Believe it or not, it’s the four year anniversary of when Amber and I posted the very first chapter of this story. It’s been a long, strange trip since then. While this trip is over, now, you know this isn’t the last you’re going to hear from us. But it is the last word on Truth. To wrap it all up, we’ve posted a final “lost chapter” and the soundtrack for Call Me Home. Also, below the “read more” link here, you can read our final thoughts, if you will, on writing this fic together. Amber’s comments are in red and mine in blue, just like our characters.

Bethany: You ever meet someone and find so much in common, so much to talk about that you stay up chatting until suddenly you realize it’s six in the morning and you still haven’t slept? It was like that, really. Amber and I were clearly the odd men out in the hanfic sprints, so we took our conversation to a private chat… which turned into chatting with each other nearly every night when she got home from work. I had no job and no social life at the time, and my mom was just finishing chemo, so having someone to talk to all the time, even if just online, made things a lot more bearable.

Amber: I was pretty much a hermit at that point in my life. Wake up, go to work, come home, write hanfic. Rinse, repeat. Writing with Bethany was the one bright point in an otherwise dull existence, made worse by the recent end of a loooong-time coming breakup. The way we clicked, so deeply that we were finishing each other’s thoughts… it wasn’t like any friendship I could remember. Suddenly writing was easy, the ideas flowing as we bounced them back and forth. It reminded me just how much I’d loved it ‘back in the day’.

I don’t think we ever really intended to start collaborating, though. I hadn’t done much of it, at least not successfully, so I was a little wary. But when Amber asked me to write a sort of “response” to a oneshot she had written, I had to give it a try. It all sort of snowballed from there, turning into effectively a six chapter story that consumed our lives for a week. We thought we were in over our heads then! Little did we know.

I remember us calling it the “neverending Zaylor”. HA. How young and naive we were… The idea for Truth was actually a crack fic idea we had (I honestly don’t remember which of us thought of it first). Okay it was Bethany’s idea. I asked for a plot bunny, and she was inspired by a fic someone else had written.

I won’t name any names, since the fic in question is no longer online, but it was a good one. And it made me think how hilarious it would be if Zac and Taylor went online, looking for a little lovin’, and ended up chatting with each other. I mean, really, just imagine the looks on their faces. Priceless.

So we came up with suitable screennames – I remember putting a lot of thought into Tay’s, as I imagined he would. Of course, it ended up being ridiculously long, a fact I’ve lamented plenty over the years… but it definitely fit his character, I think. We decided to stick with aim, so that the formatting would look like a real chatroom conversation (we had no intentions of posting this at first, it was more of a what-if). And Zac being the neeeerd he is, I loved the LOTR-inspired nickname Bethany came up with.

I definitely didn’t imagine that those first chats would see the light of day. I think, at first, I deluded myself that this was just an exercise of sorts for a fic that I definitely wasn’t writing. I just came up with the plot bunny; I wasn’t writing it! Once again, little did I know. It was shockingly easy to become comfortable with roleplaying again, which was something that I hadn’t done since I was… oh, about fifteen or sixteen. And, of course, I played Zac back then, too. That nerd will always be my number one muse, and this Zac in particular was such an oddball, such an enigma, that I quickly fell in love with exploring his character.

I was new to rp’ing, but quite familiar with the particular style of… ehem… chatting… Taylor ended up doing with Zac (ah, the glory days of AOL chatrooms). I’d only just recently rediscovered Hanson after a decade-long hiatus, so I’d had a lot to take in in a short amount of time. That might be why Truth Tay is far from the manliest version I’ve written. It’s no wonder Zac mistook him for a chick, the way he talked.

Looking back on it, there are definitely certain characteristics of their personalities that we played up, but I don’t think either of them ever became a caricature, even if the whole thing did remain pretty cracky. It really took on a life of its own, and we let their conversations flow for a while without any sort of plan at all, except the knowledge that eventually, Jordan and Sam would have to meet.

As crazy as an idea it was, in-universe things took a turn for the serious almost immediately, with Taylor falling hard, Zac coming to terms with his sexuality, and the two of them forming a very real connection, both sexually and emotionally. Taylor opened up to “Sam” in ways he’d never even thought about with anyone else; it was like a dam breaking, though, and once he started, he couldn’t see a way to stop.

And we couldn’t see a way to stop, either! I think we roleplayed nearly the entire story in that first month. We were tripping over ourselves, trying to edit the chats into something readable, add narration that supported and expanded the whole story… I don’t really know when we started to think of it as a story and not just some weird thing we did in our spare time, but it took shape really quickly.

It really makes me wonder why it took so long to write the damn thing! But seriously, we were going like crazy, and not just on Truth, either. By the end of that summer we also had the beginnings of Bled Dry, I Will Try To Fix You, Fool’s Hope (which we still haven’t posted yet), Where We Belong… plus at least a dozen other rp’s that are still sitting in a google docs folder. Not to mention the numerous solo projects we each had, Bethany’s website, AND a writing challenge I hosted. I’m exhausted just thinking about it all!

I think it was a good thing I was unemployed during that whole period of time! I literally ate, drank, slept and breathed hanfic. And Amber’s right, there were so many amazing ideas we came up with during that period of insane inspiration. Through it all, though, Truth was our baby. A lot of other people seemed to agree! I don’t know if it was the unique format, the timing (that was the Hanfic Spring, I swear) or our promotion on Tumblr, but Truth exploded so quickly that it was a good thing we did roleplay nearly all of it before we began posting or we wouldn’t have been able to keep up with the demand.

But, inevitably, the dreaded “real world” reared its ugly head. First, the laptopocolypse – my computer died, completely, no-return. I lost EVERYTHING. Literally hundreds of thousands of pictures, all my music, and – of course – all my documents. Thank the fanfic gods Bethany was able to rescue most of our writing – I say most, because to this day there are scenes (none from Truth, thankfully) that have disappeared into the void. I weep at the thought to this day.

It’s a testament to our devotion that we managed to keep writing knowing what we had lost, really. Maybe that’s melodramatic. Oh well. Things definitely slowed down that fall, though.

That was in literally a month or less of me moving cross-country, and I didn’t get another computer until Christmas. And then another month later, I found out my life was going to get a LOT more complicated. (Russian roulette is a dangerous game, and I ain’t talking guns.) We tried to keep it up, but lack of money also meant intermittent internet access, which only got worse when I had to move (again) to a place with even worse connectivity. And then the whole having-a-kid thing happened, so there was an even longer hiatus.

It’s a good thing she kept in touch as much as possible, or else I would have been seriously worried she had been kidnapped and murdered or something! And I’ll admit, there were times when I really did worry. It went past the fic stuff and the fear of disappointing our readers. Of course, there was that, too. Somehow, we did manage to squeeze out the last bits of Make It Real and the first chapter of Call Me Home, but then it was radio silence… and this time, really, from both of us. I started working as a substitute teacher that year, and between my erratic schedule and our differing time zones, we couldn’t really find the time to work on anything or even talk at all.

I was living in the middle of nowhere (heh) North Carolina, where we didn’t even have cell reception, let alone internet. Things were rough for me personally, and even though I had my husband and son, I felt the loss of what had been such a huge portion of my life. I refused to think of it as over, but my new job as a mom was understandably overwhelming. Luckily, things took a turn for the better in 2014. One more cross-country move, and suddenly I could connect to the world again.

2014 was a big turning point for me, too. A full time job! Which of course took a huge chunk out of my time to read and write fic, but I was determined not to let it take away my hobby entirely, and it hasn’t. I don’t talk about it a lot, but the years between college and that job were some of my lowest years. College was rough, for different reasons, but I hit new lows during those hopeless years, trying to find a job and not feeling like I had any future at all. I had my fic to keep me from sinking all the way to the bottom, though. And even though we had our schedules and time zones working against us, I think the new year finally put both of us in a good place (and mindset) to work together again.

I know my stress levels went way down once we left NC, for a lot of reasons. Still, I definitely felt different after being away so long. I wasn’t nearly as tapped-in to the community anymore, and from what I could tell, it had undergone changes as well. Some writers had left (and taken their fics with them… grumble…), new writers had joined, Zaylor was on a decline and het fics were on the rise… It was definitely a different scene than the one I’d left, and I worried people wouldn’t even remember who I was. But I stayed determined, and little by little worked my way back into the hanfic community at large. Truth was like my lifeline, my anchor. Without it, I don’t know if I would’ve had the courage to come back at all, let alone as strongly as I have.

Truth was like a fucking cockroach! Even when you thought it was dead… nope. At the same time, I wasn’t sure if we would ever finish it, either. It didn’t help that we left the last scene looming over our heads for literally years. From the beginning, we told ourselves we wouldn’t even roleplay that scene until we were ready to finish the whole fic, and we stayed true to our word. It’s amazing that after so long, we were still able to fall back into those characters. They really are our babies, and I think there’s a piece of them in every version of Zac, Taylor and Carrick that we roleplay and write.

Absolutely. I think every Carrick I’ve done since has been pretty much the same guy, and he’s easily my favorite character to play. He’s the perfect lovable asshole, the kind of guy you sometimes want to hate but there’s no way you ever could. Terminally chill, with a permanent smirk, and always willing to lend an ear, a shoulder, and a smoke. I seriously love him to death. My Taylors have been more varied, but I’d say there’s definitely a touch of Truth Tay in them all, as well.

And Truth Zac… what can I say about Truth Zac? He’s an odd duck, and that’s putting it mildly. Like I said, he’s always been my muse, and so I don’t think I ever change up my portrayal of him very much, but with Truth, I really dug into the idea of a deeply closeted Zac like I never had before. I’d like to say I learned something about myself in the process, but I can’t even imagine what that would be. Other than what a strange place my imagination is, but I think anyone who reads my fic could have figured that out.

I know Truth has taught me a lot, both in the deep, personal sense, but on a technical level, too. I look back and cringe at my writing in the old days, even just before Truth. I feel like I’ve really improved as a writer, to the point that I’m working on a piece I hope to publish by the end of next year (hopefully). And I never would’ve had that confidence if not for this story, and more importantly, if not for Bethany.

You’re going to make me cry! This may sound odd, because I really am proud of Truth, but I would warn anyone who wants to read it that is not by any means high literature. Then again, how much fanfic is? In the end, it’s just crack. But it’s crack that Amber and I devoted literally years of our lives to (sure, on and off) and it definitely holds a lot of meaning for us. I know we lost some readers along the way, but we gained new ones, too. And we valued all of them, whether they were with us from the beginning, joined us part of the way through…. Or haven’t even discovered the fic yet! Anyone who is willing to spend their time reading nearly 300,000 words of our dirty, angsty, cracky imaginations is… well, they may have too much free time. But we’re grateful for all of them.

Absolutely. For me at least, this story has literally carried me from one point in my life to another. I don’t know what I would’ve done without it, at times the only constant in a long line of upheavals. My entire life was turned upside down in the span of less than a year, and it kept on changing. Things seem to be leveling out now (*knock on wood*), and while Truth has finally come to an end, I’ll never cease to be amazed at how it’s shaped me both as a writer, and a person.

In a lot of ways it seems like my life hasn’t changed at all in the last four years, but even as I say that, I have another big career change looming over my head. But as much as things change, they stay the same, too. And one thing I don’t ever want to change is the way Amber and I are able to write together so well, like we practically share one brain.

I was just thinking that! Ha ha. Seriously though, to this day we constantly have moments like that, prompting one of us to scream “Get out of my head!” I love it, though. I’ve never found anyone I’ve clicked with on that level, and it’s amazing. I know I pester her about writing and rp’ing way too much, but only because it’s just so effortless with her. Still, I know I need to be a big girl and write my own stories. But I take comfort knowing I’ll always have her to rely on for feedback, ideas, not to mention someone to talk to about non-fic-related things. She really is my best friend. <3

Awwwww! And of course, I feel the same way. With the time zones, life changes and everything else, it’s been tough to keep in touch, but I couldn’t have imagined ever losing such a great friend. I guess Truth isn’t the only thing that’s like a cockroach–our friendship is, too! And so is this post…

So before we end up writing another 300k words, we’d both like to sincerely thank each and every one of you for joining us on this wonderful, insane journey for the past four years. We love you all.