painted_whiskey began almost two years ago after the disaster that was The Little Tig That Couldn’t™ when I was still fairly new to the Lotrips fandom.
ditchwitchbitch and I decided to try and write together, which was a first for me, and it was, to say the least, not easy. I quickly found that I was crap at tigging (and still am), so after a frustrating couple of months, Kerry had the idea of RPing. I really wish I still had the email from her with the list of RP ideas. Initially, I think there were four or five, and somehow, this story came about.
In the beginning, we intended to write Monaboyd with no real plans for other pairings, but as we went on writing, Andy and Elijah came together, and much later, Orlando and Sean, and I think the story is better for it. So many of you have told us that you came for the Monaboyd, but that you ended up loving the other pairings as well, and that makes me really happy. I don’t think the story would have been nearly as long or interesting or good without the many other characters that have appeared in it.
We’ve always maintained that we wrote this for ourselves - we took a few real people and turned them into characters that sort of took on lives of their own, and we had fun doing it. So much time and effort and laughter and tears went into this, and I think we ended up with something of which we can be proud. Yes, it’s just fanfiction, but it’s ours and we love it. At the same time, it’s wonderful that other people enjoyed it as well, cheering on our characters, getting mad at them, laughing at them… it’s just fantastic. I appreciate everyone who has read this - those that have been here since the beginning, those who discovered us after a hundred or two hundred posts and had to catch up, and even those who stopped reading. We did this for ourselves, for fun, but knowing that there are other people who have enjoyed it as well makes me happy.
So I guess this is the end. (You know, apart from the epilogue over at
pw_future. *g*) I just wanted to say thank you - to Kerry for being the best co-writer I will probably ever have, and to everyone who has read and loved this story. I’m really rather crap at these sorts of things, so… thank you. ♥