#full disclosure for the linked ao3 search:

[steviespanties]

Do you have any omega!steve fic recs?? I can't find any 😭

Hey anon, what do you mean you can't find any? There's a whole tag you can filter for on ao3 😭😂

My personal favs aren't up to date with newer stuff, but here's ones from my bookmarks in no particular order:

Here I Go Again by HeckInAHandbasket

I Just Like You (Don't Even Wanna Fuck) by abaddxns

Nomenclature and Drop (The Game) by MarquesGillette

Woke Up Thirsty by trashcangimmick

[this-is-krikkit]

So… Fanfiction Writer Bingo. Do you still use/ever read your old stuff on Fanfiction.net? Did you prefer this platform to Tumblr/AO3 or do you find writinf and publishing is better on these?

Love you 💜

to answer your first question, dear titans in paths, no i fucking don't!! i did check it out again when i did that bingo thing (cringe intensifies) and the last time i posted on there was 6 fucking years ago 😱🤯 full disclosure, i get the urge to delete my account every once in a while, basically anytime i'm reminded of ff.net's existence, but i try not to give in. it's a part of who i was, yk? besides, opening my inbox on there just reminded me of the absolute pleasure it was to get my first ever feedback on my writing so.... yeah. i'm never rereading any of that shit though, i used to be even worse at writing than i am now BIG YIKES

as for the platform itself, the interface was terrible (still is) and imo counter-intuitive to use, so i don't miss that. also the option to read comments (aka reviews on there) directly from your profile would only appear, in RED ITALIC LETTERS DIRECTLY NEXT TO YOUR FIC'S TITLE, if someone left you a review. so in whatever interval of time before someone did, it would be glaringly absent, which always felt like a stab to my lil sensitive writer's heart (i was a teenager, gimme a break 😳). oh, and the search system is subpar, minus one million over ten, never would recommend even to my worst enemy, run for your life and give up trying to find whatever you were after on there shudders

i did love, however, that replies to comments were private and therefore couldn't count as another comment!! which is something i loathe on AO3, because it fucks up the stats and forces me to reply publicly, which i'm not a fan of. plus, it would open a direct, private line of communication between writer/reader, and that was a great way to meet like-minded people, to make friends, to elaborate future fics together, to discuss headcanons... there was a real sense of a writing community, i feel, that might be lacking a little on ao3 (which is why i link all my ao3 fics to here, though it's still not the same).

ao3 is definitely more modern and practical, but sometimes i miss the good ol' ff days. and i don't actually like posting my fics on tumblr, but i feel like i have to so they get what little visibility they can get x)

[breannastewart]

Previous writer anon here- full disclosure that I write for woso, which I somewhat scales with wbb in terms of popularity but I think has, for whatever reasons, a more old school fandom than wbb. I'm old enough to remember when rpf was exclusively the domain of locked livejournal communities and imo that's the level of lock and key it should still be under, but that mentality seems to have been lost in recent years. I have google alerts for a certain player that I also write fic about, and I cringe every time this website shows up in the results. I personally know for a fact that a very popular women's hockey player had to explain to her father what fic was when it showed up in his google alerts for her. I don't entirely know where I'm going with this but hopefully at least a little reassurance that there are some reasonable, privacy-minded people involved in writing too. I do my best to encourage younger writers to stay away from tumblr, keep their fics locked, etc. I hope there's similar voices in wbb. No one should have to see fic if they don't want to - it SHOULD be something you have to actively look for to find, especially with this level of relatively minor celebrity.

Sorry you're dealing with an outbreak of this stuff in your fandom. :\

I like you, writer anon, and appreciate your insights so much. I followed woso for a bit and knew of it there too but always tried to avoid it, though I will say there was definitely more of a respect level as far as I remember. many of those people just put ao3 links. perhaps it does come with age of fandom, idk. there is FOR SURE an influx of really young fans for wbb all of a sudden so I do think that's contributing to the lack of mindfulness about how easily accessible content like that is when you, well, make it that way. but yikes 😬would definitely suck if these wbb players had to explain that to family members or partners because a lot of the ones being written about suddenly are actually all married/in relationships. definitely what I meant by these people don't realize those posts go right into google search links/alerts. and I do think a lot of them probably think deleting it will get rid of that entirely. but hopefully, if this is what's going to stick around now with the WNBA fandom in particular, more respect minded people end up being the norm. the W has always been a small universe in reality and I do think it's much easier for the possibility of it reaching the subject of the content because of that, whereas I think it can get drowned out easier, like say with tv and movie stars. but you're right, you should have to actively look for it if that's the fandom content you want, rather than it just being out there in the open for literally anyone to be able to see.

thank you again for your insights, and maybe there will be someone who sees it and it all moves in a more respectful way, we'll see. but it's okay! I felt worse for that other anon because clearly they have their reasons why content like that is unsettling, but I'll still be here chugging along providing the content I do lol. come say hi again anytime :) have a good one!

[finerafin]

HI YES HELLO CHUCKER RECS YOU WILL REGRET THIS

so I can't link to any of these because anon but they're all on ao3 and should show up with a quick search/if you're willing to just scroll the tag for a little bit

here are some of my personal favorites:

you mentioned heavy weather already, but basically anything else by shir_khan is worth a look, Chemistry (oneshot, 6k words, Teen) is a favorite of mine.

I Want You By My Side by hartxstarr- oneshot, 765 words, Gen

short, sweet, and fluffy. Church and Tucker slow-dancing in the base.

you give me fever by apocalypticchick- oneshot, 12k words, Explicit

basic premise is that instead of getting alien pregnant in s2, Tucker gets alien sex pollen'd instead... and Church is the one who steps in to help ;) I don't know if explicit fics are your thing, but I threw this one in on the off chance they are because it has some of the best characterization for both of them I've ever seen. Church POV, lots of pining, some great lines from the rest of the team while they're there. (if explicit fics ARE your thing, it's a pretty worthwhile read for that too)

you are a walking graveyard by Cinead- multichapter (complete), 44k words, Explicit

ghost hunter au! The Reds and Blues run a Buzzfeed Unsolved-esque show, which turns out to not be quite as fake as they thought it was. Can't give much more away without spoilers, but it's a fantastic ride from start to finish, written by someone who's got a great feel for the characters. Classic rvb idiocy, interspersed with heartwarming team dynamics and scenes that gave me genuine feelings. (Warnings for character death and some sex scenes)

Machine Learning by Cosmobot- oneshot, 4k words, Teen

in the author's own words, "the s12 reconciliation scene but Tucker gets to yell more and also it's gayer". Church and Tucker actually talk about what him leaving did to the team, with the added subtext that they're crushing on each other super hard. Great character voices!

live by the pointy shit, die by the pointy shit by stellulam- oneshot, 5k words, Teen

this one isn't actually chucker, but it's a great read if you just want more of them interacting. Tucker is in recovery on chorus after getting stabbed at the end of s12, and Church not-so-begrudgingly keeps him company, and they learn a few things about themselves and each other on the way. Also featuring some of the fragments! (seriously the dynamics in this one are SO CHOICE)

Full disclosure, I might have snuck one of my fics onto this list eheheh...

Happy reading, hope you enjoy!

So I only have "you are a walking graveyard" left to read and half of that list I already knew but they are always worth a reread and everything here is excellent. Thank you so much!

[ysabeauwilce]

was listening to the absolutely brilliant Betwix the Sheets podcast (full disclosure: i have a crush on kate lister)--Lady Chatterley's Lover edition, interview with biographer Frances Wilson about Lawrence etc. Too lazy to go back and get actual citation, and couldn't find a transcript but anyway, of course, they discussed how utter ridiculous the sex bits of Lady Chatterley's Lover sound now, so comical and hilarious, could easily win that Bad Sex Writing Award, maybe even a special citation for Worst Sex Writing EVER--Dr Wilson was so sweet about Lawrence and his Porn With Plot trials, pointing out that (I paraphrase here) that he was really just trying to write about something we don't really have the right words for--

And my first thought, of course, was: get thee to some fanfic, my friend...

By far the best writing I've ever read about sex, lust, longing, attraction, emotion, desire, fear, power and Porn With/Without Plot has been in fanfic. Is there Chatterley Level Awful smut in fanfic, oh yea. But there's also truly amazing insightful incredible writing about sex, too.

Viz, out of many, these two:

Love Me by the Hour by getmean (On AO3)

To Feel Anything Anything At All by 2unfit2quit (On A03)

DUE DILIGENCE: both these fics are rated E for explicit. Read the tags before reading the fic.

There's a lot of good stuff out there; I'm only singling these two because they are foremost on my mind, and they are both sublimely wonderful!

(And getmean has an awesome tumblr but I don't know how to link to it, sorry! search hackerman and you'll find it.)

i have a full Manifesto on Fanfic that i've been boring friends with for months, I was gonna unload it here tonight, but i can't be arsed, so anyway, if you don't wanna read some explicit fiction, go listen to Betwixt the Sheets, it's an awesome podcast, and did I mention I have a crush on Kate Lister? She should do an episode about fanfic! That's a great idea. Someone should suggest it to her...not me, I'm too shy.

[diminished-fish]

References for “A Portrait in Synesthesia”

This fic is COMPLETE now, so anyone who might have been hesitant to follow a wip, here you go! The whole synesthetic package, wrapped up with a nice lil bow on top. :3

For those who might have missed the masterpost: the fic was my contribution to the good omens big bang and is a sweeping, canon-compliant romp through history, told in (almost) all original scenes, with lots of nature imagery and T.S. Eliot. Kind of my own cold open, but with way more feelings and flowers. Also the sea. And an emotionally significant comet.

I had the opportunity to throw all of myself at this project and really enjoyed making it an intense focus for a while. In a way, it was an experiment to see how much I was capable of, which as it turns out, is more than I thought! (there’s a lesson here, probably...). Going this deep with the research and worldbuilding is not something I will likely be doing often for fic writing, but since I did with this one, I figured I’d share a bit of the process.

Under the cut are major spoilers for the timeline, story, and historic events in my recent fic, A Portrait in Synesthesia. I had originally planned to post this information in the end notes of the fic, but at some point, the list got way too long and posting it here became the sensible choice. There is a link to this post in the end notes of the fic, so it will be easy to find your way back here if you get to the end and want to know a bit more about the writing and research process. 

The Title:

Putting this bit at the top because I don’t know where else to put it: The working title for this fic throughout the entire writing process was “In Synesthesia.” I almost changed the final title in the eleventh hour to “The Still Point of the Turning World” because of what a prevalent theme Eliot became (that line was also slipped into the story three times at important moments — once for each POV character). I also briefly considered “Always, We Were Enough” as a title, since the conversation with Adrielle at the lighthouse kind of... accidentally became the thesis of the whole story, but that was a bit too sappy even for me, a Confirmed Sap. 

And while I’ll be questioning my choice of title for the rest of forever (titling things is hard, y’all), I ultimately thought the more descriptive title was best, and wanted to keep the nod to the song that inspired it all.

Speaking of the song... have you listened to it yet?? It’s great, I promise!

Synesthesia:

This was my research starting point. Before I dug into any of the historical or astronomical research or even started any serious plotting, I started reading about synesthesia, or, as Psychology Today defines it: the neurological condition in which the stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway (for example, hearing) leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway (such as vision).

Full disclosure: I do not have synesthesia. I spent a LOT of time researching it for this fic and did my best to portray it accurately, in spite of the fantastical elements I added. If I’ve overstepped or gotten something wrong and there are any synesthetes out there who would like to talk about it, I am very open to those discussions. The AO3 comments are always open to that, or you can message me/send me an ask here if you would like a less public forum.

I probably read r/Synesthesia in its entirety, but this thread of first-hand accounts was one of the most interesting to me and provided a lot of the inspiration for how I used the emotional synesthesia imagery. 

Besides everyone’s favorite research staring point of Wikipedia, this link is one I got from Boston University’s Synesthesia Project, and it is a pretty exhaustive list of research and books, as well as art and poetry about synesthesia. I have also been working my way through The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales, by Oliver Sacks which is the book that came most frequently recommended to me in my search. It’s an extremely approachable and interesting look at neurological conditions, synesthesia among them.

As it appears in the fic:

In a broad, generalized sense, Aziraphale and Crowley have a few types of synesthesia in this story. Obviously, I gave it a supernatural/celestial twist and a healthy glug of magical realism, but I did try to keep it firmly rooted in the actual condition. The types of synesthesia they have are:

Chromesthesia: they both have this. Sounds, specifically each other’s voices, have a color association

Lexical-gustatory synesthesia/emotion-flavor synesthesia: Aziraphale has this. Words (in this case, emotions, specifically Crowley’s emotional state) have a taste.

Odor-color synesthesia/emotion-odor synesthesia: Crowley has this. Words (again, emotions, specifically Aziraphale’s emotional state) have a smell.

One of the defining characteristics of synesthesia is that it is constant. If a synesthete connects the number 9 with the color blue, for example, then they will always connect them in this way. This was the major difference between real synesthesia and the fantasy synesthesia in this fic. The sensory/emotion connections for Aziraphale and Crowley changed in subtle ways as their relationship evolved through the ages.

The “binding thread” also had nothing to do with synesthesia. That was me wanting to make the spool analogy work for the body swap, baking it into the entire fic because I liked how the imagery fit with the synesthesia, and then leaning into the magic and the soul memory so hard that I fell flat on my face into magical realism. (A True Fact: I have spent a fair amount of time lying on the floor in the past 6 months, shaking my fist at the cute little plot bunny who grew fangs and claws and dragged me down a rabbit hole that ended up being 100k words deep). 

Anyway! Research!

Before I get into space and history and flowers... Yes, I admit to absolutely making up some wacky shit about Europa for the sake of fun banter and making a metaphor work. All those pre-Fall scenes on abandoned Earths are 100% a fantasy setting and I exercised the super fun right of a fantasy writer and embraced the worldbuilding (moonbuilding?). I also just thought Crowley would have delighted in tying a moon’s guts in knots, and Aziraphale would have delighted in the idea of whimsy-for-whimsy’s-sake. Please don’t lose sleep over the scientific inaccuracies.

Halley’s comet:

I promise not to bog this down with a billion comet facts, but there were a few particular things about Halley’s comet that had me gasping dramatically about how it’s “A.J. Crowley, but a comet!!” Specifically, it’s orbit and it’s structure. 

Halley’s retrograde orbit gives it one of the fastest velocities (relative to Earth) of any object in the solar system. I never explicitly worked the “you go too fast for me” line into the fic because I was trying to do original scenes (this particular story lived between the lines), but... just know that tidbit is there and join me in these emotional dire straits. If you like.

The comet’s structure is what is known as a “rubble pile”, meaning it’s made up of a bunch of smaller rocks held together by gravity (read: a hot god damn mess held together by stubbornness). 

As it appears in the fic:

The nucleus of Halley’s comet is shaped like a weird lopsided peanut. In fact, one could almost look at it and say it resembles a contact binary star, if such a thing could be a shriveled, misshapen pile of rubble.

Officially, Halley’s comet might have been recorded as early as 467 BC (a comet was recorded in Greece that year— unclear if it was Halley’s, but the timing and the fact that it was visible to the naked eye suggests that it probably was). This was the year I had Aziraphale making the scroll that causes Crowley’s panic in Athens (390 BC). I like to think that some human, at some point, caught a glimpse of it and tried to bring it to light, only to be written off as a crazed conspiracy theorist.

The apocalyptic depiction of Halley’s comet in chapter 9 (Bithynia) is actually based in fact. The comet made its closest approach to Earth (in human memory) in 837 AD, passing within 5 million kilometers. Its tail stretched halfway across the sky and it appeared as bright as Venus to the naked eye.

1910 Halley’s Comet panic. Bonus: c o m e t  p i l l s

Where 1910′s appearance was a spectacular sight and one of the closest approaches on record (coming within 22 million kilometers of Earth), 1986′s was the worst viewing conditions in 2,000 years. The comet passed within 63 million kilometers at its closest approach, and had the sun positioned between it and Earth, making it impossible to see from areas with any amount of light pollution, and almost invisible to all of the northern hemisphere. 

Historic events and settings:

Chapter 6 (Ostia): This was one of the chapters that I did a bunch of arguably unnecessary research for, since the history and the meat of the setting faded into the backdrop as the scene itself focused on dialogue and train of thought. The port town of Ostia was incredibly engrossing to read about, and between wikipedia’s ever-branching paths, ostia-antica.org, and ancient history encyclopedia’s entry, it ended up being one of the deeper rabbit holes I went down. My original intent for Aziraphale being in town was as a response to pirates sacking Ostia in 68 BC. I had him stationed there to guard against further attacks as the town rebuilt, and had him lingering because he was swept away by the romanticism of the art and the sea and the constant ebb & flow of people. I never found a way to work this in that didn’t feel super awkward and expository since the chapter was Crowley POV, so it was just left it as background noise.

Chapter 6 (pyramid of Cestius): Beyond being a magistrate of one of the four great religious corporations in ancient Rome (the Septemviri Epulonum), little is known about who Gaius Cestius actually was. As the city expanded, his lavish tomb was absorbed into the city walls (circa 3rd century AD), where it remains what he is remembered for to this day. I took most of my information from here (cross referenced with our lord and savior, Wikipedia) and had a chuckle at this poem by Thomas Hardy.

Chapter 8 (Plague of Justinian): The Yersinia pestis bacterium leaves no indicator on skeletal remains, meaning we rely on written records to track its path through history. The 6th century plague pandemic is the first recorded outbreak of bubonic plague, and for the purpose of our story, a certain distraught chronicler was the one on site, writing that history.

A note/cw: I wrote chapters 8 and 12 in October and November, respectively, and did much of my research for them over the summer. I imagine, given the current covid-19 pandemic, these sources would be less fun to follow up on now. Please be aware that the podcast episodes linked here, and the book cited in the miscellaneous refs section, get into pretty grisly details about illness and pandemics.

Chapters 8 and 12 (bubonic plague/The Black Death): I took a fair amount of my notes on bubonic/pnuemonic plague, specifically it’s path of destruction through Europe in the 14th century, from the two plague episodes of This Podcast Will Kill You. It’s pretty fascinating stuff and the Erins are great hosts, so check it out if you’re into delightful nerds bantering about epidemiology! 

Chapter 9 (the death of Peter of Atroa): Peter of Atroa was an abbot whose fame as a miracle-worker landed him in a scandal accusing him of exorcising demons by the power of Beelzebub, rather than God. Theodore the Studite’s letter cleared his name enough to avoid execution, but his reputation didn’t fully recover until after his death in 837 AD, when he was canonized as a saint. Peter and Theodore were tough to find extensive information on without passing through a paywall, so I took these scraps and ran a mile with them.

Chapter 13 (Tlatelolco, the Aztec Empire, the Feast of the Dead): I used this site as the source and starting point on much of my research on the Aztec Empire. And listen… I know it looks like a website for babies, and yes, I’m aware that a lot of the articles are literally written for a pre-teen audience, but it’s also one of the most concise, thorough, well-researched, and — perhaps most importantly — easily-searchable sources I found. Most of the pages cite papers and archaeological journals and I was able to jump to SO many other great sources of information. Mexicolore has my undying love and devotion for making my research process easy and fun and also having lots of pretty pictures.

Most of the physical descriptions for Tenochtitlan and Tlatelolco (surrounding landscape, canals and causeways, chinampas, etc.) started here.

Tenochtitlan and Tlatelolco were independent cities, but shared a border (kind of like a city and a suburb) and the small island on Lake Texcoco (located where present day Mexico City is). Tenochtitlan was the capital city of the Aztec Empire, and besides cross-referencing Mexicorlore, the link in the previous bullet point, and Wikipedia, I got a fair bit of information from these essays. 

Tlatelolco’s market was the major hub of trade and commerce, and saw 20-40,000 people trading PER DAY. Research on the market started here.

Chapter 14 (Terschelling and the Brandaris lighthouse): While I strove for historical accuracy as much as possible in this fic, I did take some liberties— especially with the island of Terschelling and the Brandaris lighthouse (yes, it’s real!) circa 1350-1435. 

The village of Brandarius is based on present day West Terschelling— a settlement founded as a direct result of the lighthouse. In the middle ages, both the village and the lighthouse were named after Saint Brandarius (or Brendan of Clonfert: ‘The Navigator’, ‘The Voyager’, ‘The Anchorite’, ‘The Bold’; patron saint of divers, mariners, and travellers). It’s still a relatively small village today, and it was a surprisingly difficult task to find historical records for Brandarius/West Terschelling dating back to the 14th century that say much beyond “it existed.” I loosely based the village off information found here, and named it “Brandarius” instead of “West Terschelling” based on the information found here. 

The original lighthouse was built in 1323, destroyed by the sea in 1570, and rebuilt in 1594. Since there were no records (that I could find) of what the original lighthouse looked like, I loosely based the height and floor plan on the current tower, and made up everything everything else about the interior. The interior was based on information about other live-in lighthouses, specifically this one which is roughly the same height as the Brandaris.

The present day Brandaris lighthouse sits directly in the middle of West Terschelling. For the sake of that sweet Self-Imposed Exile + Cryptid Lighthouse Keeper drama, I took the liberty of making my fictional village of Brandarius teeny tiny and setting it slightly apart from the lighthouse. 

Miscellaneous references:

In addition to the podcast, details about plague in chapters 8 and 12 were gleaned from the book The Great Mortality by John Kelly. It’s a cool read if you’re into nonfiction that reads like fiction, but does have some rather graphic passages so proceed with caution.

Yaretzi’s maquizcóatl/Aziraphale’s memento. To clarify, they were NOT the same item. I pictured Aziraphale cherishing the memory of the day by the lake with Yaretzi so much, that once he acquired the bookshop and had a place for all his kitsch, he hunted down a bad luck dragon of his own.

Here is the Aztec creation story about sun cycles and Earth’s rebirths that Yaretzi told Aziraphale. Another version of it.

In the scene in Mexico where Aziraphale briefly remembers, I used an analogy about a moment that hovers and flits away as “quick as a hummingbird.” Besides just liking the words, this was a nod to the legend of the cempasuchil flower. I originally had Yaretzi telling Aziraphale that story too, but the chapter was just way too long and something had to go.

In my very first outline, I had Aziraphale’s grief and personal growth chapter taking place at a Día de Muertos festival in Mexico. When the plot and the timeline finally got ironed out and I realized only half of that story was going to take place on Earth, I ended up focusing on Aziraphale’s brief relationship with Yaretzi instead of the festival itself (she was always the important bit). I also found myself married to the idea of that chapter happening in the 14th and 15th centuries, which meant the scenes in Mexico take place before Spain invaded and the festival was based solely on its Aztec roots. Because the plot shifted in this way, a lot of research went on behind the scenes that never made it into the fic, but for anyone interested in the Aztec Feast of the Dead, Mexicolore was my starting place again. From there, I found my way to reading about Mictecacíhuatl, the Aztec goddess of death, who was the main focus of the festival.

This isn’t research, but it might interest, like… three of you, so here you go. The scenes in Heaven (Aziraphale’s solo chapter in general tbh) were hard to write. One of those walls you hit with writing where you kick and punch and bang your head against it for months (literal months, I started wrestling with it in August and it didn’t come together until the end of January) but can’t seem to make any breakthroughs. Inspiration truly comes from unexpected places though, and when @gottagobuycheese sent me this Gregorian chant generator it actually… worked? I cranked that hum slider up to 100 and left it there for a few days (to the chagrin of my spouse) and lo— Zophiel.

There’s a cool legend about Saint Brendan of Clonfert’s sea-faring journey in search of the Garden of Eden that has nothing to do with this fic beyond being neat parallel. If that happens to be anyone’s cup of tea, the story is here. The tl;dr version is here. My original vision for the lighthouse included carved whales (St Brendan’s attribute) over the front door, and images from this story (the island of sheep, the Christmas island, the paradise island of birds) drawn on the walls of one of the bedrooms used by previous keepers’ children. Continuing the theme of “how stories echo” if you will. It felt really awkward and out of place once I wrote it in though, and that chapter was already so long once I got through all the plot bits I wanted, so it was left on the cutting room floor. 

Speaking of taking liberties with the 14th century, I did fudge the timing a bit on the art created by Crowley and Adrielle. Drawings, especially pencil sketches, have their historical roots in the late 15th century, and I’m chalking this one up to the fantastical setting of the Good Omens universe. In a fantasy world where angels and demons walk among us and the earth is literally 6,000 years old, I feel like inventing pencils 100 years early is small potatoes. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

This is the edition of A Midsummer Night’s Dream that Crowley nicked in Norwich. There are some really wonderful illustrations and scans of full pages under that link. I may or may not have lost a few hours down that research rabbit hole for a few throwaway lines (no regrets, I fall like Crowley). 

One last rabbit hole...

I saved this bit for the end of the post since it’s not really research and I don’t know how interested people will be in this kind of thing. Also... this is a lot more emotional and personal than the historical aspects of the fic. This is just what I was feeling and thinking while I was writing, and this story is absolutely the kind of thing I expect everyone to take something different away from. If you read the fic, took your own meaning from it, and want to keep that meaning without me tarnishing it by babbling about symbolism (first of all, high five, I love you, thank you for hanging out with me and my stories), then feel free to skip the rest of this post. <3

But! For anyone who wants to know more about what I had in mind with the flowers and nature metaphors I worked into the story, read on!

The tag “it’s an OT3 where Earth is the third” is something I really worked to pull to center stage. In my mind, Earth was a fully formed character who also spent the pre-Fall storyline being jerked around by God and having its memory wiped. It experienced transformations, pain, heartbreak, joy, and love just like Aziraphale and Crowley did, and I wrote it as falling in love with the two of them over the course of the Earth Project, then remaining very much in love for the entirety of iteration 23 (the current iteration). “Memories that are buried in places deeper than the mind” referred to the soul imprints being formed, but also Earth’s buried memories— seeping through the cracks to connect them via synesthesia in emotionally charged moments, allowing them to find each other from orbit in iterations 20 and 21 (music and the sea), and pulling them together in moments of distress like Constantinople and Barcelona.

In the vein of “Earth as a character,” I used plants (mainly flowers), topography, and weather as Earth’s “voice” in the grief chapters when Crowley and Aziraphale were separated from each other and going through their individual arcs. I’m not sure it technically counts as flower language, since all the flowers featured in the fic were wild and growing in nature, but (almost) all of them served a metaphorical purpose.

Flowers:

Jasmine (for the moon): Aziraphale’s flower. Love, beauty, sensuality, good luck, purity. The rational hedonist.

Marigolds (for the sun): Crowley’s flower. Grief and remembrance of the dead, lost love, the fragility of life, creativity, winning the affections of someone through hard work. The fallen artist.

Purple Hyacinth: Earth’s flower. Regret, sorrow, a desire for forgiveness. The witness. These were the wildflowers that grew in the orchard/vineyard on the penultimate Earth, where Aziraphale and Crowley managed to work out the differences they couldn’t by the sea. Hyacinths are also the hazy images they would see in those moments of vulnerability, compassion, and compromise. 

A fun aside! In very early drafts, the placeholder name I was using for angel Crowley was Jacinto, which is a Spanish/Portuguese name meaning “Hyacinth.” It was meant to be a reference to both the flower and the Greek myth of Apollo and Hyacinth, but my brain absolutely could not disconnect it from Manny Jacinto (and kept insisting on imagining Crowley calling Aziraphale homie and calling everything dope). Eventually I leaned into the Latin and landed on Joriel, then attached my banner to the Achilles and Patroclus myth instead of Apollo and Hyacinth, but the name Jacinto still makes me think of starmakers.

Honeysuckle & morning glory, climbing the oak tree: Aziraphale + Crowley + Earth. Seen in chapter 10, when Aziraphale and Crowley shake hands on the Arrangement. Two plants whose vines grow in opposing spirals. In nature, they have a symbiotic relationship, twining around each other in order to climb trees, walls, and fences, allowing both of them to grow higher than they could alone. 

Or: local woman sees this tweet, hasn’t known peace since.

The deasilwise / widdershins (clockwise / anticlockwise) thing got sprinkled throughout the story, with deasilwise being the “angel direction” and widdershins being the “demon direction.” Halley’s comet, with its backwards orbit, orbits the sun deasilwise, even after Crowley becomes widdershins.

Amaranth: Immortality, unfading affection, finding beauty in inaccessible places. 

The garden in the dunes and Petya’s travelling garden:

Where Aziraphale took a methodical, Kubler-Ross approach to dealing with loss, Crowley’s process was meandering and chaotic. The garden in the dunes was where it all came to a head— his way of throwing all of his emotions on the ground like a big jumbled pile of pick-up sticks, then slowly sorting through them and putting himself back together. There was a whole lot of Earth/flower speech going on in those scenes.

With the exception of zinnias, the garden was made up of perennials or self-sowing flowers. This happened “off-screen” as I could never find a decent way to work it in, but... the zinnias which Crowley bullied into being perennials returned to being annuals and died off after he left Terschelling and sometimes I still cry in the shower about it. 

Zinnias: Adrielle’s flower. Endurance, lasting friendship (especially friendships lasting through absence), goodness, daily remembrance. This one is also a small self-indulgence on my part since Adrielle was something of a self-insert. My mother loves zinnias and, growing up, our house was absolutely surrounded by them in the summer. Anywhere there was a free patch of dirt, Mom planted zinnias. They’re a scrappy, weird looking flower that doesn’t have a smell and a lot of people find rather ugly... and I love them with my entire heart. There is no flower on this earth that fills me with more whimsy, nostalgia, or childlike contentment. Also butterflies love them.

Chamomile: Patience. Fresh chamomile flowers are very aromatic and smell like apples.

Daisies: Transformation. Also simplicity, loyalty, and new beginnings.

Poppies: Restful sleep or recovery, peace in death, remembrance.

Tulips: Each tulip color has its own meaning, but the most common thing they symbolize is deep love. That said, I mainly chose this one for their prevalence in the Netherlands, as well as being very colorful perennials.

Pansies: The love or admiration that one person holds for another, free thinking, remembrance.

Lily of the valley: Rebirth, the return of happiness. They also have a very strong, very sweet smell and can grow in cool climates. These were the main reasons I chose it, rather than any of the religious connotations.

Lavender: Silence, devotion, serenity, grace.

Orchids: There’s... actually no deep symbolism with this one. Nothing intended anyway. Orchids, lavender, and cranberries are the dominant native plants on the island of Terschelling. I thought they’d be pretty in the dunes.

I am also a music-must-be-playing-at-all-times kind of person and I came out the other end of this project with FIFTEEN (15) playlists. Some of them are all instrumental playlists that I used to set the mood while I wrote certain scenes/segments, others are lyrical and tell a story or helped me sort out the story, some chapters got entire playlists all to themselves (looking at you, 14th century). The main playlists are linked in the notes on AO3, but I may collect them all in a tumblr post at some point if there’s an interest.

This entire project was an enormous labor of love that took up pretty much all of my free time for six months. So, if you read this far... thank you for coming on such a long journey with me!! Truly, deeply, and from every corner of my heart, thank you for reading. <3

[sparatus]

can u do shenko, shakarian, shiara and shrios? :eyes:

give me a ship and i’ll give my (brutally) honest opinion of it

i actually did shiara last night!! [link]

ok as for those other 3. let’s start with a broad statement then get into the deets: VERY sweet, love all three of them, truly #blessed

(ship-specific takes under the cut, also sometimes lately mobile has been fucking up for me and readmores don’t work so if ur on mobile and get a long post instead of a short answer with a readmore i’m so sorry)

shenko

ok full disclosure, i used to. ABHOR. shenko. and a huge part of it is on the fans. like, yeah, part of it was on how the romance happens in me1, we’ve all heard that complaint. i had no idea i was romancing kaidan, i thought i was just being a good friend, but OH SURPRISE YOU’RE IN LOVE NOW. and yeah, that was pretty off-putting! it felt kinda “nice guy”-ish to me, to be perfectly honest. but hey, that shit’s on the writers, and it’s an issue with ALL the me1 romances. i could still see how it COULD be really sweet, it just wasn’t for me.

and then the fans.

the fans were what really drove me away from the ship, honestly. it’s the same situation as i’ve been having with shakarian. the majority of the fans, or at least a very vocal minority, are goddamn insane. they were pushing me away from kaidan himself as a character, too. they were so obsessive over him and how his relationship with shepard is CLEARLY the BEST one and the one the writers WANTED to be canon and blah blah blah, i couldn’t stand it. it made me hate it.

and they had (and still have) no self-awareness! i used to have a mutual (i unfollowed and softblocked them over them being passive-aggressive over something stupid) who once said they were afraid to admit they ship shenko because they thought nobody else shipped it. i was so annoyed i put together an entire excel spreadsheet, using ao3 statistics, of the top 10 ships in the fandom by fanfic counts to prove no, you goddamn buffoon, you are very much in the majority here.

but as of late i’ve been taking more of a step back from fandom nonsense, trying to ignore the vocal idiots in the fandom so i can sit down and really think about things and come up with ideas and perspectives and opinions free of the taint of what the fans made me feel. and y’know what?? i decided i do actually like shenko!! it’s cute!! when you get past the clunky writing in me1, it’s a genuinely sweet ship!! kaidan’s a great guy!! i’m sorry i didn’t give you a chance, kaidan, i love you, i really do. i’m actually kind of excited to continue my kaidanmance shepard now (once i retrieve more dlc stuff from my brother’s old xbox, that is...), so i can form a proper opinion using the content from ALL the games instead of an me1 romance and weird fandom bullshit. i also want to make an mshep who romances him, because both fshenko and mshenko are equally cute and i love them both.

shakarian

ok. Ok. we’ve all seen my #onions on the shakarian fandom. (if ur new and reading this, there’s some fairly recent ones, or u could just search shakarian on my blog, it’ll pop up.) i’m not a fan of them. i do not like the shakarian fans. they’re making me despise something i love because none of them know how to act fucking normal.

that said. holy SHIT do i ever have a soft spot for shakarian.

like ok, i’ll admit, lately my fondness for them has been waning. niazmina shep, my first garrusmancer, is now an oc-mancer for reasons i outlined in this post [link]. in both my “official” canons garrus ends up with the citadel dlc turian woman. but yknow what?? garrus is still my personal favorite romance. i have plans to make a new garrusmance, because i can’t NOT have one. every now and then i get the itch to play through his romance again, because it’s just so sweet i love it so much.

garrus was my very first romance that i got into, and romancing him will always feel like home. i love him the most. he’s my space boyfriend. i might go to other ships, but part of me will always prefer smoochin’ that big handsome nerdy dorky cricket bird boy.

shrios

honestly?? i actually tend to. prefer a more fleshed-out version than what’s presented in-game.

in-game it feels very..... unpolished, i guess. playing through it, there were a lot of points where i was like, “well that was abrupt???” like, i think either the lock-in cutscene or the one before it has thane admitting how much he loved irikah and how much he misses her, and shep basically goes, “cool, btw i’m mad in love with you.” and then his pre-endgame scene, he literally starts crying about not wanting to die, and 5 seconds later you go have sex. like...... um??

like, i can see what they’re going for, and i LOVE that!! the whole concept is, grieving widower finds solace and comfort in a new friend, friend lends a sympathetic ear, the two of them gradually fall in love. that’s really sweet!! i love it!! but the execution..... leaves something to be desired.

and then we all know how Uhhhhh, the me3 romance content is, lol. i do think it’s sweet, but to me it feels like they just kinda. forgot he’s a romance option. it’s just so bare-bones.

so yeah, i tend to build the narrative and flesh it out more in my head, and THAT’S what i really dig. it’s a really sweet, touching thing, but bioware prooooobably should’ve done a little more work on it to make it a little less clunky.

[segadores-y-soldados]

Personal and Fic Updates

Hey everyone!

I know it’s been a long time since I’ve done one of these personal update messages.  I’m trying to get my stuff in order but life continues to outpace me, it seems.

The quick and dirty: Fic Stuff:

Moira has been integrated into the overarching plot of “And Overwatch For All”

Because of this, I am currently rewriting major portions of Old Habits.  Yesterday, I finished a major rewrite of chapter 10 (the “evil council is introduce” chapter).  I have the majority of chapter 11′s rewrite done and hope to finish that today as well.  With luck, I will start working on a rewrite of Chapter 13.

Shockingly, I’m keeping a lot of the “present day” plot elements the same (aka, all the stuff leading up to Recall).  But several major “past events” have changed, including Reaper/Gabriel’s backstory.

More on this later.  I will also be writing a separate post JUST for fic stuff, if you prefer to read only that.

Personal Stuff:

Extra expenses have started showing up in my life.  Details are under the cut.

My job has not yet promoted me and a coworker the way they said they would in the timeframe they gave us (1 year).  Because of this, I am starting the job hunt again.

I have created a Ko-Fi (https://ko-fi.com/U7U063ZJ)

More under the cut

Alright, so here’s the longer version of what my last like...three months have been like, with both personal/work stuff and fandom stuff.

Personal life/Work:

I have said this in a few places, but I currently work as an entry-level archaeologist for a state department in California.  Full disclosure: I and my fellow coworker are underpaid for our work, which is as variable as conducting documentation research through databases and organizing research on behalf of our higher-level archaeologist and historian supervisors to performing surveys and actual fieldwork digs in every type of weathers in California.  As an example, two weeks ago (the week of Thanksgiving here in the U.S.), myself and one of my supervisors did an 8 hour fieldwork day which consisted of 3-4 hours of surveying through waist-high grass in pouring rain at 55 degrees F/12 degrees C.  This upcoming week, I and (other underpaid) coworker will be doing two 12-hour days of construction monitoring.  Our work consists of traveling all over the state, with driving that can take a full day to get to a work destination (these are charged to work, don’t worry - I don’t have to pay for that, thank god).

The reason I’m explaining this is because this is a huge reason why some days (or even some weeks) my activity on tumblr, twitter, and AO3 will take a straight nosedive.  On Thursday of this past week, I spent 8-10 hours without checking my phone and came home to 4 missed calls, 8 “active chats” on messenger, 600 messages on discord, and basically a whole day of “social media-ing” missed out.  

If you’re rolling your eyes over this, I get it, I really do - it sounds like all the stuff that older people complain millennials “overvalue,” but (for example) one of those phone calls was from my dentist’s office saying that they will not serve me because (after three months of them NOT checking) they realized that I don’t have the right dental insurance for them.

Fun.

I don’t make enough money to switch to higher, “better services” health and dental insurance, but since I work a job that requires physical labor, I’m scared to cut them from my life.  Said coworker twisted his ankle earlier this year, and work only compensated him for 1 week of “missed” work, when in reality he was walking with a slight limp for 2-3 weeks.  Because of our low-level, we are not given access to benefits that many other state workers get.

Moreover, our sub-department has been promising that the two of us would get promoted “within the year.”  We reached a year working with them in mid-November, and that promise still hasn’t been reached.

So in terms of my personal life, I’m at a cross-roads: I will tell them that they need to promote us, even to the next “low-level position” because that will give us just a few more $/hour which will help A LOT when accumulated, or I’m going to tell them that I’ll have to search for something else.

On top of this, my parents have decided it’s time for me to “pay rent” to live at home with them - a discussion we, frankly, haven’t had on a serious level yet and one which blindsided me this morning.  I am looking into my options but without a better job, they’re not good.

This also doesn’t cover whatever it will take to help me start the legal and medical processes of transitioning, which are, frankly, the main things I’ve been saving money for.

What does this mean:

I’m looking for places to cut costs, but the combination of current expenses + what my parents want from me will take 1/3 to 1/2 of my current monthly paycheck.  I already spend next to nothing on personal stuff, so all my current expenses are “necessities” such as food, gas, and insurance.  I’m looking to cut down on gas costs but it may be awhile before my daily schedule gets adjusted.

The alternate is taking a second job that will permit me to only work my free three days a week.

Doing this means I will have zero time to write or produce content.

For now, I’m not jumping out to do that.  I’ve made a Ko-Fi account (https://ko-fi.com/U7U063ZJ) that I would greatly appreciate any spare money you’re willing to contribute.  Something as simple as a few dollars can go to me covering the cost of my health insurance per month, while I figure out the bigger problems of searching for a job.

The reason why I started with this is because:

Fic Stuff/Writing Stuff:

I do the equivalent of 3-4 full days of “writing” for fandom stuff per week: on my days off, I can write anywhere from 8 to 14 hours a day.  Using just Friday and yesterday as an example, I wrote 9k words, and with whatever I do today, I will likely push that to about 11-12k.

Yes, it is all voluntary, and I do not have to write at the pace that I do, nor the amount that I do.  I do it because I enjoy it, and because, honestly, writing for Overwatch has given me some of the biggest joys and happiness I have felt in like, a decade.  And that includes writing the long essays.  My last big R76 post (http://segadores-y-soldados.tumblr.com/post/167321630835/everything-you-want-to-know-about-reaper-and) spans a whopping 67 pages and 7.5k words in Google Docs (that includes pictures and sources/credits/links/references).

Again, this isn’t to brag, but just to put my writing into perspective, I guess.  This is the equivalent of doing a second part-time job, which was something I attempted last year but was unable to balance my current archaeology job + a part-time retail job + writing.  I dropped the second one because, at the time, I finally had the luxury to choose a job in my profession and writing on the side.  This is a luxury I was fortunate to enjoy for the first half of 2017, but it is steadily becoming undoable as my work increases my responsibilities without increasing my pay.

Fic Updates:

For those of your who have been waiting patiently for information on “And Overwatch for All” I do have some good news that I’m finally ready to share:

Moira has been integrated into the plot.

I got a number of comments here and on twitter that were really supportive of my current version of “AOFA” and I just want to say, thank you all so much.  It means a lot to me that you guys have liked the version of Overwatch I’ve built up and that you found all the characters, including my silly OCs, to be engaging and well-written.  It was soul-crushing to think I would have to lose some of them, but after some time and doing more research on Moira, I feel ready to talk more about her and how she’s going to factor into the updated plot.

To start off with:

None of the OCs will be cut, but some of their roles will change.

Lmao, this surprised me as well, but I’ve figured out a few different ways to make all of the OCs, especially the very obviously contrived “Death Agents,” stick around in the updated plot.

Only one OC (and you can probably guess who, if you’ve started “New Wars”) will change names: the character called “Reaper” in “New Wars Chapter 1″ (the “young Hanzo chapter”) will be called “Reaver.”  This is due to his updated role in the plot.  His background has changed only slightly.

If it wasn’t apparent, this “Reaper” was meant to act as a plot device to cause confusion over Gabriel/Reaper’s actions after the fall of Overwatch, but that has changed because:

I’m switching to Crisis-era and “undercover mercenary” Reaper.

If you’ve read some of my more recent posts on Moira, you’ll know that I’ve switched over to supporting the idea that “something went wrong with Gabriel Reyes during SEP/the Crisis.”  This is due to the fact that you can find a folder labeled “Soldier ID: 24″ in Moira’s Oasis lab, that Michael Chu said that Reyes was interested in getting her help on “matters of genetics,” and that this appears to mesh the “Reaper has existed for decades” concept in Reaper’s hero profile.

Truth be told, I’ve actually been a supporter of this idea of “Gabriel has been Reaper behind the scenes for decades” plot point for a long, long time, almost as long as I’ve been posting Old Habits.  “Reaper”/“Reaver” was semi-messy OC that attempted to bridge Reaper’s original hero profile with the “Old Soldiers” explanation that Gabriel/Reaper gave that “Jack and Overwatch ‘left [him] to suffer.’”  However, I also knew when writing Old Habits that the “Mercy is evil” theory was ALSO not true, so I was kinda stuck:

“If Gabriel = Reaper for decades, why did he appear to blame Jack and Overwatch for his current condition?”

My original solution was to make “Reaper” a different character and have him operating the situation in the background (like a mystery story), but over time this solution got trickier and trickier to work with.  With Moira, I have a chance to rework much of Old Habits/AOFA to better suit some of the details that have come out since drafting it.

This does mean, unfortunately, that all the “76+127″ content is going to become its own, standalone series.

To switch over to integrating “Soldier: 24,” the “76+127″ stories will have to become their own standalone series.  Don’t worry - I’m not deleting anything.  Old content from “Old Habits” will be moved to their own fics, so you can read the whole thing in chronological order.

A new version of my updated ideas on SEP has already started being drafted.  Writing it out is just a matter of time at this point, haha.

The conspiracy/Talon council “mysteries” will become more transparent almost immediately.

With Moira, I finally get the chance to explore some of my ideas in “full format” instead of the kinda awkward “Sombra hacking a chat log” parts yall originally got.  This DOES mean that written portions will suddenly be much, MUCH longer.  For example:

Old Habits original chapter 10 (Sombra hacks an SSO chat log): 17 pages

Old Habits revised chapter 10 (Moira discusses the Route 66 battle with council members + Sombra hacks a chat log): closer to 34 pages

The explosion fight has been changed.

Because of the changes to Gabriel’s plot, the nature of the explosion fight between him and Jack has changed significantly.  It does incorporate new information that Moira revealed.

If it wasn’t obvious, I’ve had a draft version of my ideas for the fight sitting in GDocs for about a year now, and I use that for all my flashback/memories, and also for when Reaper and Soldier: 76 are arguing in the present.  There was a major plot point in the explosion fight that I was extremely uncomfortable with, but found it to be “solid angst material.”  In retrospect, I dislike this plot point and have removed it for another plot point that sits better with me, and fits the overall story more comfortably (I think).

So yes, I DO have a new draft of the explosion fight - written completely from scratch, 100% different in tone and emotionality.  Parts of this should begin to show in updates to Chapter 13, when Soldier: 76/Jack reflects on some of the fight.

The Goal:

The goal for AOFA right now is to update Old Habits in “two big batches” - update the first half (Chapters 1 - 15) within 1 - 2 weeks, and then update the second half (Chapters 16 - 31) shortly after.  Optimistically, before January, but realistically, closer to late-January/early-February.

Thanks for sticking with me - both with this post, and with my life changes.  Things are incredibly and often overwhelmingly busy for me, and I don’t really know where many of these things (both personal stuff and fic stuff) will end up.  I really do appreciate any and all support, even if I’m not able to respond to comments.  You guys make it worthwhile to keep writing, and I apologize for how distant I’ve been with this stuff.