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kestrelofinkI've been wanting to do a little glimpse into the world of Where Another Sky Hangs and its four installments, Lovers in the Night, Strangers in the Light, Is It Going Too Fast for You, and We Don't Need to Put No Label on It Do We Now for a while now. A lot of this has just been hanging in my head but sharing is caring and it feels right to do justice by all the thoughts I've had going in my head about the little pieces that never got put onto paper but are crucial to the world-building/tickle me somehow.
Initially this was a whole document full of notes, but I figure that the better way to do this is to go through each document and make comments on it so you can see my thought processes through the whole making of this project.
Things that pertain to multiple fics, or is better served by being pointed out here, will be below.
WARNING: Contains spoilers for the above-mentioned fics. If you intend to read any of them unspoiled and have not yet done so, this is your point of no return.
This series started mostly as a love letter to Pacific Rim by Guillermo del Toro. Whenever straight people ask me what my favourite film of all time is, I answer with this. And this is a great answer: robots, monsters, and saving the world with the power of friendship/love! (When queer people ask me, it's Stick It by Jessica Bendinger).
I think the use of the setting and the Drift as a tool for accessing some absolutely crazy dynamics between characters is excellent, because you've got the no-hiding-secrets brain meld that forces characters to be wholly vulnerable to each other, there's the pressure of saving the world and the fame that comes with it (very compelling to me to tell the story of people who don't want fame but have it thrust upon them, and can't quite leave it either), and also there's so much Ranger/Mechanic to be juiced as well. An excellent AU to be playing in if your goal is to put your characters through the proverbial emotional blender.
If you haven't watched the film yet, do yourself a favour and do so. No need to watch the second movie though, it's not real and can't hurt me.
Jaeger Names
Echo Centauri
Echo is a bit of a cruel joke in that both Jinsol and Jungeun now only exist within the echo of Yerim's memories and the Drift. It's also a nice callback to Choerry's representative animal! Somehow I feel that second fact doesn't soften the blow all that much.
Centauri is a fun name. Centauri comes from the planetary system Alpha Centauri, and Alpha Centauri is made of three stars; Alpha Centauri A, Alpha Centauri B, and Proximal Centauri, often just called Alpha Centauri C. To the naked human eye, Alpha Centauri A and B are close enough together in proximity and far enough from us that they appear to be a singular star. Alpha Centauri C is small enough you can't see it without magnification, but it completes this star system’s triad. It also happens to be the nearest star to our Sun, ergo Proximal Centauri. And so Echo Centauri is a Jaeger made of three elements, the first of two so close you can't separate them, and told by the story of a third, the closest one we can get to; as the narrator of this story in Yerim.
Horizon Rite
Horizon came from trying to figure out how to include a bit of Hyunjin, Yerim's new copilot, into the Jaeger. I thought a lot about how purple and yellow might combine through royalty, flowers, etc., but settled on sunsets and sunrises. Horizons are where new days start and end, and given that this new Jaeger is a very physical manifestation of the end of one thing and the beginning of another, it just felt right.
Rite is a name I am certain Yerim picked out herself. There is a part of her that feels that it is her duty to honour the legacy of Jinsol and Jungeun and continue to fight as a Ranger, as if performing a death rite for them. To her, failure to defeat a Jaeger is not only failure as a pilot, but also failure as a friend and sister, and she burns this responsibility by name into her new machine.
Kaiju
Cephakos
Named after the Greek Κηφᾶς which means "rock". Took inspiration from landslides for the crushing effect its tentacles leave on Horizon Rite
Quillthresher
Quills sort of like a porcupine that it can shoot out in a deadly arc, and threshing, meaning to separate the edible interior of a grain from its husk, which cannot be eaten. In this case, Quillthresher threshes Jungeun from within the Jaeger. Hulls her like a pistachio, yum.
Textual Easter Eggs
Canon Continuity
In real life, Jinsol has an older brother and Jungeun grew up in Cheongju. Yerim has two younger sisters and grew up in Bucheon. Therefore, it is Jinsol and Jungeun's memories that Yerim reflects on in SitL when she "thinks about how sometimes she remembers waking up for school in Cheongju, remembers feeling the seizing panic in her chest when her brother doesn’t answer the phone after San Francisco where he’s on exchange".
Chaewon has an older brother and a younger sister. When Hyeju reflects on her best friend's self-sacrificing method of protecting her family, it is her younger sister that is mentioned.
Per the not-Vanity Fair article in WDNtPNLoIDYN, Rangers Jeong and Kim are killed in action on 25 November. On this is the day in 2023, Blockberry announced that Chuu had been removed from the group citing inappropriate conduct towards staff, which went unsubstantiated, an event which would end up being a significant element contributing to the fall of Blockberry and the eventual disbandment of Loona (rip).
Parallels
I love parallels, I'm such a sucker for them. But I'm especially fond of sentence structure parallels, of which there are a few that feel especially worth pointing out:
Lipsoul and Hyerim
"And oh, oh she does. Jinsol doesn’t need the Drift to know the affection saturating every lingering glance Jungeun sends her way" (LitN)
"and Hyeju doesn’t need the Drift to know what Yerim will say next" (IiGTFfY)
Yerim to Lipsoul and Hyeju to Yerim
"Because it’s true. Because in every world where she has the honour of Drifting with Jinsol and Jungeun, she would do it again. She would choose it again to lay her heart bare before her sisters and be seen in return. She would choose again and again and again to know the agony of their deaths if only so she could also know the joy of their lives" (SitL)
"“No,” quick and earnest because it’s true. Because in every world where Hyeju has the honour of being Yerim’s mechanic, she would do it again. She would choose it again to stand by the hanger doors with bated breath, waiting for the Jumphawks to bring her Ranger back. She would choose again and again and again to endure the agony of the destruction of her creation over and over if only to see Yerim returned safe" (IiGTFfY)
Hyerim may not be a Ranger/Ranger relationship, but that doesn't make the devotion any less intense.
Peritext
Song-Inspired Title
All four fics are inspired by the song Lovers in the Night by Seori, which, fantastic song and you should definitely listen to it.
The first one to get named was Strangers in the Light, which felt appropriate as Yerim and Hyeju really didn't know each other very well at all but were connected in a Ranger/Mechanic relationship that I'd end up falling head over heels in love with. Really wanted to emphasise the process of learning each other and getting to get in each other's heads a little, especially since Yerim is to a certain degree fairly unapproachable to Hyeju with her status and the mental barriers she puts up as someone who Drifts, but also as someone who has lost copilots before.
Lovers in the Night came next, and that one's pretty straightforward. I'm aware that this is technically the first line in the chorus, but it's fine because it ends up being the first fic in the series when adjusted for timeline. Porn with more plot than I could have possibly imagined would be relevant, and it takes place at night because I love an atmospheric scene.
Is it Going Too Fast for You ended up being a really serendipitous title as Yerim wrestles with forces outside of her control stripping away the job that gave her purpose and her last connection to Lipsoul. And then Hyeju beside her who has always gone her pace because that's what an Engineer does, and being the person Yerim can turn to. Juicy, just happened to work beautifully.
And finally, We Don't Need to Put No Label on It Do We Now ended up fitting not quite as well, but the continuity was pleasant, even if it doesn't reflect the core nature of the fic, which is Lipsoul putting a label on their relationship for the world to see.
As a bonus Easter Egg: the title of this entry is ALSO from the same song. Nice.
Formatting
The fourth installment (WDNtPNLoIDYN) is how I got into alternative formatting for fics. Inspired by this Vanity Fair article about Sir Lewis Hamilton where the illustration of his persona comes through so strongly, I wanted to play with something similar for the Rangers. It was important to me that the article read like the author themself is entirely enamored with the Rangers; I think there's something so interesting about the tone that an interviewer/writer writes about their subjects with, and how much of themselves they let bleed through, how much that affects a reader.
I did learn html from scratch for this, by the way. I used The Fic Writer's Guide to Formatting by AnisaAnisa to guide a lot of my formatting, and over about 90 minutes WHILE I WAS IN CLASS I whacked out this formatting. Still one of my biggest wins, and wildest ones to bat.
Since then, I've used the formatting I've learned in other works, including Deus Ex, and now this website. Still learning. Ever learning.
Closing
I'm sure there's more stuff I've missed, and almost immediately after posting I know I'll remember one. I'll update this page as is fit, and let me know if you have a question about anything because it probably has something behind it that I should talk about and put up here.
ANYWAYS this is maybe the most impactful series I've ever written on a personal and also fandom implications level, I hope that something somewhere on this page made the series an interesting re-read!
Initially this was a whole document full of notes, but I figure that the better way to do this is to go through each document and make comments on it so you can see my thought processes through the whole making of this project.
Things that pertain to multiple fics, or is better served by being pointed out here, will be below.
WARNING: Contains spoilers for the above-mentioned fics. If you intend to read any of them unspoiled and have not yet done so, this is your point of no return.
This series started mostly as a love letter to Pacific Rim by Guillermo del Toro. Whenever straight people ask me what my favourite film of all time is, I answer with this. And this is a great answer: robots, monsters, and saving the world with the power of friendship/love! (When queer people ask me, it's Stick It by Jessica Bendinger).
I think the use of the setting and the Drift as a tool for accessing some absolutely crazy dynamics between characters is excellent, because you've got the no-hiding-secrets brain meld that forces characters to be wholly vulnerable to each other, there's the pressure of saving the world and the fame that comes with it (very compelling to me to tell the story of people who don't want fame but have it thrust upon them, and can't quite leave it either), and also there's so much Ranger/Mechanic to be juiced as well. An excellent AU to be playing in if your goal is to put your characters through the proverbial emotional blender.
If you haven't watched the film yet, do yourself a favour and do so. No need to watch the second movie though, it's not real and can't hurt me.
Jaeger Names
Echo Centauri
Echo is a bit of a cruel joke in that both Jinsol and Jungeun now only exist within the echo of Yerim's memories and the Drift. It's also a nice callback to Choerry's representative animal! Somehow I feel that second fact doesn't soften the blow all that much.
Centauri is a fun name. Centauri comes from the planetary system Alpha Centauri, and Alpha Centauri is made of three stars; Alpha Centauri A, Alpha Centauri B, and Proximal Centauri, often just called Alpha Centauri C. To the naked human eye, Alpha Centauri A and B are close enough together in proximity and far enough from us that they appear to be a singular star. Alpha Centauri C is small enough you can't see it without magnification, but it completes this star system’s triad. It also happens to be the nearest star to our Sun, ergo Proximal Centauri. And so Echo Centauri is a Jaeger made of three elements, the first of two so close you can't separate them, and told by the story of a third, the closest one we can get to; as the narrator of this story in Yerim.
Horizon Rite
Horizon came from trying to figure out how to include a bit of Hyunjin, Yerim's new copilot, into the Jaeger. I thought a lot about how purple and yellow might combine through royalty, flowers, etc., but settled on sunsets and sunrises. Horizons are where new days start and end, and given that this new Jaeger is a very physical manifestation of the end of one thing and the beginning of another, it just felt right.
Rite is a name I am certain Yerim picked out herself. There is a part of her that feels that it is her duty to honour the legacy of Jinsol and Jungeun and continue to fight as a Ranger, as if performing a death rite for them. To her, failure to defeat a Jaeger is not only failure as a pilot, but also failure as a friend and sister, and she burns this responsibility by name into her new machine.
Kaiju
Cephakos
Named after the Greek Κηφᾶς which means "rock". Took inspiration from landslides for the crushing effect its tentacles leave on Horizon Rite
Quillthresher
Quills sort of like a porcupine that it can shoot out in a deadly arc, and threshing, meaning to separate the edible interior of a grain from its husk, which cannot be eaten. In this case, Quillthresher threshes Jungeun from within the Jaeger. Hulls her like a pistachio, yum.
Textual Easter Eggs
Canon Continuity
In real life, Jinsol has an older brother and Jungeun grew up in Cheongju. Yerim has two younger sisters and grew up in Bucheon. Therefore, it is Jinsol and Jungeun's memories that Yerim reflects on in SitL when she "thinks about how sometimes she remembers waking up for school in Cheongju, remembers feeling the seizing panic in her chest when her brother doesn’t answer the phone after San Francisco where he’s on exchange".
Chaewon has an older brother and a younger sister. When Hyeju reflects on her best friend's self-sacrificing method of protecting her family, it is her younger sister that is mentioned.
Per the not-Vanity Fair article in WDNtPNLoIDYN, Rangers Jeong and Kim are killed in action on 25 November. On this is the day in 2023, Blockberry announced that Chuu had been removed from the group citing inappropriate conduct towards staff, which went unsubstantiated, an event which would end up being a significant element contributing to the fall of Blockberry and the eventual disbandment of Loona (rip).
Parallels
I love parallels, I'm such a sucker for them. But I'm especially fond of sentence structure parallels, of which there are a few that feel especially worth pointing out:
Lipsoul and Hyerim
"And oh, oh she does. Jinsol doesn’t need the Drift to know the affection saturating every lingering glance Jungeun sends her way" (LitN)
"and Hyeju doesn’t need the Drift to know what Yerim will say next" (IiGTFfY)
Yerim to Lipsoul and Hyeju to Yerim
"Because it’s true. Because in every world where she has the honour of Drifting with Jinsol and Jungeun, she would do it again. She would choose it again to lay her heart bare before her sisters and be seen in return. She would choose again and again and again to know the agony of their deaths if only so she could also know the joy of their lives" (SitL)
"“No,” quick and earnest because it’s true. Because in every world where Hyeju has the honour of being Yerim’s mechanic, she would do it again. She would choose it again to stand by the hanger doors with bated breath, waiting for the Jumphawks to bring her Ranger back. She would choose again and again and again to endure the agony of the destruction of her creation over and over if only to see Yerim returned safe" (IiGTFfY)
Hyerim may not be a Ranger/Ranger relationship, but that doesn't make the devotion any less intense.
Peritext
Song-Inspired Title
All four fics are inspired by the song Lovers in the Night by Seori, which, fantastic song and you should definitely listen to it.
The first one to get named was Strangers in the Light, which felt appropriate as Yerim and Hyeju really didn't know each other very well at all but were connected in a Ranger/Mechanic relationship that I'd end up falling head over heels in love with. Really wanted to emphasise the process of learning each other and getting to get in each other's heads a little, especially since Yerim is to a certain degree fairly unapproachable to Hyeju with her status and the mental barriers she puts up as someone who Drifts, but also as someone who has lost copilots before.
Lovers in the Night came next, and that one's pretty straightforward. I'm aware that this is technically the first line in the chorus, but it's fine because it ends up being the first fic in the series when adjusted for timeline. Porn with more plot than I could have possibly imagined would be relevant, and it takes place at night because I love an atmospheric scene.
Is it Going Too Fast for You ended up being a really serendipitous title as Yerim wrestles with forces outside of her control stripping away the job that gave her purpose and her last connection to Lipsoul. And then Hyeju beside her who has always gone her pace because that's what an Engineer does, and being the person Yerim can turn to. Juicy, just happened to work beautifully.
And finally, We Don't Need to Put No Label on It Do We Now ended up fitting not quite as well, but the continuity was pleasant, even if it doesn't reflect the core nature of the fic, which is Lipsoul putting a label on their relationship for the world to see.
As a bonus Easter Egg: the title of this entry is ALSO from the same song. Nice.
Formatting
The fourth installment (WDNtPNLoIDYN) is how I got into alternative formatting for fics. Inspired by this Vanity Fair article about Sir Lewis Hamilton where the illustration of his persona comes through so strongly, I wanted to play with something similar for the Rangers. It was important to me that the article read like the author themself is entirely enamored with the Rangers; I think there's something so interesting about the tone that an interviewer/writer writes about their subjects with, and how much of themselves they let bleed through, how much that affects a reader.
I did learn html from scratch for this, by the way. I used The Fic Writer's Guide to Formatting by AnisaAnisa to guide a lot of my formatting, and over about 90 minutes WHILE I WAS IN CLASS I whacked out this formatting. Still one of my biggest wins, and wildest ones to bat.
Since then, I've used the formatting I've learned in other works, including Deus Ex, and now this website. Still learning. Ever learning.
Closing
I'm sure there's more stuff I've missed, and almost immediately after posting I know I'll remember one. I'll update this page as is fit, and let me know if you have a question about anything because it probably has something behind it that I should talk about and put up here.
ANYWAYS this is maybe the most impactful series I've ever written on a personal and also fandom implications level, I hope that something somewhere on this page made the series an interesting re-read!
