Discussion WW in Review: Share Your Workshop Wins and Resolutions!

[kintsugi]

We've just finished Workshop Wrapped, so you know what that means ...

It's the end of the year already! As we await another passing around the sun, let's take a moment to look back on the year, and maybe even set some goals for the new year!

WINS: Take a look back on the year--are there any accomplishments you've made this year in writing or in the Workshop that you're proud of? Stories you've written and published, stories you've read and loved, or some combination of the two? Feel free to use this section to shout out other people as well--maybe you're proud that they've finished something, or they left you a review that made your year!

RESOLUTIONS: What do you want to get done next year? For bonus points, come back with me in a year and we can see how we did!

 

[theclaw]

This year has been a revival. My ongoing story began in 2016, then went into hiatus. I've since highlighted the ensemble cast through drawings and pixel art.

There is one very obvious plot point anyone familiar with Pokemon knows must happen down the line. (even though Ash makes several guest appearances, he has yet to battle my protagonist)

 

[MisheardWhisper]

Maybe this year I'll write something.

 

[Mialentia]

I'm more of an AO3 writer, so I hope it's okay for me to be in here, but I thought I'd reflect on the past year here as well!

As a significant contrast to my personal life, my year in terms of writing has been a really good one! Around this time last year, I looked into Pokémon Horizons fanfiction for the first time, and this simple decision defined my 2025 for me. I joined a Discord server full of like-minded artists, wrote a lot for the Liko/Dot ship, and that gave me a lot of confidence in my ability as a writer! I always held pride in my writing, but having consistent feedback and support really helped motivate me to write even more, which came in handy when I unexpectedly found a new hyperfocus early in 2025.

Discovering BanG Dream! has been an unprecedented boost to my productivity. Soon after discovering it, I was writing more than I ever have (turns out the all-girls franchise is good material for the yuri writer, who knew). For the first half of the year, I mostly wrote Liko/Dot fanfiction, before shifting to mainly Bandori in the summer (while still putting out Horizons content here and there). Currently, my word count for 2025 alone sits at about 130,000 words, with the potential to hit 140,000 before the year is fully over. Comparing this to 2024, my previous record, it's no contest; I wrote around 55,000 words in 2024, which isn't even half of that!

Other facts to note:

-My top two longest fics were written this year, with the first sitting at 24,379 words, and the second (which is still ongoing!) currently being at 17,673 words. Also, I passed 200,000 words in total since I started consistently posting my writing online! That doesn't seem like much, but the fact I wrote over half of that number this year alone is... dizzying, wow!
-In terms of raw number of individual works published, I put out 35 (not counting chapters separately). Of those, 18 are for Pokémon Horizons, and 12 are for BanG Dream! Ave Mujica, which makes them my biggest fandoms ever! The remainder are my own original work (3) and from BanG Dream! It's MyGO!!!!! (2).
-In terms of hits (views on AO3), three of mine have surpassed 1,000 this year. That's a lot of people checking out my silly little fanfiction!
-In general, I've connected with others through my writing a lot this year. Before 2025, it was kind of a lonely affair... but now, I have friends that I made through my art, and even some regular commenters! In general, I've been lucky to only recieve positive feedback. I'm sure I can still improve, of course... but I'm very happy with where I'm at currently!

My favorite piece of writing I've put out this year (and, honestly, ever) is The Sunlight, The Moonsong, and The Chrysanthemums, a Bandori fic. It's available here on the forums, and that's not a fluke; it's the first long-term project I managed to finish. At six chapters in total (plus an extra side story), this is the work I want most people to know me for. It's forced me to learn a lot; this fic involved planning, lyric writing, learning how to add color to text, how to balance screen time between five main characters properly... and in the end, I couldn't be more proud of it...!

Finally, in terms of my goals for 2026... I want to keep writing. I want to finish my current works in progress, if I can find the motivation for it. I want to reach more people, to make a name for myself in the fanfiction sphere as someone who puts out quality works. I'm not going to hold myself to this, given how much I ended up writing this year, but if I can, I'd love to be able to match or even surpass the word count record I set for myself this year. And, most importantly, I want to write more about girls kissing, because god knows there isn't enough of that to go around in fandom (lol).

As for fandom-specific wishes... I need to write about the other Bandori bands more! I love MyGO!!!!! and Ave Mujica, but the others are also important to me (especially RAISE A SUILEN. It feels like a crime that I've only written one fic with their members in it, and in a supporting role at that!). I'd love to write something for Gundam: The Witch from Mercury (I just need to finish watching it first). And it'd be interesting to write something for Legends Z-A as well... in general, I think I'd like to broaden my horizons.

Writing is my life. I'm so glad that it exists, so I can keep connecting with others all over the world. Thank you to anyone who took the time to read anything of mine this year, and here's to a good one in 2026!

 

[WholesomeCryptid]

i'm really proud of how much i wrote this year, i had kind of fallen off with properly writing for a while, creating fic very sparingly, but i wrote a lot this year and had a lot of fun with it! i think my only resolution for next year is to not stop writing and try and get some more fics published if i'm able too.

 

[NumberOneSpinelApologist]

I debuted here with my first fan fiction ever.
Which is wild because I was not planning on writing anything at all.
And then I wrote the fairytale for the roundtable, which I also did not plan on writing.
It took a lot of effort. Considering how horribly poor my health is it is quite the miracle I did this at all.
I hope I will be able to continue to create things, one way or another.

 

[Ness]

I made my great return making fanfics lmao

The entire reason why was because i wanted to revisit my younger self's dream of being a writer.

Maybe i will revive the fic i abandoned in 2026 i havent decided

 

[Welkamo]

I like statistics so here are some AO3 statistics:

User Subscriptions:25
Kudos:485
Comment Threads:84
Bookmarks:92
Subscriptions:9
Word Count:56,307
Hits:10,898

Pretty good all things considered! I’ve been doing writing outside of fanfiction too, so even more writing.

I think if there was any theme to my writing this year, it was “stop apologizing and write weird queer shit”. I am finally getting used to the fact that my work does not have to apologize for its existence, that I can embrace art that lives for its own sake. Also there’s enough safe and sanitized art in the larger art world, I can be weird.

I was a lot more focused this year! Proper medication helps, gamers. Don’t let anyone tell you that you can only make good art if you’re suffering. I was also at many points too exhausted to write because of other responsibilities, but when I lock in I lock the fuck in.

I’m being a bit vague with everything because most of my stuff this year was smut. Not ashamed, just can’t really talk about it here. That will probably continue in the new year whoops.

My goal is to write at least 100 words a day, either fanfiction or other stuff. I have a bunch of AO3 prompts to fulfill and there’s plenty more prompts to come, so I’ll be trying to fulfill those more. Finally, I’ve got some longfics I need to finish.

 

[System Error]

Calling Nori a skateboarder is like calling a game protagonist a cyclist, and he doesn't even have it yet in the first fic

Demonic Origins (and the fully drafted but not yet in motion A Move to Emendate) were my biggest things this year. I was hoping to use them as filler while I worked on the Next Fic in Line, but progress there hasn't been great. Mostly because Demonic Origins needed more edits than I thought. But it's working out, and funnily it was on a whim after a review. They both could've used it though. At least I think I finally have some ideas on how to proceed with NFiL.

Type prompts plus was a fun thought exercise.

Actually made significant progress on the Halloween fic, but need to tweak more with it.

 

[kintsugi]

wins
I published,,, nothing this year! lol. lmao even. but I did finish a oneshot (alas it's part of a pair) and got about 25% into a novella thing that I'm excited to share with folks. So maybe like 10k words of actual fanfic.

I'm about 25k into a d&d thing that needs a ton of editing and isn't really Workshop material, but I sure wrote stuff. There was a lot of unfinished stuff tbh but, this sure was a year.

I'm happy with my reviewing cadence at least! I think Book Club did a great job of keeping me on track. I read about 328k and wrote 53,850 words, and at least this time I was a little more spaced out about things, with 46 reviews total. Still have time to make it an even 50 for the year maybe!

I also had some unhinged meta-analyses about Workshop and misc. charts and graphs--not really worth delving into in detail, but I liked how they turned out at least!

goals
gonna keep these nice and honest

• finish/publish: an author's fox
• publish: the goddess of lost things
• finish/publish: pyrophany
• finish/publish: hollowheart
• dabble: child of mud
• review??

 

[lisianthusakura]

Wins
I've written more this year than I have ever! Four 10K one-shots isn't a lot per se, but I am really pleased with my progress. I hope I'll be able to find more times to pick up my pen, so to speak, but I'm still really happy I've been able to do all that!

Plus, a contest win... I really didn't expect it to come, but I'm really proud of myself nonetheless! I've gotten to a point where I smile when I reread my recent stories, which I think is a sign I may be doing something right. Who knows if I'll feel that way by this time in a year, but.

Also, @kintsugi you have been SUCH a win this year. Thank you for all the graphs and your amazing expertise, I'm really excited to continue working with you. You've astounded me time and time again! (Also, I really like your review hour pings on Discord, please keep them coming whenever you're doing them LOL!)

Goals
Be. More. Present. It's my stupid white whale, but I really do want to read more and more. I know I'm not doing it enough -- especially with reviewing -- and I don't think it's befitting of me to feel proud of being a curator of such a wide library when I could be doing a lot more, you know?

Hopefully being more steady with writing? I tend to write in spurts, where I take between a week and a month to finish a 10K fic and then don't seriously write for a few months after, but I'd like to be more consistent. I think I've really gotten to know my own style and strengths and weaknesses -- perhaps next is breaking out of that mould, too. A chapterfic...?

I also want to release a lot of the finished things I've written for my AU with my dear older sister! I think I'll do so slowly, especially as it's something I want to make sure I have permission for, but making those works public is something I want to work at, as I'm pretty proud of some of the more recent ones I've written.

...It'd be nice if I could work on that visual novel manuscript I have lying around again. I wrote most of it when I was much younger and would be shocked if anything held up without heavy retuning, but it is something I think could be... admittedly nice. I won't count on it, but maybe I'll really get in the mood to do so for a month.

I also want to look into translating some of my works into Japanese as a hobby project. I don't think they'd really go anywhere, but it might be a fun thing. Incredibly low priority, though.

 

[Viridian Beedrill]

Wins

Spoiler

-Writing and finishing No One's Here. It's the first (and currently only) multi-chapter thing I've finished, ever. Hopefully not the last, though.
-Finishing "One Dark Night in September". It's been floating around in partial draft form since (checks notes) 2023, yikes. It started after I got rattled by one of those "killer in the woods" urban legends and coped by thinking "what if that, but comedically anti-climatic?" And that ended up turning into an original 'verse I'd work on sporadically, but I never managed to completely get the original story down on paper...until this year!

-"Man-Made Objects," a one-shot I made in response to one of Lightning Topaz's weekly prompts. It might not look like much from the outside, but I liked the atmosphere and vague concepts I pulled together for it so much that it's expanding into it's own 'verse in the background. (Yes, another one. Yes, I know I have a problem. )

-Just generally the amount of stuff I've been able to write for the weekly prompt thread. I'm in a season right now where I can't keep up with every prompt, but I really appreciate the thread and the opportunities it's given me to practice writing. Thank you, @LightningTopaz!

Goals

Spoiler

-Return to my neglected worldbuilding blog on DragonCraft, which is yet another original 'verse (like I said, I have problem ).

-Finish another multi-chapter work. I have a couple candidates in various (unpublished) draft states already, so hopefully this is a realistic goal...?

-Possibly overlapping with the above goal, I want to do at least one "entry" each for the two loose series I have running in the Beedrillverse.
~One of said series is Defenders of Kalos, which is about the pre-XY adventures of Sina and Dexio and has a few "entries" published mostly in the form of contest one-shots. I want to do something outside the contest framework, where I'm more free to set up ongoing, Beedrillverse-specific continuity and maybe even some OCs.
~The other series...is really only a series in my head at this point, because I've only published one entry. I really liked working on "No One's Here" and want to do more stories about Aarune's time as a Pokémon Ranger. If it does become a series, I had the idea of calling it "Ranger Things", and I don't know if that's brilliant or incredibly dumb. I'll probably end up actually calling it that, regardless because .

-Continue writing stuff for the weekly prompts, as real-life allows.

 

[LightningTopaz]

@Viridian Beedrill

You're very welcome! I'll keep posting prompts and my own work for as long as I can.

 

[Lord Kyuubi]

For the most part, this year was not very interesting. Then, suddenly it was.

I recall spending the early part of the year at something of a standstill. The chapter I was working on was significantly more difficult than any before it for a few reasons. By the time I did finally knock it on the head, I was so drained from the whole ordeal that I've not completed another new chapter since - though several are in the works, and one is very close to finished.

On the more positive side, though new works be lacking, I haven't slouched on editing, reworking, rewriting my older scenes and chapters. Most of my progress overall has been in refining my work, rather than putting out anything new. It's not so exciting, but it's progress as good as anything.

And... Alright, time to stop putting off the interesting bit. One night in August, I finally put my story online. I'd been itching to do so for quite some time - being the Writers' Workshop's fluffy mascot was getting old, but I had to be absolutely ready. It's not untrue to say it felt like a genuinely good idea at the time. It's also not untrue to say I was frustrated and running out of patience with myself. Regardless, it's difficult to really describe - at least to someone who hasn't known me the whole time - what a huge step this has been for me. A lot of times I've felt like I wouldn't get this far at all.

So there's my big win for the year. For the few months I was keeping up progress, I was having a wonderful time, albeit a bitterly difficult wonderful time with not enough sleep.

Since then, though, I've stalled out again for a bit. So that should make my resolution for next year pretty clear. My current chapter? I want it done and posted in January. I don't like deadlines and they don't like me - but I also don't like being stuck, so we're getting it done. Overall? I think getting at least six chapters uploaded should be a readily achievable goal. Maybe I shall look back and think that was too easy a goal - or maybe even that is biting off more than I can chew. Regardless, I hope having a target will be the much-needed kick up my fluffy arse that'll get me going again. We can but try.

So that's where I am now. Incidentally, I want to say I really appreciate this thread being a thing; writing this post has done me a lot of good. I started off ready to be miserable about my current lack of progress, and now I'm altogether a lot more positive about things. So thank you for that!

And now, back to it.

 

[AetherX]

Wins
Writing-wise, I got a new episode of Rara Avis out despite it taking 3000 years. Quite a lot of D&D homebrew and campaign writing as well, but nothing there that can really be published (except maybe a quick one-shot that would make no sense to anyone but me and my players that I may post at some point anyway). Started a lot of things, but didn't finish many. At least three people read some of my stories so that's cool.

I got back into reading and reviewing here this year, which has been really nice. These are the streets that made me and I'm always happy to give back to the community a bit and support the next generation of fanfic writers. I'm pretty proud of some of the reviews I put out and I hope I was able to help those I reviewed. Shouts out to @Viridian Beedrill and @Lord Kyuubi who are probably my favorite fanfic-ers I read this year. I also judged the Melting Hearts contest, which was a fun experience.

Also Lord Kyuubi posting a fic at all is a big win in my book

Goals
I'd like to finish something and post it here next year (low bar I know, but anyone who knows my pace knows it's not a given). Either first arc of an Unpredictable rewrite I've started, episode 3 of Rara Avis, or a Destiny fic I started a couple months back. Maybe multiple of those? All of them is probably too much to ask unless I win the lottery and can retire. I'd also like to wrap up the two D&D campaigns I'm running.

I want to continue reading and reviewing here occasionally, but I'd really like to get back into reading non-fanfic stuff as well. I have altogether too many hobbies that I love and find really fulfilling but involve sitting in front of a computer/phone.

 

[Apopheniac]

Prior to a few months ago, it had been a long time since I'd last written anything. I kind of lost a lot of my taste for literature after getting a ton of YA schlock assigned in high school and have been primarily reading non-fiction since then. But I decided that I need some kind of creative outlet, and I don't really have the dexterity or aesthetic sensibilities to work with visual art or anything like that, so I figured trying to write again would be the easiest avenue for that. I'm grateful for the opportunity to post silly Pokémon stories here and have people read them.

I'm hoping to have a lot lined up for this year and the future, so I don't know how consistently I can keep writing. I'd like to write more things that are sad, goofy, strange, and/or unsettling (all of which my current WIP ought to hit, at least), though not exclusively. I'd also like to focus on developing prose for Pokémon battles that adheres to my style and themes while remaining interesting to readers — while I'm not unhappy with the battles in the Marill story, I'd like to figure out how to write prose for contexts in which the Trainers are competent, which might come up if I ever write Important Named Characters.

I'm happy with my reviewing cadence at least! I think Book Club did a great job of keeping me on track. I read about 328k and wrote 53,850 words, and at least this time I was a little more spaced out about things, with 46 reviews total. Still have time to make it an even 50 for the year maybe!

Your reviews are always impressively written and deeply thoughtful. I'm very grateful to have received one from you.

 

[Freckles]

2025 was a complete win because it's the year I finally got my mind free and happy enough for me to start having imagination again, even if the only story I completed was actually two days too late to count for that year hehe

2026, they're more nice things to have than goals because I'm happy enough just thinking them up, but I'd like to successfully plan out and write down the ideas that have been kicking around in my head since last year (been more inspired by RWBY than by Pokémon though)

I'd also like to write more comments on the story here but sadly I'm so out of the loop about Pokémon that there's very few I fancy (because I only know the characters second-hand from the pedia here for example)

I'm more visual than wordy so it'll probably all take a backseat to drawing though