Hey there!

‘A Joytoy’s Journey to become a Hive-Queen’ (or ‘A young Lady’s Journey to become a Hive-Queen’ for all the Royal Road readers) Volume 1 is finally done. And oh boy, what a trip that was.

When I first started to write Joytoy in March of 2024, I only had a rough idea for what I wanted, just trying to get more SCS with my SCS. It was my first contact with the fanfiction community, with ‘Teddy Bears on Brigade’ and ‘Tinea and Leah’ being the first ever fanfictions I properly read. It kind of opened my eyes to it all, and damn am I glad I did.

The first draft of Joytoy was 103k words long, and only in broad strokes resembles the story as it is now. Many, many details changed over time, from the way the relationship works, the way the Hive-Mind works, the Hexclaws, and a whole host of things that weren’t even a consideration in the first draft.

Hell, originally Jenna was supposed to be a throwaway character kekW How far we’ve come!

Now Joytoy sits at roughly 310k with its first Volume. I know that’s far more than most stories are, and while I personally prefer to read something longer, I’ll probably cut that down into more sizable chunks later.

I am aware that the latter chapters are a bit behind in terms of quality compared to the rest, and I apologise for it. Typically I don’t want to push chapters out just to push them out, but with Joytoy I felt I actually had to finish it for once. So far none of the stories I wrote ever got finished, and I felt like if I stopped now, I’d never get there. Sometimes you gotta put up or shut up and it felt like if I didn’t go for it now, I’d never get anything done. Praise be ADHD -,..,-

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

I will take some time to go ahead and edit all the mistakes I so far haven’t touched. I’ve read all your edit suggestions but I just didn’t have the time and headspace for it yet. Thanks to everyone who has helped me improve, either by pointing out flaws in the story or in my writing. I’m immensely grateful for it, truly.

So, how do things continue? I do have some plans for Vol 2, and Joytoy isn’t done yet, but I need to take a break from it. I have a few other fanfiction ideas I want to write, the two most prominent ones being Thirteen Sins and Blood Widow. Both are still in early phases, so it’ll take some time.

I also have other projects I’m actively working on. Between ‘The de Thal Legacy’, the spiritual prequel to ‘The Dragon Queen of Thelvadore’, another project I never managed to finish (But am kind of working on at the moment cough, cough), ‘The Hexclaw Contingency’, ‘The Imperial Pirate Fleet’, and ‘Beyond Forgotten Horizons’, plus some other side projects, there is a lot of work to do.

By the time the last chapter and these notes are posted on Royal Road and ScribbleHub, I’ll probably have already been working on some stuff, although I will take a few days to take things a bit calmer now. With Christmas right around the corner at the time of writing this, I want to take some time off.

Thanks to y’all for reading and all the support. I really have no words to convey how grateful I am. Writing is something I immensely enjoy, and with all the support I’ve been getting, I might be finally able to make it my job. I typically don’t like to advertise much for it, but if you enjoyed Joytoy, maybe you can take some time to check out my patreon, linked at the bottom of the page.

There will be a little lull there until the end of January while I work on the backlog on other projects, but once I have something I feel comfortable posting, you’ll most likely be able to read ahead a bit there.

That’s all from me. Again, thank you so much for reading, and I hope that you have a fantastic start into the new year.

Cheers!