GeorgeGlass

After fifteen months, 20 chapters, and 65,000+ words, In the Light of Day: A Frozen Epic is finally complete! My deepest thanks to everyone who has encouraged me with comments, upvotes, and advice. For those interested in the author notes, I have posted them in the story's review reply thread.

Author’s notes —The initial inspiration for this story came from two sources. The first, obviously, was the movie Frozen itself, which I watched out of curiosity in January 2015 when my cable company had a weekend of free access to the premium channels. I found the movie charming, visually impressive, and most importantly, unpredictable; I loved the way that it subverted some of the standard Disney-movie tropes to surprise you. The second source of inspiration, oddly, was a comment made by somebody on Tumblr about the lack of people of color in the movie. The comment reeked of political correctness, but it got me thinking about the various parts of the world that could be represented in this story—hence the various places of origin of the seven foreign princes. —The name Rajiv means “lotus flower.” It also contains the word “raj,” meaning “king.” —“Hjalmar” is an Old Norse name meaning “helmeted warrior.” Regarding the various kingdoms mentioned in the story: —“Sundara” and “Hermosa” mean “beautiful” in Hindi and Spanish, respectively. Sundara is based very loosely on Kerala, India’s southernmost state. — “Dianisia” means “blessed islands” in Greek. — “Mianyoka” means “a hundred snakes” in Swahili. — “Lainn” is a name I pulled out of the air because it sounded Gaelic, but it turns out that in Scottish Gaelic it means “of the sword.” — “Nordland” was simply meant to sound like some Scandinavian word for “north land.” Nordland is a fantasy stand-in for Sweden in the way that Arendelle is for Norway. —“Rekya” means nothing, to my knowledge; I just chose it because it sounded kind of Slavic. I also realized that I had originally spelled it “Rekja” in chapter 2; I went back and changed it to “Rekya,” which is the more phonetically logical spelling. The following notes are about specific chapters of the story. Warning: Spoilers! Chapter 3: The Love Goddess —On tvtropes.org, Hildy (introduced in this chapter) is cited as an example of the “All Women Are Lustful” trope. Chapter 4: The Snowman and the Falcon —This chapter’s title is a play on the title of the 1985 spy movie The Falcon and the Snowman. Chapter 7: The Trader —In this chapter, Kristoff mentions to Ajay that, on the fateful day of Elsa’s coronation, people kept bursting into song for no obvious reason; when Kristoff asks whether this ever happens where Ajay is from, the Sundaran sailor replies, “My boy, you have no idea.” This is meant as a reference to the popularity of movie musicals in India. —Shortly after Frozen was released in theaters, some homophobic nutjobs accused Disney of promoting “the gay agenda” in the movie because of the scene in which Oaken waves at several people—including an adult man—in the sauna, shouting, “Yoo hoo! Hi family!” (Never mind that Oaken never claims them as HIS family, or that there appears to be an adult woman in the sauna next to the man.) I rather liked the idea of Oaken having a husband and a bunch of adopted kids, so that’s how I wrote him. Thanks, nutjobs! Chapter 11: The Accountants —It is a complete coincidence that the chapter titled “The Accountants” is chapter 11 (the law that American corporations often use to file for bankruptcy). —On tvtropes.org, Anna’s bumping into the coffer that is supposedly filled with gold coins and almost knocking it over—thereby deducing that it can’t actually be full of gold—is mentioned as a subversion of the “Hollywood Density” trope, in which gold and other dense substances are often portrayed as being much lighter than they are in real life. —The horse-riding accident that Elsa and Anna's mother, Queen Iduna, describes in her letter to the Duke comes from my own experience. While on a ranch owned by an amateur rodeo rider, I was riding one of his retired rodeo horses in the ring, and when I nudged the horse to accelerate from a walk to a trot, it broke straight into a gallop instead and went charging toward the fence on the other side of the ring. I pulled back on the reins, the horse stopped abruptly, and I kept going and landed on the ground. Thankfully, the dirt in the ring was nice and soft (by design, I’m sure). —The quote “Good judgement comes from experience, and experience mostly comes from bad judgement” has been variously attributed to Rita Mae Brown, Will Rogers, Bob Packwood, and the Sufi Mullah Nasruddin, among others. Chapter 12: The Goatherd —Tomas’ name is a nod to Tom Canty, the impoverished boy who switches places with a lookalike prince in Mark Twain’s The Prince and the Pauper. Chapter 13: The Reindeer —Admiral Ostergard’s name was inspired by the name of Admiral Westergard, a character that appeared in an early draft of the script for Frozen. Westergard was written as Anna’s love interest but later morphed into the charming but sinister Prince Hans when the decision was made to make Elsa a sympathetic character instead of the villain. Frozen scriptwriter Jennifer Lee has said that (unofficially) Westergard remained Prince Hans’ last name, so I didn’t want to use that name for the admiral in this story. Instead, I exchanged “West” for “Ost”—the Norwegian word for “East.” —White irises are not poisonous. I completely made that up. Chapter 14: The Trolls —Anna’s growing powers of observation are a nod to the TV series Veronica Mars, whose mystery-solving title character was played by Kristen Bell, the voice of Anna. Chapter 15: The Duke —Greek fire was developed in the 7th century AD and was used as a weapon of war by the Byzantine Empire for three centuries. Thereafter, the formula was lost (although Leonardo da Vinci claimed to know it). Chapter 16: The Saboteur —The various fire-related puns Olaf makes to Tomas in this chapter were taken from a comment posted on Hentai Foundry by ThatGuyWithTheFace in response to the ending of chapter 9 (in which Rajiv bursts into flames). Because the comment was so spoilerrific, I asked him to take the comment down, which he kindly did. But I am happy to provide his full list of puns here: Guess someone's a little hot under the collar. Boy that Rajiv sure is a hot head. Does this mean that Rajiv has a hot temper? Things are heating up. Nothing like a heated argument. No wonder Rajiv has no interest in Elsa, he's flaming. Everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked. Sweet only two more elementals and then they can summon Captain Planet. Chapter 18: The Traitors —Royal sommelier Jean-Pierre mentions two wines in the castle’s wine cellar that he is determined to protect from being guzzled by the Dianisian invaders: the ‘38 Menzelle and the ‘51 Chateau d’Ehstiffe. “Menzelle” is an homage to Idina Menzel, the voice of Elsa in Frozen. “d’Ehstiffe” is a phonetic nod to my friend and beta reader Eh Steve. Chapter 20: The Ice-Man —Throughout the story, I made an effort to make Baron Herringholtz alternately sympathetic and suspicious. In the end, though, the needle-nosed Herringholtz is confirmed to be a good guy, because I wanted to subvert the “Attractive people are good, ugly people are evil” trope in the same way that Frozen itself does. —Baron Herringholtz wears a red jacket throughout the story because he is, ultimately, a red herring. Epilogue —This is the first story of mine to conclude with the words “THE END.” Because Disney.

No, but it's not entirely unexpected, either. Any ideas about how to fix it more quickly? I tried cutting the text of a chapter, pasting it into Word, using Find/Replace to replace each set of four line breaks with two, and then pasting it back into the text box and uploading it, but that was about as efficient as it sounds.

I suppose there's always the generic "appendage," maybe with an adjective or two attached ("ropy appendage," "tubular appendage").

Sweet! Thanks, JP. (Definitely missing that Like button now.)

I've just realized that in most or all of the stories and chapters that I posted in about the second half of last year, the paragraph spacing is now huge. That is, it appears that two extra line breaks were added between every paragraph. This wasn't the case when these stories and chapters were first uploaded. Is there anything to be done apart from my going back and fixing them all manually?

Oooh, I like those. My wife squeaks, too. It's kind of adorable.

One thing I often find myself needing are verbs that describe the way someone speaks during sex. Here are the ones I typically use; maybe you have others? Begged Breathed Cried Gasped Grunted Hollered Moaned Panted Pleaded Rasped Screamed Shouted Whimpered Whined Yelled

LOL. It's like the Japanese guy who used to write English-language stereo instructions became a librettist.

Angmir, First, thanks for turning me on to Amnimal's stories. I'm most of the way through "Mom! Luke Keeps Touching Me!" and I'm finding it very hot. Second, I rarely miss an opportunity to toot my own horn, so below is a list of several straight shota stories I've posted here on AFF. --George A Day at the Beach A shapely mom and her 10-year-old son enjoy themselves at a nude beach that is unusually family-friendly. Anal, COMPLETE, HJ, Inc, M/F, Minor1, Minor2, Oral, PWP, Voy Satisfaction A mother and her son and daughter find that their personal issues have a common solution—expressing their hidden feelings for one another. Anal, Bi, COMPLETE, Exhib, F/F, Fingering, HJ, Inc, M/F, Minor1, Oral, Voy Keene's Really Good Week In a world where birthrates are at a dangerous low, Sexual Education is a very serious subject. Good thing 10-year-old Keene is such a good student. Anal, COMPLETE, Fingering, HJ, Inc, M/F, Minor1, Oral A Beach Like No Other A neglected boy gets lost—and found—on the beach. Inspired by the artwork of Glassfish (http://www.theglassfishbowl.com/). 3Plus, Anal, Bi, COMPLETE, F/F, Fingering, HJ, M/F, Minor1, Oral Excuses A boy and his older sister, aroused by the sounds of their parents’ passionate coupling, talk each other into some very unsafe sex. COMPLETE, HJ, Inc, M/F, Minor1, Minor2, Oneshot, Preg Mommy’s Home After returning from a long business trip, a loving single mother spends some quality time with her uniquely gifted young son. (mother/son incest, straight shota, hyper, preg risk) Bi, COMPLETE, F/F, Inc, M/F, Minor1, Oneshot, Preg, PWP Guidelines A new type of human male is emerging—one driven by instinct to achieve dominance over the females in their lives. These guidelines are for women whose young sons may be of this type, to prepare them for the radical changes ahead. Anal, BDSM, Beast, COMPLETE, Contro, D/s, Dom, F/F, Humil, Inc, M/F, M/M, Minor1, Minor2, Oneshot, Oral, Preg, Rape, S&M, TF, Voy

I'm a big believer in the notion that limitations bring out the best in a writer. That definitely includes limitations on length. The part that confused me was that he was already dead but could die again immediately (ie, without being resurrected/reincarnated on Earth first). Now I think I get it: This was a sort of second (or third) life on a different plane, and after his very short stay there, he goes to his permanent afterlife.

Really missing that Like button right now. "Star's Crossed Lovers" is very clever and seems particularly apt because Star's ex, Tom, plays an important role in the story. Thank you!

I'm resurrecting this thread to solicit title ideas for a story I'm working on: A Star Vs. the Forces of Evil fanfic in which Star and Marco make a pact to be each other's wingmen in their efforts to get with Oskar and Jackie, respectively, and they make a four-step plan for doing so. A recurring theme of the story is that Star and Marco value their friendship just as much as they do their nascent romantic relationships. I've been trying to come up with a title that captures those elements, but no luck so far. Any suggestions?

Re: "Quiet" Thank you! The story was translated from cave drawings, so some liberties may have been taken with the language.

Re: "Quiet" Thank you! I always love to hear that a reader liked something I wrote even though it's not her usual thing. Part of the reason why I set the story in prehistory was that I wanted the language to be relatively simple and direct. But I also didn't want to use the stereotypical "caveman" tropes of men dragging women home by the hair, the strongest being in charge, etc. I figured that the various tribal, Stone Age societies that survived into the 19th and 20th centuries (when people could make lasting records of their existence) had all kinds of different social structures, and I didn't see that being any less true a hundred thousand years ago. So Paa comes from a culture where it's okay to be the kind of person you describe. I have a fetish, if you will, about people who belong together and who are drawn to each other regardless of how inappropriate their relationship may seem to others. Coming from you, that means an awful lot. Thank you.

To put a less masochistic spin on it: If you're interested in writing fanfiction, then think about the stories told in the fandom you're interested in and then consider what might be missing. Is there a conversation that you think two characters should have had but didn't? Is there a plot hole you've thought of a way to fill? Is there something that you always hoped would happen but didn't? Remember that what you write doesn't need to be a twenty-chapter epic: Readers like a good vignette, too.

I, too, think that Giles would save Buffy rather than Willow, for several reasons: --As dafdes pointed out, Giles, being a Watcher, has a commitment to Buffy that he doesn't have to Willow. --Giles is a rational guy. To his knowledge in S2-4, saving Willow means saving one person; saving Buffy, on the other hand, means saving everyone whom she will save in the future. And NOT saving her doesn't mean the coming of another Slayer, because Buffy's already had her replacement (Kendra). --Giles believes that Buffy is an especially gifted Slayer. (From Nightmares: " I've failed... in my duty to protect you. I should have been more... cautious. Taken more time to train you. But you were so gifted. And the evil was so great.") Even if Buffy would be replaced by another Slayer after she dies, that Slayer probably wouldn't be as capable as Buffy. So saving Buffy still means saving additional lives. --Giles is emotionally closer to Buffy than to Willow, so if it came to a split-second judgment, he might save Buffy for that reason alone. --Buffy's name is in the title of the show.

Re: "Guidelines" Yeah, that's one of my fetishes, too. I mean, obviously. I wanted it to seem a bit real, like something a doctor or scientist might actually write (but publish anonymously to avoid ruining his or her professional reputation). I had intended for "Guidelines" to be a one-shot story, but a while back I got the idea to write an "appendix" that would be a transcript of an interview with the mother of a dominant boy. I've written quite a bit of it now, so hopefully I'll be posting it (as a second chapter of "Guidelines") in the near future. Thanks for the review!

I'm embarrassed not to have an answer for this--not even in Spanish, the only living language I've ever seriously studied, and possibly the language best suited for this kind of thing.