#Yaksalot fanfics

[mryaksalot]

Plans for the rest of 2024 and beyond.

2024 has been a turbulent year for me, to say the least. I went into this year with an entire agenda as for what I wanted to accomplish in terms of writing. Little did I know how differently things would turn out for me.

My mental health back in March/April was not great if I’m being honest. I found myself not having nearly as much motivation to write as I did before. I decided to take a break from social media, fic-writing included, in order to work on my mental health. I’m happy to report that I’m doing a lot better now, and my motivation to write fics has increased significantly since June.

During my time away from the internet, I had time to reconsider what my intentions were when it came to my writing. I always enjoyed writing for the fun of it, but I also wanted my stories to stand out from the rest. I wanted to create something that was entirely unique, something that I can look at and be proud of.

The following is a list of all of the things I want to accomplish for the rest of 2024 and beyond, highlighting future stories as well as major changes in regards to my writing.

Backstory AU/The Road To Success

I’ve always viewed The Road To Success as my flagship story. I created this AU all the way back at the beginning of 2021. Hours upon hours have been put into fleshing out this AU into the multi-chapter saga. So many changes had to be made along the way(including starting the whole story over from scratch back in 2022). The story is now over 140k+ words, and it’s nowhere near finished.

Admittedly, I went a little overboard with how much thought and ideas went into this AU. I was not aware that this project would take so many months, even years, to put together. I don’t have an editor – I write, edit, proofread, and publish every one of my stories by myself. That takes a while to do.

Back in January 2023, The Road To Success went viral. This was around the time the 3rd and final season of the reboot came out, and AO3 was flocked with fans eager to catch the hype train. For a good few months, my story was gaining an immense amount of readership, which encouraged me to pump out as many chapters as possible in a short time frame.

But, like all hype trains, the excitement from the new season release cooled down. By the fall, the only fans left were diehards like myself. I was also experiencing some major burnout from pushing myself so hard. I had other responsibilities outside of social media like work, school etc. This burnout led to several delays of new chapter uploads.

During my break, I had time to rethink several components of my Backstory AU. I made a handful of changes to The Road To Success. The most prominent one was making the story much more Yakko-centric. I wanted to make a story showing how hard work and dedication to your craft can get you to places in life you’d never imagine. Yakko is the perfect character to convey that sort of message.

Initially, I wanted to include more character perspectives beside Yakko, but I ultimately decided to size it down. We’ll still see some of their perspectives (Wakko will get his own chapter at some point), but for the most part, the spotlight will remain on Yakko. This is his story, after all. Because of this, the current version of TRTS is much shorter than I originally drafted 2 years ago.

I have thought about expanding the universe even more with additional stories, but I have decided to hold off on that until I reach a certain number of chapters (you’ll understand when the time comes). I’m currently working on a 2-parter, chapters 17 and 18, which will take priority for the time being. I will save an announcement about bonus content for another day.

The Backstory AU has really become a passion project of mine. You can say it’s my magnum opus. I intend to take my time with future updates going forward. I used to pump chapters out as fast as I can, but I don’t really feel like I need to do that anymore. I feel like my content is better when I take my time to make sure everything is right. I want this AU to be executed to its full potential. Rome wasn’t built in a day, as the saying goes.

Oneshots/Additional projects

I have always been open to doing external projects on top of working on the Backstory AU and The Road To Success. Though recently, I have cut back on the amount of oneshots that I put out. There are two reasons for this:

1. The time I spend on these oneshots takes away time that I could be spending to write up the next chapter of The Road To Success. That story is a much higher priority to me, so I would like to put my time and effort into that before I decide to work on something else.

2. There really isn’t much demand for me to pump out as many oneshots now than there was 2 years ago. As I said in the hype train analogy, when a show gets new seasons/episodes, it draws fans to social media – it gives fic writers the motivation they need to push out new content. But now that the Animaniacs reboot has ended, a majority of the casual fanbase who had jumped onto that hype train had left to other fandoms.

But while the Animaniacs fanbase is much smaller now than it used to be, it allows me to focus less on the demand and more on the product itself – that product is the Backstory AU. I feel like I can take my time on new chapters knowing the diehard fan base will still be there. As long as there is an audience, I will write for as long as I still feel value in my work.

With that being said, I am going to be putting most of my focus on the AU going forward, rather than adding onto the load. I feel less anxious that way, knowing that I have a clear path in getting a fic done with little delay.

However, I am still open to doing oneshots in the not so distant future; I’m just putting priority on a bigger project at the moment. That might offset some readers who enjoy shorter content, but do know that all of my oneshots currently posted will remain on the platform for anyone to enjoy. Not to mention all the other great content getting posted on AO3. We’re a small, dedicated community, working together to make content for our own enjoyment.

But while I’m cutting back on individual oneshots going forward, I have something that you might enjoy.

Splats Of Ink/The Drabble Collection

Back in January, I decided to try my hand at a drabble collection. I saw that a couple of my fellow Animaniacs writers were doing it, so I thought “Why the heck not?” So far, I have written 6 entries to the collection, all of which have received decent feedback from readers.

I’m really enjoying doing the collection so far, because it gives me the chance to write out those strands of ideas floating around in my head. None of the drabbles in the collection are directly related to anything major, but that was the intention. The drabble collection is like my own personal sandbox – a place where I can figure out what works and what doesn't.

I won’t say yet what you can expect for future ideas for the collection; the collection itself is sporadic for the most part. But I would like to write out some deleted/extra scenes from The Road To Success which didn’t make it into the story. There is a lot of cut content from that story which I feel is still worth sharing. Other entries will include character study, and characters which I feel aren’t shined upon that often.

These drabbles will take the place of oneshots, and will typically be released during a wait period(when I’m in the midst of working on the next chapter of TRTS). As I said previously, I will still do oneshots on occasion, if I am able to come up with an idea that I can expand upon. For the most part, however, expect much more of the drabble collection in the near future.

Conclusion

If you made it all the way to the end, I just want to express how thankful I am to everyone who has supported me and my fics after all this time. I’ve been at this for 3 years now. I have made several new friends during my time here, and I’ve seen the talent of so many people in this community.

With that being said, I will be taking my time with my fics going forward. That doesn't mean I’m gonna quit necessarily, but I will be taking my time with my fics to ensure that they can hold up to their full potential. As long as there is still engagement in the fanbase, I will continue to write fic for as long as I still hold value to my craft.

If you have any questions about any of the information above, do not hesitate to ask. I will answer any questions you have, whether it’s about the Backstory AU or another project of mine. I want to be as transparent to you guys as I can.

Cheers.

[mryaksalot]

In the mood for fic?

Why don't you check out my drabble collection Splats Of Ink? It's where I dump all of my craziest story ideas, and test the ground for new and exciting Animaniacs stories.

Link to the collection is below.

[mryaksalot]

Here is my Christmas present to you all!

That's right! After a 3 month hiatus, a brand new chapter of The Road To Success has been released in time for Christmas!

I apologize for the wait. Writer's block hit me hard in September and October, and I had to release two other projects in between this one. But despite of the hurtles, Chapter 14 has been complete and is released for your enjoyment.

Merry Christmas to you all! Happy reading!

[mryaksalot]

Important changes to my Backstory AU(OUTDATED)

TW: This post is going to be sorta long, so buckle up.

As you may know, there have been a lack of many new chapters to my story The Road To Success on AO3 these past several months. I've been trying my damn hardest to keep up with updates, but I don't always have the free time in order to write. I have to attend school, work a job, deal with family matters; those things take priority too. I don't have as much free time as I used to back in 2021.

That being said, I still hold a lot of passion for this story. I first got the idea for this story all the way back at the beginning of 2021. It started as just an insightful thought, a drabble I created inside my head. Overtime, I kept expanding on the idea, fleshing out the world, making this story the best it could possibly be. Now we're at the point where the story is over 120,000 words, and it's not even half of the way done yet! I never anticipated for this story to be this long, but here we are.

Now if you are thinking that this post is about me throwing The Road To Success in the can, I just want to clarify that this story IS NOT being cancelled. But the way the story is written and formatted is going to change from what you have seen up to this point.

Just so I am transperent with you guys, here is a list of all of the changes to The Road To Success, as well as the Backstory AU as a whole.

1. The main story, The Road To Success, will be significantly shorter than the original version. The OG version, the version that I have stuck to while initially writing this story, was planned to have 40-50 chapters. That is just not possible anymore, with how busy my life has become. This new version of the story will now have roughly 30-35 chapters. As of writing this, the exact number of chapters has not been decided yet; that will be determined by the end of the year (at the latest).

2. The new version of TRTS (Acronym for The Road To Success) will be more Yakko-centric. I originally wanted to insert a bunch of extra sideplots into the main story, specifically after the Warners become actors. Wakko and Dot were supposed to have their own friend groups, and we would get the chance to see their perspectives as well as Yakko's. However, these sideplots take away from the main story, which is overall more important in the longterm. That dosen't mean Wakko and Dot won't be given any time in the spotlight (they are gonna play some significant roles later on), but I don't want their misadventures to take too much time away from the main storyline.

3. Some of the lore (the details on how the world works in this universe, how certain characters act, family trees etc.) have been and are subject to being changed and altered. I'm very much a perfectionist when it comes to the little details; they're very important imo. Sometimes, I will change my mind about a certain detail and decide to change it on a whim. I will try to restrain these changes to the lore based on what I have already written/talked about publicly, in order to not create too much confusion going foward.

4. The Backstory AU will be expanded beyond The Road To Success. That's right, folks! TRTS is getting a companion story, in order to fill in those lore gaps to answer questions that have yet to be answered. This story will focus on the parents of the Warners, covering their childhood, as well as their inevitable downfall as members of society. More details regarding this companion Peice will be elaborated on in a later post. I'm also cooking up a Christmas story, which will serve as somewhat of a flashback to previous events in TRTS. This story will come out on (you guessed it) Christmas of this year.

5. So you may be wondering to yourself: What's gonna happen to the scrapped segments of TRTS? Well that's where my drabble collection comes in. A month ago, I created a drabble collection titled Splats Of Ink, a collection of oneshots featuring headcanons, future story ideas, and now scrapped segments of already established stories. I'm thinking about fleshing out these Alternate scenes of TRTS, to show you what could have been. Expect the first of these scrapped-segment-reimagined drabbles to come out this April.

So, that's a decent laundry list of all the updates that I have made to the Backstory AU as of late. Chapter 15 is in the works as we speak, and will most likely come out sometime in March. Then it will be smooth sailing into Chapter 16 and so on! There's lots of exciting things in the works, and I can't wait to share it all with you.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to read through the whole thing. Feel free to ask questions if you need me to elaborate further on these changes. Your patience and support is most appreciated.

[mryaksalot]

I was originally intending to include this story with my drabble collection (Splats Of Ink). But as I proof read this, I realized that this story would make much more of an impact if it were a stand alone.

Technically, this is the second story a part of the Backstory AU, though there will be more eventually. This story takes place in the past, and you will learn by the end that Yakko wasn't living in an ideal environment growing up.

CONTENT WARNING: Implied abuse, alcoholism, addiction.

[mryaksalot]

Chapter 16 is out!

It's been a hot minute since I released the last chapter of TRTS, over 4 months in fact. This chapter took much longer than I anticipated(I even had to start over from scratch halfway through the first draft), but I am more than happy with how this one turned out.

I plan to make a full update post in a couple days, discussing some changes I made to the AU, as well as my future as a fic writer.

In the meantime, enjoy the story!

[mryaksalot]

I don't write about Dot all too much. I tend to focus on the brothers because I feel I have a good understanding of their characters, which makes it easier to put them in dynamic situations. But I always felt that shoving Dot into the sidelines was unfair, because she is just as significant as her brothers are.

One day, I finally came up with an idea for a story about her. It took a couple months (writers block hit me hard in April) but it's finally done. This story sheds a light on Dot's more vulnerable side, much different than the fiery, thick-skinned Dot we have become accustomed to. It also shows a relationship which I haven't seen done in the show nor in fanfics.

Link to the fic is below! Hopefully, it was worth the wait.

[mryaksalot]

Chapter 15 of TRTS is out! Once again, I apologize for the lengthy wait, but I have a feeling that you guys will really enjoy this one!

"Hello dere. Who are ya? "

[mryaksalot]

What's this? A brand new story by Mr Yaksalot? That can't be right, can it?

Indeed it is, my friends! One For All Times Three has been posted to AO3, becoming the first new story that I have published this year! Link to the story is below!

[mryaksalot]

I know I'm a little bit late to the anniversary train, but I have finally finished writing my tribiute to Animaniacs and have posted it to AO3!

I had intended to release this fic on September 13th, the day Animaniacs' hit the big 30 year milestone. Unfortunetly, writer's block just HAD to hit me that same week and ruin my month! It took me up to this week to finally gain enough motivation to finish this story and publish it. And while I'm sort of bummed that the story came out so late, it's better late than never I suppose.

Anyway, if you want to check out the story, I'll put a link to it below. I've sprinkled several refrences to the show throughout the story (try and see if you can find them all!). I thank you all for your patience as I continue to battle this wave of writer's block!

[mryaksalot]

"In the heart of the city, partially buried under the rubble, there layed a tan colored jacket, smothered in dirt. Underneath the jacket was a red baseball cap snuggled under the sleeve of the coat. These articles of clothing once belonged to two proud individuals, both of whom have long disappeared with the rest of the human race."

A quick sketch I did from my latest fanfic "Alone". Here, we see two objects that used to belong to Yakko and Wakko respectively. It is unclear what had happened to the two of them, but both are long gone from our world, disapearing into the abyss.

Here's a link to said story. Please note that this is a horror story, and it contains dark subjects and eerie plotlines.

[mryaksalot]

Animaniacs: Backstory AU

Over a year ago, I started working on an Animaniacs Fanfic titled The Road To Success. While not my first fic, it has been a big project of mine for a long time, and it is currenly at a length of 13 chapters. This fic is a part of my Backstory AU.

What is the Backstory AU, you may ask?

The backstory AU is my personal take on how the Warner's became the stars that we know them as today. This AU goes against the established canon of the Warner's being toons sprung up from the 1930s who were confined in the WB tower for roughly 60 years. In this alternate timeline, the Warners are real kids, living in the real world.

The Warners have to go through many hardships that real people have been through, specifically Yakko, who had to care for his baby sibling's from a young age. His parents, to put it lightly, were less than ideal, and did not help in his situation. It's clear to say that the Warner's had a rough childhood, which no kid should ever be forced to live through.

Eventually, the Warner's leave their abusive home and find themselves in the hands of Warner Bros. From then on, Yakko and his sibling's embark on an adventure of making it in the big time, and learning how to perfect their craft.

I plan for this story to be long, as I think it is the best way to convey all the detail, backstory, and lore that are required for a tale so vigorous as this one. Fair warning: this story is not finished, and it is going to take quite some time to come out in it's entirety. In fact, it's not even halfway done yet, and it already has a wordcount of 100k. It dosen't help that it takes forever for me to write stuff that's good!

I'll put a link to the fic below. Feel free to give it a read and tell me what you think.

[mryaksalot]

Here is a drawing I did not too long ago of one of my OC's from my Backstory AU.

For context, Joey Memlo is an assosiate at Warner Bros', who's roots tie back to the birth of animation at the studio. He is the son of Weed Memlo, the first director at Warner Bros' to be a toon, and was also the first chairman of animation at the studio. Joey has followed in the footsteps of his father, involving himself with several cartoon projects for Warner Bros', Hanna Barbera, and even Disney.

After years of building his repertoire, Joey was promoted to being an mentor for cartoon stars in the rising. For instance, he assisted Babs and Buster Bunny in learning how to advance their toon abilities while filming Tiny Toons, making sure the bunnies' toon skills were in check. Joey has took the mentor role with stride, helping young toons find their footing in a massive industry.

Joey is going to play an active role in my story, being the mentor for Yakko, Wakko, and Dot as they are introduced to the world of television. I won't say yet how things will turn out in the end, but know that Joey is going to be faced with his greatest challenge yet: being an agent for chaotic and zany toons.

[mryaksalot]

A special surprise for the reboot's anniversary

That's right! I managed to finally complete chapter 17 of The Road To Success and get it published in time for the 4th anniversary of the reboot. I wasn't originally planning to release the chapter for this occasion; it just sort of worked out that way.

This chapter is part 1 of an arc that will conclude in the next chapter. Stay tuned for that!

[mryaksalot]

Hello, all! Long time no see!

I apoligize for a lack of posts lately. My life has been really busy lately, so I've taken a short break from social media. I have also taken a break from writing, hence why there haven't been any new fics from me posted in the last month or so.

I'm happy to say though that I have started writing again. The next chapter of The Road To Success is in the works, and will release (hopefully) in a few weeks from now. I am also working on two Animaniacs related oneshots. One will feature the Warners and their usual family shenanigans, and the other will focus on 2 supporting characters I haven't covered in a bit. I will not say yet when these stories will release, but keep your eyes peeled.

Also, I have recently grown an interest in the Garfeild franchise. I have always been a fan of the sarcastic, grumpy orange house cat since I was a little kid. With the upcoming movie this summer, my interest for Garfeild has peaked as of late. I have a few ideas for some garfeild fics, as well as some community posts relating my favorite comic strip to my favorite cartoon. Expect more Garfeild posts in the foreseeable future.

I want to thank you all for your continuous support. This site is where I come to unwind after having a trecherous day in the real world. I have a lot of fun on here, and I have no intentions of leaving anytime soon.

[mryaksalot]

Allow me to introduce myself...

Hello All! I'm Mr. Yaksalot! I'm an artist, writer, and a cartoon fanatic! I'm a fan of Animaniacs, Looney Tunes, Garfeild, and more!

I'll make posts on here from time to time, as the internet weirdo I am! This blog is to serve as the place where I post links to projects, analysis of cartoons, and community posts.

Here are some frequenty used tags to help you navigate my page.

#Yaksalot Yaks (All OG posts use this tag)

#Yaksalot Fanfics

#BACKSTORY AU

#Yaksalot Draws

#Analysis

#Long Post

#Animaniacs Fic Suggestion

#Update

Below are links to my other social media accounts. Feel free to check those out, and have a wonderful day!

AO3

Reddit