Black Rose

I've spent most of 2025 on a break from fandom, because I was in an emotional funk and dumb fandom arguments were bothering me more than they should have. I spent the past few months reading, playing Stardew Valley, and socializing in the real world, and I feel a bit better now than I did in January. I failed to finish my Candy Hearts treat, but I wrote a few paragraphs of a non-exchange fic, which I consider a win.

This will probably be my last general "stuff I watched" post. I already track everything I watch in my offline journals, and I'd rather keep all my media thoughts in one place. Also, I prefer to use dreamwidth to talk about fandoms I'm actively participating in, not movies I watched and liked and spent thirty seconds browsing AO3 for.

( Media Consumed (La Chimera, The Crown, Suspiria 1977 + 2018, The Brutalist, The King, Baby Driver) )

Trying to keep this one short and sweet, let's see if I can accomplish that (reader, I did not accomplish that).

( Media Consumed )

( Fic Posted/Gifts Received )

( Exchanges Etc. )

In Progress/Upcoming

I'm taking some time off from exchanges, but I haven't decided how long yet. I hope to get some WIPs finished and posted in the new year, starting with some freaky Nosferatu fic while the fandom's still hot. I also have a 2024 fandom recap coming soon.

I wish I'd posted a separate Battleship wrap-up in August, because Battleship continues to be Exchanges Georg and crush all my stats. I posted 11 works between July and September (8 for Battleship, which is the most I've posted to AO3 for a single event round). I posted more this summer than I posted all year in 2020, 2022, 2023, and I'm sure some years before I started posting end of year fic stats.

I've been poking at this post for almost a month, and my non-Battleship fandom thoughts got pretty long, so I'm putting all Battleship-related things in a separate post, which you can find here.

Media Consumed

Twister (1996) + Twisters (2024)
These were two of many movies I watched this summer, but they make it onto the fandom recap because I almost requested them for Jump Scare. The new one was getting decent reviews, I was in the mood for a popcorn disaster movie, and I'd never seen the original before. I've never lived in tornado country, but I've had an eerie fascination with storms since I was a kid, and these movies do such a good job capturing the horror and majesty of tornados. I thought Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton had a way more compelling bickery romance than Daisy Edgar-Jones and Glen Powell (and the wacky stoner storm chasers in the '96 movie were much more charming than the livestreaming YouTubers in the '24 one), but I loved the female leads in both movies. Someday I'll nominate Jo Harding and Kate Cooper for another horror exchange.

The Umbrella Academy - Season 4
Hoo boy, people HATE this final season. I didn't really like it, but I think 90% of the problems with this season would be fixed by having more than six episodes and giving the characters time to explore the emotional impact of the various plot developments. Most reviews I've seen think the plot developments were hot steaming garbage, which I disagree with. Megan Mullally and Nick Offerman as married gun-swinging Texan conspiracy theorists trying to brute force their way to a better timeline were the best part of season 4. My biggest disappointment was Diego and Luther being reduced to whacky comic relief, and neither of them having meaningful emotional resolutions to their arcs. Klaus was really fun this season, Viktor was good but I'm annoyed that he mostly interacted with Reginald, and Alison was fine but nowhere near as compelling as her previous villain arcs. Shitty crypto Ben and Jennifer had hot chemistry, and I was fine with the resolution to the Jennifer Incident breadcrumbs.

( Spoilery thoughts )

The Terror - Season 1 (redux)
This arrived on US Netflix for the first time in late August, and I decided to finish the rewatch I started in March so I could write spooky mummy fic for Jump Scare (I also convinced my dad to watch it, and I think I've infected him with the Franklin Expedition research bug). I spent exactly a month wallowing in ice mummy/survival cannibalism feels, and then James Fitzjames' jawbone was conclusively identified, the second Franklin Expedition member to be identified through DNA and the first remains identified with evidence of cannibalism.

Fitzjames is not my favorite special guy in either the show or real life (I'm a Crozier girl, and other than that I care much more about the ordinary working class men on the expedition), but it was still a very poignant discovery that everyone had a lot of intense feelings about. There was some heated discourse over fans of the TV show making disrespectful cannibalism jokes (and whether being upset by cannibalism jokes means you love British colonialism). Personally, nothing about the Terror fandom's reaction bothered me more than 1) the cannibalism jokes historians and morbid mystery fans have been making for decades (which have never bothered me), or 2) the genuinely offensive treatment of survival cannibalism in the actual Terror show. It's weirdly haunting and lovely that the fictional Fitzjames in The Terror is the only unambiguously good, morally strong character who views survival cannibalism as a compassionate act from a dying captain to his starving men. We have no idea what the real Fitzjames knew or thought of cannibalism, but we know his body fed someone, and I want to believe he would've felt compassion toward the hungry men his body fed.

Bride of Re-Animator
This isn't as good as the first movie, but the comedy gore and spooky New England vibes and intense homoeroticism are dialed all the way up. This movie leans more on Frankenstein than the original's zombies, but I'm a huge Frankenstein fan so I approve. I loved all the freaky hybrid creatures Herbert created, and the practical creature effects were extremely charming. I love Dan fully embracing his inner freak and building a Franken-Meg with Herbert, while simultaneously dating and sleeping with a normal human woman.

Interview With The Vampire (AMC)

I read the first book decades ago, and watched the 1994 movie last year, and I enjoyed both as trashy opulent fun. The show is very very good and I love it to pieces, but it makes so many drastic changes that I struggle to call it a good adaptation. Jacob Anderson's sharp, bitter black Louis is my favorite version of the character, and the only time I haven't found his whiny moralizing intensely annoying. Lestat is dazzling and terrible as always, and Claudia is still my favorite, even though a woman trapped in the body of a teenager is a radically different character than a woman trapped in the body of a child (I do appreciate that casting an adult allows them to explore Claudia's sexuality in ways that a child actor couldn't, but there's no fucking way a nineteen-year-old actress can look like a prepubescent child in adult clothing). Vampires actually fuck in this version, and the explicitly sexual Louis/Lestat relationship is fun and engaging, but I'm usually rooting for them to murder each other more than I'm rooting for them as a couple. I'm much more invested Armand/Louis and Armand/Daniel (and all four of them in a terrible toxic polycule).

Fic Posted

if it feels this good getting used - The Fall Guy, Tom Ryder/Colt Seavers, Dominant Bottom/Service Top + Cockwarming

if you sleep always like this - The Terror, John Hartnell & Thomas Hartnell, Grief/Mourning + Visions + Mummies

Extra Red Sauce - The Terror, Thomas Armitage/Marines, Modern AU - Taco Bell + Gangbang

Gifts Received (minus Battleship)

full bones by scorpiod - Bones And All, Lee/Maren, romantic cannibalism + ghosts (for Jump scare)

Quickening by primeideal - Dune (Villeneuve Movies), Paul Atreides, Jessica, canon compliant Came Back Wrong (for Jump Scare)

Exchanges Etc.

Immediately after Battleship, I picked up a lingering pinch hit in Rare Male Slash Exchange, because the recip requested cockwarming for Tom Ryland/Colt Seavers and that's a genius kink/character combination. Then I signed up for Jump Scare on a whim, because all the warm summery Challengers and lava mermaid fic I wrote for Battleship had me in a spooky fall mood by late August. Cue old Nova episodes and permafrost mummy feels.

Then in late September, days after the Fitzjames remains were identified, Twitter Terror fandom ran the second round of a Taco Bell-themed smutty flashfic fest (works must be either maximum 400 words or exactly 420/469, must take place on Taco Bell property, and must include a Taco Bell menu item in the title). I additionally decided my fic must be a ship I'd never written before, and the entire thing must be written drunk in one sitting and posted immediately, edited only to fit the wordcount. I tagged the fic "William Braine FUCKS" because drunk me (and honestly, sober me) thought Braine got left out when everyone shipped his more charismatic mummy buddies John Torrington and John Hartnell with each other, and a marine gangbang was a good chance to rectify that (discoservice wrote a very cute Torrington/Hartnell fic for the Taco Bell fest, with shotgunning and hoodie snuggles). I fucking love fandom sometimes.

In Progress/Upcoming

I signed up for Trick or Treat for the first time in five years (and only my third time actually signing up, which surprised me). My first AO3 exchange was Yuletide 2013, but Trick or Treat 2014 feels like it left a more significant imprint, maybe because I'm more into Halloween than Christmas. Either way, it's my tenth anniversary and even though my crazy productivity has slowed down, I'm having fun with my assignment and the community challenge.

It's Q3 and I have a new default icon on AO3! It feels weird, I might change it back. Or change it to a different closeup of hands, which feels more on brand.

Media Consumed

Still watching a lot of movies, which has greatly expanded my exchange request palate. Here are the ones with fannish potential:

Challengers
This is the movie that's currently eating my brain. Messy, complex, gorgeously shot, layered with complex metaphor and subtext, and some of the sexiest sweat I've ever seen. If you think sports are inherently erotic and like fucked up characters who only function as people in a toxic threesome, this is the movie for you. It's not as textually queer/polyamorous/horny as the internet led me to believe, but when I reframed many other elements in the story as metaphors for sexuality and sexual desire, it seemed much hornier on my second watch. I have a ton of opinions and interpretations, and I disagree with a lot of other people's takes, but that's an entire separate entry.

The Fall Guy
A really funny, charming love letter to moviemaking and stunt professionals, with great action and a cute, vaguely femdom-coded romance between a female director and her stuntman ex. I feel like this would make an excellent Barbie crossover.

The Nice Guys
Speaking of incredibly charming and hilarious Ryan Gosling performances! Shane Black is always a good time, the leads all have great chemistry, and Gosling and Russell Crowe's gruff domestic coparenting of Gosling's snarky thirteen-year-old daughter was hilarious and sweet.

Re-Animator
Pitch perfect horror comedy tone, amazing and transgressive gore effects, an astoundingly good scream queen in Barbara Crampton, and a really fun odd couple of mad scientists. I saw this at a midnight screening at my local indie theater, which is the ideal environment.

Fic Written & Posted

6 E-rated works:

Big Dogs - Original Works, Little Brother Dom/Older Brother Sub, puppy play

Rest on the Flight into Egypt - Dune (Villeneuve), Paul Atreides/Jessica, lactation + mommy kink

Gigantic (a Big, Big Love) - Lisa Frankenstein, Lisa Swallows/The Creature, vaginal fingering/squirting

Summertime Girls Are the Kind I Like - Bandom, Mikey Way/Pete Wentz, sweat kink

Tastes Just Like Cherry Cola - The Fall Guy, Jody Moreno/Colt Seavers, crossdressing/feminization

Insides - Bones and All, Maren Yearly/Lee, heartbeat kink

Exchanges Etc.

I participated in three events this spring: Kink Lucky Dip, Smut4Smut, and Rare Kink Buffet. Two of those events encouraged rare and unpopular kinks, and I think the kinks I wrote cover a decent spread of rareness. None of my prompts in RKB were filled, but the one gift I got for KLD was a rare kink as well: a cute, freaky triple drabble of consensual needle/suture kink for Lisa Frankenstein:

stitch by Daxs10thHost, Lisa Swallows/The Creature

It was Rare Kink Buffet's first round, and while I had a great time and was pretty active on the discord channel, I don't think I'll sign up to future rounds. I completely understand the mod's desire not to police whether prompts were kinky or rare enough, and there are benefits to an inclusive event that welcomes any level of kinkiness. The drawback to events that welcome any level of kinkiness is that most prompts and fills will be for popular, mainstream kinks, and the scope of this event soon expanded to welcome vanilla sex, nonsexual shippiness, and non-kinky gen. I'm glad people felt included, and I'm sure they'll have fun with the promised next round being Rare Trope Buffet, but it didn't spark joy for me and my actually weird kinks (although one of my rarest kinks, heartbeat kink, had the second or third most fills and sparked a ton of discussion on discord).

In Progress/Upcoming

I did not post anything for Late Treat Bonanza - it was a spooky Original Works ship for Trick or Treat, and I want the vibes of posting it on Halloween, so I'll probably nominate that ship again and hope the same person requests it. I have not finished my rule 63 Paul Atreides/Feyd-Rautha femdom fic, but I started a trans woman Paul Atreides/Feyd-Rautha femdom fic for Rare Kink Buffet, although I decided not to inflict Dune worldbuilding on a canon-blind Creator's Choice of Fandom prompt. I'm currently working on a "throuple goes back to the hotel for a threesome after the final scene of Challengers" fic, which is a premise that's been done eighty gazillion times.

I'm also thinking of signing up for Battleship, despite having "Do NOT sign up for Battleship" as a 2024 fandom goal. I've done Battleship twice and had a stressful, frustrating time both rounds, although there were also fun moments. Here's how I'm rationalizing:

1) Battleship 2022 was stressful for everyone because of the stressful, frustrating shield mechanics, which will never be implemented again. Battleship 2023 was stressful for most of Dungeon team because of an unusually large number of abrasive personalities dominating the team discord channel, which is unlikely to happen a second time.

2) The thing that makes Battleship stressful for me is being too slow to finish and post a fic before super fast team members knock out the tag. I've been writing a lot recently, and writing fairly quickly. I also know that I write slow in Battleship because all my ideas need 2000-4000 words, and if I stuck to the 300-500 range I could finish and post things much faster.

3) I'm going through some Real Life Shit and could use something very fun and time consuming.

4) I've already thought of discord username puns for both teams.

In fall 2013, when I was bored and lonely, I read the first two books of the Raven Cycle. I fell so violently in love with the characters that I made a fresh AO3 account to post fic of them. Three years, twelve fics, and countless stupid tumblr wanks later, I bought the fourth and final book the week it came out, but never got around to reading it because it was 2016 and I had other shit going on.

Until fall 2023, when I was bored and lonely and nostalgic and decided to read the entire Raven Cycle and Dreamer Trilogy back to back. My AO3 account was about to turn ten years old, and I wanted to dive back into the fandom that gave birth to her.

Anything under a cut may contain spoilers, so here's my non-spoilery review of the entire series: mostly positive, still one of my faves. Even the books with a lot of flaws had fun, beautiful moments. I'll always love the rich characters and relationships and settings and language, even when the plot and side quests and villain POV chapters drag. I liked a few controversial plot developments because they weren't the worst possible option, and I loved a lot of elements that the fandom was seething with rage over.


THE RAVEN CYCLE: 9.05/10

The first 75% of this series was my rabid obsession a decade ago, so my ability to rationally review the series as a whole is somewhat limited. I did reread all four books in September 2023, and my overall impression is one of very high highs and pretty low lows. I can still feel the magic I felt in 2013, and I have a different appreciation of some elements ten years down the line.

( Books 1-4 )


THE DREAMER TRILOGY: 9.23/10

If you told me in 2015 that the sequel trilogy to the Raven Cycle would be primarily set in Boston and Cambridge, with Declan Lynch as a tragic passionate woobie protagonist and a major plot revolving around the sensual magic of John Singer Sargent paintings, I would've exploded with glee. I could've used more Gansey and Blue (although their one texting appearance was delightful), but I got plenty of my faves Adam and Declan to make up for it. This series has some of the same flaws as the Raven Cycle, but I think it resolves them in a much more satisfying and well-plotted way.

( Books 1-3 )

I have a few additional thoughts about fandom and shipping, but this is long already and I don't think anyone on my flist is active in this fandom anymore. Might make a part two, or just chat in the comments.

Exactly ten years ago, on December first 2013, I created both this journal and the associated AO3 account. Have some slightly overshare-y fun facts.

( Fun facts )

Now for some AO3 stats, on the tenth birthday of my AO3 account:

( Stats )

Finally, here's a list of every fandom I've written in my ten years on AO3. Comment with a fandom and I'll give a couple sentences of my thoughts on that fandom.

( Fandoms )

However long you've been here, thanks for hanging around. I hope I'm still posting freaky porn to the internet in 2033.

If I post this before February, it doesn't count as late, right?

I posted 6 fics in 2022 (all for exchanges), the same number I posted in 2020. I was really disappointed with that number at the end of 2020, but I'm much less bothered now - I had enough real life shit bothering me in 2022 (and in 2020, obviously) that I'm happy to have posted even this much. With three years of hindsight, I posted some pretty good fic in 2020. In terms of how much I enjoyed writing fanfiction in 2022, I'd give myself a 7.7/10.

( Fanworks I posted in 2022 )

( End of Year Fandom Meme )

( Fandom goals )

 Here are a few random thoughts that didn't fit in my We Die Like Fen wrap-up post.

-I've been requesting Buzzfeed Unsolved in exchanges for years, but it doesn't have a big exchange presence and I don't really write or read in the fandom otherwise. But the clock is ticking: the hosts of Unsolved launched their own YouTube channel last year with another former Buzzfeed producer, and the final season of Unsolved: True Crime just finished, with the final season of Unsolved: Supernatural coming soon. The fandom peaked a while ago, but I don't know if it will survive the official end of Unsolved, especially if they don't launch a similar ghost hunting/true crime show on their own Watcher channel. It feels like I have one Halloween season left to get all my iddy spooky kinky stuff out of my brain before the show ends and nobody wants demon possession haunted house sleepover fic anymore. I really like the new Watcher content and it has plenty of Ryan/Shane ship fodder, but I'll miss watching Ryan freak out over radiator noises.

-Stranger Things had a great turnout in WDLF, but it really showed how mismatched my tastes are with both the exchange crowd and the fandom at large. I want Stranger Things fandom to be more like IT fandom: focused on the wonderfully written and acted child main characters, some of it in handwaved slightly-older-teen AUs and some of it just left ambiguous, dealing with sexuality and trauma and darkness and the deep loving bonds between the characters. The exchange crowd mostly wants innocent gen of the kids and shippy/dark fic of the older teens, and the fandom at large is very young and barely readable, with most of the well-written fic being written about the teen characters again. I also joined the fandom after the least popular season came out and everyone jumped ship, which is never fun.

-A random vagueing comment in an FFA venting thread somehow led me through the entire Red Letter Media RPF tag on AO3, a small but active tag that's dominated by one prolific longfic writer. There's something charming about tiny insular RPF fandoms, especially if the Real People aren't particularly attractive or glamorous. I've been subscribed to RLM on YouTube for years and they're a major comfort channel for me, and they've all been close friends for decades and made a career out of making weird creative projects together, which is my RPF catnip. The fic is delightfully cozy and familiar too, endless longfics of pining best friends with silly supernatural shenanigans and pining and kinky undertones. I thought it might blow up on meme's RPF threads like Gallaghercest did, but none of the threadstarters took off and it seems to have petered out.

For boring real life reasons, I've had much more free time in 2021 than I did even in 2020. I'm apparently coping by binge-consuming every piece of media on my to do list. Some of them are developing into fandom interests, so I figured I'd dump them all in a post.

( Bridgerton )

( The Borgias )

( Stranger Things )

( The Umbrella Academy )

I have nothing clever to say, so here's a meme.

What I wrote in 2020:

Fun Size, G, Bon Appetit Test Kitchen RPF, Brad Leone/Claire Saffitz, ~800 words

You're Twisting My Melon, Man, E, Oasis RPF, Liam Gallagher/Noel Gallagher, ~1300 words

Nighthawks, T, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, Poe Dameron/Rey, ~1700 words

Sorry Boy, I've Been Hit By Purple Rain, E, Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Peter Quill/Yondu Udonta, ~1800 words

Tricycles, E, Bandom, Patrick Stump/Mikey Way/Pete Wentz, ~9600 words

Black Rose, E, The Terror (TV), Cornelius Hickey/Thomas Jopson, ~500 words

6 works posted, down from 12 in 2019. I only posted fic for exchanges (and one bang), and I only posted one work for every exchange/bang I signed up for (I picked up a pinch hit, but it was for an exchange I didn't sign up for so I count it as 1 fic per signup). I wrote no explicit het this year (which means no femdom), and wrote a lower percentage of het overall. I also wrote in 6 different fandoms, two of which I've never written before!

( Questions )