okamiwind's 2024 fic commentary

the fics

title: sold on sun storms

word count: 82520 // 8 chapters 

fandom/pairing: chanlix // skz

comments: oh my lovely little chanlix. this has been a really fun one to write overall. lately, i've felt like i've backed myself into a bit of a corner with this story but on the whole, it's been a really rewarding journey to take. the kind of... general gist of the story is one that is very compelling to me, this idea that someone is trying to change who they are but finds out they don't really have to change, that they've been who they want to become this whole time. i'm not sure everyone.... gets it but that's okay. some things are just for me to get. 

a line i loved: "I like spending time with you. I like making you laugh even if I have to embarrass myself to do it. I like—I like cooking with you even if you order me around sometimes. I like going to your bar even when I'm basically just free labor. I like hanging out with your friends even if they make fun of me for how fucking crazy I am about you. I like doing chores with you even though I'm 95 percent sure you go back and redo things after I've turned my back." He closes his eyes, and he breathes out hard. "And yeah, I've been with other people before. I've had my fair share of experience. I've always been a people person, I guess. I always liked... I like to date, I like that feeling I get when I meet someone and fall for them, but I... I like it better with you. And it's not just that I like better. I just like you better."

 

 

title: i aim to be your eyes

word count: 82754 // 9 chapters 

fandom/pairing: sejun // exo

comments: oh what can i say about this, the albatross of my year. years? perhaps. i love writing iatbye, but i really love the idea of being finished it. i am pretty confident that i will be able to finish it before the end of 2025, hopefully by my birthday. it will be such an insane amount of work to finally be complete, and after that it's like. Whoa. is the fic era coming to its end? i'm not sure. it's fun to write fic, i'll always love writing fic, but this kind of represents (to me) my last BIG project. and i do mean big. who writes 300k of mafia omegaverse? this guy 

a line i loved: Sehun swallows, and he watches smoke rise to the ceiling.

 

Every close of his eyes is a shutting door.

 

"Fuck it," he says. "I'm going."

 

 

title: the red king's consort

word count: 41,701 // 4 chapters 

fandom/pairing: sidlink // tloz—botw+totk

comments: i'll always love you sidlink. even when no one else wants you, i'll always love you. yeah it kind of feels like shouting into a void with this one, and i think that tanks my productivity with it a bit, but like with i write to you from the road, i know i'll eventually get over the finish line with it. just not sure when. i think i thrived early. so it goes. 

a line i loved: "You wish to spar with me?" Link laughs. "Is that it?"

 

"What else can an old soldier do but yearn for a fight?"

 

 

title: sun, long at their sides

word count: 48,099 // 6 chapters 

fandom/pairing: chanlix // skz

comments: this is kind of the heartbeat of the year. it's me at my best, i think. or at least, me at my most fun. me at my craziest and happiest. i dont know why i write other things. i just thrive so much with the stupid wolf magic bullshit. is that childish? i don't know, maybe. i just know that i love it. i just know that spinning the little worlds and writing the little bullshit backstory and lore and mystical elements tickles me. it's almost like i'm playing pretend, wearing my mom's shoes or something. except my mom is tolkien in this instance. and tolkien is like "really???? wolf porn?" and im like yeah unfortunately yes. 

a line i loved: Best of you, she tells him, married to best of you. Pleasant harmonies. I still hear them now. Yes, I still believe the truth of which you convinced me. Stronger together. Still, I am no longer able to withhold those tumultuous tides. Know this, little wolf—I am not alone. Just as the sun is not the only star in the sky, I am not the only power that shapes the clay of this world.

 

 

title: shouldn't i be getting familiar? 

word count: 31,157 

fandom/pairing: atsukita // hq

comments: oh wow i cant even believe how long it's been since i published this. i was so happy to write it. it's one of those things like, i guess you can divide my writing into two spheres: cyberpunk robot bullshit and omegaverse magic bullshit and the overlap between those spheres is men with trauma. so yeah it was good to dip my toe back into this kind of au. a pairing i'd never considered but really feel comfortable with now. like i think i can accurately get into the voice of either of them, despite feeling very unsure of myself when i started. so that's nice. i think this convinced me that i can write any character i need to. and im glad leo liked it. i love my lil leo guy

a line i loved: Aurora is waiting by the door for their return. Atsumu scoops her up into his arms, carrying her off to the bed. Shinsuke waits there for a minute, struck by his fortune, but Atsumu senses his absence. He turns.

 

"What are you waiting for?" he asks, and the cat echoes him with a meow. "What she said."

 

Shinsuke lowers his head with a smile, hurrying along to catch up.

 

 

title: to the hilt

word count: 10,314

fandom/pairing: sejun // exo

comments: bitch i love vampires , i never write vampires enough. this could have been better, like i think i left a liiiittle too much to the imagination with these fuckers bc i think i didn't quite get across the... gist of sehun's issues. didn't quite elucidate junmyeon's problem with him. what he was trying to teach him. but alas, you can't win them all. i still think it was quite nice, in retrospect. 

a line i loved: The lights flashed, and the Jeep shifted into drive. The window rolled down. Sehun thought, hoped—Just one word, he prayed. Just one parting shot, please. I'll never drink again. I swear. I'll never drink from anyone but you. If you turn around, if you just turn around and say my name—

 

But Junmyeon tossed the red knife into the snow and rolled the window right back up, pulling out and driving off.

 

 

original fiction

title: [REDACTED]

word count: 129,173

comments: wow. i really did a lot of that this year, huh. it's kind of unsurprising, then, that i had such a slow year, fic-wise lol. like this isn't a finished work, but i really did a lot. it's not perfect, but you gotta start somewhere. 

a line i loved: [REDACTED]

 

 

in retrospect

i'm not even bothering with adding my totals, because honestly, at this point, i don't think my word count matters. if anyone is paying attention to me, they know i write my fucking ass off. what difference does it make, seeing a couple hundred thousand words added up on a screen? not much. 

 

i think at the beginning, 2019, 2020, i was trying to convince myself of something. that i was doing it. that i was capable of doing it. that i was a writer. that it wasn't just that feeling i had inside me. that i was the thing i imagined myself to be, or if i wasn't yet, i could be. 

 

i don't think i need to be convinced any longer. i don't have any confusion on the matter. this is the logical endpoint of everything i've worked toward. the person i am is a hill i've built, handful after handful of dirt, day after day, word after word after word. there's nothing left to build. i turn around, and i'm so high up, and i wonder how i even got here. the work, after a certain point, doesn't feel like work anymore. it's only an extension of myself. moving a limb. flexing a muscle. those little neuron fires. blink and there she is. i'm not as high as i wanna be, but damn, this is a nice little hill. it's okay to admit it. 

 

i read a lot this year. i think i've really turned the corner on thinking i know everything. i know i know almost nothing. but i can still write from that ignorance. i can still write from that place of innocence and inexperience and emptiness. there is something interesting and valuable in that too. 

 

my goal for the next year is to finish all my projects. i've been working hard. i hope to keep on that. i hope to build myself just a little higher, even if it means that i need to knock myself back down every now and then. 

 

take care in 2025. i hope we meet back here in a year, and i say to myself that was a goofy little metaphor, but good for her. good for her!