Battleship 2025 Wrap-Up

[peasina]

Battleship is over (well, it's technically still in the anon period, but the game part is over) and I've been meaning to post this wrap-up to my journal for a while but I guess I was a little burned out from it all. Which is nice in a way, because I'm burnt out following a flurry of productivity. I hadn't written, podded, or made art in ages, so it was a happy burn out, and I've ignited again since ^^

I was on Team Strawberry - we came second! I had a really fun time this year. The first half of the event was where I went the most ham, hitting work cap for board one, then boss wordcount cap for boss one. Then I unfortunately got hit with a bunch of withdrawal symptoms after tapering off some medication, where I could only function for a few hours a day. It suuuuuucked. I had to take a week off work, and I might have overdone it by using the small amount of energy I had in the mornings to make things rather than do the adult thing and rest.

I'm almost completely recovered now, and have caught up with commenting on my awesome gifts. If you'd like to come and look around the event's shiny collection (of 3,500 works!!) you can find it here.

What I made
I ended up making 37 things (31 pods, 2 art, and 4 fics.) Just shy of 100k words podficced in total over the two-week period (over 12 hours' worth, my goodness), which I'm really proud of. My favourite thing I created was a fic I wrote, illustrated, then podficced, that I'll probably share here after reveals, as I'd really like someone to see it 😅. There was also something I wrote and podded that someone on my team illustrated, which was just wonderful.

Something I had promised myself (and peaked!) before Battleship, was to only create things I was excited about. In previous years, I'd sometimes made things soley to hit difficult squares or podded things my team had written for the purpose of double-tapping tags, which is all well and good, but it was a recipe for me getting burnt out more severely. This year, I only wanted to make things for fandoms that are special to me, and I managed it, and it was wonderful. I ended up renewing my love for several fandoms too, and I even fell in love with new Pokemon someone had requested. It was a great year for reminding mysef of my bulletproof comfort characters and fandoms I could play in forever and never get bored.
2025 Goals
I posted a Battleship Bucket List to my journal before this round began. Here's how I did!

✅ 1. Make at least 10 Pokémon works - I'm going to say I did this, though it's based on a technicality. I podded three Pokemon stories and wrote two fics, and while I technically posted two works to AO3 for art, one of them has five illustrations in it. So yes, I did it 💪

✅ 2. Make a 10k podfic for a boss - I did it! The fic was excellent and I loved being motivated to pod something long.

❌ 3. Create works that contain all three of my claimed tags - I failed! I got one of them though :)

✅ 4. Write 10k (in total) - I did it! I wrote 16k.

❌ 5. Pick up a new canon and create something for it - I didn't have the energy for this unfortunately.

❌ 6. Make something for at least 10 of my pre-Battleship prompt claims - I failed! I was close though.

✅ 7. Reach work cap for at least one round - Round one, I managed this :)

❌ 8. Write something that a podficcer on my team then podfics - Nope. If I'd written things I didn't pod myself, then this might've happened though - people were willing! I podded things my team wrote though, which was really fun.

❓ 9. Make new friends - I got to know new people via Team Strawberry, and I got to know prior fandom aquaintances a little more during the game, which was great. However, this year everything felt a lot more frantic (must chase Pear) and fractured (existing friend groups chatting in their own threads) to me, so it was hard to find the time or space to make connections. I'm sure others felt the same. Hopefully now things have calmed down a little more, I can keep those connections going.

✅ 10. Write fic for a canon I know but have never written for before - I did! I can say nothing further at this time 🤫

My Gifts
I was lucky enough to be gifted NINE pokemon arts and three podfics! I'm still so excited about this and feel very spoiled :)

Some I'd like to bring your attention to are:

• Gourgeist (Pokemon) as the Ben Affleck smoking meme;
• the most adorable comic about sapphic Oddishes;
• and this podfic of a Data/Borg Queen fic I wrote in 2019 ✨

Now I've gotten over my burnout, I'll hopefully be posting on here more again (I have so many drafts started!) If you took part in Battleship this year I'd love to hear about your experience too.

Comments

[sunsalute]

Greetings from a grape! I love that even the 'failed' goals are just 'welp, I got close' or 'I prioritised not burning out over hitting this'. This is such a positive wrapup! And those pokemon art recs are amazing, thank you for bringing them to my attention <3

[peasina]

Hello there 🍇🍇🍇 Nope, I’m not going to be sad about my failed goals because I still had an amazing time :D I’m glad you enjoyed the art recs ^^ Thank you for reading and for this lovely comment :)

[peaked]

I love that you did a multimedia work that encompasses all three of the accepted mediums in Battleship. Congratulations on doing something new that you clearly had fun with!

I still can't believe you capped the boss. 👏🏽

5/10 goals complete is good imo! I bet you killed other goals you weren't aware of when we were making our little bucket lists. 37 works is amazing! Almost 100k pod is amazing!

[peasina]

Thank you so much my dear! I’m so proud of myself (and you should be too - I know all about your stats 😛)

[straightforwardly]

Belated comment, but I really enjoyed reading this! 37 works (and close to 100K podficced!) is such an achievement; you did amazing <3

This year, I only wanted to make things for fandoms that are special to me, and I managed it, and it was wonderful. I'm so glad for you; that's fantastic!

[peasina]

I love belated comments :P I’m glad this was a fun read! Thank you for your kind words 🩷

[nonesensed]

Wow, you got so much done, go you! 31 podfics alone is beyond impressive, and then art and fics on top of that - absolutely an achievement 💖

[peasina]

Thank you so much, my dear!! (Your influx of comments has made me so happy this evening ❤️)

[nonesensed]

You're very welcome! (I'm glad to hear it 💖 I've been pretty offline this summer and am now trying to catch up with everyone's writing - aaaand I've been a little worried that my catch-up comments will come off as spamming 😅)

[peasina]

Nooo, it's been lovely to get all your messages (though I did panic initially like, omg so many messages, what did I do wrong? haha.) I hope you've been having a good time offline! <3

[nonesensed]

Then I'm sorry for the initial panic as well as glad to hear it ended up a lovely thing 💗 I've been enjoying my offline time a lot, and now I'm hoping to enjoy my online time equally - which is going well thus far 😊