#senseofenterprise

[aziraphales-library]

Hello! I already sent an ask in September so it might have been eaten. I’m looking for a human AU, a pirate AU to be precise. Crowley was a pirate captain and Aziraphale his childhood friend/ first love who he lost sight of after a misunderstanding/fight. I remember it was explicit, a bit angsty at times, but I think it had a happy ending. Unfortunately I remember neither title nor author. Thanks for your help and your great blog!

This one might be one of these fics:

Now Cracks a Noble Heart by senseofenterprise (the_boleyn_treatment) (M)

As a second son, Prince Aziraphale was worse than useless. Every idea he has to benefit his kingdom has been shot down by his brother Gabriel, the king, and his only value is in his ability to make a marriage of alliance. On the night before he is set to marry Prince Newton at his brother's command, he sends off a note and a bag of coins.

Captain Crowley has made his living sailing the seas in his ship the Bentley with his pirate band consisting of misfits and lost children. His name strikes fear into the hearts of all who hear it. When he receives anonymous orders to kidnap the Prince on the night before the royal wedding, well, how could he refuse the opportunity for madness and bringing down the nobility he hates so very much?

The story of a stuffy Prince and a Pirate Captain with a heart of gold.

better creatures by john1513 (E)

Navigator Aziraphale gets captured on a pirate ship run by the notorious Captain Crowley, known for his cruelty and malice across the seas. He wasn't ready, though, for the softness that lay dormant underneath those copper curls and long, thin, calloused fingers. But a pirate could never fall in love with a Royal soldier, especially not one like Aziraphale...could he? // idiots in love, but make it pirates ;)

*also, a STRONG emphasis on the 'idiots' part, you have been warned.*

~ Mod G

[crowley-did-this]

Not a bad thing but Crowley is the reason Betty White is going to live forever

Oh yes. He is the only human he has managed to wrangle a soul from (in the form of an autograph) but he has protected and cherished that soul and will continue to do so for the rest of time

[tenoko1]

Any tips for combatting “I haven’t updated in a month for xyz reason” guilt?

See, this is where being a Fandom Old and Fandom Mom come in handy.

Solution: Don’t feel guilty.

Overly simple, right? Hard to do? Yeah, I know.

I live in a constant state of existential dread and guilt. There’s a thing going around on Twitter about ‘month left in the decade! What have you accomplished this decade?’ And people are posting about college and multiple degrees, about having published numerous books and becoming a full-time writer, traveling the world, and buying/building their dream home.

And I’m sitting there going, “Wow. Yeah. Thanks for that crippling sense of failure and mediocrity. Did I mention the overwhelming sense of having failed?”

Feelings? Suck.

Being creative is like living with bi-polar disorder a lot of times. You can go from high to low like the crashing of an expensive sports car. Also, little things like comments make you stupid happy and blushing-grinning all day. Because creating is a very personal endeavor.

I got out my stuff to study this morning and saw I have not studied since the 4th. 10 days ago. I am hyperly aware of every day that passes without my writing/posting fic, and yet they keep passing. Why? Illness and depression, and depression so bad I don’t know if I feel this way because I’m sick or depressed. Guess what? Total jab-jab-hook to my sense of self, self-worth, and confidence. It sucks. No one expects more from me than I do.

Add to that the feeling that others are waiting and relying on you in some way????

Writer’s angst is a real thing and a total bitch to deal with.

But, here’s the thing: this fandom stuff? It’s a hobby. We do it for love and for fun.

But it isn’t our jobs.

We aren’t paid for it. It’s something we squeeze in between classes (or patients in my case) or on commutes or by sacrificing sleep after our paying jobs and 40-hr work weeks, making dinner, doing laundry, and other Adulting™ and RL things that have to get done. It’s something we try to do while battling illness and depression.

And as much as it matters to us and to others-- killing ourselves to put out content is a disservice to ourselves. You have to take care of you first. If it’s legit reasons? Don’t feel bad. Life happens-- and when it does, Fandom hits the absolute bottom of the list of priorities because the time, energy, and stress put into that are the only optional things you’re dealing with.

Don’t feel bad for that.

Now, if you’re waiting around for an inspiration fairy to strike? I got bad news, kid. No such fairy or unicorn or rainbow pot of gold exists. You set appointments with yourself, and you keep them like you would a doctor’s office visit or meeting. Will you necessarily feel like it? Probably not. Do you have a choice? No, because you made an appointment, therefore you don’t have to wait to feel motivated. You get in there and do it anyway.

And if I can get through all these damn patient charts I keep getting today, then I will also be getting to that appointment I set for myself. Do I feel like it? Fuck no. I’m sick. I’m tired. My depression is drowning me. Existential crisis and overwhelming sense of failure due to zero accomplishments in the past decade. Am I in a good frame of mind? Not in the fucking least. But, I also know me. I’m frustrated and overwhelmed and disappointed, and the crappy part is that there is no way out but through. So: head down, keep swinging.

But I don’t answer to fandom because I don’t work for them. I have a 40-hr a week job and a marriage and dogs and illness and depression. I answer to all that plus me.

Know you well enough to recognize what you can do and what you can’t, when you need to stop and when you need to press through. Fandom generally understands because, hey, most of them are juggling life, classes, work, home, etc., too. And if they don’t understand, tell them to go sit on a cactus for all you care.

[bad-friend-trios]

Thank u so much for reblogging Tudor memes sometimes I feel like I’m the only person who appreciates Henry’s drama

YES I AM HERE FOR TUDOR MEMES! Recently I’ve gotten into this kick ass musical :3

[rnightiest]

Red Pink Blue Rose

im love you so much

[james-tiberius-perfect-face]

About your titanic post,,, idk man I see it as Jim the runaway ruffian and Spock the diplomat’s son in an arranged marriage

Haha, yeah, I kinda had the same thought. Once I started thinking about those characters’ backgrounds (where they come from; their families etc.) I was like, yeah ok, in a ‘real’ Titanic AU our farmboy Jim would be the stowaway and Spock would be the ambassador’s son, whose parents don’t want him to mingle with the people from the lower decks. It was just that one particular scene from the gifset where I could see Spock behind the steering wheel, asking “Where to, Mister?” and Jim sitting behind him, whispering “To the stars,” making Spock blush

[kinetic-elaboration]

June 19: DVD Commentary

Requested by @senseofenterprise​, some DVD style commentary on this passage from HAICG.

Request one here.

*

This is a passage from chapter thirty-eight of Home Also I Cannot Go, which I wrote a very long time ago, but I’ll try my best to provide some interesting info about it.

First, this is the sort of scene that I had to write: I knew I couldn’t get away with not having Jim and Sarek meet, once the whole truth about Sevin’s origins was out there. These are the sort of confrontations I love, or at least love to think about and work through in my head, where the previously unsaid or unsay-able comes out.

But it was intimidating to write, too, precisely because there’s so much history among these three characters, and because the two who are at the forefront here, Sarek and Jim, barely even know each other for all that they have this central connection, their family member in common. The scene is mostly about Sarek’s history with the idea of Jim, but it’s informed by his history with Spock, and of course Spock is present too, though in the background, so his feelings are at play as well. And it’s all from Jim’s point of view.

The reason for making this a Jim scene is to place this interaction within his larger arc, where he comes to understand Spock’s history and feelings and point of view, and to look beyond himself and his own initial emotional reaction to finding out Sevin is his son. I have a lot of mixed feelings about how this arc ultimately came off, and I even wonder if I should have set it off differently with a more reasonable or muted reaction, but this was the route I decided to go: the most dramatic and the most ambitious. You can debate if you think it’s also the most in character. I’m not sure myself. But since I did give Jim that initial extremely emotional and, yes, selfish, reaction, the arc that lead him back to Spock had to include him expanding his viewpoint to consider what Spock must have experienced, and this interaction with Spock’s father is an integral step in that process.

Sarek is able to say things that Spock won’t, or can’t, or doesn’t want to, or wouldn’t even think of. He can be that blunt voice, telling Jim what he isn’t going to hear from anyone else but has to hear. He’s supposed to be sympathetic to the reader, while showing no sympathy to one of the main characters, thus pointing Jim to a renewed understanding of himself.

Part of Sarek’s role, in addition to the reasoned arguments he gives about Jim’s place in Spock’s family, and exactly whose fault it is that he has that unsteady place, is to give Jim a glimpse into Spock’s life when Seven was born. This is something he comes to think about a lot later, but hasn’t really considered at this point in the story. It’s easy for him to see Spock, as an adult, as very capable, confident, smart, put-together, and it’s hard for him to remember that he wasn’t a strong Starfleet officer eight years earlier. “To face him as a son, and at the age of fifteen, would be a terrifying feat.” This is Spock’s life and history opening up to Jim for the first time.

I also try to keep myself somewhat aware of what my characters’ limitations are, in terms of their viewpoints and their knowledge and their biases. All three of the characters here are biased and I wanted that to show. None of them are entirely wrong or entirely right. Jim is trying much more and is more sincere in his desire to be a parent to Sevin than Sarek is giving him credit for, though he’s not wrong that Jim would have been less equipped to deal with Sevin at the time he was born than he likes to believe of himself. Jim is understandably defensive at the interview, but he’s wrong that Sarek is just out to taunt him or cause him to show “all of his unseemly emotions.” And Spock’s continued affection for Jim, especially Jim as a figure in his own mind, is understandable: he’s had a long time to build up that image and become attached to it. His father has put him in an awkward and unenviable place, and is making him feel like a child again by fighting his battles for him. But he’s also exceedingly, perhaps excessively, forgiving of Jim because he carries around a lot of guilt and shame about himself and his own decisions. I’ve always intended Spock to read as too hard on himself, and I’ve worried on occasion that that doesn’t come across, or it looks like I’m being hard on him from my position as narrator/author.

This scene actually ends with Jim putting himself entirely into Sarek’s shoes as a father, with a line I personally quite like but have always worried is a bit out of character for this place in Jim’s arc and for this particular moment in time—does he forgive Sarek for the awkwardness, and drop his own defensive posture, too quickly? I don’t know. But since nothing ever really happens quickly in this fic, and people need to change and grow sometimes, I guess it’s okay that it’s in there.

[kinetic-elaboration]

For the commentary ask:

Sarek stares at him as if he were speaking an unintelligible language.  After a moment, he says, “I see.”  He clears his throat, a subtle, almost imperceptible sound, then continues, “Sevin was telling me about you last night.  He seems to enjoy your company, but he speaks of you as one would speak of a friend.  He sees you as an adult with whom he enjoys spending time, but he does not see you as a parent.”

“I would hardly expect him to,” Jim answers calmly.  “The adjustment will take time, I know that.  He has only known me as a parent for a few weeks.”

“Precisely,” Sarek agrees, his voice cold, and Jim notices Spock’s gaze snap up to glare at him again.  “Sevin does not know how to see you as his dad because you were not there when he was born, when he was first starting to grow and learn.”

“With all due respect, Ambassador, I wasn’t told that Spock—”

“With all due respect, Mr. Kirk,” Sarek interrupts, his calm and steady tone a harsh contrast to the heat of Jim’s voice, “you were not informed because you did not want to be found.  You made it clear to my son at your first encounter with him that you did not intend there to be any future contact between you.”

He can feel the blood rushing to his cheeks and neck, embarrassing and hot.  What is the point of this conversation, he wonders—only to taunt him?  To bring out all of his unseemly human emotions?  He clenches his hands into fists, under the table where Sarek can’t see.  “I hardly expected that he would end up having my baby—”

“Neither did he.”

“Father,” Spock says sharply, his word cutting in over Sarek’s so smoothly that Jim would almost consider the whole confrontation staged, if he did not hear that deep undercurrent of true anger and shame in Spock’s voice.  “You have made your point more than adequately.  Captain Kirk is not to blame.  He is doing what he can in a situation that is difficult, and it gives us no honor to live in the past and continue to condemn old mistakes.”

In the silence that follows, Jim looks between father and son and can’t help thinking that he has intruded on an argument that is not truly about him.  That would be a lie, though.  Sarek has been speaking to him as if Spock were not even in the room; this is no act for Spock’s benefit.  It only hits, inevitably, upon their history, a time in Spock’s life that Jim cannot even begin to imagine.  What must it have been like for him, to come home to this man and have to tell him that his son was about to become a teenage father?  Jim cannot help feeling shamed after only a few minutes in his presence, and with the full knowledge that his life and his decisions are not Sarek’s concern.  To face him as a son, and at the age of fifteen, would be a terrifying feat.

*

DVD Commentary on this scene here.