Lan Sizhui, Wei Ying | Wei Wuxian
Additional Tags: Medicine, Babysitting, imagining other people complexly, Found Family, Part Epistolary
Series: Part 3 of Your Life Again, Your Life Anew
Summary:

On a Night Hunt outside of Yiling Jin Ling encounters Luo Qingyang and the two began a correspondence. Meeting Luo Qingyang makes Jin Ling reassess his family and friendships; meanwhile, something goes wrong with the arrays protecting the Burial Mounds."

I did it! I finished the fic I've been working on since January! This was supposed to be a short project to help boost my confidence after I decided not to finish the space AU I was working on. But it ended up taking a lot longer than I thought. Not because it ended up super long, but because I was dealing with a lot of depression over the last few months. This fic kept me company during a hard time and its going to be strange not working on it.

While I'm between long projects I'm doing a letter prompt game. So if you'd like give me two characters and scenario setting or mood and I will write a letter between the two characters.

I've been thinking recently about what makes a story have sense of place. I've noticed that quite a bit of fanfic feels placeless. Just the settings feel generic, like things are in a city, or maybe a university, and there are some streets but nothing has name or more than the vaguest description. To me as a reader it can feel a bit adrift. I like stories to feel grounded, and to have a lot of texture. My favorite books tend to be SFF that makes me feel like a whole other world is real. I know that not everyone is into that. So I thought I would chat about what does give a story a sense place for me.

A key thing is simply specificity, places with names feel more real. Also things like a quick nod to the existence of seasons and weather can really help. If people are eating something then what are they eating? All of these kinds of things helps the reader build a sense of the the place the story happens in.

A long the same lines sensory details really add texture to a story. I want to know what buildings look like, what the food tastes like, how it smells when the characters enter a new place. That kind of thing is very grounding.

Finally a sense of space and movement. This one is the trickiest. But if you've every read a story set in a place you know and thought "those streets don't connect!" you might know what I mean. This is about how spaces relate to each other, how close or far away in both space and time are things? How big are spaces relative to other spaces?

A sense of place is something that takes work to create in story. These things all require the author to do a bit of work. And it makes readers like me very happy. So what make a story have sense of place for you?

The Deep & Dark Blue by Niki Smith— this is a middle grade graphic novel about a trans girl and her twin brother who have to present as girls, to escape their cousin who is trying to kill them. I liked how it played with “dressing up as another gender’ tropes. Also there is spinning based magic, and I love having textile based magic. I really liked this!

Yuletide— This an annual small fandoms exchange that goes live on Dec 25. I enjoyed so many of this years stories! I wanted to share a couple of fics I especially liked form the 2020 collection:

缘起缘未了 | when I see you again by stickmarionette f/f White Snake retelling, 9k words.

even if it's just one person by Lanerose Episolory Nirvana in Fire fic featuring letters between two friends, 2k words

The False and the Real by sigaloenta Imperial Radch fic focusing on Mercy of Kalr, 6k words.

a bold and brilliant sun azurewaxwing Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty space AU, 7k


Culinary Nostalgia: Regional Food Culture and the Urban Experience in Shanghai by Mark Swislocki— This book which focused on modern history was not super relevant to my interest in historical chinese dramas. However I’m also really interested in urban history and food so I found this fascinating

The Fire Never Goes Out by Noelle Stevenson— This is called a memoir but it doesn’t really have a narrative, and felt fragmented. It’s more of a collection of personal comics, some of which cover specific events, others of which are more about capturing a certain feeling. It was interesting but also a little frustrating. (Content note: depression, homophobia)

Everything Is Beautiful, and I'm Not Afraid: A Baopu Collection by Yao Xiao— this a collection of autobiographical comics by a queer Chinese migrant. Like the previous collection there were a lot of comics about specific feelings, which lead it not really being a narrative. (Content note: depression, homophobia)

Star Trek: Discovery Season 3 episodes 1-6— This is what R and I are watching together now! It’s fun, also there's a giant fluffy cat! I’m enjoying the characters and their evolving relationships.

Flavorful Origins season 3 episodes 1 -6 Watching some of these 10-15 episodes of this Chinese produced food documentary since I don’t have much focus to watch longer things right now. This season focuses on the province of Gansu, and has made me hungry several times.

TGCF dongua episode 1 I so I’m in a group that’s rewatching The Untamed and someone suggested that we also watch TGCF with is also based on a novel written by MXTX. And despite some technical problems we did! The animation is really pretty.

Traveling Traveling (1790 words) by Forestofglory
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 陈情令 | The Untamed (TV)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn
Additional Tags: Space AU, In SPAAAACE with magic, MXTXGenWeek2020, Worldbuilding, 5+1
Series: Part 1 of The Other End of the Sky
Summary:

A few stops along the way as Wei Wuxian and siblings travel across space for Lotus station to Cloud Recesses Station.

Or Five Things Wei Wuxian Didn’t Buy and One that He Did

I think I've mentioned here that I'm working on Untamed Space AU. This a little prequel that I wrote for MXTX gen week 2020, with a focus on worldbuilding.