#jelach

fandoms written for: once upon a time #sq25

events participated in: it all started with SQSN, my first fandom event ever, which I wrote a couple of stories and did some digital painting for. Met some legends (@extancyy, @butimachrldr2 and @sssammich here's looking at you, folks) and had a marvellous time with all three pairings. then, whoreman of right takes themself @cinnonym took pity on the weirdo (affectionate) giving them grief in the tags, and we co-organised kinktober together with @kurtsvonneslut and @thatbitchwhowritesstuff, a real highlight of my year all round. I ended up making a bunch of graphics and a cool spreadsheet tracker (where do i add that to the wordcount), and uh, wrote 101k of kink smut in the space of about 6 weeks...

fanfic i’m proudest of: i really am proud of all of the fics, but I have to say shoot another shot, because I wrote a few songs for it, which makes it feel like the fic *I* was meant to write. I also learned a lot about writers block, letting go of (10k cry) words that are getting in the way of moving forward, even if you love them. Man, I learned a lot about writing this year.

other fanworks i’m proudest of: this year was also the year I picked up drawing again, after around 6y hiatus bc life. So there's a few I'm really proud of, because I find physical art very intimidating (it often doesn't look like I imagined, and I find there's nowhere to hide from your own - often very critical - instantaneous reaction when you look at it). I pushed past it for a number of people who I've come to call friends, and they were so kind when I shared with them. I think it's a tie between this one for Zoe's Bandit!Regina AU that felt like escaping into another world, or this one (+ bonus song) for Kurt's Dark Swan fic that I still think about whenever I'm having a rough day

events i’m looking forward to next year: 2026 marks my first go at both Fanart Frenzy and SQWS which are coming up soon, and I'm gonna have a go at doing more art for SQSN. Perhaps this'll be the year I don't let completionist tendencies go to my head, and I do a more healthy approach to kinktober, let's see ;)

projects for next year: the two I'm most excited about are a Swan Queen Hallmark Movie multichap fic, which I had hoped to write for SQWS this year but I want to have the time to do it justice, and I got stuck about 10k in. I think I've actually managed to do enemies to lovers for the first time (well, enemies to <insert rest of the WIP here>) and that's a huge milestone for me. And then there's a fic I promised @cinnonym I'd write for them, which features Regina Mills doing thirst traps, which... I want to read as much as I want to write it

So that's a wrap-up. I reckon. it's super cheesy, but what a fucking fabulous year. It's true what they say, it really is the friends we made along the way. So I'm gonna tag some of the folks who welcomed me into the ranks with kindness and warmth and who I love to pieces.

“God, I have loved you for so long,” Regina replied, and oh. Emma had been so fucking dense. 

It had been teasing her all of the previous day, the gentle admission of Regina’s softness towards her. But if she were honest with herself, it had been building for months - or years, likely. So she shouldn’t be as surprised as she was at the way her heart fucking soared at Regina’s words.  

Emma’s thoughts were all over the place, and she took a minute to process the tide of feeling that Regina had put in motion.

Regina had other ideas. 

“And I have wanted you for even longer,” Regina choked on thinly veiled lust that was set to fucking ruin the pair of them. 

Emma could tell that it was the truth, as there was not an ounce of disquiet in her chest. And truthfully, she would've had to have been blind to have missed the way Regina had looked at her in the beginning of their tempestuous relationship. That twin flame desire was something that she had felt with her own aching hunger, then pushed it down so far that she had managed to forget it somehow. Of course, she’d had to repress it then, because Regina had been different then. Manipulative, destructive, and completely fucking devastating with everything that she was. But definitely not something that Emma could have withstood and managed to keep Henry. And he was the reason all of this crazy stuff mattered, so there was no way in hell she could have lost him.

Now, of course, everything was completely different. Regina had put in the admirable work of atoning for her sins, of making friends with those who had hurt her, of returning to nature over the nurture that had been twisted with a thorn-like grasp around her heart. And she had done all of that for Henry. And perhaps, a tiny yet hopeful voice shouted in her heart, she had also done it for Emma.

It was part of what made the pair of them work despite all odds, she supposed. Because Emma had gone there too, had felt the vines of her own misguided nurture blacken her heart until it was near pitch. She understood the rich pull of the darkness and the power it afforded a person. Not only that, she had felt the painful tearing of self as she returned to her former goodness. And all of it meant that she loved Regina even more, because she knew how much Regina had overcome in the journey to her perfect self.