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

[sam-loves-seb]

ao3 wrapped 2024

i love doing this every year, thank you for the tags my wonderful beloved friends <3

tagged by @energievie @mybrainismelted @sgtmickeyslaughter

How many words have you written this year?

338,560

How many works did you publish this year?

30 (on ao3, not counting drabbles or ficlets on tumblr)

What work are you most proud of (regardless of kudos/hits)?

medium hot with sugar - coffee shop au (gallavich)

What work of yours has the most hits?

shameless: i'm not the way i was (17,844)

9-1-1: he'll never love you like i can (7,026)

What work of yours got more feedback than you expected?

span the distance (bridge the border) - post-canon gallavich fic where mickey's brothers show up unexpectedly

Favorite title you used.

i'm not the way i was (insp.)

If you use song lyrics, which artist’s songs did you pull from the most?

i use a lot of different artists tbh i don't think i have more than 2 or maybe 3 from the same artist ?? but probably blink-182 or noah kahan just from what i'm seeing at a quick glance

Pairing you wrote the most for this year?

ian gallagher/mickey milkovich

Favorite pairing you wrote for this year?

ian gallagher/mickey milkovich !!!

What work was the quickest to write?

it was you, all the way down - my shortest fic of the year but also the quickest to write, i remember writing this in one sitting and the words just poured out of me like crazy (inspired by gigi's art x)

What work took you the longest to write?

technically it's i'm not the way i was considering i still haven't finished it, but if we're only counting completed fics then it's soon you'll get better

How many WIP’s do you have in your docs for next year?

three (x x x) ongoing wips and four (ish) wips that are either in very early planning stages or have the first 1-2 chapters written

What’s your longest work of the year?

9-1-1: god only knows where this could go (7,039 words)

shameless: i'm not the way i was (103,829 words)

What’s your shortest work of the year?

9-1-1: california dreamin' (1,861 words)

shameless: it was you, all the way down (866 words)

What WIP are you taking into next year with you?

these three (x x x)

What’s your most common “Additional Tags” tag?

"Not Beta Read" (21) followed by "One Shot" (18)

Your favorite character to write this year?

mickey freaking milkovich baby

The character that gave you the most trouble writing this year?

probably buck buckley (9-1-1) i can't seem to nail his voice in a way that satisfies me (i'm gonna keep trying!)

What’s one pairing you want to explore next year?

been thinking a lot about steve harrington/eddie munson (steddie) lately and i have written for them before but i have an idea or two i wanna possibly get into writing in the new year (and with st s5 coming out i'm sure i'll have more to say then)

Which work of yours have you reread the most?

went too far to soothe this soul

How many kudos in total did you get this year?

12,121

Which work has the most comments?

i'm not the way i was (398)

Did you do any collaborative works this year?

yes! i co-wrote Then and Now with @suzy-queued for the gallavich summer camp event this year!!

Did you write any gifts this year?

yes, i wrote:

find someone who grows flowers (in the darkest parts of you) for NotHereNJ for the 2024 gallavich gift exchange

it was you, all the way down for @heymrspatel for being one of the winning admirers with the gallavich art masquerade

buddie week (connor's version) 6 buddie fics for my best friend's birthday (ily @karenandthababes )

Did you receive any gifts this year?

yes! i receieved some wonderful gifts this year:

Frosting on His Nose from @heymrspatel for the 2024 gge (i'm still literally obsessed with this art)

all i know is a simple name from @jessbakescakes based on a very old joshdonna prompt i gave her many moons ago (love this fic to bits)

and idk if it counts as a gift but i'm putting it here anyway because @konaiiro drew a scene from one of my fics and i love it dearly <3

What’s your most common category?

m/m, fluff, whump, post-canon

What do you listen to while writing?

absolutely nothing, or sometimes white noise. very rarely am i able to listen to any kind of music, and even then it has to have no lyrics.

Favorite work you wrote this year?

life changes

Favorite line/passage you wrote this year?

this is my favorite bit i wrote this year, cw: self harm, hospitalization, read at your own risk:

“Twelve stitches,” Mickey tells him, voice wobbly and vision blurry. “Doc said it might scar, but. Yeah. It’ll heal.” It’s like something clicks in Ian’s brain, maybe. Like he remembers. Like he knows the events that happened to lead him here, but he can’t quite comprehend them. He lowers his bandaged arm back to the bed and stares at the wall. He doesn’t look at Mickey again. “So, um. Yeah. They patched you up,” Mickey says, the first tear falling down his cheek. He wipes it away, but the second isn’t far behind and he gives up trying to hide it. “You’ve been sleepin’ basically all night. They said you would. Said what happened was… traumatic, or whatever, and you’d need lots of rest.” “Stop,” Ian pleads. He closes his eyes, the words too painful to hear. To accept, maybe. Mickey nods, looking down at the floor. He twists his mouth to one side, sniffs. “I know you don’t wanna hear it. And you’re probably gonna hate me for makin’ you go to one of these places again—” “Don’t,” Ian whispers. “You’re gonna get some fucking help, Ian.” Mickey wipes at his face with the back of his hand. “I—I’m out of my depth here. But they’re gonna take good care of you, okay? It’s seventy-two hours. The doctors and shit, they’re gonna help you. ‘Cause I… I don’t know what else to do. And if you hate me for that—fine. I can live with that.” He sniffs. “But I can’t live without you. Okay? Do you get that?” “Mickey,” Ian pleads, but he won’t look at him, won’t open his eyes. He can’t. (x)

Biggest surprise while writing this year?

The sense of community in the shameless fandom never fails to surprise me. It's one of my favorite fandoms I've ever been in, and the wonderful people i meet writing and reading and talking about these characters pushes me to keep writing. I don't think I'd still be writing without this lovely community tbh

x

tagging (if you haven't done this yet): @jessbakescakes @iceyartt @deathclassic @whatthebodygraspsnot @crossmydna @jrooc @deedala @suzy-queued and anyone else who wants to play!

[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

[thoughtsaboutshows]

2024 Fic Writer End of Year Roundup ✨

Answer and then tag three or more creators to keep the game going!

I was tagged by the lovely @overjoyedisland for this!! Thank you!!

1. How many words did you publish on AO3 in 2024?

106,565!

2. How many fics did you complete this year?

I completed 6 Empyrean One-shots! Most of them are little ficlets or drabbles and then one Solstice Exchange fic! I just joined the Empyrean fandom in August and it's been so so wonderful. I'd taken a break from writing fanfiction and these characters were the perfect ones to get me back into it!!

3. How many in progress or ongoing fics did you start this year?

I started one, Let's Play Pretend, my Riorgail Fake/dating (also sort of second chance?) romance fic. It's my first long-fic for this fandom and it's been so so fun to write. I have some ideas for extending some of my drabbles/one shots that are marinating in my brain but we'll see if it actually happens! I'd love to do a canon world or canon compliant long fic depending on what Onyx Storm brings us. 😬

4. What was your favourite thing you wrote?

all that you rely on, and all that you can save- was inspired by the Chapter 27 Xaden Bonus Chapter where he wants to do wickedly inappropriate things with Violet on an archives desk. I hadn't written smut in a while so it was to dip my toes back into that

I’m Gonna Be- I've only really ever written for the main ship in fandoms so I absolutely LOVED writing something for Immrick. I love their dynamic and their potential. They are one that I plan to keep exploring!

5. What piece was your most experimental or different from your usual style?

I've never done any sort of exchange so participating in the Rider's Quadrant Solstice Exchange was super fun!! Writing something for someone else wasn't something I'd done and I really enjoyed it. Also writing for a non main ship (Immrick) was a blast.

6. Did any fics surprise you - either while writing or their reception?

I didn't expect Let's Play Pretend to be as popular as it has been! I kind of just started it because I love a premise of two idiots in love and I am a SUCKER for fake dating (especially when one person is CLEARLY besotted with the other 👀). I love stocking it up with tropes: one bed, second chance, enemies-ish to lovers....it's been fun! It seems others love those tropes too!

7. Do you have a fic you wrote and loved that went under the radar? (This is your sign to reblog/repost it!)

I think I'm Gonna Be (my Immrick one-shot) went sort of under the radar probably because it's not a main ship work. Though I will say that Xaden/Violet do make some appearances in it 😊. But I'm really proud of that one, and Immrick can ALWAYS use more love.

8. Who is an artist that inspired you?

I don't think she is on tumblr but the artist Mads Schofield is INCREDIBLE. All her works are AMAZING. Here's her link to instagram: madschofield

Her throne of glass works specifically have inspired me. She'll always draw the characters authentically and with all their scars. It inspires me to allow the characters I write to lean into their imperfections.

She has some fourth wing art too that's amazing. Here's a Riorgail one.

And here's her website!

9. Who is an author that inspired you?

Oh my goodness there are SO many amazing fic writers out there. Everyone on the discord server has been so welcoming and supportive.

I'd say the writing of @skyfallscotland, especially In Too Deep, inspired me to dive into an AU. And @saranova and @tegantales are also incredible and inspiring.

@suebswrites's Just Ask inspires me to want to jump into canon compliant. And that fic (and everything she writes) is amazing!

10. Who is a new author you discovered?

All of the Empyrean writers! I didn't start reading Fourth Wing Fanfic until this Summer so I've basically always been able to read something new or by someone new. There's so many amazing fics out there.

@ubiquitouslyme @justallihere @lizardsrunfast @widebrimmedhatsblog @caeli0306 @overjoyedisland @yanny-77 @siobhanbooks @alexandia03 @hockeyspiral23 @sarcasticmothwrites @copperfirebird @serahadmoni are just a few more of the many very talented fic writers for this fandom.

11. Did you do any collaborations? How did it start?

I haven't collaborated or co-written anything but a huge shout out to @lovemedarkly29 for being a beta and a springboard for ideas. She's given the best feedback and has helped me organize my thoughts and helped me ensure things make sense and are reasonable (especially with the messy backstory of Let's Play Pretend).

12. What accomplishments are you proudest of?

I'm the proudest about getting back into fanfic. I was writing for the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina fandom but fell off of it in February. I absolutely love writing and it's been a lifesaving outlet for me, but I was just so uninspired and had not been able to do it. I was nervous about starting again but the fandom has been so welcoming.

13. What did you learn about writing or creating this year?

I've learned to put less pressure on myself and to write when I'm inspired but not to force it. When I try and force it it's usually not very good.

14. Any advice you’d like to share with new or aspiring writers?

Just start writing! Even if it's just a few lines of dialogue or a paragraph or only the first chapter of something. If it's something you want to try just get something on the page when you're inpsired.

On a practical note I suggest using googledocs fro writing. That's what I do and because I have it on my phone I can jot down any random thoughts or pieces of dialogue that comes to mind wherever I am. It leads to some pretty chaotic google drives, but at least all my thoughts are in one place.

15. What are your creative goals for 2025?

My goal is to finish Let's Play Pretend! I would also like to finish up this Immrick oneshot that's been bouncing around in my head. One thing I would also like to accomplish is writing ahead (at least a few chapters) before I start posting.

In a perfect world I would also finish Thicker Than Water, my Nabrina WIP, but that's currently on an indefinite pause. I just can't seem to write it. In truth, it's felt strange to write about the situation Sabrina is in at this point in the story after Chance's passing. I just can't get into the headspace to finish it. But maybe some day.

This was fun!!

Much Love.

[dragonfire42]

Fan Fic Writer Interview

What fandoms do you write in?

All my current stories are Good Omens on AO3! But I do a lot of crossovers, including Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, The Neverending Story, Casablanca, Discworld, and The Seventh Seal. These are all GO stories:

How many words have you published in 2024?

So far – 177,152, but I have enough written on other stories not yet on AO3 to proudly say I passed 200,000 words this year!

What is your greatest achievement this year?

I wrote and performed an hour long solo show for a local Fringe festival, telling a true personal story using 30 puppets I made and 8 magic tricks I performed. It was very stressful and very fulfilling. And I hope to continue to hone this show and take it on the road eventually!

What are your favourite top three fics you wrote this year?

1. Fowl Play – The GO / Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy crossover I wrote in honor of turning 42 this year. Crowley gets ab-DUCK-ted by the alien ducks in S1 and has a post S2 space adventure.

2. Here’s Looking at You, Angel – the Casablanca inspired post GO S2 story I wrote for the Silver Screen Bang, with amazingly lovely art from GingerJo and Sae

3. The Neverending Archive – The Neverending Story / GO crossover I wrote as my very first posted fanfic as my love letter to AO3 and the fandom.

What was your biggest pit of despair moment?

In this fandom – SO many this year, trying to ride the waves of new information day by day. Since then:

-  I joined the We're On Our Own Side Fundraiser, to help bring awareness and raise money for the Take Back the Night Foundation. I’m currently finishing a piece for the fundraiser and another one for the zine. @ourownsidefund

- I plan to stay active in the fandom, support the fans, and specifically the Terry Pratchett estate for merch (www.discworld.com).

- (I also made a shadow puppet pumpkin with my feelings on S3.)

What have you learned?

What it means to be part of a fandom. I’ve always been a fan of all kinds of media. But this is my first time actually having fun with strangers on the internet (here’s a video about me learning Discord). Since I wrote that first fanfic in January, I’ve joined 15 different GO Discords, at least 7 FB GO groups, I have two GO blogs on Tumblr, (and just joined Bluesky), and did 7 different fanfics for four different bangs (The DIWS Silver Screen Bang, GO Theatre Bang, GO Spooky Bang, and Fairytale GO bang), and just finished three holiday exchanges (Dreamwidth, GO Reference Discord, and SVD FB Advent Calendar), and I've written monthly ficlets for SOSH Guess the Author and hosted my own round recently too! I’ve had the chance to work with so many amazing writers, artists, editors, readers, creators, and mods who provided so much support and encouragement to feed this delicious collective brain rot and have made so many new friends from around the world. I’ve grown as a writer, met huge deadlines, written more this year than any previous year of my life, and I’m better for it – and want to thank each and every one of you for helping me on that journey too.

What three fics have you read this year that you love?

This was the hardest one to answer. I've very literally read over a million words of fanfic this year and still have 70 tabs currently open of amazing stories from dear friends I'm still trying to read, and I'll have to do a long list later of all the ones I love! But to start with I want to share these three:

Naked and Afraid: Jingle Hell by @klikandtuna for the Sauntering Vaguely Downward Advent Calendar

Couples Therapy – Jurassic Park Edition by @rainwritings for the DIWS Silver Screen Bang

For another gives its ease by @andromeda4004 for the GOMM Reverse Bang

What ideas are percolating for next year?

I’m currently working on these stories:

- A GO 5+1 sickfic (15k written so far), posting in January

- A piece for the star themed GO On Our Own Side Zine

- An original sci-fi book

- A few new pieces for theatre

- Some sequels to previously written AO3 GO stories

- A couple of outside fandom stories, for Doctor Who, Our Flag Means Death, and Blucifer (a weird well known statue in Denver).  

Thank you specifically to @curiouspupsicle for tagging me in this and for all your support too!

Please consider yourself tagged if you read this and want to play, just copy the questions and post! (And also tagging - @naturallyteal, @stillsurfacequietpond @phoen1xr0se, who are always great at tagging me in fun things too!)

[alexandia03]

2024 Fic Writer End of Year Roundup

Answer and then tag three or more creators to keep the game going! Thank you to @yanny_77 and @siobhanbooks for the tag! If you're tagged here, feel free to answer! <333 It's already 2025 but I check my Tumblr once in a blue moon so...

How many words did you publish on AO3 in 2024?

179,695 - I like to think there would be more had I not been busy with my thesis, but hey! It's still an accomplishment!

How many fics did you complete this year?

Umm... none? OH WAIT! Two! I have two drabbles!

Admit it, we are lost - my little drabble for War Games with little Xaden, Bodhi, Garrick and Imogen deciding to run away from home.

Darlin' - my sad little ficlet on Bodhi's first birthday in the Quadrant.

How many in progress or ongoing fics did you start this year?

Let's see... I started MV in 2023 so... I have 3!

Grow As We Go - my neglected baby that I share with my wife, @essjaywrites

After Xaden Riorson and Violet Sorrengail's great exit from Basgiath War College during IF, Lieutenant Garrick Tavis along with third-year cadets Imogen Cardulo, Bodhi Durran, Quinn Artan, Liam Mairi and Ridoc Gamlyn embark on a clandestine mission to rescue from the Navarrian foster homes all the underage marked kids and bring them back to Aretia. However, they did not plan for their whole lives to be turned upside down when one of those kids turns out to be their niece. Maybe battling Venin and surviving as a dragon rider was the easy part, compared to the challenges of having to adapt to their new situation - all while stubbornly clinging to any excuse not to admit their feelings for one another. What could go wrong, right?

Death of a Hero - my gift to @siobhanbooks for the first exchange that I still have to finish but the second part is angsty even for me so...

A few months after the battle of Basgiath, Garrick and Imogen finally get a few moments to themselves, away from the whole world and all the problems looming over them - for a few moments, the war, the venins... it is all confetti. But reality has a way of shattering even the purest and most beautiful of moments - as they dead with the consequences of Xaden's decisions and actions from a few months prior, things go from bad to worse. Practically, every time you think it can't get worse, it gets worse.

Your Memory Feels Like Home To Me - the gift for @essjaywrites for this past Solstice that I hope to be able to finish soon (only the epilogue left! Yay!)

Having a memory related signet is cool and can come in handy for Imogen Cardulo, making her one of the strongest riders of her generation - until she finds herself on the receiving end of her own powers. And suddenly, her well-earned peace and stability is shattered into pieces - pieces she has to put back together again. Will it be the same mosaic? What if some pieces are lost forever? Will things ever get back to normal again? There questions plague both Imogen and Garrick and it remains to be seen if they get any answers.

There is also Inkpot Gods, but it is not published so...

What was your favorite thing you wrote?

Hmm, good question... I think it's Your Memory Feels Like Home To Me because it was certainly a challenge for me to write and I drew inspiration from so many things and I put a lot of effort into it because I wanted it to be perfect for my loveliest @essjaywrites - she certainly deserves it.

It is probably my fluffiest fic to date and it felt good to write established Imrrick for a change. And I drew so much inspiration from different kinds of media (movies, TV series, other fics, real life, games etc.) so it feels like a little bit of everything I love.

What piece was your most experimental or different from your usual style?

Hmm... I would mention here both Your Memory Feels Like Home To Me and Grow As We Go for different reasons:

Your Memory Feels Like Home To Me - because it was my first fic with a smut scene and even though I haven't even read that scene after I wrote it, I am kind of proud of myself for doing that.

Grow As We Go - because it is the first time I am co-writing something and writing a child is both tricky and very very nice. I love all the headcannons and ideas Sarah and I come up with for it (and also the avalanche of idea from my betas, who are the backbone of this entire fic)

Did any fics surprise you - either while writing or their reception?

I think I am a bit disappointed with how little attention YMFLHTM gets (I am not arrogant here, but I kind of expected more), but in the end I am happy Sarah liked it and that's all that matters.

On another note, I am very happy with how Braelyn and Derik were welcomed into this fandom. Initially, they were supposed to remain a cute little fun joke in my DMs with @ramzesfics, but then I wrote them into a special chapter in Memento Vivere and I was pleasantly surprised by how much people liked them and how they were basically adopted by other writers as well - check @siobhanbooks's fics for that, but also @essjaywrites's Bigger Than The Whole Sky and @copperfirebird and @sarcasticmothwrites also have them in some of their planned fics. And I remember @greeneyedwildthing asked to borrow them for Last Breath! And I can't forget about @ubiquitouslyme's fantastic take on them in The Odyssey of Imrrick!!

Do you have a fic you wrote and loved that went under the radar? (This is your sign to reblog/repost it!)

I already said that I am a bit sad about YMFLHTO, but... Darlin' is the fic that went under the radar for me. It was a sad little thing because I was a sad little thing when I wrote it, so it feels extra special to me.

Birthdays are not always a happy occasion. Sometimes they bring back painful memories and all you want is to run away for a while, but, every once in a while, it is good to have fiercely loyal friends looking out for you.

Who is an artist that inspired you?

@essjaywrites - no question there! My wife is just THAT amazing and I will never stop talking about it! Her Imrrick is my favorite of all time!

Also, special shout-out to Jules and her Imrrick gift for me this Solstice! I absolutely adore it!

Who is an author that inspired you?

I love all my friends in the RQ, but I feel the need to give my small Imrrick group a special mention here: @essjaywrites @siobhanbooks @tegantales @sarcasticmothwrites @copperfirebird @istarbel @ubiquitouslyme @ramzesfics.

Special special mention to @siobhanbooks' mom, her comments and reactions meant the world to me.

Love you all!

Who is a new author you discovered?

I think this award goes to LizardRunClub for her amazing Imrrick fic for this Solstice - Memories Consume is just amazing!

Did you do any collaborations? How did it start?

GAWG! Yes! It's @essjaywrites' and my little baby (well, second child that we have together because we adopted @siobhanbooks at some point).

As for how it started... it was a very aggressive plot bunny that came to me while I was talking to @ramzesfics and @istarbel and then it got bigger and bigger because my beta team kept kept coming with ideas and we spent an entire day brainstorming until I decided to write it. And then I begged Sarah to help me because I couldn't imagine doing this with anyone else!

What accomplishments are you proudest of?

I am proud of my first smut scene in YMFLHTM, I am proud of the impact DOAH had, I am happy whenever GAWG is mentioned, but it's Memento Vivere that remains my pride and joy. Not only because it was the first fic on Imrrick, not because I predicted a lot of stuff in it (and the Montserrat bit? I TOLD YOU SO!) It's the fic I poured so much love into and even though I still feel the need to edit and delete it, even though I post so rarely... it's the fic that got me back into writing and I am proud of it, no matter what - maybe more proud of it than I am of my thesis, I swear!

And, fun fact, I rewrote the entire first chapter (which remains my masterpiece to date) while I was writing my thesis (Feminine voices in modern retellings of Homer's epics. Penelope and Briseis). My two biggest accomplishments were written at the same time.

Imogen Cardulo's life doesn't begin with her breaking Violet Sorrengail's arm on Assessment Day and there is much more going on with her than what Violet sees. She is more than a side character this time around. Once upon a time, because that is how all stories begin, she was just another teenage girl - a little rebellious, a little more reckless than her parents would have preferred, a typically annoying little sister... an awesome friend or a pain in the ass (depending on the day and which one of her friends you asked) and she had a not so little or subtle crush on Garrick Tavis, but who can blame her for that? Then all the adults in her life went to war and the course of her life changed drastically. This is her story, in her own words. Starting from the Apostasy and covering all the high and lows, all the joyful moments and the heartbreaks, all the victories and the mistakes and giving us a look into her relationships with Xaden, Bodhi, Quinn and especially Garrick.

What did you learn about writing or creating this year?

I learned that I work well under pressure, I learned to write for myself and not for attention and aside from my fics, I am proud of my writing skills in general.

And, a little personal thing, the early chapters of MV were heavily influenced my by ex, so I also learned to never let anyone have a say in what and how I write.

What is your advice?

Write whatever inspires you, even if you feel like that idea has been already explored or it might not attract the same attention as other fics in this fandom. And give some love to the side characters, they deserve it!

Also, don't feel obligated to write or read about ships you don't like and don't let anyone tell you WHAT to ship.

What are your creative goals for 2025?

Continue to write Memento Vivere and get to the good stuff. And be patient with it, not rush through scenes just to get to a certain point.

Continue writing Grow as We Go with @essjaywrites and give it more love.

Work on the wiki more (if you ever wander who wrote Imogen and Garrick's pages - hi, it's me. I'm the problem!)

Write an academic paper on modern poems on mythological themes.

Finish DOAH (the exam session is coming, so my angsty mood will come too)

Finish YMFLHTM because they deserve a soft epilogue.

And... maybe start a new collab, who knows.

[lilolilyr]

✨ Ao3 Wrapped 2024 ✨

2022 • 2023 • more

Works published: I wrote 54 fics this year - 51 you can see plus some on anon ;)

Wordcount: 142,245

I managed to hit my 100k goal quite early this year! And even without counting my ~20k Avorah draft pile, I'm way past it :D As I'm drafting this in early November, this is my stats sheet (adding how it looks now for comparison, I did have some movement in the last two months):

Kudos: 2489

Hits: 37008

Bookmarks: 385

Subscriptions: 183 to my account, 188 to separate works! Funny how that's almost identical numbers rn! Last year my work subs were much lower... I wish I could compare the account subscriptions of past years but for some reason it just shows the current one no matter where I click.

Most popular by kudos: ohhh all those upcoming stats looked So different a couple months ago, namely before I wrote some shortfics for Star Wars, which wins at all those stats by sheer number of people in the fandom xD and finishing the Mirandy Jigsaw podfic also kicked it back up the stats! I don't really know whether to count it as I didn't start it this year, but I did Finish it in October... Hm. So yeah, prior to that the top5 fics in all of the stats were Avorah fics i think. Wish I took a screenshot of that! Now, the most kudosed with 245 is Star Wars Visions of a Future Past

Most hits: Jigsaw with 4579, followed again by visions with 3236

Longest: Bering&Wells Being Known for @anandabrat 13.906 words

Shortest: apart from the podfics? Berena evening for @squishmittenficfan with 1010 words, followed closely by Avorah Closure for @emeraldorchids with 1017! No drabbles this year?? This feels fake, I remember writing at least a Berena one! Oh lol I still had the 'gift fic' filter because that's the last thing I looked at, doing this all out of order... I do in fact have several Berena drabbles. And a Gunpowder Milkshake ficlet of 333 words and a Star Wars Codywan ficlet at 350. All of them here.

Most Comments: technically Jigsaw but not all of them are from 2024, so Being Known with 22 comment threads

The other fics you can see on my stats screenshots here are

The Avorah fics that used to lead in all categories: All About Risk, Tethered, Mistaken Identity, Totally Straight and of borrowed swimsuits, panic attacks and parties without purpose. Mostly smut here!

battles left behind and won, the second part of my Star Wars time travel fic. The third part with Dooku/Jaster smut didn't do as well, maybe because of the rare pair, maybe just because I forgot to link to it from part 2.

& my Avorah wip pile which I'm not counting for the word count total because it consists of several abandoned drafts

(and yes my cursed HP sioc is winning by subs and bookmarks probably because I never update it)

Comment to show off: I'm bad at remembering things so idk which one was my actual fav but I got a comment last month that really made me smile, it's on an old fic in a fandom I'm not really active in anymore but the characters and that fic idea is still very dear to me and the fic only ever got a handful of comments, so seeing this was lovely <3

I also really love getting comments on my podfics as well, especially from people who've already listened to the whole thing! I don't have one specific one but I remember I got a couple comments on old HP podfics this year, as well as on Jigsaw :)

Fics that made me cry: of my own fic probably Bering&Wells And After All We're Only Ordinary Men. For fics I read, you can check out which fics I bookmarked under that tag! Definitely Star Wars magic blanket by @my-insanity-is-an-artform <3

Fics that made me smile: I think most of my fics make me smile at least a little at some point in writing or re-reading, but probably mostly the fluff&humor fics. For reading, this Star Wars ficlet by @calltomuster is the last I remember not just making me smile but actually laugh out loud! And looking into my bookmarks I also found Codywan Keep on the Sunny Side by @themonopolyhat as well as Sith Lord Swell by @AMournfulHowlInTheNight :D

gifts: I gave 23 gifts this year - two less than last year, I guess I did a couple less gift exchanges but I still gift people fics for other reasons so the number is still similar. I also got gifts, by @lavendelhummel @73chn1c0l0rr3v3l @wickedheadache @die-schwanenkoenigin @wilfriede @prozac-shaped-urn, thank you darlings!

collaborations: I don't think I actually collabed with anyone this year? Some things were in the works but didn't pan out... I did start some fics that others continued though! Particularly in Avorah - the inspo fics are linked at the bottom of this work!

events: back in January I posted my Star Trek Winter Gift Exchange fic, then in February the Bering and Wells gift exchange, at the beginning of the year I wrote some ficlets for the Weekly Berena Fix, then I joined May Trope Mayhem with two Avorah ficlets, was part of the Summer Podfic Swap with several short podfics of my own - I also finally finished my 8 hour long Mirandy podfic Jigsaw, which while not part of the event feels a lot more momentous! Now in December I posted my Hacks gift exchange fic, and I wrote three ficlets for the @berenaadvent!

And you can all thank @viharistenno for this cursed addition:

Reader Wordcount: over 40 million! I counted this every month because last year it was so impossible to go through it all in one go xD but by now I've actually learned about an easier way to count it, namely with this:

random.fangirling.net/scripts/ao3_works_stats

Don't worry you don't have to give anything online your Ao3 login, it just helps you to put it in your own Excel sheets to do the sums with.

Also, it just gives you your history - I did Not count my full history because when I click fics I don't read, I then bookmark them 'to read' or 'didn't read' and then filter them out, obviously if you didn't do that all the time you end up with more than you actually read in your history, but it might still be interesting to see the number! For comparison, my full history of December is over a million words more than the one I'm counting.

Bookmarks: (adding this category because I bookmarked truly exorbitant numbers of fic this year, also partly bc of the wordcount checking thing but also because I add summaries and tags and stuff to bookmarks to find fics again later), I had to scroll to page 64 to reach last years 2023's bookmarks, I literally have almost as many bookmarks from this year as i havs from the ten years before that! 1264 of just over 3k total!

For ease of copying: Works published: Wordcount: Kudos: Hits: Bookmarks: Subscriptions: Most popular by kudos: Most hits: Longest: Shortest: Most Comments: Favorite Comment: Fics that made me cry: Fics that made me smile: gifts: collaborations: events: Wordcount read: bookmarks:

Tagging, only if you want to do it of course, everyone tagged above, @cacodaemonia, @guardianrock @bkwormkate @doctor-milfi @anoel and everyone else who sees this :D just pls make your own post, don't reblog! And remember to leave a blank of the qs for the people you tag :)

[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.

[kanerallels]

Writing asks: 3, 4, 8, and 15!!

3: What piece of media inspired you the most? (this can be the fandom you wrote for the most, the one that spawned the most ideas, the one you thought about the most, etc.) Probably a tie between Star Wars Rebels (big shock) and Chicago Fire (my sister and I came up with a bunch of fun AUs, it was so great)

4: How many fandoms did you write for this year? If we're going with published fan fictions it's about...six-ish? But also there are a bunch of different little ficlets I'm not counting

8: What fic meant the most to you to write? Oh gosh definitely [redacted] which I can't tell you guys anything about cause it's unpublished and deeply spoilerful. But let's just say I was very emotional about it. Like, writing it almost made me cry

15: What was the hardest fic to title? Probably my Inklings story lol. Oh also this short story I wrote that I technically still haven't titled

Ask game!!

[belphegor1982]

1, 2, 3, 15, and 20!

Oooh, so many questions 🥰

1. How many words have you written this year?

Oh, I have no idea. I can tell you how many words I have published this year, which is 30,358, but written?? Counting the WIPs, including the one(s) I took from last year? No clue!

2. How many works did you publish this year?

A grand total of five 😅 (work. took a LOT of my time and spoons.) Actually if you look at my AO3 page it's 6, but one of them is a repost from FFnet of a Hogan's Heroes fic about D-Day (which I naturally published on AO3 on June 6th). Since I wrote it 10 years ago I don't count it in the works I published this year.

3. What work are you most proud of (regardless of kudos/hits)?

This year? Hmm. Maybe Something to Be Said For Curiosity? It's an E-rated fic whose final tag is "#no pining just friends being intimate and having fun about it". As much as I loathe the frankly acephobic thing of "oh these two are such good friends - they must have had sex at some point", the two characters featuring in this story have held hands, flirted, kissed each other and spooned in canon (their players have been best friends for over two decades and cheerfully call each other "husband" - there's 100% trust there). Honestly, it's not that big of a leap to imagine them exploring each other this way and having fun at some point. I hadn't written smut for a while, which is part of why I'm proud of this story!

15. What WIP are you taking into next year with you?

The one I'm working on right now (or trying to ^^') and have been working on for the past... weeks? I don't know. I turned the whump wheel a while ago and got "high fever", got an idea/excuse for it, and what was supposed to be a self-indulgent maybe 2k word ficlet is turning out to be a 4-part behemoth with Plot Things and different PoVs. The worst part is that I've just reached the actual whump bit and I'm struggling with it, and also cannot seem to find a damn title!! Darnit :(

20. Which work of yours have you reread the most?

Generally speaking? Probably either Fairy Tales and Hokum or my One-Step, Two-Step, Waltz series. (side note: today at the supermarket I heard someone call "Salwa!" and instantly was thrust back 5 or 6 years ago when I was rereading and starting rewrites on FTaH, and after some research picked the name "Salwa" for Jonathan's and Evy's unnamed mother 💜) This year? Uhh... Probably a toss between Friends in Low Places and Sticks and Stones, two 6k words works that took me a long time to write. (Also I reread Friends in Low Places after the latest season of The Legend of Vox Machina came out, because one episode featured a situation very much like what happens just before the fic begins - Grog and Scanlan fall from a big height - but it ends... very differently in the cartoon ;___;)

Thank you!! 💜

[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

[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.

[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. 

[saxgoddess25]

Twenty questions for fic writers

Tagged by @kholran

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

44

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

229,803

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Once Upon A Time, Harry Potter, Torchwood. I've dabbled in a few other fandoms long in the past, but those works are not online right now.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Busted! (331)

Wakey Wakey (230)

Where Angels Fear To Tread (222)

The Darkest Hour Before Dawn (222)

Trading Places (192)

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

Yes, I do. I just don't always get the notification that they're there until sometimes weeks or months later, so sometimes I'm very late with my response.

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

There are three that are angsty in different ways. Where Angels Fear to Tread is angsty in a major character death sort of way, but only if you read the epilogue. Claimed by the Wolf is bleak and hopeless angsty. The Hardest Part is just sad.

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

I'm not sure I could pick one. My Little Princess, maybe. Or perhaps one of the holiday ficlets I've written. They were fun.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Not hate per se. Sometimes I get somewhat ignorant comments on my fics that deal with polyamory. Nothing too bad thus far. Though I guess I get the normal kind of "I HATE YOU!!" comments on the sad stories. Heh.

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

All the smut. All the time. LOL. I kid, but yeah, I write a lot of smut. And I'm kinky, so some of it is kinky. There's a fair amount of the regular kind too though. I used to write almost exclusively m/m slash, then when I started writing for OUAT, I started writing femme slash and a bit more het.

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

I haven't yet. I don't have anything against crossovers, but I've never had a plot bunny for one.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I'm aware of.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

If I have, nobody has told me about it.

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

Nothing that ended up published. Lots of roleplay though.

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

Snape/Harry or Snape/Lucius. Also a big fan of Swan Queen or Dragon Queen from OUAT. Xena/Gabby. Jadzia Dax/Kira.

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

I have hopes to finish all of them. Whether ADHD-induced writer's block will let me though is another question! Gifted is probably the one least likely to be finished at this point because I've lost my notes, but if I find them again, I'll try to finish it.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Dialogue. Hot Hot Smut.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Abuse of adverbs. Formerly, using a lot of epithets, but then I learned that was not necessary (and looked down upon), so I started cutting those out. Other than those two, just getting the dang thing finished.

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

I haven't written any that I can remember. Well, I sorta made up some bits of an alien language in my Torchwood fic, but that was just for a dash of flavor. I wouldn't have any major conversations in another language, mostly because I'd be afraid of getting them wrong.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

I'm pretty sure it was Xena. It was just a tiny little ficlet and I'm not sure I even still have it. It's probably in a notebook packed away in a box somewhere.

20. Favorite fic you've written?

I think the favorite fic I've written is one that I've never published. I haven't even finished it and I don't know if I ever will. It is the story of Severus Snape and Regulus Black when they were at school and the relationship that developed between them. It's one of those stories that I started and then sort of became daunted by how long it was going to end up, so it is languishing in a file on my computer. Maybe one of these days I'll get back to writing it.

Tagging @ussjellyfish @abovethemists and anyone else who wants to do it!

[alectoperdita]

@luxielovesparkles's lovely art makes my neurons light up like a fireworks show! With her permission, I wrote a short ficlet inspired by demon!Jou and his flirty outfit. I just couldn't resist Jou in this outfit, and neither could Kaiba, hehe.

It's been a while since I really wrote or published anything, so I hope y'all find it entertaining if you give it a chance. <3

Set in the Two monsters walk into the club universe for expediency. Rated E, contains some smutty bits, rimming and light blood drinking may be of note.

Read the edited and expanded version on AO3

"Let me guess, you’re giving fetish modeling a go."

Seto had walked into many a peculiar sight since Katsuya started frequenting his penthouse. It usually happened after he was freshly awake post-sunset. For a creature without a domicile—or someone who treated Seto’s home as one, and nope, Seto wasn’t going to interrogate that right now—the incubus sported a bottomless wardrobe, figuratively. Seto couldn’t recall Katsuya wearing any articles of clothing, much less entire outfits, twice, and he had an exceedingly good memory.

But the sight of Katsuya in a woolen, pastel pink dress?—tube top?—something, bent forward at the waist and checking out his own reflection in the window, still raised an eyebrow. Because while the weather had taken a turn for the cold, lengthening nights much to Seto’s relief, a sweater of that make wouldn’t keep any creature, even a demon, particularly warm. It could’ve been a fever dream, but vampires didn’t dream so...

Less surprising was the large heart-shaped cutout in the garment exposing the creamy flesh of Katsuya’s lower back, through which his tail also poked through and swung lazily. No, that was par the course for Katsuya’s sartorial tastes.

Katsuya straightened with a snap of his waists and spun to greet him with a beaming smile.

"Okay, so I was going through social media looking for fit inspo for this party tonight—"

Party, translation: gangbang/orgy/mass hookup.

"—and figured I’d give it a try. Cute, right?"

Seto padded across his cavernous living room, making no noise as he moved. The only sound was the soft swish, as Katsuya’s tail flicked back and forth in eager anticipation. Seto never could decide if it resembled a cat’s or a dog’s tail more, but he supposed it depended on context. Similarly, the incubus rocked back and forth on his feet when Seto stopped in front of him to study the ridiculous get-up.

The pink complemented his smooth, sun-kissed skin. The dress was sleeveless, strapless, and hugged his body like a second skin, meaning the bodice wrapped tight around Katsuya’s bosom and cinched even tighter around his shapely waist. While it was, by no means, the shortest thing he’d seen Katsuya wear, the hem hit high on Katsuya’s legs and was barely long enough to cover his pert ass. It was obvious he wore no underwear underneath.

By now, Seto had caught onto the incubus’s shapeshifting abilities, and he often shaped his figure to accentuate an outfit’s strength. But he never deviated far from his preferred form: defined but lean and always pleasing to the eye.

Today was no different.

"Well?" Katsuya asked and canted forward, his palms resting flat over his thighs. The posture lent to an illusion of a slight cleavage peeked over the bodice. But as he next angled himself more to the side, it drew Seto’s gaze to the arch of his spine, the flex of his shoulder blades, the hint of his cleft poking though the heart’s tip, and his long, black swaying tail.

When Seto didn’t immediately reply, the incubus, armed with an impish grin, edged closer and threaded his arms around Seto’s neck. Seto fought a shiver as Katsuya carded his fingers through the hair near the base of his skull. The incubus threw off more heat than an overworked furnace—a balm on Seto’s chilled skin, a reminder of the warm glow that settled in his chest after feasting on his blood. The material, cashmere or whatever magical approximation of it Katsuya had conjured up, was surprisingly soft against Seto’s bare chest.

The truth was Katsuya could wear a burlap sack, and there’d be a line of people drooling to hop into bed with him. Seto had no intention of telling him, but Katsuya already knew such a fact.

"Cute’s not the exact word I’d use. But I doubt you’ll stay dressed long enough for anyone to notice," Seto drawled, a low scratch in his voice.

A husky laugh shook Katsuya’s naked shoulders. "Maybe. But check this out, doing this doesn’t tear the outfit to shreds," the incubus purred.

A sensual toss of his hair, a confident roll of his shoulders—dark, leathery wings materialized in a gusty whoosh of air that ruffled Seto’s bangs. Amber bled into his slitted irises, majestic horns sprouted from his golden mane, completing the transformation.

Now here was a vision to steal Seto’s vestigial breath away.

"Convenient, huh?"

Without thinking, Seto wound his arms around Katsuya’s waist, placing one palm low over the heart opening and the other bracing between his shoulder blades. Out of the corner of his eyes, Seto glanced at their tangled reflection in the window. As always, they presented the image of an odd couple: Katsuya in his slutty sweater dress and Seto in nothing but his pajamas pants.

Heat bled further into his body, flowing through his navel and pooling in his groin. It didn’t take long for his hands to wander, finding purchase in the ridge of Katsuya’s wings and enclosing around the base of his wagging tail. He didn’t tug on the appendage, no matter how much he wanted.

Instead, his index finger dipped into Katsuya’s cleft.

Katsuya wiggled closer, huffing hot air over Seto’s neck. "Oh, that too. Can’t argue with the easy access, either."

Seto took that as permission to slide his hand under the dress and cupped one buttock. In return, Katsuya lightly scratched the back of his neck and pressed his hot lips to Seto’s throat. Soon, Katsuya’s tail, always with a mind of its own, coiled around Seto’s wrist and up his forearm. The weight and pressure were far more comforting that he’d ever admit out loud.

With one arm already firmly caught in Katsuya’s clutch, Seto gripped the incubus’s hip and turned him toward the window, pushing him up against the glass. Their eyes locked through their reflections. The eye contact held, hot and heavy, as Seto tugged the dress down. Katsuya cooed as his pecs popped free of the bodice. Seto kept pulling until the base of the tail bumped against the border of the opening and the heart-shaped cutout perfectly framed the incubus’s round ass. His fingers followed, parting Katsuya’s cheeks to reach the petal soft hole in-between.

The grip around Seto’s forearm tightened.

Gently, he dropped an open-mouthed kiss on the back of the demon’s flushed neck. Hearing Katsuya’s excited hum and feeling him rock back against Seto brought a grin to his face. From this proximity, he smelled the ambrosia thrumming through Katsuya’s veins. He slowly kissed his way to Katsuya’s ear, catching the lobe between his fangs and gnawing briefly.

He didn’t draw far away as he whispered into his ear. "We should test how well your easy access works, then."

Katsuya’s wings fluttered and beat against Seto’s breast. He bore down on Seto’s fingers until his hungry rim parted and suckled on his fingertip.

"Ah—" A shudder. A wild clench. "—great idea. You’re a genius, ah!"

Further inspiration struck Seto. Katsuya’s hips wiggled desperately and tried to chase his extracted fingers. But Seto pinned him against the glass. Ignoring the stranglehold of Katsuya’s tail, he lowered himself to the floor, his knees thudding when they hit the wood.

"Seto!" Katsuya whined and tried to push away from the window.

Seto dug his nails into the incubus’s ass, then his fangs in further reprimand, leaving two puncture wounds in their wake. Crimson droplets welled to the surface, but he swiftly cleaned it with his tongue. Above him, Katsuya moaned and finally quit fighting. Seto fought a similar groan with the sublime taste of his blood on his tongue.

The puncture healed immediately, so he redirected his attention to Katsuya’s pucker. The twitching muscle was softer than cashmere and pinker than his dress. Without hesitation, he lapped at the entrance. The skin was thin here, dense with capillaries and nerve endings. Katsuya’s pulse beat against his tongue.

Seto started drooling in no time.

He threw himself into his self-appointed task, shoving the length of his tongue as far as possible into Katsuya’s fluttering hole and scrapping his fangs around its outside. Of course, Katsuya bled for him. Bled sweetly and divinely to paint Seto’s lips and whet his hunger. The sanguine nectar coated the inside of his throat.

He was ravenous. Not just for Katsuya’s blood, but for the taste of his skin and the warmth of his insides.

Katsuya sang his praises, loud and unabashed. The not-so-ethereal flaps of his wings mussed Seto’s hair. Seto believed in no higher powers, but this could be his altar for now.

Later, as Seto slid his cock into Katsuya’s well-stretched hole, blood and spit easing the way, he wagered the party was the last thing on the demon’s mind.

Saw an art with this dress so, I wanted to draw it on demon!Jou

[pinkandgreenarepurpleandyellow]

Home

Pairing: Kanoh Agito x Reader

Trigger warnings: implied violence, mentioned blood, mentioned injuries

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You crack open the window from the outside, slip into your bedroom, and instantly collapse. Being awake for three days tends to leave you rather exhausted, but you can’t fall asleep yet, not without seeing him.

The door creaks open, and you smile into the blanket. There’s exactly one person who’s not afraid of going into your room.

“(Y/n),” Agito’s voice reaches across the room and you can feel yourself relax slightly just at the sound of it. “You’re back already?”

Dammit. You have to lift your head to make your reply coherent, but Agito’s already sitting right next to you so you drag yourself into a somewhat sitting position and lean on him.

“Yeah. ‘M just really tired, had to chase the target across three borders.”

Sometimes you almost wish that you didn’t have such a tight secruity and want for privacy, if only so that some of the people who think the Fang of Metsudo is heartless and inhuman see him pulling you into a hug. He gives comforting hugs, like a human weighted blanket. You push yourself further into his chest. You’re nearly his height when you stand next to one another, but if he’s sitting upright and you lean into him, the chance to burrow is there like no other time.

“Don’t overwork yourself, (y/n),” you can feel the soft rumble in his chest when he speaks, almost like a motorbike engine.

“Says you,” you poke at him, but there’s no malice in it “You fixed the window frame, don’t think I didn’t notice.” Agito doesn’t say anything, just pulls you in a little closer. You’re still half-soaked, your clothes are soaked in mud, and there’s a disturbingly large amount of drying blood all over you, but when he tilts your head up slightly and pulls you into a kiss, you feel like you could fight the world and win as long as you get a second kiss at the end of it.

“I’m taking tomorrow off,” you say as soon as the two of you break apart. “I’m either gonna be here or in the garden, but I’m not moving a muscle other than that.”

“Actually, Katahra gave me the day off tomorrow. He said you’d be back by noon, and to help you feel at home again.” Bless Metsudo Katahara, if only for this.

“He knows it’s only been two weeks, right?”

“I think this is just his unsubtle way of giving us time together. Not a lot of other opportunities around, especially with the Kengan tournament coming up,” you can feel him stroking your hair as he speaks, brushing the twigs and needles out.

“Tomorrow,” he starts talking again, “we should go to the garden together. I’ll bring food and blankets, so we can stay outside as long as you want, and you don’t have to move to get anything.” That sounds nice. The last two weeks have left you shot at, stabbed, concussed, and possibly with multiple broken bones, and a day of lying in the garden with your boyfriend sounds heavenly.

“I’d like that.” You start moving to lie back down and pull him with you so you both end up lying on the bed. “But tomorrow. Right now we’re sleeping, and you’re staying here, with me,” you hope he can hear the underlying question, Will you stay with me, please?

“Of course, (y/n).” It’s the gentle way he kisses you one more time that tells you his answer. Forever. I’ll stay with you forever.

Tomorrow, you’ll go to the garden. You already know it will be wonderful. But you’re happy in the right now, with Agito holding you as you fall asleep, knowing he’ll be there when you wake up. This is home. You’re finally home.

--

END