Story
A brief introduction...
aleksandra medvedev is a russian-born immigrant living in london, with a history of misery.she grew up in tottenham, in an area also colloquially known as 'little russia', before landing a security job at a hospital in westminster. after being promoted to the head of security at the hospital, she was earning enough to move closer to work, and chose to do so. soon, she joined the police force and started training to become a detective.
along with her new life of privilege, she gained a sense of pride and confidence in herself as a woman, enthusiastically seeking relationships with other women. she had a blazing fire about her personality that could inspire a lot of the people she met, but the one thing she wanted more than anything was a beautiful princess to protect.
sadly, this was the one area in her life where she failed,
and failed,
and failed.
it seemed the happy ending she sought was just a fairy tale, as many women entered - and then exited - her life over her twenties... until she thought she had met a woman she was going to marry; angela, a surgeon from the emergency ward of the hospital.
aleksandra had never been more in love. she wanted to earn angela's love in return, and one day she did. she was on top of the world. she had achieved her goal; her princess.
...except, this princess was not what she seemed.
four painstaking years ensued, sapping aleksandra of all of the pride and confidence she had ever gained. she ultimately found herself alone again, having had to reluctantly annul her marriage with angela.
she felt meaningless and discarded in a way she had never felt in her life, and all of these new feelings began to interfere with her work. she took up a habit she learned from angela; relieving her pain with alcohol. the signs that she was losing control were beginning to show as she grew secretive about the depth of her problem. this was all so unfamiliar, she didn't know how to handle it. it became a heavier and heavier weight on her shoulders, until it finally broke her back in front of the stranger she leased a flat with after separating from her not-wife.
even though the fire in her heart was smothered by her abuser, there were still glowing embers left behind, desperate to stay burning. aleksandra hated not feeling like herself. she knew something was wrong, but didn't know where to start making it right again.
that something wasn't just one thing, either; it was many. aleksandra was seeing shortcomings all around her the more she looked, noticing pattern after pattern that she would have never so foolishly dismissed. the revelations darkened her point of view until it seemed she had forgotten who she was.
...luckily for her, there had been somebody there all along, watching from afar, ready to light her a torch and guide her back out of the dark.
aleksandra was a muse to the unlikely torchbearer. she had been for years. still, an opportunity like this was something the young, inexperienced artist had ever simply fantasized over; one day meeting the beautiful, powerful looking woman she would seek out in hyde park to sketch,
and sketch,
and sketch...
the story of embers follows aleksandra and her flatmate, lena, as they develop a friendship during uncertain times in their lives. can aleksandra overcome her demons and close the open books in her past? can lena change aleksandra's point of view? will their bond strengthen into something else?
...also, how is it possible to have so many exes?
wait a minute. who are you?
i'm bean, or rosie. i don't talk about myself a lot in these things because i don't think it's important or relevant. i'm just kind of here. i'm not the world's best artist, but i love to tell raw, melodramatic stories. i want people to read them and learn something new while also finding some amusement or enlightenment in the situations and characters. uh. really don't think there's much else for now.
How To Read Embers
this story takes place in a universe of many characters that all eventually have their story told one way or another. each page is titled rather than numbered, but listed in chronological order. though pages should be read in the order they are listed, entire chapters are not necessary to read in chronological order, because each chapter is a saga detailing a significant story about one of the three main characters or their histories. titles tend to be contextual or hint to the meaning of intentionally unclear scenarios.the best way to get all possible content related to this universe, of course, is to read all the chapters as they are posted, but also to follow my tumblr blog and kofi, which cross-post supplemental content like music, side stories, character profiles, and other artwork such as unused panels and alternate covers.
embers is intended to provoke empathy and thought as organically as i can possibly manage to do it. the mood is generally very vulnerable and honest about many dark but under-discussed topics. if you're sensitive or going through something and think you'll be upset easily by things like that, i would implore you to sit out this story until you're more sorted.
million dollar question: is this a fancomic?
the short answer is yes, but it's an alternate universe that doesn't use anything from the canon universe other than (many) references fans might pick up on. you don't need to know or like overwatch before you read embers, but knowing a bit of the lore just adds context to the references. overwatch is literally a competitive shooter and the characters don't have any lore yet. the long answer is...
the truth is, it is and isn't. using the characters i've chosen is the reason why i can even focus on this story. i know, it's weird, but let me see if i can explain:
basically, they'd be ocs, but they'd resemble the characters i'm using in their place anyway. i'd never seen a cast of characters that i could fit so well into the roles i needed for embers - but at this point, the only thing i'm using that blizzard has any ownership of are the names of the characters and their designs, which i hope to gradually transition into ocs that just share their names. -shrug- it's possible that won't happen, but i guess it depends on how i feel as i go. for now, though, it's a fancomic heavily inspired by an original story. i think feedback will help me decide what i'll go with.
no, this is a weird self insert story based on our internal world and we simply introjected a lot of overwatch things for it, so we mistook it for an au before we had awareness of our did. we kind of think that's interesting and want to continue with that theme with intent and awareness that it's what we're doing.