#anyway I hope I don't regret putting the pictures of the charts up here

[rotisseries]

this year, I kept a reading log spreadsheet of all of the fanfiction I read. so, assuming I don't read anything else in these last few hours of 2022, these are my final stats. here is my ao3 wrapped!

i read 496 fics this year. these are surely rookie numbers 😃 (this picture isn't even the entire spreadsheet)

my total words read in fanfiction this year is 6,227,818. 6. million. and 22 thousand. words. 24 of these fics, or about 5% of the fics read, were of a length equivalent to that of a standard fiction novel, which is a length of 40,000 words at the lowest average count. I feel like it's necessary to state here that, whenever I read incomplete fics, I put their current word count, but when the fics updated, I did NOT update the listings, so this number is an estimate

my no.1 fandom this year was stranger things! at 74% and 441 fics read, a surprise to no one. the runners up are the legend of zelda, in no.2, with 24 fics and 11% of my reading, and avatar the last airbender, in no.3, with 18 fics and 8% of the stuff I read!

my no.1 pairing this year was byler, with 57% at a count of 289 fics read! again, a surprise to no one! runners up are, no.2, ronance, with 67 fics and about 14% of the fics I read, and no.3, steddie, with 58 fics and 12% of the stuff I read

my highest month for fanfiction reading was july! of the 496 fics I read this year, 162 of them were read in july, which is about 33%.

468 of the fics I read this year were completed when I read them, which is about 94%.

the author I read the most from was @andiwriteordie, with 34 fics, which is about 7% of the fics read. tbf though, this is because she's insane and wrote a LOT of stuff this year.

409 of the fics I read this year, or 82%, were oneshots.

and those are my ao3 reading habits for this year! I'm thinking that maybe I'll track some tags and other stuff for 2023

#it's strange how fun it is to track this stuff considering it involves having to remember to open a spreadsheet every time I read a fic #anyway hi andi if you see this bc I tagged you sorry for tagging you but thanks for writing so much this year alsjdjfkd <333333 #anyway I hope I don't regret putting the pictures of the charts up here #if any of you see something you wanna make fun of me for you better keep it to yourself actually. shut up. #I put the pictures bc I wanted this to look at least a bit interesting but I won't do it again if that turns out to be a mistake lmao #so it WILL be a wall of text next year if it has to be #stranger things #byler #tagging those bc they were my top fandom even though this technically isn't really an st or byler post‚ hi guys! #ao3 wrapped #yeah I'll tag it with that #hi again andi if you're seeing this! fun fact! I drafted this post bc I knew I was gonna post it later and not immediately #and then after saving the draft I went and scrolled through my dash again only to see that you'd posted the new year's fic! #so I had to go through this and edit it all again by one singular number akdjfjskskls

[sillyrabbit81]

Her Heavy Cross

Summary: Three years after tragedy hits, Lana she decides to start dating again. She meets Will through a dating app and they begin an online romance. After months of constant requests, Lana relents and agrees to meet and go on an irl date with Will. But is Will who he says he is? Lana is quickly pulled into an intense relationship forcing her to confront her tragic past. Will Lana face it or will she close her heart forever?

Pairing: OMC x OFC

Word Count: approx 2.3k

Warnings: swearing

Authors Note: The story started as a Henry Cavill fanfiction but I changed it to be an original character, but shades of Henry are still there. Hope you enjoy the story and thanks for reading.

Part 15 Part 17

Part 16

Liam cooked us a chicken stir-fry with Asian vegetables for dinner. I was mildly surprised that he was such a good cook and told him so. He said he had to learn pretty quickly in the early days of his career when he would go months without a paying job.

"I was lucky. My parents were supportive, so I knew I wouldn't starve, and they would give me money if I asked. I didn't want to, though. I felt like if I had to ask for money, then I was a failure. It motivated me to go to more auditions, prepare better, take some classes to get more skills, perfect my accents."

I admired him for that. From what I knew about his family, they seemed to be wealthy. It would have been easy for him to rely on them while trying to make it.

Liam had told me a lot about his family. He was very close to his two brothers. It seemed like he was a bit of a mummies boy, and I supposed that comes from being the youngest. He seemed to credit his Dad for his love of stories and his desire to act.

"Have you told them about me? Your family, I mean." I asked a bit hesitantly, unsure how I'd feel if he said no.

I shouldn't have worried though, his huge smile said it all. "I told Mum about you over a month ago."

"We hadn't even met yet."

"I know," Liam sounded a bit bashful as he continued. "My Mum kept saying how happy I sounded. I kept dropping hints that she thought I was seeing someone. She's very good at reading me. She hounded me until I told her."

"What did she say?"

"She was surprised we hadn't met. I spoke to her during the week a few times and told her we'd met, and it went well, and we'd seen each other the whole weekend. It was a bit awkward like I said. She knows me too well. She said, 'You mean you spent the weekend shagging.'"

"Oh, my God!" I was so embarrassed. "What did you say? She's going to think I'm the town bike."

"She wasn't judging, by the way. She was worried about how you would react to me. She was happy because she felt like I shouldn't have used Simons photos."

"She's not wrong," I said.

"I know, I know. Do I have to apologise again?"

"No, just don't do it again."

He briefly grinned but then looked at me, his face and tone serious. "Hopefully, I'll never have to."

I didn't know how to respond to that. What did he even mean by that? I didn't ask. I wasn't sure if I wanted to know. I cleared my throat. "Is that all she said?" I asked, instead.

Liam opened his mouth and was about to say something before closing his mouth and trying again. "Well, then she saw the photos and stories about us. I tell her not to read that stuff because most of it is rubbish. But she does. Anyway, she said we looked lovely together and..." he paused before continuing. "And she can't wait to meet you in a few months. She's coming for a visit in late June early July for my two-week hiatus."

I almost asked what he was going to say, but I changed my mind. "What about your brothers? Your Dad?"

"Well, my Dad isn't much of a talker when it comes to relationships. But he did say Mum had shown him your picture and that you seemed like a nice girl. Other than that, he didn't comment. He rarely does unless he thinks someone isn't good for me."

"Is he coming with your mum?"

"Only for one week. My mum will stay for nearly three. My brothers well..." he grinned. "You know what brothers are like. We are rarely serious together. Also, we rarely call each other. We mostly keep in contact through group chats." His lip twitched as he said, 'there were a lot of ginger jokes this week."

I could only imagine what those chat logs contain. I rolled my eyes at the thought. "The bastards," I said.

Liam laughed then asked, "what about your family?"

"I haven't told them much. Dave knows a bit. I haven't told Mum anything." I shifted in my seat. "Dave knew I was seeing someone after I asked him to watch Perrin. But he didn't ask questions. Then on Friday, he found out it was you. He seemed ok with it." I brightened and said, "they will know all about you next week anyway."

Liam returned my smile.

After dinner, we went to bed. We both read for a while. Liam sat up with his back against the headboard while I laid on my back, using his chest as a pillow. I read until I fell asleep.

I grew to hate Sundays.

Sunday's meant my time with Liam was coming to a close. This Sunday had a silver lining because I would only have to wait until Thursday to see him again. This only partially comforted me because it was also the premiere. As the time drew closer, I knew I'd regret saying yes.

I sat with my head in my hands in the store's dressing room. Just picking which dresses to try on had been an ordeal. I had done a quick google search that morning to see what kind of dresses people wore to premieres, and it was almost no help. The range was too extensive. It seemed nearly anything was acceptable, from cocktail dresses to full-on evening wear.

Some articles made me feel sick, especially the articles about the actresses. So many articles talked about how many women found it hard to find dresses in their size because they were size 6 and too big to fit into most designers dresses. I checked out a size conversion chart and found that size 6 was a size 10 here. I was usually a size 10, but sometimes my arse needs a size 12.

I started thinking I was too fat. I kept thinking about my huge arse and thighs, which got me spiralling into thinking my breasts were too small, my hair was too frizzy, I had too many freckles, and I was too pale. The list of my faults just grew in my head until I was sure I'd end up at the premiere looking like a bush pig in a dress.

I started to breathe deeply, in through my nose, hold it, out through my mouth. After several breaths, I opened my eyes. I could do this. I picked up the first dress the assistant had helped me pick. She knew it wasn't going to wor. It was a loose short black lace dress with puffy sleeves that would make me look like the only shape I had was round. The other picks she made were dresses that looked like they were for the bride's grandmother. She also looked at Liam too many times for my liking. She was very helpful if you call taking us to dresses sold out in my size useful. Or if directing all her questions at Liam was helpful. I'll bet she's out there right now being helpful...

Fuck me dead! I think I'm jealous.

That was an emotion I hadn't felt in a while, and I didn't like it. Fuck that. I don't need to be jealous. I picked through the dresses until I found the one I already knew would be the winner.

It was from Australian designer Maticevski. The gown was black with a high neckline, and the beautiful fabric gathered on the left shoulder. The dress was pulled from the hips and cinched in the waist. It had a thigh-high split, revealing just enough skin to be sexy and a small but elegant train. I loved it the moment I saw it and knew I wanted it. But it was $2,500. I loved it so much I almost didn't care. I mean, I knew I wasn't the one people cared about. They wanted to see Liam. This time was different because it would be our first official event together, and the story right now was who was he dating. This time I would get attention. But I still thought it was too much money. I had almost put it back, but the assistant smirked. Liam, bless him, took it out of my hands and said he would love to see it on me.

I wriggled my way into the dress and looked into the mirror. It was the winner for sure. I had brought my heels from Friday night to try the dress on with, and though they weren't quite right for the dress, they gave a good idea of what I would look like. It was slightly too tight around the hips and too a little big on the top. I could get it altered, though. It wouldn't take much. Maybe even a bra with a bit of padding would fix it. I flipped my hair to give it some bounce and a sexy 'just been fucked' look and stepped out.

I was right. She was hitting on Liam hard. I wanted to punch her in the face. But then Liam saw me, and the way he looked at me made me forgot about her. I took a few steps over to him and posed in an over the top way.

"What do you think?" I asked Liam.

He didn't say anything, but his eyes did. He had the same look when he approached me on Friday night. This is definitely the dress.

"It's not too dressed up? I could try something else if you think it's too much." I said to Liam.

"It doesn't quite fit. Perhaps the..." the assistant didn't get time to finish before Liam spoke.

"No." He said firmly, cutting her off. He cleared his throat and approached me. "It's absolutely perfect." He kissed me, and his lips were so soft. He ran his hands over my waist and stood back, looking me up and down. "Perfect. We will take it."

"You don't want to try..." the assistant tried again.

Liam didn't even look at her. "I said we would take it. The other dresses can go back. Thank you for your help." I loved it when he spoke in that authoritative tone, which made me weak.

She went into the dressing room and took away the ten other dresses I was going to try. I wasn't sad to see them go, none of them would be as good as this, but I still wasn't sure.

"I can try another dress. I mean, this one is stupid expensive."

"I don't care if it was a hundred thousand dollars, you look amazing, and you like it, so you will have it."

"I just don't know if I can afford to spend money like this for one night."

"I invited you. I'm paying."

"Fuck. I should have said I need matching earrings." I joked.

"Do you?" He asked, sincere.

"No, don't be silly. Shoes and a handbag will do. I'll buy the shoes you buy the bag. Deal?"

"Nope." He was shaking his head, "I want to get everything for you. Think of it as an Easter present."

"I can afford to buy things for myself, you know. I make pretty good money considering I own my house, and I only have to take care of myself and Perrin."

"I know." Liam ran his fingers through his hair. "Call me a misogynist if you want, but I want to buy you things, pretty things, things you'd never buy yourself. I want to take care of you."

I decided to let it go. I didn't think it's misogynistic to want to buy your girlfriend a present. It's misogynistic if you think you own her because you chose to buy her things. And it did feel nice to have him want to buy me pretty things.

"Ok, Liam," I said.

His smile came back. "Good. Get changed, and let's buy you some shoes." His lip twitched. "Do you need help taking it off?"

"Get out of it." I laughed and got changed.

When I had come out, he wasn't waiting for me. I looked around and couldn't find him in the shoes or the bags. A thought came to me. I hated that I thought it, but I wondered if the shop assistants come on had worked. I didn't believe it, not really, but once the thought was there, it wouldn't leave.

I didn't want to, but I looked for the shop assistant. As I looked, I felt sick from fear and disgust with myself. I found her putting away the dresses from the dressing room, and I breathed a sigh of relief. I hated myself. I wasn't usually like this. It wasn't fair on Liam either. He had given me no reason to suspect him at all.

Then I started to panic. My breath came out shallow and rapid. I felt smothered. There were no windows, and I needed to get out. There were too many people.

I felt warm hands slide under my t-shirt and rest on my belly.

I jumped and spun around. It was Liam. "Ready for shoes, Sweetheart?" He asked.

"Where were you? I looked everywhere."

"I went down to menswear real quick," Liam said. "Now that I know what you're going to wear, I know what I'm going to wear, and I needed a new shirt. It took longer than I thought."

"No worries. I just, I didn't know, it's ok."

"You ok?"

I nodded. "Let's go."

Part 17

#original character #original fiction #romantic story #happy ever after