Fairy Dance of Death is an AU reboot of the entire SAO storyline. It begins with the premise that Kayaba Akihiko was obsessed with high fantasy and Norse Mythology rather than swords and melee combat, and created the death game of Alfheim Online rather than the floating castle of Aincrad.
This third-person multi-POV epic is divided up into major arcs, or Acts--the first of which spans chapters 1 through 13, with the second beginning in chapter 14.
First posted on 6 November 2012--ten years to the day before the canonical launch of Sword Art Online--it is arguably the second most popular Sword Art Online fanfic on FFN.
The final chapter of Act 3 was published on the fic's 10-year anniversary, Nov 6, 2022--the in-universe date of SAO's launch. The first chapter of Interlude 1.0, a bridge between Acts 3 and 4, began on Sep 24, 2026. It is expected to run for a handful of chapters.
Outlining and planning for Act 4 is ongoing, and is not on any particular timeline.
I occasionally update the above blurb or my FFN profile with notes about the amount of progress towards the next chapter. But if you don't mind spoilers, story scraps and chapter segments in progress are posted for feedback on the FDD discussion thread at the Spacebattles.com creative writing forum. Did I mention beware of spoilers?
Note: as of this update I have not yet posted anything related to Act 4. But that Spacebattles thread is where you'll see it first when I do.
Go to one of the above sites to read the story and leave feedback in reviews.
The "official" version, as it were, is on AO3. The FFN version differs slightly--aside from the chapter numbering differences and such mentioned in the foreword on AO3, the FFN version does not get updated with typo fixes, etc--because it sends a notification to every subscriber every single time you make the smallest update.
Since it's been asked, yes, you have my blessing to turn this into a hardcopy or ebook for your own personal use.
Definitely beware of spoilers. And if you know anything about TV Tropes, beware of losing hours of your life to wiki-crawling.
There used to be a Tumblr blog for general updates, but I left that platform behind a long time ago. Ignore it if it comes up in search results.
I get them. Lots of them. Honestly, more than I can really answer individually, and some repeat quite a bit. This FAQ has a rundown of some of the most common questions or feedback I get for this story.
This is the Google Calendar which I use to keep track of the timeline and major events in FDD. Anything that has already been published in a chapter is made public here--when I get around to it. Which... hasn't been as often as I'd like.
There are nine playable races in Alfheim, each with their own distinct advantages and affinities.
There is a rich set of data relating to the demographics of Alfheim as it exists in Fairy Dance of Death, for those who are curious.
From the same data set, this is a visualization of which characters appear in which chapters, and whether they have dialogue or a POV segment. Every character who appears in FDD (through C35; it's currently quite out of date) is in this viz, even unnamed side characters who only appear for a single scene. Obviously this comes with a mild spoiler warning if you haven't read the whole story.
Majutsugo is the language of magic in Alfheim as depicted in FDD. It has an internally consistent grammar and syntax which can be learned and used to construct new spells, and it plays an important part in the plot. You don't need these references to read the story--they're for anyone who wants a deeper understanding of the magic language.
The above link should be considered a living document, one which is in dire need of updating and is by no means an exhaustive list of vocabulary and grammar. It is presently a bit outdated due to balance and plot adjustments over the course of the story, but as with the other resources, I hope to get it up to date once my life settles down. Eventually.
To help me keep distances, locations et al straight while I was writing FDD, I created a world map for my version of ALO. Static versions of the map can be found here: [3000x3000] [1000x1000] [PSPImage Source]
However, there is also a fully interactive version of the world map with much more information, built using a combination of Excel and Tableau.
