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hkblack · 5 months ago

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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,

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

#long post #with photos #bleating hearts #hk writes #hk is having a MOMENT HERE #OKAY #I'm FINE #LOOK AT THE THING #brunheiffer made a hat!#where there wasn't a hat before!#someone please get my sondheim references I am begging you as a fandom #I literally wrote you a Sondheim and Good Omens primer #I'll put it in a fic next #no #don't let me pick up more plot bunnies #I am actively writing three stories right now #stop #I'm crying over these pictures though #honestly fuck the pictures I'm trying to keep myself from shaking these books apart #I keep touching them #I don't think they're real #there is an argument happening about whether they are allowed in the main shared space bookcases #or if they are to stay on my private bookshelves in my office #I am voting private bookshelves #my partner is against this #please weigh in if you've read this far: let the books be part of my good omens collection in my office #or display them proudly in the main space

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victorluvsalice · 1 year ago

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We've hit Fall Thursday in the Chill Valicer Save today, and you know what that means -- Harvestfest! And they had a FREAKING BUSY Harvestfest, let me tell you -- if I counted correctly, this update has NINETY PICTURES in total. Yeah, uh, it's actually a pretty good thing that we can upload more than ten to a post now, isn't it? O.O

Anyway! Morning started off pretty tamely and typically -- Smiler, freshly retraited after the end of the last episode, took Shadow out on a nice walk, while Alice went upstairs to gather inspiration from their fish and then start a new book (a motivational book called "Solving Your Problems With Trains" ;) ) and Victor woke from sleep and got right on studying his Nimble Mind and Emotional Stability potion tomes. I do think it's very cool how higher-level spellcasters have the books float in front of them like that. . . Anyway, Victor discovered three things from all that reading -- the recipe for the Nimble Mind potion (requires parsley and a spotted dirt frog -- figured even if Smiler didn't have that in their collection, they could breed it eventually); the recipe for the Emotional Stability potion (requires a potato and obtanium -- again, even if Alice didn't have that in her metal collection, she could dig it up eventually); and --

The fact that the fossil display shelves made by @somecreativecc ALSO FUNCTION AS A BOOKCASE. O.o Uh, SomeCreative, was -- was that intentional? I'm not COMPLAINING, I just find it a touch bizarre? *shakehead* So, yeah, Victor's tomes went in there with the fossils once he was done with them and gotten his magical "free samples." *shrug* Like I said, not complaining, just -- slightly confused.

Now -- while all this was going on, I was also checking both Shadow and Kelly for signs of illness, because, as you may remember last time, I found a couple of random puddles of sick around the place and wasn't sure which pet was producing them. Shadow seemed fine on her walk, and when I looked around the house again, I found another puddle of sick by one of Kelly's scratching posts. This really seemed to indicate that it was poor Kelly who wasn't feeling well --

A hypothesis confirmed when she came over to hang out with Alice near her desk while she wrote, and another puddle of sick appeared right next to her. I had Victor use Scruberoo to clean up all the sick, then go pamper Kelly with a little brushing as I tried to determine what was wrong. I mean, after all, the cat didn't LOOK ill -- Sim illnesses in both pets and people tend to be pretty visible! The only other explanation I could think of was poor Kelly had hairballs, which -- would be very impressive on a hairless cat like herself! I made a note to get her to the vet later, and she eventually ran off to do more cat things. Leaving more sick behind her. *sigh*

With THAT mystery solved, and Victor's potions learned, I decided it was time for him to get back on fabricating stuff -- namely because I wanted to do some more eco upgrades around the house. So he headed down to the barn, where -- after Repairioing all the broken wind turbines and water collectors, and setting out some sacred candles to help with his still-broken "Fear Of The Dark" moodlet and the scary noises around the house -- he proceeded to make another eco upgrade part. (Really wish I could made those in BULK, but what are you gonna do.) I then sent him to the garden to do the usual tending -- weeding, watering, fertilizing -- as Alice continued working on her book (maxing out the Writing skill in the process! Go Alice!) and Smiler came back from their walk with Shadow. The doggo went to hang with Victor in the greenhouse as he started harvesting, while Smiler entertained Kelly and Alice finished up her book, submitted it to the literary digest (because obviously this guide on Bumby murder deserves it), then went to clean the chicken coop and entertain the cowplant -- which, since we seem to be keeping it for the time being, I decided to name "Toothy." I mean, if the large drooling maw full of sharp teeth fits...

#sims 4 #the lazy save #victor van dort #alice liddell #smiler always #yeah uh this one turned out to be SUPER LONG #a lot of stuff happened this Harvestfest #as you shall soon find out #but first all the usual chores and taking care of the pets #it's kind of weird that pet sick is so realistic #when I'm pretty sure Sim sick should it land on a floor is less so #kinda gross too #let's all be grateful for scruberoo #and yeah that thing about the fossil display was a real bwuh moment #I'm ASSUMING it was cloned from a bookcase and thus retained that functionality?#I mean it looks good I'm not gonna stop using it #and I guess it's handy to have it as a way to get books on the top floor #but still weird #queued

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