My thank yous for the exchange
Yes, I know it's coming a bit late - this exchange, everything I do seems to be woefully belated - but now that the reveals have been up for a while, I wanted to take the time to express my gratitude to a couple of people. This round, I haven't been able to read much and thus, sadly, have not been able to appreciate the readers and artists as I would have liked to do and as they deserve; so, for me, the little I was able to do and enjoy is all the more significant, and I want to thank the people who made that happen.
So, firstly, I want to thank the mods of sshg_exchange for, once again, pulling out the stops to bring us such a successful round of the exchange; I may not have been able to follow it but it has clearly been a whooping success with an amazing array of talent on offer. Without you guys doing all the organising (which I do not envy you one bit!), us fangirls would not have this awesome platform and the world would, frankly, be a much shittier place. So, thank you. More personally, thank you very much for being understanding and giving me extensions when I asked for them, repeatedly, instead of kicking my backside and telling me to shove off. And a special thank you to shiv5468 for taking pity on my poor beta-less existence way back when and procuring me a super-human beta - it really made my story. :)
And now, I want to thank three very awesome people...
droxy - who not only chose my absolute favourite prompt but also gifted me both fic AND art, making me the gleeful-est gleeful exchange recipient there ever was. Dudes, I got fic and art!!! :D If anyone reading this hasn't read/admired it yet (I'm sure others are behind on the exchange too?), then please please do go over to read Reward for the Return of a Missing Dog as soon as possible. Droxy came up with an absolutely ingenious, cracking idea to incorporate the wizarding world with the mythical world of Hades and Persephone; the fic is squeesomely cute, and the idea of Snape in the Elysian fields is very satisfying to say the least. But most of all, I'd very much like to thank droxy for getting Snape into that gorgeous... slightly sheer... tunic, a gift for all fangirls to be sure. ;) Her art is wondrous to behold, genuinely an impressive vision of the Underworld. And to top it all, finding out that a friend had worked carefully and thoughtfully to create it all was just even more awesome - I'm genuinely very grateful for it, droxy. *Massive bear hug*
mundungus42 - who is quite honestly one of the amazing-est people I've had the pleasure to interact with. I can't express properly just how thankful I am to her - as I said in my author's note, my fic owes her a huge life debt. I genuinely meant everything I said there and I don't want to repeat it word for word (despite wanting to), but without her, the fic would definitely not exist as it does. Thank you for investing so much time and effort into my work, for giving me such gloriously detailed feedback, for bouncing ideas with me so consistently and so cleverly(!), and for corresponding so well with me, especially at a time I know you were super super busy (are you ever not? :P). You didn't have to, but that you did, I shall be forever grateful. I was extremely fortunate to have landed you as a beta (I almost feel sorry for everyone who has not had the luck to work with you ;D), and only hope that sometime in the future, my lucky stars will shine down kindly on me and I will have the pleasure of working with you again. You are a hero among gods, make no mistake of that!
Now would be a good time to say that my contribution to this year's exchange was A Prince's Tale, a story which became much longer than I had anticipated, and which ended up having more plottish elements than anything I've written before, so go me. Major thank you to all those who have read it, and especially to those wonderful reviewers -I appreciate all your thoughts and comments immensely, and it gives me great, great pleasure to hear from you. Also, a shout out to pearle9240, who, completely unprompted, made a fantastic icon for the story. From the little I have seen of the exchange, it is clear that she has been making them for everyone, which is just mind-bogglingly awesome.Thank you so so much for your generosity - this is first visual token I have for any of my work, so I appreciate it greatly. All of us fangirls should probably endeavour to be more like her really.
And last but not least I would like to thank tophoenix (whose prompt challenged me to go beyond the gratuitous, slightly cracky fic I would probably have ended up writing), who was an absolutely wonderful, wonderful recipient, and whose words in response were not only very generous but also truly humbling and truly inspiring. <3