Rye was straight, and no matter how pretty I thought he was, I couldn't change that. So I'd learned to get over it, and love him as my best friend instead, the feelings that were there carefully stored away... But now all of that meticulous work was...
Thank you guys so much for reading this book and sticking with me through all the craziness that's been going on in the world and with the band. This has been my biggest fanfic project to date and I'm really proud of it. It drew a lot from my own experiences with things like drugs and musical theatre and self discovery and, though the future is uncertain in this fandom right now, I'm glad I could end on a book like this one. I don't have a ton of followers and can never get in the charts (I'll never understand wattpad) so considering that, the comments and votes I do get from the same loyal people everyday seriously like makes my day, so thank you so much for making uploading a satisfying experience.
I have a couple things to say: first of all- for anyone who's interested, I made a playlist for the book! I actually created a whole new Spotify account to make it so I could share it with you guys as well if you wanna listen. It has all the chapter songs as well as the Dear Evan Hansen tunes mentioned and some bonus tracks that I wanted as chapters but didn't fit. So it's a mixed bag but search it up if you're interested.
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The next thing I wanna talk about is the future of this account. It's something I've been thinking a lot about as I don't wanna stop writing about the boys yet just because the band is over. It'll be less frequent for a little while (I just kinda need a break after smashing this book out), but I'll still pop in with the odd one shot or chapter in my other book here and there. It'll stay mostly AU from now on as well. I don't have a desire at this point to switch fandoms, I've written a bit of Harry Potter fic before but never really delved into the 1D stuff that I expect a lot of people will be turning to, but who knows, that could change depending on what I end up reading. So if you're interested at all in more of my writing, there will definitely still be something going on on this account.
The last thing I wanna say is kinda sappy and personal but as this is the last big project I'll do for a while and with everything that's happened, I've been reflecting a lot on what writing on here has done for me over the past year or so, as an adult and someone who intends to make a career in writing in one form or another.
So when I was 14/15 I was massively into the One Direction fandom as well as Harry Potter from a much younger age and all that good shit. Yet during that time, I never got into fanfic. I thought it was cringe and all the writers were shit, and I- someone who intended to be a "real writer" didn't want to associate. Well you only have to take a brief look at the RT fandom alone on here to see those stereotypes couldn't be further from the truth. When I was young I didn't know this but I wish I did.
Fanfic historically has always been a haven for queer people who didn't see their stories represented in mainstream media. It was their way of rebelling against a world that didn't want to acknowledge their love and sexuality as valid, rewriting existing stories and creating their own narratives where queerness was celebrated. I struggled a ton with my own sexuality in my late teens, and despite being a progressive woke person I dealt with toxic amounts of internalised homophobia that really hurt some of my early relationships and my mental health. That's why I deal with that theme a lot in my writing, because people think it's impossible for a person who's not homophobic to not accept themselves as queer- na that shit's ingrained. Deep. Positive representation of queer relationships in the media fights those ingrained prejudices so many people carry. On top of that, it's fun, it's sex-positive in a way that the porn industry just unfortunately isn't. And it gets young writers writing. Even if a lot of stuff out there does fit that cringe stereotype, everyone has to start somewhere, and what better place to do it than in a positive and accepting community of writers? It's helped me a lot now, and I think it could have helped me a ton more if I hadn't listened to the haters and embraced it at an earlier time of my life.
So yeah. I don't know how long I'll continue writing fanfic in this fandom but I'll always be grateful for the impact it had on me even if I found it too late. You will absolutely see my stuff out there again (you may just not know it's me 😉). I was in a hole creatively when I started my first book and now I'm at the point where I'm writing everyday. I have RoadTrip and fanfic to thank for that.
So no ragretz. Love you all. Keep reading and writing.
❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
(7 hearts for 7 boys who accidentally stole my heart when I clicked on that YouTube video of them kissing each other at 4am one night)
