#I LITERALLY FREAKED OUT ABOUT THE VA VA VOOM THING

[ayarsi]

Good Omentober + Fictober (6)

Good Omentober Day 6 - the Bentley

Fictober Prompt #13 - "Come with me, hurry"

Fanfiction - Good Omens

Rating - G

Wordcount - 436

(I know me posting my fics isn't consistent but it's the best I can do considering my schedule. I want to cry because I really wanted to post and write consistently but I forgot our exams are on the last week of October and I have to study and all that TvT. I don't really care if I write the rest of the fics and post it in November since I'm just writing these for myself really, sooo yeah that's what I'm going to do.)

Va Va Voom!

-----------------------

Behind the window, a timid angel stands. He’s not normally this quiet--in fact, he was actually ecstatic prior to returning to the bookshop. The angel had a story for the demon sleeping on the vintage sofa and awakened her to tell her. He assumed she would be happy to see him again yet he was wrong. Seeing me dressed in a new style enraged the demon, sending her storming outside to inspect me and leaving the poor angel.

“My car is NOT yellow. It has NEVER been and NEVER will be,” the demon hisses. He glares at the nervous angel who was still hiding behind the blinds. The angel breathes deeply. He opened the door and slowly walks towards the demon and I. Ooh, I can sense the drama.

The angel mutters something, but I didn’t hear it. The demon didn’t too, apparently.

“Speak up, angel.”

Who does she think she is, with her hands on her hips like a mother scolding her child? I don’t think she considers her a child.

The angel’s nervousness seems to be much more than it was a few moments ago.

“I.. Well, it’s…”

“IT’S WHAT?”

“No need to shout, dear.”

Moody bastard.

“It’s pretty, is all,” the angel adds.

“I- Angel, this is the second rime you’ve done this. Changed my car without permission-”

“Oh. So I need to ask you first before changing the car is what you mean?”

The demon doesn’t answer for a few seconds. She looks surprised and at a loss for words. She’s always like this, though. Always whenever the angel is around.

“Crowley, dear. I am terribly sorry for changing your Bentley’s color again. I was… too excited to show you something and got ahead of myself.”

Ah, here it is. I should get the songs ready.

“Our car.”

If the angel had a tail, it would’ve definitely wagged--that’s what I’m seeing. He’s got stars in his eyes (literally) and those stars are glowing brighter than ever. Even the demon looks like he wants to fly away by how he’s looking at the sky. Is he holding back a cough or a laugh? Maybe a cough.

I like it when they get along. It’s really cute. I’m cute. Yellow really suits me but the grumpy demon won’t let me have it, so all thanks to the angel for calming her down and letting me keep it. At least just this once. I’ll play their song in return as thanks.

The demon sighs. “Get in, angel.”

The angel still has that dreamy gaze.

“Angel. Get in the car and come with me, hurry.”

[ineffable-rohese]

My spouse and I were discussing Aziraphale & Crowley over dinner the other night, as one does, and I was reminded that in the early days of Facebook there was a feature where you had a virtual pinboard, like the cork board next to your dorm room white board, and you could find all sorts of "pins" to put on it. The idea was your friends could visit your "wall" and see the things you were in to, as well as your status.

I definitely remembered being so excited to find Good Omens pins in the collection. "Gayer Than a Tree Full of Monkeys on Nitrous Oxide" was my favorite, of course.

I was, at the time, around 2005 or 2006, just a little bit obsessed with the book, and had been for years at that point. I'd only convinced a couple people to read it, all of whom thought it was enjoyable, but that was it. I felt a bit alone, but I also didn't imagine that fandom existed for books. (The existence of that FB pin should have clued me in, but it did not.)

Fast forward about 15 years, and the show came out, and I loved it. And still I didn't manage to find anyone who loved it like I did.

In the past year, I have been so overjoyed to find my people, to have someone to join with in tears and elation, in the nail biting waiting for renewal. And I'd been looking forward to the excitement of production news and poster releases and wild speculation and silly in-jokes and then madness of DT&MS press tours and finally the conclusion to the story we've loved for so long.

And then the news about NG broke, and it was like all of our hearts broke at once. And yeah, maybe the last season was still coming, but it felt tainted now. And people started pulling away, understandably, and I still had my people (and thank Someone for them, for real) but it got real quiet for a bit. And the stories and and art started trickling back as we all figured out how we wanted to engaging meaningfully in someone that was no longer purely joyful.

Then the pause and people freaking out and other people rejoicing and a slim thread of hope. Could they do it? Would Amazon put in the work to extract NG from the production? Is this story worth the effort to people who care more about profit than anything else?

It's looking like yes, as of October 15, 2024. And I love that the person who is renewing our hope is not an actor or a director or one of the "big name" credits. It's Mickey Ralph, who obviously loves this story as much as we do. Whose team hand wrote, in full, all of Aziraphale's mail. And recreated a destroyed antique sink that literally no one would notice. And painted the walls "va-va-voom" yellow. And named every puppet in the magic shop. And brought so much depth and love and life into the show, and made it real.

This story has always been about love. Love for friends, and family, and the people you are told you should hate, and the world, and humanity.

My dearest wish is that we can continue to celebrate that love together.

[noscentsatall]

Quercus

Alright, so today’s scent is Quercus, which is another Penhaligon’s scent and one which I think I originally made a note of “smells like a quirky dad in a sweater vest” for some reason when Erika and I first smelled it a few years ago.

I like it! I don’t really know why but it conjured up the colors yellow and green when I smell it. It starts out smelling like fancy men’s deodorant, which is not a bad smell at all.

As it dries, there’s something a little.... almost absinthe-y that is coming through? I’d say anise but it’s not that licorice smell. Fennel? I didn’t know fennel was in absinthe but I just Googled it and apparently it is in absinthe, which honestly makes me feel very proud of my nose! To be fair, I once chewed on fennel seeds so I feel like I will never forget what it smells/tastes like.

It’s a nice scent! It’s supposed to be a masculine fragrance and I get that, but it’s luckily not the type of ~*~*~*masculine*~*~*~ scent that would clash with me too bad? 

Here’s what Penhaligon’s says about Quercus:

More restrained than a traditional cologne. But with just as much va-va-voom. Not as stiff as an evening shirt but as strong as a pre-dinner drink. Not as instantly recognisable as a citrus, but with just as much zest. But pray, what lies behind the confusion? Could it be basil? Basil! Bright as day, and fresh as a sun-warmed mountain stream. Accompanied by clean white floral notes (jasmine, lily of the valley) and cardamom, here lies the most singular freshness - without any of the discomfort of the unrecognisable and the new. The moss that cushions the transition of this olfactory journey (into almost sunny amber depths) meets patchouli to take us back to familiar ground. Quercus, as everyone knows, is Latin for oak, and the British national tree. It’s familiar, but terribly strange.

okay first of all I just need to address the fact that every single Penhaligon’s description is about as pretentious and British as you could ever get. AS EVERYONE KNOWS oh my GOD Penhaligon’s calm down!

I’m bummed out that they don’t mention fennel in the description because I thought my nose was getting Fancier and Smarter but, no, apparently not. I guess it was something else that I smelled but whatever. Maybe it was basil or something. What does basil smell like? I can’t remember unless I’m actively smelling a basil leaf.

Honestly I feel like, based on the description, this is what BPAL wanted Wilde to smell like--a lot of the same notes, but done more effectively. Which is like. Fair because this is also significantly more expensive? 

All of Penhaligon’s scents smell so freaking clean, which is very nice!! But, also like the rest of them, Quercus is very subtle and I doubt its lasting power. Ah well.

I like this scent a lot but I also feel like I probably won’t wear it a whole lot (although maybe after I run out of Endymion but before I decide whether or not I want to invest in a full bottle?) Side note: it’s a real bummer that I am so consistently a fan of Penhaligon’s scents because they are also so expensive outside of sample sizes.

One of the great things about Penhaligon’s scents is that the little samples that I got with the scent libary make very nice presents for friends. I have already given Erika Opus 1870 and I gave Keaton Artemisia, and they have both gotten some pretty great use out of them as gifts! I’m not sure which friend would rock this scent best, so this is just going to be an open invitation to any friends who would like to try out a nice, masculine-of-center unisex scent that smells a little citrus-y and a little herbal and a little floral.... message me and this is Yours.

Quercus is a very fresh laundry sort of scent. It’s getting a little more floral, I think, and maybe even a little soapy? But not bad soapy. Just... clean. This is the sort of fragrance I’d wear while running around in white linen on an English estate while harboring a homoerotic crush on a friend. What? yeah. 

It feels very spring/summer (which is kind of stupid distinction for me to make because literally it’s always spring/summer in Florida so.... okay.) and very daytime to me. It’s a bright scent. I guess I could also see it being worn at nighttime if you were also, like, drinking absinthe? Mmm, actually, if I was going to pair this with a drink and a time of day, it would be a gin and tonic in the afternoon. Maybe this is a scent for Keaton to inherit.

I just lost a few paragraphs of writing because my computer became unplugged and died suddenly, so I’m going to do my best to remember the following quotes my parents supplied:

My mom described it as a masculine scent that reminded her of “a sexy night in New York City” with “a play and then dinner at a dark restaurant.” She went on to say it reminded her of dinner at a candlelit corner table. I definitely didn’t get that vibe from it, but I like her description anyway!! She says she really likes it. 

Speaking of my dad, he said it was “somewhere between clean and floral... a clean floral.” Worth noting that, unlike my mom, he had listened to me read my review of it so that could have influenced him!

I need to stop sniffing my wrist because idk if it’s actually fading so quickly or if I am just getting used to it! Also I definitely want to ask my parents what they think of my fragrances more because it’s very fun to hear people’s different experiences with scents! 

update an hour later: yeah once I stopped actively sniffing my wrist, it became easier to smell again! a good note to self: calm down and just live your life?

Final update: the longer you wear it, the more floral it gets! which is neat!