Can anyone else get into their mailbox? I know there was a glitch with xkit last night where you couldn’t reply, but now I can’t even load my inbox, even with xkit uninstalled. It just keeps timing out :/
{edit} okay, the general rule of “bitch about it and the problem will fix itself” held true, I can now access my inbox.
I can. But that explains why we haven’t talked in a couple days
I was also in hospital so there’s that.
Oh! Please remember that you are not legally permitted to die as stated in paragraph 32, section 16-18 of your contract.
Shit, you guys still have copies of that contract?
Please you know I’d march into the afterlife and drag you back
I’d have to come with you. I have to be having Some Words with Joy.
Seems reasonable. I can only assume ETD would also come with us.
When two of your oldest irl friends who have never met before gang up on you to defeat Death.
Occasionally people will send me asks wanting to know “what fandom was like in your day” like I’m some old wizened crone of yore at the age of 32. But then at the same time I recall the sound of dial up, the nails on chalkboard screeching, and the absolute frustration when the signal randomly dropped and you had to start all over again. I also remember having to ration my time online to intervals during the day when it would cost less and also so your nan could use the phone to call our Kev and you had to log in as quickly as possible, cover your ears, wait for things to load then click “save link as”, disconnect from the net and then print it out on a shuddering laserjet printer* roughly the size of a small tank so you could read it at your leisure without running up the phone bill, before vacating your much coveted spot on The Family Computer and absconding up the stairs with your print outs like a gremlin to devour the words of a stranger on the internet.
By contrast, I’ve had Ao3 open in one of my tabs for the last three days while youtube plays in the background
and I can’t remember the last time I intentionally logged out and let
me tell you it makes me feel like a lush wastrel indulging in the height of decadent luxury as I flip back and forth between
fics, unable to decide which one I want to focus on. It’s great.
But also yes, fandom has always been this batshit crazy. No, none of the arguments are all that different. Yes we really had to put disclaimers on things or risk being sued by the authors. And yes, I still download my favorite fics because you never know when something will vanish off the internet. I do not however have to print them out anymore, so that’s nice.
Despite being a demon, Crowley is cold blooded. Quite literally. His hands are always cold, especially in winter, a time of year he detests when he can feel each and every single one of his 6000 years in his aching human bones.
“You should have brought gloves,” the angel tells him, and it’s all Crowley can do not to mimic him out of sheer annoyance as they walk through St James’s park.
“Yes well I didn’t.”
“Put them in your pockets?”
“In these jeans?”
“Oh for heaven’s sake” the angel says, removing his left glove, and handing it to Crowley, “there, put that on.”
The demon arches an eyebrow at him. “One glove, really?”
“Just put it on.”
“Well at least I’ll only lose the one hand,” he grouses, slipping the glove on and flexing his fingers, thoroughly enjoying the warmth left over by Aziraphale’s hand. “But what about you, won’t your left hand be cold now?”
“No,” Aziraphale replies, taking Crowley’s right hand in his left, and slipping them into the warmth of his jacket pocket as they begin to climb the steps and head out onto the main street, the demon falling uncharacteristically silent as they walk close together side by side as the first snow of the season begins to fall. “Not really.”
It’s also why he likes to sleep so much. There’s just something in him that’s hard wired to find a nice cozy spot and curl up and sleep for a few hours centuries. After the end times fail to happen, Aziraphale’s shop becomes one of his favorite spots. After all, he’s got some time now, he can enjoy it now.
The couch in the back isn’t just the couch anymore, it’s Crowley’s couch, and it’s not uncommon for the angel to slip back there every so often and find the demon fast asleep, his long limbs splayed out in a gloriously decadent sprawl as he naps the day away. Other times he’ll be curled in on himself, limbs taught, breathing rapid. Those are the times Aziraphale finds it hard to leave. He doesn’t sleep himself, not really, not in the way Crowley does. But he knows the value of rest, and there’s something so incredibly restful about sitting there in the cloistered back room, a good book in hand, a cup of tea on the table beside him, and Crowley’s slumbering head in his lap.
The sound you just heard was ETD sitting up in bed not yet knowing what was wrong, but knowing something is wrong all the same as I cackle from the next room over.
Do you ever think, on one of their many, many “Totally-Not-A-Date” lunch dates that Crowley (who only ever seems to eat around the angel) ever just like, orders apple pie for dessert just to be a little shit.
“Sure I can’t tempt you?” he says, proffering the bowl forward where a slice of hot apple caramel pie is slowly melting the vanilla ice scream scoop on the side, “it really is quite good.”
And Aziraphale, declines politely, sipping on his after dinner coffee like a gentleman while the demon shrugs and demolishes the whole thing in under a minute flat. “Suit yourself.”
Or one one other memorable occasion:
“Toffee apple?” the demon asks, the fun fair carnival lights flickering and swirling around them as the sound of children laughing intermingles with the bright clanking jangling melody of the carousel spinning in front of them to a tune that sounds suspiciously familiar.
“What? Oh, no…thank you,” Aziraphale declines, noticing that Crowley only procured the one anyway. “We really should get down to business…”
“Suit yourself,” he says, crunching into it and eating the whole thing, core and all.
He doesn’t even particularly like apples, he just likes the way the angel flusters whenever he does it. Still, these humans were onto something when they took the fruit of all knowledge and dipped it in molten sugar and baked it into pies, like some sort of clever metaphor for making the truth easier to swallow. Bloody ingenious humans, in their own round about way.
Eventually, at some point, the angel concedes and allows himself to be talked into a spoonful of apple pie somewhere down the centuries. It really is quite scrumptious, but it’s nowhere near as delicious as the look on Crowley’s face when he says yes.
I ALMOST LOST MY MIND. someone make this a fanfic because if you don’t I mcfreaking will on God I will if you would allow me!
Or yah know… you could write it 😉
I’ve got like, 1000 words tapped out in Ao3 right now lmao
I’m pretty sure I’ve seen you come up with some really good ones that
specifically involve the word “walnut”, but I went a few pages through
your blog doing ctrl f to try and find them but the only one I could
find was “fucking walnut”. While that is delightful, it’s slightly less
creative than I remembered/was hoping for. Help? (2/2)
HmmmMMmmmm lets see now. Putting the word “absolute” in front of just about any food is going to be a classic. As is the word “total”.
“You absolute walnut”
“You total cabbage.”
other fun insults you can use without being too mean could include “don’t mind him he’s just woken up. It’ll take another while before his brain arrives.”
“You really are an absolute pillock sometimes.” (A politer way of calling someone a “dick”, originates in the 16th century when it was definitely not considered polite.)
“Watch you don’t trip over those apron stings“ works well if the other brother is younger and implies they are too young to be out adventuring with them and should still be at home with their mam.
“you could start a fight in an empty house”
“don’t worry, he excels at bullshit.”
“you have the emotional depth and maturity of a tea spoon”
“you’re as stealthy as a one man marching band falling down the stairs”
“you’re about as much use as a chocolate tea kettle you are”
“you, a hero? well desperate times call for desperate measures…”
I’m sure there’s others I could think of, but I think I’ll throw it open to the floor 😀
Demon rose has now fully grown over all the windows on that side of the house. It’s very sleeping beauty-esque waking through the house and having your view obscured by roses, climbing vines and thorns.
I have several head canons to this, most of them pertaining to Crowley and Zira staying involved in Adam’s life precisely because they’re worried about something like this, and well, they missed out on being there for him when they were supposed to be guiding him, so the least they can do is be there for him now.
But perhaps say, in a universe where that doesn’t happen, yes, I do still believe a good child/teen therapist would be able to help him with that, because Adam’s story is our story. We all have power, we can all affect the world we live in an enact change, both great and small. We all have the potential to commit dark, horrible things in the name of despair, and we all grapple with that inner demon on a daily basis. It’s a universal human truth.
But we also have a great capacity for goodness, for kindness, to strive for the light, in both defiance and hope of our despair and just keep putting one foot in front of the other because someone’s got to fix this miss, someone has to do it. And if not you then who?
And while Adam does have very real, metaphysical powers with scope beyond mortal measure, the despair he feels? The overwhelming helplessness he feels at having all that power and not knowing what to do with it, is very much a relatable human emotion. And learning to control that is also part of the human experience, and he can’t learn to be human from a demon or an angel, he has to learn it from other humans. He has to learn where empowerment begins and how not to let it turn into something awful, how to use his sway in the world for good. And that starts with solidarity, love, and hope.
It starts with his friends, his family—his real family, the people who raised him—and if he needs it, a helping hand now and then from another adult trained in how to untangle his headspace.
And maybe a little help from Uncle Anthony every now and then, and a trip out in the Bentley for ice cream sandwiches down by the coast and a chat about ineffability and what it feels like to pick yourself up after you fall. And you’ll always fall, you’ll fall lots of times. It’s only human. But so is getting back up and trying again tomorrow.
Am I a trickster entity who absorbs the essence of writers after reading their words, or is it from all the years of being an editor and professional ghost writer of questionable but popular content and learning to mimic authorial styles so that I have no cohesive idea of what my own writing style is like and am just an amalgamation of different authors fighting for dominance in a trench coat.
I’m starting to realize people no longer know me from my angst fics cause I keep seeing people tagging my stuff with “everything this author writes is so cute”, and it’s starting to make me feel like a spider building an elaborate web. Biding my time.
Now that you are regaining energy have you considered switching from being an ambush predator?
