embracing_calm

(so for this - where it says 'this year', I'm meaning '2025, and I'm doing all of the questions just for what I posted in 2025, rather than all time)

How many words have you written this year? I have written 159,573 words in 2025, which is absolutely fucking insane to me. It's also the second year running that I've hit my GYWO goal and I'm honestly completely blown away!

How many works did you publish this year? 59, which... have I mentioned just seems batshit? 3 Stargate SG-1 and 56 tennis RPF

What work are you most proud of (regardless of kudos/hits)? There's a handful of them, and I can't pick.
It’ll leave you breathless or with a nasty scar which was some Jannik hurt/comfort that started with him collapsing and coughing up blood on Wimbledon Centre Court.
Surface Tension which is a kind of gothic horror series revolving around the use of magic in the tennis world. It mostly centres on one of Jannik's coaches, and how the spells he casts interact with different surfaces, all of which have their own unique magical properties.
The Courage of my Convictions which is an basically a queer second-chance age gap small town/coffee shop forbidden romance between an injured tennis player with his tail between his legs, and an ex-tennis player who became a priest (instead of, as per the real world, where he became a coach. I may have a thing for coach/player LOL)

What work of yours has the most hits? With 2809 hits, it was In The Heat Of Your Electric Touch A Sincaraz pwp with some somnophilia and praise kink.

What work of yours got more feedback than you expected? Probably You had to fight to have the upper hand which was a Darren/Jannik (age gap, coach/player) power play BDSM fic. It's a little over 10k, involves discovery of a kink, a lot of 'we shouldn't be doing this', getting into Jannik's head as he tries to figure out WTF he's feeling. I did not expect anyone to even read this so I was fucking delighted that people did. And apparently liked it.

Favourite title you used Ooh that's a tough one. So nearly all my titles are Taylor Swift lyrics, and it's kind of become a fun game for me to now to try to find the lyric that fits. I've got some fic titles that wouldn't look out of place as a Fall Out Boy song title ;) But I don't know if I have a specific favourite

If you use song lyrics, which artist’s songs did you pull from the most? See above

Pairing you wrote the most for this year? This I did not expect actually - I wrote 13 Darren/Jannik

Favourite pairing you wrote for this year? Oooh honestly, I'm really taken with my Team Sinner polycule fic, with the varying combinations of Darren/Jannik/Simone

What work was the quickest to write? I think it was probably Hold on to the memories, they will hold on to you - that was written in an afternoon, and is based on a super cute fanart that someone posted

What work took you the longest to write? Of the completed fics, You had to fight to have the upper hand. It took about 4-5 months, but the editing was the longest bit - I'd written myself around in circles a little bit and had to unpick it
Of the WIPs? The Courage of my Convictions which I started in March and I'm 9 chapters/17k into so far and still going

How many WIP’s do you have in your docs for next year? That's never worth asking. Never. I don't want to know. 175, give or take

What’s your longest work of the year? Currently at 17,455 words is   The Courage of my Convictions

What’s your shortest work of the year? At just 427 words, its hear my voice in the dark which is just some Sincaraz fluff

What WIP are you taking into next year with you? I have 6 work in progress that I'm actively working on
The Courage of my Convictions
Dancing is a Dangerous Game or... the one where Simone is Immortal, Highlander style
I Had the Time of My Life Fighting Dragons With You which is Sincaraz as feuding booktubers
Surface Tension
Wolf-Tethered a Darren/Simone shifter AU
You wouldn’t take my word for it if you knew who was talking a Darren/mystery online Dom fic, mostly done in chatroom log style

What’s your most common “Additional Tags” tag? Established Relationship with 21 fics

Your favourite character to write this year? Not to be incredibly cliché, but probably Jannik

The character that gave you the most trouble writing this year? Carlos. Every time I think I've got a handle on him, we learn something new about him which just completely changes how I look at him.

What’s one pairing you want to explore next year? There is a lovely... something... going on between Priscilla Hon, Karolina Muchova and Amanda Anisimova which absolutely intrigues me and Bob! is pondering in the background

Which work of yours have you reread the most? Honestly, most of the Darren/Jannik stuff because they're my 🧡 and until like November no-one else had written any!

How many kudos in total did you get this year? 2,939 and that just feels fucking fantastic, not gonna lie. OMG!

Which work has the most comments? My... uhh... omegaverse crackfic written in the style of a serious anthropological paper A Field Guide to the Sinner Pack

Did you do any collaborative works this year? No, I'm very much a solo llama when it comes to writing

Did you write any gifts this year? Nope, not this year

Did you receive any gifts this year? Nope. I didn't take part in any of the exchanges that happened

What’s your most common category? We're all utterly shocked that it was m/m I'm sure

What do you listen to while writing? Anything, everything and nothing, and also all the things. Plus Bob!. And tennis. Generally not nothing. Just whatever's on at the point when I start writing.

Favourite work you wrote this year? I... don't know that I can pick? Probably Surface Tension or The Courage of my Convictions

Favourite line/passage you wrote this year? Oooh there's a lot of lines about the magical properties of the surfaces in the various Surface Tension fics but there's this one passage from Dancing Is A Dangerous Game which I so fucking love:

Jannik takes another breath, unsteady. “How old is he?”

A floorboard creaks, then a voice answers from the doorway.

“Three hundred and forty-six,” Simone says, his tone bone-dry.

Silence.

Jannik blinks.

“Years,” Simone clarifies, as if that helps. “Give or take a few birthdays. I’ve stopped counting.”

Biggest surprise while writing this year? That as much as I really fucking love getting comments and hits and kudos, and we always say that we write for ourselves... this year I've discovered that no, I do actually mean it. I could easily have sat here and cranked out Sincaraz PWP after Sincaraz PWP for the love, but I've settled down and written plotty AU fic that not many people are reading - specifically the magic series sadly - but I'm still going because I've got this story I want to tell and I'm really enjoying writing it

Hello snowflake_challenge

I'm Cassie. I’ve been on Dreamwidth (and LJ before that) for a long time, and blogging has always been one of the main ways I make sense of my life, even when I drift away from it for stretches at a time.

Current state of the llama: my life right now is mostly tennis, fandom, fanfiction, books, and school, with a generous helping of 'my brain is doing too many things at once'. It’s busy, a little messy, and very online in a fannish way. I keep thinking about things, reading things, having Opinions™, and then realising I don’t actually have anywhere to put them.

That's why I'm doing Snowflake. Not to be impressive or disciplined, but to ease back into showing up here. Snowflake feels like a gentle nudge rather than a demand - an excuse to write something and see what happens. Not polished posts, not content-for-an-algorithm - just having a place to put my thoughts, ramble a bit, and exist on the internet without performing. Snowflake feels like a gentle, low-stakes way to show up again.

My main fandom space is Tumblr. And I love it for what it’s for. I have a really nice little tennis fandom space over there, but I am in a super niche corner of a very small fandom, and it’s not where long-form blogging lives. It’s also increasingly full of people who are… very young. Which is fine! I was once young on the internet. But now I am old on the internet. Sometimes I would like to finish a paragraph without feeling ancient (especially when pairings known as 'old man yaoi' are.. uh... about players younger than me)

What I’m hoping to get out of Snowflake is simple: momentum. A habit of writing again. Maybe a bit of reconnection - with this space, with people here, and with the version of myself who’s always processed the world by blogging about it.

If nothing else, I’d like to come out of Snowflake having written something, and reminded myself that this place can still be home.