Cyan (he/him or they/them). Always here for family stories. Actually a penguin blog in disguise. Sidebar gif by the amazing @bikatniss.
One Piece sideblog: @oceanofstardust.
It’s already 2026, so I thought I might look back and create a wrap-up post for the writing I did last year!
In total, I published 27.9k words last year, spread over 8 fics, all for the Alex Rider fandom. It wasn't the best year for writing, unfortunately, but I still managed to post some fics I'm proud of, and I did actually write a fair bit that didn't get posted (but hopefully will in the future).
As always, thanks so much to everyone who took the time to read and leave kudos and comment on my fics, it always makes my day <3
Yassen & Alex
Drinking Lessons (T, 4.8k) - Devil!verse fic where Yassen teaches 16-year-old Alex a lesson about alcohol.
After Alex drinks a bit too much at a New Year's Eve party, Yassen decides to get Alex drunk to teach him about his limits.
Domesticated (T, 8.1k) - Hurt/comfort fic where Yassen takes care of a concussed Alex and his cats.
Alex wakes up with a pounding headache to find that not only is Yassen Gregorovich apparently alive, but he is sitting in Alex’s armchair with a purring cat in his lap, quietly reading a book. It's a lot to take in.
Written for the Spyfest 2025 Gift Exchange.
Yassen/Alex
The Benefits of Friendship (E, 1.2k) - 3x06 AU where Yassen gives Alex a handjob, with implied past John/Yassen.
Set during episode 3x06. Alex and Yassen have to share the only bed in the safe house. When Alex struggles to sleep, Yassen decides to lend a hand.
The Rooftop Revisited (E, 1.1k) - Movieverse yalex PWP.
Another rooftop, another conversation.
"This doesn't change anything," Alex insisted as he let Yassen push him against the wall, already fumbling with Yassen's belt.
Yassen sounded almost amused. "As you say."
The Affair at the Wedding (E, 3.9k) - Post-S3 Yalex where Alex tries to hide he's been drugged with an aphrodisiac.
It’s just Alex’s luck that the next time he sees Yassen after Invisible Sword, he ends up hurt, stuck in a storage cupboard with Yassen, and fighting the effects of a rather potent aphrodisiac.
Exchange treat for @proodence for Spyfest After Dark 2025.
Miscellaneous
Death in Paradise (John & Alex, T, 2.2k) - Ark Angel AU where Alex is saved his father.
A slight change in timing means there is no Tamara Knight to rescue Alex from the Mary Belle. Trapped twenty-two metres below the surface and with his air supply running out, Alex finds himself saved instead by a man who's supposed to be long dead: John Rider.
like ashes in your mouth (Ash & Alex, T, 2.7k) - Snakehead told through Ash's POV.
There are times, during that final mission, when he considers killing the boy in his sleep. It would be a kinder thing to do than this, the way Ash lies to his face while leading Alex to his grave.
Ash's POV on his deception of Alex during the Snakehead mission.
Game Over (Alex, T, 3.9k) - Whump mission fic where Alex gets used as a dartboard before he manages to escape.
When Alex is caught on a mission, the guards come up with a cruel game to torment him. Not for the first time, Alex finds himself hurt and tied up, and with no one to rely on but himself.
Random but what was up with Drevin's ring in Ark Angel lol. Like is it just a random nervous tic that he keeps twisting his ring around? Did Ahorz plan to give him some backstory that never made it to the page? Is it his wedding ring despite him being divorced for some time? We never do get an answer but every time I reread I'm like 'huh that's lot of mentions of him touching his ring'
3, 15, 20 from the Alex Rider ask game! If you already answered these, I can ask different ones!
Thanks for the game!
For the Alex Rider books ask game. And I haven't had these yet, thanks for asking! :D
3. How old were you when you first read the books? What was your first impression?
I was in my late twenties when I first read the books and I really enjoyed them! Somehow I'd missed them entirely when I was younger despite probably being the right age for them, but I think I may have been more into fantasy at the time. But I'd stumbled upon some fic with Alex and Yassen and got the gist of 'Russian assassin antagonist who knew teen spy's dead father' and I was already intrigued. 👀 Then I read the books and realised the reason everyone tagged their fics with 'Yassen Gregorovich Lives' was because it was an AU 🥲
15. What is a missing scene from the books that you'd love to see?
Honestly I think it would be really fun in a whump way to get the aftermath of the whole thing in Murmansk in Skeleton Key. Sarov is dead and the battle is winding down and then there's this one British teen spy who really has no business being there. Like someone must have taken him to the hospital speaking poor English and been like 'just stay here while we get someone from your government yes?' and then put him on a plane. I'd love to have seen some of the logistics involved in getting Alex home.
20. Which minor character in the Alex Rider books do you think deserves to get more love in fandom?
This is tricky because some characters do already have fans but also vocal haters and yet others you never hear anything about because people forget they exist lol. Anyway I am biased and I do think John Rider deserves more love. 🙈 Helen too because there's just not enough of her. :(
Ohh no wait you know what super minor character deserves more love? That old man on the ship who climbed out of the container to follow Alex and got caught and killed. :( And while we're at it, that Marc Antonio guy in Paris who pushed Alex ahead of him on the stairs and allowed Alex to escape. 🥺
For the Alex Rider books ask game. Thanks for asking!!
1. Do you have a favourite book? And if so, which is it?
It's a bit of a toss up between Skeleton Key, Eagle Strike, and Scorpia, but I think overall my favourite is Scorpia! Alex learning about his dad and joining a terrorist organisation and nearly killing Mrs Jones! And the ending always makes me tear up.
16. If you could have dinner with one of the characters from the Alex Rider books, who would you pick and why?
Ohh okay so my idea is this: Julia Rothman, but only in a very specific scenario where she needs me to stay alive because it's good for business. I think she would be a charming person to talk to and has good taste in food (I also like Italian food). I would ask her about the famous actors she knows/had at her parties and would carefully pretend not to know too much about what Scorpia does and hopefully it would be a fun evening and she wouldn't send assassins after me. 🙏
18. Which two characters that never shared scenes in the books would you most like to see interacting?
You know what I think it would actually be quite interesting to see Sarov interacting with Yassen. Like Sarov is such an ideological character in a way and like obviously he's got Conrad in canon but it's possible to imagine him hiring Yassen instead and I think Sarov would probably really dislike Yassen because he mostly just cares about money and it's extra frustrating for Sarov because Yassen is Russian. Like that Conrad is greedy is fine and to be expected but I imagine Sarov probably likes to think normal Russians believe in him or will believe in him once he shows them the way. And Yassen is like 'whatever, as long as you pay' and Sarov is like 😠
I do love the idea of Yassen genuinely only needing four hours of sleep and perhaps not being the most sensitive or understanding person about other people needing more. Like sure, he theoretically knows that other people might need more and it's unreasonable to expect them to stick to four hours like him, but part of him still looks down on people for it/thinks they're just lazy lmao
Like even John, who can go a week on four hours or less if he needs to, will want to catch up on sleep after. Just thinking about Yassen matching John's schedule during their march in the Amazon jungle and it's the walking more than the sleep deprivation that's a struggle, and he's just internally thinking that Hunter doesn't like to waste time sleeping and he can understand that! So when John sleeps four hours when they reach some hotel afterwards and then just… keeps sleeping, Yassen is like ???
Yassen waking Hunter up after six hours because like is he ill or something? What's going on?
John trying so hard not to snap because he can see Yassen is genuinely confused but also he's not happy to have been woken up for no good reason when he's sleep deprived lol. And frankly he was not expecting to have to explain normal sleeping habits to his Russian assassin student but here they are apparently
I do love the idea of Yassen genuinely only needing four hours of sleep and perhaps not being the most sensitive or understanding person about other people needing more. Like sure, he theoretically knows that other people might need more and it's unreasonable to expect them to stick to four hours like him, but part of him still looks down on people for it/thinks they're just lazy lmao
Like even John, who can go a week on four hours or less if he needs to, will want to catch up on sleep after. Just thinking about Yassen matching John's schedule during their march in the Amazon jungle and it's the walking more than the sleep deprivation that's a struggle, and he's just internally thinking that Hunter doesn't like to waste time sleeping and he can understand that! So when John sleeps four hours when they reach some hotel afterwards and then just… keeps sleeping, Yassen is like ???
I do love the idea of Yassen genuinely only needing four hours of sleep and perhaps not being the most sensitive or understanding person about other people needing more. Like sure, he theoretically knows that other people might need more and it's unreasonable to expect them to stick to four hours like him, but part of him still looks down on people for it/thinks they're just lazy lmao
The show gave us Yassen as Alex's tutor and that's great but I realised they never actually said something about John teaching Yassen and I can't believe they robbed us of the parallels 😭
The first rule of fandom is have fun. The second rule of fandom is find an enabler and become an enabler. Yes you should write that fic. What if it was even hornier? What if it was angstier? What if you wrote it just for me?
Just looked at the discord backup/data export I made a few years back and I forgot how extremely useless it was lmao. The conversation history is completely incomprehensible because it's literally only your messages and they have the nerve to claim they picked this format 'to make it easy to understand and work with' how??
this is probably the most real thing either of them ever said to either of their children the whole show. "there's a lot wrong with us, but now we have to pack and go" like yeah both of these things are completely true congratulations.
the funny thing about Paige saying the only friends she wants to have over for her birthday are Pastor Tim and his wife isn't that she has no friends (sad) but that really most ordinary parents would at least push a little on having people her own age, what happened to so and so, are there no girls your age in the church you'd like to have over etc. but if Phillip and Elizabeth try any of that Paige is just gonna go okay why don't we have some of YOUR friends over sometime. since it's normal to have friends. which is the trap. so they can only stand there looking like this.
we are all normal people here in this normal family in our normal house 🙂
first of all I could never have enough of extremely on the nose Elizabeth and Motherhood season opening scenes but second of all. She was extremely funny for that one look I think she was right.
If you have a fucked up sicknasty fanfic you've been thinking about sharing but are unsure, this post is your sign to run to AO3 and Just Do It:
1. Someone somewhere wants to read it. Even if it's only one person, that person matters
2. Your creativity matters and so does your ability to share it
3. Serial harassers in fandom spaces are beginning to express discomfort that sites like AO3 completely strip their ability to do anything about fic they don't like, sometimes going as far as leaving entire fandoms due to the influx of "problematic fiction without a chance for consequences to the author". Posting your fanworks to AO3 actively contributes to making harassers feel unsafe and powerless in fandom
4. Militant anti-fanfic content creators also cannot do anything about fic posted to AO3
5. You can post anonymously to AO3, with the ability to de-anonymize at any time
6. You can moderate comments before making them visible on your fic, restrict comments to logged-in users only, or turn off comments altogether, meaning you can post anonymously and completely turn off comments if you choose
