Widowtracer, Gingerspider, LemonTea, Widowtracerly

Like a lot of fans, I had this idea in school for a while that I wanted to be a writer. So I went at it, took a creative writing course, did well, wrote some things, and started submitting. I got some nice personal rejection letters from actual head editors saying they were very nice stories but not right for them, and even got a story published in a Canadian small-press lit magazine.

But it was always like pulling teeth to get words out, and I never, ever enjoyed the process at all, and eventually figured out I wanted to want to be a writer more than I wanted to be a writer. (Tho' I did end up writing professionally on and off in non-fiction, where the words came far more easily, and for far more money. My top rate of $1.50/word was pretty tasty, and I got it regularly.)

And I didn't even ship Tracer and Widowmaker at first, despite their obvious chemistry in "Alive." But then, about two years ago, I found this fan comic on Tumblr, and had to know how they could get there, and started chewing on it, and then, the following April, I started getting scenes in my head as this started coming out, and I couldn't stop it even if I had wanted to.

on overcoming the fear of spiders
a novella by solarbird

URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10670052/chapters/23618382
Pairing(s): Amélie "Widowmaker" Lacroix/Lena "Tracer" Oxton, Angela "Mercy" Ziegler/Fareeha "Pharah" Amari
Rating: Mature
Other notes: Early chapters are not in chronological order. That changes, and it's for an important reason regarding how the world works. Canon-compliant through 2068, after which, well.
Summary: "A single death," the Widowmaker says, "can change everything." But everyone forgets, this saying goes both ways: a single assassination can change everything, certainly, but so can a single unwanted death, an untimely death not prevented.

Amélie Lacroix, the head of Talon, has been shaping history with the tools she knows best, tracing the strands of past and probability around her, perfecting where to prune the tree of the world with the precision of perfect, single shots, and perfect, clean kills.

What if that's not enough?

Lena Oxton, test pilot, has been presumed dead since her Slipstream vehicle exploded ten thousand metres over Greece, one day in 2068. Now, it is 2073, and there is a broken strand in the web of the world, one which should not be broken, and no assassination - no additional death, no matter how elegant - can fix it. The spider must learn to use other tools, instead.

Hi! Widowmaker main, Tracer co-main, Pharah co-main, learning Brigitte and I'm not a bad D.va in a pinch. I write a lot of Widowtracer and Gingerspider (co-created the ship name) and OT3 the lot of 'em. I've also written some Pharmercy, though it tends to be highly-visible background in other stories, and even some Moicy.

I've got a big summary of my writing over here on AO3, but I'm mostly into splitoff-from-canon AUs. Sometimes they split off really early (the slipstream incident is the split point for on overcoming the fear of spiders, for example), and sometimes they're as canon-compliant as I can make them as of the time I start writing.

I post my fic updates on my own journal, of course, but I'll post them here too.

I'm solarbird on tumblr (still), solarbirdy on ps4, and solarbirdz on battle.net. And I guess that's it. Hi!