#also me: *wrote 3 different ficlets for this and publishes this*

[buthowboutno]

ONE YEAR OF "AND THEY WERE LAB PARTNERS" ✨✨✨

Thank you to everyone who participated in the one year anniversary poll!! I still maintain that it would be funny as /fuck/ to just delete “And They Were Lab Partners” in a memento mori fashion, but alas; Only one person voted for it.

Cowards /j

In any case, the majority voted for the behind the scenes stuff, so here we are! The tidbits of how ATWLP turned into the fucking beast it is.

I would like to personally blame @morning-sun-brah , @hitechlatte, and @ordin-arily for being such big inspirations in this corner of the fandom. You guys are amazing and I probably wouldn't be where I am today without your works.

Shout out to all my losers in the backrooms for keeping me going and being such terrible influences. You are all responsible for the horrors that have been unleashed. A solid third of my content exists because of your sins /aff. 

@beckerboopin is the best beta anyone could ask for and has only brought this story up to the next level. I would die for you becks <3

Also @betyoudidntcthatcoming-blog is the love of my life that I only met ‘cause of this fic or whatever. They’re pretty neat. I guess. :p

ANYWAYS, /CONTENT/

(Major Spoilers Ahead Pre-Chapter 23)

—

I would like to remind everyone that ATWLP was only supposed to be 50k words. You can still witness my naivety in the notes of “Pudge ‘Preciation.” 

How… simple those times were. 

How I so firmly believed the idiots would be kissing by chapter 16. How a projected word count of 150k words seemed unfathomable for a single work, much less a work with multiple published and planned companion pieces.

Crazy. (I was crazy once.)

There was a lot of ATWLP that ended up getting scrapped as I got further into the story. The idiots had a lot of opinions and tugged at me a few different ways as I got to know them better. (aka they wouldn’t listen to me when I told them to fucking kiss already.)

Anyways, some of the few major structural changes:

Casey was originally supposed to reveal that he knew Sweet’s in the bad timeline during the “Intro to Sparring” chapter. That chapter was also originally slotted to happen /before/ the kidnapping debacle, but it just so happened to fit in better later

The stage kiss from “Hit the Club” was going to be in the Nerd Prom chapter. It felt too corny at the time (and lowkey still feels corny) so I put that in my pocket for later. For as much as y’all yelled at me for it, it barely made the final cut lmao.

The way the idiots are going to confess to each other is a COMPLETE 180 from how I planned the story from the beginning, which was already entirely different from the first idea for this fic. I wrote a whole ass chapter about an accidental kiss being the tipping point of them positively macking on each other, which I did end up cutting into convenient pieces for other stuff. (I PUT A PART OF IT DOWN BELOW)

Sweets was going to be kidnapped twice and the whole Purple Dragons debacle was going to be drawn out more. There was a lot more action planned than slice of life content at ATWLP’s conception. For better or for worse, this is where the story led us.

Donnie’s mating season wasn’t going to be as involved in the story, if in it at all. I grew to be hornier and less ashamed. You’re welcome.

The first title for this fic was “Lab Rat: a Story of Nerds Falling in Love.” For the life of me I cannot remember what compelled me to change it, but holy shit am I glad I did.

I was going to use (y/n) in this fic. No hate to those who do, but stylistically I’m pretty happy with not doing that.

And because I have no control over the idiots, quick rundown of the chapters that weren’t supposed to happen.

Kart Conflict

The Christmas Issue

The Recovery: Day Two 

Valentine’s Day Episode

Hit the Club

Aquarium? Hardly Know ‘Em

****Pool Excursion

****Beach Episodes

****honestly just like the entire endgame of this fic

All the ficlets/ alternate POV’s

All the smut! I still have it written down in my original notes that ATWLP was gonna be completely PG lmao. Once again y’all have @morning-sun-brah and her fucking fabulous fics to blame for that

The Valentines’ and aquarium chapters are COMPLETELY different than how I had originally planned, even with being forced to include them in my chart. The Valentine’s day plans that the brothers had “ditched” with Sweets was the og plot for the chapter. The aquarium chapter was supposed to be a rooftop picnic with feels~~, no aquarium even fucking mentioned in my outline.

I don’t have much control over what happens tbh. I am praying that the 37 planned chapters will be the final chapters. 

We’ll…. we’ll just have to see how that turns out.

The scrapped plots as a little treat for y’all <3 ~~~

Cut Stage Kiss (after the lift in Nerd Prom)

You leaned closer to Donnie’s face, intent on screeching in his ear for pulling that stunt.

“Kiss them already!” May yelled from the inner edge of the crowd. You turned bright red, blinking at her. You shook your head at her, but the crowd started to catch onto the idea. 

“Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!”

Donnie laughed, a little incredulous. He leaned in close to your ear, whispering, “Theatre kid protocol?”

You nodded in agreement, allowing him to put a hand to your face. He leans into your mouth, making the crowd go wild. You giggle against the thumb separating your lips, smiling against it. Donnie pulled away from you with a dramatic ‘mwah’. You threw your head back, fully laughing as Donnie lifted you up from the dip. 

First Valentine’s Day Outline

The final four move to the living room

Sweets: “We’re making friendship bracelets while we watch the most romantic movie of all time.”

Raph: “Shrek 2!”

Donnie: “This is ridiculous”

Sweets: “This holiday is ridiculous, now pick out your five favourite colors of embroidery floss”

Donnie: “....Fine."

Donnie is actually terrible at making bracelets lmao while mikey has wristfuls of them

Donnie: “I don’t understand! I’m following the blueprints exactly!”

Mikey: “The... instructions?”

Donnie: “Whatever! How are you making those so fast? You don’t even have that many friends!”

Mikey: “Physical therapy is a hell of a time, my brother.”

Sweets: “Is Donnie being ableist again?”

Mikey: “I do believe he is.”

Donnie: “I am autistic!”

Sweets: “Bless you.”

ORIGINAL CONFESSION

And it all starts like most things in your life do: a silly mistake.

“Donnie,” you whined. You were working on your physics homework at his desk while he was soldering a new motherboard for the Turtle Tank’s controls.

“Little pest,” he mimicked your tone without looking up. He kept on soldering as you stared at him, not a care in the world. 

“Would you be so kind as to look over my work for this problem? I’m following the steps but I’m not getting the right answer.”

“Mmm,” Donnie said. At that moment, a spark flew from his project and caught his exposed cheek. He flinched back, dropping his wire and soldering rod on the table and rubbing his face. You batted your eyes at him while he scowled. 

“I don’t know how, but I blame you for that.”

“I would *never*,” you teased. You pushed your chair to the side a bit so Donnie could stand next to you. 

He moved his goggles to his head and put his left arm over the back of your chair, leaning over you. He parsed through your work for a minute and tilted his head down to tell you what you needed to fix.

It just so happened that you tilted your head up to ask him a question at the same time, the two of you meeting in the middle with a kiss. 

Well, it wasn’t so much of a kiss as it was the two of you accidentally brushing your lips together for a moment. Seconds, almost nothing at all. 

But the way that Donnie looked at you when the two of you jumped apart…

That…that wasn’t nothing. 

You could almost laugh at the ridiculousness of this situation. You could’ve cracked a joke, played up your ridiculous game of pet names and intellectual bravado. 

(To be honest, you almost did.)

But then you thought about the way Donnie’s lips felt against yours. You thought about the way you’d dream of that moment and then proceed to do everything in your power to banish those thoughts away. Your mouth hung open slightly as you looked up at him, trying to will yourself to do anything, anything at all.

Donnie ended up making that decision for you. That oh, so familiar churring started emanating from his chest. He took your face in his hands, looking into your eyes for just a hint of confirmation before leaning in for a real kiss.

Oh.

*Oh*.

(Yeah, you could get used to this.)

There was nothing more you could do than press yourself against him, against his touch. You felt him smiling into the kiss, pressing you down into the chair. 

Donnie was *everywhere*, like he was trying to encompass you. His hand moved to your hair, the other to your hip. You smiled when you remembered his adoration for your love-handles all that time ago. You traced along his plastron, making nonsense shapes and mapping out every scar.

He was so responsive. The chirring increased tenfold for every touch to his chest, every soft bite you gave his lips. You recalled all the times he would make noises from you touching along his shell. You pressed your hands fully against him, doing your best to draw out more and more of those sounds.

What Donnie lacked in experience he made up for in enthusiasm. He followed your lead, matching your pace every step of the way. You licked along the seam of his lips, gasping as his mouth opened for you. Donnie’s tongue against yours was tentative, shy even. You did everything in your power to ease Donnie into deepening the kiss. 

When he moved from your lips and started kissing down your throat, your soul could have left your body right there. He was so…*gentle*. 

Donnie always has been. From when he was slinging his arms around you to kicking your ass in sparring, Donnie has never failed to treat you with care and reverence. 

You feel it now, with every soft bite he gives you, every gentle peck behind your ear.

Donnie pulled away from you after what felt like decades. (Never enough, it would never be enough.) You leaned forward after him, trying to close the space he was creating. He looked bashful.

“This might be the proper time to tell you that I have a massive crush on you,” Donnie said. His face was fraught with nervous determination. 

“Yeah, no fucking shit,” you said. You stood up from the chair and used your body to push Donnie against the desk. You wrapped your arms around his shoulders, pulling him down to your height.

“I’ve been wanting to kiss you for forever, can we get on with it?” you said, looking into his eyes. Donnie turned bright red.

“But– you? Do you?” Donnie stammered a bit.

“Donnie,” you deadpanned, crowding into his space, “I’ve had a crush on you for a year, thanks for noticing. Will you *please* lean your face down a bit so I can reach it?” 

Donnie looked at you a bit incredulously, like you were a problem he didn’t know how to solve yet. He made quite a picture, all red faced and calculating with a dumb half-smile while he looked at you. But, giving in, he put his arms around you and leaned in to kiss you again.

“Aye, aye, captain.”

You smiled into the kiss, humming with contentment.

He likes you.

He likes you.

—

Aaaaand some random headcanons because I love you guys and I am truly so thankful to this kickass community <3 I truly do not know where I would be without the support y’all have given me.

Donnie has a hella oral fixation

NOT IN A KINKY WAY (most of the time) But as an autist, Donnie do be biting

One of his biggest shows of trust if he bites you while just chilling

Like if donnie is big spoon, he just nom on a shoulder and stay there chillin

Or if reader is body pillow, he’ll lean around and bite their bicep

Good sensations

Donnie draws on eyebrows every day, he for sure would be very good at doing intricate makeup on reader

Gently holds their chin up, concentrated as hell while reader blushes like mad

Donnie keeps getting banned off of roblox

Didn’t matter tbh, he knew how to hack into it to get his account reinstated

Also makes money off of roblox??

never explains to Sweets, very suspicious

Sweets likes to kiss along donnie’s neck/where his battle shell usually sits

The word here is reverence

Donnie is egotistical, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have insecurities about being a mutant turtle and you being a human

Lots of tracing along his arms, his face, his shell

Donnie likes his coffee to be half coffee, half milk to cut down on bitterness. Sweets is a tea drinker normally, but opts for coffee when they can’t focus (which ends up being most of the semester).

Sweets drinks black coffee when they’re on the struggle bus

To quote them, “Black coffee can’t hurt me more than Calc II already has”

But they prefer two creamers and two sugars when they have it in their dorm.

That’s all, congrats on making it to the bottom of this long ass post lmao <3

[bigfrozenfan-fanfics]

Behind the scenes of „The Broken Bridge“

Warning: this is going to be a very long text, starting with a little personal analysis of Frozen II, but I want you to understand what ultimately motivated me to write "The Broken Bridge" and what was actually behind it.

If the following is too long for you, you can skip straight to the end, to a special invitation for my most loyal readers. But if you want to read on ... who knows, maybe I can give you some motivation to write your own fanfic, or I can give you some inspiration to keep writing and never give up. Let's start now ...

When I published my very first idea about a sequel to Frozen II on my main blog as a ficlet or prologue on May 24th 2020, I had no intention of writing this fanfic myself at first. Instead, I asked the fandom who of the experienced writers would like to do it and later wrote additional thoughts about it. Below is a list of links to my main blog and the beginnings:

Link 1 , Link 2 , Link 3 , Link 4 , Link 5 , Link 6 , Link 7 Link 8 , Link 9 , Link 10

At that time I didn't have a title for it either and simply called it "Frozen III plot / fanfic" or "frozen au". But none of the fanfic writers jumped at it, despite 67 likes including many comments. A few days later I had a discussion with one of my favourite writers on Tumblr, telling him that I was hesitant to continue writing because I just thought I was a bad writer at the time and also because of doubts about my English skills. I received lots of tips and words of encouragement from him and the writing duo.

Nevertheless, I was on the verge of giving up after publishing only 2 chapters. It wasn't until June 2nd that I put my third chapter online, but still as an F3 plot idea and without a title. However, once I found my beta reader (he had contacted me anonymously on Tumblr), I continued until chapter 11 for the time being, until the end of July 2020, when I stopped publishing on my main blog due to a lack of comments and likes. At that point, I was disappointed with the response and was about to give up.

It's no easy feat to convincingly and believably expand the world of Disney's Frozen II in such a way that you're drawn in from the very beginning — just like in the film — and can literally immerse yourself in an epic storyline that keeps you gripped until the very end. But not to the point where you drown in it (pun intended), of course, but that takes a lot of work and ingenuity.Frozen II had many wonderful highlights, but also its flaws, which ultimately divided the fan community — literally! However, one thing fascinated me from the start and that was the introduction of a completely new world in the Frozen universe, which is the main part of my plot in the novel. It's about the Northuldra (inspired by the real Sámi people) who live in an enchanted forest, along with the four nature spirits who are part of a greater whole: the deity Ahtohallan, guardian of all memories and source of Elsa's ice magic.

But this is precisely where the film's weaknesses lie, because unfortunately these remarkable people were given far too little time on the big screen, when they deserved so much more and an incredibly multi-layered potential would have opened up for Disney. As everyone knows, the team had negotiated with the Sámi Parliament in advance and received authorisation — on the condition that the Sámi were portrayed respectfully.

Apparently, however, much of this was too complicated for Disney to realise, especially when it came to customs, beliefs and myths. Ahtohallan in the film, for example, was something that was originally planned quite differently and — as far as I could tell from the concept art book "The Art of Frozen II" and the D+ documentary — was originally linked to Sámi shamanism, specifically their Noaidi.

The deleted scene of the originally planned prologue, for example, showed us a shapeshifter with reindeer antlers. This was presumably an old Sámi myth and the saga of a figure called Myandash. You can read this story online.

(Note: In my novel, Myandash was the model for Kolgrimr's father and I called the human Northuldra wife of the shapeshifter Gyda and made her the evil Noaidi).

What remained

The fact is that the Northuldra and their great role model, the Sámi, were very well received in the Frozen fandom, as can be seen from the countless fanart images, fanfictions, discussions and even the Elsamaren Ship (Elsa + Honeymaren). And not only there, the Sámi themselves also took a liking to Frozen II.

All of this and the actual, ultimately somewhat disappointing realisation in the film was hardly surprising to me, as this is, after all, a Disney film with a target audience that ranges from young children to the age of puberty, but at most to teenagers under the age of 18. What can you expect in terms of an in-depth plot?

This applies not only to the style, with sidekicks such as Olaf, Sven, Bruni and Gale, but above all to the plot and duration of the feature film. Many in fandom later said that Frozen II was told far too hastily and left far too many questions unanswered, especially about the main aspect, Elsa's powers. However, the entire Frozen franchise is all about Elsa's magic — right from the start. At its core, this is what has always fascinated fans about it and, of course, the characters of the royal sisters themselves.

It's a great pity that Disney didn't appreciate the older cinema audience — especially the Frozen fans among them — when producing the second part, but instead behaved as if it were a completely new audience of children. In the meantime, ten years have passed since the first instalment, six of them after the first, so there were already many loyal fans in their twenties who expected more and hoped for answers — something that Disney has unfortunately failed to give us to this day. Admittedly, a completely different approach was originally planned — as you can see from the deleted scenes and from the documentary on Disney Plus — far darker, more serious and actually aimed at older fans, just as Jennifer Lee had once promised to us. But in the end, everything was decided at Disney from the highest level, over the heads of the filmmakers, and thrown overboard. The logic, seriousness and complexity of the plot fell by the wayside in favour of a very young audience, who — as you could hear in the documentary on D+ — were not old enough to understand the movie. No wonder, when you show the test screening to five to twelve-year-old children and expect them to leave the theatre enthusiastic and completely satisfied without any further questions. The original plan was probably just too demanding.

How often has it happened that even adults didn't immediately understand a film and instead pondered it for weeks afterwards? That's what makes a good film. But to reset everything to zero immediately after the first screening test, to completely discard the originally planned plot and to put the entire film team in a difficult position to just make the deadline for an extensive and elaborate production within just a few months? For a film that normally takes three years to produce? No! This makes no sense at all and is only due to the greed to earn as much as possible at the cinema box office. Never mind the plot, the main thing is to make it family-friendly! What a pity!

In addition, the vision of the film makers was ignored. Ultimately, it hurt everyone involved, especially Jennifer Lee, who shortly afterwards was no longer a director and is now only available in an advisory capacity for the planned sequels. Honestly, I would have thrown in the towel myself after such treatment, which, at least judging by her presence on Twitter, she actually did. Presumably mainly because of the hate speech from toxic circles of the fan community that she was constantly confronted with there because of the end of Frozen II. None of us fans know the real reasons though — one day her account there was simply deleted.

But enough with my opinion on the film.

My vision

We have now arrived at the reason why I wrote "The Broken Bridge" primarily for older Frozen fans, the novel is even partly aimed at an adult readership from 18 years upwards. There are scenes with explicit language, violence and sex scenes, simply because the plot required a realistic, logical approach. But each chapter is specially labelled, at least in the chapter overview, and the most violent LBGT scene is even linked to a separate 18+ blog. So no one gets to read that unless the reader specifically follows the link.

Of course you can't please everyone, as one reader in particular showed me with his behaviour, who had commented on every chapter so far, but suddenly stopped from the part with "18+ content" onwards, presumably for reasons of age. I'm really sorry about that! On the other hand, I received statements on various platforms from readers who made it clear to me that I had not only hit the mark, but that their tastes had been fully satisfied and that they were simply delighted (for data protection reasons, I won't mention any names below).

Reader statements

On Discord: "Oh...that Frozen 3, the broken bridge novel right? I've read it all and it was EPIC. Well done." On Twitter/X: "I've been following your Frozen 3 Fanfiction since the beginning, and I love that the story is really believable and totally follows the universe of the two films, and that it could very well work as a 3rd film...I can't wait to read the next part !!" (Note: this was at the end of the third part of the story, after my hiatus in the fandom) On reddit, as a recommendation to other fans: "Greetings, I started reading an amazing story about Queen Anna and her sister Elsa some months ago. It's a long but terrific story. Tbh, This level of work and details in the narration is worth to be considered a sequel to Frozen2." On Tumblr to chapter 81: "This is a beautiful, genuinely remarkable closing for such a novel. ..... I truly enjoyed reading about Anna's wedding. It was like watching a short that Disney Animation should have given it to the fans years ago!" On Tumblr to chapter 66: "Goodness...what a chapter! In my mind I was thrown back and forth between Star Wars vs Robin Hood style fights! Yeahhh Elsa off to the monoliths? Get her power back! Go girl!Brave Anna! And what a loss for the Arendelle side. War is always such an unnecessary way.... but then... they fought for justice! Well done!" On Tumblr to chapter 43: "I love how you connect your stories with few official books, love to see 'A Perfect Night' from Elsa's pov, it looks like an official frozen book"

...and many more great comments from you readers, which have really motivated me immensely and encouraged me to keep writing. Some days I just couldn't stop!

Admittedly, I love the concept of cliffhangers, something that many other fanfic writers avoid in order not to keep their readers in suspense. So: sorry, my dear readers, you couldn't wait for the story to continue next week. But it turned out that I was able to maintain and even increase the suspense from chapter to chapter in this way.

Speaking of plot ... in my novel there are up to ten different storylines that intertwine, making the story very complex and exciting, and there is something for every reader that he/she particularly likes or has looked for in vain elsewhere in the Frozen universe. But ultimately, there's no accounting for taste.

Some people seem to have only picked out specific chapters. Unfortunately, this means that the coherent overall picture of the story falls by the wayside and my vision of a sequel to Frozen II escapes them completely in this way. But it's hard to tell who of the many followers on my fanfic blog has even read all the chapters if I don't get any likes or comments on them. I can only guess.

However, I have to admit that the novel wasn't completely planned out. They say there are two different types of writers, those who meticulously plan every detail from start to finish (plotters) and those who just start writing and only have a rough idea of the plot (pantsers). I count myself among the latter and write from the gut. However, I imagine every scene as if I were watching it in the cinema — with all kinds of details and make lots of notes on new ideas. So there was some rough planning. Sometimes it was the case that my characters themselves dictated the plot, I just had to follow them.You may remember that I write in my native language, German, and only translate everything later. I use DeepL online for this and my English-speaking beta reader HeinrichVSA corrects it afterwards where necessary. But what you probably don't know is that I wrote every single chapter on my smartphone during long train journeys. Until I was completely satisfied, I read through what I'd written again and again in the days that followed, adding scenes, rephrasing phrases and correcting anything I didn't like.

A large part of the story also required a lot of research on the internet, about everything I don't know much or anything about. I wanted to describe everything as realistically as possible and get the facts right.

This was especially true when it came to the Sámi people in the 19th century: their customs and traditions, their shamanism and beliefs, burial rituals and folk beliefs, clothing, crafts and dwellings, everything about reindeer herding, bear hunting and also about skalastet, or stick fighting. Incidentally, the idea of fighting with the Rope-Dart for Honeymaren comes from Asia, so it was added by me, and works exactly as described. I know everything about traditional archery from my own experience and also a little about bow making and crossbows.

I also had to do a lot of research on sailing ships of the 18th and 19th centuries. It's a tricky subject to portray properly and convey a credible feeling for it. For me, the topics were not only ship types and rigging from this era, but also the hierarchy and crew types. Basically everything about sailing itself on board such large ships, changing of watch, typical speeds and distances that could be travelled per day and which terms and commands were usually given on deck and by whom.

Warfare eventually became a topic for me as well, something not mentioned anywhere in the Frozen universe so far. HeinrichVSA was able to help me enormously with his profound historical knowledge and I had to find out what of my ideas worked and what did not. In these chapters I used methods from different eras and settings, including Asia and Ancient Europe. Even topics such as illnesses and healing methods from this period were important for a coherent description and so much more, right up to Norwegian wedding customs and also about signs of pregnancy in the middle of the 19th century, when there were no tests.

So what started out as a small idea has developed over the years into an enormously complex project with huge challenges, and more and more characters have been added.

My OC’s (my own characters)

Various roles had to be filled in the course of the story and since — apart from in comics — hardly any characters are mentioned who fulfil important tasks in the castle or accompany "the gang" on their adventures, I had to invent them. The more relevant a character became, the more important it was to research a suitable name for them ... and there were more and more. Depending on whether it was for someone in the city or among the Northuldra, I drew inspiration from Norse or Sámi names. Often I even researched the deeper meaning of the name, which matched the character's nature as closely as possible.

Of course, I also used almost all the well-known characters from the Frozen books and comics that were more or less relevant for the interaction with the main characters or who enriched the ambience.

The places in the story

Arendelle or the Northuldra camp were not enough, as I quickly realised the deeper I delved into the story. For some areas there was no description in the Frozen universe and the available official maps didn't give much information either. I therefore analysed the movies again and again and also consulted the many comics to get an idea of where the action takes place and what it looks like, feels like or how difficult the terrain was. I made up the rest with the help of logic and real places. Unfortunately, Disney has never told us which real country Weselton, Corona, Vakretta, Snoob and the many others correspond to. But as soon as I was relatively sure of an approximate position on the world map, I was able to research the real conditions of this country.

Small statistics on “The Broken Bridge”

My image edits: 40 plus 5 poster, 2 letters, 2 newspaper articles, 1 self-made map Fanart: 4 (1 unpublished) Storyline: Prologue, 81 chapters in 5 parts, epilogue and acknowledgements totalling almost 437,000 words (excluding acknowledgements) (about 1000 pages)

Very first novel title: "The Only Star", inspired by a sentence Anna sang during "The Next Right Thing": "The only star that guided me was you." Of course, I had her close connection to Elsa in mind. I later discussed final title ideas for my novel with HeinrichVSA, and in the end we had 43 different titles to choose from, with the subtitle "A post Frozen II Novel". As far as I remember, @annaofthenorthernlights confirmed our previous favourite title 'The Broken Bridge', in reference to the 5th Spirit and the bridge that connected Anna in Arendelle and Elsa in the Enchanted Forest. That was the final start for the publication on my fanfic blog.

Commissioned fanart images by HARU (@xlayers): 19 (12 unpublished), all with the maximum image width of 800 pixels. Title ideas for the chapters: mostly HeinrichVSA came up with them while correcting the texts, but of course a few were also my own ideas. It was always difficult to find a good title because the storylines in the chapters often overlapped.

Characters: 16 original characters 15 characters from Frozen books and comics 38 OC's (own characters) 23 locations

Plot period: for the main part (without flashbacks): over a month, followed at the end by 2x three months in chapter 81 and a few more weeks in the epilogue Embedded YouTube music titles: 287 Reboot of the novel with final title (June 25, 2021) as an epic dark AU novel on the fanfic blog: June 19, 2021. originally planned for 1 year with 52+ chapters.

In the last two months since the Acknowledgements were published, I have been working on the preparations for AO3. I had to rewrite the first chapter (prologue) a bit to make it fit the following plot, corrected and formatted everything in detail again, made changes here and there in the chapters and wrote down the links for the pictures — plus prepared comments. I very much hope that in the end everything will be as I imagine and hope it will be!

~~~

Invitation

I would like to invite my most loyal readers, who regularly left me their wonderful comments on every chapter, to discuss with us — my beta reader HeinrichVSA and me — on my newly founded Discord server, ask questions, share ideas and much more. As you know, I wrote a question mark after the words "The End" at the end of the novel. Maybe you would like to participate in a possible sequel? Who knows ...

Just send me a short message as a DM on my fanfic blog and I'll reply with a Discord invite link for you.

Thank you so much again for sticking with me until the end!

Your Bigfrozenfan

[plothooksinc]

Tagged by @loadthebases

Turns out if I search by mentions I can find it immediately! I'm so clever. (And yet. I only just went "oh hey".)

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

22! I am not as prolific as some-- a lot of these are one shots. |D And most of them are ancient.

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

475,671!

3. What fandoms do you write for?

The fandoms I write for that are published are Rurouni Kenshin, Final Fantasy VII, and TMNT '03, '07, and ROTTMNT. Unpublished I also have One Piece, Tiger & Bunny, SPN, FFXIV, annnd The Untamed, most of these just being snippets etc etc. (And then RP is another bag entirely, writing in a different format-- you can include Blade of the Immortal that way.)

4. Top five fics by kudos?

It was only recently I managed to clock the 1000 mark, and I did it on two fics at once, lmao. Uhhh--

Underdark - 1089!

No Rest For The Weary - ....1089. (You guys really are neck and neck still.)

The Zaibatsu Project - 291

Some Rest For The Weary. As A Treat. - 221

Snowblind - 174

Not altogether that bad, considering Ruroken is such a dead fandom these days. /o/

5. Do you respond to comments?

Yup. Unless someone is leaving a whole stream of one word OMG/!!!!/EEEK in which I'll probably just answer the last one they left. I did go through a very long period where I did not because I was too tired, but I started again around the 2020 mark when I actually started reading fanfiction again. And started engaging, etc etc.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I write angsty endings? :|a 404 File Not Found. I think the closest I got was the tiny ficlet I wrote for Ruroken which was just Kenshin being depressed in the rain after Tomoe's death, and I'm not sure that really counts. That was like three paragraphs of "well my life sucks" lmao. It never made it to AO3. (It's on ff dot net still, though.)

...OH. But I can tell you which one's going to have the angstiest ending and that's The Legacy. Which given the last chapter I had finished with Raph holding onto his dead not!girlfriend, I would assume most readers are not gonna be surprised by this fact. (File Soon* To Be Found.)

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Idk man I tend to angle for happy endings in general, so that is very hard to answer as it comes under YMMV - people have different views of happy endings, after all. Probably Underdark as the most distinct "Yes, everything is okay now" ending.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Nah, not really. I did have one serial reviewer that reviewed every chapter of Tanabata Jasmine back in the day with a lot of backhanded compliments and condescending comments? And one person who started off reviewing Misconduct with "well my friend told me to read this" and two chapters later said "okay I'm bored now bye", but none of this is hate. The only actual "hate" I got given was not actually ...for me? I don't think? It was someone who literally said: Why did you delete your slave fics? BITCH!! And I'm like... I have not now nor will i ever write... one of those...? So yeah. Think they mistook me for another author or something. Maybe Kikide. EH. Not my division.

9. Do you write smut?

Nah.

10. Craziest crossover?

Zaibatsu Project is a Rurouni Kenshin/Cyberpunk 2020 crossover, so that's taking all your 19th century samurai types and ditching them wholesale into 2029 Tokyo. It's fun. Maybe one day I will even write more of it.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Outright? I don't think so. Buuut I've certainly had people ping me in the past to tell me someone's lifted a chunk of it wholesale or "they've written Snowblind, only with smut!" or there was one person who wrote a BNHA fic which followed the same plot of Underdark complete with dialogue borrowed directly from the fic. That last one I contacted the author and they apologised and offered to take the fic down and I told them they could keep it up provided they credit me for the inspiration somewhere. I'm sure by now some AI has scraped my stuff, but largely I write in fandoms that don't get lifted and sold like others do. And honestly, the above examples are more kinda flattering than anything else.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes! I believe most of my longer works have been translated into Russian, at the very least. I found Tanabata Jasmine back in the day being re-released onto a Russian forum site and I had a lot of fun translating the site to read responses (and laugh a bit at the machine translations because they kept telling me the readers were legless). Underdark has for sure. I've also found Snowblind.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I wrote a few pages of one with @shadowbends at one point! But we didn't get far in and we both got distracted with other projects. And I also wrote half a fic to set up the other half for an author, but she didn't end up going ahead. Alas. So.... kind of?

14. All time favourite ship?

I'm honestly not much of a shipper. I mean-- actually, I ship a lot of different pairings, but only kind of superficially for the most part? Like I really enjoy reading ships but I still vastly prefer gen. I will very rarely read an outright romance fic, there's gotta be a plot. (Or at the very least some interesting smut, god.) It's easier for me to point out ships that make me go UGH GOD NO rather than a preference. (In RP I'll ship a little more if the dynamics between our characters work out really well, but I still won't be crushed if nothing comes from it. This is a hard question for me to answer. I definitely don't have an all time favourite in this lukewarm pile of ships, that's for sure.)

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Any of the WIPs that I have that I never bothered publishing have been abandoned. Anything I want to finish will get finished. It will just take some time. This is assuming I have a long life; I mean, if I'm scheduled to die, say, three years from now, the only thing that might get finished is Infinite Ricochet, lmao.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Action scenes! /o/ Pacing and tension. The most common review I get is from people vibrating from delighted stress, lmao.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Connective tissue. I can get really bogged down in getting from A to B. You can really see it in the early days of a fic where I'm still writing set up and wondering how to scale up realistically to the things I really want to write. Once everything starts going wrong, it gets much easier, rofl.

18. Thoughts on dialogue in another language?

Depends on context. Like many I started writing fanfic at the time people tried to pepper as much Japanese into their dialogue as possible for realism or brownie points or whathaveyou - you can see that in my first fic on ff dot net lmaooo. Don't do this. Not unless you have a foreign phrase that just loses its flavour when translated through to English. Or, alternatively, when you actually have a non-English character who keeps dropping into their own language, or some try hard teenager who keeps trying to show off how much Spanish they know, as an example. There are always reasons to do so and reasons it will work. But if you're just going "LOOK AT THE WORDS I KNOW"... I recommend not doing so, you will look back years later and go "oh god".

19. First fandom you wrote in?

....look, technically the first fandom I wrote in was Inspector Gadget self insert fic. But I was nine so I feel I should not be judged. /cough

First time I sat down to write an actual story that was based off a show was for the old Defenders of the Earth cartoon while I was ...15? And then when I moved out my one sofa chair was surrounded by notepads as I wrote out my first 1987 TMNT fanfic. I didn't know it was called fanfic back then. In fact I didn't know anyone else did it at all and I was just weird. Please understand that when I got onto the web proper in the late 90s and found fanfic sites I was over the moon.

20. Favourite fic you've written?

It's gotta be Underdark. That thing is its own island by now. It's closely followed by the more recent There Is No Gravy, which much like Underdark wrote itself and also ended up far longer than I intended. It was just fun. It was a soft warm hug for the Rise fandom, okay, I love it.

Thank you! This was fun to reminisce about tbh. :D

I tag: @calliopechild, @radishhqueen, and @bobtheacorn ♥ No pressure, have at it if you like

* please note that the author's definition of soon may vary to yours. She has 13 year breaks between chapters sometimes, after all.

[chromatic-crow]

twenty questions for fic writers

tagged by @tetrapod7

im gonna put this under a cut cause its...a lot lmao but thanks for the tag

1. how many works do you have on ao3?

22 published and 2 waiting for reveal for fic fests. they're done so I'm counting them.

2. what's your total ao3 word count?

72,623 words

3. what fandoms do you write for?

hockey only so far. dunno if that'll change for a while honestly

4. top five fics by kudos:

something unexpected

i can't let this go

doll me up in my bad luck

drippin' confidence, lose my common sense

just say the word, we'll take on the world

5. do you respond to comments?

soooo, i didnt at first cause im like. super anxious about comments in general but i do now cause i really appreciate it

6. what is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

uhhhh.......i honestly dont write a lot of angsty endings but I'll be fine is mostly just angst, im a sucker for happy endings and mostly, i just never know how to end stuff so uhh idk unless you count ficlets or the ask fics, theres a bit of angst in there sometimes

7. what's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

aughhhh it's not gonna be revealed till july for a fest but of the ones published....and this ones old and im not too happy with it anymore but probably love you like a brother, love you like no other

8. do you get hate on fics?

not that I've seen luckily, won't lie, I'd probably give up writing for a bit if I did

9. do you write smut?

*stares at blog and ao3* yes. mostly for some reason. I say this like I don't know that I'm just a horny fucker on hrt lmao

10. craziest crossover:

uh...not done any

11. have you ever had a fic stolen?

nope, would be weird if someone did honestly.

12. have you ever had a fic translated?

also no.

13. have you ever co-written a fic before?

does a groupchat fic count even if its never left the chat? if not. no, would be fun tho

14. all time favorite ship?

oh my god i have to dig deep on this one but.......m!hawke/anders from dragon age 2 or uhh shit i can't even remember the other ones at this point so we'll stick with that i guess.

15. what's a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

uh. literally all of them that aren't the one I'm currently obsessed with? but if I had to choose one, maybe the royalty/wingfic that I started a while back

16. what are your writing strengths?

oh....uh....guh. okay I've been told my dialogue and characterization is good. and I'm starting to feel better about all of it but I still want to say none. mostly cause I only see the things that I could have done better but oh well.

17. what are your writing weaknesses?

......yes. okay so its not like I've been writing for long (since dec) so I obviously think all of it but mostly sentence starting. I feel like I start too many sentences with 'he'. but I also don't know how to start most of them differently. also flow of story, it gets choppy sometimes when I just. can't piece it together and give up. and endings....i hate endings, I never know how to end them

18. thoughts on dialogue in another language?

ehhhh, I've done it once. wont do it again honestly. i mean if its a language that the writer knows i think its different but my dumbass going to gtranslate and probably getting something that isn't even accurate is a bit different lmao

19. first fandom you wrote in?

hockey rpf. first and only so far lmao

20. favorite fic you've written?

.....uhhhh probably I can't let this go, yet again. but since it's in line with my longer wip squared is up there as well

tagging with no pressure of course: @stillfertile @whatthe-puck @hauntedppgpaints idk im blanking right now, so anyone else who wants to

[sotvtaughtmehowtofeel]

20 Questions for Writers

Thanks for the tag @autumnwoodsdreamer 💜

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

47

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

118,647

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Prospect. I used to write for The Last of Us but alas, the rot has shifted

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Uncle Joel

Safe

Home

Tell Her

Tacos

These are all short little one shots for tlou

5. Do you respond to comments?

I really try to but I think the honest answer is no 😭 every once in a while I go on a bender and respond to like 50 comments but I get so anxious responding because I'm like hiii thank you 🧍‍♀️ the best way to talk to me is on here tbh but please please don't stop leaving me comments I love them with my entire soul

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Probably Joel. It's a death fic, but honestly it's not very good lol I have a death fic for Prospect that is mostly written that's gonna be wayy angstier, I just have to finish it

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

To see myself reflected in your eyes 💜 Cee and Ezra deserve to live a happy life thanks

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I haven't, I've been lucky. People have been super supportive and so so nice on my fics (I love you all).

tbh I don't think my writing is popular enough to get hate lol.

9. Do you write smut?

No

10. Do you write crossovers?

I have written so many crossover fics that will never ever see the light of day lol I do not have any on ao3

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Not that I know of (again I don't think my writing is popular enough for either of these things to happen haha)

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Tumblr user tlouobsessed and I cowrote a fic (sobbed in our dms together). I took all the ideas we had talked about and wrote a little ficlet from them and I consider that cowriting

14. What’s your all-time favourite ship?

Oh, how to answer that. Willow and Tara (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) were my original OTP, I shipped them before I knew what shipping was. Nomi and Amanita (Sense8), couple of all time. There are more but I think those are my top two.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

No Light 😭 I have ideas but no rot left. Maybe season 2 will reignite it, but I just don't know. Also, Stolen Future, the Prospect death fic I mentioned earlier. Idk why but I'm having so much trouble just finishing it. I do hope to actually finish that one day.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I think I can write some good dialogue and fight scenes sometimes

I think I do a good job with storytelling sometimes? Combining different threads across a story to bring it all together. I'm thinking of how the present and flashbacks interact in By Midnight Time and something from Stolen Future

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I cannot describe things to save my life. All of my fics happen in empty white rooms good luck I hope your imagination fills everything in. It's such a fundamental aspect of writing that I am so so bad at lol I'm trying to learn from my friends and reading published books but it's hard!

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

Prev also said this but I agree, italicize other languages. Otherwise, go for it, but do your research if you don't speak the language

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Buffy the Vampire Slayer back when I was a teenager. Didn't know what fanfic was, but my sister and I had a LOT of feelings about Buffy and we had to express them somewhere so we wrote our stories.

20. Favourite fic you’ve written?

By Midnight Time. Now I just need to freaking finish it 😉

Although I'm also very very fond of Blood of the Covenant and Water of the Womb, a one-shot told from both Ezra's and Cee's pov

Absolutely no pressure tags: @orangechickenpillow @blooming-gwens @dilf-din @ellies-little-gun @ellies-enrichment @outer-edges @steeb-stn @wicked--loving--lies

[chierafied]

20 Questions

Tagged by the super lovely @practicecourts, thanks so much!! 😘

*

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

342

2. What's your total AO3 words count?

1,371,916

3. What fandoms do you write for?

SessKag (Inuyasha), Jily (HP) and rarely IchiRuki (Bleach)

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Since all my top 5 fics would be SessKag, I'm gonna not do the top 5 overall but top 2 SessKag, top 2 Jily and top 1 IchiRuki.

Life After Loss (SessKag) Post Canon. Slow burn. Hurt/Comfort. Chapter fic. Rated M. Stranger Than Fiction (SessKag) Canon divergence. Modern era reunion. One Shot. Rated T.

#Jily (Jily) Modern AU, celebrity AU, Fake dating. One shot. Rated G. Much Tweeting About Crushing (Jily) Modern AU. Neighbours. Social Media AU. One shot. Rated T.

Miscalculation (IchiRuki) Modern AU Fake dating one shot. Rated T.

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I try to, most of the time. As long as I feel there's something to reply to. It's the least that I can do, though sometimes when comments pile up in the inbox it can also feel a bit overwhelming. And sometimes I let them sit there for too long at which point I feel weird answering at all.

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I'm very much a happily ever after type of a writer but I do have two SessKag one shots that have unhappy endings. Foil (M) and Vagary (M).

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Super hard to say, since I'm all for happy endings. I'm restricting my choices to Jily fics since I was tagged for this question thing by my jily fam so... I guess Fall Fluff! It's a 500 word ficlet but the ending is especially sweet. 😉

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Hardly ever. There's annoying comments here and there, sure. I've got anon hate once from someone anti that particular ship. And I did have a popular chapter fic with a plot twist that became somewhat controversial. Hate is a strong word, but I got enough upset comments on it that though it's been a decade, I sometimes still cringe a little if I see a comment notification on that fic.

9. Do you write smut. If so what kind?

No. I have only one fic that's rated E on AO3. Some of my M rated fics might have sex scenes, particularly the chapter fics. But I don't write smut, I don't even like the word smut and its connotation. Because I like to write sex scenes that are tasteful, that are a balancing act of giving just enough detail and description. I like to focus on the feelings and the relationship development and I don't like naming body parts.

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

I've only ever written one proper crossover, where characters from different series interact (though even that took place in AU setting so it wasn't a crossover in the purest form) but it's never been published. I have done multiple fusion type crossovers, though, in which I take characters from one franchise (Jily) and insert them into the world of another established franchise (The Office). I'd say my Jily The Office AU fusion (In the Dumps, Rated T) and my SessKag Star Wars AU fusion (A Leap of Faith, Rated G) are the craziest, in that I've never watched The Office nor been a Star Wars fan lol

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Once, that I know of. My popular SessKag fic Chain of Love (M) was posted without my knowledge on Wattpad. After a reader alerted me, I tried contacting the thief. When they never responded, I contacted Wattpad and it was promptly taken down.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

I have. Some of them are pre-AO3, though, so they're not linked with the translated work function. But the one that does show properly on AO3, is a Chinese translation for my SessKag one shot Cold (G).

13. Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

I've made a few efforts with an IRL friend of mine, but they've both fizzled out sooner or later. I'm not sure I'm the co-writer type, honestly. 😅 I used to brainstorm a lot with my friends when I first started writing fic so that was co-writing of sorts, I guess.

14. What's your all-time favourite ship?

Since I've been writing them for half my life now, I guess I have to say SessKag lol

15. What's a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

Their Halcyon Days (M), my Jily chapter fic. There's plenty other Jily fics I like the ideas of, but will never likely finish. Shoot Me Straight to the Top (T) and the Bodyguard AU (M), for example.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Brevity lol. I like my one shots and I've been told I'm good at creating a whole story or scene in very few words. I'd say I'm also good at writing dialogue and conveying emotion. I also like semi-open endings, so I have a knack at ending my one shots at a point where it would be easy to imagine a continuation for them.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Inconsistency. When I don't have a writing routine established, such as now, I will only bother writing anything when I feel like it. And generally I feel like it once every other month, at most. If I don't have a writing routine going, I can happily go for months without writing a single word. I really should work on getting a routine going one of these years. Also I can't stand editing. I don't do first drafts. Or any drafts, really. I want to just write it once and then post it. Which is what I tend to do. I do proofread and do line editing, but I don't tend to do any deeper edits and have little patience to go make bigger adjustments to the story afterwards because in my mind it's finished and I've already moved on from it.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I don't hate it, I guess, but I don't see the point of it? Having terminology of another language in a fic is fine, imo. Cultural concepts like kimono or samurai don't really have good enough translations. Also I think using Japanese honorifics in dialogue serves a purpose. You could replace some with Mr and Miss, sure, but when you get to the nitty gritty, there are hierarchy levels and whatnot that English equivalents do not convey. But having entire lines of dialogue be in another language seems a bit unnecessary to me, 90% of the time.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

I've since deleted the fic since I was never going to continue it, but the first fic I ever published was a next gen fic for my favourite book series growing up: David Eddings' The Belgariad and the Malloreon.

20. Favourite fic you've ever written?

I can't pick just one out of 300+ fics, so I won't. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

*

Tagging @gryffindormischief, @siriuslychessi, @kaoruhana08 & @jafndaegur

[whysamwhy123]

✨Fic Writing Review 2023✨

Tagged by the wonderful dynamic duo that is @aerodaltonimperial and @perhapswhoknowsvamp and it's very fitting that those two lovely people tagged me because they're a big reason why I wrote much of anything this year! Took me a while to get this done because I wanted to get my last fic of the year out the door first. I'll put the rest below the cut, and fair warning - it's loooooong. This bitch doesn't shut up, so I rambled on. A lot.

Words and Fics

76, 222 words published on AO3 in 2023

15 fics published on AO3 (16 if you count that one kinkmeme prompt I filled and posted anonymously)

2 little tumblr ficlets

Top 3 by Kudos

Voice in the Dark - Hookhausen (not super surprising, considering it was a popular pairing at the time, and it was the fic I wrote for the anniversary event)

Kids These Days And Their Darn Phones - Hookhausen

Half Your Age Plus Seven - OrangeHook (I continue to be incredibly surprised how well this fic did, like...huh?!)

Top 3 by Hits

Voice in the Dark - Hookhausen

Voice in the Dark, Part Two - Hookhausen (how fitting, LOL)

Half Your Age Plus Seven - OrangeHook (Seriously, what was it about this fic that drew people in? More so than any of my other OrangeHook fics? Like, I'm grateful and all but also confused, like this fic is way too long?! And weird about the age difference?!)

Author's Favourite

As much as I'm loving writing OrangeHook now, I think Voice in the Dark, Part Two is probably the best thing I've written? Even though it's also overly long and gets weird at the end (very much did not expect it to go in that direction when I started writing it), I'm actually pretty proud of how that one turned out. I had a clear vision in my head for how each scene would play out and what I wanted to get across, and man, I remember how most of the Hook/Evilhausen dialogue popped into my brain late one night when I couldn't sleep, so I spat it out into a doc and then about a month later when I actually wrote the scene, I don't think I changed a single word? I just added everything else around it, all the not-dialogue parts. And it was just a lot of fun getting to carry on that story, especially as someone who hasn't managed to crank out a proper multi-chapter fic yet. Who knows, maybe I'll return to that world someday...

Fandom Events in 2023

Uh, well, I guess I did the whole Hookhausen Anniversary thing? And...that's about it. I'm pretty disconnected from the fandom at large, whoopsie daisy 😬

Upcoming Projects

Hoo boy.

I have over 5k words of a Ricky/Christian Sugar Baby AU thing written already. I haven't posted it because it kinda needs some smut and that's still not something I can really do. I might post it someday, if I can make something work, or alternatively do what I normally do and put an annoying fade to black in there. Or maybe I'll think better of it and never post it because it's very self-indulgent and I highly doubt anyone else would really be interested or want me to continue it or anything. But I have Ideas for it...so many ideas...

Also, in my ill-fated quest to try and make myself write smut, I kinda started a Ricky/Bill championship celebration fic. Maybe I'll revisit that? Try to get it done?

And then there's that one fic I really want to work on, but have barely started. I've vague-posted about it here before - it's an incredibly fucked-up Dead Dove fic about Daniel Garcia and a Very Bad, Not-Good thing that happens to him, and the subsequent complete mental breakdown that follows. I've had the idea rattling around in my brain for the better part of a year at this point, despite not making much actual progress on it. Every time I think about it though, I have new ideas for scenes or dialogue. I'd like to make it work, but I don't know if I have the writing chops to handle it, plus it would probably end up being super long and nobody would want to read it, so it'd feel like a huge waste of time on my part? And I've had the idea for so long, it's out-dated too. But still, the urge remains...

Oh, and I still have a ton of OrangeHook ideas I'd like to make happen. Some are, of course, about their age difference. Some would (ideally) involve smut. And others... *nervous laughter* Others would likely result in an ''Everyone disliked that'' situation...

Writing Reflection

I was thinking about making a sappy post about this and whoops, here's my excuse! I don't talk a lot on here about my tragic backstory because honestly, who cares? But I will say this - before January of this year, I hadn't written a word of anything in years. Fic or otherwise. I used to love writing, but Stuff Happened and it killed all enjoyment I got out of it, and I thought that's how it would be forever. Then, for reasons I can't even remember, I started reading fic again, specifically in this wild little fandom of ours, and y'all are just so talented that it made my untalented ass want to give it another shot. So...I did.

I remember when I posted my first fic in ages back in January, I thought ''Maybe about three people will read this and no one will leave a comment or anything, but whatever, I wrote a thing and that's something I haven't done in years so that's enough for me!'' And to be honest, I still think that whenever I post stuff now? It's crazy to me that anyone actually reads my stuff and gets some kind of kick out of it. But every kudos and comment floors me and brings me so much joy, I can't even express it properly. I have to say a huge thank you to anyone who's ever read one of my fics, left kudos or dropped a comment. Whoever and wherever you are, you made my day!

And look, I ain't delusional. I know that calling myself a small fish in the fandom would be too generous. But I'm fine with that - because I'm genuinely enjoying writing again and that's what matters most to me. Even though I've also rediscovered how stressful writing can be (🙂🙂🙂) when it comes down to it, there's joy and happiness in my life that wasn't there last year and that's all because I started writing again. And because some lovely folks here decided to let me know they liked what I was throwing out there. The years have not been kind to ol' Sammy Sam-Sam and this year was no exception, but getting to forget about all that shit and write my silly little wrestling fanfiction has been a great distraction and a comfort through this whole year.

So...yeah. Thanks to everyone who's ever commented on my writing, thanks to the folks who follow me on here (I don't know how you manage that though, I'm such an annoying bitch, aren't you sick of me yet?) and thanks to anyone who I've had the chance to chat with about writing and ships and whatever silly little ideas pop into my head (any of y'all feel free to message me at any time, I am always down to blab about whatever blorbos/ideas take your fancy). I'm hoping I can keep this train a-rollin' a little more next year. Still thinking back to when I started writing again, I made my new AO3 account expecting to write Dustjim only, but then I quickly decided I couldn't write those two well enough, and since then I've bounced around a bunch of different pairings, with a few rarepairs shoved in between for good measure. God only knows where my head will be at this time next year, LOL. I'd love to finally be able to attempt some of the bigger ideas I've been cooking up for a while now. Maybe I'll even write a proper multi-chapter fic? We'll see, but this bitch can dream, at least.

Rules:

Feel free to show whatever stats you have. Only want to show Ao3 stats? Rock on. Want to include some quantitative info instead of stats? Please do this. Want to change how yours is presented? Absolutely do that. Would rather eat glass than do this? Please do eat glass, I’ve heard it’s good for your gums.

I'm not going to tag anyone because I'm pretty sure everyone I know who writes has already been tagged? So if you're reading this and you haven't, go ahead and do it! By which I mean, eat glass. Eat all the glass that you want. Accidents happen in the dark.

[banannabethchase]

✨Fic Writing Review 2023✨

Tagged by the lovely @aidaronan

Gonna put all this under a cut as it is a doozy. Me? Rambling? It's just as likely as you'd think from the everything about me.

Words and Fics

497,498 words published on ao3 (Jesus fucking Christ - that doesn't even count my ficlets)

101 fics published on AO3

Enough tumblr ficlets that I don't have the spoons to go back and count them all

3 in-progress fics that may or may not be in the yeeted into purgatory sometime soon

3 new fics in permanent purgatory

1 new fic that I killed within 500 words

9 series created/added to

Top 3 by kudos

Hungry Heart - HangMox, AEW

[tie between] Intrigue - HangMoxMatt, AEW and A Convenient Cancellation - HangMox, AEW

I Can't Promise Forever (But I'm Working On It) - HangMox, AEW

(Realizing now that holy cow do my HangMox fics do better than I thought. Also all of those were published before I put my account on lockdown, I think, so that contributes as well.)

Fandom Events in 2023

Threecount Exchange! I mean, it kicked in this year. Everything gets published and finished next year, but still, it counts!

Upcoming Projects

Threecount Exchange fic (no you will not get details mwahaha)

The final installment of the House of Black Magic series, which is also my final square on my Bingo Board

Days 10-31 of the December Prompt Challenge I for some reason made for myself, which includes the finale of a series (I shan't disclose which)

At least 4 more installments in the Matt Experiments universe

The teacher's AU I've been putting off for about a year

Writing reflection

What a frickin' year. I haven't been in a fandom like this since Scorpion which, for those who know, ended poorly for both the whole fandom and me as a person. I was unable to watch the season 4 premiere due to my Dad's death, and then it got cancelled before I could catch up. Jumping back into a fandom head first, after how miserable my last one ended, was scary but incredible.

I beat NaNoWriMo 3 times in one year for the first time since 2016. I wrote two novella length fics and a novel length fic from December 2022 until now. I've made friends with incredible people, learned how to use tumblr in a way that keeps me safe, and learned that I've grown past the person I was when I let other people drive me out of a fandom for writing fic in a way I enjoyed and being autistic. I feel safe in this fandom, not for the lack of drama (lord knows there's plenty of it), but because I've created for myself a space where I know I can trust the people I follow.

I am excited to vault headfirst into 2024. I have no predictions. I have no expectations. I just have hope, and I think that's enough.

But I really do hope I can keep writing, even if it's at a different pace from 2023.

Rules: Feel free to show whatever stats you have. Only want to show Ao3 stats? Rock on. Want to include some quantitative info instead of stats? Please do this. Want to change how yours is presented? Absolutely do that. Would rather eat glass than do this? Please do eat glass, I’ve heard it’s good for your gums.

Tagging [please view the rules! I think they are great rules!!! Except the glass thing, don't chew glass. If you don't want to do this, please feel free to ignore completely]: @sarahcakes613, @booboo-eyedbambi, @scissormedaddyass, @rosabellebelieve, @anairbri. As always, if you see this and want to try it, I tagged you :) (And if you don't want to do this, pretend I didn't tag you.)

[whimsyswastry]

AO3 Asks

Tagged by @quietborderline 💛 (I'm still working on the last writing asks you sent me! But this one looks like is much easier than picking out specific lines from my writing, so hopefully it won't take two months plus to publish lol)

Tagging: All you writers out there. I'll tag a couple of you directly, but please don't feel pressured to answer. And if I didn't tag you, it's my lizard brain. Please answer them and tag me so I can read your wonderful answers 💛

@flamehairedsiren @pigeontheoneandonly @greypetrel @destiel-wings

How many works do you have on AO3? 39 (Mostly one shots)

What's your total AO3 words count? 105,481

What fandoms do you write for? The last year has been Mass Effect only, but I have a few Dragon Age and Greedfall pieces as well. And there might be an Anthem ficlet? I can't remember.

What are your top 5 fics by kudos? (1) Masquerade & Mysteries (Greedfall) (2) 31 Days of Kurtober (Greedfall) (3) The Hot Zone (Mass Effect: Andromeda) (4) Unharrowed (Dragon Age) (5) Operation Leviathan (Mass Effect)

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? Almost always. I really enjoy getting comments and even though I get incredibly anxious to respond because even though I feel like an imposter to be like "OMG THANKS!!!" I am truly thankful for the time they took to not only read, but to reach out, too.

What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? Unharrowed; but only because it's plotted out to be a trilogy. So the first book ends with a high level of angst. Unfortunately, the one that's currently published to AO3 is not only unfinished, but also COMPLETELY different from the re-write I'm working on.

What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? Masquerades & Mysteries, but technically it's not done yet. Because...I feel way too intimidated to finish the story, because in truly 10K story fashion, it ends with a smut chapter. And I don't really do that.

Do you get hate on fics? I've gotten some...disappointing comments that paraded under the false pretenses of "constructive criticism" but as they were from strangers, it mostly just felt like criticism. But only on Unharrowed which makes sense because Unharrowed (the version that's published on AO3) is very weak. It was my first story coming back from a 15 year hiatus of writing fiction (I'd been too busy writing academic research papers). And...you can tell.

Do you write smut. If so what kind? I do, but usually fade-to-black scenarios before it gets explicit. I have one story that I wasn't planning on fading to black, and it has been sitting in limbo for like 3 years because I'm too intimidated to try and write it.

Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written? I don't do DIRECT crossovers, but I will definitely take pieces of other fandoms and just apply them to my own. I haven't written it yet, but I do have a pretty wild pseudo-crossover planned. It's the plot of House of Ashes by Supermassive, but instead of the HOA characters, they're all the characters from Mass Effect.

Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not that I know of, but that's probably because every single fic I have published so far is only half done. And also because I have a couple dedicated readers, but I don't advertise my writing very often (not advertise, but things like blogging the links)

Have you ever had a fic translated? Not that I'm aware of.

Have you ever cowritten a fic before? I've never co-written, but I've had the opportunity to give my input while beta-ing my best friends Dragon Age fic.

What's your all-time favourite ship? I can choose favorites in each fandom, but probably not all time. Kaidan and Shepard have been reining supreme lately though.

What's a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will? I am uncertain I'll ever finish Unharrowed. I had planned on writing 50k of it this year for NaNo, but due to health issues, I have chosen to not participate in NaNo this November. Hopefully I can still crank out 50K in April during camp.

What are your writing strengths? Plot. My plots are banger. Dialogue sounds pretty natural, I think.

What are your writing weaknesses? CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT. Which sucks, because you can have a weak story, that people will still love if your characters are strong. And my character aren't weak, but they are not dynamic. They don't tend to grow. Hopefully, realizing that about myself over the last year, maybe I can change that.

Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic? I don't mind if it makes sense storywise, or if it's a nickname for another character. But in general, I think it just creates more work for the reader, which isn't always a good decision.

First fandom you wrote for? Ever? Two Guys, A Girl, and a Pizza Place way back in 2002. It still gets a few likes every couple years and it startles me lol but it's on FF.Net, not AO3. The first for AO3 was Dragon Age.

Favourite fic you've ever written? It's not done, but The Hot Zone is definitely one of my favorites.

Answering these made me realize I really need to finish a story. Like..badly. Lmao they're all half drafted or half edited or just pseudo-abandoned.

[alexenglish]

ao3 wrapped (alexenglish edition)

stole this ask meme with the intent of using it as a writing retrospect! please enjoy if you enjoy.

fic round-up ♡ AO3 ♡ writing tag

How many words have you written this year? give or take 60-75k, i'm honestly not sure how many words i have between all my wip docs... my wip folder for my one published wip has three or so docs dedicated to graveyard and rewritten work. i'm suffering profoundly, but i am persevering - i think.

How many works did you publish this year? 5 individual ao3 works, and a short prompt collection with prompt ficlets from twitter.

did notice i feel limited while filling twitter prompts (character restriction, screenshotting, additional character restriction for alt text after screen shots bleh) - my fills are about half the word count of what i would usually do if i was on tumblr, so i think i will be bringing writing short prompts back to the good ol' askbox here.

What work are you most proud of (regardless of kudos/hits)? without question, my favorite fic from this year is if you let me i might say too much (2min, t, 8.5k). i accidentally wrote a fic with such a lovely, strong sense of identity. some of my best setting and backgrounding work. just a tight little short story that i adore. i'm beyond happy with it and love the way readers love her as well!

What work of yours has the most hits? & let me kiss you (binsung, t, ch1/2 14.7k) ✊😔

What work of yours got more feedback than you expected? probably & let me kiss you! really delighted that people are still leaving comments on it and hoping it'll continue (me too!) haven't gotten any demanding or pushy comments to continue it, just a lot of gentle appreciation, which i'm grateful for hehe

Favorite title you used the mouth of the sun (chanlix, e, 10.7k). i found this phrasing in my poetry tag (where i go when i don't have a song lyric to use). when i looked it up, the real poem might be 'the mountain of the sun' - though i didn't investigate very far past the first few search results. i shrugged my shoulders and thought: 'mouth' is better.

i love 'mouth of the sun' as a combination of a lot of things: felix as skz's sunshine, felix as chan's sun - sunshine, happiness, the dizzying center of his own universe & the toxic ways that manifests for them in the fic - the icarus metaphor i used in fic, this idea of flying too close to the sun & how chan uses it to illustrate how his desire is obvious to those around them and it burns him with how he willingly gets close to felix; the way he flew too close to the sun when he propositioned felix before the events of the fic and got rejected. then the icarus metaphor more largely in the truth and in vinos veritas themes of the fic: the mouth of the sun, literally felix's mouth, that can't stop speaking and chan flying too closely by asking felix to elaborate on his awful truths, burning himself over and over again because he's desperate to know more in the moment and after, during the scene where felix is sober.

If you use song lyrics, which artist's songs did you pull from the most? used lyrics from all different artists, but excited to announce the planned sequel to & let me kiss you also is a 1d lyric title, and the decided series name is, you guessed it, also a 1d lyric <3

Pairing you wrote the most for this year? binsung! my binsung! my best and favorite boys~

Favorite pairing you wrote for this year? again, binsung

What work was the quickest to write? one plus one equals one (jilix, t, 2.1k) - this actually started as a twitter fic thread for their bdays, but i'm nothing if not a wordy bitch, but i knocked it out in like 4 hours which was great!

What work took you the longest to write? i started &lmky in... february 2022... maybe... and published chapter one in may, because i am a fool, and it's still not done so! excited to see if i can complete it before it turns a year old (may, NOT feb)

How many WIP's do you have in your docs for next year? technically only two - &lmky and the sequel! my teeth and ambitions are not bared. keep expectations low and everything else is a nice surprise.

What's your longest work of the year? & let me kiss you, queen

What's your shortest work of the year? one plus one equals one

What's your most common "Additional Tags" tag? "canon compliant" (in the way that 'canon' is working knowledge of idol life and not in the 'this is definitely real' way, thanks)

Your favorite character to write this year? jisung is super fun and easy for me in a lot of ways and his ships are my faves, but i really loved writing chan for the mouth of the sun, there's something so diabolical about getting to write an overly sympathetic unreliable narrator who is actually the cause of Problems. most readers will not see that at all (and they did not), but writing him was [chef's kiss]

The character that gave you the most trouble writing this year? my povs were very easy, but minho in &lmky is the most unwieldy motherfucker. he's not in chapter 1, but all my chapter 2 angst stems directly from the fact that he and jisung have the most whack conversations that i have to redact and rewrite because they're serving NO purpose. can't wait to get him laid in the sequel, maybe he'll calm down.

What's one pairing you want to explore next year? hyunho is the ship for the famed &lmky sequel, and it's gunna be so fucking glorious. i might be looking forward to it more than i am looking forward to finishing &lmky (mostly because i'm at the point with &lmky that's like DEAR GOD WHEN WILL I BE INSPIRED versus the hyunho barely exists so i'm floating on my back in the glittering pool of imagination about it)

Which work of yours have you reread the most? if you let me i might say too much, she really is my beloved!

How many kudos in total did you get this year? 961, and i'm eating them ALL. i am warm and well fed! 🥰🥰🥰

Which work has the most comments? proud of myself for remembering to check the comment thread stat and not just look at the total number and divide by two: & let me kiss you

Did you do any collaborative works this year? @clarz and I co-wrote a beautiful and wonderful secret gift for @sodapopblues and it was easily the most fun i had writing all year!

Did you write any gifts this year? this is probably the first year i didn't gift a fic to someone on ao3 wow! did previously mentioned collab with clara for erin, and did record my very first podfic for clara for her birthday, i love u clara mwah

Did you receive any gifts this year? my lovely excellent and highly talented friend @unseelie-siren/ @pxssnelke was SICK and did a pod of & let me kiss you and completely surprised me, AND wrote two banger fics for me: i just make it easy (minbin, e, 3k) and big things come in small packages (changjun, t, 2.6k). i hope my muse is up to task this year so i can give a little back to fae for faer's kindness 😘

What's your most common category? M/M

What do you listen to while writing? Study Music Alpha Waves: Relaxing Studying Music, Brain Power, Focus Concentration Music, ☯161

Favorite line/passage you wrote this year? hands down, the studio kiss scene at the end of the first chapter of & let me kiss you. the tension. that changbin. it's crazymaking. i'm obsessed with that changbin above all else.

Biggest surprise while writing this year? writing chanlix! despite being my first skz ship, i'm largely neutral on their dynamic - and then disparaging of the way it tends to manifest in fic - so it's moved out of even my top 10 skz ships. my personal meta about them has always been trying to dig into the stuff i feel is deeply out of sync in their dynamic, which is what compels me but never really enough, until felix basically tackled chan and gave him a footrub and then immediately abandoned him when changbin interrupted, and THEN i saw a bunch of weird and whack discourse about how felix doesn't top chan (HA! HA!), that i was like ah i simply must write a subversive fic within a trope i've been eager to write for awhile (sex pollen is among my good friend quinn @fleetwooded's favorite tropes! i wanted to take a swing at it). at first it was only going to be a love triangle, maybe with a hopeful ending, but as soon as it started i realized there was a thread of bad feelings i had to follow through to the end and i'm very happy i did.

THE END! feel free to steal this idea, since i stole it, and if you steal it and do a little retrospect yourself, feel free to send it to me/ tag me! love everyone's writing thoughts mwah!

[kiwiana-writes]

3, 8, and 18 for the meta writer asks! And I hope the rest of your day goes better than the too-early morning. 💕

[Fun meta asks for writers]

Ugh, sadly it did not. Zooms that could have been emails, and all of that. ❤️

3. What is that one scene that you’ve always wanted to write but can’t be arsed to write all of the set-up and context it would need? (consider this permission to write it and/or share it anyway)

Ooooh this is an interesting question because I write so much short slice of life stuff that I do often just throw that stuff out there as little, like, mini ficlets! I have been sitting on a great joke my spouse made while watching the film where I was like "god I need to write that into a fic" but I just recently figured out what I was doing with that one, so now it's in the WIPs.

8. Is what you like to write the same as what you like to read?

Yes, but there's also stuff I like to read that I don't like to write (looking at you, anything that requires serious world-building.)

18. Do any of your stories have alternative versions? (plotlines that you abandoned, AUs of your own work, different characterisations?) Tell us about them.

At some point after it's finished publishing we should talk about the outline @ships-to-sail wrote for the Actor AU, because it was really good and when I decided the structure of the fic needed to match Much Ado About Nothing I ended up gutting a ton of it. Luckily she loves me (allegedly)

But for now let's talk about something totally unrelated: the Schitt's Creek 50 First Dates AU and the plotline I lowkey accidentally abandoned (that shit had no outline and no plan other than, like, the film and the show) and always meant to come back to in one of the alternate POV one-shots but never quite got around to. Totally set it up and then ditched it, whoops. But basically, Ronnie was part of the volunteer rescue team that found David and Alexis after the car accident, so she was WILDLY protective of David and deeply fucking suspicious of Patrick.

I went and looked because I was sure I'd scribbled a bit of this down and I'd actually written like 500 words of Alexis' POV! So have those below the cut:

Alexis’ head hurts.

That, in and of itself, isn’t weird. Between hangovers and jet lag and being knocked on the back of the head while being kidnapped — a totally amateur move, and a sign that her kidnappers really weren’t investing properly in their henchmen — she’s more than used to waking up with a throbbing pain in her temple. What is weird is that those days are behind her. No more taking the jet to Europe because she’s bored, no more trips to the embassy to pick up a new passport and a disguise so she can get across the border. So she doesn’t know—

“Alexis?”

The voice is vaguely familiar, but she doesn’t want to open her eyes yet, sure that when she does the full ache is going to turn into something much more immediately uncomfortable. 

There’s a sharp rapping sound, far too close to her ear, and she winces. 

“Shit, I think she’s waking up. Alexis? Come on, open those eyes for me. You can do it.”

In the distant background, she can hear sirens, and her eyes fly open in shock. 

“There you are, princess.” Despite the usual sarcastic drawl, when Alexis turns to face the window, Ronnie’s expression is full of concern. “Ambulance is nearly here. Think if we get this door open, you’re up for getting out, or do you want to wait for them?”

“David.” It’s all coming back now — the trip to Elmdale, fighting over the music, the cow. “Where’s David?” She turns to the passenger seat, ignoring the way it makes her ears ring, ignoring the pain radiating up her left arm. Her brother is slumped motionless in his seat, the window on his side of the car shattered and half the door crumpled in. There’s a huge gash across his forehead and wildly, irrationally, Alexis’ first thought is: He’s going to be so mad he can’t do his skincare routine. 

“Alexis, listen to me.” She doesn’t realise until Ronnie’s voice cuts through the fog that she’s sobbing his name, and she sucks in a shuddering breath. “We don’t wanna move him until the ambulance gets here, in case he’s injured his neck or his spine. What about you? What hurts?”

“Um.” She closes her eyes, trying to concentrate on anything other than the panic clawing its way up her throat. David is so still. “Just my wrist, I think. And a headache.”

“I think you might have whacked it on the steering wheel.” Ronnie’s eyes flick up to her forehead for a moment. “You’ve got a bit of a shiner, but I think we’re okay to get you out.”

It takes Ronnie and a man she doesn’t recognise — Elm County volunteer firefighters, they tell her cheerfully — to get the driver side door of the Lincoln open. By the time Alexis is standing on the side of the road, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders and her now throbbing wrist tucked carefully against her body, she can see the ambulance tearing down the road towards them. 

She won’t let any of them look at her until David is safely out of the car. Ronnie stands next to her the first hole time, her hand on Alexis’ shoulder far more gentle than Alexis could have guessed it would be, while they cut open the car door and strap up his neck before manoeuvring him onto a stretcher. 

[violasmirabiles]

@someguywriting tagged me to list five favorites out of my own fics, thanks for the tag <3

(First of all a disclaimer, all but one of these have only been posted in Finnish because my main fandoms -- The Unknown Soldier and Under the North Star -- are pretty exclusively Finnish, and idk if I will ever translate them to English. I might! Who knows! It pisses me off how much Google Translate hates Finnish (fucks up the pronouns every time which might be the single worst thing, like if you look up a sentence that has a pronoun in it the ONLY alternate translation for that sentence will be the exact same thing but with a different pronoun, occasionally translates people's names literally, badly, unnecessarily, and wrong, cannot handle dialects at all). Plus there are a few English-speaking people in the Unknown Soldier fandom, and I happen to own not one but TWO different English translations of the Unknown Soldier because I’m so incredibly normal (lie) about it!! but I seriously doubt it’ll happen any time soon. BUT ANYWAY)

1) Hauntings. This is the first fic I posted in English. It's about Dan Torrance (my dearest darling, Blorbo even), Abra Stone, and the hugely traumatic moment in Doctor Sleep's climax where Dan almost kills Abra with his bare hands thinking she's Rose the Hat. It's inspired by a seminar paper I wrote in 2022 that eventually turned into my master's thesis. I was ridiculously nervous about writing and posting this, which feels a bit silly, but I just didn't have the kind of routine to Writing Fic In English™ that I have now and idk my brain made it weirder than it needed to be. (It goes the other way around in Finnish -- I know I can write decent essays but ohhhhh my GODDDDD it always starts out so sticky and slow and awkward. But it always gets easier after the sticky part. And now that I've been writing more fics in English, that's gotten a lot more natural too.) ANYWAY I got so into writing that seminar paper that even after I turned it in (a week late, running on no sleep and two ADHD medications) I was just. Sitting there vibrating because for the first time it felt like I might actually complete my degree, and also because of Blorbo Thoughts. I wrote this a couple of days later when I was feeling a bit less insane and, you know, had slept, and I really really like how it turned out. Family of all time.

2) Runoilija. Okay here we go. This is an Under the North Star ficlet. This is also the first ever Finnish-language work on AO3 with the Nonbinary Character tag (there are four in total, all written by me). This is the most personal fic I've ever written, but even just textually I think this is one of my most beautiful works. As someone who is Not Neurotypical and Very Not Straight, there's no fucking way the character this fic is about wasn't intended to be neurodivergent and queer. Though, obviously, since the Under the North Star trilogy was published between 1959 and 1962, and the character lives in the early 1900s, that... is not how he’s described. More of a "yeah he's weird but he's harmless, that's just the way he is". Importantly, his attitude to girls™ is described as "genderless" and obviously that particular word choice was what made me go HMM WHAT IF. The theme is basically "having no vocabulary for your gender experience is something that can really be so personal" and to make it super extra personal to me I made the character have an "oh" moment while learning English and finding out about gender-specific pronouns, which are not a thing in Finnish (though gender binary certainly is. Languages are cool and these things are complicated).

3) Ateenalaiset. The whole entire verse, really, but the original fic especially. It's an Unknown Soldier fic about the universally hated but Very Competent officer and the young idealistic approval-seeking officer (and the idealistic officer's fiancée) that I first started planning soon after the 2017 film came out and the fandom as we know it started to appear. Like there are two scenes in the final product that I know I talked about in a group chat in twenty goddamn seventeen. Problem was, I wasn't sure what to do with the story, where to go with it, or how I wanted to go there. I started posting it on AO3 as a multichapter in 2019 but realized it wasn't what I wanted and deleted it after maybe two chapters. Those chapters are incorporated in the final product. When it finally clicked and I started writing it for real I was supposed to be working on... a seminar paper that became the basis of my master’s thesis theory section. Heh. That paper sucked ass. But this fic. Oh man this is some of my best writing.

4) Trio. Speaking of some of my best writing, there's this. You know those posts about combining your old and new hyperfixations to create an AU that 99% of the time makes sense to precisely no one? Well. This is one of those. The Unknown Soldier and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Three guys from an iconic scene in the Unknown Soldier enacting the ending of GBU, over and over and over and over again. I keep switching people's places so everyone gets to be everyone many, many times over. And like. One of these characters is real quiet but somehow still has great one-liners. One is described by the author (outside the actual book) as having blond hair (a golden-haired angel, one might say). One shoots an unarmed POW in the back. All are war criminals, one rather significantly less so than the others. One ran a brothel in an occupied city during the few weeks they stayed there. Two of them, independently of one another, think about how "the worst they can throw at me is death and I can handle that". One always keeps his distance from everyone around him and everyone senses that there’s something cold and cruel about him they can't quite name. We never find out their first names. One loots every corpse he comes across, and in the 2017 film, one of those corpses turns out to be alive and he, horrified, suffocates him with his bare hands. One kicks a plate of porridge in a dead man's face and laughs about it. One says he doubts even God can bring himself to harass him. One avoided the actual fighting part of the war as much as he could but once risked his life getting the whole squad some new boots. I love love love all the implications of having each of those guys play Blondie or Tuco or Angel Eyes. They all speak so differently, they all act so differently, but they all make it work. Also I like to stir it up, have the Angel Eyes character survive and make a surprise attack. Have the Tuco character realize something's up and reload in time. Have the Angel Eyes character be a faster draw and have Blondie get shot. There are versions where everyone dies. There are shovels to hit people with. Bare hands, even. There's the very rickety cross. Truly the possibilities are endless and I'm like foaming at the mouth IASIP Pepe Silvia level insane about this fic.

5) Kotkanlento. Man I was going to put something else here but turns out I’m feeling a lot of feelings about Under the North Star today. Much like with Ateenalaiset, I'm really talking about the whole verse, it's all one big tragic story. And horny. The porn is absolutely essential to the tragedy. I think it's safe to assume that when Mr. Väinö Linna wrote about that one character drunkenly and tearfully reminiscing about how he and his long-dead friend used to get drunk together and fuck the same girls he did not mean to imply that they fucked those girls together, much less that they fucked each other, but, hey. All I'm saying is it doesn't exactly crash the canon, either. And there we have the least responsible bisexual poly relationship this side of the Häme province. I thought I was done with this verse last summer but iiiiiii don't think I am, I think there's another 15-part ficlet series on its way, I just need to figure out what exactly I want to do and what goes where. I really like writing these often nonlinear, independent of each other snippets/ficlets that are all pieces of the same fucked-up puzzle.

wow hehe these are. long ANYWAY I'm gonna tag @radiant-sunlight-blueberry, @vulptilla, @sisiljan and @caixxa. If you don't feel like doing it you can just ignore this, it's fine <3

[delta-pavonis]

How about 🤡, ✨, 🎶, and 💖 for the writer asks?

Thanks for the questions @tj-dragonblade!!

🤡 What's a line, scene, or exchange you've written that made you laugh?

OK, I am going to give two, one recent, one older:

Hob also learned that Dream’s form in the Waking, human though it may appear and human though it might respond to Hob’s touch, was not human at all in its hunger for pleasure. He had seen hints before, in the months since Dream had revealed his true nature to Hob, that the vastness of his being was not always well-contained in human form. This was no different, Dream bleeding away from his humanness the further entangled they became.

The short of it was that, in the shockingly brief time it took his dick to rally an interest in the proceedings again, Hob had been so filled with semen you could have mistaken him for a navy ship. -- from Chapter 3 of high enough (you got me good)

(Context for the next one is that it is an OC of mine, Mett, who is nonbinary and uses primarily he/him pronouns in the Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds universes. This is part of how he and Ash Tyler shack up. They end up in a committed triad with Chris Pike in a 48k+ fic I haven't finished yet. Whee!)

They collapsed on the couch, Ash’s full weight on Mett, who wriggled in delight, a wholly dopey smile on both their faces. Ash sighed, his nose buried in the back of Mett’s neck. “I think that went well.”

Mett giggled and then whimpered as Ash shifted out of him the last bit. He reached back to pat Ash on the hip. “Baby, if you think I am even halfway done with you after that performance…” Mett rolled his hips back and Ash gasped. “I’ve got some of my own tricks. Which I will gladly show you. Once I gather a few more brain cells back together.”

Ash laughed and rubbed his still-hard cock along the crack of Mett’s ass. “I am ready when you are.”

“Jesus. You…” Mett rolled his hips again to confirm. “Fuck, you’re still hard.”

“You’re welcome.” 

Mett snorted. After a beat, “Sorry about your shirt.”

“No you’re not.” Ash’s voice was amused and light. “I’m certainly not.”

“Good.” Mett rolled his shoulders back and started to push up. “Gotta pee. Shove off or you’re gonna get wet.”

Ash stood and stretched, hands brushing the ceiling of the room. “Eh, not my kink.” 

He felt a hand patting his hip. “We are gonna get along just fine.”

“Because we weren’t already?” Ash quipped... -- from Chapter 2 of Sagitta

(this last one from Sagitta isn't that funny, but it tickles me pink, so there.)

✨ Give you and your writing a compliment. Go on now. You know you deserve it. 😉

JFC, I am ABSOLUTELY HORRIBLE AT THIS. <Stitch eye-pulling GIF> OK, I am really really fucking happy with how a wrote first-person POV for Hob in i had a dream (i got everything i wanted). That is the first time I have ever felt really PROUD of my own fiction writing.

🎶 Do you listen to music while you write? What song have you been playing on loop lately?

Usually not, although I have a few songs that specifically have inspired (very vaguely) fics. The one I am working on right now has its home in Veruca Salt's Seether, one of my favorite songs of all time.

💖 What made you start writing?

*shakes cane* Back in my day...

No, really, somewhere in the depths of some external hard drive are the fics that I wrote 100% for myself in middle and high school. Never published, ever ever, and will never see the light of day. These were places I explored my identity as bisexual and how I preferred power dynamics in relationships.

I have put fic up on AO3 when I have been truly inspired by some source. Episode 6 of The Sandman absolutely hit that button HARD for me. And then I got into the fandom, my first venture back into fandom since the early MCU, and YOU PEOPLE ARE SO FUCKING SUPPORTIVE AND AMAZING AND IT IS WONDERFUL. There was a HUGE response to my first less than 400 word Dreamling ficlet on AO3 and the Sandfam support just pushed me from there.

[mrs-steve-harrington]

Thank you for tagging me @elder-flower! Not sure what this is going to look like by the time I reach the end of it, but I'm gonna try and have fun along the way :D

Rules: post the top 5 works you’re most proud of that you released in 2022 (not necessarily your most popular), your top 4 current WIPs that you’re excited to release in the new year, your top 3 biggest improvements in your writing over the past year, your top 2 resolutions (ways you wish to improve your writing/blog) for the new year, and your number 1 favorite line you’ve written this year! 

TOP 5 WORKS - not in any particular order

Sleeves - A very self-indulgent Antwan/Keys ficlet I wrote towards the beginning of the year. I remember that, at the time, I thought I was already pretty much done writing Free Guy fic. Writing it at all had been more about getting a different fic to no longer show up under Recent Works on my ao3 dash. Then the idea for this struck me one day while rolling up the sleeves on a button down shirt I don't often wear. It was a lot of fun to write (who knew wrist touching could be so sexy??) and I'm still really proud of it, tbh.

as long as you'll have me - This Steve/Nancy ficlet was written for my pre-July Flash Bingo card. It didn't get much attention, but before season 4 aired, Stancy fic got basically none anyway (and even less when using the Dead by Daylight stuff), so that was expected. I still like it, though. It's not very long, but it has some of my favorite angst in it with Steve being sure Nancy is only kissing him because he's familiar in this strange, dangerous dimension they've ended up in. idk, I just dig it!

Don't Hurt Me - This is a Steve/Nancy ficlet that I wrote for 2021's fandomtrees, but of course it wasn't revealed until January of this year (and I think I probably actually only finished it right before reveals anyway haha). I'd been wanting to write a stancy soulmate au for @stevethehousewife and came across the idea of soulmates being unable to physically harm each other while trying to come up with ideas. I wondered how that might change the alley scene in s1 and started going from there. Again it's Stancy so it didn't get much in the way of attention, but I'm really happy with how it turned out! Plus, there can literally never be too many soulmate fics for any of my ships.

The Craziest Things Happen in Hawkins - A general (no ships), Steve-centered ficlet written for the July Break Bingo that I just really like! It doesn't really have an ending because I couldn't get to one in the time limit (and I was determined to get a BINGO before the month ended). But I don't really care about that. It has exactly what I wanted in it: protective Steve sacrificing himself so that Joyce doesn't get hurt (and so that Jonathan and Will and El don't lose someone important to them so soon after Hopper's death). I'm especially fond of Steve acting like his dad will totally pay a ransom for him when he knows it's a lie, and also knows he probably won't make it back from this. I just don't get to write protective Steve enough because I have too much fun with angsty Steve, but this was great!

Answering Your Call - My first written and published ABO fic! Of course it would be for Stranger Things and Jonathan/Steve/Nancy. I'd have it no other way. This was originally written for an event in the 30+ Fic Writers discord server I'm in (though I never added it to that collection because the people there are lovely and tend to comment on event fics even in fandoms they don't know and I didn't want anyone to feel pressured into reading it if they wouldn't have normally gravitated towards it). I've always been too intimidated by ABO stuff because there's so much of the au that squicks me, and I still have trouble articulating what I want from it myself. But I loved getting to write protective alpha Nancy and Super Growly and Protective Jonathan refusing to let omega Steve get hurt. There's that touch of angst that I love (and would make even angstier if I ever continued with it), but also some comfort and idk, it's just good stuff imo.

TOP 4 CURRENT WIPS - also in no particular order

Steve presents as an omega late (Stoncy) - A fic where Steve always secretly hoped he would present as an omega because he liked the idea that he might be wanted, might be taken care of, might be able to have children and a big family after feeling very alone in his own family. And he does eventually present as an omega, but it happens post-S4 and rather than cause any problems for everyone, he keeps it a secret. That way none of the kids feel bad about moving on after high school, and the adults won't worry about someone needing to stick around either because he's keeping an eye on things. (People do not see omegas as weak, just important and they wouldn't want him stuck with the weight alone).

The real meat of the fic won't start until after all of this, when he goes into crisis after his body starts rejecting his suppressants and Nancy and Jonathan are brought in to help him, resulting in the three of them forming a bond while he's in heat (but without the non/dub-con sex that accompanies this sort of thing usually) and him angsting about forcing them into something they couldn't have wanted (but of course the three of them having been pining for each other for YEARS).

soulmate au (Stoncy) - Siiiiiigh. The very same soulmate au I've been working on since, idk, 2019 or 2020 or something. A long ass time. But while unsuccessfully trying to get it finished for Fandom Trumps Hate this year, I ended up figuring out how to get to the ending. It's just a matter of actually writing the damn thing. There's only gonna be 3 Stoncy readers left by then, but whatever. This is still the most self-indulgent fic I've ever worked on and I love it so much. I want other people to be able to read it!!

anything (anything) for you part 2 (Stoncy) - Another wip that has been in the works for a long, long time. Two more chapters are written, but I've been stuck on Chapter 4 for over a year or something. But I've brainstormed with a couple of friends and I think I have a solid idea for where it should go. I dug myself into a bit of a hole with their relationship and it took a while to figure out how Nancy and Jonathan could possibly find out that Steve was faking his feelings for Jonathan in desperation to keep being allowed to date Nancy, without them ending things. But it should be good. Just another thing that I have to actually try to write, which is unfortunately the hardest part.

Deal with Vecna (Vecna/Steve) - A fic where, in the aftermath of hearing some harsh things about himself, Steve decides to try and trade his life for Max's because then at least he'll have done something to help. Only Vecna decides he'd rather have Steve's body than take his life. I've gotten the whole first part done, but I'm still struggling with where I want it to go and whether or not Steve should be saved.

3 BIGGEST IMPROVEMENTS

None! I may have actually gotten worse at both writing AND finishing things!! But it was a really hard year of writing for me. It's whatever!

TOP 2 RESOLUTIONS

Post at least 1 fic per month next year. This year I went through a stretch where I didn't post anything for a whole month (maybe two?) and it fucked with my mentally and emotionally. I hate it. So I would like to try and keep that from happening again!!

Be even MORE self-indulgent. If only a handful of people are gonna enjoy my stuff anyway, I might as well put everything I like into a fic without taking other people into consideration (I say knowing full well this will not happen but I can dream).

NUMBER 1 FAVORITE LINE

You don't even want to know how many fics I skimmed through to try and find any lines that worked well on their own. Not even sure how much this one does. But it stood out to me and I don't think it's too shabby.

— Every step of the way, some part of him is touching Keys' arm—the ends of his fingers as he holds him in place, the knuckles of his thumbs when he tugs the material taut.

Tagging: @stevethehousewife @urisarang @readythefanons @tkwritesdumbassassins

[mandaloria314]

ao3 wrapped [writers edition]

How many words have you written this year? 124,497!

How many works did you publish this year?  32 works!

What work are you most proud of (regardless of kudos/hits)? My long Narcos series about Javi. I poured a lot into it while watching the series. I went in with zero expectations or knowledge about what was coming.  

What work of yours has the most hits? A bobf bobadin missing scene I wrote to cheer up a friend: You’re My People, Too.

What work of yours got more feedback than you expected? A treat fic I wrote for the Star Wars Rare Pair exchange in which Din accidentally time-travels and meets Obi-Wan. I think it’s because they are a lot of people’s favorite blorbos, so putting them together in any capacity is a siren call. The Mando, The Jedi, and the Crystal Cave.

Favorite title you used: I have two: 

(`1) The Abyss of Disenchantment. This is a serious one taken from a Gabriel Garcia Marquez quote, because it was for Narcos and he’s a Colombian writer who is quoted in the show; 

(2) Big Talent Energy, a play on BDE for the Nic Cage movie with its own big title: the unbearable weight of massive talent. I love this title.

If you use song lyrics, which artist’s songs did you pull from the most? I don’t.

Pairing you wrote the most for this year? Javi/Pacho from Narcos

Favorite pairing you wrote for this year? Bobadin, even though I had a bit of a hiatus on it. They are still the bee’s knees. 

What work was the quickest to write? I write most things super quickly. I would say some of my Andor ficlets just jumped onto the page. Also, The Vice Minister of Nothing about Eduardo Sandoval from Narcos came esp fast. 

What work took you the longest to write? The Din/Leia exchange fic took a long time to put into words, even though I have been thinking about them for ages. I honestly think they’re great together! I wish there was more fic to gobble up about them (and I really loved that I both gifted and received a very lovely Din/Leia fic!).

How many WIP’s do you have in your docs for next year? 2 or 3. I want to finish the Hostage (Din and Grogu) as well as add more to Alpha Pack (Narcos werewolf AU). I also started a fic about Din and Boba picking Mayfeld up from prison (again)!

What’s your longest work of the year? (not counting the bobadinluke catch-all work, which I last updated in January) The Abyss of Disenchantment.

What’s your shortest work of the year? Numb, a Cinta/Vel fic from Andor.

What’s your most common “Additional Tags” tags? Missing Scene, Humor, Canon-Typical Violence, Swearing. (No surprise that humor is high up there! It’s my favorite.)

Your favorite character to write this year? Javi from Narcos (Din and Cassian are runner-ups)

The character that gave you the most trouble writing this year? I only write about what and who I like. 

What’s one pairing you want to explore next year? No idea.

Which work of yours have you reread the most?  My Narcos series. I love rereading it, even (especially?) the cringe moments. 

How many kudos in total did you get this year? 1,868 kudos

Which work has the most comments? Big Talent Energy

Did you do any collaborative works this year? No.

Did you write any gifts this year? Yes! I participated in the Narcos fic exchange and the Star Wars rare pair exchange.

Did you receive any gifts this year? Outside exchanges, I got amazing fanart  of Din’s drone ‘crown’ in Aureole (the dinluke tabloid romance fic) as well as a thrilling (and devastating) Javi/Pacho fic.  

What do you listen to while writing? Indie pop

Favorite work you wrote this year? Personal fave is probably most all the Narcos stuff. It was just a different vibe for me, and I enjoyed it. I also enjoyed that it brought me into a new fandom with fun, good people.  

[thetragicallynerdy]

hello there!

just saw the ao3 ask and tried to avoid questions that have already been asked, so here we go:

9, 10 and 17

always happy to read what ye write!

hey pal!! oooh, thank you, yes!!!

9) Favourite pairing you wrote for this year?

Oh, this is a tough one. I'm such a multi-shipper haha, I have so many fav pairings!! I think it would be a toss up between:

Jim/Ed (OFMD) - Listen. This is a huge rare-pair. But I fucking adore them together. I love them!!! They're so fun to write too, and I'm constantly plagued with new ideas in a good way.

Jim/Oluwande (OFMD) - THE BEST. CANON. I LOVE THEM. I wanna see them kiss all the time. I wanna write them kissing all the time!! They're a really soft pairing too, in a lot of ways - feels like a nice warm homecoming.

Clayton/Aly (UnDeadwood) - I fucking adore AlyClay. Something about Aly's suaveness with Clayton's dumbassery and snark is just so perfect.

Clayton/Aly/Matthew (UnDeadwood) - MY BEST OT3. That's it. That's all. I love them.

Clayton/Matthew (UnDeadwood) - a classic. They're so good together. Comfortable. Lovely.

I think that if I had to choose, Jim/Ed would actually probably come out on top. I'm sorry I just love them as a pairing so much. Also it's a bit of the rare-pair hell of "no one else except my 1 (one) pal is writing this so fuck it gotta roll up my sleeves and produce the content I wanna read"

10) What work was the quickest to write?

LMAO THE JIM/SPANISH JACKIE SMUT ONE. (Not counting the like, mini ficlets that I write as prompt fills, those do not count.) I think I wrote it and published it in like 2-3 days?? It was a wild "had the idea banged it out (no pun intended) and threw it on ao3 without further thought" type fic. It's also only around 5-6K, which helped.

Other quick ones were the Ghost Baby UnDeadwood fic hahaha, for some reason stupid funny stuff comes to me pretty easily lol.

Oh! The first two chapters of my Jim-centric h/c ficlets also got written pretty quickly. Limited stuff with only one or two scenes is SO much quicker to write, it's the connective bits in longer fics that bog me down.

17) Your favourite character to write this year?

Jim from OFMD, followed very closely by Clayton from UnDeadwood!!

It should come as a surprise to exactly no one ever that I have very clear favourite characters in my fandoms lol, and it's been Clayton for a long while, and Jim got added in this year. I also really enjoyed writing Eliot from Leverage for the same reason, Leverage fic just isn't quite as much my thing! (Squints at the long-haired, grumpy, badass blorbos who are very gender, muttering "wow yup apparently have a fandom type")

But yes I love both of them, and they're both really fun to write!! I've written almost exclusively for UnDeadwood until this year (only 2 fics in other fandoms prior to 2022), and exploring Jim OFMD was really interesting. They're pretty different characters to write! It was fun getting to explore someone new, and also to write Clayton whenever the inspiration hit. I still love him so much. Best boy.

Thanks so much for the ask!!!

Ao3 wrapped asks can be found here for the curious!