hkblack

[hkblack]

👀

[hkblack]

They’re back!!

[hkblack]

I neko atsume'd the new boop cats

[hkblack]

me @ unsuspecting tumblr users blogging in peace

[hkblack]

@cassieoh is the coolest human and if you're not following her you need to LOOK AT THAT STEGG. She's perfect. 😍😭

it is my amazing friend @hkblack's birthday - whenever we are in the same city, we are drawn to the dino skeletons like magnets (they were alive!!!! they were huge and alive and *real*! sometimes you gotta go stare at megafauna to stay sane tbh), so it felt right to draw these two with their favorite. happy birthday friend!!

[hkblack]

Disclaimer my involvement in the BatFandom is peripheral. I do not know the BatChildren or their names (Tom? Dick? Harry? Sabrina?) but I am in fandom and therefore see the BatFandom having a good time and like to read their nonsensical posts about characters I don't know.

So when this post broke confinement and I found it as a screenshot on Facebook, I had to find the original to add my own thoughts about how the BatKids react to Bruce Wayne's invitation to the Bat.

The grumpy broody one, of course, rolls his eyes and refuses to admit it's kind of funny. It's his job.

The bouncy one thinks this is the funniest thing to ever happen in the BatManor and makes a point to wonder out loud in public if the Bat will ever take dear Daddy Warbucks Wayne up on the offer because it'd be real cool to get to meet the Bat!

There are two having a mild crisis because on the one hand they love trolling the internet about "Bruce Wayne and Batman, you've never seen them in the same place!" And this play by Bruce totally feeds that but on the other hand...can it truly be cool and funny if Bruce himself does it?

The quiet space cadet one isn't even aware of the whole thing until someone explains it. The response of "oh. Ha. Funny." is wildly underwhelming.

The other two recognize it for the bad bat-dad joke, snort, roll their eyes, and it takes the wind out of Bruce's sails a bit because he thought it was kind of funny and clever, but what are BatKids for if not for humbling you?

all goofs aside I do think it would very funny if beloved airhead billionaire philanthropist Bruce Wayne was like. VERY publicly forklift certified and happily reminds everyone of it every time Wayne Enterprises social media posts a publicity picture of Bruce swinging by one of the factories, wearing a hard hat and hanging with the working folks.

Bruce retweets this to the Official Bruce Wayne social media and it's always "So great to meet the people who make our work possible! What we do at Wayne Enterprises wouldn't be possible without these hardworking folks. They seemed so surprised when I told them I'm also forklift certified! Maybe I can drive one next time."

the man is always reminding people that he theoretically COULD operate a forklift but no one will let him because that's Bruce Fucking Wayne and it just seems safer to Not.

meanwhile Batman, obviously, can operate a forklift but isn't technically certified due to the technically impossible nature of getting a certification made out to The Goddamn Batman, which culminated in Batman having to (briefly!!!) drive a forklift in the process of foiling someone's stupid warehouse-related scheme and briefly becoming a meme when someone gets a picture and starts a furious online debate over whether or not Batman can be operating heavy machinery. "flying a fighter jet down city streets is one thing but I'm drawing the line here, this is an OSHA violation," that kind of thing. #batsVosha gets trending probably.

Bruce, ever the opportunist, capitalizes on this by tweeting out an open invitation for the Batman to stop by Wayne Enterprises for a course in forklift safety.

[hkblack]

maya angelou saying the funniest thing anyone has ever said about editing, which i can never let myself forget EVER AGAIN [x]

[hkblack]

On Crowley and Sweeney Todd

I made a joke about writing a dissertation in a Discord Server, so here’s almost 3k words on why it's so significant that Neil specifically calls out the song Epiphany, and vaguely hints at the "original" Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett. As someone who has worked on Sweeney in different capacities from both high school nerd to a professional context--this gets real fascinating.

I really break down the plot of both the “original” Sweeney Todd story and the Sondheim musical, because I know not everyone was an obsessed theater nerd as a teenager, and I want to make sure you all get the important bits of this other story that may or may not have been destroyed by a certain movie that we will not discuss. I’d apologize for making a long post, but welcome to Tumblr, twitter folks, let’s DO THIS.

Let's start with context.

The String of Pearls [Featuring SWEENEY TODD THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET] was a Penny Dreadful story from the 1850s written by ?? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (there's some guesses, but no one is 100% sure)

In it, Sweeney is a barber--what's important to note is that historically this is the time of the barber-surgeon. Victorian London was all about that one stop shop sort of life. Got a weird abscess you need checked out and also want a bit of a shave? Go to your local barber surgeon! He's got sharp things, makes sense to me! He and his neighbor, Mrs. Lovett, seem to run fully independent shops. She's got a thriving meat pie business; he's got a thriving barber business.

Cool.

The story itself is actually of a young sailor who has arrived at the city with a pearl necklace given to him by his mate who was all, "When next you go to London, give this to my lady love for me." Said mate is presumed dead at sea, because no one has heard from him for like a year. Johanna, the lady love, knows this sailor is coming--but he and the pearl necklace disappear before she sees him. She does some investigating, starts thinking there's something fishy going on with these Sweeney and Lovett characters and digs deeper. Surprise--human meat pies! Turns out her lover has been kept captive by Todd and Lovett in the crypts and tunnels that connect their shops and was forced to make pies. Bad guys get locked up (hung), good guys get married. And you, young Victorian Lad, are meeting with your mates after a day of work going "DID YOU CATCH LAST NIGHT’S GAME OF THRONES PENNY DREADFUL?"

This, you'll note, is vastly different from Sondheim's Sweeney Todd.

In Sondheim, Benjamin Barker is married to Lucy, and they've just had a bouncing bundle of joy, Johanna. The powerful Judge Turpin wants Lucy, but she's not interested, and Barker keeps going "back off my wife, bro" So Turpin uses his power, and gets Barker shipped to mfing Australia, and then does exactly what you'd expect a man in power do to vulnerable Victorian woman. Distraught, Lucy takes lye. Here's a moment of goodness for Turpin. He takes in Johanna, recognizing his own culpability here. Lucy meanwhile is left to live on the streets, half mad from brain damage. Years pass. Barker comes back with the alias of Sweeney Todd, set on, finding his wife and daughter, and possibly getting revenge on one person, and one person only.

Let's jump to Lovett. In Sondheim you have to really pay attention to the subtext to get her story. She's a widow. She knew Todd before he was shipped off. She desired Todd no differently than Turpin desired Lucy.While Turpin gets Johanna, Lovett gets Todd's old house. Her husband is dead (who knows how), and she's making do with her pie shop. When Todd walks in her door she recognizes him almost immediately. She tells him, sort of, that his wife is dead (at least when Todd goes: she's dead? she never corrects him). She tells him Turpin has his daughter. He wonders what to do, and Lovett comes up with a plan. The plot is this: take over the upstairs and turn it back into a barbershop, get a following with this new Sweeney Todd name, become the best barber in town, lure the judge in, murder the judge. Prosper! It's rough around the edges, but the man has just found out his wife is dead and his daughter has been raised by a predator. Cut him some slack.

They go out and Todd gets into a competition with a "traveling barber" who also is a dentist (barber-surgeon, remember?). Todd wins and tells everyone where to find him. This includes the Judge's lackey, the Beadle. Clever marketing, man, it'll kill ya.

And it almost does! Said traveling barber also recognizes Todd and goes to confront him at the shop. Typical blackmail shit. Angry that his plan may not be able to work, and it'll be because of this one person, Todd lashes out. For a show with a high body count, the murder of Pierelli is probably in the top three in terms of brutality. It's just lash out and murder--because you're depressed, and your wife is dead. He hides the body quickly and is discussing with Lovett what to do when the Judge comes knocking.

Thrilled that his plan has just jumped a few steps, Todd gets him in the chair, does some schmoozing, and is really taking his time to just--savor the moment of revenge.

Now let's pause and rewind. On the ship into London at the beginning of the show, there's a bright eyed bushy tailed kid who Todd meets. This same kid sees our dear Johanna (now a teenager, who is being lusted after by her creepy Judge guardian) and falls in love. Kids these days. He and Johanna decide to run off together, but he needs help.

So of course, this kid, this optimistic fool that Todd had to deal with the entire way into London, bursts in right as Todd prepares himself to make the killing blow. The Judge hears the plot to "steal" his Johanna, thinks Todd is in on it and therefore awful, shouts and leaves.

Now Todd could, in this moment, murder the boy too, but he doesn't. He sends him out--and then we get Epiphany.

In good stagings of Sweeney Todd, Todd is depressed, morose, and kind of quiet up until Epiphany. He's unsure, he just--look there's a lot going on, okay? A lot of folks would say in the beginning you get to see bits of Barker still around and see the man struggling to be this identity he's created to hide himself and maybe, even, protect himself. He doesn't come up with his own ideas (and even after this, he lets Lovett drive a lot). He's the kind of "moving through the motions" you would expect of a man whose been sent to a labor camp in the harsh climes of Australia and has just found out his wife is dead. Epiphany is when Todd really wakes up. He snarls and rages against the world. Epiphany brings back a refrain from the very first song. Bright-eyed bushy tailed sings about there being no place like London in that "wow isn't London grand!" way and Todd responds by saying London is a black pit full of people full of shit, only the vermin of the world inhabit London. This comes back in Epiphany. Instead of being intent on revenge on one person who caused direct harm, this is where Todd snaps and decides to say "eff it everyone in this hellhole is now responsible for my suffering" Benjamin Barker stayed put in his place. He followed the rules. And Judge Turpin put his foot in Barker's face, that man essentially died, and Todd rose from his ashes. Todd says that everyone deserves to die. He starts with saying “they all deserve to die”, then says “no we all deserve”. He says, “the lives of the wicked should be made brief” and that death "for the rest of us will be a relief, we all deserve to die.”

He has this brief moment of grieving his daughter in the song before suddenly shouting "Finished!" Here he starts to really address the audience, inviting imaginary people to his barber shop to die at his hand. He says, "I will have vengeance, I will have salvation!" and starts referring to himself as "Sweeney." It's quite interesting when you listen to it or watch the incredible George Hearn perform it because he breaks again near the end to grieve his wife. There are some people who say that Todd and Barker are two different men, like split personalities or Jekyll and Hyde, as opposed to Todd being Barker’s alias and alias alone. And when you listen to the music--Sondheim isn't telling you no. This grand beautiful sweeping symphony swells under Barker's grieving moments, before getting cut by Todd shouting out. And finally at the end of Epiphany you get this absolutely transcendent and awfully dissonant moment of Barker's sweeping symphony and Todd's unhinged noise as he sings "I'm alive at last, and I'm full of joy!"

And it's awful and immediately followed by one of the funniest and most recognizable songs--Have a Little Priest. In which, again, Lovett comes up with an idea of how to deal with Pirelli's body, and any of the other bodies that Todd might want to make available.

Epiphany could just be a vent song. "I'm going to kill all those miserable assholes who did this to me," says Todd. And Lovett could, in theory, go "A'ight. So, look, this is how we get you back into good graces with the judge, we can work with this!" because she does do that part. Getting the judge to come back has nothing to do with the murder of other people. She does not have to encourage the murder for "practice."

There's a dead man in the trunk in the room. How much more practice do you need to slice a throat with a sharp object as a barber-surgeon? We're good boo.

But she does. And she starts with a little priest. And that temptation, if you must, only works because of Todd's own rage fueled venting.

So. Okay. -deep breath-

Let's go back to Crowley and why this could be his favorite moment.

We know Crowley hated the 14th century. We know Crowley took credit for many of humanity's worst hits. We know he drank after finding out about the inquisition. TV!Crowley shows us a Crowley who takes a carpenter from Galilee and shows him the world, who frowns at the execution of someone whose crime was to tell people to be nice to each other. We see him grumpily get a drink after having to deal with Caligula. We see him offended at the very thought of being aligned with Nazis.

Gaiman has said that for all that "sauntering vaguely downwards" Crowley is probably not nearly as bad as Heaven thinks, but not nearly as "good" as he'd like to say out loud. But one thing Crowley in every universe agrees on is that the phrase "Hell is empty, and all the devils are here," is pretty damn close to accurate because Hell could never be as awful and as terrible as humans are to each other. And in that, Crowley perhaps agrees with the idea of there being a hole in the world like a great black pit filled with people full of shit. So perhaps that's a reason he likes this song. The human race is pretty miserable. I’ll just gesture at the news recently and you all can find your own reasons to agree. Perhaps in Crowley’s lowest moments, when an angel refuses to fraternize with him, when he has to do a particularly nasty job, when he’s alone on earth and shouting into the void, he agrees with some of what Todd says here. Humans are awful, and the world might be a better place without them.

BUT another reason Crowley might like this song could also be it's a perfect demonstration of humans being the key to their own fallibility in temptation. "I'm going to murder everyone" could just be a thing Sweeney says and does not do, if not for Lovett coming up with a way to one up her neighbor (who, it is implied earlier, is using stray cats to fill her meat pies). And even then—Todd could say “yeah, okay, calm down crazy. We’re not…eating people. I want revenge on this man who ruined my family, cannibalism is a whole other level. Where did you even get that idea? Who are you hanging out with? Why did you get my house? Wtf?” But he doesn’t. He goes with it. He easily falls into this temptation because he is blinded by rage and the need for revenge.

I like both of those reasons. They’re pretty good reasons. I could write fanfics for days with those two reasons.

But my favorite reason that Crowley likes Epiphany is that he probably finds some kind of ironic humor in Todd saying he'll have salvation by murdering people, because that's not how salvation works, buddy--and Crowley would know.

But what is salvation then? Living in miserable suffering, for a crime you didn't commit so that maybe, just maybe, if you bear it well enough, you'll get some kind of eternal reward, singing celestial harmonies? How do celestial harmonies solve the grief of a dead wife, a daughter he'll never be able to hold, the knowledge that a man ruined his entire life and got away with it?

Because here’s the thing, for Todd at least. What if, instead of relying on some omnipresent being who never answers Her telephone to give you salvation, you make your own salvation?

In Epiphany, Todd takes the concept of salvation in his hands and says, "I recognize that Heavenly Salvation is not achieved by murder, but given that celestial harmonies are stupid, I have elected to redefine salvation with my own terms."

Now, admittedly in the end, this goes south for Todd. HOWEVER, you can argue that part of the reason it does is because he is being actively lied to. He accidentally murders his Lucy, thinking her some obnoxious beggar woman. Some of this is because she is an obnoxious beggar woman. Lovett is constantly shoo'ing her off, seeming to be nervous any time the woman is around. When Lovett goes down below their building and finds Lucy's body and realizes what Todd has done, she panics, "Quickly now, into the oven with you" she says, dragging the body to the giant oven, dispensing with the usual process of meat grinding. Todd comes down and catches her, tells her to knock it off, still not realizing who Lucy is, Lovett tries to distract him, Todd goes to move Lucy's body, and then recognizes her. He loses it. Barker comes back, you might say, sobbing. Then we get the most brutal murder--Todd pretends to forgive Lovett who is insisting she loves him, always has, even before, and she'd make a better wife than Lucy ever was. He agrees, spinning her around and dancing before throwing her into the oven. Todd then dies by the hand of a young boy, Toby--formerly Pirelli's assistant, taken in by Lovett--who figured out the secret and went (rightfully) insane at the knowledge that he'd been helping turn humans into pies (and also had been eating those pies). Young Toby slits Todd's throat as the man grieves his wife. Many productions have Todd recognize Toby's presence and intentionally let it happen.

Because how can there ever be salvation for a man who ruined the very thing he proclaimed to love? By killing Lucy, he has become as wicked as Turpin.

SO.

When Neil makes references to the original Sweeney Todd, we're talking about a story that was made for shock value. How awful that those people ate pies made of human, how fantastically delightful that we have the ability to consume mass media for one of the first times, how good that the young couple lives happily ever after. What creative little bastards humans are for coming up with this story. Crowley’s got a lot to be excited about. Something entertaining for one. But also, mass media! Mass media talking about cannibalism. Some rich dude somewhere is going to wonder what human flesh tastes like thanks to this. Not Crowley’s scene, but if it gets a soul in on the books with his name attached, hey, gotta pay rent somehow, amirite? And that's all well and good.

But when Neil says Crowley likes Sondheim's Sweeney, and specifically Epiphany, we're talking about a moment where we see the ease at which humans fall into temptation, the horrors humans think of on their own, and the taking of Heavenly concepts and turning them entirely human.

And the beauty of redefining salvation in human terms (after you take out the murder) is that it gives Crowley permission to redefine salvation in his own terms too. Why can’t a demon have salvation, when the demon is the one who gets to define what salvation is? Crowley doesn’t need Her to make him an angel again, he doesn’t want Heaven, it’s boring and full of celestial harmonies. He’s been there.

But if Crowley gets to decide that salvation is the freedom to blast Queen while going 90mph in the middle of London with his favorite book hoarding angel by his side…

He doesn’t need someone else to give that to him.

And I think that that’s rather lovely.

[hkblack]

Okay so maybe not a hill a willing to die on but definitely one I'm willing to plant my flag on at point is that when Aziraphale says to Crowley, "I forgive you" both times it's about Crowley not having faith in Aziraphale. It's the opposite of "'you said trust me', 'and you did'."

[hkblack]

10,000 hours, a lovely human au by @anna-the-hank, featuring femme author Aziraphale, disowned playboy Crowley and the struggle to write a book of erotica when you’re a virgin. E, 87,363.

Continuing my pink streak started by @hkblack

Messed up and put the bookmark on the wrong end and my daughter tells me I should switch to doing that way for ease of shelving. Also featuring fabric I’ve had for 25+ years.

[hkblack]

Gifts for theviewfrommtseleya, with permission from @commodorecliche and @hkblack

Happy birthday 🎉🎂🎈

In the house we remain by @commodorecliche

M, 48,334 (ghost story) Beautiful and bittersweet

And Bleating Hearts by @hkblack

E, 186,422 (human au) Bentley the goat is quite the instigator 🐐

[hkblack]

Announcing: the FTH Playbook!

Ever since our first year, FTH has actively encouraged people to run their own auctions, freely sharing our organizational materials as well as a brief guide to using them.

This year, we decided to get (very) serious about overhauling those materials. We've made a lot of back-end improvements over the years, and we wanted to share them with others who might be considering organizing their own events. Even more so, we wanted to offer the very best guidelines and explanations we could, based on our (at this point) several years' experience.

It's taken several months and a lot of effort, but we're proud to unveil it now: our step-by-step guide to organizing and and running your own benefit fanworks auction.

In this folder, you will find:

an auction narrative (a step-by-step overview of all of the stages in running an auction, broken down into individual tasks and with recommended timelines)

templates of every form and spreadsheet we use to run the auction, which you can copy and adjust to your needs

individual step-by-step guides for using each of those forms and spreadsheets

In addition to the link in this post, you can also find a link to the playbook on our tumblr page.

The world is overflowing with urgent causes that could desperately benefit from some financial support. If you've been sitting at home wishing you could do more, here is your chance. Here is the sign that you can do it.

Also, please reblog to spread this far and wide! We want to be sure this playbook reaches every single person who might find it helpful.

[hkblack]

Crowley was rather proud of the Employee Hellpline. There had been a contest, about twenty years back, to create the most confusing phone structure possible, and Crowley had won. (He'd got inspired by calling up a telecom company to cancel service. Despite the fact that he'd made the call without an account, he'd left having agreed to a phone/television/Internet bundle and two magazine subscriptions.)

What he’d forgotten was the fact that he was an Employee, and thus had to navigate the labyrinthine obscurity of the Hellpline every time he needed to put in a request for a little extra power or office supplies. Fortunately, he didn't tend to make many calls; unfortunately, this meant that any insight he gained into the pattern had generally evaporated by the next time he had to face it.

Which was how he came to be sitting in his car, twenty minutes late for lunch, being informed in a monotone that he’d better listen carefully to the following menu, as options might have changed.

“For complaints about colleagues, press 1. For complaints colleagues made about you, press 2. For accounts payable, press 3, then 8, then turn the phone around and repeat. For accounts receivable, enter your ID in reverse. For all other financial requests, spell the first 10 pages of the Bee Movie script using your keypad. For—”

There was a knock at the window. “Are you quite all right?” Aziraphale said.

Crowley rolled the window down, half-listening to the phone menu. “Sorry I’m late—”

“You weren’t late. You drove up twenty-five minutes ago and took the ‘Reserved for Customers of AZ Fell & Co’ spot. So no actual customers have been able to park here this entire time. Which is dreadful,” Aziraphale added happily. 

“This concludes the menu. Make your selection in the next four seconds or this call will be terminated. Four…three…” Crowley racked his brains attempting to remember whether accounts payable was 8, then 3, or— “Good-bye,” the voice said, with gloomy satisfaction, and hung up.

“Ahhh, sanctify it.”

“What?”

“I’m trying to get this reimbursement through. I had to buy eighty live bats for this work thing, and apparently that kind of order can’t go through the normal process. So I’m on the Hellpline. But this consecrated phone—”

“Didn’t you design the system?”

“Might’ve done.”

“May I?” 

Crowley hit Redial and placed the phone in Aziraphale’s outstretched hand.

Aziraphale listened thoughtfully to the first list of menu options, then tapped the phone. He listened a bit longer, tapped twice more, said, “Mammal, not otherwise specified,” and handed it back. 

A voice crackled in Crowley's ear. “Accounts payable, living creatures from twoscore to nine dozen. How can I hinder you today?”

“One sec,” Crowley said, and moved the phone away. “How’d you do that?”

“It was yours, wasn’t it?” 

“Yeah.”

“I suppose I simply know how to thwart you,” said Aziraphale smugly. “Go on,” he said, nodding at the phone as he got in the car. “We’re late.”

[hkblack]

Let me tell you a story...

It starts in the summer of 2021. Honestly it probably starts a little before that. 2020 through 2022 ish are a bit hazy because there was a lot of sitting around at home doing nothing.

Somewhere in that haziness my partner goes “wait, you haven’t watched this Good Omens show yet? And you haven’t read the book? … oh no. You should do that.”

And immediately after finishing the show I knew I was in trouble. I knew if I read the book I would absolutely fall down the fandom rabbit hole and be trapped, and so for a very long while, I didn’t. Until I did.

And then in August 2021, I wandered into fandom. I had been lurking. Seeing what AO3 had to offer. Crawling back onto Tumblr. But I had a story idea, and I needed a beta reader. And the last time I was in fandom, LiveJournal was still a thing, so I didn’t know where to go.

I found out about Discord, and I signed up for a thousand servers, it felt like, and in one server I bravely started sticking my neck out.

There was talk about someone writing a Human AU on a farm, and farm animals in general, and I chimed in about goat-scaping. And then I made the joke that would seal my fate.

“I don’t know if I could write a kid fic, but you know. I could write a kid (goat) fic.”

It was meant to be a short, sweet, meet-cute. Professor Aziraphale has a goat from the goat scaping team break into his office. Based loosely on a campus experience where a member of the goat-scaping team at a campus I was on tried (and failed) to get into a classroom once.

A simple formula. Maybe a 4+1? 4 times a goat broke into Professor Aziraphale Fell’s office, and one time it didn’t.

I even found the first beta reading request. First chapter done, I’ve got four more planned. Rated T.

Ha.

I started writing Chapter 5, you know, the final chapter, and realized—there’s more to this story. These characters have life, and story, and who doesn’t want to see more goats? Also, had I truly fulfilled the “kid-fic” portion of my joke?

I think we can all agree that no, no I hadn’t.

So, I kept writing. But I also found my stride in other Discord Servers and in Fandom in general. And in the winter of 2021, I went on a beta-reading blitz for the Gift Exchange happening in the Do It With Style Events Discord server. I read something like 14? 15? stories in a very short amount of time and in doing so, got to know some really amazing people and began to carve out my spot in the community.

From this server I found folks with lived goat-experience who were willing to share and advise me. From this server I found beta readers and brit pickers willing to cheer me on and guide my writing to the best version it could be. I found friends and joy and I found community.

And if you look very carefully through the pages of Bleating Hearts, I think that at its heart, past the puns, past the obvious fast burn love story, and the crooked Luce Matin and demanding James Starr, and even beyond the goats, it’s a story about finding your place in a community. While we talk about Aziraphale and Crowley and their relationship, so many people have asked me about Anathema and Crowley at the chicken coop (we only got to see Newt and Aziraphale in the bedroom). The most commented on scene is Anathema pulling the car over and getting Aziraphale’s consent to go to Tracy’s for lunch.

It's a story with goats, romance, and drama. But it’s a story about community.

I have thanked the people most involved a thousand times over, and I will always take an excuse to thank them again. @ambrasue, my ride or die beta reader. She is who to thank for the sentences making sense. And for me not beating you all over the head with the word “Gently.” HolRose, for the Brit-Picking and second pair of eyes when Ambra and I had gone cross-eyed, and always, always, always having a kind comment ready to go for every chapter update. @writingordinaryrealities, for all things Goats, and for not laughing at me when we met in person and I lost my cool over real life goats.

@mirjam-writes! Mirjam made me my first ever fanart for one of my fanfics! And so many more of you have followed suit and I never know what to say when I see it but I always make a noise and run excitedly to my partner and flap my hands and show him his heart and he always gets the dumbest smile and goes, “I love when people make you goat fanart. You are adorable when you’re verklempt.”

But also, the DIWS and Good Omens community. Every single person who shouted at one of my snippets when I needed a boost and shared a bit of what I was proud of. Every single person who tagged me in a goat video—you all have tagged me in so many goat videos. I watch each and every one of them. Every single person who got excited when I said I was finally ready to start posting.

Because you see, that support, that community, led me to pay it forward. At TIC4 in 2023, I had just finished my panel on beta reading and was feeling a bit amped up. I saw in the chat that someone wanted to talk Slow Show and Human Aus and, I don’t know if y’all know this, but uh, I’m a big fan of human AUs. And so I hopped into the break out room and met J.

J is a lovely human who has been fandoming since the OG Star Trek days with Kirk and Spock. She had found a physical copy of Slow Show and just needed to talk to someone, anyone about it. She wasn’t sure what the Archive was, she was still learning her way around digital fandom, and I instantly wanted to reach out and help her find community and joy the way I had when I got started in the fandom. So, I sat down and I gave her my favorites. I told her how to find me on socials. We connected on Discord. We sent each other long letters back and forth on Discord sharing our joys and frustrations and our love of GO and talking about all sorts of other things. And it has been amazing listening to her stories and getting to know her.

Unbeknownst to me, J had reached out to @brunheiffer to ask for a physical copy of Bleating Hearts. Now—I’m all for fandom in the physical space, but it’s never even crossed my mind to do more than something printed out at my home printer, hastily hole punched, and shoved into a binder so I could sneak fanfiction reading time during 5th period math class after I was done with my worksheets many, many, many moons ago. When brunheiffer reached out and asked if they could print and bind a copy for me—I didn’t know what to say. Or do. Or think. I think I keysmashed? I keysmashed after I made my partner read the message out loud. And then I went and looked through tumblr and all of brunheiffer’s excellent work. And then I went, “Do I say yes?” and he went “um YES OF COURSE YOU SAY YES. WHAT”

So, I said yes.

I also said yes to progress shots and got to watch some of the coolest work ever. I didn’t know how books…ya know…booked. Witchcraft probably? I’m still convinced there is witchcraft involved, but there is also an incredible amount of skill, and time, and patience, and hard work, and love that is put into making a book a book. And learning what I did, and watching the process, and seeing the care that brunheiffer put into each of the three (THREE!) sets of books that were made (one for me, one for brunheiffer, one for J), was just stunning.

Do you know, J reached out to me and apologized for not asking me first and asked me if it was okay that she had reached out and asked if brunheiffer would do this for her? Why would I ever be against something so heartfelt and kind?

I cried.

I legitimately sat in my office and cried.

When people ask me how I write the way I do, or why I write, or anything along those lines. I have the same answer. “I write for myself.”

Oh sure, I started to write Bleating Hearts to make Ambra laugh and/or have feelings, but at the end of the day, when I write, it is because I need to get the bed time stories I tell myself at night, the day dreams while sitting on the bus, out of my head and somewhere else—so that a new movie can play. And when I write, I write knowing that I will come back to that story. That I will forget the little pieces (because I have a pretty shit memory tbh), and I’ll be able to go back, and wrap myself up in the comfort of the story I have written, and be surprised by some of the little details I left as presents for myself. And be excited. And be happy. And watch my favorite movie again.

So every time I see someone make art of this story, or talk about how they love the story, or how happy it made them, or the feelings it inspired, or how reading goats made them want to write their own fanfiction—I get, well, like my partner says, “verklempt.” I don’t know what to do with that feeling, other than to just be overwhelmed that somehow something I made to entertain me has brought other people so much joy. Has helped people connect and find community.

What a powerful and beautiful thing that is.

Not everything I write is going to be Bleati—y'all I am just going to call it Goats. Calling it Bleating Hearts feels so weird. It’s Goats. That’s the name of the story. That’s my name for the story.

Anyway.

Not everything is going to be Goats. I’ve got some wips in the hopper right now that are um…lots of angst and heavy spice. Not everything I write is going to be liked by everyone. Some of it may even offend you.

But knowing that this one thing has inspired you all to the point that I’ve been gifted the ability to hold my story in my hand?

That’s powerful.

And it only exists because this community, this Good Omens community, has come together and chosen joy.

There’s some bad apples out there, there are in every bunch. But I am liberal with my block button and have been blessed to find a welcoming and warm community that creates some amazing and incredible art—whether that’s like actual like digital or pen to paper art, or the fiction you write, or the podfics you record, or the meta analysis you write, or the playlists or the animatics or the beta reading or the shouting unhinged support or the role playing or the plushies, or the books you bind—this community is full of incredibly creative and amazing people.

So thanks, y’all, for letting me part of your community, and enjoying my silly little goat fic. And thank you brunheiffer and J for this amazing gift.

If you haven’t read it, or just want to reread it, you can read Bleating Hearts (GOATS) on Archive of Our Own.

All my love,

HK

(I am the most cringe sap on main right now. No regurts)

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a reunion, a kiss

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The Very Last Day of the Rest of Their Lives

The piece I did for the month of June as an homage to episode 6 :)

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couple of book scenes with ineffable wives, i rly adore their dialogue