pirate-fanatic - Tumblr blog

pirate-fanatic · 4 days ago

Text

Spotlight Author for June 22, 2025

✨Dragonfire42 ✨

Dragonfire42 (she/they) is a magician, puppeteer, and grown-up theatre kid who's been in 200 plays over the last 20 years, and recently decided to play in the fanfic sandbox. Keep reading to learn more about their many contributions to the Good Omens community, as well as other creative gifts she has to offer to all of us.

Dragonfire42 has many hobbies outside of the Good Omens world:

“I live in Colorado (USA). I'm pretty active with local theatre, puppetry and magic, and also love hiking, kayaking and dancing.”

Good Omens was not exactly “new” to Dragonfire42 - but Season 2 changed everything (probably true for many fans!!):

“I read the book about twenty years ago, and then watched the first season, but didn't get REALLY feral with the fandom until the end of Season 2 when that left me with SO many questions! I made a Tiktok video about the experience.”

And their discovery about the depth of the GO fandom helped to guide Dragonfire42's desire to create their own outpouring of written works:

“I'd read fanfiction for years, but I'd rarely written any. Most of my writing experience is in writing plays and short skits for film. I felt a huge passion to write my first fanfic "The NeverEnding Archive" (A NeverEnding Story / Good Omens crossover) and when I was joining groups to share the story I wrote, I found out about all the fanfiction events and bangs and fun excuses to make friends and keep writing! Just last year I was in 7 bangs and 3 gift exchanges and every month I write GTA ficlets too and all of those events encouraged me to write 250,000 words just last year!”

That’s quite a LOT of writing!! Any personal favorites among those?

“"Fowl Play" - the sci-fi comedy crossover with Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and Good Omens that I wrote when I turned 42 is my favorite! I put a LOT of thought into that story, with all the jokes and also trying to make it make sense in both universes. For non-GO work, I just wrote a solo play I've taken to Fringe festivals called "Safety First" I'm pretty proud of too!”

Dragonfire42 has given us so many stories for Good Omens, but she has also produced written works for OTHER fandoms - which has inspired lots of GO cross-overs:

“Back in high school I wrote a lot for V: The Series (someday I might put one or two of them on AO3!), and also for a video game called Tex Murphy "Under a Killing Moon" (I wrote a huge choose your own adventure fanfic on my old Geocities site! And the author Aaron Connors read it and complimented me!). What I love with all the crossover options now is I'm getting to write for a ton of fandoms but keeping it all Good Omens, with stories like Casablanca "Here's Looking at You, Angel", The Seventh Seal "The Angel's Gambit", H2G2 "Fowl Play", Discworld "Crowley and the Seven Nac Mac Feegles", and The Neverending Story "The NeverEnding Archive".”

And of course, a particular member of the Spotlight Author team is ESPECIALLY intrigued by Dragonfire42’s past fandom obsessions, savvy?:

“I think the last fandom I was this feral in was Pirates of the Caribbean. I joined a fan-based pirate crew, we did camping trips and pub shanty sings and pirate Christmas caroling and I hosted the Pirate vs Ninja Olympics at a local con three years in a row. I ran for Pirate King for our pirate fest (and I got a respectable 2nd). I also tried to find real buried treasure (Forrest Fenn's) which is what my solo play "Safety First" is about.”

With all of these many different stories that Dragonfire42 has shared, one of our readers wanted to know how she kept the characters feeling fresh and exciting to write across all the different AUs:

“That's a great question. I have a HUGE file in my phone of notes called "Plot Bunnies" that I write when I'm going about my day, or sometimes even when I'm writing a different story, just take a quick thought or idea to explore later. A lot of them I use during the monthly ficlets and some turn into longer stories. I was talking with a friend about how I used to dance tango months ago, and then wrote a few notes in case I could use it for a future story, and now I'm almost 4,000 words in to writing that! I love Good Omens in particular for that because there are infinite possibilities within canon (the whole history of Earth and earlier!) and infinite possibilities with human AU storylines too!”

Dragonfire42 does not just write about our ineffable duo. In fact, nearly every character in GO is given a moment in the spotlight:

“In my Casablanca crossover “Here's Looking at You, Angel” - I got to write about every possible GO pairing and then some. After the end of S2, Crowley is sad because of a love curse that pairs up everyone around him except him (think the end of S1 when all the couples there officially paired off EXCEPT our Aziracrow) - so in that story I got to go deep on ALL possible ships. I had 10 in that story total, including a secret pairing at the end. My favorites for writing in that one were Muriel/Eric 7 and Saraqael/Demon Josh.”

So outside of Aziraphale and Crowley, which character does Dragonfire42 enjoy writing about the most?

“Elspeth was fun to write in “Elspeth and the Beanstalk,” an AU where Aziraphale drinks the laudanum instead of Crowley that I wrote for the Fairytale bang. I really loved writing Newt in the H2G2 crossover "Fowl Play" - he plays the Arthur Dent style character to Crowley's Ford Prefect. I always get a kick out of writing Shadwell ("The Network of Highly Trained Human Operatives") But probably my absolute favorite was Furfur as Raphael the healer in “Out of Alignment.””

Speaking of “Out of Alignment”, one of our readers asked about what inspired this story and "...that kind of inner imbalance, a little bit physical, a little bit ethereal”:

“"Out of Alignment" was inspired by a few things - one was how much I really love reading all the healing and recovery stories in this fandom. I find it so fascinating how so many different authors build in reasons that angels or demons who can heal themselves could plausibly fall ill. I'm also a huge fan of stories that deal with True Forms. It goes back a bit to my love of magical realism, I love taking a huge abstract concept like spinning wheels with eyes and finding a way to ground it realistically. For that story I used the real physics concept of "gimbal lock" and applied it to True Forms on how it could cause problems, with Crowley needing a bearing replacement on his True Form wheel in order to function. It took months of research to figure out enough about the physics part of it before I was comfortable sharing the story, and I even used a physical 3D printed version of a True Form so I could try to understand gimbals and gimbal locks better myself. But the real core of the story is recovery - from Aziraphale as caretaker and Crowley learning to be vulnerable and accept help, and all the unexpected friends who help along the way. I've had experiences as a caretaker and have had times I've needed to be taken care of too, and that story included a lot of my personal reflections.”

Dragonfire42 gives us a sneak peek at some of their WIPs - be sure to stay tuned for these exciting works:

“I'm on the last chapter of "Dream within a Dream" and expect to finish that soon. I also have two stories in zines coming up, my tango AU story (untitled) that I'm writing, and also I have one currently in "Bright Star: A Good Omens Astronomy Zine" called "Invisible Force" - a story about Crowley brainstorming gravity when he was a starmaker. (That zine is available now for a limited time for a donation to the On Our Own Side Fund!). I'm also doing the "Strongly Worded Notes" event with the Do It With Style discord, and I'm excited to say I was paired with LyricalKris and Maon25 for some epistolary fun! I also have a silly kaiju story I'm writing about two giant statues in Denver (The Big Blue Bear/Blucifer) that I hope to post soon."

Here's a short snippet of the tango AU story 👀:

Breath, click, tap, slide…

She fell into his embrace like she was custom fit for it as they moved in rhythm, almost sharing a single heartbeat as their breaths fell in sync. She tapped the toe of her shoe just against his shiny wingtip, and slid her foot up the inside of his leg with a practiced enganche flourish.

It’s just a dance, she told herself. But something about the way he breathed a little more heavily into her ear made her breath speed up slightly too...”

As mentioned earlier, Dragonfire42 loves performing, including magic acts. Does she use these experiences as inspiration for stories?

“I do! I wrote "Jiggery Pokery" as a deep dive with my knowledge of magic, written from Professor Hoffman's (Aziraphale's mentor in magic) POV. I also wrote "Rainbow Connection" that's a human AU of Aziraphale and Crowley as puppeteers. Both of those I wrote for the Good Omens Theatre Bang and absolutely love the art that inspired those stories too! (I got SO excited about the art that I pulled over in a kayak in Florida to claim them for a story!!)”

One reader shared this question for Dragonfire42: “What inspired you to show us Prof Hoffman's view of Aziraphale's magic skills? It was an inspired choice and you did it so beautifully.”

“Oh thank you! We don't often see our Ineffables interacting directly with humans, and I thought it was so interesting that Aziraphale mentions mentoring with Prof Hoffman when he shows Crowley the autographed book and it made me giggle picturing how that would have likely gone, and I thought it would be funny to have Hoffman's POV trying to figure out this kind and well-meaning but clumsy magician as a student. It also let me deep dive on the two magic books mentioned in Aziraphale's collection and the real-life mystery with those. I think outsider POV stories are so fun and I really enjoyed writing this one!”

Magic and whimsy hold a special place for Dragonfire42’s favorite writing themes:

“I think I've learned through all these different stories that I really enjoy writing stories with a magical realism theme, particularly healing stories that go a little deep, but are grounded in fun history facts or science knowledge in our world. I also really love writing comedy, and try to carry that through all my work. “Hissy Fit” and “Green Light” were both inspired by @gleafer art, and are two of my favorite comedy pieces I’ve written.”

Outside of writing, Dragonfire42 has shared an abundance of other creations with this fandom (Tumblr and AO3 links included):

“I made a shadow puppet crankie inside a pumpkin at Halloween predicting Season 3 .

I also did a series of magic tricks cosplaying as Fell the Marvelous.

And I made a miniature book nook of A.Z. Fell's Bookshop with some custom made miniatures that have easter eggs from all my fanfic stories (including a mini zine)!

I also recently made my first fan art for a House MD crossover I'm enjoying reading.

And I made a concrete poem of a feather for my story "Dream within a Dream" featured in this chapter.

I love all the ways to be creative in this fandom!”

Dragonfire42 shares these encouraging words for all those inspired to create for this fandom:

“The thing I love most about our fandom is how encouraging we are of artists at all skill levels. It's such a great outlet for ALL forms of creativity! I would encourage anyone who wants to jump in to do it! That's the great thing on AO3, there's no gatekeepers, anyone can post! I also highly encourage finding communities to join, like all the fun Discord ones or through Tumblr or Facebook, it's a great way to make friends. And join events like fanfic/fanart bangs, it's a fun way to collaborate and make fun new art! This link's a little dated but you can see some of the groups to find out more.”

Final Thoughts?

“Thank you so much for hosting these and thank you everyone for the wonderful and thoughtful questions, this was a delight!”

A great big thanks to YOU, Dragonfire42!! It was truly OUR delight to learn more about your life and all the magic you bring into the Good Omens world.

Here's some links where you can continue to follow Dragonfire42:

For puppetry:

Instagram

TikTok

For fanfiction:

Archive of Our Own [AO3]

Bluesky

Tumblr

@dragonfire42

#good omens #good omens fandom #good omens fanfiction #writers on tumblr #ao3 writer #ao3 fanfic #fanfiction writer #fanfics #fanfiction #go-spotlight-author #good omens poetry

21 notes · View notes