Summer 2025 in Fandom

[darkrosaleen]

Oops all Battleship edition.

Media Consumed

I watched a bunch of great movies this summer. I don't have the energy to write reviews, but I'm happy to talk about any of them in the comments!

The entire Mission Impossible franchise
Past Lives
Superman (2025)
Weapons
The Company of Wolves
Dog Soldiers
Jaws (50th anniversary screening, rewatch)

The only proper new fandom I got into this summer was the Locked Tomb series, after reading the first half of the first book back in 2021. I've always been confused when this series gets broadly marketed to anyone who likes lesbian sci-fi, because these books are fucking weird and gross and horny and full of dumb millennial internet humor. Gideon/Harrow is all my favorite goth grimdark lady/knight, brains/brawn, tiny dom/big sub fealty tropes with heaps of sarcasm and gross body horror and character death piled on top. I also love that this series is unapologetically multishippy, with tons of side characters/ships and both Gideon and Harrow spending big chunks of pagetime flirting with other girls. Add me to the cohort of people desperately awaiting the release date of Alecto the Ninth.

Fics Posted/Gifts Received

I wrote two Battleship works, which I'm proud of given how crazy both real life and modding Battleship were.

Dirty Water - E, Jaws + The Witch crossover, Martin Brody/Thomasin, Outdoor Sex + Middle Aged Protagonist + body of water

Nona Has Three Mommies - E, The Locked Tomb, Nona & Palamedes Sextus + Nona/Camilla Hect + Nona/Pyrrha Dve, ABDL + Body Sharing + Blow Jobs

I received a bounty of gifts in a variety of fandoms, many of which I'd never requested or received before! Breaking this up by fandom.

The Borgias (Showtime)

in the daylight gardens by straightforwardly - M, Cesare Borgia/Lucrezia Borgia

Suspiria (2019)

coup de foudre by ElasticElla, M, Susie Bannion/Madam Blanc

The Murderbot Diaries - Martha Wells

Hormone Flush by acernor, M, ART/Murderbot

The Locked Tomb Series - Tamsyn Muir

Threading the Needle by Nary - E, Pyrrha Dve/Camilla Hect/Palamedes Sextus
Bruises by mewCoyote, T, Gideon Nav & Harrowhark Nonagesimus
Swoon by mewCoyote, T, Gideon Nav & Harrowhark Nonagesimus
Bits and Pieces by Wallwalker, T, Camilla Hect/Dulcinea Septimus/Palamedes Sextus

Nosferatu (2024)

obedience by redgear, E, Ellen Hutter/Orlok
mercy by redgear, E, Ellen Hutter/Orlok
(if it meant I had to crawl through broken glass just to hold your hand) in the end I'd give up everything just to burn with you by theirwolf - E, Ellen Hutter/Thomas Hutter + Thomas Hutter/Orlok + Ellen Hutter/Thomas Hutter/Orlok

Exchanges Etc.

Battleship ate almost two months of my summer and gave me multiple tension headaches, but I'm glad I had the experience. In addition to being a neutral mod/spreadsheet gremlin, I wrote two fics I'm pretty proud of, and received a lot of fun gifts in a variety of fandoms.

It's hard to talk about Battleship when I can't talk about the behind-the-scenes mod experience. I feel comfortable saying that modding Battleship is way more time and effort than I expected. I spent my workdays and commutes glued to Discord on my phone, I couldn't do nearly as much spreadsheeting as I volunteered for, and I gave up almost every weekend during gameplay to grind through work approvals. I won't volunteer for spreadsheet-heavy mod roles again unless I can take the whole exchange off from work.

Battleship is a very big and intense event, and emotions and stress levels run high for both participants and mods. I volunteered to mod partly because I'm good at handling stressful situations with very stressed out people, but Battleship 2025 pushed me to my limit (possibly because real life threw me two more stressful situations with very stressed out people during the two and a half weeks Battleship was running). So much for volunteering so that I couldn't stress myself out playing the game, lol. On the bright side, I learned a lot and got some good mod experience. I might try running a flash exchange this fall.

Mod planning for 2026 is still ongoing, and I've shared my thoughts internally and will continue to do so. I wasn't planning on volunteering next year, but since four other mods dropped out (two of them core mods), I'm reconsidering. It'll depend on what real life looks like next July.

In Progress/Upcoming

I really wanted to sign up for Jump Scare, but was too burned out from Battleship at the time. I'm planning on signing up for Trick or Treat, possibly with a full slate of horror movie fandoms. I'm also tossing around ideas for a spooky or kinky flash exchange.

Comments

[snickfic]

NGL I am so curious about stuff from the mod side of Battleship, but I totally understand why you guys wouldn't want that stuff to be shared publicly. FWIW, from the participant side, this round seemed pretty chill to me (on the Battleship scale of chill lol). So whatever you guys had going on your side, it didn't seem to impact Strawberry, at least.

I was going to make eyes at your spooky flash exchange, as if I have any time at all to sign up for a flash in the next two months. 🙈

[darkrosaleen]

I'm glad you had a chill time! Strawberry seemed to avoid most of the drama, lol. I had a pretty chill time last year despite drama in the rest of the game. It's weird being on the inside of internal mod affairs and not being able to talk about it, especially with so much speculation flying around. A new experience for me! Hopefully 2026 planning goes well, I think that'll fix some of this year's issues.