Challenge #9 - In your own space, celebrate a personal win from the past year.

I mean... It's got to be writing a complete(!) novel-length(!) Quodo fic.

It's true that I have definitely gotten more confident in my writing each year since joining getyourwordsout (which is especially true when it comes to Quodo, which for some reason has consistently been easier for me to come up with longer plots for and draft than any other fandom/pairing I've gotten into ¯\_(ツ)_/¯). But... at the same time, it is still a bit difficult for me to believe I pulled this off. First, while my writing skills HAVE gotten stronger since 2019 when I first joined GYWO, it must be said that I joined GYWO because I specifically wanted help finishing off two multichapter WIPs... and noticeably, NEITHER of those fics are finished yet, and both of them are STILL shorter than that Quodo fic (they're at ~27k and ~20k).

So basically, I am very aware that writing multichapter fics (especially with a plot) is hard. So I am really surprised and proud of myself for pulling off a finished fic WAY longer than anything I've ever done -- and it is a fic I like a lot too!

(Of course, now that I'm aware I have it in me to write novel-length Quodo fic, I find that I'm eager to write more this year. I have one Quodo idea that could easily be novella-length (20-30k words maybe) and another that will definitely be novel-length if I finish it (it's currently ~24k words and maybe 1/3 done).)

Challenge #10 - In your own space, create a fanwork.

So I decided to make some icons, of Bravely Default (a fandom I was hoping to get some icons for in fandomtrees but didn't, so need to go make them myself) and also icons from my own art. Oh, also I finished up an old Trials of Mana icon I started.

( Cut for images )

Feel free to take any of them if they are relevant to your interests! Also, I've finally archived these and a whole bunch of older icons I made for requests at my icon journal:
- 48 drawn art icons (video games, animanga, my fanart)
- 46 live action icons (TV and film, mostly Star Trek)

Challenge #11 - In your own space, Talk about your favorite trope, cliché, kink, motif, or theme.

Okay I swear before I even saw hamsterwoman's entry, I was also going to talk about Five-Man Bands.

( Five-Man Bands )

That graphic is crap but I was really excited about posting this, so whatevs.

In this essay, I'm sort of treating Beauty and the Beast the Disney movie as the same thing as Beauty and the Beast the original fairy tale, which I just said is a no-no, but... oh well. I want to talk about both.

( Beauty and the Beast and the Hades and Persephone Myth )

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You can suggest topics for future posts for this meme over here.