Juletide

This week's entry is from 2015, rather than my self-imposed 2020 onwards; OTOH, it's the only actual answer to this prompt.

a song that makes you cry
Stratovarius - Shine in the Dark


These guys are not (yet?) on Bandcamp; OTOH, the runner-up (I Wish, by Battle Beast) is up there.

prompts under the cut

a song you discovered this month
a song that makes you smile
a song that makes you cry
a song that you know all the lyrics of
a song that proves that you have good taste
a song title that is in all lowercase
a song title that is in all uppercase
an underrated song
a song that has three words
a song from your childhood
a song that reminds you of summertime
a song that you feel nostalgic to
the first song that plays on shuffle
a song that someone showed you
a song from a movie soundtrack
a song from a television soundtrack
a song about being 17
a song that reminds you of somebody
a song to drive to
a song with a number in the title
a song that you listen to at 3am in the morning
a song with a long title
a song with a color in the title
a song that gets stuck in your head
a song in a different language
a song that helps you fall asleep at night
a song that describes how you feel right now
a song that you used to hate but love today
a song that you downloaded
a song that you want to share

AO3 Stats

Stat	2025	2024 then	2024 now	All years
User Subscriptions:	295	269	-	-
Kudos:	884	410	599	57624
Comment Threads:	129	99	104	3547
Bookmarks:	134	59	105	13732
Subscriptions:	21	1	3	1503
Word Count:	45047	9238	9238	957299
Hits:	15183	3550	6166	598872

45k! Much better than last year. Still not close to my 2018-2021 heyday of 100k+/year, but, uh, idk. I guess I need to learn to forgive myself. Or just get into a new fandom. The large numbers came from mostly Guardian fandom (RIP, for all I can remember is the fucking trashfire harassment campaign), bracketed by MDZS at the start (before my flist got anywhere near it, ofc) and Star Wars at the end.

I posted 49 things to AO3 in 2025. Again, mostly for Battleship – some fic, some art, a few vids, one fanmix.

Popularity

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Self-recs

Art/Comics
Hard to pick, this year! I decided against the art listed above, and instead have a mermaid:
Moongazer

(Honorable mention to Die Before You Wake, an OW F/M M-rated comic that is peak cdrama trope)

Fanmix
As is by now tradition, I made an Expanse fanmix! This one's about Laconia, and I uhhh got a bit fancy-ass about the formatting. I long to make a fanmix where the pull lines make a CYOA poem like Obligations 2 (image) by Layli Long Soldier, but, uh, at what point does a fanmix stip being a fanmix and instead become something else? Anyway, this is a regular, linear fanmix, but with the songs plonked into columns based on whether they are about the Leader, the People, or the Planet.
Write the History

Vid
I only published three this year (made a fourth, have one missing like 15 seconds, and then there's my festivids draft). My favorite is actually one of the unpublished ones, I think, but of the published ones I choose this one:
Sister Moon (Side Story of Fox Volant)
Yuan Ziyi is peak and I love the fight scenes and also how she does not compromise her principles for a man.

Fic

Best Title is shared between Breast Foot Forward (OW, F/M, making the most of being forcibly remarried to an Emperor young enough to be your son) and Ka-BOOB (OW, F/F, having your way with the concubine you've been told to breast expand), both of which are lactation kink boob expansion Battleship fics.

"But Pingu, did you write anything other than boob-focused OW porn?" Oh yes I did! This year the theme seems to have been "understated, maybe wistful, potentially hopeful". Have three, with escalating positivity:
Watching the world come undone (MDZS, Wei Wuxian/Jiang Yanli, 1.1k) post-apocalyptic, making the most of a bad situation
Horizons Deep (SWTOR, Acina/Sith Inquisitor, 1k) "What does one want when the wanting is done?" wistful yearning-ish
End of Exile (Expanse, Filip Nagata, 1.3k) post-canon, hopeful ending
(+ OW on the mood: With Eyes Wide Open, F/M steampunk ritual sex)

"But surely you wrote something weird this year????" A bit less weirdery than is typical of me, but I did write something on the unusual end:
reborn (MDZS, Wei Wuxian/OFC, 1.8k)

Wei Wuxian gets resurrected by ... matriarchal necromancers?

I did so much research for this, considering that it's for Battleship, speed writing event extraordinaire. The ruling clans bear the Eight Great Surnames of Chinese Antiquity and then I went on a deep dive of what other Chinese surnames have the woman radical in them. (Spoiler: exclusively the Wei of Wei Wuxian. He was made for this!)

"Pingu, I want something dumber!" OK, have this
The Emperor's New Woes (OW, F/M, 2.1k)

Emperor Zhao Yiqin has, to the consternation of all of his ministers and his eunuch friend Lan He, bought a stack of talismans (which obviously won't work, come on, Your Majesty) from a Daoist (charlatan) in an effort to guarantee conception of a son and heir. Things don't quite go as anyone expected...

Emperor hires Daoist to guarantee that he'll conceive a son with the Empress; ends up being the one carrying the baby. Smut is Emperor/Empress, emotionally the core relationship is Emperor/Head Eunuch (who is plotting to mpregnate the Emperor later).

2025 Resolutions & did I do them

Write 10k
Yes! I wrote over 40k! That's as many as four tens!

Be more present on DW
Uhhhhhh no. Did not really happen. I think I need some level of fannish fixation/new and improved energy.

But on the community front, I did befriend tavina via battleship! (Like the one (1) good thing that happened relating to the battleship 2025 mod team. Jesus fuck was that a clusterfuck.) And I got the rest of Team Pear! Tower and Volcano just bye'd off, but now I have a new community of peeps in the After Pearty. One quarter of a point?

Get a new vid_bingo card and make at least one vid
This also didn't happen! However, this didn't happen because the new round didn't start, so I'm pleading force majeure.

2026 Resolutions

Go to a Cultural Event at least once a month
The opera. Ballet. Some other dress-up event. I am giving myself permission to skip July, as I will probably be back home, and idk if there's anything in August, but the goal is 12 events.

Community in fandom, part 1
I think I need to get into a new fandom. Does anyone on DW want to suggest a new fandom for me? Science fiction books and historical/scifi cdramas preferred. In addition to my love for worldbuilding and weird stuff, I love significant female characters that don't have romance-related plots. Must have a fandom on DW that is not just me. (No Murderbot, Guardian, MDZS.) I just want the 2018 Guardian fandom energy and idk, I guess the chance to fall in love with something new. I only need like 2-3 other people, I think, if they're willing to fall in and be active about timeline posts and fanmixes and stuff.

Community in fandom, part 2
I am a member of the fanwork exchange community and shall continue with that. I have space_swap, but also, I am (with some friends) building a replacement for battleship. Please welcome taggle to the world! Everything is still under construction, and none of what we have is on DW, but we're tentatively thinking about an early summer date and should have things up in ... a few months?

Real announcements will, of course, wait for us to have something to announce; consider this an executive pre-announcement.