echoslam | Fandom Year in Review

So it's been a bit more than a year since I started doing exchanges on AO3, and my experience so far has been just amazing. Wonderful recips across the board and fantastic gifts that are pretty much everything I ever wanted.

I love exchanges because I'm desperately reliant on a deadline hanging over my head in order to get anything written. And it's so worth it when my recip seems to like what I've written. That "Yay, a satisfied customer!" feeling never gets old.

Highlights:

January

Realized that “echoslam” was no longer taken on AO3, so I shortened my username
RIP Master X Master. I guess it's a good thing I didn't buy that Jiwan skin...
Was going to do ChocolateBox but something came up and I unfortunately missed out. :( I made sure to sign up early this year

February

Signed up for Smut Swap, an exchange I'd been really looking forward to XD Matched on King's Avatar, which was a big surprise, tbh.

March

After many years of meaning to finish the series, finally got back to playing Zero Escape. I'd forgotten how much it speaks to my soul.

April

Started playing Dungeon Fighter Online with a friend who is also into King’s Avatar. Man, BB really did just file the serial numbers off of this game and call it Glory^^;; I’m kind of curious as to how this all works out re: IP infringement – presumably it has something to do with the fact that Tencent owns both QZGS’s publisher, China Literature, and the license to DFO’s Chinese version. It's such an awesome game, though - pretty much My Aesthetic all the way- I especially loved the Sherlock Holmes and dating sim events.

May

Made a Liar! tumblr and was surprised and delighted by the amount of content I was able to dig up.
I also made a twitter for archiving stuff from the JP Doubt! fandom and had a field day browsing the glorious fanart (In doing so, I managed to spoil myself for all of the other games sooo...yeah. Thisisfine.jpg)

June

Parallels: this exchange really intrigued me - there were so many titles in the tagset I never expected that I was excited to see people nominate, but uh, most of the ones I wanted to see never got requested, alas

July

Scheming Socialites came out earlier than I was expecting! You better believe I blew my ticket hoard asap

August

Press Start – I went yolo with my requests by asking for only extremely obscure things that I’m really truly dying for and by some miracle it worked out!!! People are amazing. When I go back and look at my gifts I can still hardly believe it

September

Trick or Treat. Tried to be low key, didn’t want to angle for treats bc I felt bad I was only going to have time for my assignment, didn’t even bother posting a separate letter - ended up with amazing treats anyway^^

October

Signed up for Yuletide, matched on the King’s Avatar for the fourth time lmao

November

Successfully burned myself out of playing DFO, so now it's all MHW all the time! j/k It does seem to be the big co-op thing now, and while I do find it fun, I don't think I'll get dangerously addicted, which is a good thing. That deco grind is real, though.

December

I guess the writing was on the wall since the Yahoo buyout in 2013, but the whole Tumblr wipeout is beyond sad. I do so love how the fake camgirl blogs are still alive and well creeping on my posts even now, more than a month after the fact.

On a positive note, I found a Liar! doujinshi!!! It's Sotaro/MC! :D Still waiting for it to arrive in the mail, but I’m so hyped!!!

All in all, I really made out like a bandit, and I feel so so lucky. I definitey hope to make up for it in the coming year.

I thoroughly enjoyed every exchange I signed up for, so in 2019 I definitely plan on participating in all of them again. My sweet spot seems to be one at a time, though I do like the feeling of always having a project to work on. I might try out some higher wordcount ones like Fandom5k since I'd really like to produce some longer stuff.