Colddeadqueer - Colddeadqueer

Six-Sentence Sunday

This is from chapter 5 of They Get Married, which will be published today or tomorrow! Dev reveals some interesting information at the stag party…

“Dev, thinking about kissing your male friends is bloody well gay,” I say.

“No it isn’t!” Dev argues. “Everyone thinks about kissing their mates sometimes.”

I’m speechless. What the fuck?

“Like, you don’t actually wanna kiss your mate because you’re not gay. But you think about it sometimes, like if you were both hammered.”

“One kiss, and you think the world is upside down.”

“Two kisses,” I say. And I take him by the back of his neck.

—From Chapter 62, Carry On by Rainbow Rowell.

ThWIP Thursday (sorry!)

2025.04.23 - 2024.05.01

A collection of the WIP fics that have posted in the last week.

Beautiful Roaring Scream [E, 1/6] by @rimeswithpurple / RimesWithPurple

A Change Would Do You Good* [T, 3/?] by Dumb_Bitch_Writes

Distance* [T, 4/?] by CRML

Do you miss us? [T, 10/11] by Magicaleigh

fin de siècle. [T, 6/7] by @ninemagicks / NineMagicks

For That Stolen Heart [T, 15/?] by Loserlovely

Hapless Supernova [M, 9/?] by BBirdy, @theearlgreymage / EarlGreyMage

In Sickness and In Baz [NR, 4/10] by TaylorSims

Picket Fence Is Sharp As Knives [E, 8/?] by @prettygoododds / PrettyGoodOdds

Right Where You Left Me [M, 5/?] by @waywardlesbian / waywardlesbian

Rising at Dawn [T, 5/?] by iamwheretheseasleeps

The Salisbury Boy [E, 8/20] by @alleycat0306 / alleycat0306

They Get Married. [E, 4/12 ] by @colddeadqueer / colddeadqueer

*Multiple chapters posted this week.

Carry on Through the Ages fics.

They Get Married. Chapter 5: The Stag Party.

Summary: Stag Party in Margate! Baz and Simon deal with some of the more realistic parts of sex, Dev’s acting weird, and Baz experiments with fashion.

This chapter was so fun to write, I hope you enjoy it! Happy Pride! 🏳️‍🌈

I hope every trans person is proud of themselves today. Even if you are not in a place where you can be visible to others, you are visible to yourself.

And being able to see yourself for who you are is no small accomplishment.

Six-Sentence Sunday: They Get Married.

Hello all! I am currently working on and finishing up Chapter 4 of "They Get Married." Here's an excerpt of a scene featuring some steamy cooking ;)

“I want you to make Cook Pritchard’s roast beef and Yorkshire pudding,” I purred, before adding with a smirk: “wearing nothing but an apron.”

Which is how I ended up sitting at the kitchen table, admiring Baz’s beautiful pale arse as he tenderises steak in a frilly pink apron. “You know, I finally understand why it’s called mooning,” I say, slowly sipping on a cider. Baz looks back at me, one eyebrow arched, and I can’t help but snicker. “Have something to say about my arse, Snow?” “Oh, of course not, never!” I gasp, feigning offence. “Watching my favourite thing to eat prepare my favourite meal? I’m living the dream!”

I think the reason why Baz is still very pale is bc he’s canonically only 1/8 Egyptian and bc he’s a vampire and lives in England, he doesn’t get very much sun, hence the lack of melanin. When he goes to America in Wayward Son it says that his skin gets darker.

As someone who’s also 1/8 brown… I’m not biracial or a POC. I’m white. I look white. I have dark hair and dark eyes and I tan, but I am pretty pale bc I don’t spend much time outside (and I live in a place with a much higher UV index than England). I was also much more tan when I was little and got paler as I got older, which could explain why Baz’s skin was darker as a child.

But yeah I’m sorry to break it to y’all. I think it’s cool to have AU Baz as a POC but it’s just not canon :/

I know baz is supposed to be like pale cause vampire and stuff (actually idk if that's the reason but whatever( BUT. I used to have a huuuuge hyperfixation over vampires when I was younger and let me tell you. His melanin wouldn't have gotten sucked out. In this essay, I will be ignoring the canon and doing what I like. Infact, I was doodling little baz a while ago and

Hear ye hear ye my child

Idk. I just can't get behind the paleness 🫩🫩🫩🫩🫩🫩🫩🫩

AO3 Stats & Notifications

One (1) person said this would be interesting so here's a post about what AO3 authors can see about their works and what they get notified for.

What authors get notified for:

comment on a fic

EDIT on a comment (some of u edit like 16 times and it is very sweet. I get an email every time)

Response to a comment

Request to join a collection (note: don't do this. collection owners have a lot of power over fic and should only be used for specific reasons and not to create a collection of fic you enjoy. that's what bookmark collections are for)

Gift

Related work notification

Daily kudos email. The daily kudos email shows all the kudos of the previous day in an order that makes sense to the ao3 database and not to human eyes.

The only bit of this that is clickable is the title of the fic. I can click into the profile of a nice user if I navigate to the fic and then go to the bottom where the kudos are displayed.

Things authors do not get notified for:

subscription to a fic or author

ending a subscription

deleting a comment

creating a bookmark

a fic view (if you visit a fic twenty times, no one knows that but your isp and your browser history and you)

Now here's what authors can see about their fic under the cut because more screenshots

The first thing an author can see is something everyone can see, and that's who left a public bookmark

If you click on the number next to bookmarks you can see this. And each username is clickable to see the other things they have bookmarked or written (side note, this is the best way to find other fic to read)

The author can also see the note a reader leaves on a public bookmark.

Please note that authors don't get a notification for this and I don't look at them (screenshot proving me a liar) so you aren't guaranteed to be seen by the author. If you like that last nice user want the author to know it stuck with them, you gotta leave a comment.

But there are also private bookmarks! And private bookmarks are, as the name sounds like, private. However. On the statistics page for each fic the author gets a little more information.

Here is the statistics page:

This can be selected to by year and the numbers will change EXCEPT user subscriptions. User subscriptions shows the current state of subscriptions. And since authors don't get a notification of number go up or down, they won't know when it's changed unless they are tracking it. Additionally there is no way to see who has subscribed. So you can subscribe to whoever you like or unsubscribe at any time and that is between you, the ao3 database, your ISP tracking your history, and your email client. But the author doesn't know. You are released from any social obligation to stay subscribed or any embarrassment you might have. Go forth.

See? Here is 2024 and it has the same number of users.

Also fun fact, the word count shows fic FINISHED in that year. I wrote a 90k fic that straddled 2024 and 2025 and the full word count for that is tracked on the 2025 page.

anyway back to info.

I can scroll down on this and get a bit more information on each fic.

Here I can see the number of people who have subscribed to a fic - but not who they are. I can also see the TOTAL NUMBER of bookmarks including private bookmarks.

Compare contrast:

The public listing shows 47 bookmarks, the statistics page listing shows 127. On average, most fics have about half of their bookmarks private.

I can't see who made those extra bookmarks, just that they exist.

Also on the statistics page the comments are shown as the number of threads instead of the total number. I always reply to comments so the thread count is a more accurate reflection of how many people left a comment.

So to sum up, what authors can see if they investigate:

username on a public bookmark and any note left

the total number of bookmarks

the total number of subscriptions to themselves right now

the number of subscriptions on a fic

hits

“He still looks like something I want to eat.”

Never not thinking about all of them, honestly. Even so many books away from them.