my hands are of your color

 I love writing goal posts. I love reviewing them slightly less, because inevitably I have to admit that I did not finish the Big Thing I meant to finish. But also: I did do some really cool stuff, and my brain kicked off several brand new projects like a chaotic little goblin in a fic mine, so. Let’s talk about it.

 🖋 July Writing Goals:

Finish A Field Guide to the Sinner Pack — ❌ absolutely not. It’s still sitting there, gentle and ominous and unfinished. I’m choosing to believe this is just a simmering stage.

Update:
You Wouldn’t Take My Word for It If You Knew Who Was Talking — ❌ noooope
I Had the Time of My Life Fighting Dragons With You — ❌ also no, but I did think about it a lot
The Courage of My Convictions — ✅ YES. A new chapter and a spin-off/prequel side fic. I’m counting this as a win for narrative momentum and gay priest chaos.
Wolf-Tethered — ❌ untouched, though not unloved

Maybe post a one-shot just because — ✅ I’m counting the Darren/Simone scene from the priest AU, because it came from somewhere deep and tender and needed to exist....

Also. I may have started two entire new AU series, because apparently July was the month Bob! said “yes, but what if…?”

🌿 July Life Goals:

Make a doctor’s appointment about the arthritis diagnosis — ✅ did the thing. Proud of this one.
Day trip to the RAMM + sushi — ❌ no museum trip, but we did buy most of Yo!Sushi and I did spend roughly £200 in the Lucy & Yak sale, so I have no regrets and very colourful trousers. It was a good trip
Visit Noah’s Ark Zoo Farm — ✅ lions and elephants and giraffes achieved
Reclaim one chaotic space (maybe the laundry chair) — 🌀 kind of? Started rearranging my work clothes and moved some piles around. Progress is happening in slow, meandering steps.
Come back to Dreamwidth, and stay — 🌀 back-ish! A few posts, a bit of lurking, and some genuine joy in reconnecting with long-form fandom space. Still holding this one as a soft goal.
Cook something that feels like summer — 😅 not really. But I thought about tomatoes a lot.
One proper lie-in, no guilt — ✅ absolutely achieved, 10/10 would lie in again
One evening offline with candles, music, or silence — ❌ does scrolling Tumblr with one candle lit count? No? Thought not.

🌻 August Goals: gentle momentum, storybrain chaos, and maybe some tomatoes 

✨ Writing/Fandom Goals
Actually finish A Field Guide to the Sinner Pack – even if it’s just in bullet-point plan format
Update Wolf-Tethered - or at least open the doc and reread it. Or smell the forest in my head and cry about Simone.
Keep working on The Courage of My Convictions - more priest AU, more Jannik/Simone quiet intensity, more religious yearning and repressed gay disasters.
Return to I Had the Time of My Life Fighting Dragons With You — the booktuber romantasy AU deserves more petty feuding, more yearning in comment sections, more mutual pining over tropes.
Make space for the new AUs - if my brain is going to go chaotic, might as well let it do so on purpose.
Maybe write something short and weird and self-indulgent. Just because.
Keep sharing. Even when it feels scary. Especially when it feels a little raw - that probably means it matters..

🌿 Life Goals
One genuinely slow, nothing-is-urgent weekend.
Book one fun thing for August, even if it’s tiny.
Get my new tattoo (appointment booked for the 30^th!)
Properly reclaim one corner of chaos in the house. Doesn’t have to be perfect, just has to be better. My work clothing storage isn’t working for me right now.
Keep gently decluttering my digital spaces - Dreamwidth tags, folders, etc.
Go outside for something that’s not an errand. A walk, a sit, a stretch in the sun.
Remember: lie-ins are good, my body is not a machine, and my stories are worth telling.
Keep up the shoulder, hip, and knee physio - consistency counts more than perfection.
Aim to lose a little more weight if it feels good and manageable - but keep it soft and low-pressure.
 

Tell me your August hopes! Or the weird thing July gave you that you’re still thinking about. Or the AU your brain started without asking. I’ll bring the snacks, you bring the story chaos. 💛 

Journaling Prompt: What games do you play, if any? Are you a solo-gamer or do you view games as a social activity?

I’ve been a gamer for as long as I can remember. It started with Space Invaders on the Amstrad CPC 464 in the mid-80s - that clunky green-screen magic, the beep-boop intensity, the sheer novelty of it all. And I never really stopped.

Over the years, I’ve collected a fair few consoles: SNES, Gameboy, Playstation, PS2, Wii, Switch. I’ve still got them all, too. There's something oddly comforting about holding onto those pieces of plastic and circuitry, like keeping a time capsule of different versions of myself.

I’m definitely a solo-gamer. Always have been. I think it’s the introvert in me. I like slipping into a gameworld on my own terms, no pressure, no voice chat, no audience. Just me, the screen, and whatever rhythm the game wants me to fall into.

Old school side-scrolling platforms
Tight levels, tricky jumps, that sense of flow when everything clicks. Still satisfying as hell.

Racing games
Especially Rock & Roll Racing, which lives in my memory as pure, chaotic joy. The soundtrack! The mayhem! The fact I can still hum the menu music unprompted!

Millennial dream games
AKA my happy place. Animal Crossing, Harvest Moon, Story of Seasons, Stardew Valley, Palia. I will always love games where you can farm, fish, befriend villagers, decorate your house, and wander around making little To Do lists for yourself. Peak comfort.

I know gaming is a social thing for a lot of people, and that’s great, but for me, it’s always been a way to unwind, to self-soothe, to get lost in a world I don’t have to share unless I choose to. A quiet kind of joy.