#chesacakeripper

[erisenyo]

Longtime follower, occasional interacter here!

I implicitly trust your taste and judgement in books after a) reading your wonderful fics and b) having my world shaken by the radiant emperor, so I thought you'd be the best person to ask about Heated Rivalry:

Can it be read as a standalone, or is it better to read the previous book in the series first/follow the Game Changers series along?

My dash is abuzz with HR at the moment and I'm interested!!

HI omg truly such an honor to have that level of trust, I will endeavor to do it justice 🫡

You can absolutely read Heated Rivalry as a standalone! I usually recommend reading Heated Rivalry > Role Model > The Long Game. The Long Game is a direct sequel to Heated Rivalry, and a must-read if you liked Heated Rivalry. Role Model occurs on a parallel timeline as TLG with another character on the same team so I find it a really fun, rich experience to read them back to back and see those different views of events.

Other people really enjoy the other books in the series, but I'll be honest that they're a bit hit or miss for me. They tend toward something a bit fluffier and sweeter and with a much slower, softer pace, and that's just generally not something I'm looking for in this genre.

You do get really fun cameos of the characters in Heated Rivalry throughout those other books, so that's nice, but I definitely skimmed through to the end of two of them because the narrative momentum just wasn't there for me. So I'd say give them a shot based on whether the relationship dynamics in the summary seem interesting to you, and if it's not hitting, those other three books can all work as standalones.

Ahh I'm so excited you're diving in! Happy reading ahead, PLEASE come yell at me about it!!

[alectoperdita]

Please know that whenever I have a horrible nasty angsty idea for a fic of any sort and I second guess myself writing it, I take inspiration and strength from you and make sure when I go back and edit i add more cum

A 'what would alecto do?' moment, if you will

Ahhhh Rowan! It makes me happy to have left an impression hahaha.

Sending you all the strength for when you tackle the editing.

And yes! There can always be more cum! Even if they're just sadly and miserably jerking off by themselves and dissociating in the shower or having unsatisfying sex with premature ejaculation, there can be more cum!

Lol.

[wreathedinscales]

right so your icon of Len makes it look like he's making that face at every post which is 11/10 perfect but I just saw the post with all the bats wrapped up and then there's Snart pulling that face looking at them and I nearly died thank you

Always happy to provide Les Smiles <3

[alectoperdita]

Hopping on the train, I *think* the first fic of yours I read was comfortable in our skin, and then I checked the rest of your work out and went into a dissociative state where I think I read through everything you'd written at the time in about 2 weeks. And the rest, as they say, is history!

Comfortable in our skin, my beloved! (Speaking of Kaiba becoming Obsessed with Jounouchi... hehe.)

Two weeks is an impressive speed to go through the back catalog of the time! Ahhh, thank you for continuing to support my silly stories, friend! <3

[alectoperdita]

Out of genuine curiosity, did the crowdstrike thing effect your job in any way or were your accursed computers spared?

No. The company I work for doesn't use Crowdstrike so last Friday was work as usual.

[erisenyo]

Just wanted to drop in to let you know that your jeeko fic has led me down a rabbit hole in the AO3 tag and I've been discovering some 10+ year old absolute bangers

You have no idea how genuinely delighted this makes me! There are SO many amazing fics down that rabbit hole, PLEASE feel free to tell me all about the ones you are loving I have some absolutely faves I am ALWAYS happy to talk about and ramble over!!

[alectoperdita]

I saw your post about Yakuza Fiance and decided to watch it for my laundry folding and you're right it slaps!!

You're reminding me I have to watch episode 2 and read the manga!!! (But uhhhh Metaphor eating up all my free time right now...)

And already thinking about the kaijou fusion where Jou is the fiance from Kansai hahaha. Kirishima is heavy on the Season 0/Lure!Kaiba vibe to me. But at least Jou has more of a fighting chance here (and can take a baseball bat to people when they cross him like Yoshino does).

[alectoperdita]

Gonna gush a little apropos of nothing tbh - I was a big ygo fan in in my teens despite never having properly watched DM ((for shame etcetera the abridged series took hold of my mid-pubescent mind and shook it like a rag-doll)), and at the time I was Big Into Thiefshipping. But having now watched the damn thing (dubbed for laughs but I'm seriously considering doing a full sub rewatch)

And for whatever reason (/obvious reasons) Kaiba and Jou just took me by the throat, and when I went on my little fic hunt on AO3 for kindling to fan the flames I found your fics. Your beautiful, wonderful fics.

I just love all your different AUs and your different takes on Kaiba and Jounouchi grafted into each universe. I think you have such a good handle on their characters and what makes them tick - in universes where they can be in love and in universes where they can be in self destructive obsession with one another and everything in between.

So I just wanted to say thanks for sharing them with the world <3

Embarrassing confession time: I took a while answering this one because I would periodically come back to my inbox and reread this message (you may imagine me giggling and twirling my hair as I do so). I hope you don't mind me replying in public so that I can save it for posterity. <3

Now onto the content of your message.

Your experience is not that uncommon. There was definitely a bit of a renaissance in the fandom in the early days of YGOTAS. It brought a lot of new people to the fandom. In a lot of ways, it was one of the biggest factors in sailing thiefshipping prevalently. As for me, I started out as a Kaiba/Shizuka shipper waaaaay back in the day (we're talking like 2002).

Kaiba and Jounouchi are going to be my favorites forever, though! I've jumped around to some other fandoms during the intervening years, but I always come back to these two. A big part of it is that I had very ambitious story ideas as a teenager, then young adult, that I failed to both execute and see through to the finish. It took literal decades but I've finally cultivated the skillset I wanted/needed to make those stories happen.

So I legit want to cry every time someone tells me that the fics also had an effect on them. Whether it entertained them or gave them a bit of joy. Yeah, I write for myself. But the rest, the editing and the agonizing and the formatting and the posting, that's me sharing something (perhaps egotistically so, a part of myself) with the world. So it's always gratifying to hear that it's been received somehow by someone. And that it had a positive impact.

Thank you for the message. I hope to keep sharing stories about these two for a while longer if y'all will have it. <3