Rand0mSmil3z

Hoping you feel better soon too!!

An adorable black cat curled up on a cushion. Her yellow eyes are facing the camera

in this household, every day is black cat day 🥰

#InternationalBlackCatDay #BlackCatDay #CatsOfBluesky

Preview of an untitled chapter. Apologies for any typos. Nobody lowered her binoculars with a faint sigh. The robed figures she had been tracking across the eastern continent had finally arrived in Junon, though not without losses. The mining system between the grasslands and the Junon region had been especially treacherous. Even though she had tried to interfere directly, which was in clear violation of Tseng’s orders, several of them had slipped off the thin ledges and to their deaths. Despite being an ex-Turk, she still woke up with nightmares about it. But the other robed figures hadn’t seem to care. They had only shuffled on, their booted feet hardly leaving the ground with their gait uneven and wobbling, and their moaning was nearly as constant. Without a doubt, this was the worst mission Tseng had ever sent her on. Yet the moment the thought crossed Nobody’s mind, she knew that wasn’t true. The worst mission was Nibelheim, or perhaps the worst only occurred on the days that followed: tracking Zack through the wastes, forcing him a corner, telling him that he needed to listen to her or else. In the end she had helped him and Cloud, sure, but not before both men had nearly died out on the Midgar cliffs.

A small preview of Chasing Shadows: chapter 7

Did I not promise last chapter that I’d try to be better at posting updates???? So this is me trying 😭 Thanks for being so patient—you all are the best🌻

#FF7 #FF7Fanfic #Cloti #Zerith #ChasingShadows #HalcyonDays

A black cat inspecting her own reflection in a sliding glass door. She has a puffy tail.

My sweet cat got spooked by her own reflection 😭 look at her puffy tail

#BlackCat #CatsOfBluesky #Caturday

A line graph that depicts months May, June, July, August, and September along the x axis, while the y axis depicts numbers ascending by 20000 up to 140000. The line begins in May at around 100, and then steadily increases to 150556 on August 23, 2025.

Back in May I was possessed by a muse and ended up writing 150k words in about 4 months 😂

Good news is that my first draft is complete! Better news is that now I get to edit it, and make it sound like I knew what I was doing all along 🥰

#AmWriting #AmEditing #WIP

For all updates:

This account (Rand0mSmil3z) is for all things fanfiction related, while…

…my other account (@v-k-velasco.bsky.social) is for my personal writing

You may notice that I haven’t used both in ages 😂 rip

I’m so bad at keeping my social media alive it’s not even a joke 🫣 but I’ve read all of your lovely comments (all of them!!!) and will try to be better for you all 💪

Chasing Shadows - Chapter 6 is available on Ao3! This is a shorter chapter that will wrap up The Longest Night arc ☺️

➡️ archiveofourown.org/works/552673...

because of Ao3 going down, or the other horrors 🫠

Chasing Shadows: Chapter 5 has just been posted!

For now it’s only on Ao3; hope to get it on fanfiction.net soon.

archiveofourown.org/works/552673...

Please mind the tags. Enjoy!

#ff7 #ff7fanfiction #cloti #zerith

Screenshot of Final Fantasy VII. President Shinra stands in his office in the Shinra Building. His dialogue is edited to read "My company makes great products that people love and I've never physically hurt anyone. So why the hate and violence against me?"

✨ ADDRESS CHANGES — LAST CALL 📦

Hi everyone! This is the last call to notify us of any address changes by March 23rd ☺️

After the deadline, we can't guarantee any further changes and recommend that you set forwarding of mail. Thank you so much for all the support! 💛

The most content black cat in the world sits on her human’s lap, her bright yellow eyes looking up to her human (not shown in the photo). The cat is cozy in her human’s light brown cashmere cardigan, and a hand rests on her side to make sure she doesn’t slip.

my writing buddy 🥰🐈‍⬛

#AmWriting #PetSky #CatSky #BlackCat

Chapter 5 The Longest Night Part 2 The Present Day “Eventually, we went back to the inn,” Zack continued, “but when we got there, Sephiroth locked himself in his room.” Everyone—Aerith, Cloud, Tifa, Barret, and Red—watched him with rapt attention. Or most of them did, anyway. Cloud’s gaze was downward, their faint maki glow illuminating his clenched hands. Tifa’s eyes, like usual, were on Cloud. Zack turned away. Throughout his recounting, he had been pacing around the room, but now he leaned against the wall, his arms crossed tightly over his chest and his fingers drumming against his forearm. He hadn’t minded telling everyone the story of Nibelheim—at first, anyway. They deserved to know what they were getting into. Now, his every inhale tasted bitter with dread. This story didn’t have a happy ending, and he was one of the lucky ones. He hadn’t lost anyone except himself. Tifa and Cloud, on the other hand… (additional text is included in the screenshot)

2000 words later 🤍 first preview is included below

#Ao3 #ChasingShadows #FF7 #Cloti #Zerith

A photo showing a word processor on a laptop, which is currently displaying Chapter 5: The Longest Night Part 2. Beside the laptop is an iced coffee that looks better than it tastes, and the background includes colorful floral bouquets.

I’ve been distracted long enough!! Finally starting chapter five of Chasing Shadows 🌻 let’s see how far I can get today!

#AmWriting #Fanfiction #FF7

To make money off of it, unfortunately 🥲 It’s really scummy of them, but thankfully there are copyright laws that protect against this sort of thing.

I’m so glad you enjoyed the story 💙💐

Wordstream supposedly took down my fic after many reports and emails, but as you can see, it still shows up on their website with a simple google search:

Basically, they actually didn’t remove it—they just hid it from view. Really frustrating.

Who else had their work stolen?

#WordStream #booksky

From the AO3 community on Reddit: How to Request a DMCA Takedown re: Word-Stream.com Explore this post and more from the AO3 community

If your work was stolen on word-stream OR any other website, this is a great link:

www.reddit.com/r/AO3/commen...

It’s definitely a step in the right direction! And it looks like their app was taken off the App Store too, so that’s even more good news. I’ve emailed them directly & also submitted all the reports I could think of, so 🤞 hopefully the situation gets resolved soon

From the AO3 community on Reddit Explore this post and more from the AO3 community

Attention #AO3 #fanfic #writers

A new thieving website is charging people to have AI voices read your stories. See this reddit post for more info:

www.reddit.com/r/AO3/s/bfPd...
URL is https: //word - stream . com/ (remove spaces)

FANDOM IS FREE AND MUST STAY FREE. FANDOM BELONGS TO FANDOM. 🖕🖕

A screenshot taken from https://word-stream.com, which depicts AI-generated cover art of the fan fiction "Halcyon Days" by RandomSmiles.

Well, it finally happened--my *free* fanfic was scraped off of Ao3, placed on a shitty AI-generated app, and hidden behind a subscription paywall. Here's the website: word-stream.com

Worse, I have no way to get my story taken down. This is so disheartening. Anyone have any suggestions? 😢

#booksky

✨ PRODUCTION UPDATES 🌼

Production is going smoothly behind the scenes, and we're so excited to begin sharing some updates with you all. Thank you again for supporting Volume 2, please follow this thread for updates in the next few weeks! 💛

Chasing Shadows Rand0mSmil3z (Random Smiles) Chapter 4: The Longest Night: Part 1

five years ago It was raining. The covered military vehicle rumbled down the road, lurching through the many potholes and spraying mud behind it. The sky outside the rain-streaked windows was the color of slate--heavy, moody, and impossibly dark, up until a bolt of lightning set the clouds ablaze. Zack tottered up and down the truck's thin aisle, already accustomed to how the car rolled beneath him. A particularly bright bolt suddenly crashed across the sky, bleaching the truck's interior, and he let out a low whistle. "It's really coming down, huh?"

Chasing Shadows: Chapter 4 has just been posted! 💐🥳🥰 It's a monster of a chapter--just over 15k words--and covers part one of the Nibelheim flashback 🔥 Enjoy!

➡️ Ao3: archiveofourown.org/works/552673...

➡️ FF: TBD

#cloti #zerith #cloudstrife #tifalockhart #zackfair #sephiroth #ff7 #fanfic

Beautiful 🥹💖💖💖💖

A short preview of Chasing Shadows: Ch. 4 🌻

Ch. 4 will be part 1/2 for the Nibelheim Flashback scene 💐 CS is the sequel to Halcyon Days; if you're new to the series, I'd start with HD first!

➡️ Ao3 Ch. 1: archiveofourown.org/works/552673...

➡️ FF: www.fanfiction.net/s/14347954/1...

#cloti #zerith

Btw—I write more than fanfics ☺️ If you’d like to follow along on my quest to get traditionally published, feel free to give my fancy author account a follow!

💫 Tender Memories: The CloTi Zine Vol 2
🌼 NOV 1 - NOV 30
🌱 shop.theclotizine.com

Join us in celebrating #CloTi's gentle & enduring love. Carefully put together by 45+ contributors, "Tender Memories" is a love letter to one of Final Fantasy's greatest romances. 💛 #クラティ

a lighthouse sitting on top of a hill overlooking the ocean ALT: a lighthouse sitting on top of a hill overlooking the ocean

and, or course, the nautical aesthetic 😌

suddenly daydreaming of a short story where character A is a lighthouse keeper and B is a sailor 🥰 like, imagine: the inherent intimacy of keeping watch throughout the night, the comfort of knowing someone is out there waiting for you, the relief seeing their light shine through the darkness…💛