Acknowledgements, Notes, and Announcements

Well, my dear readers, we have once more come to the end of another long story, one that became far longer than I had ever planned or intended. But I don't mind that. I was a joy for me to write—and hopefully for you to read—and I wouldn't trade all the time put into this for the world. I never expected a story about a pairing between Darkstalker and Indigo to become so popular, and I thank you all from the bottom of my heart for taking the time to read and support this story.

Now, like I did with my last long-form story, I just want to take a moment and do some acknowledgements, notes, and announcements here at the end of things. Nothing too fancy, mainly just thanking some people, talking about ideas around the story, and discussing where I'll be going from here. If you're interested in all of that, I invite you to keep reading.

Acknowledgements:

First off, I'd like to dedicate this story to my sister-in-law (who shall be unnamed for online anonymity). If you ever get around to reading Wings of Fire like I recommended and then read my stories, I hope this will bring a smile to your face. If not, then I guess I wasted a dedication.

Second, I suppose I should give a thank you to fellow fanfic writer AdmiralCole22. He was the one who said that a Darkstalker x Indigo ship would never work well. I begged to differ, and this story was the result. Hopefully this means I proved him wrong.

Thirdly, I just want to give a big thank you to everyone who took a time to everyone who favorited and followed the story, and especially those of you who took the time to write a review. Fanfiction is a passion project, and getting feedback and knowing one's work is appreciated is one of the most encouraging things for authors like myself. There's always a sense of excitement at seeing the review counter go up and eagerly checking to see what someone thought about the story. What I'm trying to say is that your support is a big part of what keeps me writing, so thank you.

Notes:

So, I actually don't have too much to say in terms of fun facts or ideas that didn't make it into the story. That's mainly because I really did all that I wanted to for this one and didn't leave too much out, but there are a few things that you might find interesting…

- For a while, towards the first half of the story, I planned for Wharf to try to kill Fathom on orders of Queen Pearl. This would be part of the reason he never goes back to the Sea Kingdom at the end, and is also why Wharf is almost never present when the guards are mentioned and Lionfish is always the one doing guard stuff when Indigo isn't. The idea would be that Wharf was being in contact with Pearl, and when they realized Fathom couldn't convince Darkstalker to give up magic, the solution was to off both animuses. But in the end I didn't really find a way to make it work without feeling shoehorned in, and don't think the plot actually needed it to happen for Fathom to go off with Clearsight in the end.

- Speaking of Fathom going off with Clearsight, I know that some of you were wanting or were at least curious at the possibility of a Fathom x Clearsight ship. While that was never going to be a focus of this story, I did try to make the ending with them going off together a kind of opening of the door to that possibility. Perhaps they do become a couple down the line, perhaps they always remain just friends. And perhaps if I return to this AU in the future, I'll actually decide one way or the other. For now, feel free to choose whichever option you prefer for your headcanon.

- I just want to go on record saying that Whiteout is very difficult to write. Seriously. Probably my hardest dialogue to come up with in the whole story was hers.

- I also want to say that having different PoVs that don't have a specific pattern to them is kinda hard. There were some chapters that I felt I should have done from Darkstalker's perspective but didn't because I felt Indigo needed to have a her PoV seen again. It's kind of a delicate balance that I hope I did well enough, even if there are many more Darkstalker chapters than Indigo ones.

- Originally, the whole plot with Diamond and ending the war was intended to be a smaller thing that wouldn't take up as much time, kind of just putting a bow on Darkstalker and Indigo's relationship. Suffice to say it got bigger than intended, but I personally think it was for the better.

That's pretty much all I had for this one. If I think of any more, I might go back and add them in, but there really wasn't much I ended up planning but cutting, nor is there much I want to specifically call attention to.

Announcements:

So, the big question that probably one or two of you are asking is this: Where do I (Firehawk1100) go from here with such a large project over? Well, to answer that question, I do plan to continue writing fanfiction, and I do have many—perhaps too many—stories that I hope to do eventually. Even as I write this I have a few in development that have called away from this one and are partially responsible for the slower updates in the latter half of this fic. Now, I don't want to announce a whole slew of projects that I will never actually get to (like what happened the last time I did one of these, even if several of those projects are ones I still want to do eventually), but I do want to give all my loyal readers a glimpse at what to expect in the coming months.

To begin, I might be a little quiet for a while now that this larger project is over. I don't plan to stop writing, but I won't be churning out updates. Now that I don't have a major project looming, I want to relax for a little bit. There is an exception to this: my story One Single Night, which will probably get updated a little more frequently now that there is less vying for my writing attention. But those chapters tend to be shorter and easier for me to get out when I find the time to sit down and focus on them.

In terms of doing a sequel or continuation of Different Threads, I do have an idea or two for something I'd like to do. But it wouldn't be nearly as long as this story was. Perhaps I'll return to this universe for a longer story or two later, but more now I'm content to move on.

Other than that, I have a few shorter-form stories that I want to spend some time working on. Not necessarily one-shots, but not 100k-200k word novels either. Just some nice tales that I can relax and work on with relatively low stress. Most of which will also be set in the same universe as my story Reunion.

I will say that I am planning for my next long-form fanfic to be a story called "Technically [not] an Icewing". It will be an AU that starts about halfway through Winter Turning, and which will feature Moonwatcher in a…unique predicament. One that will allow her to accompany Winter to the Ice Kingdom, and which will change more than a few things about book 7, and the whole of arc 2. And, of course, it will be Winterwatcher. So, keep an eye out for that if it sounds like something you'd be interested in.

And with that, we are well and truly at the end. Once again, thank you all for giving this story a read. I hope I'll see you all in the next story, and until then…

May your wings carry you to greater heights,

-Firehawk1100