𝑨 𝑫𝑹𝑬𝑨𝑴 𝑰𝑺 𝑨 𝑾𝑰𝑺𝑯 𝒀𝑶𝑼𝑹 𝑯𝑬𝑨𝑹𝑻 𝑴𝑨𝑲𝑬𝑺

𝑻𝑯𝑨𝑵𝑲 𝒀𝑶𝑼

I'm going to start this off with a little anecdote, if you all don't mind:

On July 31, 2015, I was ten-years-old and spending the summer with my grandma, and I had been super restless the whole day. Since they had been advertising it, I was super excited for this new Disney Channel movie coming out called 'Descendants'.

IDK if you've heard of it or not.

Anyways, I was super excited because I was already a die-hard Ever After High fan(something that has not changed at all, BTW), and I already had a feeling I would love Descendants because why wouldn't I? I was getting nervous as the day went on because my grandma had been running a bunch of errands all day and it was getting closer to when Descendants was going to be on, and then she got Burger King for dinner because she didn't feel like cooking, which was great, but terrified me because my grandma doesn't trust little kids with food in her guest room and I knew she would never let me eat my dinner in there so I could watch Descendants on that room's TV, and I had no idea how to work the one in the living room.

Needless to say, ten-year-old me was having a little bit of a mental breakdown.

However, I am the first daughter/niece/granddaughter/etc, and I was(for lack of a better term) the 'good child' in the family, so my begging worked fairly quickly. My grandma let me sit at the desk she had in that room and eat my dinner there so I would still be able to watch the movie. So, that night, I sat down, waited for the Disney Channel countdown to end, and spent an hour and 52 minutes watching what would become arguably one of my longest running hyper fixations.

(Disney had a knack for making stuff like that for me. Don't even get me started on Girl Meets World.)

At that point in my life, I was also well-aware of what fanfiction was and I knew that I wanted to be an author. Then the ideas just started pouring in; storylines with the daughter of the Queen of Hearts, another Hook sibling, the daughter of Yzma, Uma's younger sister, a FMC that was heavily inspired by Cerise Hood from Ever After High and her family, you name it. I even had a Parent Trap type story planned where Mal had an estranged sister that was raised by Hades. I've also never seen The Parent Trap, btw.

Then, I came up with this story.

Except, not really.

This might come as a surprise, but this story was not, in any way, supposed to divulge from canon in the drastic ways it did. At its inception, I had the idea of a girl named Danielle(Dani for short), who dedicated her entire life to protecting her little sister, Dizzy. She gets picked to go to Auradon, plot to steal the wand, blah, blah, blah. Classic Descendants fic formula. Now, I had been sitting on this idea in particular since I was at least 11 or 12 years old, but I took forever to actually write it, which gave it a lot of time to evolve, especially since I read the first Descendants book in that time.

At first, Dani would have just taken Mal's place in the OG Descendants plot, and she'd go back to the Isle in book 2 to save Dizzy.

Then, I became a whore for angst, so the plot turned into 'Dani falls in love with Ben, but Ben is with Mal by the end of the first movie(but he still feels something for Dani that he just can't place), so Dani is just heartbroken and decides to go save her sister by herself.' A typical 'she loved him too early, he loved her too late' type of thing.

Then, I started watching Shameless and was like 'damn. I love Fiona Gallagher with every fiber of my being. I'm gonna use some of her character elements.' So, I decided to incorporate some book characters and make up a few more. Then I decided to include the lore of all three Cinderella movies because that trilogy is a banger and those last two movies did not deserve straight-to-DVD sequels.

And the cycle continued like that for a while, with me constantly adding and reworking things. Finally, on a random morning during homeroom in the second semester of my junior year in high school, I decided 'what the hell' and just started writing. Did I have an outline? No. I'm more of a freeform writer; I have a broad idea of what I want to happen in the beginning, middle, and end of the story, but that's it. Other than that, I just write and see where I end up.

This might come as another surprise, and you are all going to be so thankful this didn't happen, but this book was not supposed to end the way it did. The brand mark Delphina got in chapter 14 was meant to be a much longer, key point of the plot. And......

Delphina was going to have an emotional downward spiral and push Ben away, and he was going to stay with Mal. And that would've been the end of book one.

But, my writing got away from me like it always does, so I had to scrap that idea. You're welcome.

And now, here we are. Two years, 53 chapters, over 250,000 words, 300,000 reads, and one concerningly long Google Doc later, this book is finally finished, and I could not be more grateful for each and every single one of you. Before, I always had a problem with actually following through with any of the stories I wrote on here. I would always write a few chapters, then lose motivation and delete the whole thing. I didn't have the heart to do that with this fic, which is why I just vanished for two months instead.

Again, sorry about that.

But even when I stopped writing, you guys stayed. For two years, you stuck with this story and you engaged with every update, and I am forever thankful for each and every one of you. In my mind, Descendants was something that I would always love, but I was convinced that as I got older, the audience would shrink and get more and more niche. I was prepared to just get a handful of engagement with this story, then move on.

But the overwhelming love and support you all have given this story is beyond anything I could ever imagine. This story has always held a special place in my heart, and you all helped amplify that by at least a million times.

I don't think I will ever be able to truly encapsulate how grateful I am for the love you've shown this story and the love you plan on showing the next two books, but thank you, thank you, thank you from the bottom of my heart for sticking with this story from beginning to end. You all might, and I mean MIGHT make me rethink my book three Belphina kiss ruling.

I love you all, and I will see you soon for book two. Unless you're a Grey's Anatomy fan, then I'll see you for Pink Megalodon!

I'm also trying to work out the kinks for either a Klaus Mikaelson story or a Damon Salvatore, so you know...keep an eye out for that if you can ;)

Oh, and also: I've mentioned Disney a lot in this for obvious reasons, but I wholeheartedly want to remind you all to give that stupid-ass mouse company and their bullshit IOF donation a big ol' 'fuck you'. Bob Iger can choke, eat the rich, and Free Palestine! There are links on my profile for ways you can help, and I'm always reposting videos on my TikTok that help provide plenty of info!

Once again, I love and adore all of you, thank you so much, and I will see you soon!