#started this months ago in 2022 and just finished it now in 2023 . thank you kat for being so patient with me

[nitroish]

yet another commission for the wonderful @destructokats , based directly on a chapter from their fic ! <- link directs to the chapter in question

[motorsportbarbie13]

What's A Soulmate? Part 3

In which your best friend comes back to you. But is it too late?

Warnings: oof the angst. swearing. that's it. Pairing: Lando Norris X SainzSister!Reader Word Count: 2.5k words

(a/n: this is how i cope after that hot mess of a race today. i hate everything and everyone except for my pookie bear lando norris)

- What's A Soulmate? - Part 1 - What's A Soulmate? - Part 2 - What's A Soulmate? - Part 2.5 - Master List

2021 You keep your promises. 

2022  And then he started dating her. 

2023 Silence.

March, 2024Australia 

“We are so excited to have you join the team.” Your new boss beams back at you as you follow her through the corridor. “Thank you for making the flight at such short notice. Had we known Summer was going to quit so abruptly, we would have had you come out with the team earlier in the week.” 

You nod, adjusting the collar of your new papaya and black polo. “Of course, I’m just happy it all worked out.” 

The heat of the Australian sun beats down outside the McLaren hospitality building, but inside the air is cool and dry. You’d landed in the country last night after what felt like the longest flight you’ve ever taken from New York into Melbourne but were so happy to be back in the paddock after what felt like ages. 

“Like we discussed earlier in the month, you’ll be working with Oscar as his primary press officer. I’m sure you know what that entails and everything, not much has changed since Carlos was with the team, but if you have any questions you have my number.” Brenda smiles down at you as she hands you your new McLaren issued iPhone.  

Three weeks ago, you had graduated from NYU with a double degree in public relations and business management. One week later, you had accepted a job offer from McLaren to join the communications team working with Oscar. Between your dual degree and experience working in the paddock with your brother, the job had been a slam dunk for you.

“The boys are just finishing up some filming up stairs. Let’s go up and introduce you to Oscar. You already know Lando.” She says, with a bit of a smile. Your friendship with the Brit was well known back during the years you were still working with Carlos. No one knew how much it had changed since though. 

Nerves fluttered around in your stomach as you follow Brenda up to the second floor where you could hear Oscar and Lando loudly laughing at something. As far as you knew, Lando was unaware that you had taken a job with McLaren. You had asked Carlos and Charles to keep your new job quiet around the paddock, not wanting to create drama before it was necessary. This was certainly going to be a shock, you knew that. 

The last time you saw him flashes through your memory, quick and painful, as Brenda approaches where Oscar and Lando stand each holding dry erase boards. 

Early 2022

“What do you mean she doesn’t want me around?” You nearly laugh, the absurdity of what your best friend is telling you not fully computing. 

Lando grips the back of his neck, eyes looking everywhere but at you. “Our friendship makes her uncomfortable.” 

Now you really do laugh. “What friendship, Lan? I’ve barely seen you this year!” 

It was the truth. Ever since you had started classes in New York last year, your time to see your best friend had dwindled down into nearly nothing. You went to as many races as you could but going from spending nearly 24/7 with your brother and Lando to barely seeing them once every few months was more painful than you had anticipated. It hurt so much to watch him continue on, seemingly so unbothered by losing you, but this? This was the last straw. 

He had been dating the Portuguese model for a bit now and you had to admit, she was pretty and wonderfully nice. You truly had no issue with her, having met her once at a Grand Prix you had attended before classes had started this year. She was quiet, sweet, and obviously adored Lando so her being with him was fine with you. You wanted to see your best friend happy. But now? Now she was threatened by someone who wasn’t even a second thought in Lando’s head? 

You had spent the last few months desperately trying to believe that Lando wasn’t pulling away, that he wasn’t purposefully putting distance between you and him. Texts would go unanswered, calls went unreturned. You had chalked it up to him being busy and adjusting to having a new teammate but now you guess you had the truth: he was avoiding you. 

“If that’s what you want, I’ll respect your wishes.” You murmur, taking a step away, suddenly wanting nothing more than to retreat back into the Ferrari motorhome where you could nurse your embarrassment in peace. 

“It’s not…” Lando fumbles, but you know what he’s about to say isn’t true. This is exactly what he wants. 

“No, I get it Lan. She’s threatened by me. I respect that and I’ll make myself scarce this weekend. You and her won’t have to worry about me anymore.” 

The pain of your words slices through Lando. He hadn’t wanted to do this, far from it. But the fight that she had started last night when she had seen you in the pit lane laughing with Carlos and Charles had put him in a tight spot. You were his best friend, but she was his girlfriend. He owed her the respect, right? Even if he knew that nothing was going on, nothing could happen. It wasn’t in the cards for the two of you. 

“I’m sorry.” He says. 

“Me too, Lan.

You blink rapidly, erasing the painful memory from your brain as your boss steps towards Oscar and Lando, who are watching you approach. The look on Lando’s face sends your pulse skyrocketing. It’s a look that’s somewhere between surprise, confusion, and maybe even a bit of betrayal and you hate every bit of it. 

“Oscar, I wanted to introduce you to your new press officer. She just landed last night so I’m sure she’s a bit jet lagged but she insisted on getting to work straight away. She’ll be taking you around for media duties after FP2 today so be nice, okay?” 

“I’m always nice.” The Aussie says, soft smile on his lips. “It’s nice to meet you. Lando talks about you all the time.” 

Your eyes dart towards Lando, who is still somewhat glaring at you like he can’t believe you’re in front of him. He talks about you? Still? Your stomach does an involuntary somersault at this bit of information, blush creeping its way high up on your cheek bones. 

The phone in your hand chimes with a reminder. Oscar is due to an Australian media outlet in ten minutes for an interview. “Well, that’s my cue.” You turn to the girl that had been filming the segment with a friendly smile. “Is he good to go?” 

“He’s all yours!” 

With permission to leave, you turn on your heel and walk towards the staircase, Oscar in tow. Lando watches after you, still struggling to process what just happened. You worked for McLaren now? As Oscar’s press officer? He had just played padel with Carlos this fucking morning and he hadn’t said a single word about this. Surly Carlos had known about your taking the job so why hadn’t he told him? Did you not want him to know? Did you hate him so much that you didn’t even care if he knew or not? How had the most important person in his life become someone he just used to know once? 

That last fight before he…said some of the the most shameful thing he’s ever said flashes through his mind as he wanders down to his drivers room, suddenly needing a break. 

“You literally never shut up about her. ‘She does this.’ And ‘she does that’. Jesus Christ, Lando you could not be more obvious about it.” The anger in her voice had set his teeth on edge. “And now I have to sit and watch the, what did they call you guys? The Chaos Gremlins? Now I have to sit and watch The Chaos Gremlins be reunited for the entire fucking weekend and just sit back and take it?” 

“There is nothing going on between us.” Lando insists, running his hands through his curls. “I haven’t seen her in months. Months!” 

“But there would be if she was here, right?” 

He had no answer for her. Because she was probably right in her assumption. If you had stayed, Lando had no idea what would’ve happened. 

“It’s her or me, Lando.” 

The rest of the day passes in what feels like the blink of an eye. By the time Oscar is done with all of his interviews at the end of the evening, you feel dead on your feet. You’ve lost all sense of time, feeling like you’ve been hit with a truck and you want nothing more than to get back to your hotel room and sleep for the next 5 to 10 business days. Or the last free practice tomorrow afternoon. 

The Uber to the hotel takes far too long but just as your eyes are about to shutter closed in the back seat, you arrive and drag your near lifeless body up to your room. A quick shower is all you have the energy for, desperately needing to get the germs of the day off and then, you’re in bed, blissfully tucked between soft white cotton sheets watching some weird Australian soap opera. 

Your eyes are heavy when the alert dings and you nearly ignore it, assuming it’s Carlos checking in. He could wait until you saw him tomorrow. But a quick glance shows you it isn’t Carlos. 

You don’t fully understand why you gave him your room number. Not when the only thing on your mind is going to sleep. This is probably a really bad time to have such an important conversation too but a part of you, that part of you that never stopped hoping that maybe one day your best friend would come back to you, that part of you wanted to get this out of the way so you could move on, with or without him. 

Ten minutes later, there’s a soft knock on the door and you haul yourself out of bed, still bone numbingly tired but also strangely keyed up with nervous energy. This would be the first time you had really spoken to Lando since that night two years ago. Sure, you two had exchanged pleasantries when you found yourself in the paddock for a race weekend but most of the time you kept to yourself in the Ferrari garage and motorhome, making sure your presence wasn’t noticed by anyone outside of your brother and Charles. 

Tugging on your favorite NYU crewneck, you pad towards the door while willing your racing heart beat to slow. This is fine. This is going to be okay. You two needed to talk if you were going to be working closely this year so this had to happen sooner or later. 

The door swings open and Lando stands in front of you looking just as exhausted and devastated as you feel. 

“Hi.” He breathes, hands wringing together. 

“Hi Lan.” You sigh. 

His smile widens at the nickname and you open the door a bit wider to allow him in. You cross the room, settling on the king size bed before staring up at him. “You wanted to talk?” 

The pain in his eyes cuts such a deep slice through you, it’s a wonder you don’t start bleeding out on the bedspread. 

“Why didn’t you tell me you were coming back?” He crosses the room towards you, setting every nerve ending in your body firing. He’s too close and you can’t control yourself when he’s like this. 

You shrug, wondering how you’re still able to hold yourself together at this point. “I didn’t think you’d care.” 

Lando drops his gaze away from you then, shame and anger surging across his handsome features. “Of course I’d care.” 

“You didn’t when you chose her over me.” 

He drags a hand over his face, the look of misery that sits on his face is reminiscent of the night you told him you were moving to New York City all those years ago. The memory brings a surge of white hot pain that cuts you so deeply it steals the breath from your lungs. If you had known that this was where you’d end up, you didn’t know if you would have made the same decision. 

“And listen, that was fine, I guess. You had to respect your relationship with her but the most confusing thing was afterwards. Why the radio silence after?” You fold your hands into your lap, unable to meet the gaze that you feel so heavy on your skin. He’s practically begging you to look at him but you simply can’t. 

“I was ashamed.” He admits and you feel the tears prick at the back of your eyes, a hot and painful sting that reminds you of how much you’ve lost. “I was ashamed at how I treated you and couldn’t face it.” 

“Rightfully so.” You mutter, rolling your eyes.

“I’m sorry.” He murmurs while reaching for your hand. “I’m so sorry for how I treated you. I should have told her to fuck off for making me choose between her and you. I should have chosen my best friend and I’ve regretted that decision every day of my life since.” 

The fact that you’re finally hearing the words you’ve been dreaming of hearing for nearly two years hits you like a ton of bricks. Here he was, your best friend, finally apologizing and owning up to his mistakes and for some reason, it felt like it was all just too little too late. How many nights had you stayed up, sobbing on your living room couch with your roommates over the stupid boy who was mean to you? Wondering what you had done to make him treat you like this? Hadn’t your friendship meant more than what it had ended up being? 

And now, here you were, back in his orbit again and it just…didn’t matter. You had spent so many nights wishing this would come and now that he was finally taking responsibility and owning up to his actions, it just didn’t feel like it was enough. 

“I think you should go.” 

“What?” He stutters, fingers gripping yours almost desperately. 

“I am exhausted and need some time to process this Lando. And you have quali tomorrow, you need to be focusing on racing, not on our issues.” 

“I don’t give a fuck about racing.” He bites out, blue eyes turning stormy gray with anger. “I want to fix this.” 

“This isn’t something that can be fixed with a single conversation.” 

You didn’t even know if it could be fixed at all, if you were being honest with yourself. 

“Then I’ll keep going until it is fixed, I promise.” 

“Don’t make promises you don’t intend to keep, Lando.” You warn, rising from the bed. “I need to get some sleep, okay? I’ll see you tomorrow.” 

Lando feels like his heart is being ripped from his chest. He had never intended for your friendship to end up like this. It just…slipped away from him and he was so swept away by his lifestyle the last year that he convinced himself you were both better off where you were instead of together like the universe intended. He had been so scared to admit how wrong he had been, choosing her over you that night that he had allowed it to spiral so out of control it might never come back to him. You might never come back to him. 

Tag List: @anilovessadbooks, @shelbyteller, @formulaal, @martygraciesversion381, @longhairkoo, @samantha-chicago, @stelena-klayley @dark-night-sky-99 @luckylampzonkland, @chlmtfilms , @inarabee @aykxz98 @forensicheart @cheer-bear-go-vroom @charlesgirl16 @lieutenantchaos @willowsnook @sltwins @linnygirl09 @powerfulmess @technicallypleasanttree @meglouise00

[lawyerbelal]

Hello, thank you for taking the time to visit my GoFundMe campaign. My name is Belal, I am a 29-year-oldhuman rights lawyer from the northern area of Gaza. I lived a happy and meaningful life with my wife and my family until everything changed onOctober 7.

This is our story:

My life was just getting started. I graduated law school in 2021 and got married to my beautiful wife in 2022. I’d been working on building my house since 2019, and finally I finished it onNovember 24, 2022. Just before the beginning of this terrible war, onSeptember 1, 2023, I finally achieved my lifelong dream of starting my own law firm. It’s very difficult to open a law office here in Gaza, so there are very few other people who have been able to achieve this at my age. Opening my law firm was one of the proudest moments of my life. I worked extremely hard for everything I had. Although I knew that the odds of achieving my dreams were slim, I never let this stop me. In the moments where I wanted to give up, I drew strength from God and from my love for my community, my love for Gaza.

My house was destroyed on October 13 –– our beautiful moments, our memories, and all our precious belongings were all gone with it. My law firm was also destroyed that week. Everything I had worked so hard for throughout my entire life, gone in an instant.We’ve been displaced 5 times in 5 different homes, and now our “home” is a tent that houses 15 people. We were forced to travel from the very north of Gaza to the southernmost area. We risked our lives every time we were forced to flee, as bombs and missiles rained down on us, destroying our neighborhoods and taking thousands of lives. Somehow, alhamdulillah, each time we miraculously escaped death as we searched for life without knowing what would happen to us the next day.

Our displacement journey began, moving several times from one area to another, until we ended up in a tent in the “Tal al-Sultan” area in the city of “Rafah.” You can imagine how difficult life is in a tent. Everything is done with great difficulty. We are forced to use primitive methods to carry out daily tasks. Every day we make fires to prepare food, and struggle to provide water to drink or bathe. Going to the bathroom is a struggle in itself for adults rather than children, in the absence of toilets suitable for human use.

The situation worsens with the advent of summer and rising temperatures. The tent literally turns into a “sauna” during the day, and we suffer from pollution,influenza, and other serious diseases that lead tohepatitis. On top of that,I lost my private office that I had established just a month before the war and my job. I was working as alawyer and legal advisor for many local and internationalinstitutions and became unemployed due to a complete power outage and lack of Internet connection most of the time. I am facing great difficulty in providing for my family's needs amidst the crazy rise in prices. We have suffered enough and been subjected to a lot of fear and panic over the past seven months. The city of Rafah is now threatened by a ground invasion at any moment by the occupation, so I decided to travel and leave Gaza.

Despite how much I love the place that will always be my home, the genocidal war has left nothing for us. I struggle every day to provide for my basic needs because of the huge rise in prices. My wife and I often do not know where our next meal will come from. We have no access to proper medical care. It pains me to say that I am living the worst days of my life. It’s one nightmare after another. There is no life here and I fear I will die if I can’t leave. I lost a brother of mine a while ago, I lost my home, my law firm, and everything I worked so hard for. I don’t want to lose anything else.

Your donations will help my wife and I escape certain death in Gaza by traveling to Egypt. We will then figure out where we can go next to continue our lives, we will go to any country that will take us. After the immense weight of having seen so much death and lost so much, we want to start a new chapter in our lives. Wherever we go, I will continue to do my life’s work of defending human rights and seeking justice for all people. We know we deserve a better life, and we are endlessly grateful for any support you can provide to help us get to this goal.

Thank you for your generosity, kindness, and support..

.

[vera-deville]

Could you ask for a female S/O? she is very shy and cute, she is also super kind and tries to help everyone, she is also easy to cry and short. For Leona, I imagine this very cute because they are opposites and Leona being tall and the "bad guy" and your S/O all cute and shy

Of course! Thank you very much for your request! As usual, I'm really sorry for not getting this done sooner, however, I've been caught up in the show that is life.

12/03/2022 - 01/18/2023

Pairing: Leona Kingscholar x Reader

Word Count: 723

Warnings: None that I can think of!

Gender: AFAB

Notes: Okay, so I know I haven't posted a fic in ages, but the thing is, I REALLY wanted to. A lot of things kept me busy, and I also lost motivation for a while. However, I'm trying to come out of that funk.

Having said that, I absolutely love this request. I'm actually a sucker for soft readers with, well, not soft characters, and I love Leona's character, so this works just fine for me.

Furthermore, when I first read this request, I was planning on writing a headcanon, but I ultimately decided to write an imagine, because of two reasons. One, I wanted to write more, which I can't really do with a headcanon. The second reason is that I just really like this request and I want to write a long ass fic-

So, the thing is, I actually started writing this over a month ago, and only now am finishing this (I'm so sorry), and I got so caught up in making this the best thing I've ever written that it turned out...not so great. I'm really sorry about that!

In which Leona is your typical "bad guy" and Y/N is your typical "soft girl."

Y/N was notorious at Night Raven College. On the surface level, one might thing the reason behind her notoriety was the fact that she was this magicless student from a totally different dimension that just one day popped into Twisted Wonderland.

But they'd be wrong.

Dig a little deeper, and you'd think that perhaps her notoriety is due to the fact that she is the only girl in an all-boys school.

You'd still be wrong.

The notoriety lied within the way Y/N carried herself. One interaction with her, and you'd think that she was at the wrong school and that she probably should have been at Royal Sword Academy (or even better yet, whatever world she came from originally).

The girl in question was short. Add in her shy, timid, and cute appearance and nature, and you'd incorrectly guess her age (only the Great Seven know how many times people mistook her for a child). Furthermore, Y/N was a bit prone to waterworks.

It's not that she'd cry for absolutely anything whenever, but rather her brain seemed to be replaced with her heart, thus absorbing things with such force that the faucet to her eyes is turned on.

And the one who enjoys her reactions the most is the lion often seen lounging in the garden.

Leona Kingscholar. The perfect opposite of Y/N. And yet, they compliment one another so well.

Leona also had a reputation of his own at school. He was one to not be trifled with, one to respect, and one to fear. It also didn't really help his case seeing as he was something of a beanstalk, towering over most the students at NRC.

When Leona and Y/N made their relationship public, it shook the school, and hushed whispers could be heard as the passed through the halls together. Eventually though, the whispers settled down into the occasional murmur (though part of this was due to the fact that no one wanted to be on the receiving end of Leona's wrath due to the gossip making Y/N and himself uncomfortable).

And so the two went through the days together, in bliss.

One fine day, Leona was looking for Y/N, and asked Ruggie where she was. Ruggie told him that Y/N had gone to the garden, something about checking up on the birds.

Leona sighed.

Of course she went back to the garden for the umpteenth time that day.

Swiftly maneuvering his way to the garden, his steps stopped when his gaze landed on Y/N.

She looked ethereal, her back facing him, and her hair framing her figure so perfectly. She wore the school uniform (specifically tailored to better fit her small stature) so well in his eyes.

Leona drank in everything about the scene that he possibly could. Everything from the sunlight, the flowers, the greenery, and Y/N's body shaking in a convulsing manner.

Immediately, he was snapped out of his reverie, and that was the moment his ears consciously registered the sobs escaping from the crouched figure. He rushed to the said girl and tried to calm her down.

He asked Y/N what happened for her to cry so unabashedly, and that was when he noticed the little bird cradled in her hands.

Sniffling, tears seemingly endless, Y/N managed out, "Henry fell!"

Leona had never been more confused in his life.

It's obvious the bird in her hands was "Henry" and that he fell, but what was so bad about that? It's not like the thing died, or even injured itself.

But, Leona also knew just how deeply Y/N felt for the world around her. So, he comforted her, telling her bluntly that Henry would be alright, and that he wasn't mad at Y/N, or anything that she was probably currently thinking.

A few minutes later, Y/N had calmed down for the most part, a sniffles escaping her, when Henry flew away, in a roundabout, back to Y/N and perched on her shoulder. This seemed to completely cheer up Y/N and she went back to playing with Henry as though she hadn't been intensely sobbing for the past who knows how long.

Leona shook his head while sighing. The girl was a handful, but...

He wouldn't have it any other way.

[gaslightgallows]

September 2023 Writing Round-Up

I just checked my tags, and I haven't done one of these since… three years ago. Exactly three years ago yesterday (9/29/20), to be precise. Which was pretty much when my mental health and my personal life started to crumble in earnest, and it took my desire to write for public consumption along with it.

Most of what I did for the rest of 2020/2021 were either struggling to finish works in progress (and largely failing) or archiving stuff from my LJ days. I didn't post anything in 2022. I was still writing (a lot) but it was either for Patreon (…fuck, right, I have a Patreon) or it was personal, not meant to be shared.

And then Good Omens came back and ended up being really fucking relevant to my life, and @meldanya44 was there urging me to get back into writing for other people besides her. I think it was a good idea, over all. ♥

So… yeah. Thanks, Good Omens fandom, for reminding me that writing is meant to be shared, and that I am a prompt-based lifeform. (I'll be putting up a new prompt list tomorrow, if anyone wants an artisanally crafted bespoke ficlet of their very own.)

Anyway, here's what I did in September:

Authorial Intent (G, one-shot): Michael’s plan to erase Aziraphale from the Book of Life has certain… flaws. A revision of the final season of S2 Ep6, where the Metatron does not make an appearance. (Actually posted at the end of August but this is my list and it counts. Written very shortly after I finished S2 for the first time. Effervescing with joy.)

Put Out the Stars (T, currently a one-shot, planning to continue): Crowley stole the photo of himself and Aziraphale from the shop a long time ago. (Inspired by one of @fellshish's asks. Angst angst angst… with more to come!)

An Invisible Wound (T, one-shot): “I almost killed you tonight.” “I almost got you killed tonight.” Their first kiss, soft and futile, is in 1941. (Bittersweet canon-compliant 1941 truthers unite.)

After the Rain (T, one-shot; for @meldanya44): The Second Coming has come and gone, and Crowley was calling him ‘angel’ again. (Wonderful quiet post-series fluff.)

Like Petals in a Storm (M, currently a standalone but working on a sequel; for @meldanya44): Between the discorporation and the almost-execution, Aziraphale’s having a bit of trouble keeping body and soul together. (My reputation-mandated 'one partner helps another bathe' fic.)

The Taste of Salt (G, one-shot; for @iamhisgloriouspurpose): The lingering taste of ox ribs are bitter and rich in Aziraphale's mouth, and he isn't sure what he believes anymore. (Continues the 'I'm not taking you to Hell, angel' scene in the Ep2 minisode. Nice and angsty. No one seems to like this one and I'm not sure why.)

Pipe Dream (G, one-shot; for @unwholesome-gay): All Aziraphale has ever wanted is to give heaven back to Crowley. (Domestic fluff about Aziraphale buying the South Downs cottage for Crowley. Fun fact: I struggled to write this and finally posted it in dismay and tried to forget about it. And then my inbox exploded with HEARTS, so I guess it wasn't as bad as I thought.)

The Patience of Angels, Chs 1-4 (M, multi-chapter WIP): An old enemy is on the hunt for the demon known as Crowley, and it will take all the powers of one very protective angel to save him. But in keeping Crowley safe, Aziraphale will uncover more of the terrible truths of Heaven than he ever wanted to know. (The longfic I first conceived of in 2019 and then never got around to finishing enough to post, and am now trying to revise the HELL out of in real-time because the original version doesn't work anymore. I love this fic with a burning passion and hope it finds an audience someday… which it probably will if I can update it, y'know, more often than once a month…)

Fics Posted: 8 Word Count: 28,182

I'm never going to be as prolific as I was when I was in the MCU fandom and had a much less-hectic job, but I'd call that a decent comeback. Thanks, everyone. ♥

[lilolilyr]

✨ao3 wrapped 2023✨

Haven't seen this tagging meme around at all yet this year, so I thought I'd start it myself!

2022

Works published: 74, very similar to last year! a bit less but the year also isn’t over yet :D edit: by the time I’m getting around to post this, it’s on 86! Yay!

Wordcount: 118254 I’m happy I made it past 100k! That was my tentative goal and I didn’t think I’d make it with how slow it came along for most of the year, but with flufftober and the events I did manage :D

Kudos: 3184

Hits: 31833

Bookmarks: 267

Subscriptions: 114 and I’m at 157 user subscriptions right now? Who follows my multifandom mess of an Ao3, doesn’t that completely clogg up your email inbox? Maybe I’m just biased bc I rarely check my fandomy email and when I do it’s always a mess xD but I think tag lists on tumblr are so much more useful

Most popular by kudos: Gave myself a Fright, a Mirandy (DWP) fic with 301 kudos

Most hits: same fic, 2404 hits

Longest: lonely hearts on remote roads with 10811 words - Milippa road trip AU my beloved!

Shortest: I wrote nine drabbles (100 word ficlets) this year, they’re the shortest ones :)

Most Comments: my podfic of the Mirandy longfic Jigsaw has 14 comment threads - damn, that’s a year with few comments! In past years the whole top 5 commented on fics had more than that. Oh well!

Fics that made me cry: Grief, a fanfic where I project my own feelings about a dead pet onto Myka, and recording the Jigsaw podfic also made me really emotional a lot

Fics that made me smile: so manyy! For example the Berena fic Happiness surrounded by Snow

gifts:

- the first chapter of ‘Time Dilates’ by @barbarawar as my Bering and Wells gift exchange gift back in February, thanks!

- ‘Blame it on Circumstance’, a wonderful sequel to the fluffy fic @squishmittenficfan made me for the Berena gift exchange in 2022, and another sequel Blame it on Love posted just a few days ago I haven’t actually gotten around to read yet but am already very excited for!

- ‘never borrow Helena’s clothes’, a fic for the Bering and Wells advent by @jesstrel that I have beta read for them :)

I have gifted some fics as well this year, I tend to gift people fics when they helped me with it by beta reading or cheering me on, or when I was writing to someone’s prompt! I know I adore getting gift works on Ao3 and I love to share that happiness :)

collaborations:

Halloween fic and art collab with @thewalkingmeepa, that was fun!

Drunken Considerations, a Bering and Wells collab fic with @lavendelhummel :D first time I made a collab while actually in the same room with the other person xD

Both collaborations and part of an event were the fic & podfic works Where No Flan Has Gone Before (Star Trek humor) with @bookgirlfan and Which Mere Modernity Cannot (modern Dracula) with @artax-risen, and the Bering and Wells Advent Calendar with @lavendelhummel @purlturtle @akittennameddaisy @viharistenno @jesstrel @sallysetonbw @violetren @thiakerrigan @tryingthisfangirlthing that is still ongoing! finished now, I take too long for tagging memes xdxD

events:

- Flufftober (I managed to make something for every single day of the month, yay!)

- Berena advent

2022 version

Tagging, if you want to do it, everyone already tagged above as well as @die-schwanenkoenigin @amysnotdeadyet @lesbianlotties @guardianrock @73chn1c0l0rr3v3l @danisnotmyname @batnbreakfast @sapphicscholar @tabsolanya @sterenheart @wibblywobblyida @forestcircle @ongreenergrasses and everyone else who sees this!

For ease of copying: Works published: Wordcount: Kudos: Hits: Bookmarks: Subscriptions: Most popular by kudos: Most hits: Longest: Shortest: Most Comments: Fics that made me cry: Fics that made me smile: gifts: collaborations: events:

sapphicscholar purlturtle die-schwanenkoenigin amysnotdeadyet squishmittenficfan viharistenno lesbianlotties bookgirlfan

[arimiadev]

2023 Year in Review

2023 has come and gone—it feels like it was just a week ago that my grandma was complaining that Thanksgiving and Christmas were too close together, and now it’s January. I spent the last 2 weeks of 2023 sick (I still am), which made it go by like a blur.

2022 was a fresh slate for me, with a new job, a new home, and new projects. 2023 was a year of finding a new rhythm—figuring out how I work best and molding my work time around that rather than trying to make myself go against the flow.

Working from home is truly a blessing and a curse. I do think that it has more positives than negatives (especially right now as I’m able to work while being sick and don’t have to take time off), but navigating around the negatives is tricky. The main problem I’ve faced, aside from lack of interaction with non-family, is that it’s harder for me to focus on work when I end up spending almost all of my awake hours at my desk, either for my fulltime job or for VN development or for relaxing.

I’ve had to mix things up, usually taking my laptop to other parts of the house or even working outside of home some days. Even if it’s only for a few hours, it helps reset the fatigue of being at my desk all day every day. It doesn’t always work, and one problem I ran into for most of the year was being unable to focus on writing. Art and scripting are more “mindless” for me, I can do them with a video or voice call in the background, but writing is something I’ve always struggled to concentrate on.

This year was my first year attempting NaNoWriMo, though a more casual version of it. A few other devs were also entering NaNoWriMo to work on their projects so I hopped on too. I wanted to use the hype of the event to push myself to focus on writing, and it worked! My goal was to hit 30k total words in the month across multiple projects—which is about what I write in half a year—and I hit it.

Projects

Canvas Menagerie continued to be my main project in 2023. I was able to release several new demo builds for the project, mainly redoing and improving artwork for the game. My art has been improving a lot the past couple of years which is a good and a bad thing—it’s good because I’m improving and it’s bad because it means I have to redo or edit older game art!

I was also able to finish writing Act 2, meaning that Canvas Menagerie is 2/3rds written! A lot of good progress was made on it this year and I hope to continue (and maybe finish?) that this year.

I also got a trailer for it by Hatoge, a fellow BL developer! It came out so nice…

My other main project for 2023 was Lost Lune, a project I started in 2022. It was meant to be a small-ish project for Winter VN Jam 2022, but I ran into some issues with the story structure.

Lost Lune is a story I like but have had a hard time figuring out how to put the world and characters into words. I have an understanding on how the plot progresses, but due to a few different reasons it’s been hard to actually write it. One reason has been the unconventional format for the story, with it flipping between the past and present in a linear way. The other reason I’ve had a hard time with it is the character personalities—Weiss, the main character, is much more forward, blunt, and promiscuous than characters I’ve written before. It’s also the darkest setting I’ve ever written in as it’s set in a post apocalypse.

Thanks to NaNoWriMo I was able to get over 9k more written for the story, leading to about half of the story currently being written. I’d like for the project to be finished this year, but it’s hard to say when.

A small project I worked on for Ludum Dare & Otome Jam this year was a short game featuring some of my oldest OCs, where you play as a witch returning home and helping her father’s delivery service. I wanted to make something more experimental than what I usually make and something just for me.

I ended up adding some extra features to it but never released the updated build, so maybe sometime in the future…

My last project for this year was Asphodelium, my Winter VN Jam 2023 entry. I’ve had a hard time describing it, but basically it’s a dark slice of life romance about the members of a disbanded adventurer’s guild after stopping a doomsday cult at the cost of killing their former leader who betrayed them. Hazel, the one who dealt the final blow, has had the hardest time moving on—until one day he’s approached by a man with the same face as their dead leader.

This was a story I got the idea for sometime in September and began writing on a whim in the middle of October and ended up writing a majority of in November for NaNoWriMo. I didn’t expect the script to get far but here I am, 40k words later…

I finished the script and most of the art in December but was unable to completely finish the game because I got sick before Christmas. Just another WIP to finish this year…

Articles

This year I didn’t make as many articles as in years prior, a trend that will probably go forward. I do still want to write articles on marketing and visual novel dev, but I feel like it’s a waste of time to rehash old topics or talk about social media algorithms and such.

One thing I started this year for articles was interviews with fellow developers, starting with my friend ingthing. I don’t want my articles to be just my own opinions, so I want to get more voices out there. In 2024 I want to do more interviews with other devs to share their views on development.

With a record high amount of games we had to judge for Spooktober VN Jam this year, I wrote up a post about my takeaways from the jam with some commentary from my fellow judges. I was blown away by the response the article received, with it being one of my top 3 articles of all time now.

My last blog post—I hesitate to call it an article—that I wrote in one frantic day somehow was my favorite of the year. After months of radio silence from Aniplex US about Mahoyo, the first TYPE-MOON (pure) visual novel to be released officially in English on Steam, I did a deep dive into why they had forsaken such easy money by refusing to market it. The end result? Well, we’ll probably never know why, but it’s clear that someone at Aniplex made the decision to not give a budget to their marketing teams for Mahoyo and instead let the fans market it themselves.

Art

This year was a bit sparse for full artworks, with a majority of them being for Canvas Menagerie. I got a lot more comfortable drawing his hair!

I also got more into Holostars EN this year with the introduction of the second half of Holostars Tempus, the Vanguard unit (but mainly Gavis Bettel). I was following Tempus from the beginning and was a big fan of Magni and Vesper, but Bettel won as my kamioshi. He’s also the only one in the snapshot above (for August) that’s fanart, as the rest are OCs.

Goals

2023 Goals:

Fully write Act 2 of Canvas Menagerie: Canvas Menagerie is currently split up into 3 acts, around 50k words long for each act. I was able to finish the first draft for Act 2 in October! It ended up being much shorter than I estimated, but that’s how things go sometimes.

Release demo for Lost Lune: …Well, this kinda happened but not really. I wanted to release a longer demo for Lost Lune as the current playable build is more like a teaser—it’s very short and only features 2 out of an estimated 20~ days. I did however end up reprogramming the playable build, changing the main character from a side sprite to being on screen with several other visual changes. I’m much happier with this direction for the game.

Write more consistent devlogs: This also didn’t really happen as my intention was to write an article a month, but with our physicals Kickstarter earlier this year, other things took higher priority. I also realized pretty early on in the year that I’m tired of writing about social media algorithms and want to write about more interesting game dev and marketing topics, like case studies and such.

Open a merch shop: This was the first goal I accomplished this year! It was also the easiest since it was already mostly set up. You can see the merch shop for my games here—I think it’s pretty cute.

2024 Goals:

Fully write Act 3 of Canvas Menagerie: Self-explanatory. I want to get to a first draft state for all of CM. I doubt I’ll be able to finish the game next year unless I get a whirlwind of inspiration as it still needs around 40-50k words, 25+ CGs, 5+ character sprites and more, but we’ll see how far I get.

Write more of Lost Lune: I was able to write over 10k this year for Lost Lune while working on other stuff and in 2024 I want to get close to finishing the script if not finishing it.

Release the full version & an artbook for Asphodelium: Due to getting sick at the end of December, I wasn’t able to fully release Asphodelium. It’s pretty close to being done so it shouldn’t take long to finish it. I also want to release a (digital) artbook for it, as I have a lot of design notes for the LI. It’s also been quite a while since I released an artbook so I want to try making one again.

Go to an out-of-town convention: All my life, I’ve only ever attended the anime conventions in the Memphis area. Despite Memphis being a big city, the conventions here…aren’t really ran by people who want to expand it or even really change anything, so for the past decade it’s been in stagnation. At Studio Élan we’re boothing at more conventions this year, and I want to help! I’m hoping to go to Offkai Expo this summer.

Share more VNs I like: Thanks to rejoining Tumblr in late 2022, I’ve become more acquainted with visual novel players over there and I want to talk more about visual novels that I play. There’s a lot of great games out there that people just don’t hear about, so I want to talk about VNs more.

I feel like in 2023 I was starting to find my “thing”—I really like talking about VNs and I want to share unheard of and underrepresented developers to others! I’ve become bored of making generic marketing articles but I’ve found joy in making posts in collaboration with other devs or sharing other VNs.

2024 is a bit of a scary year and has me rather nervous, but I hope we’ll all make it through it. I want to finish some of the stuff I’ve began and I want to share more lesser known visual novels.

I hope this year will be better for us all. Until next time!

— Arimia

[bittertomato]

A lil late but happy new year!

Characters under the cut, plus some fun facts

Tomato's faves for each month of 2023

January: Diana Cavendish (Little With Academia)

February: Diana Cavendish (Little Witch Academia)

March: True Rider — Hippolyta (Fate/Strange Fake)

April: Psyche Callista (Your Throne)

May: Misaka Mikoto (A Certain Scientific Railgun)

June: Misaka Mikoto (A Certain Scientific Railgun)

July: Morgan (Fate/Grand Order)

August: Morgan (Fate/Grand Order)

September: Morgan (Fate/Grand Order)

October: Morgan (Fate/Grand Order)

November: Morgan (Fate/Grand Order)

December: Morgan (Fate/Grand Order)

Brainrot of the Year 2023: Morgan (Fate/Grand Order)

Hall of Fame (aka brainrots of years past)

2023: Morgan (Fate/Grand Order)

2022: Tsuruhime Yachiyo (Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight: ReLive)

2021: Tsuruhime Yachiyo and Yumeoji Shiori (Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight: ReLive)

2020: Yumeoji Shiori (Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight: ReLive)

2019: Tendou Maya (Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight: ReLive)

2017 & 2018: Diana Cavendish (Little Witch Academia)

2016: Carmilla Karnstein (Carmilla the Webseries), Elsa (Frozen), Tohsaka Rin (Fate/stay night), and Misaka Mikoto (A Certain Scientific Railgun)

2015: Carmilla Karnstein + Laura Hollis aka Hollstein (Carmilla the Webseries) aka my gay awakening

2014: Elsa (Frozen)

2012 & 2013: Higurashi Kagome (Inuyasha), Kuchiki Rukia (Bleach), Mouri Ran (Detective Conan), and Chiba Mamoru (Sailor Moon)

2011: Chiba Mamoru (Sailor Moon)

2009 & 2010: Kuchiki Rukia (Bleach)

Pre-2009: Who knows? My memory sure doesn't!

And I promised fun facts, so...

The early days...

The reason I can date my first fave to Rukia in 2009 is because that was when I made a Fanfiction.net account and posted my first fanfic. Don't read it I was young and foolish.

Bleach, Inuyasha, and Sailor Moon were my first animes. The first two I definitely watched on Adult Swim back when I still watched cable.

I used to be pretty skilled at self defense and even have a first degree black belt. One of the reasons why Ran from Detective Conan really left an impression on me.

There's a few unnamed faves that I also had from more obscure anime that were from so long ago that I can't pinpoint the exact years. A special shoutout to Asuka from Ask Dr. Rin! This show is in no way affiliated with Tohsaka Rin lol.

And yes, I do have male faves besides Mamoru! I love Hak and his constipated repressed feelings for Yona (Akatsuki no Yona) and my in-game name in FGO is inspired by Kurogane (Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles). And for whatever reason, Fred is my favorite from Scooby Doo.

Honestly, I have to give Elsa some credit. I think she started the trend of my faves being "blonde/light haired "regal" rich/well off BAMF ladies who seem cold and distant on the surface but are actually dorks over-burdened and forced to grow up too fast, with a dash (or a ton) of family angst dumped on them." I mean, do you see any of my past faves being blonde? xD

The college days...

I was in denial about being queer and swore I was straight until I somehow found Carmilla the Webseries (I don't even know how) during the summer of 2015 and had a multi-step process of acceptance that went something like "Oh the actress for Laura Hollis is hot. Oh the actress for Carmilla is cute, pretty, and a huge dork. Oh everyone is pretty attractive. Wait mostly just the girls. Wait is that why I don't give a shit about men?"

Little Witch Academia is not only the first series where I published fanfic on AO3, but it's also the series that got me to write AND finish longer stories. So congrats, Diana! I really wanted to angst you :D It's also the fandom where I found my closer Discord friends. Love y'all, mwah.

I think Revue Starlight might be the series that squeezed the most faves out of me. It holds a special place in my heart for numerous reasons, but the main one might be the collab fic I worked on with Quill, who is now my partner 😊So thanks, ReLive even if your gacha game is somehow even worse than FGO.

That said, the series I seem to always go back to seem to be the To aru and Fate franchises. Maybe it's because they're still ongoing.

Those two are also the reason I started messaging Quill back in the day, so they hold an extra special place in my heart. Even with all their flaws.

And then Lostbelt 6 hit FGO and blew everything out of the water. I rave about Morgan a lot but that chapter of the game truly had a stellar cast. Nasu wanted us to remember that he can cook lol.

Where is my Lostbelt 6 anime, Aniplex?

[johnwgrey]

I saw several people do this and wanted to join in the fun!

MY WRITING:

Love you forever & forever (love you with all my heart) - Mature - 2.5K - MCD (!)

Mirror, Mirror on the wall - Teen - 1.1K

Reader, I married him - Explicit - 33K - WIP

Kiss me hard, touch me soft on the weekend - Mature - 4.5K

A twist of fates - Teen - 4.1K so far - WIP

Birthday Man (co-written with the Discord server) - Explicit - 1.7K mine

This is goodbye. - Mature - 2K

Cariad - General - 737 words

Nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands - Mature - 1.5K

Are you still mine? - Mature - 1.8K

Wrapped around my heart - a gift for @martsonmars 's birthday 🥰 - Teen - 1.3K

First snow - Mature - 2.2K - this fic was written for COC

That's a lot more fics than I thought I'd posted this year! I think the ones I'm most happy with are Kiss me hard and Are you still mine. Writing these fics also made me realise that I really like to include micro sex scenes in my fics. So you can expect more of that this year! I think my favourite is still the one in Kiss me hard, though it's extremely short (just one sentence, really.) and written months ago.

The fic I'm most frustrated with/least happy with is also my most beloved, Reader I married him. But I have plans for this fic. I hope I can make them happen in 2023.

I also have to say that (SNOW FOR CHRISTMAS SPOILERS) I felt pretty validated when I read SFC as what Rainbow revealed in it about the dog shared some similarities with what I'd written in this is goodbye. There were a lot of differences of course, but on some points, I wasn't completely far off 😂

MORE FANDOM STUFF:

I made this gif for @martsonmars

And these quotes for @facewithoutheart

And this lovely quote from Rainbow about Kris's art

And this for Baz's birthday 💚💚💚

I also made a shit ton of Wayward Son quotes (the first sets are from 2021 but some are from 2022 so I think it's okay to post it here)

And last but not least, I completed COC, which I'm pretty proud of!

GOALS FOR 2023/SIX RESOLUTIONS not SUNDAY: (thank you for the tag @shrekgogurt)

First and foremost, I want to finish my CORB fic (a twist of fates) this is a story I believe in and I want to tell it. I just struggle a lot. But I'm determined to finish it within the year.

I want to outline/fully write/post a fic I've been thinking about for a while. I want it to remain a secret for now but I will tell more about it in due time. I think, if I can manage to write these two fics, I'll be pretty happy

I would like to become a better writer. Be able to tell better, more complex stories.

More fandom related than fic related, but I am going to try to stop feeling like I don't belong with you all and that no one wants me here (which is something I've struggled with my entire life. It really has nothing to do with you guys. You're all lovely!) (I'm aware I need therapy 😂)

Possibly make more friends within the fandom. There are so many of you guys I would love to get to know better!

And I want to have more confidence in myself, in my ability to do things. I need to start seeing my worth. (This might seem more random but the fact that I don't believe in myself really has a deep impact on my fics. I want to write more so I need to trust myself more.)

Thank you for reading! Let's make this another fun fandom year!

[coralinehecc]

Corals Monthly Update #3

HOHOHO!! FIRST BLOG POST OF 2023 AND I’M NEARLY 2 WEEKS LATE!!! Super sorry about the long wait! I’ve had tests recently and only got off of school like a few days ago haha! So! Welcome back to my monthly update on what I get up to in my life! Now, before we get into January, I, for the final time, have to tap back into the previous month. Curse past me for thinking the 21st was a good day to start doing these!!! ANYHOW! The rest of December and early January were a BLAST! But lemmie talk about what happened after I made the last update. CHRISTMAS!! I had a great time with my family and I got a bunch of fluffy things cuz that’s apparently the easiest thing to get me now. We also had dinner on Christmas day with my Grandparents like every year. Over-all that day was very fun! I even got drunk playing Minecraft which was funny for everyone in VC. The next few days weren’t anything exciting, however my brother Finn had a bunch of his friends over for his birthday which was chaotic. But the excitement picks back up on the 28th! BECAUSE SKYE AND VI CAME OVER FOR NEW YEARS!! We’ve been planning this since like, June, so it was awesome seeing them again! We did all kinds of stuff from shopping to playing some awesome games! (I am now chronically addicted to Ultra Kill thanks guys)

We even did some baking! Here is our glorious creation I dubbed, “The Jimothy”. 

Overall the rest of December was awesome! I’m glad I got to celebrate New Years with my besties! Overall, I’ll give it a 10/10! Best way to end 2022 >:D Here’s a few more misc photos hehehhehe

NOW! FOR JANUARY!! January started off still vibing with the guys. However they would then go home on the 4th which sucks. But before that, both Skye and I spent a lot of money on consoles that are almost as old as ourselves. They bought a fucking PS Vita and I got a motherfucking Wii. We both had fun with em and I even helped Skye homebrew their Vita since I wanted to put PebbleCD on it (I failed but shut uuup) But yea, sadly the guys had to go and it sucked! But I still had a great time. There’s a bit of a gap here right up until the 12th, where finally, the big event happened. CAREY IN THE HOUSE WENT LIVE!! I had finished it a few days prior but figured I’d build up hype by posting it on that Friday. AND IT SURE WORKED! The video blew up faster than any of my videos before it! I am so happy the response has been overwhelmingly positive. I also love how the only main complaint that was common amongst people was that Careys exaggerated accent was annoying which, yea can’t argue against. For anyone wishing for more CITH content, I did a behind the scenes mega thread over on my twitter if you wanna have a deeper look into the production! I’ll even link it here:  https://twitter.com/Carey_Black_/status/1619731723352444928 Now, to move onto why it took me forever to make an update. My mock exams.. BUT BEFORE THAT!! THERE’S ALSO THE FACT THAT MR WULF AND I WERE ABLE TO ARCHIVE THE ORIGINAL EDDSWORLD BANG BOOM SPLAT PROJECT FILE!!

This all started because Wulf wanted to edit the credits for his arcade BBS build since I was helping him out and since I said SWF modding is hard he just casually asked Psycosis and after seeing his WIP cabinet, gave Wulf the FLA! So a current “BBS arcade version” is in the works by yours truly thanks to both the generosity of Psycosis and the fact that Mr Wulf is a fucking mad man who could stop global warming in a month if he wanted to LOL! Here’s Wulfs finished Cabinet btw!:  https://twitter.com/MrWulfOfficial/status/1622295302685315073 But yea, for real. My mock exams were a pain! For those outside of Ireland or have a different name for em, Mock exams are, well, exams that act like a practice run for your finals. They’re always harder than the actual finals and are usually graded stricter too! Why? Who knows! The Irish education system is a joke. I feel like I did somewhat ok in them anyway? Some were definitely worse than others but overall it was more of an inconvenience. I did get this really cool art piece out of it however.

Exams would later spill over into February and like I said at the start, I finished and got off school a few days ago. Overall, this month was about a 7/10. It was pretty good, especially in the Eddsworld department, but mocks and other personal tid bits I didn’t mention here dragged it down for me. Since February seems to be mostly me being off school, I hope this month will be better haha! Only time will tell! Thank you for reading! And I hope to see you next month!! (Hopefully on time too haha!) 

[july13th2004]

AO3/Pixiv Masterlist - Part Three

Part One can be found here, and Part Two can be found here! Felt like a good time to add another one of these. There will probably be a Part Four, but probably not for at least another year and half (or whenever I write ~11 or 12 fics). This part is going to be divided into two sections, a drabble one, and a one-shot one. The drabbles (which are all R18/Explicit, so please be aware of that), were all written between July and December 2022. And the one-shots were all written between August 2022 and November 2023 (some are also R18/Explicit or Mature, so again, just be aware of that).

Drabbles

On Top (R18)

AO3 | Pixiv

Her Taste (R18)

AO3 | Pixiv

Her Warmth (R18)

AO3 | Pixiv

His Touch (R18)

AO3 | Pixiv

One-Shots

Forever Yours (R18)

AO3 | Pixiv

This is my favorite fic that I wrote in 2022! I still love the ending to this one, and overall I'm just really proud of how I wrote it!

Getting Caught Up In The Moment (R18)

AO3 | Pixiv

Close

AO3 | Pixiv

Year of the Snow Bunny

AO3 | Pixiv

Almost a year later, I am still so, so happy and grateful that many of you liked this fic! I'm hoping to post an Easter themed sequel to this one that I started on last year, next year.

A Quiet Morning

AO3 | Pixiv

This might be my favorite fic that I wrote last year! It's really sappy, but I don't know, I just love how I wrote it!

Impatience (R18)

AO3 | Pixiv

In Your Arms

AO3 | Pixiv

The Unexpected Dog (Protozoan) Father

AO3 | Pixiv

I am still completely floored by the response to this one five months later! This is probably my second favorite fic that I wrote last year, and I am so, so happy that many of you liked this one, too! I do plan on writing a sequel to this one, but I don't know when I'll get around to writing/posting that. Could be this year, could be next year...

To Revel Being In His Arms (R18)

AO3 | Pixiv

Let's Sleep Warmly

AO3 | Pixiv

Holding Them Close

AO3 | Pixiv

Tangled and Tied, Now and Forever (R18)

AO3 | Pixiv

That's all for this addition to my masterlist! This year I'm going to focus more on my WIPs and maybe, finally, adding some second parts to some of my past fics that really need it. Currently, I don't plan on posting another fic until March, when I will hopefully, finally, finish that Valentine's Day/White Day series I started almost two years ago. In November, I plan on posting three fics, one to celebrate the fifth anniversary of a song mid-month, one for Good Couple Day, and one at the very end of the of the month to celebrate the fifth anniversary of some fanart (iykyk). Anyway, I'm going to end this part here. Thanks for reading!

[julietookoff]

February 2023 Tour

So some of the maintenance we did on our 11 year old RV:  replace part of a rotted slide-out floor, paint the yellowed ceiling fixtures, get front seat covers, a new driver’s side window, install a microwave over-the-stove, replace the 2 house batteries, "new" mattress and just scrub and touch-up everything.  We took it to Henkel's RV Sales August 9, knowing it was off-season for RV sales. . . it is still there!  We were hoping it would sell around the time of the big RV show in Tampa, but that's been a few weeks ago. . .  It’s still in good shape; as Shorty said, “Nobody’s got any money now.”

Closing on our house was July 22, 2022.  We found a G.E. dishwasher at an outlet store in Clearwater, a G.E. stove at an estate sale, and fridge, washer and dryer at Lowe's.   By the time we got the mattresses, shower curtains, and things you need to live, our first night in the house was July 29.  We still had to commute to Holiday to finish working on the RV at our tired senior pace.  We decided we're going to die here, because we're too old to move again. . . we were so worn out.  But dang, we're loving it here!

We continued commuting (about 35 miles each way) to see Shorty most weeks; a few times he came up to see us at the house.

The first two things I cooked in the new house were sheet pan chicken/taters/ corn on the cob and chicken parm on the sheet pan.  After 10 years with an RV oven, I had a heuge two-shelfer and two giant sheet pans I had been dying to use.  I had been collecting recipes from Julia Pacheco, my fav You-Tube home cook, for about a year.  To Corny's (and Bob's) delight, I have been cooking up a storm!  I also started a little canning.  I have wanted sodium-free beans for a long time - and the pressure canner takes them from dried, right outta the bag to squishy soft in 40 minutes.

^stuffed Manicotti

Corny watched and I re-watched Breaking Bad on one of the many TVs we've found in storage auctions.  This one came with a guest subscription to Netflix.  We watched "Better Call Saul".  He was Corny's favorite character.  I've always loved Bryan Cranston.  Then we watched all the Jurassic Park movies.

Here's a little tour.  The walls are a very light grey; flooring is grey vinyl:

^This is where I have my oatmeal with Piggie and Poco

Master bed and bath:

Life of Christ cross - all the little boxes were delivered to Shorty's house over the past year and accumulated in storage.  It was like Christmas, opening them all up and displaying them!

Bedroom 1, Den and bath 2:

Poco got a cute little 2' fence surrounding the patio.  Corny doesn't worry so much about him wandering away now.

Backyard visitors:  flock of 6 wild turkeys, pond turtle  

Fledgling woodpecker chatted with me and clung to my leg for several minutes when I went to pick up my bedside dresser.

Without gutters yet, when hurricane Ian headed our way in September, we made two trips to a county park to fill sandbags.  Some young, energetic people took pity on us old, slow-moving, moaning people and helped us haul the heavy bags to the Jeep.  Corny made a few bucks selling flashlights and lanterns he had gotten on clearance months ago, thanks to Ian.

In November I did a big 2-week Georgia county run.  I only got the Jeep stuck once, in mud covered by leaves.  A Lumpkin County Sheriff had me out within minutes.  I have about 1/3 of GA counties to visit:

On Thanksgiving Shorty brought Bob up to the house.  They arrived at 5pm; the turkey finished at 7:30pm.  I made real gravy for the first time in decades.

Corny had some kidney procedures in November, then found himself in the hospital for an infection in December.

Shorty told us on Dec. 1 he was moving "up north".  He heard rumors that Hyundai was hiring contractors to do his job so he promptly took his 3 weeks vacation.  When he went back to see if he was on the schedule, they were like "Who are you?".  He had worked there 10 1/2 years.  We were so glad they did what we couldn't - kick him in the pants so he would get a better job.  The little shit decided to move to Elkhart, Indiana to be able to afford a house of his own.  We miss him - my life has certainly changed.  I would plan all week what to bring him or ask him or tell him.  But we are very happy for him to be out on his own and experiencing real freedom for the first time.  He left for Elkhart Dec. 3 so now we just text.

We didn't have much notice, so Christmas was basically cancelled.  We went to Buffet City on Christmas Eve.   I made 4# of candied pecans to send up north and give to the neighbors and Liam - Shiloh Builders' Number Two.  They are building a house right next door which Chick, the owner of Shiloh, is going to live in part time.  They are using the garage as their office.  

I threw a tapestry over the TV for Christmas.

Corny scored a home run and got me a Kitchen Aid accessory that peels, cores and slices an apple all at the same time!  I made my first apple pie since I was 20-something years old.  I was always too impatient to peel apples.

We continue going to storage auctions.  The latest score was an entire tub of Yu-Gi-Oh and Pokemon cards.  I went through them all to check for the big buck$ cards.  There weren't any.  When I get back from BamaRama (GC9TB1Z) I will list them on Facebook Marketplace for prolly $20/box.  

Life is Godd!

We fit out.

[the--sound--of--rain]

2022 Writers' Review

It's already two months into the year, but I'm still going to do this, because I think it's such a nice thing. I was tagged by @lavandulacosmos and @natures-marvel thank you! 💕

1. What is your AO3 account?

brownest_goldfish

2. How many words did you write total in 2022?

34'481, according to AO3 stats

It's not a lot of words, but I feel like this was the year I've developed most as a writer so far, especially writing the first chapter of Lamb and the last chapter of my spooktober fic and I'm very proud of that ✨

3. How many fics did you publish in 2022? How many multichapters vs oneshots?

12 fics, 3 multichaptered and 9 oneshots (and of the 3 multichaptered ones only one is finished so you can see that this is not where my strength lies agajsks but i'm trying to do it more and i actually love it!)

4. What was your longest fic? Your shortest fic?

"A Lover in the story" (finished) is the longest at 9987 words but I published 5000 of those in 2023. Otherwise the longest is "A Lamb for Our Love" at 8618 words so far (one of two chapters)

The shortest is "With a smile" at 412 words. The shortness is owed to it being only one scene, more of a picture I imagined after reading Cry Wolf by @roccinan – and since I can't draw, I decide to write it down 🥰

5. What was your most popular fic? Your least popular fic?

I find this so hard to say, because numbers can never really encapsulate this, and every piece of appreciation from anyone for any fic is a gem in itself. But just for simplicity I'll go for Kudos and Hits here:

The one with most Kudos and Hits is funnily one I didn't write for Berlermo, but for "Arcane" as a birthday gift for @stilljustbitten: "Ice blue" got 113 Kudos and 842 Hits, probably owed to the fact that this fandom is just a bit bigger. My most popular Berlermo fic in 2022 in numbers is "Art and Attraction" at 83 Kudos and 755 Hits.

The least popular in numbers is "Love wins" at 16 Kudos and 146 Hits.

6. What fic didn’t perform as well as you thought it would?

I didn't expect a specific amount of reaction on any of them, so I'd say none of them. Every interaction with on of my fics just made me go "oh!🥰"

7. What fic performed way better than you thought it would?

I'd say "Like the Painting of a sorrow" because it was this oneshot I came up with, wrote and posted within 24 hours, a random idea after reading Dorian Gray. That being said, I am very proud and fond of it, so it made me so happy that it was appreciated!

And also "Love wins", I struggled getting the first chapter together and was worried it was too chaotic, and I was so happy it got good feedback.

8. What was your favorite fic you wrote from 2022?

I'm most proud of and currently most emotionally attached to "A Lover in the story". I'm especially proud of the last chapter, mostly because I managed to write it at all and make something I really like of it.

A Lamb for our Love stands right next to it though – although it's still not finished. (Not because I neglected it, but just because the second chapter is so hard to write) and I'm so excited for what it will become <3

9. What was your favorite fic that somebody else wrote in 2022?

Reducing this to one would be a shame, so I'll list a few 😊

and that was the moment i knew by @alfredo-kesmann

Andrés has Hanahaki disease and coughs up red roses. Whose favourite flowers could those be?

It had started with inconspicuous coughing, a few weeks ago. Soon followed the shaky breaths, the trouble breathing normally at random times. Then, came the shaking fingers, half a week later, creating unavoidable unsteady black lines in the painting he had been working on, the jawline of his self portrait now ruined.

A beautiful take on the trope, with all the drama befitting Berlermo, and overall an extremely romantic and enjoyable read.

Chimera 키메라 by @signorin-anarchia

A sort of crossover of Money Heist Korea and La casa de papel. Andrés is in the concentration camp Korean Berlin was in. Martín joins him there.

His mother's arms are a cradle, a safe haven.

A shelter from all that is evil on earth.

He can remember the faded feeling of bones colliding, rubbing, which nevertheless feels as comfortable as nothing in the world.

Nothing in the whole world.

But there's never much more than anything in the world.

And now his mother's arms are pincers, stealing his life, locking his way.

A very interesting concept with beautiful execution, and very poetic prose that aches just right when you read it.

The Swan's Symphony by @nharidy

Martín plans another and executes heist after the gold heist, and a rescue mission for Andrés on the side – who is alive but asuffering <3. All the old members of the gang are there, and also a lot of new additions.

“Is this true?” Estocolmo asked, turning to El Professor. Mirko, however, was looking at Palermo. It doesn't matter whether it's true or not , he realized. Palermo wasn’t there because one night in the future he might get killed in his bed. 

No, he was there for the one and only reason he's ever done anything since Mirko knew him.

El Profesor sighed.

This genuinely feels like a continuation of lcdp. It gives all the vibes of the show, the characters, their interactions and the action, flashbacks and execution of the heist are spot on. Just overall extremely fun to read.

Remember what your old pal said by @roccinan

La casa de papel Toy Story AU. Andrés is a bullfighter doll, and he finds Martín in the collection he belongs to. But what is Martín really up to?

Andrés is beautiful. And he doesn’t need a mirror to tell him what he already knows. Because he can stare at anything that bounces back light for a wonderful view of himself from head to toe: sunglasses, helmet visors, watches, or even the window on a bright spring day.

He has a slim, well-proportioned frame, a statuesque figure that expertly hides a body of incredible might and power within its wires.

This is genuinely just hilarious, and Andrés is perfectly delusional in it. And the Berlermo romance is so sweet – with an added element of darkness, of course.

10. Tag your friends to do this year-end fic review as well!

I think everyone has already been tagged and done this agajsks but I'll tag the ones I haven't seen doing it, please just ignore this if you have ✌🏼💕 @dormarunt @liz @signorin-anarchia @oreo @lammaducks ✨

[dragon-spaghetti]

Ok so!! It's almost the new year!! Holy shit!!!

2022 has been. Something. A lot went wrong this year, and if you knew me in the first half of it you know how I was ✨going through it✨ lmfao

I kept it off of tumblr mostly, so for those of you who don't know; my family was evicted so I was homeless for like a week (we are now fine thankfully), we all got covid, while isolating we found out my granda could die at any time (he then passed like 2 weeks before we got evicted), had some friend group fuckery, plus a fuckton of school stress , all within the first three months of the year!

There was plenty more shit after that, such as the amount of coursework I had due, drama practical exams, the written exams (featuring my school fucking up the course, which we found out with 24 hours to go til the exam), and a very stressful few months of job searching which eventually ended with me biting the bullet and having to go full time rather than part time like I'd intended, plus a lot of mental health struggles in between 😭

Needless to say; very stressful year, I can safely say I couldn't even really breathe until October. Which was then followed by art burnout caused by sheer exhaustion from now working a 9-5, something that devastated me as I no longer had the energy to do what I love as much as I wanted to. But that doesn't mean everything was all bad!!

I made so many amazing friends this year, and became closer to many I already had. Jumping around fandoms more has honestly been great to meet so many groups. I improved a shitton w my art, got to be involved with multiple fan projects, started posting on other places than just tumblr, we hit 1000 followers here (recently 1600!!!) which is something I only ever dreamed of a couple years ago! I also finally finished school, and honestly didn't realise how amazing it would feel to finally be free from that damn place after 7 long, miserable years

This is so long but, I want to say thank you for bearing with me through it all. I know I've been a bit all over the place, but I genuinely adore the lil community we've built here, and I hope it continues to grow through 2023 💖

[waitingondaisies]

Top 5of 2022

This is the time of year when we all start looking back and reflecting upon everything that has taken place in the last twelve months. So, I suggest we show ourselves some love!

What are your top five favorite creations you produced in 2022? It can be art, writing, gif sets, video editing, or any other form of creative expression. Take this opportunity to highlight your best work! Then tag five others so that they can share the love as well!!

thank you @yes-i-am-happyaspie for the tag! (....months ago)

okay so obviously it’s not 2022 at all anymore and I didn’t actually work on five new projects in 2022, but here’s some stuff I’m proud of that I generally worked on in 2022 XD

#1 How Like Home: (harry falls through the veil) call me predictable, but I spend so much of time thinking about this fic that it’d be kinda crazy if I weren’t in love with it too. this fic has been with me with (now) three years, and I expect it to be with me for at least another three, so it’s got a very special place in my heart

#2 A New Point of View: (irondad body swap) this fic is actually almost done now! (in 2023) and I didn’t expect it to take nearly as long as it has since I started it early 2022 and expected it to be 15-20k words (it clocks in at ~67k now that it’s done). it’s maybe not my favorite fic in terms of content/demonstration of my ability, but it’s brought me some friendships that I don’t know if I would’ve had without it, and for that it’ll be special to me for a long long time to come

#3 Bop to the Top: (drarry genderbend modern) okay so I tried so hard to abandon this fic. i didn’t touch it for years and yet!! one day I woke up and it just wouldn’t leave me alone. i started it in 2020, abandoned it in 2020, but finished it in 2022. I actually do like this fic a lot, despite the lack of positive reception. it’s very different from what I usually write, and I think that makes it all the more important

#4  Be Your Protector: (irondad foster fic) my first foray into the irondad fandom! as my first forays into a fandom always are, it’s a bit weak because my grasp on the voice of the characters was a bit weak, but I still like this story a lot. a million iterations of it exist, but I’ve still reread this one that I wrote in a single weekend haze

#5 Vanish Point: (irondad oneshot) this is the most overt projection i’ve ever done with a fic (and that’s saying something!) I decided that one awful water slide i went on would be funny if it happened to Peter while Tony was there, and I decided to write it out, and here it is!

[starlightcleric]

Fic Wrap-Up Meme 2022

Tagged by @dragonologist-phd. Thanks! I’m just going to open tag this since it’s gone around a lot.

I do my own fic retrospective every year, but this has some different questions in it so I’ll play!

WORDS PUBLISHED

Counting Prepare for the Dawn, 31,561 posted words in 20 stories. If we just look at solo work, that’s 19,910 words in 19 stories.

FANDOMS

Final Fantasy XIV, Mass Effect Trilogy, Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, and Pillars of Eternity.

3 FANFICS WITH THE MOST KUDOS IN 2022

“Soup, With Love” - Mass Effect, 76 kudos

I fall upon the thorns of life, I bleed – WotR, 21 kudos (rollover)

“Remembrance and Hope” - FFXIV, 16 kudos

FAVOURITE OPENING LINE FROM A FIC IN 2022

“This was only the second ball Ophelia had been to in her life, and this was not enough data to tell if she liked them or not.”

- “Soft you now” (WotR)

FAVOURITE CLOSING LINE FROM A FIC IN 2022 -

‘An idea came to me. And maybe a way to apologize. “Hey, Nenio. I have an idea for an experiment. What if we find out how long it takes glitter to disperse through the library when pressed between the covers of a select few random books?”

The answer is that all three of us are now banned from approaching a three block radius of the Forae Logos for the next three decades.’

- “The Definition of Friendship” (WotR)

FIC I'M MOST PROUD OF IN 2022 -

I’m proud of the fight scene in “How to Impress Girls” (FFXIV)!

NEW THINGS I HAVE TRIED IN 2022 -

Writing in first person! I have, in my life, written in first person before, but not for fic. (Actually, technically I think there’s a very short Yarrow thing from some years ago in first person, but I digress). I started off experimenting with it in the still in progress Kikyo fic stuff, then carried it over to writing about Poetry.

GOALS FOR 2023 -

I’m trying to set quarterly goals rather than yearly goals this year so it’s less overwhelming, and my goal for the first three months is to finish the first five chapter Kikyo fic (well, first draft it at least) and do at least one of the prompts in my inbox.